Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology Commons^™

How Did The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Impact Deep-Sea Ecosystems?, Charles R. Fisher, Paul A. Montagna, Tracey Sutton

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

Approximately 90% of the volume of the Gulf of Mexico is contained in water deeper than 200 m, a region where the Deepwater Horizon (DWH) blowout had more impact on ecosystems than any previous oil spill. The remoteness and relative inaccessibility of the deep sea makes documenting even acute impacts to the animals that live in this realm difficult. This article reviews Natural Resource Damage Assessment studies and follow-up work funded as part of the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative that targeted deepwater pelagic and benthic fauna. Oil was incorporated into the pelagic food web, and a reduction in planktonic …

Umphlett Qci Sept 2016, Natalie Umphlett

High Plains Regional Climate Center: Staff Publications

Highlights for the Basin

Temperature and Precipitation Anomalies

Streamflow Conditions

Challenging Season for Bird Breeding

Mixed Impacts to Agriculture this Summer

Unprecedented Fish Kill on Yellowstone River

3-Month Precipitation and Temperature Outlooks

Soil Moisture Conditions

Using Rare Earth Elements To Constrain Particulate Organic Carbon Flux In The East China Sea, Chin-Chang Hung, Ya-Feng Chen, Shih-Chieh Hsu, Kui Wang, Jianfang Chen, David J. Burdige

OES Faculty Publications

Fluxes of particulate organic carbon (POC) in the East China Sea (ECS) have been reported to decrease from the inner continental shelf towards the outer continental shelf. Recent research has shown that POC fluxes in the ECS may be overestimated due to active sediment resuspension. To better characterize the effect of sediment resuspension on particle fluxes in the ECS, rare earth elements (REEs) and organic carbon (OC) were used in separate two-member mixing models to evaluate trap-collected POC fluxes. The ratio of resuspended particles from sediments to total trap-collected particles in the ECS ranged from 82-94% using the OC mixing …

Tidal-Fluvial And Estuarine Processes In The Lower Columbia River: Ii. Water Level Models, Floodplain Wetland Inundation, And System Zones, David A. Jay, Amy B. Borde, Heida Diefenderfer

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Spatially varying water-level regimes are a factor controlling estuarine and tidal-fluvial wetland vegetation patterns. As described in Part I, water levels in the Lower Columbia River and estuary (LCRE) are influenced by tides, river flow, hydropower operations, and coastal processes. In Part II, regression models based on tidal theory are used to quantify the role of these processes in determining water levels in the mainstem river and floodplain wetlands, and to provide 21-year inundation hindcasts. Analyses are conducted at 19 LCRE mainstem channel stations and 23 tidally exposed floodplain wetland stations. Sum exceedance values (SEVs) are used to compare wetland …

On Safety Assessment Of Novel Approach To Robust Uav Flight Control In Gusty Environments, Vladimir Golubev, Petr Kazarin, William Mackunis, Sherry Borener, Derek Hufty

Publications

In a follow-up to our previous study, the current work examines the gust-induced “cone of uncertainty” in a small unmanned aerial vehicle’s (UAV) flight trajectory addressed in the context of safety assessments of UAV operations. Such analysis is a critical facet of the integration of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) into the National Airspace System (NAS), particularly in terminal airspace. The paper describes a predictive, robust feedback-loop flight control model that is applicable to various classes of UAVs and unsteady flight-path scenarios. The control design presented in this paper extends previous research results by demonstrating asymptotic (zero steady-state error) altitude regulation …

An Analysis Of The Moisture And Moist Static Energy Budgets In Amip Simulations, Kristine Adelaide Boykin

Theses and Dissertations

An analysis of the second phase of the Atmospheric Model Intercomparison Project (AMIP) simulations has been conducted to understand the physical processes that control precipitation in the tropics. This is achieved primarily through the analysis of the moisture and moist static energy budgets. Overall, there is broad agreement between the simulated and observed precipitation, although specific tropical regions such as the Maritime Continent poses challenges to these simulations. The models in general capture the latitudinal distribution of precipitation and key precipitating regions including the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) and the Asian Monsoon. The simulations portrayed the global patterns of evaporation …

Systematic Bias In Baroclinic Energy Estimates In Shelf Seas, Gordon R. Stephenson, J. A. Mattias Green, Mark E. Inall

Faculty Publications

A simple model of an internal wave advected by an oscillating barotropic flow suggests flaws in standard approaches to estimating properties of the internal tide. When the M₂ barotropic tidal current amplitude is of similar size to the phase speed of the M₂ baroclinic tide, spectral and harmonic analysis techniques lead to erroneous estimates of the amplitude, phase, and energy in the M₂ internal tide. In general, harmonic fits and bandpass or low-pass filters that attempt to isolate the lowest M₂ harmonic significantly underestimate the strength of M₂ baroclinic energy fluxes in shelf seas. Baroclinic …

Presence Of The Cyanotoxin Microcystin In Arctic Lakes Of Southwestern Greenland, Jessica Trout-Haney, Zachary Wood, Kathryn Cottingham

Dartmouth Scholarship

Cyanobacteria and their toxins have received significant attention in eutrophic temperate and tropical systems where conspicuous blooms of certain planktonic taxa release toxins into fresh water, threatening its potability and safe use for recreation. Although toxigenic cyanobacteria are not confined to high nutrient environments, bloom-forming species, or planktonic taxa, these other situations are studied les often studied. For example, toxin production in picoplankton and benthic cyanobacteria—the predominant photoautotrophs found in polar lakes—is poorly understood. We quantified the occurrence of microcystin (MC, a hepatotoxic cyanotoxin) across 18 Arctic lakes in southwestern Greenland. All of the focal lakes contained detectable levels of …

Watershed Response To Climate Change And Fire-Burns In The Upper Umatilla River Basin Using The Precipitation Runoff Modeling System, Kimberly Crystal Yazzie

Dissertations and Theses

This study provides an analysis of watershed response to climate change and forest fire impacts, to better understand the hydrologic budget and inform water management decisions for present and future needs. The study site is 2,365 km², located in the upper Umatilla River Basin (URB) in northeastern Oregon. The Precipitation Runoff Modeling System, a distributed-parameter, physical-process watershed model, was used in this study. Model calibration yielded a Nash Sutcliffe Model Efficiency of 0.73 for both calibration (1995-2010) and validation (2010-2014) of daily streamflow. Ten Global Climate Models using Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 experiments with Representative Concentration …

Climate Change Is The Reason We Need For Resiliency, Michael Allen

News Items

Guest editorial by Michael Allen concerning the draft of the Norfolk Vision 2100 by the Norfolk Planning Department.

Low Florida Coral Calcification Rates In The Plio-Pleistocene, Thomas C. Brachert, Markus Reuter, Stefan Kruger, James S. Klaus, Kevin P. Helmle, Janice M. Lough

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

In geological outcrops and drill cores from reef frameworks, the skeletons of scleractinian corals are usually leached and more or less completely transformed into sparry calcite because the highly porous skeletons formed of metastable aragonite (CaCO3) undergo rapid diagenetic alteration. Upon alteration, ghost structures of the distinct annual growth bands often allow for reconstructions of annual extension ( =  growth) rates, but information on skeletal density needed for reconstructions of calcification rates is invariably lost. This report presents the bulk density, extension rates and calcification rates of fossil reef corals which underwent minor diagenetic alteration only. The corals derive from …

Exploring The Edge Of Space: Streamlining Physics And Earth Science Collaboration In A New Community College Course, David Kobilka, Yoshinao Hirai Ph.D.

2017 Academic High Altitude Conference

We designed a new lab science course on stratospheric ballooning (SB), titled Exploring the Edge of Space. The course, which starts in the upcoming semester, brings together two groups of students simultaneously: Mainstream liberal arts students and students in the college’s Honors program. The Honors students meet an additional hour weekly, review scientific literature extensively, and complete a capstone project. The course design is a collaboration between the physics and earth science departments at Central Lakes College, and is drawn on the five-year experience of the authors doing SB flights, many in collaboration with the Bemidji State University SB program. …

Development Of A "Multi-Cut" Payload For Use In Stratospheric Ballooning Missions, James Flaten, Joey Habeck, Noah Biniek, Steven Smeaton, Austin Langford, Jordan Diers, Isaac Krieger

2017 Academic High Altitude Conference

The ability to cut strings (AKA lines) during stratospheric ballooning missions has a wide variety of uses including, but not limited to, (a) flight termination (i.e. cutting payloads away from the main balloon), (b) cutting away excess lift balloon(s) to slow ascent rate (and possibly achieve float), (c) cutting away ballast weights to slow descent rate or increase ascent rate, (d) cutting away burst balloon(s) on descent to avoid parachute entanglement, and (e) cutting away payloads which are intended to return to the ground independently, for experimental purposes. We report on the development of a “multi-cut” payload box that uses …

Comparing Carbon Dioxide And Water Vapor Fluxes From Tilled And Non-Tilled Maize Canopy Fields, Heather Sussman, Richard Grant

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Agricultural activities account for approximately 25% of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions. Farm management practices, such as tillage and no-tillage, may contribute more to this percentage than others. The two most abundant greenhouse gases responsible for climate change are CO₂ and H₂O, therefore it is important to determine whether tillage or no-tillage emits less of these gases. Fluxes of CO₂ and H₂O from two maize canopy fields, one with tillage and one with no-tillage, were measured in Indiana during the 2016 growing season. This study utilized the eddy covariance method, which represents flux as a …

Velocity Profiling, Turbulence, And Chlorophyll Concentrations In The Bottom Boundary Layer Of Lake Michigan Near Muskegon, Michigan, Jonathan M. Benoit, Cary D. Troy, David J. Cannon

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

The characterization of water flow and turbulence near lake beds is important for modelling environmental and ecological effects throughout a lake. In Lake Michigan, where invasive filter-feeding Quagga mussels dominate the lake bed, turbulence plays an important role in determining how much of chlorophyll is mixed down to the Quagga Mussels. Deep in Lake Michigan (44m) near Muskegon, MI, a large tripod was deployed, attached with an Acoustic Doppler Velocimeter, a fluorometer to measure chlorophyll concentrations, and a temperature sensor. Measurements were recorded from late May until early August by sampling velocities every hour in ten-minute bursts at 4 Hz, …

Measurement Of The Ocean Economy From National Income Accounts To The Sustainable Blue Economy, Charles S. Colgan

Journal of Ocean and Coastal Economics

The widespread efforts to incorporate the economic values of oceans into national income accounts have reached a stage where coordination of national efforts is desirable. A symposium held in 2015 began this process by bringing together representatives from ten countries. The symposium concluded that a definition of core ocean industries was possible but beyond that core the definition of ocean industries is in flux. Better coordination of ocean income accounts will require addressing issues of aggregation, geography, partial ocean industries, confidential, and imputation is also needed. Beyond the standard national income accounts, a need to incorporate environmental resource and ecosystem …

A Comparison Of Tropical Rainforest Phenology Retrieved From Geostationary (Seviri) And Polar-Orbiting (Modis) Sensors Across The Congo Basin, Dong Yan, Xiaoyang Zhang, Yunyue Yu, Wei Guo

GSCE Faculty Publications

The seasonal and interannual dynamics of tropical rainforests play a critical role in the global carbon cycle and climate change. This paper retrieved and compared land surface phenology from observations acquired by the Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imager (SEVIRI) onboard geostationary satellites and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on polar-orbiting satellites over the Congo Basin. To achieve this,we first retrieved canopy greenness cycles (CGCs) and their transition timing from two-band enhanced vegetation index (EVI2) derived from SEVIRI and MODIS data between 2006 and 2013.We then assessed the influences of SEVIRI and MODIS data quality on the reconstruction of …

Studies Of Arctic Tropospheric Ozone Depletion Events Through Buoy-Borne Observations And Laboratory Studies, John W. Halfacre

Open Access Dissertations

The photochemically-induced destruction of ground-level Arctic ozone in the Arctic occurs at the onset of spring, in concert with polar sunrise. Solar radiation is believed to stimulate a series of reactions that cause the production and release of molecular halogens from frozen, salty surfaces, though this mechanism is not yet well understood. The subsequent photolysis of molecular halogens produces reactive halogen atoms that remove ozone from the atmosphere in these so-called “Ozone Depletion Events” (ODEs). Given that much of the Arctic region is sunlit, meteorologically stable, and covered by saline ice and snow, it is expected that ODEs could be …

The Use Of Stable Isotopes And Particulate Matter In The Investigation Of Local And Regional Atmospheric Chemistry, Tanya Lynn Katzman

Open Access Dissertations

The chemical composition of particulate matter (PM), a known contributor to air pollution, is highly variable, and elemental analysis reveals information about local and regional sources, as well as how air masses and climate influence PM compositions. Seasonal changes in climate, such as temperature, amount of daylight, or meteorological patterns influence source emissions (increased residential heating activities, decreased natural soil emissions) and the relative importance of certain chemical pathways in the atmosphere. Since the magnitude of these seasonal changes are highly dependent on location, each sampling site is unique and the chemical composition of PM provides valuable insight into local …

Analyzing Accuracy Of The Lufft Ws600 In Remotely Measuring Precipitation Events, Justin Gay

STAR Program Research Presentations

The goal of this project was to analyze the accuracy of the Lufft WS600 Weather Sensor in measuring the rate of both liquid and solid precipitation. Measurement accuracy, especially in remote locations, can be difficult to obtain and quantify. Wind, blowing debris, and atmospheric particles can all have the capacity to interfere with instruments that are not being continuously compared to manual observations. Access to quality precipitation data sets are important for both hydrologic and weather forecasting, climate monitoring, and understanding the role of water cycling through ecosystems. Commercially, weather sensors are heavily relied upon by the Federal Aviation Administration …

Why Was There A Harmful Algal Bloom In 2015: The Relative Growth Of Toxic And Non-Toxic Diatoms As A Function Of Temperature, Ariana M. Jensen, Meagan P. Beley-Finnemore, Christopher E. Ikeda, William P. Cochlan

STAR Program Research Presentations

A coastwide bloom of the toxigenic diatom Pseudo-nitzschia in 2015 resulted in the largest recorded outbreak and unprecedented levels of the neurotoxin, domoic acid (DA), along the North American west coast. The scientific community has suggested that warmer ocean temperatures were the main cause of this harmful algal bloom (HAB), but little scientific evidence to support the relationship between temperature, and the growth and toxicity of Pseudo-nitzschia has been provided for local isolates of these diatoms. To gain insight into bloom dynamics, a laboratory study was conducted to examine the growth of toxic and non-toxic phytoplankton species at a range …

Estimation Of The Instantaneous Downward Surface Shortwave Radiation Using Modis Data In Lhasa For All-Sky Conditions, Xu Lu

Sustainability and Social Justice

Measuring the solar irradiance with high accuracy is the basis of PV power forecasting. Although the downward surface shortwave radiation (DSSR) data derived from satellite images are widely used in the PV industry, the instantaneity and accuracy of these data are not suitable for PV power forecasting in a short-time period. In this study, an algorithm to calculate instantaneous DSSR for all-sky conditions was developed by combining clear-sky radiative transfer model and 3D radiative transfer model using MODIS products (MOD03-07, 09). The algorithm was evaluated by ground measurements from a station in Lhasa and a reference dataset from FLASHFlux. The …

Optical Water Quality And Human Perceptions Of Rivers, Amie West

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Understanding water quality dynamics in recreational rivers is integral in shaping management strategies that maintain ecosystem health, perceived value and appeal, and regional economic significance in a changing environment. Optical water quality describes the behavior of light in water as governed by its physical and chemical composition, and is among the strongest influences on human perceptions of water quality. Ethnohydrology is the study of culturally constructed knowledge and understanding of water. This work is the culmination of an interdisciplinary approach to water resources research—integrating optical water quality and ethnohydrology methods to recognize the intersection between measured water quality and visible …

Agro-Climatic Change, Crop Production And Mitigation Strategies-Case Studies In Arkansas, Usa And Kenya, John Westley Magugu

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Although climate change impacts vary geographically and temporally, studies at local levels are not readily available for stakeholders to better understand how their local communities would be affected and what remedial measures could be more effective in their local contexts. This dissertation has examined climate change and its impacts in two different local contexts: eastern Arkansas in the USA and Nyando in Kenya. The first part of this dissertation develops agro-meteorological indicators and examines the relationship between agro-meteorological indicators and crop yields in eastern Arkansas between 1960 and 2014. Results reveal that temperature based indicators were more strongly correlated to …

Fish Communities Associated With Cold-Water Corals Vary With Depth And Substratum Type, Rosanna Milligan, Gemma Spence, J. Murray Roberts, David M. Bailey

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

Understanding the processes that drive the distribution patterns of organisms and the scales over which these processes operate are vital when considering the effective management of species with high commercial or conservation value. In the deep sea, the importance of scleractinian cold-water corals (CWCs) to fish has been the focus of several studies but their role remains unclear. We propose this may be due to the confounding effects of multiple drivers operating over multiple spatial scales. The aims of this study were to investigate the role of CWCs in shaping fish community structure and individual species-habitat associations across four spatial …

A Tribute To Thomas M. Church: Exploring Chemical Oceanography In The Coastal Zone-The History And Future, Gregory A. Cutter, David J. Burdige

OES Faculty Publications

(First paragraph) One can find different historical perspectives on the development of studying the chemistry of oceans as well as names for this study—marine chemistry, chemistry of the sea, marine aquatic chemistry, marine biogeochemistry, or chemical oceanography. It could be argued that chemical oceanography is the most inclusive for an earth science since oceanography itself is an integrated discipline that links the biology, chemistry, geology, and physics together. Regardless of the name, perhaps the first intensive, modern/post-nineteenth century study of the ocean’s chemistry was the GEOSECS Program from ca. 1970–1978. The significance of GEOSECS was that it examined the chemistry …

Evolutionary Potential Of A Dispersal-Restricted Species In Response To Climate Change, Lorena Torres Martinez

Open Access Dissertations

Habitat replacement and fragmentation associated with projected climate change pose a critical threat to global biodiversity. Edaphically limited plant species with restricted dispersal abilities will be especially handicapped to track their optimal climate spatially. Instead, the persistence of these species will depend on their capacity to adapt in situ to novel climate regimes. Here I evaluated the evolutionary potential of Lasthenia fremontii, an annual plant species restricted to ephemeral wetlands called vernal pools in California to adapt to the projected patterns of climate change. Across L. fremontii distribution there is a latitudinal gradient in precipitation which, combined with reduced …

Revisiting The Problem Of The Gulf Stream Separation: On The Representation Of Topography In Ocean Models With Different Types Of Vertical Grids, Tal Ezer

CCPO Publications

The difficulty of simulating a realistic Gulf Stream (GS) that separates from the coast at Cape Hatteras has troubled numerical ocean modelers for a long time, and the problem is evident in different models, from the early models of the 1980s to the modern models of today. The source of the problem is not completely understood yet, since GS simulations are sensitive to many different factors, such as numerical parameterization, model grid, treatment of topography and forcing fields. A curious result of early models is that models with terrain-following vertical grids (e.g., “sigma” or “s” coordinates) seem to achieve a …

Flow Scales Of Influence On The Settling Velocities Of Particles With Varying Characteristics, Corrine N. Jacobs, Wilmot Merchant, Marek Jendrassak, Varavut Limpasuvan, Roi Gurka, Erin E. Hackett

Marine Science

The settling velocities of natural, synthetic, and industrial particles were measured in a grid turbulence facility using optical measurement techniques. Particle image velocimetry and 2D particle tracking were used to measure the instantaneous velocities of the flow and the particles' trajectories simultaneously.We find that for particles examined in this study (Rep = 0.4-123), settling velocity is either enhanced or unchanged relative to stagnant flow for the range of investigated turbulence conditions. The smallest particles' normalized settling velocities exhibited the most consistent trends when plotted versus the Kolmogorov-based Stokes numbers suggesting that the dissipative scales influence their dynamics. In contrast, the …

Tsunami Warning System, Amay Vijay Desai

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

The effects of a tsunami on a coastline can be devastating. In an attempt to mitigate the damages caused by tsunamis, and to provide coastal communities with evacuation alerts, it is essential to have early warning systems installed offshore. Tsunami early warning systems can detect the formation of tsunami waves long before they reach shore, providing coastal communities with information about the strength of an incoming tsunami.

Since providing accurate information about oceanic wave patterns is absolutely necessary to forecast the magnitude of a tsunami as it forms, the focus of this research is to develop a novel approach which …