Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology Commons^™

Developing Spatially Accurate Rainfall Predictions For The San Francisco Bay Area Through Case Studies Of Atmospheric River And Other Synoptic Events, Alison Bridger, Dung Nguyen, Sen Chiao

Faculty Publications, Meteorology and Climate Science

Rainfall patterns in the San Francisco Bay Area (SFBA) are highly influenced by local topography. It has been a forecasting challenge for the main US forecast models. This study investigates the ability of the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model to improve upon forecasts, with particular emphasis on the rain shadow common to the southern end of the SFBA. Three rain events were evaluated: a mid-season atmospheric river (AR) event with copious rains; a typical non-AR frontal passage rain event; and an area-wide rain event in which zero rain was recorded in the southern SFBA. The results show that, with …

Weather And Climate Summary And Forecast: September 2019 Report, Gregory V. Jones

Linfield University Wine Studies Reports

This report provides a summary of the weather and climate forecast for September 2019. It includes forecast information specific to the Pacific Northwest and the western United States, as well as forecast information for other portions of the United States and abroad.

Shifts In Plant Functional Composition Following Long-Term Drought In Grasslands, Robert J. Griffin‐Nolan, Dana M. Blumenthal, Scott L. Collins, Timothy E. Farkas, Ava M. Hoffman, Kevin E. Mueller, Troy W. Ocheltree, Melinda D. Smith, Kenneth D. Whitney, Alan K. Knapp

Biological, Geological, and Environmental Faculty Publications

1. Plant traits can provide unique insights into plant performance at the community scale. Functional composition, defined by both functional diversity and community-weighted trait means (CWMs), can affect the stability of above-ground net primary production (ANPP) in response to climate extremes. Further complexity arises, however, when functional composition itself responds to environmental change. The duration of climate extremes, such as drought, is expected to increase with rising global temperatures; thus, understanding the impacts of long-term drought on functional composition and the corresponding effect that has on ecosystem function could improve predictions of ecosystem sensitivity to climate change.

2. We experimentally …

A Technical Overview Of The Kentucky Mesonet, Rezaul Mahmood, Megan Schargorodski, Stuart Foster, Andrew Quilligan

High Plains Regional Climate Center: Staff Publications

The Kentucky Mesonet is a research-grade weather and climate observing network with redundant sensors that monitors the near-surface atmosphere at 71 locations across Kentucky. The network measures temperature, precipitation, solar radiation, relative humidity, barometric pressure, and wind speed and direction every 5 min, with soil moisture and soil temperature measured every 30 min. In addition, it operates a camera at selected locations. All observations are transmitted via cellular modem every 5 min and become available to the general public through the World Wide Web within seconds after arrival at Kentucky Mesonet’s Network Operations Center. In between arriving at the IT …

Umphlett Qci Sept 2019, Natalie Umphlett

High Plains Regional Climate Center: Staff Publications

Highlights for the Basin

Temperature and Precipitation Anomalies

Soil Moisture Conditions

Delayed/Prevented Planting

Forage Production

Infrastructure

Temperature

Precipitation

Abrupt Climate Transitions, Christine J. Ramadhin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The Earth’s climate system displays a long history of nonlinear abrupt transitions which have resulted in significant ecosystem disruption and are recorded in the geologic data. Today significant anthropogenic changes are occurring in many Earth systems that seem to be pushing these toward critical thresholds. Thus, increasing the possibility of a transition to alternative states which can have unfavorable consequences. Therefore, it becomes compelling to forecast when and how these transitions will occur so that decision-makers can devise appropriate strategies to avoid or cope with the effects of a changeover to a new alternative state. However, due to the highly …

Wind Flow Dynamics Over Complex Terrain, Eric Kutter

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Understanding the exchange of energy, moisture, and trace gases between the terrestrial biosphere and the atmosphere over complex terrain is a fundamental goal in achieving a complete model of global or regional climate. Net ecosystem exchange (NEE) of carbon dioxide is often a crucial input into climate models, and is also used as a means of validating regional model outputs. Calculations obtained from eddy flux tower data provide some of the best quality sources of NEE values; however, the standard formulation of the eddy covariance method is incomplete in terrain that includes common features such as hills, forests, cities, or …

2019 September - Tennessee Monthly Climate Report, Tennessee Climate Office, East Tennessee State University

Tennessee Climate Office Monthly Reports

No abstract provided.

Life's Passion For Odu Alum Is To Be "Water's Voice", Joe Garvey

News Items

No abstract provided.

Odu Launches Open Seas Technology Innovation Hub, News @ Odu

News Items

No abstract provided.

Philanthropic Gifts And New Partnerships Highlight President Broderick's 12th State Of The University Address, Noell Saunders

News Items

No abstract provided.

Climatological Changes: Meteorological Parameters Affecting The Spatial Redistribution Of U.S. Tornadoes, Ashley Dicks

The Journal of Purdue Undergraduate Research

Climatological changes in the environments of key meteorological parameters that affect Significant Tornado Days (SigTorDs) have been determined for two active tornado regions defined as Box α and Box β, centered, respectively, over Oklahoma and Alabama and their respective environs. The North American Regional Reanalysis data was selected for 1980–2013, providing two successive 17-year periods corresponding to the last 34 years of previous research findings that focused on the aforementioned regions. This data record also corresponds to an increasing surface air temperature trend for the continental United States. Period I (1980–1996) and Period II (1997–2013) defined the years of changing …

Toward Improved Understanding Of Black And Brown Carbon Radiative Impacts Over South Asia, Apoorva Pandey

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Atmospheric aerosols directly affect the Earth’s radiative budget by absorbing and scattering solar radiation. Carbonaceous aerosols constitute 20-90% of the global aerosol mass burden and are recognized by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as important drivers of direct radiative forcing (DRF). Aerosol radiative impacts have been implicated in regional atmospheric warming in South Asia: changing Indian monsoon patterns, and accelerating melting of the Himalayan glaciers. There are systematic global discrepancies between estimates of aerosol absorption optical depths derived from observations and those from climate models. Over South Asia, models predict six times lower aerosol absorption than ground-based observations, leading …

Weather And Climate Summary And Forecast: August 2019 Report, Gregory V. Jones

Linfield University Wine Studies Reports

This report provides a summary of the weather and climate forecast for August 2019. It includes forecast information specific to the Pacific Northwest and the western United States, as well as forecast information for other portions of the United States and abroad.

2019 August - Tennessee Monthly Climate Report, Tennessee Climate Office, East Tennessee State University

Tennessee Climate Office Monthly Reports

No abstract provided.

Change In The Leading Mode Of North America's Wintertime Stationary Eddies, Yu-Tang Chien

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Extreme winter weather events in North America have become more frequent and increasingly destructive. This phenomenon was linked to a jet stream pattern that generates abnormally warm conditions in the west and cold conditions in the east, referred to as the North American Winter Dipole. Studies have shown that the Dipole may have amplified and this amplification could be linked to global warming. By analyzing the atmospheric and oceanic data worldwide, the wintertime circulation in the Northern Hemisphere shows signs of a persistent change after the 1980s. In the first part of this study, we examine how the ocean has …

Intermittent Turbulent Exchanges And Their Role In Vineyard Evapotranspiration, Sebastian Alexander Los

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Vineyards are often grown in semi-arid climates, such as California’s central valley, where water resources can be limited. Summer weather conditions result in high water use by these plants. For wine grapes, a high-value commodity, there are known benefits to fruit quality in irrigating grapevines with slightly below optimum for the plant. Growers would like to be able to precisely irrigate without overusing water or overstressing the vines. This calls for improving ways to monitor vineyard water use by estimating the combined soil evaporation and plant transpiration known as evapotranspiration (ET). A computer model developed by the USDA called the …

Spatio-Temporal Analysis Of Tree Ring Chronology And Precipitation, Ruizhe Yin

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Tree ring chronology data is known to reflect regional climate due to the strong impact of rainfall and temperature. Therefore, tree ring data can be used to reconstruct historical climate in order to understand how climate changed in the past and make prediction about the future behavior of the climate. For simplicity, this research only considers the influence of precipitation on tree ring growth within the New England area. A total of 94 measurement sites are used to record tree ring width over 881 years and corresponding precipitation data are given at some locations for 121 years. We developed a …

Analysis Of Hurricane Track Forecast Accuracy During The 2018 Season, Jonathan D. Unger

Pursuit - The Journal of Undergraduate Research at The University of Tennessee

Hurricane track forecasting has become more accurate in recent years due to technological advances in modeling methods. However, due to the complex nature of the relationship between oceanic and atmospheric variables and hurricane tracks, noteworthy errors in track prediction, especially for predictions several days into the future, still remain. In this study, two different methods of forecasting hurricane tracks are compared. Using the four United States landfalling hurricanes of the 2018 season as a sample, the official forecast tracks published by the National Hurricane Center (NHC) and hypothetical tracks based purely on climatology were mapped simultaneously with the preliminary best …

Odu Expert Invited To Testify At Legislative Hearing On Coastal Resilience, Sarah Huddle

News Items

No abstract provided.

Cmip5 Models' Ability To Capture Observed Trends Under The Influence Of Shifts And Persistence: An In-Depth Study On The Colorado River Basin, Kazi Ali Tamaddun, Ajay Kalra, Sanjiv Kumar, Sajjad Ahmad

Civil and Environmental Engineering and Construction Faculty Research

This study evaluated the ability of phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) to capture observed trends under the influence of shifts and persistence in their data distributions. A total of 41 temperature and 25 precipitation CMIP5 simulation models across 22 grid cells (2.5° × 2.5° squares) within the Colorado River basin were analyzed and compared with the Climate Research Unit Time Series (CRU-TS) observed datasets over a study period of 104 years (from 1901 to 2004). Both the modeled simulations and observations were tested for shifts, and the time series before and after the shifts were analyzed …

An Estimation Of Lower Tropospheric Mixing Derived From Inverse Modeling Of Boundary Layer Water Vapor Isotopologues On Graciosa Island, Azores, Jacquelyn M. Delp

Earth and Planetary Sciences ETDs

Recent studies have shown water vapor isotopologues to be sensitive tracers of mixing processes that govern low-cloud feedback in climate models. In this study, we develop an inverse model (MBL Mix inverse model) that uses one year of isotope and humidity observations from Graciosa Island, Azores to estimate mixing for four seasons. We show the dry end-member of the model, the lower free troposphere (LFT), can be represented using Rayleigh fractionation. Isotope observations from Graciosa Island are compared to other field locations to discuss controls on isotopic variability other than mixing. Output from the MBL Mix inverse model shows the …

Drought Analyses Of The Horn´E PoˇZitavie Region (Slovakia) In The Period 1966–2013, Jaroslav Vido, Paulina Nalevankova, Jan Valach, Zbysek Sustek, Tsegaye Tadesse

National Drought Mitigation Center: Faculty Publications

+is study focuses on the characterization of historical drought occurrences in the Horn´e Poˇzitavie region of Slovakia over the period 1966–2013 using Standardized Precipitation-Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI). Trend analyses were evaluated by the Mann–Kendall (MK) test as well as cumulative sum of rank difference (CRD) test. +e results showed that drought occurs in the region regularly (recurrent climate feature), while the trend analysis indicated the trend toward more arid climatic conditions. However, CRD trend analyses showed that the subtrend changed direction toward less drier conditions in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Analyses of SPEI trends in individual months showed a …

Evaluating Future Reservoir Storage In The Rio Grande Using Normalized Climate Projections And A Water Balance Model, Nolan T. Townsend

Earth and Planetary Sciences ETDs

We develop and implement new tools for assessing the future of surface water supplies in downstream reaches of the Rio Grande, for which Elephant Butte Reservoir is the major storage reservoir. First, a normalization procedure is developed to adjust natural Rio Grande streamflows simulated by dynamical models in downstream reaches. The normalization accounts for upstream anthropogenic impairments to flow that are not considered in the model, thereby yielding downstream flows closer to observed values and more appropriate for use in assessments of future flows in downstream reaches. The normalization is applied to assess the potential effects of climate change on …

Weather And Climate Summary And Forecast: July 2019 Report, Gregory V. Jones

Linfield University Wine Studies Reports

This report provides a summary of the weather and climate forecast for July 2019. It includes forecast information specific to the Pacific Northwest and the western United States, as well as forecast information for other portions of the United States and abroad.

An Estimation Of Lower Tropospheric Mixing Derived From Inverse Modeling Of Boundary Layer Water Vapor Isotopologues On Graciosa Island, Azores, Jacquelyn M. Delp

Earth and Planetary Sciences ETDs

Recent studies have shown water vapor isotopologues to be sensitive tracers of mixing processes that govern low-cloud feedback in climate models. In this study, we develop an inverse model (MBL Mix inverse model) that uses one year of isotope and humidity observations from Graciosa Island, Azores to estimate mixing for four seasons. We show the dry end-member of the model, the lower free troposphere (LFT), can be represented using Rayleigh fractionation. Isotope observations from Graciosa Island are compared to other field locations to discuss controls on isotopic variability other than mixing. Output from the MBL Mix inverse model shows the …

Sources And Chemical Stability Of Soil Organic Carbon Along A Salinity Gradient And A Chronosequence Of Created Brackish Marshes In Coastal Louisiana, Megan L. Kelsall

LSU Master's Theses

Tidal marshes have been recognized for providing a number of important ecological services including soil carbon sequestration. However, the loss of tidal marsh habitat due to climate change and anthropogenic stressors exposes previously stored soil organic carbon (SOC) to oxidation. The vulnerability of SOC to oxidation depends on its chemical stability and environmental conditions limiting decomposition. Labile organic carbon (LC), decomposes quickly unless abiotic conditions limit decomposition. Recalcitrant organic carbon (RC) decomposes slower and is stored for longer time periods. Predicting long-term storage of SOC is complicated by the potential for multiple SOC sources, differences in chemical stability, and variation …

The Prairie Post Quarterly Newsletter Of The High Plains Regional Climate Center- July 2019, Natalie Umphlett, Rezaul Mamood, Paul Flanagan, Emily Brown, Gannon Rush, Crystal J. Stiles

Prairie Post: Quarterly Newsletter of the High Plains Regional Climate Center

Inside this issue:

Message from the director........................................1

Staff spotlight...........................1

Spirit Lake workshop..............2

Product highlight....................3

Outreach events......................3

Research highlight..................4

Update on regional climate conditions..................................4

Northern Plains drought assessment................................5

Recent and upcoming travel and activities.............................6

Droughtscape, Fall 2019, Cory Matteson

DroughtScape: Quarterly Newsletter of the National Drought Mitigation Center (2007–2023)

Contents

From the Director

Quarterly drought summary

Quarterly drought impacts

Ranchers delayed response to drought

Drought Monitor celebrates 20 years

Drought Monitor state impact tables

Directorcontributesto U.N.droughtproject

Updated Drought Risk Atlas

New fact sheet lists recovery resources

The Evolution Of The El Niño-Southern Oscillation And Tropical Pacific Climate Across The Last Deglaciation, Ryan Hunter Glaubke

OES Theses and Dissertations

The El Niño – Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is the largest interannual component of Earth’s climate system, capable of exerting significant influence over global climate patterns that affect communities around the globe. Nevertheless, a comprehensive understanding of the ENSO system and its relationship to tropical Pacific climate dynamics remains unclear. Although new paleoceanographic proxies have shown promise in in their ability to constrain past ENSO change, little is known about how ENSO varied in response to millennial-scale climate events over the last 25,000 years. Here, I present new records of tropical Pacific mean state and ENSO variability over the last 25,000 …