Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Crowdsourcing Global Wastewater Data, Don Mosteller, Sam Cohen, Cory Nestor, Angel Hsu, Omar Malik

Yale Day of Data

No time to waste: Crowdsourcing global wastewater treatment data

Worldwide, over 80 percent of wastewater is discharged into water bodies without undergoing treatment, severely impairing human well-being and ecosystem vitality along the way. National performance on wastewater treatment is difficult to quantify and is poorly understood due to a lack of common definitions, poor data collection standards, and limited historical data. To address this, the Yale Environmental Performance Index (EPI), a research group that produces a biennial ranking of country-level environmental performance, developed a first-of-its kind national wastewater treatment indicator.[1]

The indicator assesses wastewater treatment performance for 183 countries, …

Forecasting The Big Picture: Arctic Ecosystems, Climate Change, Shipping & Fisheries, Mary S. Wisz

ShipArc 2015 Conference

No abstract provided.

Medium-Range Forecast Of The Arctic Sea-Ice Cover Using The Satellite Observation Data, Kimura Noriaki

ShipArc 2015 Conference

No abstract provided.

Drivers Of Arctic Shipping & Marine Operation, Lawson W. Brigham Ph.D

ShipArc 2015 Conference

No abstract provided.

State-Of-Knowledge On Changing Arctic Environmental Conditions, David Carlson

ShipArc 2015 Conference

No abstract provided.

Development Of An Integrated Online Balloon Flight System, Ethan E. Harstad

2017 Academic High Altitude Conference

Aerodyne Labs has been working with the Stratospheric Ballooning Association to develop an all inclusive high altitude ballooning software suite. This software suite is intended to allow every step of conducting a balloon flight to be conducted on a single website. Flight predictions can be performed many days in advance and used to automatically generate notices for both the FAA and public. Once the balloon has been launched, telemetry can be streamed to the website to allow real-time position and telemetry updates, including a dedicated view for FAA controllers. Data that is not streamed from the payload can be uploaded …

Integrating K12 Outreach With Undergraduate & Graduate Student Research Through Balloonsat: High Altitude Balloons, J Tillman Kennon, Bryant Fong

2017 Academic High Altitude Conference

The Arkansas BalloonSAT team has successfully launched and recovered 37 BalloonSAT’s dating back to the first flight on December 16, 2006. Numerous instruments measuring such things as atmospheric temperature, humidity, radiation, and light intensity have recorded data from different locations over the State of Arkansas. The initial focus of this project was outreach with the k-12 schools, and still involves outreach; however atmospheric research has become a significant component for this endeavor. This ongoing collaborative projection has involved a number of faculty and students from different academic backgrounds, including physics, chemistry, biology, and astronomy among different ASGC schools who have …

Techniques For Payload Stabilization For Improved Photography During Stratospheric Balloon Flights, James Flaten, Christopher Gosch, Joseph (Benjamin) Habeck

2017 Academic High Altitude Conference

Payload-box rotation and swing are perennial challenges to achieving high-quality photography (typically videography) during weather-balloon flights to “near-space” (AKA the stratosphere). Continuous camera motion can lead to blurred still photos, nearly-impossible-to-watch video footage, and precludes time-exposure photography required for most astronomical imaging even though altitudes are reached where the daytime sky appears black. Apparently-random payload rotation, persisting even at altitude, can often exceed servo rotation rates and frustrate attempts to do active camera pointing. Here we discuss mostly-passive payload stabilization strategies we, and our collaborators, have used to mitigate and dampen both swing and rotation of suspended payloads on high-altitude …

The “Stratospheric Cricket Keeper” – Developing A Simple“Life-Support” Payload For High-Altitude Balloon Missions, Lucas Kramer, Chad Serba, James Flaten

2017 Academic High Altitude Conference

Exposure to the environmental conditions of “near-space” (AKA the stratosphere) is quickly fatal to nearly all forms of animal life. It is even challenging to build a sealable enclosure that can keep insects (crickets) alive through the dramatic and simultaneous pressure and temperature drops experienced during a high-altitude balloon mission. This poster describes the development of a rugged “cricket keeper” in which we were able to fly crickets to the stratosphere and, quoting the words of JFK, “return (them) safely to the earth!” This “life-support” payload had large windows (for the view!) and included Arduino-logged temperature and pressure sensors, an …

Long Term Tropospheric And Stratospheric Measurements Using High Altitude Balloons, Bryant Fong, J Tillman Kennon, Ed Roberts, Hashim Ali

2017 Academic High Altitude Conference

The Arkansas BalloonSAT program is an educational outreach and research program at Arkansas State University. A variety of instruments including HOBO data loggers, Anasonde, and Arduino methane sensors have been flown on flights in the past five years. Measurements using BalloonSAT provides a cost effective option, while also matching measurements made with satellites and unmanned aerial vehicles. This includes identifying water vapor, pressure, background radiation, methane, carbon dioxide and temperature profiles over seasons and years. Water vapor trends were observed to vary with seasons, with water vapor lowest in the summer and greatest in the spring at stratospheric altitudes. Methane …

Learning To Fly: Initial Experiments In High Altitude Ballooning, Tracy L. Knowles, Dalton Warren, Sara Stewart, Angel Smith, Joe Maciag

2017 Academic High Altitude Conference

The Bluegrass Community and Technical College’s (BCTC) Balloon Sat Project trained students and faculty to design, build, and fly balloon-borne atmospheric data collection payloads. Students and faculty attended NASA’s Balloon Sat four day workshop/Flight at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, AL. During the Spring 2015 semester, the student team launched two balloons with sensors on board that measured atmospheric temperature, pressure, altitude, humidity, and carbon dioxide concentrations.

Using A High Altitude Balloon Platform To Observe And Measure Seasonal Ozone Flux Over Agricultural Landscapes, Cody Sabo

2017 Academic High Altitude Conference

The concentration of greenhouse gasses (GHGs) in the atmosphere has continued to rise since the industrial era. This issue has had a multitude of negative impacts on all living things. Among the major GHGs are carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone. Ozone is of particular importance because it not only has the ability to trap heat in the atmosphere, but it also directly impacts organisms by causing harm to both plants and humans. The damage that ozone causes to plants is most closely linked to ozone uptake rather than ozone concentration. So, measuring ozone uptake is becoming critical for …

Urban Scale Modeling Of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide And Validation Of Emission Inventories, James E. Powell, Christopher L. Butenhoff, Andrew L. Rice

Student Research Symposium

There exists a pressing need for high resolution emissions inventories for cities. For greenhouse gases, cities and regions need a careful analysis of their carbon footprint to design effective policies to control and mitigate emissions. High resolution emissions inventories can be used in conjunction with meteorology models and atmospheric measurements to place top-down constraints on emissions. High resolution emissions inventories for criteria pollutants like NO_x, CO, and O₃ enable urban-scale air pollution modeling down to the neighborhood level. For example, the Vulcan project estimates CO₂ using county-scale vehicle miles traveled (VMT) from the National Mobile Inventory …

Nwa 8614: The Least Heated Winonaite, Karla Farley, Alexander M. Ruzicka, Katherine Armstrong

Student Research Symposium

Northwest Africa 8614 is classified as a winonaite on the basis of oxygen isotope ratios, mineralogy, and highly reduced chemistry. Unlike other winonaites, it contains numerous and readily apparent chondrules. Here we discuss various features of NWA 8614 and the possible significance of the meteorite.

Petrological and chemical analyses were performed using optical microscopy with a DM2500 Leica petrographic microscope and a Zeiss Sigma VP-FEG scanning electron microscope (SEM) with a high-efficiency energy dispersive spectrometer (EDS). Oxygen isotopes were analyzed by Karen Ziegler at the University of New Mexico on acid-washed samples to remove terrestrial weathering products.

Owing to the …

Observations Of Mesospheric Gravity Waves Over The Andes, Jonathan Pugmire, Michael Taylor, Yucheng Zhao

Student Research Symposium

Focusing on data from an imager and the SABER instrument aboard the TIMED satellite temperature variances are determined to quantify small-scale gravity waves. IDL software was used to extract all the temperature profile measurements that were measured by SABER within a limited geographical area, centered on our ground-based optical imager at Cerro Pachon, Chile (30.3°S, 70.7°S). Large-scale tidal waves, with wavenumbers 0-6, were removed from each profile revealing the gravity wave perturbations. Temperature variances reveal possible increased wave activity due to mountain waves. Mountain waves in the mesosphere are a relatively unexplored field in aeronomy. They are generated predominantly in …

Progressive Assessment Of Lake Depths In Cedar Lake, Samuel L. Rice

The Research and Scholarship Symposium (2013-2019)

In the fall of 2012, the CU Environmental Geology class did an assignment which produced a bathymetry (bottom-contour) map of Cedar Lake. Although the depth measurements using stadia rods and the position measurements using handheld GPS units were somewhat crude, the end result was a map that seemed to be a very reasonable depiction on the lake bottom configuration. In the fall 2014, measurements were again made as a part of an ongoing assessment to determine if sediment infill was occurring in the lake. The data gathering techniques duplicated those used in 2012, including equipment used. The primary difference between …

Winter Weather Services And Forecasting Options For Local Agencies, Michael Baldwin

Purdue Road School

Students majoring in atmospheric science at Purdue's Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences have organized a "forecasting club" to provide weather forecasting services to a wide range of customers. During the winter months, these students provide a detailed forecast of conditions across the state of Indiana that are expected to impact road maintenance operations. These forecasts are available via a web page as well as direct email. Other information regarding winter weather observations and predictions is rapidly increasing in availability. This presentation will discuss these freely available sources of winter weather information that can be used by local agencies …

Improvement In Pilot Training For Aircraft Icing Conditions, Cody Denver, Melanie A. Wetzel

Aviation / Aeronautics / Aerospace International Research Conference

One of the most dangerous atmospheric hazards in aviation is aircraft icing. Ice can build on aircraft surfaces, causing decreases in thrust and lift while increasing drag and weight. These effects can be detrimental to any aircraft's ability to successfully remain in flight. Improvement in pilot knowledge of and response to icing conditions can be attained through use of specific meteorological forecast products, completion of interactive training modules, and understanding of cloud physical processes gained through the analysis of aircraft measurement case studies. This poster presents a strategy for enhancing the training of professional pilots in meteorological conditions which cause …

Use Of Research Aircraft Data To Validate Mesoscale Model Forecasts, Travis Swaggerty, Melanie Wetzel, Dorothea Ivanova

Aviation / Aeronautics / Aerospace International Research Conference

A NSF funded Student Training in Airborne Research and Technology (START) two-week deployment of the University of Wyoming King Air (UWKA) research aircraft was conducted at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (ERAU) in Prescott, Arizona during late March and early April 2014. Some of the goals of this program were to build knowledge on airborne atmospheric research for undergraduate students across multiple departments and to collect a valuable set of aircraft data for atmospheric model validation. Data collection for 10 research flights is available for mesoscale model case study validation.

This project utilizes the Weather Research and Forecasting mesoscale model (WRF), version …

Aviation Security Impacts Of Meteorological And Climatic Disruption, Melanie Wetzel

Aviation / Aeronautics / Aerospace International Research Conference

Commercial and military flight operations are frequently imperiled or disrupted by meteorological conditions. Severe weather events and climate-related factors create aviation security impacts on airport siting and reliability, human safety, economic stability, military defense strategy, aircraft routing and computer systems vulnerability. Climate trends have been associated with increased frequency of storm surge incursions at coastal airports, intense snowfall accumulations, runway closures due to rainstorm runoff, extended periods of fog/stratus restrictions and severe-weather related risk from lightning, hail and icing. The economic and safety impacts of these events are being incorporated into long-term planning by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), …