Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Climate Assemblies: Lessons Learned And Results From Around The World And Washington State, Laura Berry, John Cambalik, Ed Chadd, Michael Chang, Derek Hoshiko, Brandon Letsinger

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

Citizens’ assemblies are an increasingly widespread form of democratic engagement and solution-finding. Assemblies convened specifically to address the climate crisis have taken place around the world, including in Australia, Great Britain, Belgium, Poland, and France. France’s recent “Convention Citoyenne Pour Le Climat,” focused on reducing carbon emissions, led President Macron to pledge to adopt and fund 146 out of 149 policy recommendations. The Washington Climate Assembly (WA Climate Assembly) was initiated and funded by a group of volunteers, organized as People’s Voice on Climate. The nation’s first citizens’ assembly on this critical issue, the WA Climate Assembly brought together 77 …

Opening Plenary, Scott Redman, Ginny Broadhurst, Cecilia Gobin, Patti Gobin, Christianne Wilhelmson, Dr. Kathryn L. Sobocinski, Dr. Isobel Pearsall

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

Welcome from Conference Organizers Scott Redman, Executive Chair Cecilia Gobin, Program Co-Chair Julie Watson, Program Co-Chair Fran Wilshusen, Program Co-Chair Christianne Wilhelmson, Program Co-Chair Ginny Broadhurst, Salish Sea Institute Coast Salish Welcome Cecilia Gobin, Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission Coast Salish Perspectives on the Last 150 years Patti Gobin, Tulalip Tribes Patti Gobin has over 25 years of Community Development experience with the Tulalip Tribes. Presently, she is with the Natural Resource Treaty Rights office working with state, local and federal agencies regarding those issues that impact the life ways of the Tulalip Tribes. In addition to her years of experience, …

Mapping The Impact Of A Trailway System On The Amount Of Trash Present Within Two Watersheds Of Lynchburg City, Virginia, Lillian Smith

Student Scholar Showcase

Transportation of trash debris within water systems is a prominent occurrence which has been linked to natural and artificial processes such as wind, rain, and littering. Recreational areas, such as activities along greenway trails, have been determined to be a source of debris found in waterways. This study examines whether the presence of an established recreational trail system limits trash accumulation in the entirety of a watershed. Trash data collected at Blackwater Creek, which contains an established trail system, was compared to trash data collected at Fishing Creek, containing a non-established trail system, to answer this hypothesis. A distance of …

Strategizing For Workplace Culture: Developing And Introducing A Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion Road Map, Melissa Watkinson

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

Organizations are familiar with developing a strategic plan to focus their work on achieving their mission and vision. A diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) road map, aligned with organizational values of DEI, is a strategic plan that defines DEI in your work: where you are starting, where you want to end up, and how you are going to get there. Washington Sea Grant (WSG) has developed a 10-year road map that includes 13 ambitious, but achievable goals that are aligned with tangible strategies and expected outcomes. The road map goals range in specificity; examples include “WSG is welcome and inclusive” …

Puget Sound Vital Sign Revision: Objectives For Puget Sound Recovery And Protection, Ron Thom

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

Since the mid-1980’s, there have been focused federal, state and local efforts to restore the Puget Sound ecosystem. Beginning in 2008 the Puget Sound Partnership (PSP) has produced Action Agendas that describe comprehensive recovery programs and, since 2011, have identified a set of Vital Signs and indicators. As of 2018, PSP identified 25 Vital Signs (VS) with 52 affiliated indicators. The PSP is now undertaking a collaborative effort to revise the VS and indicators to address known concerns and to situate them in a framework of other types of progress measures. Revised VS and indicators will characterize biophysical condition and …

What Is The Most Threatening Disaster To The Continental United States?, Aaron Spomer, Elijah Kaufman, Julisa Prieto-Garcia, Brooke Aschwanden

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Our goal for our project is to fully understand which natural disaster is the most destructive to the United States. We have chosen to compare hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, wildfires, earthquakes, and nor’easters. We have researched the cost of the total damage and repair, how the warning systems have improved over time, the death tolls from each, and also the frequency at which each one occurs. Each group member will research a different disaster impact, and the data will create a comprehensive view of the level of devastation each disaster has. We collected data all the way from the early 1900s …

Recovering From Industrial Overshoot: Thermal Removal Of Atmospheric Co2, Ted Von Hippel, Sandra Boetcher, Matthew Traum, Farshid Azadian Ph.D., William Mackunis

Sustainability Conference

Humanity will soon overshoot a safe level of atmospheric CO2, if it hasn't done so already. Countries, industries, and the global economy need to dramatically and quickly alter their behavior and technology to avoid this dangerous overshoot, yet this appears unlikely. Direct Air Capture of CO2 represents an insurance policy for society - a way of removing excess atmospheric CO2. I will present an approach to this problem based on thermal physics that cools cubic kilometers of air to extract CO2 as it sublimates. I propose a combination of an efficient heat exchanger, radiative cooling, and refrigeration, all at industrial …

Using Remote Sensing And Gis Techniques Combined With Weather And Climate Data To Create A Deeper Understanding The Wildfire Campfire In California, Lucas Farmer

Student Symposium

Wildfires have devastated the West Coast time and time again. This project takes on multiple approaches to help understand different aspects of these fires, focusing on the wildfire Campfire. The Campfire started and ended in November of 2018 in Butte County California. The first portion of the project focuses on the weather and climate of this region in California. By understanding the weather and climate of a particular area and the time at which a wildfire starts you can start to identify optimal conditions where a fire could potentially breakout. Local weather data will be gathered to look at temperature, …

Stronger Together: The Cross-Cultural Coalition To Stop Fossil Fuel Exports In The Salish Sea, Margaret Allen

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

A commonly observed paradox in conservation is that restriction of people’s access to nature and natural resources may protect ecosystem health, but sometimes decreases the wellbeing of local people and can invite conflict and reduce people’s willingness to protect resources. At a middle ground between complete protection and unrestricted commercial use is ecosystem-based management (EBM), which strives to maximize the overall wellbeing of both people and ecosystems. An important domain of human wellbeing to track for the purposes of EBM is resource access, or the ability to gain and maintain uses and benefits of the natural environment. Access does not …

Low-Cost Hab Platform To Measure Particulate Matter In The Troposphere, Mark J. Potosnak, Bernhard Beck-Winchatz, Paul Ritter

2017 Academic High Altitude Conference

High-altitude balloons (HABs) are an engaging platform for formal and informal STEM education. However, the logistics of launching, chasing and recovering a payload on a 1200 g or 1500 g balloon can be daunting for many novice school groups and citizen scientists, and the cost can be prohibitive. In addition, there are many interesting scientific applications that do not require reaching the stratosphere. In this poster presentation we discuss a novel approach based on small (30 g) balloons that are cheap and easy to handle, and low-cost tracking devices (SPOT and 900 MHz spread spectrum) that do not require a …

Variable Marsh Resilience To Stress Offers Clues To Climate Change Adaptive Management, Roger Nathan Fuller, Katrina L. Poppe, John M. Rybczyk, Eric Grossman, Chad Stellern

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

In Puget Sound’s Stillaguamish estuary, tidal marshes exhibit evidence of multiple stressors that affect their vulnerability and provide insight into adaptive management opportunities to enhance their resilience. Despite high accretion rates, some marsh areas have receded by 10m/yr since 1964. Sources of stress include overgrazing by snow geese, high soil salinities, insect attacks, and changes in flow and inundation patterns. These interact with winter vegetation structure, sediment composition, and wave exposure to result in spatially variable marsh resilience. Some marshes are receding quickly, some slowly, and others are minimally affected. In the context of climate change, with potentially substantial near-term …

An Inventory Of Environmental Governance In The Salish Sea, Laurie D. Trautman

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

How is the natural environment of the Salish Sea governed? The fact that the Salish Sea is bifurcated by a national border has inhibited our ability to answer this question. Indeed, the Salish Sea involves not only two national governments, but also a multitude of both state and non-state actors, which exist across scales, and interact in different frameworks (i.e. First Nations/tribes often seek only to negotiate with federal, rather than state/provincial governments). Environmental governance in the Salish Sea also encompasses informal modes of interaction involving public and private interest groups, social movements and community stakeholders, in addition to traditional …

A Long-Term Phytoplankton Monitoring Program For Central Puget Sound Using Particle Imaging, Gabriela Hannach, Lyndsey M. Swanson

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

Puget Sound is a large and highly productive estuarine system that is vulnerable to climate change and anthropogenic impacts from a growing population. King County operates an exceptionally comprehensive, long-running monitoring program designed to assess water quality in the Puget Sound Central Basin. Data are collected year-round for a suite of physical, chemical, and biological parameters. Phyoplankton monitoring using traditional methods was added to the program in 2008 to address a significant biological data gap at the lower trophic level. Since acquisition of a FlowCAM particle imaging system in 2014 the program is generating a more extensive and robust dataset …

Skagit Climate Science Consortium: Using Local Polling To Provide Relevant Science, Carol B. Macilroy, Larry Wasserman

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

The Skagit Climate Science Consortium (SC²) and the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication partnered to conduct a public opinion poll in the spring of 2015 regarding Skagit County resident’s attitudes and perceptions regarding global warming. The effort, part of Yale’s renown 6 America’s Project, also is providing SC² critical information to help understand local concerns and beliefs about climate change in order to better provide relevant and timely climate science to a broader Skagit community. This presentation will provide an overview of SC²’s theory of change regarding the role of climate science in supporting …

Virtual Simulations Of Potential Vessel Discharges In Puget Sound And The Puget Sound No Discharge Zone, Teizeen Mohamedali, Mindy Roberts, Amy Jankowiak

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

The Washington State Department of Ecology (Ecology) evaluated the potential transport, dispersion and dilution of potential vessel sewer discharges within the draft proposed Puget Sound No Discharge Zone (NDZ). These model simulations included potential vessel sewer discharges at six locations in Puget Sound along major shipping routes. Results are presented as virtual animations of surface concentrations, allowing us to visualize the transport, circulation, and dilution of these discharges over the course of several days.

Ecology and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory jointly developed a three-dimensional hydrodynamic FVCOM (Finite Volume Coastal Ocean Model) computer model of the Salish Sea. This model is …

Volunteer-Assisted Monitoring Of A Significant Private Bulkhead Removal, Jeffrey Adams, Brenda Padgham, Jason David Toft, Kyra O'Neil, Kate Litle

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

Monitoring efforts to restore physical and biological functions along developed shorelines can take many forms and be influenced by monitoring goals, the scope and scale of the project, and available resources. The Powel project in Port Madison on Bainbridge Island, Washington, had regional significance because of its scale (removing 1544 lineal feet of armor), the diversity of types of armor and shoreline, and its private ownership, but it lacked the funding to support a broad, long-term monitoring program. Not willing to let the opportunity pass without some effort to gather as much appropriate information as possible about the impact and …

Challenges Associated With Space Weather Analysis And Prediction, John Lanicci

Space Traffic Management Conference

The term “space weather” is typically used to describe environmental conditions in the region extending from the sun’s surface, through the interplanetary medium, to the earth’s magnetic field and upper atmosphere, with a focus on those conditions that can affect the earth, its technological systems, and population. Space weather conditions are monitored continuously by a number of agencies around the world. These agencies use both satellite- and ground-based measurements to build analyses and employ predictive models that form the basis for impacts-based products dealing with myriad users in satellite operations, the utility industry, aviation, and satellite-based communications, to name a …

Campaign Logistics, Mapping, And Discussion (Climate), Student Group

U.S. - Japan Bilateral Workshop on the Tropical Tropopause Layer: State of the Current Science and Future Observational Needs

No abstract provided.

Campaign Logistics, Mapping, And Discussion (Djf), Student Group

U.S. - Japan Bilateral Workshop on the Tropical Tropopause Layer: State of the Current Science and Future Observational Needs

No abstract provided.

Campaign Logistics, Mapping, And Discussion (Jja), Student Group

U.S. - Japan Bilateral Workshop on the Tropical Tropopause Layer: State of the Current Science and Future Observational Needs

No abstract provided.

Summary And Discussion Of Science Questions (Climate), Student Group

U.S. - Japan Bilateral Workshop on the Tropical Tropopause Layer: State of the Current Science and Future Observational Needs

No abstract provided.

Summary And Discussion Of Science Questions (Djf), Student Group

U.S. - Japan Bilateral Workshop on the Tropical Tropopause Layer: State of the Current Science and Future Observational Needs

No abstract provided.

Summary And Discussion Of Science Questions (Jja), Student Group

U.S. - Japan Bilateral Workshop on the Tropical Tropopause Layer: State of the Current Science and Future Observational Needs

No abstract provided.

Identification Of Ttl Boundaries Using The Ozone-Water Vapor Relationship, Laura Pan

U.S. - Japan Bilateral Workshop on the Tropical Tropopause Layer: State of the Current Science and Future Observational Needs

Two sets of TTL boundary definitions have been proposed in the literature. One uses the static stability structure (Gettelman and Foster, 2002) and the other uses the radiative forcing mass flux criterion (Fu et al., 2007; Fueglistaler et al., 2009). In this work, we present a method to characterize the TTL boundaries using ozone–water vapor relationship. The result shows that the tracer behavior supports the level of the minimum stability to be the lower boundary of the transition layer and the cold point to be a good proxy of the upper boundary. Using this method, we characterize and compare the …

Ozone Variations Over The Northern Subtropical Region Revealed By Ozonesonde Observations In Hanoi, Shin-Ya Ogino

U.S. - Japan Bilateral Workshop on the Tropical Tropopause Layer: State of the Current Science and Future Observational Needs

Seasonal and subseasonal variations in the ozone mixing ratio (OMR) are investigated by using continuous seven-year ozonesonde data from Hanoi (21 0 N, 106 0 E), Vietnam. The mean seasonal variations for the seven years show large amplitude at the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere (UTLS) region (10–18 km) and at the lower troposphere (around 3 km) with standard deviations relative to the mean value of about 30% for both regions. In the UTLS region, the seasonal variation in the OMR shows a minimum in winter and a maximum in spring to summer. The variation seems to be caused by …

The Noaa H2o And O3 Data Base, Karen Rosenlof

U.S. - Japan Bilateral Workshop on the Tropical Tropopause Layer: State of the Current Science and Future Observational Needs

No abstract provided.

In-Situ Water Vapor And Ozone Measurements In Lhasa And Kunming During The Asian Summer Monsoon, Jianchun Bian, Laura L. Pan, Laura Paulik, Holger Vömel, Hongbin Chen, Daren Lu

U.S. - Japan Bilateral Workshop on the Tropical Tropopause Layer: State of the Current Science and Future Observational Needs

Asian summer monsoon (ASM) anticyclone circulation is recognized to be a significant transport pathway for water vapor and pollutants to enter the stratosphere. Observational evidence, however, is largely based on satellite retrievals. We report the first coincident in situ measurements of water vapor and ozone within the ASM anticyclone. The combined water vapor and ozone sondes were launched from Kunming in August 2009 and Lhasa in August 2010. We present the key characteristics of these measurements, and provide a comparison to similar measurements from Alajuela, Costa Rica, an equatorial location, during the Tropical Composition, Cloud and Climate Coupling (TC4) campaign …

Development Of New Hydorometer Video Sonde (Hyvis) System For Ice Cloud Observation In Ttl Region, Kensaku Shimizu

U.S. - Japan Bilateral Workshop on the Tropical Tropopause Layer: State of the Current Science and Future Observational Needs

Cirrus clouds in the TTL play an important role on the radiation budget and thus the understanding of their optical properties together with the microphysical processes associated with their formation is quite important. In spite of the progress in theoretical research on the TTL cirrus (e.g., Koop et al., 2000; Peter et al., 2006), observational research is not enough because of the difficulty due to its height and coldness. On the other hand, research of cirrus clouds at 10 km height has been carried out since 1990s using aircraft and hydrometer sondes such as HYVIS (Murakami and Orikasa, 1997) and …

Impact Of Abrupt Stratospheric Dynamical Change On Tropical Tropopause Layer, Nawo Eguchi, Kunihiko Kodera, Tomoe Nasuno

U.S. - Japan Bilateral Workshop on the Tropical Tropopause Layer: State of the Current Science and Future Observational Needs

We have studied the impact of stratospheric circulation change on water vapor in the Tropical Tropopause Layer (TTL) during the stratospheric sudden warming (SSW) events (e.g., Eguchi and Kodera, 2010). Increased Brewer-Dobson circulation associated with SSW produces cooling in the tropical lower stratosphere (LS). The cooling generally produces more cirrus clouds and decreases of the water vapor mixing ratio (WV) in the TTL, except for some regions over Africa and South American continents where penetrating clouds are expected. This time, we found a new stratospheric phenomenon which produces abrupt warming in the tropical stratosphere converse to the SSW event. The …

Volatility And Composition Of Ttl Aerosols By Balloon-Borne In-Situ Observation, Masahiko Hayashi

U.S. - Japan Bilateral Workshop on the Tropical Tropopause Layer: State of the Current Science and Future Observational Needs

Tandem optical particle counters (OPC) were launched by balloon, from Biak 1 0 S, 136 0 E in January 2011 and 2012. One of the tandem OPC directly observed size distribution of aerosols of 0.3 – 7 µm in diameter, and another one observed size distributions in heated conditions of 100 0 , 150 0 , and 200 0 C through thermodenuder, to observe volatility of TTL aerosols. Most of TTL aerosol smaller than 0.8 µm in diameter show high volatility, suggesting to be composed of sulfuric acid or sulfate. There also exist non-volatile particles larger than 0.8 µm in …