Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology Commons^™

Obscuration Analysis Of Camera Imagery For Aviation Applications, Patrick James Roelant

Theses and Dissertations

Image feature detection is a potent tool with many applications, such as fog identification, roadway conditions, etc. As part of the recent surge in machine learning applications, cloud detection has also become an increasingly engaged area of research. Identifying low clouds is especially useful with respect to aviation, particularly in regions of complex topography prone to visibility-related hazards such as haze or fog. To address this issue, a threshold-based semi-automated algorithm was developed and tested to determine whether or not an image is obscured by fog or haze. Images were obtained from a ground-based camera network in Southern California, the …

State Of The Fisheries: Status Reports And Aquatic Resources Of Western Australia 2021/22, Department Of Primary Industries And Regional Development, Western Australia, S J. Newman, B S. Wise, K G. Santaro, D J. Gaughan

Status reports of the fisheries and aquatic resources

Aquatic resources within Western Australia (WA) are in good condition, and this has positioned WA as a global leader in sustainable fisheries management. The sustainable fisheries of WA continue to support our strong economy and regional communities. Nonetheless, the lack of a consistent approach to build in the knowledge of Traditional Owners remains a gap in our longer-term fisheries science in Western Australia.

Climate change and climate variability continues to impact fish stocks, challenging our ability to effectively monitor, assess, and manage fish stocks. We are continually working with our stakeholders, and the broader community to be adaptive, responsive, and …

Ocean Connectivity And Habitat Characteristics Predict Population Genetic Structure Of Seagrass In An Extreme Tropical Setting, Udhi E. Hernawan, Kor-Jent Van Dijk, Gary A. Kendrick, Ming Feng, Oliver Berry, Christopher Kavazos, Kathryn Mcmahon

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Understanding patterns of gene flow and processes driving genetic differentiation is important for a broad range of conservation practices. In marine organisms, genetic differentiation among populations is influenced by a range of spatial, oceanographic, and environmental factors that are attributed to the seascape. The relative influences of these factors may vary in different locations and can be measured using seascape genetic approaches. Here, we applied a seascape genetic approach to populations of the seagrass, Thalassia hemprichii, at a fine spatial scale (~80 km) in the Kimberley coast, western Australia, a complex seascape with strong, multidirectional currents greatly influenced by extreme …

Three-Dimensional Higher-Order Compressive Sensing For Raypath Separation In An Acoustic Waveguide, Fengyan Zhong

Journal of Marine Science and Technology

In an acoustic waveguide, the separation of multiple raypaths, especially close raypaths, is a challenging task in the presence of colored noise due to interference in the acoustic eld. In this paper, a three-dimensional higher-order compressive sensing method for raypath separation is proposed. The method is applied on an array-to-array experimental conguration where both emitter and reception arrays are used. With the array-to-array conguration, the raypaths are characterized by three parameters including arrival direction, departure direction, and arrival time. Furthermore, the performance of the proposed algorithm is illustrated by simulations and experiments. The numerical results based on simulation illustrate that …

Projection Of Sea Surface Temperature Based On Empirical Mode Decomposition And Its Application In Typhoon Number Forecast, Wen-Cheng Huang, Jung-Chen Lee

Journal of Marine Science and Technology

The primary objective of this paper is to demonstrate the applicability of empirical mode decomposition (EMD) in projecting non-stationary daily sea surface temperature (SST) series, and the other is to apply the projected series of SST to estimate the number of typhoons. The study focuses on an area ranging from 5°N~25°N and 110°E~170°E, collecting daily sea temperature data and typhoons records within this region. The findings conclusively indicate that the EMD-based data generation method proposed in this paper can effectively addresses the limitations of previous hydrological models in generating non-stationary series, signifying a significant advancement in hydrological time series modeling …

Climate Of A Cave Laboratory Representative For Rock Art Caves In The Vézère Area (South-West France), Delphine Lacanette, Léna Bassel, Fabien Salmon, Jean-Christophe Portais, Bruno Bousquet, Rémy Chapoulie, Faten Ammari, Philippe Malaurent, Catherine Ferrier

International Journal of Speleology

Leye Cave (Dordogne, France) is a laboratory cave in the Vézère area, a region that contains some of the most famous rock art caves in the world such as Lascaux, Font-de-Gaume and Combarelles, and is listed as Human World Heritage by UNESCO. Leye Cave was selected because it is representative of painted caves, with respect to parameters such as its geological stage, the presence of water and carbon dioxide, the geological state of its walls, and the size of the cave. These wall states are studied to better understand the conditions of conservation of rock art caves without damaging them. …

Hyper-Local Weather Predictions With The Enhanced General Urban Area Microclimate Predictions Tool, Kevin A. Adkins, William Becker, Sricharan Ayyalasomayajula, Steven Lavenstein, Kleoniki Vlachou, David Miller, Marc Compere, Avinash Muthu Krishnan, Nickolas Macchiarella

Publications

This paper presents enhancements to, and the demonstration of, the General Urban area Microclimate Predictions tool (GUMP), which is designed to provide hyper-local weather predictions by combining machine-learning (ML) models and computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulations. For the further development and demonstration of GUMP, the Embry–Riddle Aeronautical University (ERAU) campus was used as a test environment. Local weather sensors provided data to train ML models, and CFD models of urban- and suburban-like areas of ERAU’s campus were created and iterated through with a wide assortment of inlet wind speed and direction combinations. ML weather sensor predictions were combined with best-fit …

Monitoring Personal Exposure To Air Quality Gradients While Biking On An Elevated Urban Trail, Gavin D. Salas

DePaul Discoveries

Air pollution is a major global health concern, specifically as it relates to the human exposome. The EPA criteria pollutants, including particulate matter (PM), carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (CO₂), and NO_x can have severe impacts on respiratory and cardiovascular health, particularly in populations with chronic illnesses such as asthma, those facing economic hardships and individuals who frequently spend time outdoors, such as bicyclists and runners. To understand the impact of air pollution on human health, it is essential to assess personal exposure. This study aimed to investigate personal exposure to air pollution levels while biking along …

Incorporation Of Carbon Dioxide Production And Transport Module Into A Soil-Plant-Atmosphere Continuum Model, Sahila Beegum, Wenguang Sun, Dennis Timlin, Zhuangji Wang, David Fleisher, Vangimalla R. Reddy, Chittaranjan Ray

Nebraska Water Center: Faculty Publications

Carbon dioxide release from agricultural soils is influenced by multiple factors, including soil (soil properties, soil-microbial respiration, water content, temperature, soil diffusivity), plant (carbon assimilation, rhizosphere respiration), atmosphere (climate, atmospheric carbon dioxide), etc. Accurate estimation of the carbon dioxide (CO₂) fluxes in the soil and soil respiration (CO₂ flux between soil and atmosphere) requires a process-based modeling approach that accounts for the influence of all these factors. In this study, a module for CO₂ production via root and microbial respiration and diffusion-based carbon dioxide transport is developed and integrated with MAIZSIM (a process-based maize crop growth …

Wildlife Ecological Risk Assessment In The 21st Century: Promising Technologies To Assess Toxicological Effects, Barnett A. Rattner, Thomas G. Bean, Val R. Beasley, Philippe Berny, Karen M. Eisenreich, John E. Elliott, Margaret L. Eng, Phyllis C. Fuchsman, Mason D. King, Rafael Mateo, Carolyn B. Meyer, Jason M. O'Brien, Christopher J. Salice

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

Despite advances in toxicity testing and the development of new approach methodologies (NAMs) for hazard assessment, the ecological risk assessment (ERA) framework for terrestrial wildlife (i.e., air‐breathing amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals) has remained unchanged for decades. While survival, growth, and reproductive endpoints derived from whole-animal toxicity tests are central to hazard assessment, nonstandard measures of biological effects at multiple levels of biological organization (e.g., molecular, cellular, tissue, organ, organism, population, community, ecosystem) have the potential to enhance the relevance of prospective and retrospective wildlife ERAs. Other factors (e.g., indirect effects of contaminants on food supplies and infectious disease processes) …

Symbiotic Ucyn-A Strains Co-Occurred With El Niño, Relaxed Upwelling, And Varied Eukaryotes Over 10 Years Off Southern California, Colette Fletcher-Hoppe, Yi-Chun Yeh, Yubin Raut, J. L. Weissman, Jed A. Fuhrman

Biology, Chemistry, and Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles and Research

Biological nitrogen fixation, the conversion of N₂ gas into a bioavailable form, is vital to sustaining marine primary production. Studies have shifted beyond traditionally studied tropical diazotrophs. Candidatus Atelocyanobacterium thalassa (or UCYN-A) has emerged as a focal point due to its streamlined metabolism, intimate partnership with a haptophyte host, and broad distribution. Here, we explore the environmental parameters that govern UCYN-A’s presence at the San Pedro Ocean Time-series (SPOT), its host specificity, and statistically significant interactions with non-host eukaryotes from 2008-2018. 16S and 18S rRNA gene sequences were amplified by “universal primers” from monthly samples and resolved into Amplicon …

Optimal Estimation Inversion Of Ionospheric Electron Density From Gnss-Pod Limb Measurements: Part I-Algorithm And Morphology, Dong L. Wu, Nimalan Swarnalingam, Cornelius Csar Jude H. Salina, Daniel J. Emmons, Tyler C. Summers, Robert Gardiner-Garden

Faculty Publications

GNSS-LEO radio links from Precise Orbital Determination (POD) and Radio Occultation (RO) antennas have been used increasingly in characterizing the global 3D distribution and variability of ionospheric electron density (Ne). In this study, we developed an optimal estimation (OE) method to retrieve Ne profiles from the slant total electron content (hTEC) measurements acquired by the GNSS-POD links at negative elevation angles (ε < 0°). Although both OE and onion-peeling (OP) methods use the Abel weighting function in the Ne inversion, they are significantly different in terms of performance in the lower ionosphere. The new OE results can overcome the large Ne oscillations, sometimes negative values, seen in the OP retrievals in the E-region ionosphere. In the companion paper in this Special Issue, the HmF2 and NmF2 from the OE retrieval are validated against ground-based ionosondes and radar observations, showing generally good agreements in NmF2 from all sites. Nighttime hmF2 measurements tend to agree better than the daytime when the ionosonde heights tend to be slightly lower. The OE algorithm has been applied to all GNSS-POD data acquired from the COSMIC-1 (2006–2019), COSMIC-2 (2019–present), and Spire (2019–present) constellations, showing a consistent ionospheric Ne morphology. The unprecedented spatiotemporal sampling of the ionosphere from these constellations now allows a detailed analysis of the frequency–wavenumber spectra for the Ne variability at different heights. In the lower ionosphere (~150 km), we found significant spectral power in DE1, DW6, DW4, SW5, and SE4 wave components, in addition to well-known DW1, SW2, and DE3 waves. In the upper ionosphere (~450 km), additional wave components are still present, including DE4, DW4, DW6, SE4, and SW4. The co-existence of eastward- and westward-propagating wave4 components implies the presence of a stationary wave4 (SPW4), as suggested by other earlier studies. Further improvements to the OE method are proposed, including a tomographic inversion technique that leverages the asymmetric sampling about the tangent point associated with GNSS-LEO links.

Environmental Chemical Analysis Method Optimization And Application To Northwest Cuban Marine Sediment, Thea R. Bartlett

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A method for gas chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (GC-MS/MS) in selected reaction monitoring (SRM) mode has been optimized to quantify 250 compounds of a variety of compound classes such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), oxidized PAHs, organochlorinated pesticides, polychlorinated biphenyls, biomarkers (hopanes, steranes, tri-aromatic steroids, and fecal sterols), aliphatic hydrocarbons, and plastic additives. This method was validated based on available QA/QC standards using several environmental samples, both sediment and biota, and standard reference materials. This contaminant-focused method can be used as a forensic geochemistry tool to evaluate oil contamination and other contaminant histories in future research studies. When applied to …

Stable Isotope Analysis Of Doryteuthis (Amerigo) Pealeii Eye Lenses To Determine Migratory Patterns In The Eastern Gulf Of Mexico Using Statoliths For Age Determination, Hannah M. Schwaiger

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Doryteuthis (Amerigo) pealeii is a common fisheries squid that occurs in the Gulf of Mexico (GoM) and along the east coast of the United States. These squid are an important link in the food web, linking higher and lower trophic positions (Madsen et al., 2007), and they are also used for human consumption. The migration patterns of D. pealeii populations in the northwestern North Atlantic have been thoroughly studied when compared to those in the GoM. This research aims to combine statolith aging and stable isotope analysis to enhance the understanding of D. pealeii migration patterns throughout their short, sub-annual …

Understanding The Flow Dynamics Of The Pearl River, Ms, Through Hydrodynamic Modeling, Nahruma Mehzabeen Pieu

Master's Theses

The Pearl River brings fresh water and nutrients into Lake Borgne regulating conditions for oyster growth in estuarine waters. However, there are no flow measurement stations installed on East Pearl or West Pearl either at the river outlets or after the upstream bifurcation of the Pearl. This study aims to model the Lower Pearl River to understand the flow dynamics in the major branches, and to determine the final outflow distribution into the Mississippi Sound, aiming to improve river forcing for ocean models studying estuarine dynamics of the Mississippi Sound.

Synthetic meandering bathymetry with updated banks is developed and applied …

The Mobility Of Long-Lived Radioisotopes And Their Burial In The Marine Environment, Neil Redmond

Dissertations

Marine sediments record chemical signals that reflect past environmental conditions. It is important to establish how these signals are created and whether they may be altered over time so that they can be useful for reconstructing ocean history. Measurements of uranium isotopes are used as a novel proxy for sedimentary diagenetic processes (Chapter 2). Because ²³⁴U can be ejected from mineral lattice during the decay of ²³⁸U, it creates a pool of U in porewater that is potentially mobilized and then deposited elsewhere in the core. We found that alpha-recoiled ²³⁴U is sensitive to differences in sediment …

Impact Of Land Use/Cover Change And Slope Gradient On Soil Organic Carbon Stock In Anjeni Watershed, Northwest Ethiopia, Bethel Geremew, Tsegaye Tadesse, Bobe Bedadi, Hero T. Gollany, Kindie Tesfaye, Abebe Aschalew

Drought Mitigation Center: Faculty Publications

Today’s agri-food systems face the triple challenge of addressing food security, adapting to climate change, and reducing the climate footprint by reducing the emission of greenhouse gases (GHG). In agri-food systems, changes in land use and land cover (LULC) could affect soil physicochemical properties, particularly soil organic carbon (SOC) stock. However, the impact varies depending on the physical, social, and economic conditions of a given region or watershed. Given this, a study was conducted to quantify the impact of LULC and slope gradient on SOC stock and C sequestration rate in the Anjeni watershed, which is a highly populated and …

Unearthing Complexity: Tangible Histories Of Water And Earth, Alexis Violet

Masters Theses

Unearthing Complexity investigates conceptions of time and surface through geological stories of the water and earth. Building on theories of deep time, hydrofeminism, critical zones, and grounding, I hope to foster a deeper awareness of time scales other than our own and a more tangible understanding of the embodied experience of matter in the universe. Working toward a new literacy of the water and earth in which they are recognized as living, changing bodies to which we are inherently tied at a molecular level, the site of this multiscalar inquiry occurs in the coastal zones of the Narragansett Bay where …

Data Supporting The Paper "Droplet Growth Or Evaporation Does Not Buffer The Variability In Supersaturation In Clean Clouds", Jesse Anderson, Ian Helman, Raymond Shaw, Will Cantrell

Michigan Tech Research Data

Water vapor supersaturation in clouds is a random variable that drives activation and growth of cloud droplets. The Pi Convection-Cloud Chamber generates a turbulent cloud with a microphysical steady-state that can be varied from clean to polluted by adjusting the aerosol injection rate. The supersaturation distribution and its moments, e.g., mean and variance, are investigated for varying cloud microphysical conditions. High-speed and co-located Eulerian measurements of temperature and water vapor concentration are combined to obtain the temporally resolved supersaturation distribution. This allows quantification of the contributions of variances and covariances between water vapor and temperature. Results are consistent with expectations …

Climate Justice In The Anthropocene And Its Relationship With Science And Technology: The Importance Of Ethics Of Responsibility, Paolo Davide Farah, Alessio Lo Giudice

Connecticut Law Review

Climate change is a global phenomenon. Therefore, globalization is the necessary hermeneutical horizon to develop an analysis of the metamorphosis climate change could cause at a political, social, and economic level. Within this horizon, this Article shows how the relationship between the concept of the Anthropocene epoch and the request for justice allows for framing a climate-justice and intergenerational equity–focused political interpretation of the effects of climate change. In order to avoid reducing such an interpretation to merely an ideological critique of capitalism, the conception of climate justice needs to be grounded in a rational, ethical model. This Article proposes …

Gis Data: Prince George’S County, Maryland – Shoreline Inventory Data 2023, Karinna Nunez, Tamia Rudnicky, Sharon Killeen, Jessica Hendricks, Catherine R. Duning, Evan Hill

Data

The shoreline inventory files have been generated to support the application of the Maryland Shoreline Stabilization Model (SSM), developed by the Center for Coastal Resources Management (CCRM), Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS), to enhance and streamline regulatory decision making in Maryland. This shoreline inventory includes the features needed as inputs to run the SSM.

The data developed for the Shoreline Inventory is based on a three-tiered shoreline assessment approach. This assessment characterizes conditions by using observations made remotely at the desktop using high resolution imagery. The three-tiered shoreline assessment approach divides the shore zone into three regions:

1) the …

Gis Data: Harford County, Maryland – Shoreline Inventory Data 2023, Karinna Nunez, Tamia Rudnicky, Sharon Killeen, Jessica Hendricks, Catherine R. Duning, Evan Hill

Data

The shoreline inventory files have been generated to support the application of the Maryland Shoreline Stabilization Model (SSM), developed by the Center for Coastal Resources Management (CCRM), Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS), to enhance and streamline regulatory decision making in Maryland. This shoreline inventory includes the features needed as inputs to run the SSM.

The data developed for the Shoreline Inventory is based on a three-tiered shoreline assessment approach. This assessment characterizes conditions by using observations made remotely at the desktop using high resolution imagery. The three-tiered shoreline assessment approach divides the shore zone into three regions:

1) the …

Gis Data: Cecil County, Maryland – Shoreline Inventory Data 2023, Karinna Nunez, Tamia Rudnicky, Sharon Killeen, Jessica Hendricks, Catherine R. Duning, Evan Hill

Data

The shoreline inventory files have been generated to support the application of the Maryland Shoreline Stabilization Model (SSM), developed by the Center for Coastal Resources Management (CCRM), Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS), to enhance and streamline regulatory decision making in Maryland. This shoreline inventory includes the features needed as inputs to run the SSM.

The data developed for the Shoreline Inventory is based on a three-tiered shoreline assessment approach. This assessment characterizes conditions by using observations made remotely at the desktop using high resolution imagery. The three-tiered shoreline assessment approach divides the shore zone into three regions:

1) the …

Gis Data: Caroline County, Maryland – Shoreline Inventory Data 2023, Karinna Nunez, Tamia Rudnicky, Sharon Killeen, Jessica Hendricks, Catherine R. Duning, Evan Hill

Data

The shoreline inventory files have been generated to support the application of the Maryland Shoreline Stabilization Model (SSM), developed by the Center for Coastal Resources Management (CCRM), Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS), to enhance and streamline regulatory decision making in Maryland. This shoreline inventory includes the features needed as inputs to run the SSM.

The data developed for the Shoreline Inventory is based on a three-tiered shoreline assessment approach. This assessment characterizes conditions by using observations made remotely at the desktop using high resolution imagery. The three-tiered shoreline assessment approach divides the shore zone into three regions:

1) the …

Importance Of Vegetation In Tsunami Mitigation: Evidence From Large Eddy Simulations With Fluid-Structure Interactions, Abhishek Mukherjee

Dissertations

Communities worldwide are increasingly interested in nature-based solutions like coastal forests for the mitigation of coastal risks. Still, it remains unclear how much protective benefit vegetation provides, particularly in the limit of highly energetic flows after tsunami impact. The present thesis, using a three-dimensional incompressible computational fluid dynamics model with a fluid-structure interaction approach, aims to quantify how energy reflection and dissipation vary with different degrees of rigidity and vegetation density of a coastal forest.

In this study, tree trunks are represented as cylinders, and the elastic modulus of hardwood trees such as pine or oak is used to characterize …

Toxicological Effects Assessment For Wildlife In The 21st Century: Review Of Current Methods And Recommendations For A Path Forward, Thomas G. Bean, Val R. Beasley, Philippe Berny, Karen M. Eisenreich, John E. Elliott, Margaret L. Eng, Phyllis C. Fuchsman, Mark S. Johnson, Mason D. King, Rafael Mateo, Carolyn B. Meyer, Christopher J. Salice, Barnett A. Rattner

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

Model species (e.g., granivorous gamebirds, waterfowl, passerines, domesticated rodents) have been used for decades in guideline laboratory tests to generate survival, growth, and reproductive data for prospective ecological risk assessments (ERAs) for birds and mammals, while officially adopted risk assessment schemes for amphibians and reptiles do not exist. There are recognized shortcomings of current in vivo methods as well as uncertainty around the extent to which species with different life histories (e.g., terrestrial amphibians, reptiles, bats) than these commonly used models are protected by existing ERA frameworks. Approaches other than validating additional animal models for testing are being developed, but …

Agricultural Shocks On Household Stability: A Case Study Of Tanzania Maize Farmers, Zimmi Silonda Ndlovu

Master's Theses

As the global populations grow, the need for stronger agricultural resilience in areas with high food insecurity like Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is a must. Crop failure due to climate related events has increased substantially over the past decade, raising the risks to vulnerable groups like subsistence farmers. Understanding the effects of climate variability on farmers and their crops is a pivotal step towards increasing resilience and productivity. In this paper I approach this question using a Linear Probability Fixed-effects Model on Tanzanian Panel Survey data with monthly temperature and precipitation for years 2008 to 2013. Results suggest a negative relationship …

A Gridded Co2 Emissions Inventory For Portland, Or, James Eckhardt Powell

Dissertations and Theses

Here we develop a new high resolution inventory of CO₂ emissions for the three Oregon counties which comprise the bulk of the City of Portland, Oregon, USA. Locally curated and long-running data collection efforts for on-road traffic activity and emission rates are used to model on-road emissions, and a new survey of the area's natural gas network informs the building energy model. The inventory estimates total emissions of CO₂ for each hour of the year 2018 in the on-road, residential, and commercial building sectors at 1 km² resolution. The onroad inventory compares to within 3% with an …

Understanding The Impacts Of Topobathymetric Data On Storm Surge Model Predictions, Sydni Crain

Master's Theses

The topobathymetric characteristics of a region are regularly altered by natural and anthropogenic causes. This directly impacts the resulting storm surge during a hurricane. The primary goal of this research was to gain a better understanding of the impact that topography and bathymetry have on storm surge models, particularly the Advanced Circulation (ADCIRC) Model. Hurricane Zeta (2020) and Hurricane Ida (2021) were chosen as case studies; therefore, the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) was chosen as the study site. This research was completed by comparing ADCIRC storm surge results which were based on older, lower-resolution data with results derived from more …

Protecting The Vulnerable: Tornado Sheltering And Communication Of Public Shelters With A Case Study From The Covid-19 Pandemic, Craig Douglas Croskery

Theses and Dissertations

One of the greatest natural hazards that is faced with in much of the United States are tornadoes. Despite improvements in the warning processes, the risk of significant loss of life remains high. That is particularly true with vulnerable communities which have higher proportions of mobile homes; however, violent tornadoes are very difficult to manage in permanent homes or buildings as well. As a result, tornado shelters have been built in some communities and have become available to the public. However, their presence is intermittent, and there are many tornado-prone areas that lack such shelters.

After a public survey, it …