Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology Commons^™

The Prairie Post Quarterly Newsletter Of The High Plains Regional Climate Center- July 2017, Natalie Umphlett, Bill Sorensen, Crystal J. Stiles

Prairie Post: Quarterly Newsletter of the High Plains Regional Climate Center

Inside this issue:

Message from the interim director........................................1

Staff spotlight...........................1

Drought update.......................2

Update on regional climate conditions..................................2

Product highlights..................3

AWDN information.................4

Climate adaptation award announcement.........................4

Workshops update..................5

Recent and upcoming travel and activities.............................6

Strategies For Environmental Education For Youths And Adults, Chumbe Island Coral Park, Zanzibar, Samantha Pfeffer

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Chumbe Island Coral Park (CHICOP) is a privately-owned business that strives to follow the best principles of ecotourism, conservation, and environmental education. Their environmental education initiative is award-winning and has affected thousands of students and community members in Zanzibar. This study looked at the environmental education techniques that CHICOP already has in place by observing two pre-visits, three island-visits and one-post visit, and determined where there was a need for enhanced and new techniques for teaching about the environment. Evidence of climate change on Chumbe Island was also recorded to aid in the educational tools and to create a database …

Book Review: Peak Oil: Apocalyptic Environmentalism And Libertarian Political Culture, Matthew Schneider-Mayerson, The University Of Chicago Press, Chicago And London (2015), Corrie Grosse

Environmental Studies Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Measuring Inorganic Carbon Fluxes From Carbonate Mineral Weathering From Large River Basins: The Ohio River Basin, Autumn B. Singer

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations have motivated efforts to better quantify reservoirs and fluxes of Earth’s carbon. Of these fluxes from the atmosphere, one that has received relatively little attention is the atmospheric carbon sink associated with carbonate mineral dissolution. Osterhoudt (2014) and Salley (2016) explored new normalization techniques to improve and standardize a process for measuring this flux over large river basins. The present research extends this work to the 490,600 km2 Ohio River drainage basin and 11 subbasins. The study estimated the DIC flux leaving these basins between October 1, 2013, and September 30, 2014, based on secondary hydrogeochemical, …

Mesonets: Mesoscale Weather And Climate Observations For The United States, Rezaul Mahmood, Ryan Boyles, Kevin Brinson, Christopher Fiebrich, Stuart Foster, Ken Hubbard, David Robinson, Jeff Andresen, Dan Leathers

High Plains Regional Climate Center: Staff Publications

Mesoscale in situ meteorological observations are essential for better understanding and forecasting the weather and climate and to aid in decision-making by a myriad of stakeholder communities. They include, for example, state environmental and emergency management agencies, the commercial sector, media, agriculture, and the general public. Over the last three decades, a number of mesoscale weather and climate observation networks have become operational. These networks are known as mesonets. Most are operated by universities and receive different levels of funding. It is important to communicate the current status and critical roles the mesonets play. Most mesonets collect standard meteorological data …

Circulation, Vol. 22, No. 3, Center For Coastal Physical Oceanography, Old Dominion University, Brynn Davis

CCPO Circulation

Summer 2017 issue of CCPO Circulation featuring article "Graduate School Reflections" by Brynn Davis.

Southward Flow On The Western Flank Of The Florida Current, Alexander Soloviev, Amy Hirons, Christopher Maingot, Cayla Whitney Dean, Richard E. Dodge, Alexander E. Yankovsky, Jon Wood, Robert H. Weisberg, Mark E. Luther, Julian P. Mccreary

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

A suite of long-term in situ measurements in the Straits of Florida, including the ADCP bottom moorings at an 11-m isobath and 244-m isobath (Miami Terrace) and several ADCP ship transects, have revealed a remarkable feature of the ocean circulation - southward flow on the western, coastal flank of the Florida Current. We have observed three forms of the southward flow - a seasonally varying coastal countercurrent, an undercurrent jet attached to the Florida shelf, and an intermittent undercurrent on the Miami Terrace. According to a 13-year monthly climatology obtained from the near-shore mooring, the coastal countercurrent is a persistent …

Nonmeteorological Influences On Severe Thunderstorm Warning Issuance: A Geographically Weighted Regression-Based Analysis Of County Warning Area Boundaries, Land Cover, And Demographic Variables, Megan L. White, J. Anthony Stallins

Geography Faculty Publications

Studies have shown that the spatial distribution of severe thunderstorm warnings demonstrates variation beyond what can be attributed to weather and climate alone. Investigating spatial patterns of these variations can provide insight into nonmeteorological factors that might lead forecasters to issue warnings. Geographically weighted regression was performed on a set of demographic and land cover descriptors to ascertain their relationships with National Weather Service (NWS) severe thunderstorm warning polygons issued by 36 NWS forecast offices in the central and southeastern United States from 2008 to 2015. County warning area (CWA) boundaries and cities were predominant sources of variability in warning …

Evidence For Late Pliocene Deglacial Megafloods From Giant Sediment Waves In The Northern Gulf Of Mexico, Zexuan Wang

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Laurentide Ice Sheet outburst floods to the Gulf of Mexico have been mainly documented based on deep-sea cores, especially the megafloods, only during the last several interglacial episodes in the late Pleistocene. The paleoclimatic significance of giant sedimentary structures developed under unconfined Froude-supercritical turbidity currents in subaqueous settings is considerably under-examined. This research extensively documents >20-km-wide and 200-m-thick Plio-Pleistocene giant sediment waves for the first time on the northern Gulf of Mexico continental slope using 3D seismic data, which show waveform morphology in unprecedented detail. The results suggest that such large-scale bedforms were formed under sheet-like unconfined Froudesupercritical turbidity currents …

Droughtscape, Summer 2017, National Drought Mitigation Center

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

Contents

Drought policy write shops conclude in Caribbean

Drought encroaches on Northern Plains in second quarter

Impact tool racks up submissions in second quarter

Maps on new website highlight drought effects on ag industry

Centers release new flash drought tool: QuickDRI

NDMC contributes to EU report on disaster risk management

Groups earn Climate Adaptation award for work with tribes

NDMC, ICPAC director talk collaboration on drought in Greater Horn of Africa

Up next in MENA: Drought vulnerability assessments

High Resolution Spectra Of Carbon Monoxide, Propane And Ammonia For Atmospheric Remote Sensing, Christopher Andrew Beale

OES Theses and Dissertations

Spectroscopy is a critical tool for analyzing atmospheric data. Identification of atmospheric parameters such as temperature, pressure and the existence and concentrations of constituent gases via remote sensing techniques are only possible with spectroscopic data. These form the basis of model atmospheres which may be compared to observations to determine such parameters. To this end, this dissertation explores the spectroscopy of three molecules: ammonia, propane and carbon monoxide.

Infrared spectra have been recorded for ammonia in the region 2400-9000 cm^-1. These spectra were recorded at elevated temperatures (from 293-973 K) using a Fourier Transform Spectrometer (FTS). Comparison between …

Robustness Of Observation-Based Decadal Sea Level Variability In The Indo-Pacific Ocean, A. G. Nidheesh, M. Lengaigne, J. Vialard, T. Izumo, A. S. Unnikrishnan, B. Meyssignac, B. Hamlington, C. De Boyer Montegut

OES Faculty Publications

We examine the consistency of Indo-Pacific decadal sea level variability in 10 gridded, observation-based sea level products for the 1960-2010 period. Decadal sea level variations are robust in the Pacific, with more than 50% of variance explained by decadal modulation of two flavors of El Nino-Southern Oscillation (classical ENSO and Modoki). Amplitude of decadal sea level variability is weaker in the Indian Ocean than in the Pacific. All data sets indicate a transmission of decadal sea level signals from the western Pacific to the northwest Australian coast through the Indonesian throughflow. The southern tropical Indian Ocean sea level variability is …

Mipas Imk/Iaa Carbon Tetrachloride (Ccl4) Retrieval And First Comparison With Other Instruments, Ellen Eckert, Thomas Von Clarmann, Alexandra Laeng, Gabriele P. Stiller, Bernd Funke, Norbert Glatthor, Udo Grabowski, Sylvia Kellmann, Michael Kiefer, Andrea Linden, Peter F. Bernath

Chemistry & Biochemistry Faculty Publications

MIPAS thermal limb emission measurements were used to derive vertically resolved profiles of carbon tetrachloride (CCl₄). Level-1b data versions MIPAS/5.02 to MIPAS/5.06 were converted into volume mixing ratio profiles using the level-2 processor developed at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research (IMK) and Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas (CSIC), Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia (IAA). Consideration of peroxyacetyl nitrate (PAN) as an interfering species, which is jointly retrieved, and CO₂ line mixing is crucial for reliable retrievals. Parts of the CO₂ Q-branch region that overlap with the CCl₄ signature were …

Observations Of Greenhouse Gas Isotopologues With Ace-Fts And Waccm, Eric Michael Buzan

Chemistry & Biochemistry Theses & Dissertations

Increases in greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere are the major driver of climate change. Quantifying the sources and sinks of these gases is a major focus of research. Measuring isotopologues, or molecules that differ in isotopic composition, is one useful way of constraining the budget of a molecule as they are highly sensitive to different sources and sinks. However, measurements above the surface have been restricted to a few locations and have only reached the lower stratosphere. Satellite-based remote sensing can achieve nearly global measurement coverage, but so far no satellites have measured isotopologues.

Presented here are measurements of …

Investigating Physical Processes Associated With Chesapeake Bay And Changjiang Estuary, Arash Niroomandi

Civil & Environmental Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Coastal and estuaries are landforms that not only have great impacts on large marine ecosystem, but also play a significant role in moderating or aggravating natural hazards and erosion risks that are expected to increase with climate change. This dissertation explores some of the concerns associated with coasts and coastal systems. In the second chapter, a thirty seven year wave hindcast (1979-2015) in Chesapeake Bay using NCEP's Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR) wind is presented. The long-term significant wave heights are generated by the third-generation nearshore wave model SWAN, which is validated using the wave height measurements at buoy stations …

Improved Ballistic Wind Prediction Using Projectile Tracking Data, William Arthur Kenney

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The United States Air Force AC-130 gunships have been in operation since the Vietnam War and have seen frequent use during recent conflicts. They are able to employ gun weapon systems from above a target in a way that maximizes possible time on target. When firing, the gun operators must deal with miss distances caused by winds acting on the projectile in flight. Operators currently perform a “tweak” to predict a ballistic wind affecting fired rounds which is then used in the fire-control to correct for the real winds and bring shots onto target. This correction, a single-point wind prediction, …

Rodenticide Incidents Of Exposure And Adverse Effects On Non-Raptor Birds, Nimish B. Vyas

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

Interest in the adverse effects of rodenticides on birds has focused primarily on raptors. However, non-raptor birds are also poisoned (rodenticide exposure resulting in adverse effects including mortality) by rodenticides through consumption of the rodenticide bait and contaminated prey. A literature search for rodenticide incidents (evidence of exposure to a rodenticide, adverse effects, or exposure to placebo baits) involving non-raptor birds returned 641 records spanning the years 1931 to 2016. The incidents included 17 orders, 58 families, and 190 non-raptor bird species. Nineteen anticoagulant and non-anticoagulant rodenticide active ingredients were associated with the incidents. The number of incidents and species …

Novel Hyperspectral Imagery And Platforms For Shallow Water Environments, Taylor Scott Oney

Theses and Dissertations

Hyperspectral measurements of the water surface in urban coastal waters are presented. Oblique bidirectional reflectance factor (BRF) imagery was acquired of coastal shallow waters within the watershed of the Indian River Lagoon, Florida and along littoral zone waters of the nearby Atlantic Ocean. Oblique imagery of the shoreline and subsurface features clearly shows subsurface bottom features and rip current features within the surf zone water column. The imagery was collected using a pushbroom hyperspectral imager mounted on a fixed platform with a calibrated circular mechatronic rotation stage. Hyperspectral imaging using the fixed platform techniques were used to calculate hyperspectral bidirectional …

Analysis Of Virginia Barrier Island Shoreline Movement And Correlations To Sea Level, Wave Height Changes, And Teleconnection Patterns, James Daniel Haluska

OES Theses and Dissertations

The Virginia barrier islands stretch from Assateague Island in the north to Fisherman’s Island in the south. This string of islands is subject to frequent North Atlantic extra-tropical storm and hurricane influence. In addition, sea level rise has the potential to cause continued shoreline loss and inlet widening for this island group. This dissertation describes the effect of sea level rise, changes in wave height, and teleconnection pattern (AO, NAO, and MEI) correlations to shoreline location changes to the islands and inlet location and width changes. Locations of island shorelines were determined from satellite and aircraft images using ArcGIS software …

Influence Of Tides And Mesoscale Eddies In The Ross Sea, Stefanie Lynn Mack

OES Theses and Dissertations

The Ross Sea is the most biologically productive region in the Southern Ocean. Primary production is controlled by dissolved iron (dFe), a limiting micronutrient. The main focus of this thesis, motivated by the PRISM-RS project, is to investigate how tides and mesoscale eddies affect the pathways of dFe to the surface ocean.

A regional ocean model with four hindcast simulations are used. Tidal forcing is added to simulations and mesoscale eddies are resolved by changing the horizontal grid resolution from 5 to 1.5 km. Simulations cover 1.5 years, ending at the time of the PRISM-RS cruise in early 2012. An …

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.

Characterize The Condition Of Previously Known And Newly Identified Large Dense Acropora Cervicornis Patches In Southeast Florida, Brian K. Walker

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Reports

Historically, Acropora spp. are the major reef building corals seen throughout the Caribbean and parts of the Western Atlantic that can grow relatively rapidly in dominant mono-specific stands. Their rapid growth and fragmentation allows them to out compete other benthic organisms and form the major framework for entire reef zones. They are the most abundant and important species for reef accretion. Their branching morphologies provide important habitat for many other reef species and no other Caribbean coral species fills these ecosystem functions. Acroporids were once the dominant reef builder in the Caribbean and provided the majority of live coral cover, …

Hampton Roads Residents’ Perceptions Of Sea Level Rise And Flooding Adaptation, Juita-Elena (Wie) Yusuf, Carol Considine, Burton St. John Iii, Michelle Covi, J. Gail Nicula, Pragati Rawat, Kaitlin Giles

Occasional Paper Series

No abstract provided.

Potential Impacts Of Accelerated Sea-Level Rise And Hurricane-Induced Storm Surge In Western Pasco County, Florida, Kittiya Harris

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Sea levels have risen approximately 20 cm since the beginning of the 20th century and more than 3 cm in the past 20 years, suggesting that global sea level rise is accelerating. As sea levels continue to rise and storms become more intense, coastal property and populations become more susceptible to damage. Florida is especially vulnerable to hurricane-induced storm surge (HSS) and the onset of accelerated sea-level rise (ASLR) due to its extensive coastline and high population density along the coast. The main purpose of this research is to assess the potential economic impacts of ASLR and HSS for two …

Spatial Analysis Of Tornado Warning System Understanding And Relationship With Tornado Occurrence, Chesnea A. Skeen

Pursuit - The Journal of Undergraduate Research at The University of Tennessee

Tornadoes present a significant threat to life and property. The National Weather Service watch and warning system warns the public of tornadoes. If these warnings are not heeded by the public, the potential fatalities and destruction of property cannot be minimized. Thus, to prevent further loss of life and property, it is necessary to understand how the public understands the watch and warning system, as well as how they react. This paper aims to understand the correlation between understanding of watches and warnings and the occurrence of tornadoes, as well as how understanding varies spatially. Survey data were collected from …

Storm Chasing Across The Plains: An Experience Portfolio, Isaac Bowers

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

The opportunity to predict and document severe weather across the Plains is not available to many, but it is a vital experience for those who hope to truly excel in meteorology. The ability to travel alongside one of the professors that has guided you through the program, apply the knowledge gained from that professor and many others, and view nature’s breathtaking power in person is truly a capstone experience for any meteorology major. Luckily, the B.S. Meteorology Program at WKU offers a select group of students this opportunity annually. This portfolio report will consist of documentation I recorded during my …

The Rhetoric Of Scientific Authority: A Rhetorical Examination Of _An Inconvenient Truth_, Alexander W. Morales

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis project examines how scientific authority is produced through rhetorical practices instead of the “information deficit” model of science communication. By conducting a rhetorical analysis of the science documentary An Inconvenient Truth, this project demonstrates how the documentary format itself and the film’s leading agent, former United States Vice President Al Gore, attempt to persuade audiences through building degrees of scientific authority by employing multiple rhetorics or narrative themes of science to bolster the scientific facts supporting anthropogenic climate change. Additionally, I demonstrate how these narrative themes parallel three scholarly themes within the rhetoric of science literature: science …

Satellite Observation Of Ch4 And Co Anomalies Associated With The Wenchuan Ms 8.0 And Lushan Ms 7.0 Earthquakes In China, Y. Cui, Dimitar Ouzounov, N. Hatzopoulos, K. Sun, Z. Zou, J. Du

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

Spatial and temporal variations of total column of CH4 and CO (TotCH4 and TotCO) associated with the 12 May 2008 Wenchuan and 20 April 2013 Lushan earthquakes in western Sichuan, China were investigated using satellite data from AQUA AIRS in order to understand the lithospheric and atmospheric interactions during the seismic activity. The Wenchuan MS 8.0 and Lushan MS7.0 earthquakes occurred in the Longmenshan fault zone. It was observed that large amounts of gases emitted from the earth's crust into the atmosphere before, during and after the earthquakes. The anomalies of TotCH4 and TotCO occurred along the …

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 …

The Spatiotemporal Distribution Of Air Pollutants And Their Relationship With Land-Use Patterns In Hangzhou City, China, Sheng Zheng, Xueyuan Zhou, Ramesh Singh, Yuzhe Wu, Yanmei Ye, Cifang Wu

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

Air pollution contributes to a large fraction of the total mortality estimated under the global burden of disease project (GBD) of the World Health Organization (WHO). This paper discusses an integrated study to obtain the spatiotemporal characteristics of particulate matter (PM10 and PM2.5) and trace gases (O3, SO2, NO2, and CO) pollutants in Hangzhou City (China) for the years 2014–2016. Our detailed analysis shows a relationship between air pollutants and land-use/land-cover change. Air quality parameters (PM2.5 and PM10) and trace gases (SO2, NO2, and CO) show strong monthly variations in the months of January (higher values) and July (lower values). …