Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology Commons^™

Detection Of Reconnection Signatures In Solar Flares, Taylor R. Whitney

Theses and Dissertations

Solar flare forecasting is limited by the current understanding of mechanisms that govern magnetic reconnection, the main physical phenomenon associated with these events. As a result, forecasting relies mainly on climatological correlations to historical events rather than the underlying physics principles. Solar physics models place the neutral point of the reconnection event in the solar corona. Correspondingly, studies of photospheric magnetic fields indicate changes during solar flares -- particularly in relation to the field helicity -- on the solar surface as a result of the associated magnetic reconnection. This study utilizes data from the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) Helioseismic and …

Simulation Of Sporadic-E Parameters Using Phase Screen Method, Daniel W. Stambovsky

Theses and Dissertations

A phase screen simulation experiment is designed and implemented to model radio occultation through sporadic-E ionospheric disturbances between a GPS transmitter operating at the L1 frequency and a second receiving satellite in low earth orbit (LEO). Simulations were made to test the linear relationship between plasma intensity and scintillation S4 index both posited (Arras and Wickert, 2018) and contended (Gooch et al., 2020) in previous literature. Results brought into question both the linear relationship and the use of S4 as a whole and an alternate metric was sought.

Modulation Of Lightning Occurrence By The Solar Wind, Adam L. Baxter

Theses and Dissertations

Lightning affects military and civilian operations. Characterization of the distribution of global lightning strikes of two detection networks based on solar wind events is analyzed. the median analysis by latitude gave different results for the two network datasets. The KLD pulled out some common features such as the seasonal dependence and a general increase in lightning at the equator. Comparisons between different datasets must be handled carefully. the KLD method may be a way to capture common features, or assess how similar the datasets are. A detailed analysis of the differences between the tow networks detection algorithms and investigating other …

2020 March - Tennessee Monthly Climate Report, Tennessee Climate Office, East Tennessee State University

Tennessee Climate Office Monthly Reports

No abstract provided.

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

News Items

No abstract provided.

Drones Used To Calibrate Equipment To Monitor Coastal Currents, Sherry Dibari

News Items

No abstract provided.

Assessing Boreal Peat Fire Severity And Vulnerability Of Peatlands To Early Season Wildland Fire, Laura Bourgeau-Chavez, Sarah L. Grelik, Michael Billmire, Liza K. Jenkins, Eric S. Kasischke, Merritt R. Turetsky

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

Globally peatlands store large amounts of carbon belowground with 80% distributed in boreal regions of the northern hemisphere. Climate warming and drying of the boreal region has been documented as affecting fire regimes, with increased fire frequency, severity and extent. While much research is dedicated to assessing changes in boreal uplands, few research efforts are focused on the vulnerability of boreal peatlands to wildfire. In this case study, an integration of field data collection, land cover mapping of peatland types and Landsat-based fire severity mapping was conducted for four early season (May to mid-June) wildfires where peatlands are abundant in …

Ecogeomorphic Evolution Of Muddy Coastlines: How Biota On A Range Of Scales, From Microscopic Biofilms To Landscape-Scale Vegetation Zonation Patterns, Interact With Physical Processes, Kendall Cole

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Coastal wetland ecosystems are inherently interdisciplinary; in these spaces, the physical forces of wind and water meet to interact with stabilizing and fortifying vegetation and biota, as well as mud. The combination of these factors build and sustain wetland ecosystems and without the complex feedbacks, they would cease to exist. In this dissertation, I present three studies that focus on ecogeomorphic interactions within coastal wetlands on a range of scales, from microscopic to the entire landscape and highlight the importance of these interactions when predicting future coastal change. The first study examined how biofilms, matrixes of photosynthetic diatoms and their …

Tornado-Induced And Straight-Line Wind Loads On A Low-Rise Building With Consideration Of Internal Pressure, David B. Roueche, David O. Prevatt, Frederick L. Haan

University Faculty Publications and Creative Works

Tornado and straight-line wind events are often discussed and compared in terms of their intensity, e.g., maximum wind speed, however, it is unclear to what extent tornado-induced and straight-line wind-induced wind loads are equivalent even for the same nominal intensity. This lack of understanding inhibits both tornado design philosophies and policies, and communication of tornado risk to the public. This study directly compares existing wind tunnel databases of tornado-induced and straight-line wind-induced pressures, for a similar building model, to evaluate to what extent the induced surface pressures on a typical building differ. The existing datasets used in the study are …

Twentieth Century Black Carbon And Dust Deposition On South Cascade Glacier, Washington State, Usa, As Reconstructed From A 158‐M‐Long Ice Core, Susan D. Kaspari, Dan Pittenger, T. M. Jenk, U. Morgenstern, M. Schwikowski, N. Buenning, L. Stott

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences

Light absorbing particles (LAPs) include black carbon (BC) and mineral dust and are of interest due to their positive radiative forcing and contribution to albedo reductions and snow and glacier melt. This study documents historic BC and dust deposition as well as their effect on albedo on South Cascade Glacier (SCG) in Washington State (USA) through the analysis of a 158‐m (139.5‐m water equivalent [w.e.]) ice core extracted in 1994 and spanning the period 1840–1991. Peak BC deposition occurred between 1940 and 1960, when median BC concentrations were 16 times higher than background, likely dominated by domestic coal and forest …

Simulating Wave Dynamics In The Northern Gulf Of Mexico And Barataria Pass, Azadeh Razavi Arab

LSU Master's Theses

The coastal wetlands of Louisiana constitute ~40% of the wetlands in the United States. However, it suffers from 80% of the wetland losses in the whole country. In shallow coastal and estuarine environments, bed shear stresses related to wind waves contributes substantially to the edge erosion in the northern Gulf of Mexico (NGoM). Therefore, wave simulations in shallow estuarine areas are of great importance.

There are several challenges in simulating waves nearshore, especially over the shallow and nearly horizontal sea beds typical of the NGoM continental shelf and adjacent complex geometry estuaries: determination of the appropriate wind forcing dataset to …

Mass Spectrometric Calibration For Real -Time Hydrocarbon Detection, Makuachukwu Mbaegbu

LSU Master's Theses

Determining gas compositions from live well fluids on a drilling rig is critical for real time formation evaluation. However, development and utilization of a reliable mass spectrometric method to accurately characterize these live well fluids is always a challenging issue because of lack of a robust, quick and effectively selective instrument and method. The primary goal of this research is to understand reasons of such discrepancies in results between “good” spectra, and “poor” ones. The objectives are thus to identify the detection issues, calibrate and QA/QC the instruments, and analyze the results in lab settings. In this study, we used …

Role Of Coastal Environmental Conditions During Austral Winter On Plankton Community Dynamics And The Occurrence Of Pseudo-Nitzschia Spp. And Domoic Acid In Inhambane Province, Mozambique, Holly Kelchner

LSU Master's Theses

Harmful algal blooms (HABs) are increasing globally in frequency, persistence, and geographic extent. HABs pose a threat to economic stability, and ecosystem and human health. To date no incidences of marine toxins produced by phytoplankton have been recorded in Mozambique, which may be due to the absence of a monitoring program and general awareness of the potential threat. This study is the first documentation of the occurrence of a neurotoxin, domoic acid (DA), produced by the diatom genus Pseudo-nitzschia spp. along the east coast of Africa. The coast of Inhambane Province is a biodiversity hotspot where year-round Rhincodon typus (whale …

A Design For A Sustained Assessment Of Climate Forcing And Feedbacks Related To Land Use And Land Cover Change, Thomas Loveland, Rezaul Mahmood

High Plains Regional Climate Center: Staff Publications

L and use and land cover change (LULCC) plays an important role in the climate system. Many studies have documented the impacts of LULCC on local, regional, and global climate. The National Climate Assessment Report (Melillo et al. 2014) identifies LULCC as a “cross cutting” issue of future climate change studies. This report, and the previous U.S. Climate Change Science Program strategic plan (2003), noted that land use and land cover (LULC) and its feedback is an important source of uncertainty within the climate system (Melillo et al. 2014). As a result, the report calls for a better understanding of …

Late Cretaceous Stratigraphy And Paleoceanographic Evolution In The Great Australian Bight Basin Based On Results From Iodp Site U1512, K. G. Macleod, Lloyd T. White, Carmine C. Wainman, Mathieu Martinez, Matthew M. Jones, Sietske J. Batenburg, Laurent Riquier, Shannon J. Haynes, David K. Watkins, K. A. Bogus, H.-J. Brumsack, R. Do Monte Guerra, Kirsty M. Edgar, Trine Edvardsen, Dennis Harry, Takashi Hasegawa, R. W. Hobbs, Brian T. Huber, T. Jiang, J. Kuroda, E. Y. Lee, Yong-Xiang Li, Alessandro Maritatai, Lauren K. O'Connor, Maria Rose Petrizzo, Tracy M. Quan, C. Richter, Maria Luisa Garcia Tejada, G. Tagliaro, Erik Wolfgring, Zhaokai Xu

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Faculty Publications

The Upper Cretaceous sedimentary sequence at International Ocean Discovery Program Site U1512 in the Ceduna Sub-basin of the Great Australian Bight represents a continuous, N 690 m thick interval of black silty clay and claystone spanning the lower Turonian through Lower Campanian (~10 million years). Sediments were deposited in an elongate, ~E-W oriented, ~2500 km long rift system that developed between Australia and Antarctica with an open-ocean connection to the west and a continental bridge to the east. Site U1512 cores provide a unique, continuous record of Late Cretaceous deposition in the Ceduna Sub-basin on the hanging wall of the …

The Vertical And Horizontal Distribution Of Deep-Sea Crustaceans In The Order Euphausiacea In The Vicinity Of The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, Tamara Frank, Charles Douglas Fine, Eric A. Burdett, April Cook, Tracey Sutton

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

The vertical and horizontal distributions of Euphausiacea in the northern Gulf of Mexico (GOM), including the location of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, were analyzed from 340 trawl samples collected between April and June 2011. This study is the first comprehensive survey of euphausiid distributions from depths deeper than 1000 m in the GOM and includes stratified sampling from five discrete depth ranges (0–200 m, 200–600 m, 600–1000 m, 1000–1200 m, and 1200–1500 m), and expands the depth ranges of 30 species. In addition, this study demonstrates significantly higher abundance and biomass of the euphausiid assemblage from slope vs. offshore …

Surface Reservoirs Dominate Dynamic Gas-Surface Partitioning Of Many Indoor Air Constituents, Chen Wang, Douglas B. Collins, Caleb Arata, Allen H. Goldstein, James M. Mattila, Delphine K. Farmer, Laura Ampollini, Peter F. Decarlo, Atila Novoselac, Marina E. Vance, William W. Nazaroff, Jonathan P.D. Abbatt

Faculty Journal Articles

Human health is affected by indoor air quality. One distinctive aspect of the indoor environment is its very large surface area that acts as a poorly characterized sink and source of gas-phase chemicals. In this work, air-surface interactions of 19 common indoor air contaminants with diverse properties and sources were monitored in a house using fast-response, on-line mass spectrometric and spectroscopic methods. Enhanced-ventilation experiments demonstrate that most of the contaminants reside in the surface reservoirs and not, as expected, in the gas phase. They participate in rapid air-surface partitioning that is much faster than air exchange. Phase distribution calculations are …

Assessment Of Soil Protein And Refractory Soil Organic Matter Across Two Chronosequences Of Newly Developing Marshes In Coastal Louisiana, Usa, Stuart Alexander Mcclellan

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The impacts of sea-level rise and hydrologic manipulation are threatening the stability of coastal marshes throughout the world, thereby increasing the potential for re-mineralization of soil organic matter (SOM) in these systems. Such threats have prompted marsh restoration efforts, particularly in coastal Louisiana, yet it is unclear how the slowly decomposing (refractory) and quickly decomposing (labile) fractions of SOM may be differentially affected by different approaches to marsh restoration. Additionally, otherwise labile compounds may accumulate in the soil via a range of protective mechanisms, including rapid burial and association with organic compounds that are thought to enhance soil aggregation, such …

Climate Change And Tourist Destinations: Florida's Case, Alan Fyall, Dr. Asli Tasci, Jill Fjelstul, Roberta Atzori

Rosen Research Review

Aside from the physical impacts of climate change, society's perception of climate change, and the response to it at different decision-making levels, are now critical issues. As public awareness of the consequences of climate change increases, it becomes a consideration in everyday decision-making, including tourism. The research of three colleagues at Rosen college o Hospitality Managment, Dr. Alan Fyall, Dr. Asli D. A. Tasci, and Dr. Jill Fjelstul, along with Dr. Roberta Atzori from California State University, Monterey Bay, examines how social representations of climate change may affect a choice of holiday destination. In particular, they examine how they might …

Are New Hampshire’S Winters Warming? Yes, But Fewer Than Half Of State Residents Recognize The Trend, Lawrence C. Hamilton, Elizabeth Burakowski

Carsey Publications

In this brief, authors Elizabeth Burakowski and Lawrence Hamilton review some basic evidence about winter warming in New Hampshire, explore to what extent state residents are aware of this trend, and ask who is aware, in terms of characteristics such as age, education, or participation in winter sports. Results from two statewide surveys find limited awareness of the trend overall, and no significant differences by age, education, or winter sports participation. Instead, perceptions of this winter trend depend on political identity: conservatives are much less likely than other groups to recognize that warming has occurred.