Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology Commons^™

Structure Of The Atmosphere, Storm Project

Open Educational Resources

National Science Education Standards: As a result of activities in grades 5-8, all students should develop an understanding of: abilities necessary to do scientific inquiry, properties and changes of properties in matter, understandings about science and technology, and structure of the earth system.

Mid-Latitude Cyclones, Storm Project

Open Educational Resources

National Science Education Standards: As a result of activities in grades 5-8, all students should develop an understanding about scientific inquiry, structure of the earth system, and understandings about science and technology.

Fronts, Storm Project

Open Educational Resources

National Science Education Standards: As a result of activities in grades 5-8, all students should be able to develop an understanding about scientific inquiry, structure of earth system, and understandings about science and technology.

Precipitation Patterns, Storm Project

Open Educational Resources

Objective: Students will demonstrate the relationship between precipitation types and surface temperatures.They will use forecast maps to predict where snow or rain will fall over the next several days.

National Science Education Standards – As a result of activities in grades 5-8, all students should develop an
understanding of structure of the earth system.

Patterns Of Temperature, Storm Project

Open Educational Resources

Objectives:

1. Students will analyze temperature distributions on a map.
2. Students will compare and contrast temperature variations on a weather map.

National Science Standards: All students should develop an understanding of: structure of earth system, science and technology, risks and benefits, and science and technology in society.

Air Pressure And Weather, Storm Project

Open Educational Resources

Objective: Students will learn about relationships between air pressure and weather changes.

National Science Education Standards: As a result of activities in grades 5-8, all students should develop: understandings about scientific inquiry, structure of the earth system, and understanding about science and technology.

Decoding Metar Data, Storm Project

Open Educational Resources

Objectives: Students will decode a METAR report and convert the decoded METAR data to a station model plot.

National Science Education Standard: All students should develop an understanding of: abilities necessary to do scientific inquiry, properties and changes of properties in matter, understandings about science and technology, and structure of the earth system.

Weather Maps And Fronts, Storm Project

Open Educational Resources

Objective: Students will use symbol knowledge learned from previous lessons to read and understand warm and cold fronts on a weather map.

National Science Education Standards:
All students should develop an understanding of:
properties of earth materials and changes in earth
and sky.

Upper Air Plots, Storm Project

Open Educational Resources

Objectives: Students will study air patterns at three different levels of the troposphere.

National Science Education Standards: As a result of activities in grades 5-8, all students should develop an understanding of: abilities necessary to do scientific inquiry, properties and changes of properties in matter, understandings about science and technology, and structure of the earth system.

Do The Dewpoint!, Storm Project

Open Educational Resources

Objectives:
1.Students will observe examples of condensation and deposition.
2. Students will observe, record, and analyze data.

National Science Education Standards: All students should develop: abilities necessary to do scientific inquiry, properties of earth materials,and changes in earth and sky.

Reading Universal Time, Storm Project

Open Educational Resources

National Science Education Standards: As a result of activities in grades 5-8, all students should develop an understanding about science and technology, and science and technology in society.

Air Masses, Storm Project

Open Educational Resources

Objectives:
• Students will learn and become familiar with the four air masses: cold and dry; cold and humid; hot and dry; and hot and humid.
• Students will learn that air masses have specific characteristics: temperature and humidity, the leading edge of the air mass is called the front, a front is the boundary between two air masses, and movement of air masses brings certain weather conditions with it.

National Science Education Standards: All students should develop: abilities necessary to do scientific inquiry, properties of earth materials, and changes in earth and sky.

Winds Around Highs And Lows, Storm Project

Open Educational Resources

National Science Education Standards: As a result of activities in grades 5-8, all students should develop an understanding of motions and forces, structure of the earth system, and understandings about science and technology.

Reading And Using Meteograms, Storm Project

Open Educational Resources

Objectives:Students learn how hourly weather data is plotted on a meteogram, and how to interpret the data. They will relate meteogram data to surface weather maps.

National Science Education Standards: As a result of activities in grades 5-8, all students should develop an understanding of: abilities necessary to do scientific inquiry, properties and changes of properties in matter, understandings about science and technology, and structure of the earth system.

As a result of their activities in grades 9-12, all students should develop an understanding of Energy in the earth System: The sun is the major external source of energy; Heating …

Weather Station Plots, Storm Project

Open Educational Resources

Objectives:

•Students will learn basic weather symbols used on weather station plots
•Students will learn, read and interpret the symbols

National Science Education Standards: All students should develop an understanding of: properties of earth materials and changes in earth and sky.

Where Is It Hot Or Cold?, Storm Project

Open Educational Resources

Objective: Students will be able to access a web site that will allow them to understand temperature readings and patterns across the United States.

National Science Education Standard: As a result of their activities in grades K-4, all students should develop an understanding of: Properties of earth materials, objects in the sky, changes in earth and sky. Weather changes from day to day and over the seasons. Weather can be described by measurable quantities, such as temperature, wind direction and speed, and precipitation.

Drawing Isobars, Storm Project

Open Educational Resources

Objectives:
1. Students will be able to define and draw isobars to analyze air pressure variations.
2. Students will be able to identify highs and lows on the analyzed maps.

National Science Standards: As a result of activities in grades 5-8, all students should develop an understanding of: structure of earth system, science and technology, risks and benefits, and science and technology in society.

How Fast Does The Wind Blow?, Storm Project

Open Educational Resources

Objectives:
• The student will construct an anemometer and calculate the wind speed.
• The student will examine a weather map to determine wind speed and wind direction using the weather station model.

National Science Standards: All students should develop an understanding of:abilities necessary to do scientific inquiry, properties of objects and materials, position and motion of objects, properties of earth materials, and changes in earth and sky.

Agricultural Climatology, Kenneth G. Hubbard

High Plains Regional Climate Center: Staff Publications

With the diversification of the U.S. economy over the past century, agriculture has changed. We can say the farm sizes have increased over time, the number of farmers and those employed in farming have decreased over time, and as the economy has grown the relative contribution of agriculture to the total economy has decreased due to growth in other sectors. The farm prices have not changed significantly over many years while costs for energy, machinery, and land have generally increased. The combination of these factors has generally narrowed the profit margin and the highest productivity will no longer ensure the …

Droughtscape, Winter 2007, Kelly Smith

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

Subscribe Now!

Policy Update: NIDIS is Law. What’s Next?

What Would You Like to See?

TX, OK, Plains, Southwest Hardest Hit in 2006

Climatologically Speaking, How Bad Was It?

State Spotlight: Arizona

Drought Decision-Support Tools Evolving

The Fate Of Nitrogren Fixed By Diazotrophs In The Ocean, Margaret R. Mulholland

OES Faculty Publications

While we now know that N₂ fixation is a significant source of new nitrogen (N) in the marine environment, little is known about the fate of this N (and associated C), despite the importance of diazotrophs to global carbon and nutrient cycles. Specifically, does N fixed during N₂ fixation fuel autotrophic or heterotrophic growth and thus facilitate carbon (C) export from the euphotic zone, or does it contribute primarily to bacterial productivity and respiration in the euphotic zone? For Trichodesmium, the diazotroph we know the most about, the transfer of recently fixed N₂ (and C) appears …

Co2 Control Of Trichodesmium N-2 Fixation, Photosynthesis, Growth Rates, And Elemental Ratios: Implications For Past, Present, And Future Ocean Biogeochemistry, D. A. Hutchins, F.-X. Fu, Y. Zhang, M. E. Warner, Y. Feng, K. Portune, P. W. Bernhardt, M. R. Mulholland

OES Faculty Publications

Diazotrophic marine cyanobacteria in the genus Trichodesmium contribute a large fraction of the new nitrogen entering the oligotrophic oceans, but little is known about how they respond to shifts in global change variables such as carbon dioxide (CO₂) and temperature. We compared Trichodesmium dinitrogen (N₂) and CO₂ fixation rates during steady-state growth under past, current, and future CO₂ scenarios, and at two relevant temperatures. At projected CO₂ levels of year 2100 (76 Pa, 750 ppm), N₂ fixation rates of Pacific and Atlantic isolates increased 35-100%, and CO₂ fixation rates increased 15-128% …

Impact Of Anthropogenic Combustion Emissions On The Fractional Solubility Of Aeroosol Iron: Evidence From The Sargasso Sea, Peter N. Sedwick, Edward R. Sholkovitz, Thomas M. Church

OES Faculty Publications

We report empirical estimates of the fractional solubility of aerosol iron over the Sargasso Sea during periods characterized by high concentrations of Saharan dust (summer 2003) and by low concentrations of aerosols in North American/maritime North Atlantic air masses (spring 2004 and early summer 2004). We observed a strong inverse relationship between the operational solubility of aerosol iron (defined using a flow-through deionized-water leaching protocol) and the total concentration of aerosol iron, whereby the operational solubility of aerosol iron was elevated when total aerosol iron loadings were low. This relationship is consistent with source-dependent differences in the solubility characteristics of …

Interdecadal-Decadal Climate Variability From Multi-Coral Oxygen Isotope Records In The South Pacific Convergence Zone Region Since 1650ad, Peipei Zhang

Geology Theses and Dissertations

Annual average oxygen isotope (δ18O) time series from five coral cores collected from Fiji and Tonga are used to construct a Fiji-Tonga Interdecadal-Decadal Pacific Oscillation (F-TIDPO) index of low frequency (>9yr and <55yr) climate variability in this area back to 1650 A.D. Presently, both Fiji and Tonga are located in the South Pacific Convergence Zone (SPCZ) salinity front region where the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO) variation is most pronounced. We first demonstrate the consistency between this F-T IDPO index and a MSL pressure-based SPCZ Position Index (SPI) (1891-2000), thus verifying the ability of coral δ18O to record past interdecadal-decadal climatic variations in this region back to 1891. The F-T IDPO index is then shown to be synchronous with the IPO index (1856-2000), suggesting that this coral-based index effectively represents the interdecadal-decadal scale climate variance back to 1650. The consistently anti-phase spectrums of the F-T five-coral composite and the interdecadal-decadal components in equatorial Pacific coral δ18O series from Maiana [Urban et al., 2000] and Palmyra [Cobb et al., 2001] suggest that the simultaneous eastern expansion (western contraction) of the eastern salinity front of Western Pacific Warm Pool (WPWP) occurs at the same time as the northeast (southwest) movement of the SPCZ during a positive IPO (negative IPO) phase.

Possible Impacts Of Early-11th-, Middle-12th-, And Late-13th-Century Droughts On Western Native Americans And The Mississippian Cahokians, Larry V. Benson, Michael S. Berry, Edward A. Jolie, Jerry D. Spangler, David W. Stahle, Eugene M. Hattori

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

One or more of three intense and persistent droughts impacted some Native American cultures in the early-11th, middle-12th and late- 13th centuries, including the Anasazi, Fremont, Lovelock, and Mississippian (Cahokian) prehistorical cultures. Tree-ring-based reconstructions of precipitation and temperature indicate that warm drought periods occurred between AD 990 and 1060, AD 1135 and 1170, and AD 1276 and 1297. These droughts occurred during minima in the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and may have been associated with positive values of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation. Each of the Native American cultures was supported, to a greater or lesser degree, by precipitation-dependent resources. Both the …

Hydrologic Connectivity And The Contribution Of Stream Headwaters To Ecological Integrity At Regional Scales1, Mary C. Freeman, Catherine M. Pringle, C. Rhett Jackson

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

Cumulatively, headwater streams contribute to maintaining hydrologic connectivity and ecosystem integrity at regional scales. Hydrologic connectivity is the water-mediated transport of matter, energy and organisms within or between elements of the hydrologic cycle. Headwater streams compose over two-thirds of total stream length in a typical river drainage and directly connect the upland and riparian landscape to the rest of the stream ecosystem. Altering headwater streams, e.g., by channelization, diversion through pipes, impoundment and burial, modifies fluxes between uplands and downstream river segments and eliminates distinctive habitats. The large-scale ecological effects of altering headwaters are amplified by land uses that alter …

Butterfly Responses To Prairie Restoration Through Fire And Grazing, Jennifer A. Vogel, Diane M. Debinski, Rolf R. Koford, James R. Miller

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

The development of land for modern agriculture has resulted in losses of native prairie habitat. The small, isolated patches of prairie habitat that remain are threatened by fire suppression, overgrazing, and invasion by non-native species. We evaluated the effects of three restoration practices (grazing only, burning only, and burning and grazing) on the vegetation characteristics and butterfly communities of remnant prairies. Total butterfly abundance was highest on prairies that were managed with burning and grazing and lowest on those that were only burned. Butterfly species richness did not differ among any of the restoration practices. Butterfly species diversity was highest …

Societal Adaptation To Decadal Climate Variability In The United States, Norman J. Rosenberg, Vikram M. Mehta, J Rolf Olsen, Hans Von Storch, Robert G. Varady, Michael J. Hayes, Donald A. Wilhite

United States Army Corps of Engineers, Omaha District

The search for evidence of decadal climatic variability (DCV) has a very long history. In the past decade, a research community has coalesced around a series of roughly biennial workshops that have emphasized description of past DCV events; their causes and their "teleconnections" responsible for droughts, floods, and warm and cold spells around the world; and recently, the predictability of DCV events. Researchers studying climate change put great emphasis on prospective impacts, but the DCV community has yet to do so. To begin rectifying this deficiency, a short but ambitious workshop was convened in Waikoloa, near Kona, Hawaii, from 26-28 …

Evaluation And Comparison Of Gross Primary Production Estimates For The Northern Great Plains Grasslands, Li Zhang, Bruce K. Wylie, Thomas Loveland, Eugene A. Fosnight, Larry L. Tieszen, Lei Ji, Tagir G. Gilmanov

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

Two spatially-explicit estimates of gross primary production (GPP) are available for the Northern Great Plains. An empirical piecewise regression (PWR) GPP model was developed from flux tower measurements to map carbon flux across the region. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS) GPP model is a process-based model that uses flux tower data to calibrate its parameters. Verification and comparison of the regional PWR GPP and the global MODIS GPP are important for the modeling of grassland carbon flux. This study compared GPP estimates from PWR and MODIS models with five towers in the grasslands. Among them, PWR GPP and MODIS …

Simulations Of Phytoplankton Species And Carbon Production In The Equatorial Pacific Ocean 2. Effects Of Physical And Biogeochemical Processes, Baris Salihoglu, Eileen E. Hofmann

CCPO Publications

A one-dimensional multi-component lower trophic level ecosystem model that includes detailed algal physiology is used to investigate the response of phytoplankton community and carbon production and export to variations in physical and biochemical processes in the Cold Tongue region of the equatorial Pacific Ocean at ON, 140W. Results show that high-frequency variability in vertical advection and temperature is an important mechanism driving the carbon export. Filtering out low frequency physical forcing results in a 30% increase in primary production and dominance of high-light adapted Prochlorococcus and autotrophic eukaryotes. Sensitivity studies show that iron availability is the primary control on carbon …