Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology Commons^™

2018 July - Tennessee Monthly Climate Report, Tennessee Climate Office, East Tennessee State University

Tennessee Climate Office Monthly Reports

No abstract provided.

The Prairie Post Quarterly Newsletter Of The High Plains Regional Climate Center- July 2018, Natalie Umphlett, Emily Brown, Crystal J. Stiles

Prairie Post: Quarterly Newsletter of the High Plains Regional Climate Center

Inside this issue:

Message from the interim director........................................1

Staff spotlight...........................1

GRAINEX project......................2

Product highlights..................3

Update on regional climate conditions..................................4

GIS Portal....................................4

Regional news..........................5

Recent and upcoming travel and activities.............................6

Droughtscape, Summer 2018, National Drought Mitigation Center

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

Contents

From the director

Drought expands and intensifies

Dry down fuels fires

Tweeting #drought18

MOISST and NSMN

Caribbean planning progress

Drought observer network study

MENA teams report progress

NDMC global outreach

Climate hub workshop

On the horizon

Isotopic And Geochemical Analysis Of Nitrate Contaminated Groundwater In Edgar, Nebraska, Nathan Roddy

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

High nitrate concentrations in the groundwater beneath Edgar, Nebraska have been measured for well over a decade, exceeding the EPA’s MCL of 10 mg-N/L. Investigating the isotopic signature of nitrate and groundwater have determined the likely source(s) of contamination. Apparent seasonal changes exists in nitrate concentration, isotope ratios, and geochemistry, suggesting that sources and flow paths change as a result of irrigation. Samples collected in December and May had very similar nitrate concentrations (average value of 13.7 mg-N/L) and isotopic ratios (δ¹⁵N 4.46‰ and δ¹⁸O-NO₃ 20.21‰), suggesting synthetic nitrate fertilizers are the major source of …

Numerical Modeling Of The Effects Of Land Use Change And Irrigation On Streamflow Depletion Of Frenchman Creek, Nebraska, Moussa Guira

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

A three-dimensional Control Volume Finite Difference-based numerical groundwater flow model was constructed to assess the effects of agricultural irrigation and land use change on streamflow depletion. The study area is Frenchman Creek basin located in southwestern corner of the State of Nebraska, USA. This area was subject to an increased proliferation of groundwater abstraction for agricultural purposes since industrial revolution. It has also been subject to land use change from native rangeland to dry and irrigated cropland. The groundwater flow model was spatially discretized using Voronoi cells in unstructured grid built with the USGS MODFLOW-6. Temporal discretization defined 151 time …

Evaluating 21st Century Climate Change For Bolivia: A Comprehensive Dynamical Downscaling Strategy Using The Wrf Regional Climate Model, Azar Mohammad Abadi

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Bolivia is a low-latitude, developing country at grave risk for the effects of human-induced climate changes. This means evaluating the consequences of projected future climate changes is of significant importance. Unfortunately, the complex topography and high elevation of much of the country pose particular challenges, as these effects cannot be suitably resolved at the approximately 100 km spatial resolution of current global climate models (GCM). Therefore, a comprehensive suite of high-resolution climate change simulations was made focused on Bolivia are run using three different GCMs with three different emission scenarios for each to drive the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) …

On The Approximation Of The Inverse Error Covariances Of High-Resolution Satellite Altimetry Data, Max Yaremchuk, Joseph M. D'Addezio, Gleb Panteleev, Gregg Jacobs

Faculty Publications

© 2018 Royal Meteorological Society High-resolution (swath) altimeter missions scheduled to monitor the ocean surface in the near future have observation-error covariances (OECs) with slowly decaying off-diagonal elements. This property presents a challenge for the majority of the data assimilation algorithms which were designed under the assumption of the diagonal OECs being easily inverted. In this note, we present a method of approximating the inverse of a dense OEC by a sparse matrix represented by the polynomial of spatially inhomogeneous differential operators, whose coefficients are optimized to fit the target OEC by minimizing a quadratic cost function. Explicit expressions for …

Controls On Deuterium Excess Across Asia, John Bershaw

Geology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Deuterium excess (d-excess) is a second-order stable isotope parameter measured in meteoric water to understand both the source of precipitation and the evolution of moisture during transport. However, the interpretation of d-excess patterns in precipitation is often ambiguous, as changes in moisture source and processes during vapor transport both affect d-excess in non-unique ways. This is particularly true in Asia where continental moisture travels a long distance across diverse environments from unique moisture sources before falling as precipitation. Here, I analyzed published d-excess records from meteoric water throughout Asia to better characterize what influences d-excess values. I conclude that, (1) …

Advances In Amino Acid Analysis For Marine Related Matrices And Its Application To Coastal Shelf Settings In The Canadian Arctic, Rachel M. Mcmahon

OES Theses and Dissertations

Amino acids comprise up to 50% of organic matter in cellular material and are a major fraction of oceanic organic carbon. Amino acids are also considered highly labile during organic matter recycling, making them useful proxies for organic carbon cycling. Nevertheless, analysis of individual amino acids has been burdened by lengthy derivatization and complex analysis since the 1950s. In this thesis, I describe the modification of advanced analytical techniques, developed in the biomedical field, for analysis of marine matrices which allow the determination of at least 40 amino acids without the need for lengthy sample preparation and derivatization, twice the …

Estimating Live Fuel Moisture In Southern California Using Remote Sensing Vegetation Water Content Proxies, Shenyue Jia, Seung Hee Kim, Son V. Nghiem, Wonhee Cho, Menas Kafatos

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

Wildfires are a major ecological disturbance in Southern California and often lead to great destruction along the Wildland-Urban Interface. Live fuel moisture has been used as an important indicator of wildfire risk in measurements of vegetation water content. However, the limited field measurements of live fuel moisture in both time and space have affected the accuracy of wildfire risk estimations. Traditional estimation of live fuel moisture using remote sensing data was based on vegetation indices, indirect proxies of vegetation water content and subject to influence from weather conditions. In this study, we investigated the feasibility of estimating live fuel moisture …

Plastics And Microplastics As Vectors For Bacteria And Human Pathogens, Amanda Lee Laverty

OES Theses and Dissertations

Since plastics degrade very slowly, they remain in the environment on much longer timescales than most natural substrates and can thus provide a novel habitat for colonization by bacterial communities. The full spectrum of relationships between plastics and bacteria, however, is little understood. The objective of this study was to examine marine plastic pollution as a substrate for bacteria, with particular focus on Vibrio spp., including the human pathogens, Vibrio cholerae, Vibrio parahaemolyticus, and Vibrio vulnificus.

Colonization experiments were set up in a tributary of the lower Chesapeake Bay to follow Vibrio spp. colonization and …

Development Of The Nebraska Department Of Transportation Winter Severity Index, Mark R. Anderson, Behzad Esmaeili, Curtis L. Walker, Dylan Steinkruger, Sogand Hasanzadeh, Pouya Gholizadeh, Bac Dao

Nebraska Department of Transportation: Research Reports

Adverse weather conditions are responsible for millions of vehicular crashes, thousands of vehicular deaths and billions of dollars in economic and congestion costs. Many transportation agencies utilize a performance or mobility metric to assess how well they are maintaining road access. This research focuses on the development of a winter severity index for the State of Nebraska (NEWINS). NEWINS is an event-driven index that was derived for the Nebraska Department of Transportation (NDOT) and its districts across the state. The NEWINS framework includes a categorical storm classification framework and climatological aspect to capture atmospheric conditions more accurately across the diverse …

The Impact Of The Deepwater Horizon Blowout On Historic Shipwreck-Associated Sediment Microbiomes In The Northern Gulf Of Mexico, Leila J. Hamdan, Jennifer Salerno, Allen H. Reed, Samantha B. Joye, Melanie Damour

Faculty Publications

More than 2,000 historic shipwrecks spanning 500 years of history, rest on the Gulf of Mexico seafloor. Shipwrecks serve as artificial reefs and hotspots of biodiversity by providing hard substrate, something rare in deep ocean regions. The Deepwater Horizon (DWH) spill discharged crude oil into the deep Gulf. Because of physical, biological, and chemical interactions, DWH oil was deposited on the seafloor, where historic shipwrecks are present. This study examined sediment microbiomes at seven historic shipwrecks. Steel-hulled, World War II-era shipwrecks and wooden-hulled, 19th century shipwrecks within and outside of the surface oiled area and subsurface plume were examined. Analysis …

Diversity Of Ssdna Phages Related To The Family Microviridae Within The Ciona Robusta Gut, Alexandria Creasy

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The gut microbiome is a complex ecosystem of bacteria, viruses, and fungi that strongly influences animal health. The bacterial component, for example, contributes orders of magnitude more gene products to host physiology than the host genome; thus, changes to the composition of these bacterial communities can have profound influences on the health of the animal. By infecting and lysing their hosts, viruses (particularly viruses infecting bacteria or phages) can affect critical functions in these environments, yet the consequences of these infections remain to be fully described. Most studies investigating gut viromes to date have focused on double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) phages …

Ongoing Transposon-Mediated Genome Reduction In The Luminous Bacterial Symbionts Of Deep-Sea Ceratioid Anglerfishes, Tory Hendry, Lindsay L. Freed, Dana Fadera, Dante Fenolio, Tracey Sutton, Jose Lopez

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

Diverse marine fish and squid form symbiotic associations with extracellular bioluminescent bacteria. These symbionts are typically free-living bacteria with large genomes, but one known lineage of symbionts has undergone genomic reduction and evolution of host dependence. It is not known why distinct evolutionary trajectories have occurred among different luminous symbionts, and not all known lineages previously had genome sequences available. In order to better understand patterns of evolution across diverse bioluminescent symbionts, we de novo sequenced the genomes of bacteria from a poorly studied interaction, the extracellular symbionts from the “lures” of deep-sea ceratioid anglerfishes. Deep-sea anglerfish symbiont genomes are …

Southeast Florida Large (>2 Meter) Diseased Coral Colony Intervention Summary Report, Brian K. Walker, Alysha Brunelle

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Reports

No abstract provided.

Ecophysiology Of Oxygen Supply In Cephalopods, Matthew A. Birk

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Cephalopods are an important component of many marine ecosystems and support large fisheries. Their active lifestyles and complex behaviors are thought to be driven in large part by competition with fishes. Although cephalopods appear to compete successfully with fishes, a number of their important physiological traits are arguably inferior, such as an inefficient mode of locomotion via jet propulsion and a phylogenetically limited means of blood-borne gas transport. In active shallow-water cephalopods, these traits result in an interesting combination of very high oxygen demand and limited oxygen supply. The ability to maintain active lifestyles despite these metabolic constraints makes cephalopods …

Madden-Julian Oscillation Relationships With Cool Season Cyclogenesis, Daily Precipitation, And Cool Season Severe Weather Frequencies In The Gulf Of Mexico Region, Stephen Paul Caparotta

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Tropical cyclone variability in the Gulf of Mexico (GoM) has been the focus of a considerable amount of research. Variability on both interannual scales, related to the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), and on subseasonal scales, related to the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO), is well documented. By contrast, very little research exists on the relationships between the MJO and cool season, non-tropical cyclones in the GoM.

The MJO influence on cool season (October-March) cyclogenesis in the GoM variability is explored here. Additionally, daily precipitation variability and cool season severe weather variability is examined for areas near and just inland of the GoM. …

Crop Residue Burning In Northern India: Increasing Threat To Greater India, S. Sarkar, Ramesh P. Singh, A. Chauhan

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

Crop residue burning (CRB) is a recurring problem, during October–November, in the northwestern regions (Punjab, Haryana, and western Uttar Pradesh) of India. The emissions from the CRB source regions spread in all directions through long-range transport mechanisms, depending upon the meteorological conditions. In recent years, numerous studies have been carried out dealing with the impact of CRB on the air quality of Delhi and surrounding areas, especially in the Indo-Gangetic Basin (also referred to as Indo-Gangetic Plain). In this paper, we present detailed analysis using both satellite- and ground-based sources, which show an increasing impact of CRB over the eastern …

Large Scale Climate Oscillation Impacts On Temperature, Precipitation And Land Surface Phenology In Central Asia, Kirsten M. De Beurs, Geoffrey Henebry, Braden C. Owsley, Irina N. Sokolik

GSCE Faculty Publications

Central Asia has been rapidly changing in multiple ways over the past few decades. Increases in temperature and likely decreases in precipitation in Central Asia as the result of global climate change are making one of the most arid regions in the world even more susceptible to large-scale droughts. Global climate oscillations, such as the El Ni ̃no–Southern Oscillation, have previously been linked to observed weather patterns in Central Asia. However, until now it has been unclear how the different climate oscillations act simultaneously to affect the weather and subsequently the vegetated land surface in Central Asia.We fit well-established land …