Physics Commons^™

Stomatal Physics, Katie Sweet, Keith Mott, David Peak

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Stomata, microscopic pores on a leaf’s surface, regulate the diffusion of CO2 from, and the diffusion of water vapor to, the air.

Stomata are responsible for fixing essentially all carbon in the biosphere and generating over 90% of the water vapor in the atmosphere over landmasses.

Exactly how stomata respond to temperature, light intensity, and ambient CO2 and humidity, is still a matter of active debate.

Most research probing this question focuses on identifying and unraveling complicated biochemistry. Recent investigations in our laboratory, however, indicate that much of stomatal behavior can be understood in terms of a simple vapor phase …

Two-Dimensional Electron Gases At The Surface Of Potassium Tantalate, Ben Pound

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No abstract provided.

Characterizing And Quantifying Time Dependent Night Sky Brightness In And Around Tucson, Arizona, Rachel K. Nydegger, Constance E. Walker

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As part of a Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program with the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO), I (with mentor Dr. Constance Walker of NOAO) characterized light pollution in and near Tucson, Arizona using eight Sky Quality Meters (SQMs). In order to analyze the data in a consistent way for comparison, we created a standard procedure for reduction and analysis using python and MATLAB. The series of python scripts remove faulty data and examine specifically anthropogenic light pollution by excluding contributions made by the sun, moon, and the Milky Way. We then use MATLAB codes to illustrate how the light …

Annual Solar Motion And Spy Satellites, Margaret Jensen, Shane L. Larson

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A topic often taught in introductory astronomy courses is the changing position of the Sun in the sky as a function of time of day, and season. The relevance and importance of this motion is explained in the context of seasons and the impact it has on human activities such as agriculture. The geometry of the ob- served motion in the sky is usually reduced to graphical representations and visualizations that can be difficult to render and grasp. Sometimes students are asked to observe the Suns changing motion and record their data, but this is a long-term project requiring several …

Global Nightly Oh And O2 Mesospheric Airglow: Examining A Decade Of Measurements Using The Nasa Saber Satellite Sensor, Jonathan Price, Jordan C. Rozum, Gene Ware, Doran Baker

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The SABER instrument aboard the TIMED satellite is a multichannel radiometer and has been continuously measuring the altitude distribution of infrared airglow intensity in the mesosphere on a global basis since 2002. While the majority of these altitude distributions are Gaussian-like, a significant portion exhibit two or more local maxima, suggesting multiple airglow layers. To better understand the cause of this phenomenon, the global and temporal distributions of infrared OH andO2 scans resulting in multiple peak altitude profiles are being examined.