Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology Commons^™

The Surface Heating Efficiency Of Atmospheric Energy Flux Events During Arctic Winter, Christopher Joseph Cardinale

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The flux of moist static energy (MSE) into the polar regions plays a key role in the energy budget and climate of the polar regions. While usually studied from a vertically integrated perspective (Fwall), this dissertation examines its vertical structure, using the NASA-MERRA-2 reanalysis to compute climatological and anomalous fluxes of sensible, latent, and potential energy across 70◦N and 65◦S. This dissertation applies an energy budget analysis to winter-season synoptic periods of increased tropospheric (Ftrop) and stratospheric (Fstrat) energy flux convergence events and examines the processes that drive Arctic anoma lous surface warming and sea ice loss during Ftrop events. …

New York City Micronet : Comprehensive Site Metadata And Classifications And Characteristics Of The Urban Heat Island, Ashley Williamson

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The New York City Micronet (NYC Micronet), comprised of 17 stations, was installed in the Fall of 2020 for the purpose of long-term monitoring of climate change, and to provide support to utility operations for Consolidated Edison, Inc. (Con Edison). There are five additional standard NYS Mesonet stations located in NYC installed in late 2017. Co-located at the standard stations are three flux, and three profiler stations from sub-networks within the NYS Mesonet. With 22 different locations collecting 5-minute averaged data, this network becomes the highest spatial and temporal resolution urban meteorological network (UMN) of this quality in NYC. This …

The Mountain Gap Wind Of The Isthmus Of Tehuantepec And Its Impact On Tropical Cyclogenesis In The Eastern Pacific, Adolfo Lugo Rios

Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation we research two aspects of the mountain gap wind northerlies of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in Southern Mexico. The causes of extreme gap wind northerlies, emphasizing the causes by tropical weather systems, like easterly waves troughs or hurricanes, and the impacts of an extreme gap wind events on tropical cyclogenesis.

Through the use of an index to diagnose the mountain gap wind strength, its evolution through the year and the mechanisms leading to extreme mountain gap winds was highlighted. The index revealed that the gap wind is strongly related to high surface pressure anomalies over the GoM …

The Urban Heat Island Of Bengaluru, India : Characteristics, Trends, And Mechanisms, Heather Samantha Sussman

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The urban heat island (UHI) effect refers to how urban surfaces tend to be warmer than nearby non-urban areas due to less vegetation and other processes. UHIs can increase the risk of heat and respiratory illnesses. Since every city is unique, UHIs should be studied on a local-scale. One particular city that has not had its UHI comprehensively evaluated is Bengaluru, India. Bengaluru was once known as the “Garden City” of India due to a wide presence of gardens and public parks, but is now known as the “Silicon City” of India due to the overwhelming presence of the information …

Droughtscape, Winter 2022, National Drought Mitigation Center

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

DroughtScape, Winter 2022

Stubborn Aerosol: Why Particulate Mass Concentrations Do Not Drop During The Wet Season In Metro Manila, Philippines, Miguel Ricardo A. Hilario, Paola Angela Bañaga, Grace Betito, Rachel A. Braun, Maria Obiminda L. Cambaliza, Melliza Templonuevo Cruz, Genevieve Rose Lorenzo, Alexander B. Macdonald, Preciosa Corazon Pabroa, James Bernard Simpas

SOSE Affiliate: Manila Observatory

Wet scavenging is the most important sink for particulate matter (PM) and is expected to decrease PM concentrations in the wet season. However, Metro Manila, Philippines has highly similar PM mass across seasons despite large differences in seasonal rainfall. It is important to identify factors contributing to seasonally consistent PM mass as these may be present in similar developing megacities besides Metro Manila, leading to PM accumulation and posing significant health risks. We use size-resolved aerosol composition, aerosol optical depth, and meteorological data to reveal that the seasonally consistent PM mass in Metro Manila is due to (1) opposing seasonal …

Validation Of The Use Of Clathromorphum Compactum Growth And Skeletal Δ18o As A Proxy For Seawater Conditions, Teagan Mcmahon

Pitzer Senior Theses

Crustose coralline algae (CCA) are important organisms that create benthic habitat in the photic zone of oceans worldwide. CCAs mechanisms of photosynthesis and calcification may, in some cases, make them vulnerable to climate change and ocean acidification. Therefore, CCA are important not only for their ecological role within ecosystems but also for their ability to indicate the effects that ocean acidification and climate change may have on other marine calcifying organisms. Some species of CCA are known to be useful recorders of paleo oceanic conditions. These climate archives and reconstructions of past environmental conditions are important for understanding past changes …

The Use Of Composite Goes-R Satellite Imagery To Evaluate A Tc Intensity And Vortex Structure Forecast By An Fv3gfs-Based Hurricane Forecast Model, Shaowu Bao, Zhan Zhang, Evan Kalina, Bin Liu

Marine Science

The HAFS model is an effort under the NGGPS and UFS initiatives to create the next generation of hurricane prediction and analysis system based on FV3-GFS. It has been validated extensively using traditional verification indicators such as tracker error and biases, intensity error and biases, and the radii of gale, damaging and hurricane strength winds. While satellite images have been used to verify hurricane model forecasts, they have not been used on HAFS. The community radiative transfer model CRTM is used to generate model synthetic satellite images from HAFS model forecast state variables. The 24 forecast snapshots in the mature …

Mid-Breton Sediment Diversion (Mbrsd) Assessment – Final Report, Jerry D. Wiggert, Brandy N. Armstrong, M. Kemal Cambazoglu, Sandeep Kalathupurath Kuttan

Faculty Publications

The purpose of this project is to provide managers at the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources (MDMR) with the scientific information needed to accurately address public concerns regarding the potential effects of the Louisiana Coastal Master Plan / Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (CPRA) Mid-Breton Sediment Diversion (MBrSD) on the jurisdictional waters and resources of Mississippi. The stated design purpose of the MBrSD is to reconnect and re-establish the deltaic sediment deposition process between the Mississippi River and the Breton Sound Basin through a diversion that will deliver up to 75,000 cfs of sediment-laden freshwater. The report presented herein provides …

The Resilience Adaptation Feasibility Tool (Raft) As An Approach For Incorporating Equity Into Coastal Resilience Planning And Project Implementation, Juita-Elena (Wie) Yusuf, Tanya Denckla Cobb, Elizabeth Andrews, Sierra Gladfelter, Gray Montrose

School of Public Service Faculty Publications

As coastal communities across the U.S. and worldwide undertake efforts to enhance their resilience to coastal hazards, they must do so while ensuring that all voices are heard, addressing and preventing disparate impacts, and, ultimately, increasing resilience in an equitable way. The Resilience Adaptation Feasibility Tool (RAFT) assists coastal communities in incorporating equity into resilience planning and implementation of projects to increase resilience. The RAFT includes social and economic dimensions in assessment of resilience and focuses on how localities can build resilience equitably. The RAFT process has three phases -- a scorecard assessment, development of a resilience action checklist that …

High-Tide Floods And Storm Surges During Atmospheric Rivers On The Us West Coast, Christopher G. Piecuch, Sloan Coats, Sönke Dangendorf, Felix W. Landerer, J. T. Reager, Philip R. Thompson, Thomas Wahl

CCPO Publications

Amospheric rivers (ARs) effect inland hydrological impacts related to extreme precipitation. However, little is known about the possible coastal hazards associated with these storms. Here we elucidate high-tide floods (HTFs) and storm surges during ARs through a statistical analysis of data from the US West Coast during 1980-2016. HTFs and landfalling ARs co-occur more often than expected from random chance. Between 10%-63% of HTFs coincide with landfalling ARs, depending on location. However, only 2%-15% of ARs coincide with HTFs, suggesting that ARs typically must co-occur with anomalously high tides or mean sea levels to cause HTFs. Storm surges during ARs …

On The Use Of High-Frequency Surface Wave Oceanographic Research Radars As Bistatic Single-Frequency Oblique Ionospheric Sounders, Stephen R. Kaeppler, Ethan S. Miller, Daniel Cole, Teresa Updyke

CCPO Publications

We demonstrate that bistatic reception of high-frequency oceanographic radars can be used as single-frequency oblique ionospheric sounders. We develop methods that are agnostic of the software-defined radio system to estimate the group range from the bistatic observations. The group range observations are used to estimate the virtual height and equivalent vertical frequency at the midpoint of the oblique propagation path. Uncertainty estimates of the virtual height and equivalent vertical frequency are presented. We apply this analysis to observations collected from two experiments run at two locations in different years, but utilizing similar software-defined radio data collection systems. In the first …

The Atlantic Surfclam Fishery And Offshore Wind Energy Development: 2. Assessing Economic Impacts, Andrew M. Scheld, Jennifer Beckensteiner, Daphne M. Munroe, Eric N. Powell, Sarah Borsetti, Eileen E. Hofmann, John M. Klinck

CCPO Publications

The Atlantic surfclam (Spisula solidissima) fishery generates approximately USD 30 million in landings revenues annually, distributed across ports throughout the US Mid-Atlantic and Northeast. Overlap between areas of Atlantic surfclam harvests and offshore wind energy leasing make the fishery vulnerable to exclusion and effort displacement as development expands in the region. An existing integrated bioeconomic agent-based model, including spatial dynamics in Atlantic surfclam stock biology, heterogeneous captain behaviour, and federal management processes, was extended to incorporate costs and revenues for fishing vessels and processors and used to evaluate the potential economic effects of offshore wind development on the …

An Assessment Of Geographic And Taxonomic Biases In Research On Climate Change-Related Range Shifts, Evan J. Parker

Library Map Prize

Geographic and taxonomic biases in ecological literature inhibit the ability of research to be generalized or translated to other systems. This is particularly true with research on climate change-related range shifts, where a diverse and representative set of observations is needed to understand the significant heterogeneity of range shifts and improve models. A literature review was conducted and biases were assessed by examining the geographic location of study areas, the taxonomic makeup of study species, and the location of study areas within species ranges. A substantial geographic skew towards terrestrial, mid-latitude North America and Europe was observed. However, taxonomic coverage …

Assessment Of Temperature Optimum Signatures Of Corals At Both Latitudinal Extremes Of The Red Sea, Guilhem Banc-Prandi, Nicolas R. Evensen, Daniel J. Barshis, Gabriela Perna, Youssouf Moussa Omar, Maoz Fine

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Rising ocean temperatures are pushing reef-building corals beyond their temperature optima (T_opt), resulting in reduced physiological performances and increased risk of bleaching. Identifying refugia with thermally resistant corals and understanding their thermal adaptation strategy is therefore urgent to guide conservation actions. The Gulf of Aqaba (GoA, northern Red Sea) is considered a climate refuge, hosting corals that may originate from populations selected for thermal resistance in the warmer waters of the Gulf of Tadjoura (GoT, entrance to the Red Sea and 2000 km south of the GoA). To better understand the thermal adaptation strategy of GoA corals, …

Evaluating Essential Processes And Forecast Requirements For Meteotsunami-Induced Coastal Flooding, Chenfu Huang, Eric Anderson, Yi Liu, Gangfeng Ma, Greg Mann, Pengfei Xue

Civil & Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

Meteotsunamis pose a unique threat to coastal communities and often lead to damage of coastal infrastructure, deluge of nearby property, and loss of life and injury. The Great Lakes are a known hot-spot of meteotsunami activity and serve as an important region for investigation of essential hydrodynamic processes and model forecast requirements in meteotsunami-induced coastal flooding. For this work, we developed an advanced hydrodynamic model and evaluate key model attributes and dynamic processes, including: (1) coastal model grid resolution and wetting and drying process in low-lying zones, (2) coastal infrastructure, including breakwaters and associated submerging and overtopping processes, (3) annual/seasonal …

Nutrient Improvements In Chesapeake Bay: Direct Effect Of Load Reductions And Implications For Coastal Management, Rebecca R. Murphy, Jennifer Keisman, Jon Harcum, Renee R. Karrh, Mike Lane, Elgin S. Perry, Qian Zhang

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

In Chesapeake Bay in the United States, decades of management efforts have resulted in modest reductions of nutrient loads from the watershed, but the corresponding improvements in estuarine water quality have not consistently followed. Generalized additive models were used to directly link river flows and nutrient loads from the watershed to nutrient trends in the estuary on a station-by-station basis, which allowed for identification of exactly when and where responses are happening. Results show that Chesapeake Bay’s total nitrogen and total phosphorus conditions are mostly improving after accounting for variation in freshwater flow. Almost all of these improving nutrient concentrations …

Nrlmsis 2.1: An Empirical Model Of Nitric Oxide Incorporated Into Msis, J. T. Emmert, M. Jones Jr., D. E. Siskind, D. P. Drob, J. M. Picone, M. H. Stevens, S. M. Bailey, S. Bender, P. F. Bernath, B. Funke, M. E. Hervig, K. Pérot

Chemistry & Biochemistry Faculty Publications

We have developed an empirical model of nitric oxide (NO) number density at altitudes from ∼73 km to the exobase, as a function of altitude, latitude, day of year, solar zenith angle, solar activity, and geomagnetic activity. The model is part of the NRLMSIS® 2.1 empirical model of atmospheric temperature and species densities; this upgrade to NRLMSIS 2.0 consists solely of the addition of NO. MSIS 2.1 assimilates observations from six space-based instruments: UARS/HALOE, SNOE, Envisat/MIPAS, ACE/FTS, Odin/SMR, and AIM/SOFIE. We additionally evaluated the new model against independent extant NO data sets. In this paper, we describe the formulation and …

Integrating Deep Learning And Hydrodynamic Modeling To Improve The Great Lakes Forecast, Pengfei Xue, Aditya Wagh, Gangfeng Ma, Yilin Wang, Yongchao Yang, Tao Liu, Chenfu Huang

Civil & Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

The Laurentian Great Lakes, one of the world’s largest surface freshwater systems, pose a modeling challenge in seasonal forecast and climate projection. While physics-based hydrodynamic modeling is a fundamental approach, improving the forecast accuracy remains critical. In recent years, machine learning (ML) has quickly emerged in geoscience applications, but its application to the Great Lakes hydrodynamic prediction is still in its early stages. This work is the first one to explore a deep learning approach to predicting spatiotemporal distributions of the lake surface temperature (LST) in the Great Lakes. Our study shows that the Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) neural network, …

Recent Advancements In Electrochemical Conversion Of Carbon Dioxide, Nandan Nag, Amit Kumar, Sumit Sharma, Sandeep Kumar, Amit K. Thakur

Civil & Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

Electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide into eco-friendly and clean products is a promising approach to eradicate pollution. Although carbon dioxide emission is inhibited by the advent of renewable sources of energy, it is present in the atmosphere and needs to be cleaned. The reduction of carbon dioxide from atmospheric gases can be accomplished by its adsorption and subsequent transportation to electrolytic chambers, where it is reduced to hydrocarbons, organic acids or carbonates. This review focuses on developing a three compartment electrochemical cell to reduce carbon dioxide used as a catholyte. Various factors affecting the electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide and …

Unified Methods In Collecting, Preserving, And Archiving Coral Bleaching And Restoration Specimens To Increase Sample Utility And Interdisciplinary Collaboration, Rebecca Vega Thurber, Emily R. Schmeltzer, Andréa G. Grottoli, Robert Van Woesik, Robert J. Toonen, Mark Warner, Kerri L. Dobson, Rowan H. Mclachlan, Katie Barott, Daniel J. Barshis, Justin Baumann, Leila Chapron, David J. Combosch, Adrienne M.S. Correa, Thomas M. Decarlo, Mary Hagedorn, Laetitia Hédouin, Kenneth Hoadley, Thomas Felis, Christine Ferrier-Pagès, Carly Kenkel, Ilsa B. Kuffner, Jennifer Matthews, Mónica Medina, Christopher Meyer, Corinna Oster, James Price, Hollie M. Putnam, Yvonne Sawall

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Coral reefs are declining worldwide primarily because of bleaching and subsequent mortality resulting from thermal stress. Currently, extensive efforts to engage in more holistic research and restoration endeavors have considerably expanded the techniques applied to examine coral samples. Despite such advances, coral bleaching and restoration studies are often conducted within a specific disciplinary focus, where specimens are collected, preserved, and archived in ways that are not always conducive to further downstream analyses by specialists in other disciplines. This approach may prevent the full utilization of unexpended specimens, leading to siloed research, duplicative efforts, unnecessary loss of additional corals to research …

Solutions For Fermi Questions, October 2022 Cloud Ripple Pattern, John Adam

Mathematics & Statistics Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

All-Inclusive Coral Reef Restoration: How The Tourism Sector Can Boost Restoration Efforts In The Caribbean, Macarena Blanco-Pimentel, Nicolas R. Evensen, Camilo Cortés-Useche, Johanna Calle-Triviño, Daniel J. Barshis, Victor Galván, Erika Harms, Megan K. Morikawa

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Following a strong decline in the health of Caribbean coral reefs in the 1970s, disease outbreaks, overfishing, and warming events have continued to push these reefs towards a point of no return. As such, researchers and stakeholders have turned their attention to restoration practices to overcome coral recovery bottlenecks on Caribbean reefs. However, successful restoration faces many challenges, including economical and logistical feasibility, long-term stability, and biological and ecological factors yet to fully understand. The tourism sector has the potential to enhance and scale restoration efforts in the Caribbean, beyond simple financial contributions. Its strengths include long-term presence in several …

Geomorphic Gradients In Shallow Seagrass Carbon Stocks, Jahson Berhane Alemu, Siti Maryam Yaakub, Erik S. Yando, Rachel Yu San Lau, Cheng Chang Lim, Jun Yu Puah, Daniel A. Friess

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Seagrass meadows are important sinks of organic carbon (C_org), in particular the near-surface C_org pool (≤ 15 cm) compared to deeper sediments. Near-surface carbon is highly susceptible to disturbance and loss to the atmosphere, however, inadequate accounting for variability in this pool of carbon limits their uptake into carbon accounting frameworks. We therefore investigated the spatial variability in seagrass near-surface C_org and biomass C_org across different geomorphic (estuary, lagoonal and reef-associated) and community typologies (pioneer and persistent). Near-surface C_org stock in vegetated areas (25.78 Mg C_org ha⁻¹ ± 26.64) was twice that …

Cloud Ripple Pattern, John Adam

Mathematics & Statistics Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

On The Stratospheric Chemistry Of Midlatitude Wildfire Smoke, Susan Soloman, Kimberlee Dube, Kane Stone, Pengfei Yu, Doug Kinnison, Owen B. Toon, Susan E. Strahan, Karen H. Rosenlof, Robert Portmann, Sean Davis, William Randel, Peter Bernath, Chris Boone, Charles G. Bardeen, Adam Bourassa, Daniel Zawada, Doug Degenstein

Chemistry & Biochemistry Faculty Publications

Massive Australian wildfires lofted smoke directly into the stratosphere in the austral summer of 2019/20. The smoke led to increases in optical extinction throughout the midlatitudes of the southern hemisphere that rivalled substantial volcanic perturbations. Previous studies have assumed that the smoke became coated with sulfuric acid and water and would deplete the ozone layer through heterogeneous chemistry on those surfaces, as is routinely observed following volcanic enhancements of the stratospheric sulfate layer. Here, observations of extinction and reactive nitrogen species from multiple independent satellites that sampled the smoke region are compared to one another and to model calculations. The …

An Analysis Of Associations Between Polarimetric Supercell Signatures, Erik Green

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Supercell thunderstorms produce unique polarimetric radar signatures that are not often observed in unorganized deep convection. Repetitive signatures include deep and persistent differential reflectivity (Z_DR) columns and the Z_DR arc signature, which are both indicative of thermodynamic and microphysical processes intrinsic to supercells. Prior investigations of supercell polarimetric signatures, both those observed by operational and research radars, and those simulated numerically, reveal positive correlations between the Z_DR column depth and cross-sectional area and quantitative characteristics of the radar reflectivity field. This study expands upon prior work by incorporating a dataset of discrete, right moving supercells …

A Pilot Course As A Step Towards New Academic Programs In Renewable Energies, Otilia Popescu, Orlando Ayala, Isaac Flory, Jose Fernandez, Vukica Jovanović

Engineering Technology Faculty Publications

The challenges arising from climate change have never before in human history been more pressing for solutions. Addressing pollution and the transition to clean energies are essential problems to solve in the upcoming decades. The process of transitioning to renewable energies has started already, with some states leading the process. As the development of industries sees a fast growth, the supply of qualified engineers and technicians to support these industries needs to keep up. At the community college level, some efforts have already started to introduce courses on renewable energies as well as boot camps or certifications to prepare the …

Solutions For Fermi Questions, January 2022: Question 1: Snow Volume; Question 2: Longbow Arrow Velocity, Larry Weinstein

Physics Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Influence Of Hydrogen Peroxide On The Enrichment Of Fe(Iii) Reducing Bacteria From Acid Mine Drainage, Susami Seth

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

It is hypothesized that the ocean of Europa, a Jupiter moon, hosts bacteria on its oceanic floor. Understanding how Fe(III) reducing bacteria (FeRB) from AMD utilize organic materials within its surrounding environment outlines how FeRB could thrive and tolerate extreme conditions. FeRB are known to tolerate metals and highly reactive oxidants species (ROS), but in this experiment, H₂O₂ was the experimental factor to further test FeRB tolerance. H₂O₂ is a common ROS and is damaging to living material such as proteins, DNA, and RNA. A range of H₂O₂ concentrations were fed …