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Full-Text Articles in Atmospheric Sciences

Large-Scale Flow Patterns Conducive To Central American Extreme Precipitation Events During Autumn, Alexander Kyle Mitchell Dec 2022

Large-Scale Flow Patterns Conducive To Central American Extreme Precipitation Events During Autumn, Alexander Kyle Mitchell

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Extreme precipitation events (EPEs), characterized by daily widespread heavy rainfall exceeding the 95th percentile across Central America, can have large impacts on agriculture, life, and property during the rainy season. EPEs during the Northern Hemisphere (NH) autumn, however, have been observed to be influenced by both tropical and extratropical originating phenomena such as easterly waves and cold surges, respectively. Given the limited research in this area, the novelty of this work is to apply a systematic approach for identifying and better understanding EPEs, and investigating their associated synoptic-scale variability using daily high-resolution observations and reanalysis products over Central America. An …


A Comparative Analysis Of The Impact Of Low-Level Jets And Atmospheric Rivers In The Central U.S, Nabindra Gyawali Aug 2022

A Comparative Analysis Of The Impact Of Low-Level Jets And Atmospheric Rivers In The Central U.S, Nabindra Gyawali

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Atmospheric Rivers (AR) are the primary source of poleward moisture transport globally. In theUnited States, much recent attention has been placed on Pacific Coast ARs which occur between December and March. However, the central US is also substantially impacted by warm-season AR. An open question is whether these warm-season ARs are synonymous with Great Plains low-level jets (LLJs) that have long served as a focal point of mesoscale atmospheric research. In this study, we perform a comparative analysis of ARs and LLJs in the central U.S using ECMWF’s climate-quality reanalysis of the 20th century, CERA-20C. The aim is to identify …


Dynamic Impacts Of Hadley Circulation On Saharan Desert Warming Amplification, Alejandro Manuel Ayala Jan 2022

Dynamic Impacts Of Hadley Circulation On Saharan Desert Warming Amplification, Alejandro Manuel Ayala

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Changes in temperature due to climate change are not spatially uniform, and deserts and other drylands, which are greatly underrepresented in climate studies, are warming at a much faster rate than much of the globe with increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases. This strong warming amplification over deserts, termed Desert Amplification (DA), is most pronounced over the world’s largest and driest Sahara Desert and the Arabian Peninsula. The Sahara and Arabian deserts are formed in the subtropical subsiding branch of the Hadley Circulation (HC) and so the changes in large-scale subsidence associated with adiabatic heating could impact the DA dynamically. While …


A Synoptic-Dynamic Analysis Of The Structure And Evolution Of Persistent North Pacific Wintertime Ridge Regimes, Tyler Christopher Leicht Jan 2022

A Synoptic-Dynamic Analysis Of The Structure And Evolution Of Persistent North Pacific Wintertime Ridge Regimes, Tyler Christopher Leicht

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Along the west coast of North America (NA), a majority of the precipitation for the entire year falls during winter as a result of approximately a dozen cyclones or atmospheric rivers. However, persistent upper-level ridges can prevent the occurrence of wintertime precipitation events and lead to extended drought, significant water shortages, and adverse economy-wide impacts for major population centers in California. An increased understanding of the dynamical and thermodynamical processes that govern upper-level ridge formation, persistence, and dissipation during the rainy season along western NA would allow decision makers to better manage water resources and motivates this thesis. Persistent upper-level …


The Contributions Of Dynamical And Diabatic Processes Preceding And Accompanying Major Greenland Ice-Melt Events, Scott Feldman Dec 2021

The Contributions Of Dynamical And Diabatic Processes Preceding And Accompanying Major Greenland Ice-Melt Events, Scott Feldman

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Extratropical cyclones and/or short-wave disturbances can reinforce Greenland blocking through upper-level flow amplification and can increase poleward heat and moisture transport into the Arctic. Increased poleward heat and moisture transport into the Arctic may enhance Greenland ice melt during the spring, summer, and fall months. The need to better understand the underlying dynamical and diabatic processes that may contribute to Greenland ice melt motivates this thesis. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate: 1) the role of advective warming due to poleward heat and moisture transport into the Arctic in facilitating Greenland ice melt, 2) the role of adiabatic …


Objective Methodology To Identify The Sea Breeze Circulation And Associated Low-Level Jet In The New York Bight, Elizabeth J. Mccabe Aug 2021

Objective Methodology To Identify The Sea Breeze Circulation And Associated Low-Level Jet In The New York Bight, Elizabeth J. Mccabe

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

While the sea breeze has been studied for decades, in a complicated mid-latitude coastal region such as the New York Bight (NYB), the general thermodynamic structure and dynamics of the circulation is poorly characterized. The East Coast of the United States has become a critical area for offshore wind farm development, including a generally favorable wind resource, relatively shallow waters on an extensive continental shelf, frequent warm season sea breezes, and proximity to large populated areas. Thus the sea breeze will play a key role in the new energy economy, given the favorable wind speeds and capacity factors during periods …


Diagnosing High Sinuosity Regimes Associated With Anomalous Greenland Ice-Melt Events Using Self-Organizing Maps, Mansour El Riachy May 2021

Diagnosing High Sinuosity Regimes Associated With Anomalous Greenland Ice-Melt Events Using Self-Organizing Maps, Mansour El Riachy

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Sinuosity, a metric that describes the waviness of the circumpolar flow, is adapted to quantify modification of the tropospheric polar vortex within longitudinal sectors by localized incursions of warm, moist air from middle latitudes associated with Arctic cyclones (ACs). In this thesis, we identify four corridors of high AC track frequency, on which we center 90° longitudinal sectors comprising the following regions: Pacific, West of Greenland, Atlantic, and Asian. Sectorial sinuosity is calculated for the West of Greenland sector and is used to quantify the amplitude of the 300-hPa flow associated with anomalous Greenland ice-melt events.


Projections Of Change In Frequency And Persistence In Atmospheric Ridging Over The Pacific Northwest Using Cmip6 Models, Ellen Koukel May 2020

Projections Of Change In Frequency And Persistence In Atmospheric Ridging Over The Pacific Northwest Using Cmip6 Models, Ellen Koukel

University Honors Theses

The hydroclimatology of the Pacific Northwest is characterized by wet winters and dry summers; however, the end of the rainy season is subject to considerable year-to-year variability. Early onset of the dry season can introduce challenges for water resource managers. Historically, anomalously dry springs are the result of persistent atmospheric ridging, with notable examples in May 2015 and 2018. As climate change may affect the persistence and frequency of ridges, it is important to understand potential changes in springtime ridging. Future changes will have implications for the length of the rainy season and consequently freshwater availability throughout the region. Therefore, …


The Significance Of The Nontraditional Coriolis Terms In Tropical Large-Scale Dynamics, Heng Wang Jan 2020

The Significance Of The Nontraditional Coriolis Terms In Tropical Large-Scale Dynamics, Heng Wang

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The nontraditional Coriolis terms (NCTs) turn eastward motion upward and upward motion westward, and vice versa. NCTs are omitted in most of the current global atmospheric models. However, NCTs are significant in tropical large-scale dynamics in at least three aspects. 1) Using an idealized model that can switch NCTs on or off, omitting NCTs biases large-scale flow response to prescribed diabatic forcing mimicking the intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ). The omission yields a westerly wind bias in the heating region ~ 10% of the westerly jet stream. This bias is due to lack of westward NCT when heating-induced upward motion is …


Mechanisms Of Ice Core Stable Isotope Variability In The Upper Kaskawulsh-Donjek Region, St. Elias Mountains, Yukon, Canada, Erin A. Mcconnell Aug 2019

Mechanisms Of Ice Core Stable Isotope Variability In The Upper Kaskawulsh-Donjek Region, St. Elias Mountains, Yukon, Canada, Erin A. Mcconnell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

I use instrumental and ice core records to examine drivers of observed isotope variability in the Upper Kaskawulsh-Donjek (UKD) region of the St. Elias Mountains, Yukon, Canada over the time frame of instrument-proxy overlap (mid-1900s to present). One of the drivers of post-depositional isotope signal alteration is the vertical percolation of meltwater from the glacier surface through shallow layers of snow, which causes a reduction in the amplitude of the isotope signal recorded in ice cores. I examine isotope signal preservation in two sites in the St. Elias Mountains: Eclipse Icefield and Icefield Divide. These sites are relatively close (~30 …


Detection And Attribution Of Wind Energy Changes In The Contiguous United States, North Atlantic Ocean And European Sector In The Twentieth Century, Shengzhe Chen Jan 2019

Detection And Attribution Of Wind Energy Changes In The Contiguous United States, North Atlantic Ocean And European Sector In The Twentieth Century, Shengzhe Chen

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Wind power is playing a greater role as an alternative energy resource to fossil fuels. The prediction skills for hourly and daily forecasts of hub-height (80 – 100 m) wind power are increasingly reliable. However, regarding historical trends in wind energy availability (an important variable for determining wind farm capacity factors), little is known about the interannual and decadal variability of the hub-height wind speed. With climate change uncertainty now incorporated into wind energy resource assessment, insight into the relative contribution from the internal variability of the climate system versus the external forcing is presently lacking. Here, Empirical Orthogonal Function …


An Examination Of North Pacific Jet Regimes Conducive To Landfalling Atmospheric Rivers Along The West Coast Of North America, Eli Jacob Turasky Jan 2019

An Examination Of North Pacific Jet Regimes Conducive To Landfalling Atmospheric Rivers Along The West Coast Of North America, Eli Jacob Turasky

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Every year, the west coast of North America experiences significant economic damage and societal disruption due to the extreme precipitation associated with landfalling atmospheric rivers (ARs). ARs not only may produce significant economic and societal impacts, but also may contribute disproportionately to precipitation anomaly statistics along the west coast of the North America. The purpose of this study is to investigate: 1) the average state and evolution of the NPJ prior to AR landfall for selected categories of landfalling ARs; and 2) the dynamical processes applicable to the aforementioned categories of landfalling ARs that are linked to NPJ variability in …


Dry Air, Midlevel Flow, And The Persistence Of Deep Convection In Atlantic Tropical Disturbances, Charles Helms Jan 2018

Dry Air, Midlevel Flow, And The Persistence Of Deep Convection In Atlantic Tropical Disturbances, Charles Helms

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

An analysis of dropsonde-observed relative humidity in the Tropical Storm Gabrielle (2013) pregenesis disturbance suggests the presence of a layer of dry air that is being advected into the disturbance from the north. The focus of this study is on this and similar dry air layers, termed dry air inflow pathways (DAIPs), that are characterized by unidirectional disturbance-relative flow drawing dry air into a tropical disturbance. It is hypothesized that DAIPs act to prevent the establishment of persistent deep convection by importing midlevel


Surface Air Temperature Biases And Other Associated Biases In Gfdl Am4.0 Model, Yilin Lu Jan 2018

Surface Air Temperature Biases And Other Associated Biases In Gfdl Am4.0 Model, Yilin Lu

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The Atmospheric Model version 4.0 (AM4) is the atmospheric component of the latest climate and Earth system models (CM4 and ESM4) developed by NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) in Princeton, New Jersey. The AM4 makes some improvements in its radiative flux simulations. As a new model, its performance needs to be evaluated. We analyzed the model’s historical simulations (ten-year simulations from 2001 to 2010), in order to evaluate the diurnal cycle of surface air temperature (Tas) simulated by the AM4 model and perform some diagnostic analyses of the surface energy fluxes to help understand the temperature biases. In comparison …


What Affects The Phase Speed Of Madden-Julian Oscillation Convection, Robert Setzenfand Jan 2018

What Affects The Phase Speed Of Madden-Julian Oscillation Convection, Robert Setzenfand

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) is the main source of convective and circulation variability on intraseasonal timescales and planetary spatial scales within the tropics. Although the phase speed of the MJO convective envelope is often stated as 5 m s–1, MJO events that occur over the Indo-Pacific warm pool can have a range of phase speeds. This study uses a wavelet to identify MJO convective events with specified phase speeds in a satellite-derived outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) dataset during boreal winter. The wavelet-filtered OLR index is then regressed against basic meteorological variables to extract information about MJO events or signals propagating …


Climate Change On The Quelccaya Ice Cap, Central Andes, And Its Relationship With The Large-Scale Circulation, Christian Pedro Yarleque Galvez Jan 2018

Climate Change On The Quelccaya Ice Cap, Central Andes, And Its Relationship With The Large-Scale Circulation, Christian Pedro Yarleque Galvez

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Glaciated areas over the central Andes are highly sensitive to atmospheric forcings, as demonstrated by their current accelerated retreat in response to global warming. The present Thesis is focused on quantifying and assessing future climate change impacts over Quelccaya ice cap (QIC), the world-largest tropical ice body, which is considered as a representative case of the tropical Andean cryosphere. I focused my study on characterizing large-scale forcing and future changes of precipitation and temperature, since they represent the most important variables for accumulation and ablation processes in glaciated mountain regions. In my research I developed tools to overcome the lack …


Examining Variability In Model Skill During The 7 January 2013 Sudden Stratospheric Warming Event, Jonathan Lee Blufer Jan 2017

Examining Variability In Model Skill During The 7 January 2013 Sudden Stratospheric Warming Event, Jonathan Lee Blufer

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Recent analyses of numerical weather prediction models have shown that stratospheric regime changes (e.g. strong and weak vortex events) are not skillfully predicted at medium-range lead times. Motivated by these recent analyses, this thesis investigates the sources of variability in stratospheric forecast skill amongst several operational models initiated at different lead times prior to the 7 January 2013 sudden stratospheric warming (SSW). This study extends upon a previous analysis by the Stratospheric Network for the Assessment of Predictability (SNAP), which concluded that a change in forecast lead-time from 15 to 10 days increased model skill in predicting the 2013 SSW …


Twentieth Century Dust Lows And The Weakening Of The Westerly Winds Over The Tibetan Plateau, Bjorn Grigholm, P. A. Mayewski, S. Kang, Y. Zhang, U. Morgenstern, M. Schwikowski, Susan D. Kaspari, V. Aizen, E. Aizen, N. Takeuchi, K. A. Maasch, S. Birkel, M. Handley, S. Sneed Apr 2015

Twentieth Century Dust Lows And The Weakening Of The Westerly Winds Over The Tibetan Plateau, Bjorn Grigholm, P. A. Mayewski, S. Kang, Y. Zhang, U. Morgenstern, M. Schwikowski, Susan D. Kaspari, V. Aizen, E. Aizen, N. Takeuchi, K. A. Maasch, S. Birkel, M. Handley, S. Sneed

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences

Understanding past atmospheric dust variability is necessary to put modern atmospheric dust into historical context and assess the impacts of dust on the climate. In Asia, meteorological data of atmospheric dust is temporally limited, beginning only in the 1950s. High‐resolution ice cores provide the ideal archive for reconstructing preinstrumental atmospheric dust concentrations. Using a ~500 year (1477–1982 A.D.) annually resolved calcium (Ca) dust proxy from a Tibetan Plateau (TP) ice core, we demonstrate the lowest atmospheric dust concentrations in the past ~500 years during the latter twentieth century. Declines in late nineteenth to twentieth century Ca concentrations significantly correspond with …


Comparison Between Observed And Model-Simulated Atmospheric Circulationpatterns Associated With Extreme Temperature Days Over North Americausing Cmip5 Historical Simulations, Paul C. Loikith, Anthony J. Broccoli Mar 2015

Comparison Between Observed And Model-Simulated Atmospheric Circulationpatterns Associated With Extreme Temperature Days Over North Americausing Cmip5 Historical Simulations, Paul C. Loikith, Anthony J. Broccoli

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

Circulation patterns associated with extreme temperature days over North America, as simulated by a suite of climate models, are compared with those obtained from observations. The authors analyze 17 coupled atmosphere–ocean general circulation models contributing to the fifth phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project. Circulation patterns are defined as composites of anomalies in sea level pressure and 500-hPa geopotential height concurrent with days in the tails of temperature distribution. Several metrics used to systematically describe circulation patterns associated with extreme temperature days are applied to both the observed and model-simulated data. Additionally, self-organizing maps are employed as a means …


The Variability Of Madden-Julian Oscillation Convection And The Role Of The Western Hemisphere Circulation, Naoko Sakaeda Jan 2015

The Variability Of Madden-Julian Oscillation Convection And The Role Of The Western Hemisphere Circulation, Naoko Sakaeda

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The convective initiation of the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) over the Indian basin is often associated with eastward-propagating intraseasonal circulation approaching from the Western Hemisphere (WH), which is suggested to influence the onset of MJO convection. This dissertation first documents the event-to-event variability in the characteristics of MJO convection, which shows a geographical discrepancy in the relative roles of moist and dry dynamics on MJO convection. This dissertation then examines the structural evolution and dynamics of the intraseasonal upper-tropospheric circumnavigating circulation over the WH and its subsequent impact on MJO convection over the Indian basin, where MJO convective characteristics are highly …


Extreme Hydrometeorological Events In The Peruvian Central Andes During Austral Summer And Their Relationship With The Large-Scale Circulation, Juan Carlos Sulca Jan 2015

Extreme Hydrometeorological Events In The Peruvian Central Andes During Austral Summer And Their Relationship With The Large-Scale Circulation, Juan Carlos Sulca

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

In this Master's dissertation, atmospheric circulation patterns associated with extreme hydrometeorological events in the Mantaro Basin, Peruvian Central Andes, and their teleconnections during the austral summer (December-January-February-March) are addressed. Extreme rainfall events in the Mantaro basin are related to variations of the large-scale circulation as indicated by the changing strength of the Bolivian High-Nordeste Low (BH-NL) system. Dry (wet) spells are associated with a weakening (strengthening) of the BH-NL system and reduced (enhanced) influx of moist air from the lowlands to the east due to strengthened westerly (easterly) wind anomalies at mid- and upper-tropospheric levels. At the same time extreme …


Tropical Pacific Influence On The Source And Transport Of Marine Aerosols To West Antarctica, Alison S. Criscitiello, Sarah B. Das, Kristopher B. Karnauskas, Matthew J. Evans, Karen E. Frey, Ian Joughin, Eric J. Steig, Joseph R. Mcconnell, Brooke Medley Jan 2014

Tropical Pacific Influence On The Source And Transport Of Marine Aerosols To West Antarctica, Alison S. Criscitiello, Sarah B. Das, Kristopher B. Karnauskas, Matthew J. Evans, Karen E. Frey, Ian Joughin, Eric J. Steig, Joseph R. Mcconnell, Brooke Medley

Geography

The climate of West Antarctica is strongly influenced by remote forcing from the tropical Pacific. For example, recent surface warming over West Antarctica reflects atmospheric circulation changes over the Amundsen Sea, driven by an atmospheric Rossby wave response to tropical sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies. Here, it is demonstrated that tropical Pacific SST anomalies also influence the source and transport of marine-derived aerosols to theWest Antarctic Ice Sheet. Using records from four firn cores collected along the Amundsen coast of West Antarctica, the relationship between sea ice-modulated chemical species and large-scale atmospheric variability in the tropical Pacific from 1979 to …


Northeast Cool-Season Cyclones Associated With Significant Upper-Level Easterly Wind Anomalies, Adrian Mitchell Jan 2014

Northeast Cool-Season Cyclones Associated With Significant Upper-Level Easterly Wind Anomalies, Adrian Mitchell

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

A subset of Northeast U.S. cool-season cyclones is associated with upper-level easterly flow and, occasionally, well-defined easterly jet streaks. These events occur approximately once per year and may be associated with retrograding surface cyclones and precipitation caused by northerly warm-air advection, leading to forecast challenges. The deepest extratropical cyclone that affected the Northeast U.S. during the 2009-2010 cool-season was associated with an upper-level easterly jet streak, and produced a record snowfall total of 85 cm in Burlington, Vermont. Orographic precipitation enhancement in this case resulted from an interaction of the low-level flow with the complex topography of northern Vermont. This …


Associations Between The Madden-Julian Oscillation, Equatorial Rossby Waves, And Extratropical Northern Hemisphere Predictability, Lawrence Gloeckler Jan 2014

Associations Between The Madden-Julian Oscillation, Equatorial Rossby Waves, And Extratropical Northern Hemisphere Predictability, Lawrence Gloeckler

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The Madden-Julian oscillation (MJO), the leading mode of tropical convective and circulation variability on intraseasonal time scales, has become increasingly leveraged to improve empirical prediction of the global atmospheric circulation. Significant progress has been made in recent years to advance subseasonal (10-30-day) prediction of atmospheric circulation anomalies, and much of this progress can be attributed to the inclusion of information about the phase and amplitude of the MJO in various forecast processes. Despite this progress, however, forecasts based only on the state of the MJO omit information about other important tropical convective and circulation anomalies, and coherent MJO signals are …


2000 Year Moisture Source Record From A Central Nevada Speleothem, Paul Pribyl Dec 2012

2000 Year Moisture Source Record From A Central Nevada Speleothem, Paul Pribyl

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The goal of this study was to determine the moisture source of winter precipitation in the central Great Basin for the past 2000 years, and to elucidate the role of Pacific Ocean and North American climate variability modes in driving observed droughts of the region around the Medieval Climatic Anomaly (MCA, ~900-1300 CE). Here a high resolution (~2-4 year) precisely dated moisture source reconstruction is presented from the δ18O values of speleothem LC-1 collected from Leviathan Cave in central Nevada, which reveals significant δ18O variability. I attribute the δ18O variability to changes in winter-season moisture circulation over the past 2000 …


Atmospheric Circulation Change In The Central Himalayas Indicated By A High-Resolution Ice Core Deuterium Excess Record, Hongxi Pang, Shugui Hou, Susan Kaspari, Paul Mayewski, Douglas Introne, Valérie Masson-Delmotte, Jean Jouzel, Zhenchao Li, Yuanqing He, Sungmin Hong, Dahe Qin May 2012

Atmospheric Circulation Change In The Central Himalayas Indicated By A High-Resolution Ice Core Deuterium Excess Record, Hongxi Pang, Shugui Hou, Susan Kaspari, Paul Mayewski, Douglas Introne, Valérie Masson-Delmotte, Jean Jouzel, Zhenchao Li, Yuanqing He, Sungmin Hong, Dahe Qin

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences

Continuous measurements of both δD and δ18O were performed along a 108.8 m ice core recovered from the East Rongbuk Glacier on the northeast saddle of Mt. Qomolangma (Everest) (28.03° N, 86.96° E, 6518 m above sea level) in September 2002. They provide the first high-resolution historical record of deuterium excess (d) in the central Himalayas. In this paper, we focus on d variability from 1951 to 2001 and its relationship with large scale atmospheric circulation. The d record exhibits significant seasonal variations, with low values in summer and high values in winter, reflecting the atmospheric circulation shift between winter …


Variability Of Black Carbon Deposition To The East Antarctic Plateau, 1800-2000 Ad, M. M. Bisiaux, R. Edwards, J. R. Mcconnell, M. R. Albert Apr 2012

Variability Of Black Carbon Deposition To The East Antarctic Plateau, 1800-2000 Ad, M. M. Bisiaux, R. Edwards, J. R. Mcconnell, M. R. Albert

Dartmouth Scholarship

Refractory black carbon aerosols (rBC) from biomass burning and fossil fuel combustion are deposited to the Antarctic ice sheet and preserve a history of emissions and long-range transport from low- and mid-latitudes. Antarctic ice core rBC records may thus provide information with respect to past combustion aerosol emissions and atmospheric circulation. Here, we present six East Antarctic ice core records of rBC concentrations and fluxes covering the last two centuries with approximately annual resolution (cal. yr. 1800 to 2000). The ice cores were drilled in disparate regions of the high East Antarctic ice sheet, at different elevations and net snow …


Convectively-Coupled Kelvin Waves Over The Tropical Atlantic And African Regions And Their Influence On Atlantic Tropical Cyclogenesis, Michael John Ventrice Jan 2012

Convectively-Coupled Kelvin Waves Over The Tropical Atlantic And African Regions And Their Influence On Atlantic Tropical Cyclogenesis, Michael John Ventrice

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

High-amplitude convectively coupled atmospheric Kelvin waves (CCKWs) are explored over the tropical Atlantic during the boreal summer. Atlantic tropical cyclogenesis is found to be more frequent during the passage of the convectively active phase of the CCKW, and most frequent two days after its passage. CCKWs impact convection within the mean latitude of the inter-tropical convergence zone over the northern tropical Atlantic. In addition to convection, CCKWs also impact the large scale environment that favors Atlantic tropical cyclogenesis (i.e., deep vertical wind shear, moisture, and low-level relative vorticity).


The Influence Of The Great Lakes On Mcs Formation And Development In The Warm Season, Alan Frederick Srock Jan 2011

The Influence Of The Great Lakes On Mcs Formation And Development In The Warm Season, Alan Frederick Srock

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This study focuses on how near-surface thermal boundaries that form near the Great Lakes during the warm season can contribute to the formation of mesoscale convective systems (MCSs). Differential heating across land-water interfaces can create a cold dome of air over the lake; convection may develop when the relatively-cold dome of air becomes deep enough to enable air parcels that intersect these boundaries to reach their level of free convection. A radar-based climatology of MCS events surrounding the Great Lakes for 2002-2005 showed that MCSs frequently form in the vicinity of the Great Lakes. Composites of MCS events over the …


Tropical-Extratropical Interactions And Arctic-Extratropical Interactions Conducive To Intraseasonal Variability Of The North Pacific Jet Stream, Jason Michael Cordeira Jan 2011

Tropical-Extratropical Interactions And Arctic-Extratropical Interactions Conducive To Intraseasonal Variability Of The North Pacific Jet Stream, Jason Michael Cordeira

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The autumnal spin up of the Northern Hemisphere (NH) general circulation is characterized by intraseasonal variability in the structure of the North Pacific jet stream (NPJ). The variability in the structure of the NPJ is often associated with large-scale flow reconfigurations over the North Pacific and North America and changes in the NH zonal available potential energy (AZ). This dissertation investigates variability in the structure of the NPJ and the NH AZ in conjunction with tropical-extratropical interactions (TEIs) and arctic-extratropical interactions (AEIs). The former are investigated in association with the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, the Madden-Julian Oscillation, and western North Pacific …