Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology Commons^™

The Influence Of Arctic Amplification On Mid-Latitude Summer Circulation, Dim Coumou, Giorgia Di Capua, Steve Vavrus, Lei Wang, Shih-Yu (Simon) Wang

Plants, Soils, and Climate Faculty Publications

Accelerated warming in the Arctic, as compared to the rest of the globe, might have profound impacts on mid-latitude weather. Most studies analyzing Arctic links to mid-latitude weather focused on winter, yet recent summers have seen strong reductions in sea-ice extent and snow cover, a weakened equator-to-pole thermal gradient and associated weakening of the mid-latitude circulation. We review the scientific evidence behind three leading hypotheses on the influence of Arctic changes on mid-latitude summer weather: Weakened storm tracks, shifted jet streams, and amplified quasi-stationary waves. We show that interactions between Arctic teleconnections and other remote and regional feedback processes could …

Natural And Managed Watersheds Show Similar Responses To Recent Climate Change, Darren L. Ficklin, John T. Abatzoglou, Scott M. Robeson, Sarah E. Null, Jason H. Knouft

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

Changes in climate are driving an intensification of the hydrologic cycle and leading to alterations of natural streamflow regimes. Human disturbances such as dams, land-cover change, and water diversions are thought to obscure climate signals in hydrologic systems. As a result, most studies of changing hydroclimatic conditions are limited to areas with natural streamflow. Here, we compare trends in observed streamflow from natural and human-modified watersheds in the United States and Canada for the 1981–2015 water years to evaluate whether comparable responses to climate change are present in both systems. We find that patterns and magnitudes of trends in median …

Influence Of Global Atmospheric Circulation Variations On Weather And Climate Extremes, Yen-Heng Lin

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Global warming and climate change deeply influence weather and climate extremes, causing substantial property damage and loss every year around the world. Given the importance of heating differences between low-latitude and Arctic regions, which produce heat sources and cold sources that each influence global circulations, we investigate three extreme weather events in different regions in order to better understand the possible connections between extreme events and global circulation changes.

This study begins with climate variations in the low-latitude western North Pacific. In early summer, the timing of the wet season has shifted from late May to early June since 1979. …

Towards The Prediction Of Climate Extremes With Attribution Analysis Through Climate Diagnostics And Modeling: Cases From Asia To North America, Boniface Opoku Fosu

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This project summarizes the findings of research organized in two parts. The first involved the characterization of changes in the variability of climate that lead to extreme events. The second focused on the predictability of extreme climate on time-scales ranging from short forecast lead-times to long-lead climate predictions exceeding a year.

Initial studies focused on three interrelated, yet regionally unique extreme climate phenomena. First, the relationship between increasing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and particulate matter (PM) concentration in basin terrain was investigated. Next, we evaluated changes in large-scale atmospheric circulation associated with two climate phenomena at either extreme side of …

Ocean Impacts On Australian Interannual To Decadal Precipitation Variability, Zachary F. Johnson, Yoshimitsu Chikamoto, Jing-Jia Luo, Takashi Mochizuki

Plants, Soils, and Climate Faculty Publications

In Australia, successful seasonal predictions of wet and dry conditions are achieved by utilizing the remote impact of sea surface temperature (SST) variability in tropical oceans, particularly the Pacific Ocean, on the seasonal timescale. Beyond seasonal timescales, however, it is still unclear which processes and oceans contribute to interannual-to-decadal wet/dry conditions in Australia. This research examines the interannual-to-decadal relationship between global SST anomalies (SSTAs) and Australian wet/dry variability by analyzing observational data and global climate model experiments conducted with the NCAR Community Earth System Model (CESM) and the Model for Interdisciplinary Research on Climate (MIROC). A 10-member ensemble simulation suite …

Calibration Parameter Selection And Watershed Hydrology Model Evaluation In Time And Frequency Domains, Karthik Kumarasamy, Patrick Belmont

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

Watershed scale models simulating hydrological and water quality processes have advanced rapidly in sophistication, process representation, flexibility in model structure, and input data. With calibration being an inevitable step prior to any model application, there is need for a simple procedure to assess whether or not a parameter should be adjusted for calibration. We provide a rationale for a hierarchical selection of parameters to adjust during calibration and recommend that modelers progress from parameters that are most uncertain to parameters that are least uncertain, namely starting with pure calibration parameters, followed by derived parameters, and finally measured parameters. We show …

Seasonal Propagation Characteristics Of Mstids Observed At High Latitudes Over Central Alaska Using The Poker Flat Incoherent Scatter Radar, Michael R. Negale, Michael J. Taylor, M. J. Nicolls, Sharon L. Vadas, Kim Nielsen, Craig J. Heinselman

Publications

Near‐continuous electron density measurements obtained over a ∼3 year period, 2010–2013, using the Poker Flat Incoherent Scatter Radar (PFISR) in central Alaska (69°N, 147°W) have been analyzed to quantify the properties of over 650 high‐latitude medium‐scale traveling ionospheric disturbances (MSTIDs). Our analysis focused on the altitude range 100–300 km encompassing the lower ionosphere/thermosphere and yielded first full seasonal day/night distributions of MSTIDs at high northern latitudes with mean values: horizontal wavelength 446 km, horizontal phase speed 187 m/s, and period 41 min. These year‐round measurements fill an important summertime gap in existing MSTID measurements revealing predominantly eastward wave propagation during …

The Relationship Between Measures Of Annual Livestock Disturbance In Western Riparian Areas And Stream Conditions Important To Trout, Salmon, And Char, Lindsey M. Goss, Brett B. Roper

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

Managing livestock disturbance in riparian zones in a manner that provides economic returns to ranchers while protecting streams is an important aspect of rangeland management on public lands in the western United States. Attempts to balance economic and ecologic outcomes have been made more difficult due to the presence of several salmonid species that are protected under the Endangered Species Act. One approach to proper management of livestock use near streams has been to define the allowable limits of disturbance using 2 metrics, streambank alteration and stubble height. We evaluated 153 stream reaches within the Interior Columbia Basin to determine …

Regional Trends In Early-Monsoon Rainfall Over Vietnam And Ccsm4 Attribution, Rong Li, S.-Y. Simon Wang, Robert R. Gillies, Brendan Buckley, Jin-Ho Yoon, Changrae Cho

Plants, Soils, and Climate Faculty Publications

The analysis of precipitation trends for Vietnam revealed that early-monsoon precipitation has increased over the past three decades but to varying degrees over the northern, central and southern portions of the country. Upon investigation, it was found that the change in early-monsoon precipitation is associated with changes in the low-level cyclonic airflow over the South China Sea and Indochina that is embedded in the large-scale atmospheric circulation associated with a “La Niña-like” anomalous sea surface temperature pattern with warming in the western Pacific and Indian Oceans and cooling in the eastern Pacific. The Community Climate System Model version 4 (CCSM4) …

Multidecadal Variability In The Subseasonal Peak Of Low-Level Convergence Over The Pacific Warm Pool, Yen-Heng Lin, Shih-Yu (Simon) Wang

Plants, Soils, and Climate Faculty Publications

In the Western North Pacific (WNP), the atmospheric low-level convergence is one of the main factors that influences the genesis of tropical cyclones (TC). It has been observed that the timing of the seasonal maxima in the low-level convergence and TC genesis has shifted since the mid-1990s from mid-August to late-July, with this shift having also affected the number of TC. A multidecadal frequency of 20 years was revealed in the timing variation of the tropical intraseasonal oscillation (ISO) in the Western Pacific, in which a weak WNP low-level convergence in spring may trigger an advanced ISO phase in summer …

Data From: Polar Topside Ionosphere During Geomagnetic Storms: Comparison Of Isis-Ii With Tdim, Jan J. Sojka, Dan Rice, Michael David, Robert W. Schunk, Robert Benson, H. G. James

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Output files from runs of the TDIM ionospheric model used for calculations and electron density profiles from ISIS-II and TDIM used in figures in the article in Radio Science.

Mesospheric Densities And Temperatures Derived From 11 Years Of Data Acquired With The Rayleigh-Scatter Lidar At The Atmospheric Lidar Observatory At Utah State University, Vincent B. Wickwar, Joshua P. Herron

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Frequent observations were carried out with the Rayleigh-scatter lidar at Utah State University’s Atmospheric Lidar Observatory (41.742572° N, 111.808273° W, and 1466 m) from August 1993 through December 2004. Of 964 nights observed, a total of 839 nights were judged good for deriving temperatures. These 839 were reduced to obtain all-night relative neutral densities and absolute temperatures. These results extend from 45 to ≤ 95 km, thereby covering the mesosphere. This netCDF file starts by giving the number of nights included in the file. For each night, the netCDF file then provides defining parameters and derived profiles, as defined below. …

Unexpected Occurrence Of Mesospheric Frontal Gravity Wave Events Over South Pole (90°S), Pierre-Dominique Pautet, Michael J. Taylor, J. B. Snively, Christina Solorio

Publications

Since 2010, Utah State University has operated an infrared Advanced Mesospheric Temperature Mapper at the Amundsen–Scott South Pole station to investigate the upper atmosphere dynamics and temperature deep within the vortex. A surprising number of “frontal” gravity wave events (86) were recorded in the mesospheric OH(3,1) band intensity and rotational temperature images (typical altitude of ~87 km) during four austral winters (2012–2015). These events are gravity waves (GWs) characterized by a sharp leading wave front followed by a quasi-monochromatic wave train that grows with time. A particular subset of frontal gravity wave events has been identified in the past (Dewan …

Mid-Latitude Climatologies Of Mesospheric Temperature And Geophysical Temperature Variability Determined With The Rayleigh-Scatter Lidar At Alo-Usu, Joshua P. Herron, Vincent B. Wickwar

All Physics Faculty Publications

From 1993-2004, 839 nights were observed with the Rayleigh-scatter lidar at Utah State University’s Atmospheric Lidar Observatory. They were reduced to obtain nighttime mesospheric temperatures between 45 and ~90 km, which were then combined to derive composite annual climatologies of mid-latitude temperatures and geophysical temperature variability. At 45 km, near the stratopause, there is a ~250 K temperature minimum in mid-winter and a 273 K maximum in mid-May. The variability behaves oppositely, being 7-10 K in winter and 2.5 K in summer. At 85 km, there is a 215 K temperature maximum at the end of December and a 170 …

Non-Methane Hydrocarbon Source Apportionment And Btex Risk Assessment Of Winter 2015 In Roosevelt, Utah, Jerimiah Lamb

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Non-Methane Hydrocarbons (NMHC) monitored in Roosevelt Utah including Benzene, Toluene, Ethylbenzene and Xylene (collectively known as BTEX) are associated with deleterious effects including cancer. This study was designed to assess the origin and effect of the toxicants and addressed two points: 1) Source identification using the USEPA’s Positive Matrix Factorization (PMF) and NOAA’s Hybrid Single Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory (HYSPLIT) model and 2) A human health risk assessment based on ambient concentrations of BTEX collected at the Roosevelt site. Model fit indicated that the primary contributor to total NMHCs was local oil and gas operations and was supported by previous …

Usu Rayleigh-Scatter Lidar 2014-2015 Nightly Temperatures, Leda Sox, Vincent B. Wickwar, Tao Yuan

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Temperatures from a collocated Rayleigh-scatter lidar (RSL) and sodium resonance lidar were compared night-by-night, at different altitude levels, and hour-by-hour.

Three zipped files are provided.

USU RSL 2014-2015 [O] Corrected Temperatures.zip contains 36 files, one per night and hour, in RSLHourlyTemperaturesYYYYMMDDhour#.txt filename format.

USU RSL 2014-2015 Hourly Temperatures.zip contains 36 files, one per night and hour, in RSLHourlyTemperaturesYYYYMMDDhour#.txt filename format.

USU RSL 2014-2015 Nightly Temperatures.zip contains 19 files, one per night, in RSLTemperaturesYYYYMMDD.txt filename format.

Apathy And Concern Over The Future Habitability Of Earth: An Introductory College Assignment Of Forecasting Co2 In The Earth’S Atmosphere, Benjamin J. Burger

Journal on Empowering Teaching Excellence

Non-science, first year regional undergraduate students from rural Utah communities participated in an online introductory geology course and were asked to forecast the rise of CO₂ in the Earth’s atmosphere. The majority of students predicted catastrophic rise to 5,000-ppm sometime over the next 3,100 years, resulting in an atmosphere nearly uninhabitable to human life. However, the level of concern the students exhibited in their answers was not directly proportional with their timing in their forecasted rise of CO₂. This study showcases the importance of presenting students with actual data and using data to develop student forecasted models. …

Does Strong Tropospheric Forcing Cause Large-Amplitude Mesospheric Gravity Waves? A Deepwave Case Study, Martina Bramberger, Andreas Dörnbrack, Katrina Bossert, Benedikt Ehard, David C. Fritts, Bernd Kaifler, Christian Mallaun, Andrew Orr, Pierre-Dominique Pautet, Markus Rapp, Michael J. Taylor, Simon Vosper, Bifford P. Williams, Benjamin Witschas

Publications

On 4 July 2014, during the Deep Propagating Gravity Wave Experiment (DEEPWAVE), strong low-level horizontal winds of up to 35 m s⁻¹ over the Southern Alps, New Zealand, caused the excitation of gravity waves having the largest vertical energy fluxes of the whole campaign (38 W m⁻²). At the same time, large-amplitude mesospheric gravity waves were detected by the Temperature Lidar for Middle Atmospheric Research (TELMA) located at Lauder (45.0°S, 169.7°E), New Zealand. The coincidence of these two events leads to the question of whether the mesospheric gravity waves were generated by the strong tropospheric forcing. To …

Collaborative Research: Synergistic Merging Of Traditional Aeronomy With Targeted High-Frequency (Hf) Heating Diagnostics, Herbert C. Carlson

Funded Research Records

No abstract provided.

Characteristics Of Mesospheric Gravity Waves Over Antarctica Observed By Angwin (Antarctic Gravity Wave Instrument Network) Imagers Using 3-D Spectral Analyses, Takashi S. Matsuda, Takuji Nakamura, Mitsumu K. Ejiri, Masaki Tsutsumi, Yoshihiro Tomikawa, Michael J. Taylor, Yucheng Zhao, Pierre-Dominique Pautet, Damian J. Murphy, Tracy Moffat-Griffin

Publications

We have obtained horizontal phase velocity distributions of the gravity waves around 90 km from four Antarctic airglow imagers, which belong to an international airglow imager/instrument network known as ANGWIN (Antarctic Gravity Wave Instrument Network). Results from the airglow imagers at Syowa (69°S, 40°E), Halley (76°S, 27°W), Davis (69°S, 78°E), and McMurdo (78°S, 167°E) were compared, using a new statistical analysis method based on 3-D Fourier transform (Matsuda et al., 2014) for the observation period between 7 April and 21 May 2013. Significant day-to-day and site-to-site differences were found. The averaged phase velocity spectrum during the observation period showed preferential …

Collaborative Research: Refining And Testing Methods For Identifying And Quantifying Gaseous Oxidized Mercury In Air, Seth Lyman

Funded Research Records

No abstract provided.

Cedar: Mesospheric Investigation Of Gravity Wave And Mountain Wave Activities And Impacts In The Lee Side Of The Southern Andes, Pierre-Dominique Pautet

Funded Research Records

No abstract provided.

Opal Cubesat Data Analysis Model, Kenneth Zia, Ludger Scherliess, Michael J. Taylor

Physics Student Research

Understanding the Earth’s lower thermosphere (altitude range 9 km -140km) is of growing interest for many areas of research within the space weather community. The NSF sponsored OPAL (Optical Profiling of the Atmospheric Limb) mission is designed to measure temperature profile by observing the integrated line of sight of the day-time O2 A-band (~760nm) emissions on the limb. The OPAL instrument has an altitude resolution of 1.03km from 80-160km flown on a 3U CubeSat, and is expected to be launched from the ISS (International Space Station) (~400km altitude). We have developed a model of OPAL’s position and attitude of its …

Design And Characterization Of A Time-Of-Flight Mass Spectrometer For Composition Measurements In The Upper Atmosphere, E. Addison Everett

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The mesosphere/lower thermosphere (MLT) is perhaps the least understood region of Earth's atmosphere. Too high for balloons and winged aircraft, yet too low for satellites, direct access to the MLT to make in-situ measurements is via high-speed sounding rockets for brief periods of at most a few minutes. Mass spectrometers have previously been used to make composition measurements in this region. But, mass spectrometry in the MLT is difficult, mainly due to the ambient pressures here and also the high speeds and short flight durations of sounding rocket missions. Time-of-flight mass spectrometers (TOF-MS) are capable of making fast, accurate measurements …

Modeling And Projection Of The North American Monsoon Using A High-Resolution Regional Climate Model, Jonathan D.D. Meyer

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The North American Monsoon (NAM) is a dominant climate feature across the southwestern United States and Mexico during the summertime. Rainfall from the NAM elicits a significant response from the regional ecology as well as supports the socioeconomic well-being of both rural and urban populations. Due to the large variability in the yearly intensity and location of where the NAM rainfall occurs, the region is highly susceptible to prolonged and exceptional periods of drought; compounded by significant population growth projections through the 21st century. Reliable prediction for the NAM is highly beneficial on timescales ranging from shortterm weather forecasting to …

Gridded Snow Water Equivalent Reconstruction For Utah Using Forest Inventory And Analysis Tree-Ring Data, Daniel Barandiaran, Shih-Yu (Simon) Wang, R. Justin Derose

Plants, Soils, and Climate Faculty Publications

Snowpack observations in the Intermountain West are sparse and short, making them difficult for use in depicting past variability and extremes. This study presents a reconstruction of April 1 snow water equivalent (SWE) for the period of 1850–1989 using increment cores collected by the U.S. Forest Service, Interior West Forest Inventory and Analysis program (FIA). In the state of Utah, SWE was reconstructed for 38 snow course locations using a combination of standardized tree-ring indices derived from both FIA increment cores and publicly available tree-ring chronologies. These individual reconstructions were then interpolated to a 4-km grid using an objective analysis …

Quantifying Gravity Wave Momentum Fluxes With Mesosphere Temperature Mappers And Correlative Instrumentation, David C. Fritts, Pierre-Dominique Pautet, Katrina Bossert, Michael J. Taylor, Bifford P. Williams, Hiroyuki Iimura, Tao Yuan, Nicholas J. Mitchell, Gunter Stober

Publications

An Advanced Mesosphere Temperature Mapper and other instruments at the Arctic Lidar Observatory for Middle Atmosphere Research in Norway (69.3°N) and at Logan and Bear Lake Observatory in Utah (42°N) are used to demonstrate a new method for quantifying gravity wave (GW) pseudo-momentum fluxes accompanying spatially and temporally localized GW packets. The method improves on previous airglow techniques by employing direct characterization of the GW temperature perturbations averaged over the OH airglow layer and correlative wind and temperature measurements to define the intrinsic GW properties with high confidence. These methods are applied to two events, each of which involves superpositions …

On The Propagation Of Atmospheric Gravity Waves In A Non-Uniform Wind Field: Introducing A Modified Acoustic-Gravity Wave Equation, Ahmad Talaei

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Atmospheric gravity waves play fundamental roles in a broad-range of dynamical processes extending throughout the Earth’s neutral atmosphere and ionosphere. In this paper, we present a modified form for the acoustic-gravity wave equation and its dispersion relationships for a compressible and non-stationary atmosphere in hydrostatic balance. Importantly, the solutions have been achieved without the use of the well-known Boussinesq approximation which have been used extensively in previous studies.

We utilize the complete set of governing equations for a compressible atmosphere with non-uniform airflows to determine an equation for vertical velocity of possible atmospheric waves. This intricate wave equation is simplified …

The Magnitude Of The Snow-Sourced Reactive Nitrogen Flux To The Boundary Layer In The Uintah Basin, Maria Zakto, Joseph Erbland, Joel Savarino, Lei Geng, Lauren Easley, Andrew Schauer, Timothy Bates, Patricia K. Quinn, Bonnie Light, David Morison, Hans D. Osthoff, Seth Lyman, William Neff, Bin Yuan, Becky Alexander

USU Uintah Basin Faculty Publications

Reactive nitrogen (N_r = NO, NO₂, HONO) and volatile organic carbon emissions from oil and gas extraction activities play a major role in wintertime ground-level ozone exceedance events of up to 140 ppb in the Uintah Basin in eastern Utah. Such events occur only when the ground is snow covered, due to the impacts of snow on the stability and depth of the boundary layer and ultraviolet actinic flux at the surface. Recycling of reactive nitrogen from the photolysis of snow nitrate has been observed in polar and midlatitude snow, but snow-sourced reactive nitrogen fluxes in mid-latitude …

Automated Calibration Of Atmospheric Oxidized Mercury Measurements, Seth Lyman, Colleen Jones, Trevor O'Neil, Tanner Allen, Matthieu Miller, Mae Sexauer Gustin, Ashley M. Pierce, Winston Luke, Xinrong Ren, Paul Kelley

USU Uintah Basin Faculty Publications

The atmosphere is an important reservoir for mercury pollution, and understanding of oxidation processes is essential to elucidating the fate of atmospheric mercury. Several recent studies have shown that a low bias exists in a widely applied method for atmospheric oxidized mercury measurements. We developed an automated, permeation tube-based calibrator for elemental and oxidized mercury, and we integrated this calibrator with atmospheric mercury instrumentation (Tekran 2537/1130/1135 speciation systems) in Reno, Nevada and at Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii, U.S.A. While the calibrator has limitations, it was able to routinely inject stable amounts of HgCl2 and HgBr2 into atmospheric mercury measurement systems …