Meteorology Commons^™

Extent Of The 2023 Coral Bleaching Event In The Nargana Region Of Guna Yala, Panama, Brydon Deanna Hollander

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Coral reefs are diverse marine ecosystems that exist in tropical ecosystems all over the world. They provide a myriad of ecological services that are vital for marine organism biodiversity and human coastal communities. A major threat to coral reefs is a rise in sea surface temperature that causes coral bleaching. The effect of a coral bleaching event in Nargana, Guna Yala will be investigated to examine how the health status of coral reef ecosystems are being impacted. To guide these efforts, the extent of coral bleaching will be measured along with whether sea surface temperature (SST), human concentration, and El …

Climatological Analysis Of Tropical Cyclone Occurrence Dates And Landfall Characteristics In The North Atlantic And Eastern North Pacific, Nicholas Sava Grondin

Doctoral Dissertations

Tropical cyclones (TCs) are significant hazards to coastal and inland regions across the globe, especially in North America. North America is affected by TCs from two basins, the North Atlantic (NATL) and eastern North Pacific (ENP), with the former being the predominate focus of past research. In this dissertation, I present three studies that directly compare TCs in the NATL and ENP by using the same methods for each basin in studying occurrence dates and intraseasonal variability, effects of environmental parameters on occurrence dates and seasonal forecasting, and the behavior of TCs during the final 36 hours before landfall in …

Relative Importance Of Radar Variables For Nowcasting Heavy Rainfall: A Machine Learning Approach, Yi Victor Wang, Seung Hee Kim, Geunsu Lyu, Choeng-Lyong Lee, Gyuwon Lee, Ki-Hong Min, Menas C. Kafatos

Institute for ECHO Articles and Research

Highly short-term forecasting, or nowcasting, of heavy rainfall due to rapidly evolving mesoscale convective systems (MCSs) is particularly challenging for traditional numerical weather prediction models. To overcome such a challenge, a growing number of studies have shown significant advantages of using machine learning (ML) modeling techniques with remote sensing data, especially weather radar data, for high-resolution rainfall nowcasting. To improve ML model performance, it is essential first and foremost to quantify the importance of radar variables and identify pertinent predictors of rainfall that can also be associated with domain knowledge. In this study, a set of MCS types consisting of …

¿Aviso O Alerta? Developing Effective, Inclusive, And Consistent Watch And Warning Translations For U.S. Spanish Speakers, Joseph E. Trujillo-Falcón, América R. Gaviria Pabón, Joseph T. Ripberger, Abby Bitterman, Jonathan B. Thornton, Mackenzie J. Krocak, Sean R. Ernst, Estilita Cassiani Obeso, John Lipski

NOAA Technical Reports and Related Materials

Spanish-speaking populations in the United States are more vulnerable in disaster contexts due to inequities, such as language barriers, that prevent them from receiving life-saving information. For the past couple of decades, governmental organizations have addressed these issues by translating weather watches, warnings, and advisories into Spanish. Previous studies suggest that these Spanish translations do not communicate the same level of urgency as their English counterparts. To identify whether these translated products result in inequities between English and Spanish speaker reception and comprehension of forecast information, we asked a representative sample of U.S. English (n = 1,550) and Spanish (n …

Nexus Between Animal Welfare, Environment, And Sustainable Development: Resource Document, Wellbeing International

Nexus – UNEP – Animal Welfare, Environment, Sustainable Development

This Resource Document has been developed to explore the Nexus (links) between Animal Welfare, the Environment, and Sustainable Development. The document includes relevant citations and reports addressing the topics encompassed by the Nexus. It will be maintained as a “living document” (subject to revision) in the WellBeing International Studies Repository. The original document and subsequent revisions will be kept in the Repository to provide a record of the changes.

Estimation Of Economic Risk From Coastal Natural Hazards In Louisiana, Rubayet Bin Mostafiz

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Louisiana, U.S.A., is among the most vulnerable areas globally to coastal natural hazards, with risk vulnerability likely increasing. The risks associated with non-tropical-cyclone hazards in Louisiana’s coastal zone have been understudied. This research enhances present and future (i.e., 2050) Louisiana risk assessment using locally-weighted, model-based hazard frequency/intensity and population projections.

Results suggest that property risks associated with extreme cold temperature and tornado are and will remain costlier than those for hail and lightning. Property risks of extreme cold temperature and hail are projected to decrease with the expected warming temperatures, with those of all four of these hazards peaking in …

Validated Question Bank For Assessing Pilot Knowledge Of Aviation Weather Appendix: Weather Product Interpretation Questions, Robert Thomas, Cassandra Dommingo, John Kleber, Jackie Mcsorely, Amber Cole, Thomas Guinn, Elizabeth Blickensderfer

General Aviation Weather Display Interpretation

This appendix supplements the Thomas et al. (2022) paper titled “Validated Question Bank for Assessing Pilot Knowledge of Aviation Weather ” which validates a set of weather product interpretation questions that can be used to measure a pilot’s understanding of weather. The assessment consists of 15 weather product interpretation topics which can be administered as a single 65-question survey or, as in the Thomas et al. (2022) study, two assessments of 33 and 32 questions each separated by topic. The set of 65 questions can be found in this appendix along with a table which demonstrates how to separate the …

Nashville-Basin Tornadoes: Using Storm Types To Elucidate The Local Climatology And Forecasting Challenges, Morgan Steckler, Kelsey Ellis

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

Early 3 March 2020 was a devastating night for many middle Tennessee residents. A strong EF-3 tornado tore through Nashville at 65 mph, and another EF-4 killed 18 in Baxter and Cookeville alone. Residents of the Southeastern United States are particularly vulnerable to tornadoes. This study aims to better understand local forecasting challenges by looking at the types of storms that produce tornadoes. Storm types, also known as convective modes, divide tornado-producing storms into categories by length, shape, multiplicity, and intensity. Distinguishing storms by these modes allows for a broader understanding of their occurrences and impacts. This study specifically evaluates …

Inland Tropical Cyclone Intensity Decay In The Continental United States, Yijie Zhu

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Tropical cyclone (TC) hazard preparation is mostly focused on coastal cities with less attention typically paid to inland regions. The impact of TCs that propagate far inland is often underestimated and can cause unexpected loss of life and economic loss. This dissertation aims to understand the decay process of TCs during the post-landfall stage by answering three main research questions: (1) What are the general patterns of inland tropical cyclones, including spatial variations, decay rates, and translation speeds? (2) Are there temporal changes in the intensity decay from inland moving hurricanes? (3) How is the hurricane post-landfall dissipation related to …

Water: The Gift And The Curse: A Climate Change Preparedness Study On An Increased Rainfall Scenarios In The Yunguilla Cloud Forest, Ecuador, Emilia Dick Fiora Del Fabro

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The purpose of this project was to try and better understand the risks posed to the Yunguilla community in an increased rainfall climate change scenario. While climate modeling is not exact, many models do predict increased rain and storm intensity in this area (“Explainer…”, 2018). This project studies erosion risk, and the potential damage to crops through a series of experiments and mapping.

The first experiment used three hydration percentages 50, 75 and 100, to water two crop types, Fragaria and Caspium, and monitored plant health to see the water's effect. The hydraulic stress testing did not model an increased …

Bicycles And Transit: Weather Or Not: A Study On The Effect Of Weather And Air Quality On Bicycle-Transit, Bicycle, Rail Transit Counts In Denver, Christiana M. Fairfield

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The movement of people and goods within metropolitan areas is critically important to the operational efficiency and functionality of cities. This study explores the influence of local weather conditions and the air quality index on bicycle-transit user in Denver, Colorado. Based on bicycle-transit having two key components, bicycle and transit, the effect of local weather conditions and the air quality index is also explored with bicycle use and rail-transit usage. Key findings include: (1) the most significant variable across all three modes is temperature, (2) for bicycle-transit and bicycle use, there is a steady increase in ridership as temperatures increase …

A Historical Analysis Of The U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agencies (Fema) Response And Recovery To Gulf Coast Hurricane And Other Weather-Related Disasters, Lauren Marie Denning

Graduate Research Papers

The growing changes in our environment combined with the increased number of catastrophic climate and weather- related events are occurring more frequently and continuing to intensify in the United States and Worldwide. These events are resulting in mass destruction in our environment and infrastructure, significant loss in human lives, and costing billions of dollars in response and recovery. Although there is no way to prevent these events, governments and populations can take steps to adapt and prepare for these events. This will ultimately decrease the overall impacts that these events have on our environment and future generations to come.

This …

South Dakota Farmers’ Perceived Extreme Weather Frequency And Adaptation Measures, Tong Wang, Jim Ristau

South Dakota Farm Survey

Researchers at South Dakota State University (SDSU) conducted surveys of eastern South Dakota (SD) commodity crop producers with the support of the South Dakota Corn Utilization Council. Using publicly available addresses of government program participants, a random sample of 3,000 producers were sent the survey in 2018. 650 were ineligible and 708 responded to the survey for a response rate of 30%. In 2021, the same producers who took the survey in 2018 were asked to take a follow up survey. 94 were ineligible, and 350 responded for a 59% response rate. Producers could take the survey online or via …

Weather And Crime: New York State, Yuna Kim

Student Theses

The present study assesses the degree to which temperature affects the crime rates in all 62 counties in the State of New York. Five different crimes (i.e., robbery, aggravated assault, burglary; larceny, and motor vehicle theft) for the year 2019 were selected from the Division of Criminal Justice Services of New York to be examined. The current study examined whether the rate of these crimes was associated with the changes in weather, with the assumption that higher weathers would lead to higher property and violent crimes, when controlling for the effect of various control variables. The findings suggest that the …

Downscaling Methodology For Satellite Land Surface Temperatures Over Urban Environments, Naved Khan, Ruben Vecino

Publications and Research

The objective of this study is to develop high spatial and temporal resolution Land Surface Temperature (LST) data using a combination of Landsat 8, infrared satellite sensors such as the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), and the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-R Series (GOES-16). The Landsat 8 Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS) provides higher spatial resolution (30 m) estimates of skin temperature every 16 days. MODIS makes daytime and nighttime observations of the Earth’s thermal emission at a coarser spatial resolution (1000 m), while GOES-16, which has lower spatial resolution (2 km), measures the skin temperature at a much higher temporal resolution …

Hazardous Weather And Human Response In The Southeastern United States, Daniel Burow

Doctoral Dissertations

Effectively mitigating the human costs of future hazardous weather events requires examining meteorological threats, their long-term patterns, and human response to these events. The southeastern United States is a region that has both a high climatological risk and a high societal vulnerability to many different meteorological hazards. In this dissertation, I study hazardous weather and human response in the Southeast through three different lenses: identifying uniquely simultaneous hazards posed by tropical cyclones, assessing precipitation and synoptic weather patterns on hazardous weather days, and examining patterns in intended response to tornado watches. I find that simultaneous and collocated tornado and flash …

Applying Human Factors Heuristic Evaluation Tools To Improve Aviation Weather Displays: A Mismatch, John Kleber, Paige Lawton, Beth Blickensderfer

General Aviation Weather Display Interpretation

The evaluation of current Heuristic Evaluation Tools for use in assessing Aviation Weather Displays.

Multifidelity Prediction In Wildfire Spread Simulation: Modeling, Uncertainty Quantification And Sensitivity Analysis, Mario Miguel Valero, Lluís Jofre, Ricardo Torres

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Wildfire behavior predictions typically suffer from significant uncertainty. However, wildfire modeling uncertainties remain largely unquantified in the literature, mainly due to computing constraints. New multifidelity techniques provide a promising opportunity to overcome these limitations. Therefore, this paper explores the applicability of multifidelity approaches to wildland fire spread prediction problems. Using a canonical simulation scenario, we assessed the performance of control variates Monte-Carlo (MC) and multilevel MC strategies, achieving speedups of up to 100x in comparison to a standard MC method. This improvement was leveraged to quantify aleatoric uncertainties and analyze the sensitivity of the fire rate of spread (RoS) to …

Hazardous Weather Communication En Español: Challenges, Current Resources, And Future Practices, Joseph E. Trujillo-Falcón, Orlando Bermúdez, Krizia Negrón-Hernández, John Lipski, Elizabeth Leitman, Kodi Berry

NOAA Technical Reports and Related Materials

According to recent Census data, the Hispanic or Latino population represents nearly 1 in 5 Americans today, where 71.1% of these individuals speak Spanish at home. Despite increased efforts among the weather enterprise, establishing effective risk communication strategies for Spanish-speaking populations has been an uphill battle. No frameworks exist for translating weather information into the Spanish language, nor are there collective solutions that address this problem within the weather world. The objective of this article is threefold. First, the current translation issue in Spanish is highlighted. Through research conducted at the NOAA/NWS Storm Prediction Center, situations are revealed where regional …

Aviation Human-In-The-Loop Simulation: Best Practices For Subjective Performance Measurement, John Kleber, Beth Blickensderfer

Aviation Weather Training Research

Subjective performance measurements are a useful tool for researchers and instructors to evaluate tasks that are difficult to quantify with objective data pulled from a simulator or the physiological data of pilots. Subjective performance measurements are non-intrusive measures typically conducted by human raters. Some recommendations for utilizing subjective measures include reducing the workload of the human raters, concealing the aim of the experiment from participants, utilizing multiple raters to evaluate each participant, providing raters with proper training, developing error-resistant rater forms and, including both subjective and objective measures when possible.

High Wind Alerts: A System Created With Observations From The X-Band Teaching And Research Radar, Lauren Warner

The Journal of Purdue Undergraduate Research

Following the August 13, 2011, Indiana State Fair stage collapse tragedy, caused by a wind gust from an approaching thunderstorm, Purdue University enforced a wind speed restriction of 30 mph (13 m s-1) for tents at outdoor events. During these events, volunteers stand outside with handheld anemometers, measuring and reporting when the wind speeds exceed this limit. In this study, we report testing of a new system to automate high-wind alerts based on observations from a Doppler radar, the X-band Teaching and Research Radar (XTRRA), near Purdue’s campus. XTRRA scans over campus at low elevations approximately every 5 minutes. Using …

Statement Of World Aquatic Scientific Societies On The Need To Take Urgent Action Against Human-Caused Climate Change, Based On Scientific Evidence [Dear Colleague Letter], Scott A. Bonar, Brian R. Murphy, Leanne H. Roulson, Jesse T. Trushenski, Douglas J. Austen, Michael Edward Douglas

United States Fish and Wildlife: Staff Publications

Dear Colleague Letter from the American Fisheries Society to fellow scientific societies, July 25, 2020, about the urgent need for responsive collective action to mitigate impending radical climate change. Includes the Statement of World Aquatic Scientific Societies on the Need to Take Urgent Action Against Human-Caused Climate Change, Based on Scientific Evidence, emphasizing the importance of aquatic ecosystems. Includes extensive citations and notes.

"Water is the most important natural resource on Earth as it is vital for life. Aquatic ecosystems, freshwater or marine, provide multiple benefits to human society, such as provisioning of oxygen, food, drinking water, genetic resources; regulation …

The Perceived Usefulness Of A Weather Radar Display By Tampa Bay Residents, Michelle E. Saunders

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A weather radar display is a tool that provides spatially oriented, timely information about an impending weather event. While radar is frequently used by meteorologists, emergency managers, and pilots, this tool is now readily available for individuals to use on a variety of platforms including television, computer/laptop, smartphones and tablets. Most importantly, there are hundreds of mobile weather applications available as well as online sources that provide a weather radar display. However, little is known about how individuals use a weather radar display. Therefore, the purpose of this dissertation is to understand why radar is sought out as a tool …

Lightning Activity In The Continental United States On An Enso Time Scale, 2002-2015, Tyler M. Gingrich

Senior Honors Projects, 2020-current

This investigation examined the frequency and spatial pattern of lightning in the continental United States from 2002 to 2015. Before analysis, flashes were grouped based on their El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phase and Spatial Synoptic Classification (SSC) type for the winter season (December, January, and February). The purpose of this study is to better understand the relationship between planetary teleconnections, synoptic scale air masses, and micro scale phenomena, specifically lightning, in the continental United States. Evidence suggests ENSO cold phase flashes tend to have a lower frequency in number of flashes and flash days, as well as a northward …

Changes In Atmospheric, Meteorological, And Ocean Parameters Associated With The 12 January 2020 Taal Volcanic Eruption, Feng Jing, Akshansa Chauhan, Ramesh P. Singh, Prasanjit Dash

Biology, Chemistry, and Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles and Research

The Taal volcano erupted on 12 January 2020, the first time since 1977. About 35 mild earthquakes (magnitude greater than 4.0) were observed on 12 January 2020 induced from the eruption. In the present paper, we analyzed optical properties of volcanic aerosols, volcanic gas emission, ocean parameters using multi-satellite sensors, namely, MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer), AIRS (Atmospheric Infrared Sounder), OMI (Ozone Monitoring Instrument), TROPOMI (TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument) and ground observations, namely, Argo, and AERONET (AErosol RObotic NETwork) data. Our detailed analysis shows pronounced changes in all the parameters, which mainly occurred in the western and south-western regions because the …

Old Dominion University Partners With Hampton Roads Community Foundation To Speed Severe Weather Recovery, Joe Garvey

News Items

No abstract provided.

Determining Atmospheric Boundary Layer Behavior Over Mountainous Terrain Using Aircraft Vertical Profiles From 2009-2018 Nasa Student Airborne Research Program Data, Dallas Mckinney

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

The atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) height separates turbulently mixed air and pollutants emitted at the ground from the free troposphere above and is an important parameter in numerical weather prediction and air pollution dispersion models. Discerning the ABL height over mountainous terrain has historically been difficult because of, for example, complex interactions with upper level winds, venting of humidity and aerosols into the free troposphere, and large spatiotemporal variability. ABL over mountainous terrain (MT) can closely follow the terrain, be flat, or be shallower than surrounding valleys depending on the time of day, synoptic conditions, and effects of the surrounding …

Environmental Discriminators For Significant Tornadoes And Hail In The U.S. Using Proximity Soundings, Cody Michael Converse

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Over the last 50 years, the United States has experienced an increase in severe storm events that produced $1 billion in damages or greater. Much of this loss is attributed to significant tornadoes and hail associated with deep, moist convection. Improving forecasts for these significant events assist in mitigating the impacts of these events. Previous work has identified statistically significant environmental parameters associated with severe thunderstorms, but more research is needed in identifying statistically significant ingredients associated with environments that produce significant tornadoes and hail.

This thesis aims to answer the following question: “Can diagnostics commonly used to forecast for …

A Proposed Taxonomy For General Aviation Pilot Weather Education And Training, John M. Lanicci, Thomas A. Guinn, Jayde M. King, Beth Blickensderfer, Robert Thomas, Yolanda Ortiz

Journal of Aviation/Aerospace Education & Research

As General Aviation (GA) safety continues to remain a focus of the aviation community, GA pilot weather education and training continues to be an active area of interest within the research community. This study introduces a taxonomy for organizing GA pilot weather education and training materials that was originally conceived as part of the FAA’s Weather Technology In the Cockpit research program. The taxonomy is built upon three main knowledge categories, or tiers:1) Weather Phenomena (which includes hazards); 2) Weather Hazard Products; and 3) Weather Hazard Product Sources and their Application. The concept behind the categorization is to link knowledge …

Aviation Weather Products In General Aviation : Interpretability And Usability Research Trends, Jacqueline Mcsorley, Jayde King, Beth Blickensderfer

General Aviation Weather Display Interpretation

• Introduction
• Current Study
• Trends
• Summary
• Conclusion