Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Geology Online Lab Activities An Open Educational Resource For Community College Students And Instructors, Rondi Davies

Open Educational Resources

The online geology lab for community college students was developed by Dr. Rondi Davies, a faculty member at Queensborough Community College, City University New York, during two years of forced online synchronous learning brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. This open educational resource collects many of Dr. Davies’ favorite open-access materials and supplements them with her own work within a single, cohesive laboratory manual intended for two-year, non-major college students from the New York area.

Dr. Davies wanted to develop labs that were fun, engaging, and that excited students about the subject, were relevant to their lives, helped them to …

A Call For The Library Community To Deploy Best Practices Toward A Database For Biocultural Knowledge Relating To Climate Change, Martha B. Lerski

Publications and Research

Abstract

Purpose – In this paper, a call to the library and information science community to support documentation and conservation of cultural and biocultural heritage has been presented.

Design/methodology/approach – Based in existing Literature, this proposal is generative and descriptive— rather than prescriptive—regarding precisely how libraries should collaborate to employ technical and ethical best practices to provide access to vital data, research and cultural narratives relating to climate.

Findings – COVID-19 and climate destruction signal urgent global challenges. Library best practices are positioned to respond to climate change. Literature indicates how libraries preserve, share and cross-link cultural and scientific knowledge. …

Development Of Predictive Models For Water Budget Simulations Of Closed-Basin Lakes: Case Studies Of Lakes Azuei And Enriquillo On The Island Of Hispaniola, Mahrokh Moknatian, Michael Piasecki

Publications and Research

The historical water level fluctuations of the two neighboring Caribbean lakes of Azuei (LA) and Enriquillo (LE) on Hispaniola have shown random periods of synchronous and asynchronous behaviors, with both lakes exhibiting independent dynamics despite being exposed to the same climatic forces and being directly next to each other. This paper examines their systems' main drivers and constraints, which are used to develop numerical models for these two lakes. The water balance approach was employed to conceptually model the lakes on an interannual scale and examine the assumptions of surface and subsurface processes. These assumptions were made based on field …

Quo Vadis Lakes Azuei And Enriquillo: A Future Outlook For Two Of The Caribbean Basin's Largest Lakes, Mahrokh Moknatian, Michael Piasecki

Publications and Research

Lakes Azuei (LA) and Enriquillo (LE) on Hispaniola Island started expanding in 2005 and continued to do so until 2016. After inundating large swaths of arable land, submerging a small community, and threatening to swallow a significant trade route between the Dominican Republic and Haiti; worries persisted at how far this seemingly unstoppable expansion would go. The paper outlines the approach to a look forward to answer this question vis-à-vis climate change scenarios developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It uses numerical representations of the two lakes, and it examines how the lakes might evolve, deploying three …

Snowmelt Detection On Alpine Glaciers Using Synthetic Aperture Radar Time Series, Corey Scher

Dissertations and Theses

Hindu Kush Himalayan (HKH) glaciers serve as some of the most sensitive indicators of changes in global climate. These glaciers shape the hydrologic dynamics of river systems supplying freshwater to over 2 billion people throughout Asia and regulate the geochemistry of sensitive aquatic alpine ecosystems. As snowmelt onsets sooner, lasts longer, and snowfields retreat due to increases in global temperature, the hydrologic dynamics of catchments draining HKH threaten to change the availability of surface freshwater resources for nearly one fifth of the global population, disturb sensitive aquatic habitat, and precipitate hazards associated with glacier wasting. Informed planning and decision-making around …

Impact Of Heatwave On A Megacity: An Observational Analysis Of New York City During July 2016, Prathap Ramamurthy, Jorge Gonzalez, Luis E. Ortiz, Mark Arend, Fred Moshary

Publications and Research

More than half of the world's current population resides in urban areas, and cities account for roughly three-quarters of the total greenhouse gas emissions. Current and future trends in urbanization will have significant impacts on global climate. However, our collective understanding of the climate of urban areas remains deficient, which is mainly related to significant knowledge gaps in observations. The New York City Summer Heat Campaign was initiated to address some of these critical knowledge gaps. As part of the campaign the urban boundary layer over New York City was continuously monitored during July 2016, a period that witnessed three …

Integrated Hydrologic Land Surface State Climate Indicators, Brian Lamb

Dissertations and Theses

No abstract provided.

Are Climate Model Simulations Useful For Forecasting Precipitation Trends? Hindcast And Synthetic-Data Experiments, Nir Y. Krakauer, Balázs M. Fekete

Publications and Research

Water scientists and managers currently face the question of whether trends in climate variables that affect water supplies and hazards can be anticipated. We investigate to what extent climate model simulations may provide accurate forecasts of future hydrologic nonstationarity in the form of changes in precipitation amount. We compare gridded station observations (GPCC Full Data Product, 1901–2010) and climate model outputs (CMIP5 Historical and RCP8.5 simulations, 1901–2100) in real and syntheticdata hindcast experiments. The hindcast experiments show that imputing precipitation trends based on the climate model mean reduced the root mean square error of precipitation trend estimates for 1961–2010 by …