Atmospheric Sciences Commons^™

Reducing Uncertainty In Sea-Level Rise Prediction: A Spatial-Variability-Aware Approach, Subhankar Ghosh, Shuai An, Arun Sharma, Jayant Gupta, Shashi Shekhar, Aneesh Subramanian

I-GUIDE Forum

Given multi-model ensemble climate projections, the goal is to accurately and reliably predict future sea-level rise while lowering the uncertainty. This problem is important because sea-level rise affects millions of people in coastal communities and beyond due to climate change's impacts on polar ice sheets and the ocean. This problem is challenging due to spatial variability and unknowns such as possible tipping points (e.g., collapse of Greenland or West Antarctic ice-shelf), climate feedback loops (e.g., clouds, permafrost thawing), future policy decisions, and human actions. Most existing climate modeling approaches use the same set of weights globally, during either regression or …

Gravity Waves Generated By The Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha‘Apai Volcanic Eruption And Their Global Propagation In The Mesosphere/Lower Thermosphere Observed By Meteor Radars And Modeled With The High-Altitude General Mechanistic Circulation Model, Gunter Stober, Sharon L. Vadas, Erich Becker, Alan Liu, Diego Janches, Zishun Qiao, Et.Al

Publications

The Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha‘apai volcano erupted on 15th January 2022, launching Lamb waves and gravity waves into the atmosphere. In this study, we present results using 13 globally distributed meteor radars and identify the volcanic- caused gravity waves in the mesospheric/lower thermospheric winds. Leveraging the High-Altitude Mechanistic General Circulation Model (HIAMCM), we compare the global propagation of these gravity waves. We observed an eastward propagating gravity wave packet with an observed phase speed of 240±5.7 m/s and a westward propagating gravity wave with an observed phase speed of 166.5 ±6.4 m/s. We identified these waves in the HIAMCM and obtained …

Design Of A Cooling System Integrated With Ultraviolet Light For Preservation Of Fruits And Vegetables At Variable Tropical Weather Conditions: A Case Study Of Arusha, Tanzania, John Pyuza Gunda, Alexander Pogrebnoi, Baraka Kichonge

Tanzania Journal of Science

Post-harvest losses of fruits and vegetables pose significant challenges, especially in tropical climates. This study introduces the development and performance evaluation of a solar-powered evaporative cooling storage system integrated with ultraviolet light (UV) designed for preservation of perishable fruits and vegetables. The cooling chamber supplied with ultraviolet lamp was developed using locally available materials such as sisal, sponge, and bricks. The performance of the system was evaluated in terms of air temperature decrease, relative humidity increase, and evaporative cooling power capacity both for sunny and cloudy tropical weather conditions. The study reveals that activating the UV light considerably extends the …

Wind Speed Forecasting Using Wavelet Analysis And Recurrent Artificial Neural Networks Based On Local Measurements In Singida Region, Tanzania, Rajabu J. Mangara, Mwingereza J. Kumwenda

Tanzania Journal of Science

High accuracy wind speed forecasting is essential for wind energy harvest and plays a significant role in wind farm management and grid integration. Wind speed is intermittent in nature, which makes the forecasting to be a big challenge. In the present study, three hybrid single-step wind speed forecasting techniques are proposed and tested by local measurement data in Singida region, Tanzania. The three techniques are based on Wavelet Analysis (WA), Back Propagation (BP) optimization algorithm, and Recurrent Neural Network (RNN). They are referred to as WA-RNN, BP-RNN, and WA-BP-RNN. The model results showed that WA-BP-RNN outperforms the other two proposed …

On The Propagation Of Whistler-Mode Waves In The 2 Magnetic Ducts, Salman A. Nejad, Anatoly V. Streltsov

Publications

This paper studies extremely-low frequency (ELF) whistler-mode waves’ behavior within small-scale magnetic field irregularities in the Earth’s magnetosphere, known as magnetic ducts. Based on the magnetic fields’ magnitude inside and outside these ducts, they are categorized as high-magnetic ducts (HBD) and low-magnetic ducts (LBD). Using the whistler-mode dispersion relation analysis, our primary focus is to show that LBDs are prone to leak electromagnetic energy outside the duct. We further investigate the hypothesis that whistlers can propagate within LBDs without any signal loss when the width of the duct corresponds to an integer multiple of the perpendicular wavelengths of the waves …

A "Boreing" Night Of Observations Of The Upper Mesosphere And Lower Thermosphere Over The Andes Lidar Observatory, J. H. Hecht, Alan Liu, D. C. Fritts, R. L. Walterscheid, L. J. Gelinas, R. J. Rudy

Publications

A very high-spatial resolution (∼21-23 m pixel at 85 km altitude) OH airglow imager at the Andes Lidar Observatory at Cerro Pach´on, Chile observed considerable ducted wave activity on the night of October 29-30, 2016. This instrument was collocated with a Na wind-temperature lidar that provided data revealing the occurrence of strong ducts. A large field of view OH and greenline airglow imager showed waves present over a vertical extent consistent with the altitudes of the ducting features identified in the lidar profiles. While waves that appeared to be ducted were seen in all imagers throughout the observation interval, the …

Comparison Of A Bottom-Up Gnss Radio Occultation Method To Measure D- And E-Region Electron Densities With Ionosondes And Firi, Dylan J. Shaver, Dong L. Wu, Nimalan Swarnalingam, Anthony L. Franz, Eugene V. Dao, Daniel J. Emmons

Faculty Publications

High-frequency skywave propagation can be heavily impacted by D- and E-region dynamics requiring accurate global measurements to optimize performance. A standard measurement technique is to use ionosondes, but they are unable to measure below 1 MHz and are only available at a limited number of land-locked sites around the globe. In contrast, the Global Navigation Satellite System radio occultation (GNSS-RO) bottom-up method is a new approach specifically designed to generate electron density profiles in the D- and E- region ionosphere. It takes advantage of satellite constellations that currently provide over 20,000 daily measurements and global coverage. In this paper, GNSS-RO …

Atmospheric Propagation Of Qubits: Laboratory Experiments To Field Demonstrations, Keith A. Wyman

Theses and Dissertations

Free-space quantum networks can enable global-scale quantum communication via satellite-based nodes and quantum ground transceivers. To enable building of robust global quantum networks, it is critical to learn how the state of the qubit is transformed while propagating through the atmosphere. With such an overarching goal, we built a laboratory based atmospheric turbulence simulator (ATS) to characterize the effects of atmospheric turbulence on an entangled pair of photons as a function of statistical quantities such as the Fried parameter or scintillation index for long-distance communication. Specifically, the changes in the statistical properties associated with a quantum source was investigated using …

Quantifying Atmospheric Turbulence Effects On Image Quality Using A Deconvolution Algorithm, Ahmad M. Almalki

Theses and Dissertations

Imaging through turbulence is affected by several factors including imaging system specifications, imaging system setup and more importantly the atmospheric turbulence as it is uncontrollable. One important parameter which is used to quantify the atmospheric turbulence severity is the atmospheric coherence diameter (��₀ ), known as Fried's parameter. This thesis explores ways to characterize the atmospheric turbulence effects on image quality using simulated and laboratory generated turbulence where ��₀ is estimated using a maximum a posteriori (MAP) estimator and frequency domain analysis algorithms. Furthermore, image quality metrics such as Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR), Structural Similarity (SSIM) …

Nalidarturbopauseshear, Titus Yuan

Browse all Datasets

The USU Na lidar has been upgraded to be able to measure temperature and winds in the lower thermosphere up to ~ 115 km routinely. The new capability, coupled with the existing nightglow instruments at USU, enables the investigation of the extreme large wind and shears in this region and their correlation to the atmospheric gravity waves activities in the upper mesosphere.

Whistler-Mode Waves In Magnetic Ducts, Anatoly V. Streltsov, Salman A. Nejad

Publications

Observations from the NASA MMS satellites show packages of ELF whistler-mode waves localized inside the small-scale irregularities of the magnetic field. These irregularities are formed by the narrow field-aligned channels where the magnitude of the background magnetic field inside the channel is greater or less than outside. By analogy with the classical density ducts, we introduce the high-B duct (HBD), where the magnitude of the field inside the channel is greater than the outside, and the low-B duct (LBD), where the magnitude of the field inside the channel is less than the outside. We investigate the guiding of the ELF …

An Analysis Of Moisture Environments Associated With Mature North Atlantic Tropial Cyclones, Katherine Berislavich

Theses and Dissertations

Tropical cyclone (TC) intensity and structure are affected by their environments, including sea surface temperature, vertical wind shear, and atmospheric moisture. Analyses of TC environments often rely on area-averaged quantities, yet the spatial variability of these fields can affect TC behavior, such as moisture distribution impacting where and how much rain falls. This study identifies spatial patterns of environmental moisture surrounding mature North Atlantic TCs during 2000-2021 in shear of less than 20 knots. Empirical orthogonal function analysis of total column water vapor reveals six dominant patterns. These patterns account for nearly 67% of the variance in the dataset and …

An Analysis Of The Predictability Of The February 2021 Cold Air Outbreak At S2s Timescales, Grace Dines

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The February 2021 cold air outbreak (CAO) brought long-lasting, freezing temperatures and extreme winter weather to the United States and Canada. The event resulted in major societal and economic impacts, including millions of power outages, hundreds of fatalities, and approximately $25 billion in losses. This thesis first analyzes the synoptic evolution of this CAO in order to explain how Arctic air arrived and stalled over central North America. Given the synoptic context, the analysis next considers the subseasonal-to-seasonal (S2S) predictability of this CAO by examining S2S ensemble model predictions from both high-top and low-top models. The S2S predictability analysis is …

An Evaluation Of High-Resolution Model Simulations Of Orographic Precipitation, Snowpack, Atmospheric Rivers, And Their Climate Sensitivities In The Southern Andes, Erin Potter

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Orographic precipitation and snowpack are important for water resources and hydrometeorological hazards in the Andes Mountain range. As the climate warms, South American atmospheric rivers (ARs) are expected to increase in frequency and intensity, leading to increased orographic precipitation. Improved understanding of orographic precipitation and snowpack, and their association with ARs, in a warming climate is needed to provide a foundation for understanding future hydroclimate change over the Andes. The goal of this research is to evaluate how well variations in high-resolution regional climate simulations over the southern Andes (30-55°S), agree with observations of (1) orographic precipitation and (2) snowpack …

The Development Of A Statistical Postprocessing Algorithm By Two-Step Space-Time Eof Analysis, William David Stikeleather

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Model prediction for extended range forecasts is fraught with shortcomings that generate forecast error and decrease skill. Biases in Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) models generate patterns of error that grow larger with time. These inherent biases systematically alter the modeled positioning of atmospheric features that emerge as synoptic or subseasonal error. While individual weather events and anomalous patterns will generate model noise, it is computationally possible to separate the signal behind this error from noise. For 200 hPa Geopotential Height (Z200), systematic biases in model forecasts often manifest themselves as errors in atmospheric wave patterns in the high latitudes, including …

A Framework For Statistical Modeling Of Wind Speed And Wind Direction, Eva Murphy

All Dissertations

Atmospheric near surface wind speed and wind direction play an important role in many applications, ranging from air quality modeling, building design, wind turbine placement to climate change research. It is therefore crucial to accurately estimate the joint probability distribution of wind speed and direction. This dissertation aims to provide a modeling framework for studying the variation of wind speed and wind direction. To this end, three projects are conducted to address some of the key issues for modeling wind vectors.\\

First, a conditional decomposition approach is developed to model the joint distribution of wind speed and direction. Specifically, the …

Investigation Of The Flow Field In The Jack Rabbit Ii Mock Urban Environment Field Tests Using A 1:50 Scale Wind Tunnel Model, Paulo Victor De Freitas Lopes

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Accidental release of toxic chemicals can put workers and nearby populations at significant risk. Consequence assessment of accidents in urban environments is of particular interest. Urban geometries create wind channels between buildings, along with particularly dangerous areas downwind of buildings, where near-stagnant flow is present. Furthermore, recirculation zones can be formed between buildings, trapping high concentrations of toxic gases at ground level, particularly for denser-than-air gases. In 2015, the Department of Homeland Security conducted the Jack Rabbit II Field Test (JR-II) at Dugway Proving Ground, UT. During JR-II, chlorine was released at the center of a Mock Urban Environment (MUE) …

Characteristics Of Refractivity And Sea State In The Marine Atmospheric Surface Layer And Their Influence On X-Band Propagation, Douglas Matthew Pastore

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Predictions of environmental conditions within the marine atmospheric surface layer (MASL) are important to X-band radar system performance. Anomalous propagation occurs in conditions of non-standard atmospheric refractivity, driven by the virtually permanent presence of evaporation ducts (ED) in marine environments. Evaporation ducts are commonly characterized by the evaporation duct height (EDH), evaporation duct strength, and the gradients below the EDH, known as the evaporation duct curvature. Refractivity, and subsequent features, are estimated in the MASL primarily using four methods: in-situ measurements, numerical weather and surface layer modeling, boundary layer theory, and inversion methods.

The existing refractivity estimation techniques often assume …

A Comparative Study Of Vinti-Based Orbit Propagation And Estimation For Cubesats In Very Low Earth Orbits, Ethan Michael Senecal

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Theses & Dissertations

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in CubeSats and very low Earth orbit (VLEO) space missions. Mission SeaLion, a collaborative CubeSat mission between Old Dominion University, the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, and U.S. Air Force Institute of Technology, planned to launch a 3U CubeSat into VLEO. The VLEO mission is a particularly challenging environment for navigation and orbit propagation because drag introduces a significant perturbation for orbit models such as SGP4. Additionally, mission requirements left no capacity for attitude determination or control, further reducing knowledge of drag behavior of the satellite in flight. This deficiency is a …

Forecasting Wildfire Smoke Particulate Matter Using Hysplit Model, Kevin Du, Alexa Sedlacek

Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP) Symposium

Wildfire smoke can reduce visibility and affect human health. Particulate matter with a diameter smaller than 2.5μm from wildfire smoke can travel through the respiratory tract to the lungs and enter the bloodstream. PM2.5 can be especially harmful to individuals with lung conditions such as asthma, chronic bronchitis, emphysema, and COPD, as well as infants and adults over sixty- five. This project uses NOAA’s Hybrid Single-Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory (HYSPLIT) model to forecast the transport and dispersion of particulate matter using meteorological files, wildfire location, burning areas, and starting time. Forecast data of the HYSPLIT model can be verified against …

Droughtscape, Summer 2023, National Drought Mitigation Center

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

DroughtScape, Summer 2023

Influence Of Urban Land Use Land Cover Changes On Land Surface Temperature In Dar Es Salaam Metropolitan City, Tanzania: The Use Of Geospatial Approach, Olipa Simon, Nestory Yamungu, James Lyimo

Tanzania Journal of Science

Land use land cover (LULC) changes affect the planet's energy balance and region's climate. Land Surface Temperature (LST) is a vital indicator of this change. Studies in Dar es Salaam Metropolitan City have investigated LST and its relationships with building heights and densities, urban heat islands, spectral indices, and urban morphological determinants. The present study used cross-sectional profiles, chord diagrams, and simple linear regression models to examine the influence of LULC changes on the LST in Dar es Salaam Metropolitan City (DMC). LST was extracted from Landsat 5 TM and 8 OLI/TIRS images for 1995, 2009, and 2017. LULC was …

Hyper-Local Weather Predictions With The Enhanced General Urban Area Microclimate Predictions Tool, Kevin A. Adkins, William Becker, Sricharan Ayyalasomayajula, Steven Lavenstein, Kleoniki Vlachou, David Miller, Marc Compere, Avinash Muthu Krishnan, Nickolas Macchiarella

Publications

This paper presents enhancements to, and the demonstration of, the General Urban area Microclimate Predictions tool (GUMP), which is designed to provide hyper-local weather predictions by combining machine-learning (ML) models and computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulations. For the further development and demonstration of GUMP, the Embry–Riddle Aeronautical University (ERAU) campus was used as a test environment. Local weather sensors provided data to train ML models, and CFD models of urban- and suburban-like areas of ERAU’s campus were created and iterated through with a wide assortment of inlet wind speed and direction combinations. ML weather sensor predictions were combined with best-fit …

Monitoring Personal Exposure To Air Quality Gradients While Biking On An Elevated Urban Trail, Gavin D. Salas

DePaul Discoveries

Air pollution is a major global health concern, specifically as it relates to the human exposome. The EPA criteria pollutants, including particulate matter (PM), carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (CO₂), and NO_x can have severe impacts on respiratory and cardiovascular health, particularly in populations with chronic illnesses such as asthma, those facing economic hardships and individuals who frequently spend time outdoors, such as bicyclists and runners. To understand the impact of air pollution on human health, it is essential to assess personal exposure. This study aimed to investigate personal exposure to air pollution levels while biking along …

Optimal Estimation Inversion Of Ionospheric Electron Density From Gnss-Pod Limb Measurements: Part I-Algorithm And Morphology, Dong L. Wu, Nimalan Swarnalingam, Cornelius C. J. H. Salinas, Daniel J. Emmons, Tyler C. Summers, Robert Gardiner-Garden

Faculty Publications

GNSS-LEO radio links from Precise Orbital Determination (POD) and Radio Occultation (RO) antennas have been used increasingly in characterizing the global 3D distribution and variability of ionospheric electron density (Ne). In this study, we developed an optimal estimation (OE) method to retrieve Ne profiles from the slant total electron content (hTEC) measurements acquired by the GNSS-POD links at negative elevation angles (ε < 0°). Although both OE and onion-peeling (OP) methods use the Abel weighting function in the Ne inversion, they are significantly different in terms of performance in the lower ionosphere. The new OE results can overcome the large Ne oscillations, sometimes negative values, seen in the OP retrievals in the E-region ionosphere. In the companion paper in this Special Issue, the HmF2 and NmF2 from the OE retrieval are validated against ground-based ionosondes and radar observations, showing generally good agreements in NmF2 from all sites. Nighttime hmF2 measurements tend to agree better than the daytime when the ionosonde heights tend to be slightly lower. The OE algorithm has been applied to all GNSS-POD data acquired from the COSMIC-1 (2006–2019), COSMIC-2 (2019–present), and Spire (2019–present) constellations, showing a consistent ionospheric Ne morphology. The unprecedented spatiotemporal sampling of the ionosphere from these constellations now allows a detailed analysis of the frequency–wavenumber spectra for the Ne variability at different heights. In the lower ionosphere (~150 km), we found significant spectral power in DE1, DW6, DW4, SW5, and SE4 wave components, in addition to well-known DW1, SW2, and DE3 waves. In the upper ionosphere (~450 km), additional wave components are still present, including DE4, DW4, DW6, SE4, and SW4. The co-existence of eastward- and westward-propagating wave4 components implies the presence of a stationary wave4 (SPW4), as suggested by other earlier studies. Further improvements to the OE method are proposed, including a tomographic inversion technique that leverages the asymmetric sampling about the tangent point associated with GNSS-LEO links.

Extreme Horizontal Wind Perturbations In The Mesosphere And Lower Thermosphere Over South America Associated With The 2022 Hunga Eruption, Facundo L. Poblet, Jorge L. Chau, J. Federico Conte, Juha Vierinen, Jose Suclupe, Alan Liu, Rodolfo R. Rodriguez

Publications

On 15 January 2022, the Hunga volcano produced a massive explosion that generated perturbations in the entire atmosphere. Nonetheless, signatures in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere (MLT) have been challenging to identify. We report MLT horizontal wind perturbations using three multistatic specular meteor radars on the west side of South America (spanning more than 3,000 km). The most notorious signal is an exceptional solitary wave with a large vertical wavelength observed around 18 UT at all three sites, with an amplitude of ∼50 m/s mainly in the westward direction. Using a customized analysis, the wave is characterized as traveling at …

A Gridded Co2 Emissions Inventory For Portland, Or, James E. Powell

Dissertations and Theses

Here we develop a new high resolution inventory of CO₂ emissions for the three Oregon counties which comprise the bulk of the City of Portland, Oregon, USA. Locally curated and long-running data collection efforts for on-road traffic activity and emission rates are used to model on-road emissions, and a new survey of the area's natural gas network informs the building energy model. The inventory estimates total emissions of CO₂ for each hour of the year 2018 in the on-road, residential, and commercial building sectors at 1 km² resolution. The onroad inventory compares to within 3% with an …

Feasibility Analysis Of Aeronet Lunar Aod For Nighttime Particulate Matter Estimation, Kwang Nyun Kim, Seung Hee Kim, Sang Seo Park, Yun Gon Lee

Institute for ECHO Articles and Research

Several studies have attempted to estimate particulate matter (PM) concentrations using aerosol optical depth (AOD), based on AOD and PM relationships. Owing to the limited availability of nighttime AOD data, PM estimation studies using AOD have focused on daytime. Recently, the Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) produced nighttime AOD, called lunar AOD, providing an opportunity to estimate nighttime PM. Nighttime AOD measurements are particularly important as they help fill gaps in our understanding of aerosol variability and its impact on the atmosphere, as there are significant variations in AOD between day and night. In this study, the relationship between lunar AOD …

Verification Of The Localized Aviation Mos Program (Lamp) At Major Us Airports For Ifr Conditions, Mackenzie O'Rourke

Theses and Dissertations

The objective of this research is to quantify the LAMP’s performance when forecasting for IFR conditions at specific major airports for forecast hours one, three, six, and twelve, and further determine how the LAMP performs seasonally at those specific airports and forecast hours. Two by two contingency tables were used to calculate the Probability of Detection (POD), False Alarm Ratio (FAR), Critical Success Index (CSI), Heidke Skill Score (HSS), and Bias score. The results show that the LAMP performs relatively better in the cool season compared to the warm season consistently at each chosen airport, and that the LAMP performs …

Atmospheric Impacts From The 2010 Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, Charles Philip Johnson

LSU Master's Theses

Although the ecological devastations induced by an oil spill are well studied, the hydrometeorological impacts from a long-term slick have gone unnoticed. The ocean-surface alterations stemming from the lasting oil footprint increase solar radiation absorption which in turn alters the surface pressure and moisture gradients and wind speeds thereby influencing precipitation surrounding the oil spill. Revealing the potential impacts from these could better aid in the safety of crews cleaning spills and provide a better understanding of how humans alter the landscape. This thesis examines the changes in local hydrometeorology brought on by the 2010 summer Deepwater Horizon (DWH) oil …