Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology Commons^™

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.

Particulate Matter Matters!, Storm Project

Open Educational Resources

National Science Education Standards:

• CONTENT STANDARD D: Science as Inquiry
• CONTENT STANDARD E: Understandings about science and technology
• CONTENT STANDARD F: Personal and community health; Environmental quality

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.

The Wend Concept For Worldwide Enc Database - Past Or Future? A Review Of Progress And A Look To The Future, Horst Hecht, Abri Kampfer, Lee Alexander

Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping

No abstract provided.

European - North American - Russian Federation Inland Enc Harmonization Group, Anthony R. Niles, Bernd Birklhuber, Lee Alexander, Peter Kluytenaar, Vladimir Sekachev

Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping

In 2003, the Inland ENC Harmonization Group (IEHG) was formed to agree upon specifications for Inland ENCs that are suitable for all known Inland ENC data requirements for safe and efficient navigation in European and North American inland waterways and rivers. In 2004, the IEHG expanded to include Russian Federation. It is expected that South America will join IEHG in the near future. The overall framework for international Inland ENC standards includes: - Use IHO S-57 Edition 3.1 ‘maritime’ ENC Product Specification, where applicable. - A minimum Inland ENC Product Specification that includes mandatory requirements for safety-of-navigation on inland waterways, …

Comparison Of Fish Assemblages Between Mitigation Boulder Reef And Neighboring Natural Hardbottom In Broward County, Florida, Usa, Jessica A. Freeman

HCNSO Student Theses and Dissertations

A beach renourishment project was initiated in May 2005 and completed in February 2006 to restore 11.1 km of shoreline in Broward County, Florida, USA. For mitigation of predicted nearshore hardbottom burial, a boulder reef totaling 3.6 ha was deployed in 2003. To examine the replacement value of the mitigation relative to fishes, this study compared fish assemblages on boulder reef to those on adjacent natural hardbottom. Twenty-five natural hardbottom sites and twenty-five boulder reef sites were surveyed six times between March 2005 and August 2007. Two non-destructive visual census methods, a transect count (30 m long x 2 m …

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)

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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

Comparison Of Aquatic-Insect Habitat And Diversity Above And Below Road Crossings In Low-Order Streams, J. Wesley Neal, Nathan J. Harris, Sathyanand Kumaran, David A. Behler, Thomas J. Lang, Paul R. Port, Marcella Melandri, Benjamin G. Batten

Journal of the Arkansas Academy of Science

The effects of road crossings on fish communities have been extensively studied; yet little attention has been given to macroinvertebrate communities. This study evaluated physical stream characteristics, water quality, and aquatic-insect richness from above and below road crossings of low-order streams in the Ouachita National Forest in Arkansas. Fifteen road crossings were sampled during October and November 2005. Erosion was significantly higher below road crossings than above. Sites downstream of road crossings had significantly lower pH and significantly higher turbidity than sites upstream of road crossings. Despite differences in water quality and habitat, there was no apparent difference in aquatic-insect …

Winter 2007, Nsu Oceanographic Center

Currents

No abstract provided.

Inside The Rainforests Of The Sea: Coral Reefs And Their Endangerment, Roxanne Greitz Miller

Education Faculty Articles and Research

This article focuses on coral reefs and their endangerment.

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 …

Nearshore Surface Temperatures In Antofagasta Bay (Chile) And Adjacent Upwelling Centers, A. Piñones, J. C. Castilla, R. Guiñez, J. L. Largier

CCPO Publications

Several years of sea surface temperature data (1997-2003) for the coast of Antofagasta Bay-a semi-enclosed bay in northern Chile-were analyzed in order to further exploring the nature of a warm-water retention pattern inside the bay. Based on time series techniques, we were able to confirm the persistence of warm water in the bay. This warm feature was found immediately downwind of the upwelling center at Jorgillo Point, where temperatures averaged 2-3 degrees C more than at the exposed upwelling sites outside and the bay. Temporal and spatial patterns in sea surface temperature were determined and showed being well associated with …

Bottom-Up Forcing And The Decline Of Steller Sea Lions (Eumetopias Jubatus) In Alaska: Assessing The Ocean Climate Hypothesis, Andrew W. Trites, Arthur J. Miller, Michael A. Alexander, Steven J. Bograd, John A. Calder, Antonietta Capotondi, Kenneth O. Coyle, Emanuele Di Lorenzo, Bruce P. Finney, Edward J. Gregr, Chester E. Grosch, Thomas C. Royer

CCPO Publications

Declines of Steller sea lion ( Eumetopias jubatus) populations in the Aleutian Islands and Gulf of Alaska could be a consequence of physical oceanographic changes associated with the 1976–77 climate regime shift. Changes in ocean climate are hypothesized to have affected the quantity, quality, and accessibility of prey, which in turn may have affected the rates of birth and death of sea lions. Recent studies of the spatial and temporal variations in the ocean climate system of the North Pacific support this hypothesis. Ocean climate changes appear to have created adaptive opportunities for various species that are preyed upon …

Baroclinic Effects And Tides On The Cape Hatteras Continental Shelf, Dana K. Savidge, Catherine R. Edwards, Mark Santana

CCPO Publications

Seasonal variability has been identified on the shelf near Cape Hatteras in the semidiurnal and diurnal frequency bands. Large summertime semidiurnal currents appear to be an M2 internal tide whose propagation shoreward is supported by strong Middle Atlantic Bight (MAB) seasonal stratification. At the southern limit of the MAB, strong MAB stratification gives way to weaker seasonal stratification in the South Atlantic Bight (SAB), and the M2 internal tide propagates shoreward less effectively. Strong diurnal variability appears in K1 and O1 components in summer, achieving magnitudes as large as the M2. The diurnal components are typically much smaller than M2 …

Simulation Of The Recent Multidecadal Increase Of Atlantic Hurricane Activity Using An 18-Km-Grid Regional Model, Thomas R. Knutson, Joseph J. Sirutis, Stephen T. Garner, Isaac M. Held, Robert E. Tuleya

CCPO Publications

In this study, a new modeling framework for simulating Atlantic hurricane activity is introduced. The model is an 18-km-grid nonhydrostatic regional model, run over observed specified SSTs and nudged toward observed time-varying large-scale atmospheric conditions (Atlantic domain wavenumbers 0-2) derived from the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) reanalyses. Using this "perfect large-scale model" approach for 27 recent August-October seasons (1980-2006), it is found that the model successfully reproduces the observed multidecadal increase in numbers of Atlantic hurricanes and several other tropical cyclone (TC) indices over this period. The correlation of simulated versus observed hurricane activity by year varies from …

Assessment Of Skill And Portability In Regional Marine Biogeochemical Models: Role Of Multiple Planktonic Groups, Marjorie A. M. Friedrichs, Jeffery A. Dusenberry, Laurence A. Anderson, Robert A. Armstrong, Fei Chai, James R. Christian, Scott C. Doney, John Dunne, Masahiko Fujii, Jerry D. Wiggert

CCPO Publications

[1] Application of biogeochemical models to the study of marine ecosystems is pervasive, yet objective quantification of these models' performance is rare. Here, 12 lower trophic level models of varying complexity are objectively assessed in two distinct regions (equatorial Pacific and Arabian Sea). Each model was run within an identical one-dimensional physical framework. A consistent variational adjoint implementation assimilating chlorophyll-a, nitrate, export, and primary productivity was applied and the same metrics were used to assess model skill. Experiments were performed in which data were assimilated from each site individually and from both sites simultaneously. A cross-validation experiment was also conducted …