Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Recovery Of Black Carbon Concentrations In Burned Forests, Monica V. Zapata Villegas, Kelly E. Gleason

Student Research Symposium

Forest fires shed light absorbing particles (LAP), such as black carbon and burned woody debris, into snowpacks, darkening snow surface albedo, and advancing snowmelt timing and snow disappearance patterns for decades following fire. Although the role of LAPs in seasonal snow has been extensively studied in recent years, the spatiotemporal variability of LAPs and contributions to snowmelt relative to years since fire and burn severity is still unknown. In the Triple Divide region of western Wyoming, the headwaters of the Colorado, Columbia, and Missouri rivers, we quantified the spatiotemporal variability of forest fire effects on snow albedo, using geochemical analysis …

The Simulated Sensitivity Of The North American Monsoon At Convection-Permitting Scales, Brendan Wallace

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The North American Monsoon (NAM) is a major contributor to annual rainfall for large portions of the North American Southwest. Much of the prior work examining the NAM using numerical models has been done at scales exceeding 20-km grid spacing. At these coarse scales, unresolved processes and poorly resolved geographic features can impact model performance. This can present a problem when simulating the NAM particularly with regard to orographic precipitation, precipitation on sub-daily timescales, and land surface-atmosphere interactions. This dissertation seeks to better understand the NAM through examination of several sets of convection-permitting regional climate model output. The primary goal …

Towards More Equitable And Climate Resilient Communities With Jola Ajibade, Jola Ajibade

PDXPLORES Podcast

In this episode of PDXPLORES, Professor Jola Ajibade discusses research examining how cascading social and environmental hazards might impact communities in the Portland metro region and what policymakers and community members can do to mitigate the risks and promote a more just, livable, and sustainable urban future.

Click on the "Download" button to access the audio transcript.

Equilibria: Sustainability And Eco-Awareness In Music Production, Ashley A. Kahl-Placek

University Honors Theses

Cross-disciplinary exploration between science and the arts is one tool to help solve some of the biggest issues facing humans. Climate change and loss of biodiversity can be represented via sound art and contemporary music composition. Wholistic eco-awareness and sustainability are possible when projects are based in unique species-inspired soundscapes, the cultivation of targeted, action-inspiring lyricism, and a sustainable navigation of the marketing and distribution pathways of the music industry. From the fall of 2021 to summer of 2022, field recordings of unique ecosystems were collected and combined with songwriting rooted in a love and hope for the future of …

Dynamic Impacts Of Hadley Circulation On Saharan Desert Warming Amplification, Alejandro Manuel Ayala

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Changes in temperature due to climate change are not spatially uniform, and deserts and other drylands, which are greatly underrepresented in climate studies, are warming at a much faster rate than much of the globe with increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases. This strong warming amplification over deserts, termed Desert Amplification (DA), is most pronounced over the world’s largest and driest Sahara Desert and the Arabian Peninsula. The Sahara and Arabian deserts are formed in the subtropical subsiding branch of the Hadley Circulation (HC) and so the changes in large-scale subsidence associated with adiabatic heating could impact the DA dynamically. While …

The Surface Heating Efficiency Of Atmospheric Energy Flux Events During Arctic Winter, Christopher Joseph Cardinale

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The flux of moist static energy (MSE) into the polar regions plays a key role in the energy budget and climate of the polar regions. While usually studied from a vertically integrated perspective (Fwall), this dissertation examines its vertical structure, using the NASA-MERRA-2 reanalysis to compute climatological and anomalous fluxes of sensible, latent, and potential energy across 70◦N and 65◦S. This dissertation applies an energy budget analysis to winter-season synoptic periods of increased tropospheric (Ftrop) and stratospheric (Fstrat) energy flux convergence events and examines the processes that drive Arctic anoma lous surface warming and sea ice loss during Ftrop events. …

Municipal Solutions To Climate Change ; A Case Study Of Stream Daylighting In Suffolk County, New York, Madison Hrysko

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

During the 1950’s and 1960’s Suffolk County, New York experienced rapid urbanization and development. To pave way for infrastructure, hydrological modifications were made to the land including the burial of naturally flowing streams. Daylighting streams is the nature-based process of bringing buried streams back to the surface. In turn, restoring ecosystem services, increasing local resilience to climate change impacts, and expanding biodiversity. Minimal research has been done using GIS technology alongside a set of criteria to select best fit streams for daylighting. This thesis aims to fill that gap by identifying best and second-best fit streams for daylighting in Suffolk …

Understanding Changes In Precipitation, Wildfires, And Possible Governing Factors Over Central Equatorial Africa, Yan Jiang

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Tropical rainforests are global epicenters of biodiversity and modulators of climate. A long-term drying trend has occurred in the Congo Basin since the 1980s and this raises great concerns for sustaining the Congolese rainforest and local rain-fed agriculture. Motivated by documented rainfall changes and the need to improve understanding of main factors influencing precipitation variability and changes in Central Equatorial Africa (CEA), this dissertation conducts synthesized studies on 1) quantifying variations in precipitation seasonality by focusing on dry season duration, 2) estimating cascading wildfire risks associated with changes in precipitation patterns, and estimating impacts of 3) the tropical Indian Ocean …

The Contributions Of Dynamical And Diabatic Processes Preceding And Accompanying Major Greenland Ice-Melt Events, Scott Feldman

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Extratropical cyclones and/or short-wave disturbances can reinforce Greenland blocking through upper-level flow amplification and can increase poleward heat and moisture transport into the Arctic. Increased poleward heat and moisture transport into the Arctic may enhance Greenland ice melt during the spring, summer, and fall months. The need to better understand the underlying dynamical and diabatic processes that may contribute to Greenland ice melt motivates this thesis. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate: 1) the role of advective warming due to poleward heat and moisture transport into the Arctic in facilitating Greenland ice melt, 2) the role of adiabatic …

Assessment Of Temperature Change In Mukalla City In Hadhramaut Governorate And Its Impact On The Environment, Jamal Abu Bakr Abbad, Fahad Hussein Alsomahi, Nabeela Obeid Baharah, Fatima Saleh Alsaeedi

Hadhramout University Journal of Natural & Applied Sciences

This research is based on the inventory of data and information on daily and monthly temperatures from 2000 to 2017, where we analyzed the data obtained from NASA about the city of Mukalla for the specified period of time. Using equations, the average daily temperature was calculated from the daily temperature data multiple times equivalent to eight times a day. Monthly and annual averages were calculated using statistical methods. The results clearly show the extent of the change in the temperature rate during the study period. It is noted that there was an increase in the rate of temperature change …

Current Stormwater Practices And Future Implementation At Portland State University With The Uncertainty Of Climate Change, Evan Suemori, Alexandra Vargas Quiñones

Environmental Science and Management Professional Master's Project Reports

Stormwater runoff is one of the most critical environmental issues in urban areas and is only expected to worsen as climate change persists (EPA, 2016). When precipitation events occur, stormwater travels across impervious surfaces collecting soils and pollutants which can negatively impact water quality in receiving waters. Additionally, stormwater has human health impacts, specifically through flooding and the contamination of drinking water. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), it has been determined that climate change will increase the frequency, intensity, and/or number of precipitation events in some regions, including the Pacific Northwest, and decrease in others (IPCC, …

Urban Lakes: Ecosystem Services And Management, Laura Costadone

Dissertations and Theses

Lakes provide a variety of ecosystem services and benefits that greatly contribute to urban sustainability. Despite the growing interest in integrating freshwater systems into management and policy decisions, urban lakes are often overlooked in land-use planning. Nutrient and pollutant runoff from the surrounding urbanized watershed result in water quality deterioration that negatively impact the lake ecological functions and related ecosystem services. The vulnerability and degradation of these urban ecosystems should be a matter of concern, especially considering that, in rapidly growing metropolitan areas, the demand for aesthetic and recreational services provided by urban lakes is increasing. The overall goal of …

Diagnosing High Sinuosity Regimes Associated With Anomalous Greenland Ice-Melt Events Using Self-Organizing Maps, Mansour El Riachy

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Sinuosity, a metric that describes the waviness of the circumpolar flow, is adapted to quantify modification of the tropospheric polar vortex within longitudinal sectors by localized incursions of warm, moist air from middle latitudes associated with Arctic cyclones (ACs). In this thesis, we identify four corridors of high AC track frequency, on which we center 90° longitudinal sectors comprising the following regions: Pacific, West of Greenland, Atlantic, and Asian. Sectorial sinuosity is calculated for the West of Greenland sector and is used to quantify the amplitude of the 300-hPa flow associated with anomalous Greenland ice-melt events.

Understanding Institutional, Social, And Ecological Systems Influencing Climate Change Adaptation And Water Governance In Wine Regions: A Comparative Case Study Of Oregon's Willamette Valley, Usa And Tasmania, Australia, Erin Upton

Dissertations and Theses

My research examines how water management decisions create opportunities or barriers to climate change adaptation in wine regions. Water is a critical resource for economic and environmental sustainability in wine grape growing regions. Climate uncertainty presents considerable risk and vulnerability to freshwater resources in wine producing regions where needs for access to water will increase with more frequent climate extremes. Climate adaptation in the wine industry is a complex problem that requires multi-disciplinary approaches. This research aims to strengthen the interface between water governance and technological and viticulture adaptation approaches. Water resources are shared across regions by stakeholders with varied …

Coral Reefs, Climate Change, And Ecological Lament, Chloe Hansum

Student Work

"What can I do to enhance creation’s song? How can I better care for all creatures great and small?"

Posting about a Christian response to ecological degradation from In All Things - an online journal for critical reflection on faith, culture, art, and every ordinary-yet-graced square inch of God’s creation.

https://inallthings.org/coral-reefs-climate-change-and-ecological-lament/

Collaboration And Evaluation In Urban Sustainability And Resilience Transformations: The Keys To A Just Transition?, Liliana Elizabeth Caughman

Dissertations and Theses

Climate has changed and will continue changing; city populations are swelling as urbanization continues to accelerate; extreme environmental events like heat waves and floods are becoming more severe and more common; and the climate justice movement is rapidly gaining momentum. It in this context that municipal governments find themselves urgently seeking solutions to transition cities from extractive, vulnerable, and unjust to sustainable, resilient, and equitable. The task is complex and will require systemic transformations across interconnected social, environmental, and economic infrastructures. Emerging theories regarding how to govern such massive changes suggest Transition Management strategies and the values of a just …

How Agro-Pastoralists Adapt To Climate Change In The Algerian Steppe?, Slimane Bédrani, Mohamed El Amine Benhassine

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

The Algerian steppe grasslands cover about 30 million ha located between the 100 and 400 mm isohyets. It feeds about 15 to 23 million sheep and goats, depending on the year (MARA 1974). To assist agro-pastoralists plan for future we wanted to know:

• What perceptions do different pastoralists and agro-pastoralists have of climate change?
• Have these land users changed the way they are man-aging their livestock and crop production enterprises? and,
• How do changes adopted differ pastoralists and agro-pastoralists?

Stars Annual Report, 2020, Campus Sustainability Office

Campus Sustainability Office Publications, Reports and Presentations

The Campus Sustainability Office (CSO) compiles information from departments across campus annually to complete the STARS Report. The score is based on the number of points received across five categories: Academics, Engagement, Operations, and Planning & Administration, and Innovation & Leadership. PSU has maintained a Gold rating since the institution began reporting in 2011 and is within the top 40 of over 400 reporting institutions. This summary includes improvement opportunities to assist our efforts to eventually become a STARS Platinum institution. For more information on improvement opportunities please contact Amanda Wolf at wolf@pdx.edu

Utility Summary Fiscal Year 2020, Campus Sustainability Office

Campus Sustainability Office Publications, Reports and Presentations

Energy usage listed by building.

Examining The Impact Of Synoptic-Scale Waves On Stratospheric Polar Vortex Variability From An Ensemble Forecast Perspective, Michael E. Main

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Major Sudden Stratospheric Warming (SSW) events are characterized by rapid warming of the polar regions at 10 hPa and are accompanied by a reversal of the 10-hPa zonal-mean zonal wind at 60˚N from westerly to easterly. Following an SSW event, stratospheric thermal and momentum anomalies can progress downward and linger near the tropopause for up to 60 days. These anomalies have major impacts on tropospheric sensible weather including increased likelihood of cold air outbreaks and heavy precipitation events. SSW events are largely forced by upward propagation of planetary-scale Rossby waves from the troposphere to the stratosphere. Synoptic-scale waves can contribute …

Improving Our Understanding Of The Relationship Between Ocean Heat Uptake And Climate Sensitivity, Michael Cameron Rencurrel

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

One of the ultimate goals of the field of climate science is to determine exactly how sensitive the Earth is to anthropogenic forcing, with far reaching implications both from a scientific and policy standpoint. However, despite decades of observational and model analysis, large uncertainties in Earth's climate sensitivity persist. Recent advances have shown that climate feedbacks, the primary mechanism driving the sensitivity spread, are dependent on the spatial patterns of the surface response, intrinsically linked to how the ocean is working to uptake and transport energy across the globe. Given the importance of reducing the range of climate sensitivity from …

Dynamical Downscaling Of Near-Term Climate Variability And Change For The Main Hawaiian Islands Using Wrf, Katrina Marie Fandrich

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

As climate models continue to improve, the demand from resource managers and decision-makers for more accurate climate projections is increasing. However, natural climate variability poses a limit to the confidence in regional climate change projections, particularly for the mid-21st century. The unique geographic location of the Hawaiian Islands and its regional climate provide a challenging opportunity for climate modelers. The goal of this project is to examine both the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and anthropogenic climate change for their impacts on near-term rainfall and temperature projections for the Hawaiian Islands. Of primary interest are the questions 1) is there a …

Widespread Severe Wildfires Under Climate Change Lead To Increased Forest Homogeneity In Dry Mixed-Conifer Forests, Brooke Alyce Cassell, Robert M. Scheller, Melissa S. Lucash, Matthew Hurteau, E. Louise Loudermilk

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Climate warming in the western United States is causing changes to the wildfire regime in mixed-conifer forests. Rising temperatures, longer fire seasons, increased drought, as well as fire suppression and changes in land use, have led to greater and more severe wildfire activity, all contributing to altered forest composition over the past century. To understand future interactions among climate, wildfire, and vegetation in a fire-prone landscape in the southern Blue Mountains of central Oregon, we used a spatially explicit forest landscape model, LANDIS-II, to simulate forest and fire dynamics under current management practices and two projected climate scenarios. The results …

Connecting Local-Scale Heavy Precipitation To Large-Scale Meteorological Patterns Over Portland, Oregon Using Observations And Climate Models, Christina Marie Aragon

Dissertations and Theses

Precipitation timing and magnitude is essential to human, ecological, and economic systems. Climate change may be altering the character of precipitation locally to globally, thus it is vital that resource managers, practitioners, and decision makers understand the nature of this change. This thesis was conducted in partnership with the City of Portland Bureau of Environmental Services (BES), and the Portland Water Bureau (PWB) in order to support resiliency planning around precipitation and precipitation extremes.

This work has two primary phases, which are discussed in chapter 2 and 3 of this thesis. The first phase of this research entails characterization of …

Regional Modeling Of The Glaciers Of The North Cascades Mountains, Washington, Usa, Christina Eileen Gray

Dissertations and Theses

Glaciers in the North Cascades store winter snowfall as ice and release it in late summer as melt, providing an important regional source of water and hydroelectric energy. The future of glaciers in the North Cascades, Washington, were evaluated using a regional glaciation model driven by the Community Climate System Model 4 global climate model. The climate model was coupled with three Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs), 2.6, 4.5, and 8.5. These RCPs provide a business-as-usual scenario (RCP 8.5), which assumes society makes little to no efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, a best-case scenario (RCP 2.6) with strong attempts to …

Psu Green Building Internship Final Report, 2019: Karl Miller Center Post-Occupancy Study, Everett Stilley, Junyoung Lee

Campus Sustainability Office Publications, Reports and Presentations

This study examined the effectiveness of the passive cooling strategies in the Karl Miller Center (KMC) at Portland State University. Due to the warm temperatures reached in Portland during the summer months and the absence of a mechanical cooling system on the Pavilion side of the KMC, classrooms can exceed thermal comfort preferences on a number of occasions. Previous studies have recommended taking certain classrooms “offline” after 12pm in the summer, where they are only available for morning classes. This study aimed to update the classroom prioritization as well as analyze the employed cooling strategies and begin a long term …

Mountain Lakes: Eyes On Global Environmental Change, Katrina A. Moser, Jill S. Baron, Janice Brahney, Isabella A. Olesky, Jasmine E. Saros, Elizabeth J. Hundey, Steven A. Sadro, Jiri Kopácek, Ruben Sommaruga, Martin J. Kainz, Angela L. Strecker, Sudeep Chandra, David M. Walters, Daniel L. Preston, Neal Michelutti, Fabio Lepori, Sarah A. Spaulding, Kyle R. Christianson, John M. Melack, J. P. Smol

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Mountain lakes are often situated in protected natural areas, a feature that leads to their role as sentinels of global environmental change. Despite variations in latitude, mountain lakes share many features, including their location in catchments with steep topographic gradients, cold temperatures, high incident solar and ultraviolet radiation (UVR), and prolonged ice and snow cover. These characteristics, in turn, affect mountain lake ecosystem structure, diversity, and productivity. The lakes themselves are mostly small and shallow, and up until recently, have been characterized as oligotrophic. This paper provides a review and update of the growing body of research that shows that …

Stars Annual Report, 2019, Campus Sustainability Office

Campus Sustainability Office Publications, Reports and Presentations

The Campus Sustainability Office (CSO) compiles information from departments across campus annually to complete the STARS Report. The score is based on the number of points received across five categories: Academics, Engagement, Operations, and Planning & Administration, and Innovation & Leadership. PSU has maintained a Gold rating since the institution began reporting in 2011 and is within the top 40 of over 400 reporting institutions. This summary includes improvement opportunities to assist our efforts to eventually become a STARS Platinum institution. For more information on improvement opportunities please contact Amanda Wolf at wolf@pdx.edu

Utility Summary Fiscal Year 2019, Campus Sustainability Office

Campus Sustainability Office Publications, Reports and Presentations

Summary of energy usage listed by building.

Campus Sustainability Office Annual Report, 2018-2019, Campus Sustainability Office

Campus Sustainability Office Publications, Reports and Presentations

The Campus Sustainability Office 2018-2019 annual report.