Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology Commons^™

Case Studies Of Colorado Lows And The Impacts On Winter Weather Maintenance, Nathan Rick

Dissertations & Theses in Earth and Atmospheric Sciences

Winter storms of varying degrees plague the Plains each year, bringing with them ice, snow, wind, and cold temperatures which adversely affect public, commercial, and private transportation alike. The Nebraska Department of Transportation (NDOT) adopted a Maintenance Decision Support System (NDOT-MDSS) to aid in their winter weather maintenance practices. NDOT-MDSS ingests data from a variety of numerical weather models as well as real time surface and pavement observations to output both a weather forecast and winter road maintenance recommendation that can be taken into account by NDOT to finalize their maintenance decisions for a specific storm system or road segment ...

Spatial And Temporal Distribution Of Essential And Non-Essential Elements Recorded In Western Arctic Bowhead Whales (Balaena Mysticetus), Samantha L. Shore

HCNSO Student Theses and Dissertations

Western Arctic bowhead whales, Balaena mysticetus, migrate annually among the Bering, Chukchi, and Beaufort seas. Foraging along their route, they use keratinous baleen to filter microscopic zooplankton from the water column. A single baleen plate from an adult bowhead whale grows continuously and stores 20+ years of dietary and environmental data. This study utilized induced coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) to evaluate concentrations of 14 essential and non-essential elements in baleen samples from nine subsistence-harvested whales, yielding continuous data from 1958–1999 (n=148). Stable isotope data previously reported on these samples provided information on location (Beaufort Sea; Bering/Chukchi seas ...

Surveillance Of Microplastic Pollution In Central Virginia Freshwater Ecosystems, Alexandra Reddy

Senior Honors Theses

Aquatic organisms often mistake microplastic particulates (MP) as food and inadvertently ingest the particulates, which can biomagnify through the food chain. While MP ingestion is well-researched in the marine environment, little is known about microplastics in freshwater  ecosystems. This project explores MP occurrence in an ecologically significant freshwater invertebrate: crayfish. Crayfish from two Central Virginia streams are collected to identify MP in the digestive tracts and gill filaments, and characterize the MP using analytical chemistry techniques. It was determined that MP were present in the digestive tracts and gill filaments of crayfish collected from both streams, and that MP frequency ...

Reconstructing Deep-Ocean Circulation During Cenozoic Climate Transitions From The Marine Sediment Record, Brian Romans

Sustainability Seminar Series

Ocean circulation plays a critical role in the Earth’s climate system through the storage and transfer of heat and carbon dioxide. The North Atlantic and Southern Ocean are of particular interest because these are regions where deep-water components of global circulation develop. Dr. Romans uses the deep-sea sedimentary record to reconstruct past ocean circulation and its relationship to past climatic and tectonic conditions. He integrates information from a broad range of spatial and temporal scales, from seismic-reflection data that reveals regional sedimentation patterns to high resolution records based on quantitative grain-size analysis from cores. Dr. Romans will present research ...

Sediment Controls Dynamic Behavior Of A Cordilleran Ice Stream At The Last Glacial Maximum, Ellen A. Cowan, Sarah D. Zellers, Juliane Müller, Maureen H. Walczak, Lindsay L. Worthington, Beth E. Caissie, Wesley A. Clary, John M. Jaeger, Sean P. S. Gulick, Jacob W. Pratt, Alan C. Mix, Stewart J. Fallon

Geological and Atmospheric Sciences Publications

The uncertain response of marine terminating outlet glaciers to climate change at time scales beyond short-term observation limits models of future sea level rise. At temperate tidewater margins, abundant subglacial meltwater forms morainal banks (marine shoals) or ice-contact deltas that reduce water depth, stabilizing grounding lines and slowing or reversing glacial retreat. Here we present a radiocarbon-dated record from Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) Site U1421 that tracks the terminus of the largest Alaskan Cordilleran Ice Sheet outlet glacier during Last Glacial Maximum climate transitions. Sedimentation rates, ice-rafted debris, and microfossil and biogeochemical proxies, show repeated abrupt collapses and slow ...

Learning Set Representations For Lwir In-Scene Atmospheric Compensation, Nicholas M. Westing, Kevin C. Gross, Brett J. Borghetti, Jacob A. Martin, Joseph Meola

Faculty Publications

Atmospheric compensation of long-wave infrared (LWIR) hyperspectral imagery is investigated in this article using set representations learned by a neural network. This approach relies on synthetic at-sensor radiance data derived from collected radiosondes and a diverse database of measured emissivity spectra sampled at a range of surface temperatures. The network loss function relies on LWIR radiative transfer equations to update model parameters. Atmospheric predictions are made on a set of diverse pixels extracted from the scene, without knowledge of blackbody pixels or pixel temperatures. The network architecture utilizes permutation-invariant layers to predict a set representation, similar to the work performed ...

Cave Airflow Mechanism Of A Crevice-Type Cave: A Case Study From Czechia, Martin Kašing, Jan Lenart

International Journal of Speleology

At present, crevice-type caves are investigated mainly by means of geomorphic and geophysical methods. Microclimatic research of this type of caves is underrepresented and is often limited to temperature and humidity measurement only. Yet, microclimatic research of such caves can significantly help in the management and conservation of caves, speleological exploration or analysis of speleothems. Being the first ever research of ventilation within a crevice-type cave, a complex analysis of cave ventilation was performed within the Velká Ondrášova Cave, a crevice-type cave in the Outer Western Carpathians, Czechia. Long-term temperature recording, airflow tracing within the cave, and a total of ...

Sulfur Dioxide From The Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment Satellite, Doug Cameron

College of Sciences Posters

The version 4.0 dataset from the Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment – Fourier Transform Spectrometer (ACE-FTS) on SCISAT, released in March of 2019, has sulfur dioxide (SO₂) volume mixing ratio (VMR) profiles as a routine data product. From this dataset, global SO₂ distributions between the altitudes of 10.5 km and 23.5 km are analyzed. The global distribution of all SO₂ VMR data by altitude is broken down into 30° and 5° latitude zones. Seasonality of the global SO₂ distribution is explored. Volcanic SO₂ plumes are isolated in the dataset and compared with extinction data from ...

Geochemical Tracers Of Arctic Ocean Processes: A Study Of Gallium, Barium, And Vanadium, Laura M. Whitmore

Dissertations

The Arctic Ocean is linked to the global oceans and climate through its connectivity with the North Atlantic Ocean and the regional thermohaline deep water formation sites. It’s also a region undergoing rapid environmental change. To inform the community of potential changes in geochemical and biogeochemical cycles, this dissertation addresses three dissolved geochemical tracers (gallium, barium, and vanadium) as indicators of Arctic Ocean processes. Gallium is tested as a replacement for nutrient-type tracers in an effort to deconvolve Pacific and Atlantic derived waters in the Arctic Ocean basins. These water masses carry different heat and salt content and can ...

Atmospheric Contrail Detection With A Deep Learning Algorithm, Nasir Siddiqui

Student Research, Papers, and Creative Works

Aircraft contrail emission is widely believed to be a contributing factor to global climate change. We have used machine learning techniques on images containing contrails in hopes of being able to identify those which contain contrails and those that do not. The developed algorithm processes data on contrail characteristics as captured by long-term image records. Images collected by the United States Deparment of Energy’s Atmospheric Radiation Management user facility(ARM) were used to train a deep convolutional neural network for the purpose of this contrail classification. The neural network model was trained with 1600 images taken by the Total ...

A Critical Review Of The 15N2 Tracer Method To Measure Diazotrophic Production In Pelagic Ecosystems, Angelicque E. White, Julie Granger, Corday Seldon, Mary R. Gradoville, Lindsey Potts, Annie Bourbonnais, Robinson W. Fulweiler, Angela N. Knapp, Wiebke Mohr, Pia H. Moisander, Craig R. Tobias, Mathieu Caffin, Samuel T. Wilson, Mar Benavides, Sophie Bonnet, Margaret R. Mulholland, Bonnie X. Chang

OEAS Faculty Publications

Dinitrogen (N₂) fixation is an important source of biologically reactive nitrogen (N) to the global ocean. The magnitude of this flux, however, remains uncertain, in part because N₂ fixation rates have been estimated following divergent protocols and because associated levels of uncertainty are seldom reported—confounding comparison and extrapolation of rate measurements. A growing number of reports of relatively low but potentially significant rates of N₂ fixation in regions such as oxygen minimum zones, the mesopelagic water column of the tropical and subtropical oceans, and polar waters further highlights the need for standardized methodological protocols for measurements ...

Flow Model Of Offshore Input Of Nitrogen Into The Narragansett Bay, Christopher M. Sireci

Senior Honors Projects

Nitrogen is an important nutrient in ecosystems, as it is used in many biological processes, including the creation of DNA and RNA. However, excess nitrogen in an ecosystem can have adverse effects, such as triggering algal blooms, which limit sunlight penetration to bottom growth, and create anoxic zones. Large scale strategies to remove excess nitrogen from wastewater treatment plants have been utilized, but they are expensive and can potentially remove too much, while increasing greenhouse gas emissions. Thus, it is essential that we understand the accurate full nitrogen budget for an estuary.

Narragansett Bay, an important coastal marine ecosystem that ...

The 10th International Workshop On Modeling The Ocean (Iwmo 2018) In Santos, Brazil, June 25-28, 2018, Tal Ezer, Ricardo De Camargo, Clemente A. S. Tanajura, Fanghua Xu, Huijie Xue

CCPO Publications

The 10th International Workshop on Modeling the Ocean (IWMO 2018) was hosted by the University of Sao Paulo and held on June 25–28, 2018, at the beautiful coastal city of Santos, Brazil. This old city was founded by the Portuguese in the 1500s and is known for its world’s longest beach garden, the Coffee Museum and the Pele Museum (featuring the famous football player and a local hero). Since the inaugural IWMO meeting in Taiwan in 2009, meetings were held in Asia, Europe, North America, and Australia, but this was the first meeting to be held in South ...

Data Supporting The Paper "High Supersaturation In The Wake Of Falling Hydrometeors: Implications For Cloud Invigoration And Ice Nucleation", Prasanth Prabhakaran, G. Kinney, Will Cantrell, Raymond Shaw, Eberhard Bodenschatz

Michigan Tech Publications

The data in this file supports the following paper:

P. Prabhakaran, G. Kinney, W. Cantrell, R. A. Shaw and E. Bodenschatz. "High supersaturation in the wake of falling hydrometeors: Implications for cloud invigoration and ice nucleation" Geophysical Research Letters, in review.

A Hydrometeorological Assessment Of The Historic 2019 Flood Of Nebraska, Iowa, And South Dakota, Paul Xavier Flanagan, Rezaul Mahmood, Natalie Umphlett, Erin M.K. Haacker, Chittaranjan Ray, Bill Sorensen, Martha Shulski, Crystal J. Stiles, David Pearson, Paul Fajman

HPRCC Personnel Publications

During early 2019, a series of events set the stage for devastating floods in eastern Nebraska, western Iowa, and southeastern South Dakota. When the floodwaters hit, dams and levees failed, cutting off towns, while destroying roads, bridges, and rail lines, further exacerbating the crisis. Lives were lost and thousands of cattle were stranded. Estimates indicate that the cost of the flooding has topped $3 billion as of August 2019, with this number expected to rise.

After a warm and wet start to winter, eastern Nebraska, western Iowa, and southeastern South Dakota endured anomalously low temperatures and record-breaking snowfall. By March ...

Vulnerability And Resilience Of Tidal Marshes Along An Estuarine Salinity Gradient, Megan Gillen

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Tidal marshes are coastal landforms that provide invaluable ecosystem services but are vulnerable to sea-level rise and saltwater intrusion. Processes at the marsh seaward and landward boundaries control their size and survival. At the seaward boundary, a primary cause of marsh loss is erosion. However, it is currently unknown how increased saltwater intrusion will affect erosion rates. At the landward boundary, marshes migrate into adjacent terrestrial uplands which undergo stresses from rising sea-level, expanding wetland lateral extent. This thesis assesses marsh vulnerability to saltwater intrusion by quantifying marsh erodibility and migration potential along a salinity gradient in the York River ...

The Role Of Island-Marsh Couplings In The Long-Term Sustainability Barrier Islands In The Face Of Accelerated Sea-Level Rise, Christopher Hein

Sustainability Seminar Series

Barrier islands are one of the most ubiquitous features of the coast . . . at least here along the US East Coast, which accounts for >10% of the world’s barrier islands. Little more than large, partially vegetated, subaerial sand bars, barrier island provide for recreation, ecosystem services, and protection of mainland communities from storm impacts. They are also some of the most dynamic features on earth, constantly changing in the face of waves, tides, wind, and currents. With examples from northern Massachusetts and the Virginia Eastern Shore, this talk will focus on the long-term sustainability of barrier islands, and how they ...

A Syringe-Based Biosensor To Rapidly Detect Low Levels Of Escherichia Coli (Ecor13) In Drinking Water Using Engineered Bacteriophages, Troy C. Hinkley, Spencer Garing, Paras Jain, John Williford, Anne-Laure M. Le Ny, Kevin P. Nichols, Joseph E. Peters, Joey N. Talbert, Sam R. Nugen

Food Science and Human Nutrition Publications

A sanitized drinking water supply is an unconditional requirement for public health and the overall prosperity of humanity. Potential microbial and chemical contaminants of drinking water have been identified by a joint effort between the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), who together establish guidelines that define, in part, that the presence of Escherichia coli (E. coli) in drinking water is an indication of inadequate sanitation and a significant health risk. As E. coli is a nearly ubiquitous resident of mammalian gastrointestinal tracts, no detectable counts in 100 mL of drinking water is the ...

Observations Show That Wind Farms Substantially Modify The Atmospheric Boundary Layer Thermal Stratification Transition In The Early Evening, Daniel A. Rajewski, Eugene S. Takle, Andy Vanloocke, Samantha L. Purdy

Agronomy Publications

Single wind turbines and large wind farms modify local scales of atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) turbulence through different mechanisms dependent on location within the wind farm. These changes in turbulence scales would most likely have notable influence on surface fluxes and microclimate during the afternoon and early evening stability transition. Profiles of Richardson number and shear and buoyancy from 1‐Hz tall tower measurements in and near a wind farm in an agricultural landscape were used to quantify departures in stability characteristics during the fallow seasons. A single turbine wake decoupled turbulent connection between the surface and above the wind ...

The Temporal And Spatial Distribution Of Wind Factor In Iraq, Azhaar Mishaal, Sura Nassir, Ahmed Badr Khamees, Mudar Abdulsattar

Karbala International Journal of Modern Science

This work aims to study wind factor 10 m above the ground level for different stations in Iraq for determining the promising regions in the field of wind energy. For this purpose, the use of data (Wind Speed) for 25 years is performed. Missing data may occur within the time series of processing. Calculations are performed by using the statistical model (ARIMA model). The analysis of data is performed by using the Geographic Information System Program (Arc map). The temporal and spatial distribution of wind speed shows that the high value during the summer and the autumn in the southern ...