Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology Commons^™

Tellings Of The Pacific Ocean: A Landscape-Based Approach For Multispecies Design And Hci, Maliheh Ghajargar

Engineering Faculty Articles and Research

Environmental disturbances induced by climate change have caused significant changes in our ecosystems and are threatening the health of our environments. As a response to this issue, a growing body of work has emerged in HCI and design, which seeks to foreground more-than-human stories in support of making more sustainable and just futures. This research contributes to this broad agenda by probing graphic novels as a multispecies storytelling method for design and HCI. Combining ideas from Anna Tsing’s adventures of landscape and from HCI and design’s use of sequential art (e.g., storyboards), we use landscape as the main protagonist of …

Land Instability Compounds The Risk Of Sea Level Rise In Alexandria, Egypt, Rejoice Thomas, Sara Zouriq, Shahryar Fazli, Amr Fawzy, Nikolay Grisel Todorov, Surendra Maharjan, Wenzhao Li, Erik Linstead, Daniele Struppa, Hesham El-Askary

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

The coastal region of Alexandria Governorate in Egypt holds significant strategic importance for trade while being susceptible to extreme weather events. It confronts a dual challenge of the rising sea levels and, as found in this study, land instability. While much attention has been rightly directed towards sea level rise (SLR), the stability of the land warrants equal consideration. Here, a comprehensive analysis of land stability is conducted in Alexandria by measuring Line of Sight (LOS) displacements and assessing their topographical, hydrological, and coastal impacts. Persistent Scatterer Interferometry technique is used to measure the LOS displacements in association with land …

Unveiling The Vital Role Of Blue Carbon In Mangroves: Understanding Environmental Influences, Jahnelle Howe

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Mangrove ecosystems provide essential ecological services, including carbon sequestration, coastal protection, and heavy metal retention. However, their resilience and functionality are increasingly influenced by hurricanes, climate variability, and anthropogenic contamination. This dissertation integrates three research efforts examining mangrove canopy dynamics, carbon storage, and heavy metal contamination in two Puerto Rican mangrove systems: La Parguera and Laguna Grande.

Using remote sensing techniques (LiDAR and NDVI analysis), we assessed the impact of Hurricane Maria (Category 4, 2017) on mangrove canopy structure and vegetation health. Results revealed significant canopy height loss, with greater damage at Laguna Grande, where pre-storm canopy height and human …

Integrating A Stakeholder-Centric Approach Into Dynamic Adaptation Policy Pathways For Equitable Coastal Flood Risk Management In East Boston, Shailee M. Desai

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

This research aims to illustrate a methodology incorporating diverse stakeholder values in adaptation planning to promote equitable outcomes using a hypothetical case study of the Lower Border Street area in East Boston, using the Dynamic Adaptive Policy Pathways (DAPP) framework for managing coastal flood risk. It offers three significant contributions to the field of adaptation planning: (i) It demonstrates how to integrate a stakeholder-specific assessment within the DAPP framework and illustrates individual impacts to a variety of stakeholders, including high- and low-income residents, commercial actors, government actors, and coastal landowners hoping that the planning process remains transparent and motivates local …

Dry And Wet Deposition Of Atmospheric Microplastics In Las Vegas, Nevada, Laine Adame

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Plastics have been one of the most widely used man-made materials since their inception, and production is expected to grow by five percent every year. Plastic waste has become a growing global environmental issue. Primary MPs are plastics that are created to be intentionally tiny for their specific functional purpose. Secondary microplastics (MPs) are byproducts of plastic waste occurring due to the breakdown of larger plastics resulting in the presence and accumulation of MPs in the environment. MPs are defined as tiny particles of plastic between 5 mm and 1 μm in size. MPs have been found in the deep …

Evaluation Of Topographic Effect Parameterizations In Weather Research And Forecasting Model Over Complex Mountainous Terrain In Wildfire-Prone Regions, Yonghan Jo, Seung Hee Kim, Yungon Lee, Changki Kim, Jinkyu Hong, Junhong Lee, Keunchang Jang

Institute for ECHO Articles and Research

Recent trends of intense forest fires in the Korean Peninsula have increased concerns about more extreme burning in the future under a warming climate. Accurate and reliable fire weather information has become more critical to reduce the risk of forest-related disasters over complex terrain. In this study, two parameterizations reflecting complex topographic effects were implemented in the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. The model performance was evaluated over the mountainous region in Gangwon-do, South Korea’s most significant forest area. The simulation results of the wildfire case in 2019 show that subgrid-scale orographic parameterization considerably improves model performance regarding wind …

Patterns In Tropical Cyclone Intensity And Frequency Since 1960, Ramie E. Thompson

Student Scholarship

Tropical cyclones, also known as hurricanes or typhoons, are defined as organized storm systems that form in the warm waters around the equator (NOAA, 2024). This happens due to the combination of warm waters, light winds, and preexisting weather conditions. In the last 50 years, tropical cyclones have accounted for approximately 800,000 deaths and an economic loss of $1.4 trillion USD due to their resulting damages (WMO, 2024). Research in this field includes studies that encompass a variety of time scales including from 85 to 150 years on a global or regional level and studies that focus on more recent …

Climate Constrains The Enhancement Of Co2 Fertilization On Forest Gross Primary Productivity, Xinyuan Wei, Daniel J. Hayes, Christopher R. Schwalm, Joshua B. Fisher, Deborah N. Huntzinger, Lei Ma, Rodrigo Vargas, Nathaniel A. Brunsell

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

Forest gross primary production (GPP) is influenced by the interplay between climate conditions and atmospheric CO₂ levels, which interact in complex ways, generating both compensating and amplifying effects. In this study, eddy covariance flux measurements from 50 forest ecosystems were integrated with simulations from 14 terrestrial biosphere models to investigate how climate conditions and atmospheric CO₂ concentrations regulate forest GPP. This approach bridges site-level observations with biome-scale model estimates to develop a global understanding. Our findings suggest that in boreal and cold temperate regions, temperature primarily constrains the enhancement of the CO₂ fertilization on forest GPP; however, …

Monitoring Mangrove Dynamics And Evaluating Future Afforestation Potential In The Egyptian Red Sea, Rasha M. Abou Samra, Mansour Almazroui, Wenzhao Li, Hesham El-Askary

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

Mangrove forests are vital for ecosystem services and coastal management but face stressors from anthropogenic activities and climate change. This study estimates the extent and afforestation potential of mangroves along the Egyptian Red Sea coast from 1984 to 2022 using NDVI derived from Landsat-5 and Sentinel-2 data in Google Earth Engine. Aboveground biomass (AGB), belowground biomass (BGB), carbon (C) stock, and CO₂ sequestration potential were evaluated using Sentinel-2 and elevation data. Future afforestation suitability (2020–2050) under SSP2-4.5 and SSP5-8.5 scenarios was assessed with the MaxEnt model. Mangrove area increased from 0.95 km² in 1984 to 1.46 km^{2 …}

Environmental And Societal Impacts Of Agricultural Land Abandonment In Indonesia: A Bibliometric Review, Jane A. Landrum

Geosciences Undergraduate Honors Theses

In the past decades, Southeast Asia has faced one of the highest urbanization rates globally, with land conversion, agricultural land abandonment, and deforestation occurring simultaneously. High population growth rates and migration away from rural areas have also led to increased food insecurity, which has increased the need for agricultural production. In Indonesia, high rates of urbanization on the island of Java have historically prompted governmental policy solutions aimed at population redistribution and agricultural extensification (rather than intensification). The cost of this conversion of lands to agriculture often falls on the environment, with peatlands and forested lands being converted to large-scale …

The Influence Of Complex Terrain On The Turin, New York Tornado Of 2023, Alex D. Kramer

Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences Honors Program

Although uncommon as compared to other regions of the United States, the Northeast does experience significant tornados; those rated F/EF3 and above, of which some have had profound impacts on the region. Due to the diverse topography of the region, including its many northsouth oriented river valleys, most of these significant tornados traversed considerable changes in elevation throughout their lifetime. This study seeks to better understand the impacts of local topography on the intensity and overall progression of a significant tornadic event through using the most recent Northeast EF3: the Turin, NY tornado. With the consideration of previous studies involving …

Optimizing Nitrogen Management: Assessing Nitrate Transport In The Deep Vadose Zone And Its Impact On Groundwater Quality In East-Central Nebraska, Muili O. Lawal

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Groundwater contamination by nitrate (NO₃-N) is a growing environmental and public health concern driven largely by intensive agricultural fertilizer applications. The vadose zone plays an important role in NO₃-N transport, influencing groundwater quality and agricultural sustainability. This study investigated NO₃-N leaching dynamics in the deep vadose zone of Water Quality Sub-Area 30 (WQA30) within the Lower Loup Natural Resources District (LLNRD), northeast of Columbus, Nebraska (mean groundwater NO₃-N: 20.3 mg/L), using soil cores from 16 shallow (to 6.1 m) and four deep (down to 25.9 m) across four zones, two with inorganic fertilizer (Zones 1 and 4) and two with …

Assessment Of Sampling Gears For Bigheaded Carp In Mid-Order Prairie Rivers In Nebraska, Brett M. Anderson

School of Natural Resources: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Silver Carp Hypophthalmichthys molitrix and Bighead Carp H. nobilis (collectively bigheaded carp) have invaded tributaries to the Missouri River and Platte River in Nebraska, USA. Information pertaining to efficient sampling protocols for assessing bigheaded carp populations as well as benefiting removal efforts is needed. Herding is a method used to increase the capture efficiency and detection probability of adult bigheaded carp by simultaneously using active and passive sampling gears. During June-July 2023, four herding techniques were assessed regarding their ability to elicit directional movement past an enclosure gate. The combination of sound and electrofishing resulted in the highest mean …

Community Voices, Climate Action Choices: Working Towards A Resilient Monterey County, Lesley A. Solano Alonso

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Vulnerable communities in Monterey County face disproportionate environmental and health impacts due to climate change, yet many residents remain unaware of the tools and resources available to support local action. This capstone project was implemented in partnership with Ecology Action (EA) and the Resilient Central Coast (RCC) campaign to increase awareness and engagement with the RCC platform. Serving diverse communities across Monterey County, the project included bilingual outreach efforts, community tabling, educational presentations, and a climate action survey. Over 650 residents were engaged directly, resulting in 99 new household sign-ups on the RCC website, a major milestone for the agency. …

The Petm: A Window Into Earth's Future Climate, Jacalyn M. Wittmer Malinowski

Climate Change and the Individual, 2025-26

The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) is not just an event that occurred in Earth’s distant past (~55 million years ago) but is a crucial lesson for today’s meteoric climate change. The PETM offers a historical parallel of rapid flux of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere that caused global warming, ocean acidification, dramatic changes in weather, and extinctions. This global warming event was the result of 20,000 years of “rapid” warming (in geological terms) however, we are experiencing rates of warming that are 5-10x higher than PETM levels. We are not experiencing rapid warming today, in comparison to the past, we …

The Human Legacy: Agriculture, Civilizations, Strife, And Pandemics Changing Our Climate, Jacalyn M. Wittmer Malinowski

Climate Change and the Individual, 2025-26

For most of human history, climate has shaped our lives, while our influence on it remained minimal. However, the notion that early humans had no measurable impact on the climate before industrialization is inaccurate. Early in human history, activities – such as the rise of agriculture, the growth of civilizations, periods of conflict, and pandemics – altered greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere. These changes contributed to significant periods of climate change long before the burning of fossil fuels set us on the path to today’s global climate crisis.

Towards Advancing Streamflow And Peak Flow Prediction With Machine Learning: Identifying Infrastructure At Risk, Sudan Pokharel

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

Due to climate change and its impact, the need for adaptive strategies for natural disaster mitigation and resource management has never been more urgent. Central to this is water resource management, which is essential for sustainable human activities, ecological balance, and the mitigation of natural hazards like floods. Streamflow is a crucial element of water resource management and plays a vital role in planning and building water infrastructure, implementing emergency response plans, supporting flood mitigation initiatives, and regulating agricultural and industrial use. However, accurate prediction of streamflow still remains a challenge due to the complex non-linear and non-stationary interaction between …

Trends And Transport Of Tropospheric Ozone From New York City To Connecticut In The Summer Of 2023, Michele Iraci

Honors Scholar Theses

Tropospheric Ozone, or O3, is a criteria pollutant contributing to most of Connecticut and New York City’s poor air quality days. It has adverse effects on human health, particularly for high-risk individuals. Ozone is produced by nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds from fuel combustion reacting with sunlight. The Ozone Transport Region (OTR) is a collection of states in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic United States that experience cross-state pollution of O3. Connecticut has multiple days a year where O3 values exceed the National Ambient Air Quality Standards, requiring additional monitoring and standards because it falls in the OTR— partially due …

Global Ocean Bottom Temperature Observation Design: Observing System Simulation Experiments For Strategic Deployment Of Smart Subsea Cables, Karen E. Renninger-Rojas

LSU Master's Theses

Deep-ocean observations below 2000 meters remain limited, restricting our ability to model global ocean processes critical to climate prediction. This thesis evaluates the potential of SMART (Science Monitoring and Reliable Telecommunications) subsea cables to address these observational gaps by conducting Observing System Simulation Experiments (OSSEs) and adjoint sensitivity analyses using the MITgcm ocean model and ECCO outputs.

Vertical decorrelation analysis showed that temperature and salinity in key regions decouple from the upper ocean beyond 2000 m. Over 60% of the proposed SMART cable sites exhibited decorrelation depths exceeding Argo’s maximum sampling depth, highlighting their strategic value for deployment.

A comparison …

Innovative Machine Learning, Isotopic, And Hydrogeochemical Techniques For Groundwater Analysis In Arid Landscapes In Egypt’S Eastern Desert, Saad Ahmed Mohallel, Hesham Morgan, Ali Elgendy, Surendra Maharjan, Shahryar Fazli, Wenzhao Li, Rejoice Thomas, Hesham El-Askary

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

Groundwater serves as a lifeline in Egypt’s hyper-arid Eastern Desert, particularly for agricultural and domestic uses. However, a comprehensive understanding of groundwater origin, quality, and recharge dynamics in the region remains limited due to geological complexity, data scarcity, and the high cost of isotopic analysis. This study addresses these challenges by integrating stable isotopes (δ¹⁸O and δ²H), hydrogeochemical parameters, remote sensing, and explainable artificial intelligence (AI) to investigate groundwater dynamics and support sustainable water management strategies. A total of 34 groundwater samples were collected from three key aquifers: the Quaternary alluvium, Nubian Sandstone, and fractured Basement aquifers. Hydrochemical analyses and …

How Potential Is Potential Evapotranspiration For Representing Droughts In The Western U.S.?, Adison Davis, Grace Affram, Cody Ratterman

Student Research Symposium

The U.S. Drought Monitor (USDM) identifies areas in drought and labels them by severity.

08 - Blue Carbon Sequestration And Sediment Storage In Seagrass Meadows Of South Bay, Luke C. Clements, Adriana Amrhein, Richard P. Hale

Undergraduate Research Symposium

Blue carbon is stored in coastal and marine ecosystems like seagrass meadows and salt marshes, which helps combat climate change by preventing greenhouse gas emissions. This study examines the role of seagrass in carbon storage by comparing sediment cores from a mud channel and a seagrass meadow in South Bay.

We collected a 100 cm core from the mud channel and a 55 cm core from the seagrass area, taking samples every 10 cm to analyze grain size and organic carbon content. Using a wet sieving method, we separated sand from mud and measured organic carbon through loss on ignition. …

Intraspecific Variation In Morphological And Biochemical Responses To Salinity And Flooding In Phragmites Australis, Olivia Hurley

LSU Master's Theses

Phragmites australis is a widespread wetland plant species with numerous haplotypes, several of which are highly invasive. In low-lying coastal marshes of Louisiana, the Delta-type (haplotype M1) dominates across a wide range of salinity and flooding environments. This suggests that Phragmites may be highly adaptable to diverse environmental conditions and that there may be a genetic component, as seen in other coastal wetland plant species. While non-native Phragmites haplotypes are targeted for control and removal in many areas, they are considered beneficial for marsh stabilization and contributing to elevation gain in coastal Louisiana, where several areas experience rapid land loss. …

Water Holding Capacity Of Soil And Resilience To Drought, Taro Mieno

Cornhusker Economics

For the past two years, I have been involved in an NSF-funded research project titled “RII Track-2 FEC: Supporting Rural Livelihoods in the Water-Stressed Central High Plains.” The overarching goal of this project is to evaluate the potential of microbials and biochar to enhance soil water holding capacity (hereafter, WHC), thereby improving drought resilience in crop production and reducing irrigation demand to slow aquifer depletion. Visit the project website for more details. A key component of this research is assessing the economic viability of these interventions, a task for which I am responsible.

To understand the economic benefits of increasing …

Development And Application Of Self-Supervised Machine Learning For Smoke Plume And Active Fire Identification From The Fire Influence On Regional To Global Environments And Air Quality Datasets, Nicholas Lahaye, Anastasija Easley, Kyongsik Yun, Hugo Lee, Erik Linstead, Michael J. Garay, Olga V. Kalashnikova

Engineering Faculty Articles and Research

Fire Influence on Regional to Global Environments and Air Quality (FIREX-AQ) was a field campaign aimed at better understanding the impact of wildfires and agricultural fires on air quality and climate. The FIREX-AQ campaign took place in August 2019 and involved two aircraft and multiple coordinated satellite observations. This study applied and evaluated a self-supervised machine learning (ML) method for the active fire and smoke plume identification and tracking in the satellite and sub-orbital remote sensing datasets collected during the campaign. Our unique methodology combines remote sensing observations with different spatial and spectral resolutions. With as much as a 10% …

Changes In The Western Flank Of The North Atlantic Subtropical High Since 1140 Ce: Extremes, Drivers, And Hydroclimatic Patterns, Joshua C. Bregy, Justin T. Maxwell, Scott M. Robeson, Grant L. Harley, Valerie Trouet

Publications

Summer circulation and moisture patterns in the Southeast United States are controlled by the position of the North Atlantic subtropical high. In a warming climate, the subtropical high is projected to strengthen and expand west, but there remains uncertainty regarding its variability and linkages to natural drivers. Here, we use a tree-ring network across the Southeast United States to reconstruct the relative intensity of the pressure gradient across the subtropical high’s western flank over the past 870 years. Variations in the flank’s position and the pressure gradient have been a major driver of the hydroclimate—including creating a Southeast-Caribbean moisture dipole—since …

Innovative Soil Classification Approach For Achieving Global Biodiversity Framework Utilizing Integrated Data Fusion Of Emit And Multispectral Satellite Observations: Case Study Of Imam Turki Bin Abdullah Royal Reserve, Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia, Hesham Morgan, Ali Elgendy, Surendra Maharjan, Wenzhao Li, Tamer Ismail, Yehya Kh. Shehadeh, Ahmed Elgharib, Ahmed Abdullah Al-Dughairi, Ali El Muburak, Khaled Allam Harhash, Hesham El-Askary

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

Soil classification is essential for sustainable land management, ecological conservation, and combating desertification, particularly in arid and semi-arid regions. This study integrates hyperspectral data from the Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation (EMIT) and multispectral imagery from Sentinel-2 to achieve accurate soil classification for the Imam Turki bin Abdullah Royal Reserve (ITBA) in Saudi Arabia. Using advanced Machine Learning (ML) techniques, including Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost), the study highlights the power of data fusion in addressing the limitations of standalone remote sensing methods. The integration of hyperspectral and multispectral data combines the spectral richness of hyperspectral imaging with the spatial …

Western Australia’S Marine Heatwave Update - 27 March 2025, Department Of Primary Industries And Regional Development, Western Australia, Arani Chandrapavan

Marine Heatwave Notification Reports

No abstract provided.

Transcriptional Profiles Reveal Physiological Mechanisms For Compensation During A Simulated Marine Heatwave In Yellowtail Kingfish (Seriola Lalandi), Sharon E. Hook, Ryan J. Farr, Jenny Su, Alistair J. Hobday, Catherine Wingate, Lindsey Woolley, Luke Pilmer

Fisheries Research Articles

Background

Changing ocean temperatures are already causing declines in populations of marine organisms. Predicting the capacity of organisms to adjust to the pressures posed by climate change is a topic of much current research effort, particularly for species we farm or harvest. To explore one measure of phenotypic plasticity, the physiological compensations in response to heat stress as might be experienced in a marine heatwave, we exposed Yellowtail Kingfish (Seriola lalandi) to sublethal heat stress, and used the transcriptome in gill and muscle, benchmarked against heat shock proteins and oxidative stress indicators, to characterise the acute heat stress …

Predicting Precipitation And Ndvi Utilization Of The Multi-Level Linear Mixed-Effects Model And The Ca-Markov Simulation Model, Fatima Belhaj, Hlila Rachid, Ouallali Abdessalam, Aqil Tariq, Belkendil Abdeldjalil, Beroho Mohamed, Hassan Alzahrani, Hajra Mustafa, Hesham El-Askary

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

The current work intends to reconstruct the spatiotemporal evolution of precipitation and the Normalized Differentiate Vegetation Index (NDVI) in the Loukkos watershed and provide scenarios for their recent and future evolution, therefore determining the degree of association. We conducted a study on the time series data of precipitation and NDVI from 1999 to 2019. The NDVI prediction is conducted using the CA-Markov model and the linear mixed-effects multi-level model (LME) with precipitation data from 2019 to 2040. The CA-Markov model was employed to predict the vegetation indices for 2029 and 2040 using 1999, 2009, and 2019 data. The model simulates …