Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Importance Of Snowmelt On Soil Nitrate Leaching To Groundwater – A Model Study, Sahila Beegum, Arindam Malakar, Chittaranjan Ray, Daniel D. Snow

Nebraska Water Center: Faculty Publications

The movement of nitrate to surface water bodies during snow accumulation and melting has been extensively studied, but there are only limited studies on the influence of snow processes on nitrate leaching to groundwater. The present study investigated the impact of snow processes on nitrate leaching to groundwater based on a simulation modeling approach using HYDRUS-1D. HYDRUS-1D model has a temperature threshold-based snow model in addition to water, solute, and heat simulation components. The snow component in HYDRUS-1D was previously not applied to snow simulation studies since the method does not consider a detailed physical and process-based representation of snow …

2023 February 16 - Tennessee Weekly Drought Summary, Tennessee Climate Office, East Tennessee State University

Tennessee Climate Office Weekly Drought Summaries

No abstract provided.

Timing And Magnitude Of Drought Impacts On Carbon Uptake Across A Grassland Biome, Andrew Felton, Gregory R. Goldsmith

Biology, Chemistry, and Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles and Research

Although drought is known to negatively impact grassland functioning, the timing and magnitude of these impacts within a growing season remains unresolved. Previous small-scale assessments indicate grasslands may only respond to drought during narrow periods within a year; however, large-scale assessments are now needed to uncover the general patterns and determinants of this timing. We combined remote sensing datasets of gross primary productivity and weather to assess the timing and magnitude of grassland responses to drought at 5 km² temporal resolution across two expansive ecoregions of the western US Great Plains biome: the C₄-dominated shortgrass steppe and …

2023 February 9 - Tennessee Weekly Drought Summary, Tennessee Climate Office, East Tennessee State University

Tennessee Climate Office Weekly Drought Summaries

No abstract provided.

Models For Predicting Maximum Potential Intensity Of Tropical Cyclones, Iftekhar Chowdhury, Gemechis Djira

SDSU Data Science Symposium

Tropical cyclones (TCs) are considered as extreme weather events, which has a low-pressure center, namely an eye, strong winds, and a spiral arrangement of thunderstorms that produces heavy rain, storm surges, and can cause severe destruction in coastal areas worldwide. Therefore, reliable forecasts of the maximum potential intensity (MPI) of TCs are critical to estimate the damages to properties, lives, and risk assessment. In this study, we explore and propose various regression models, to predict the potential intensity of TCs in the North Atlantic at 12, 24, 36, 48, 60, and 72- hour forecasting lead time. In addition, a popular …

2023 February 2 - Tennessee Weekly Drought Summary, Tennessee Climate Office, East Tennessee State University

Tennessee Climate Office Weekly Drought Summaries

No abstract provided.

Constituent Loads And Trends In The Upper Illinois River Watershed: A Nonpoint Source Management Program Priority Watershed, Erin M. Grantz, Brian E. Haggard

Technical Reports

The Arkansas Department of Agriculture - Natural Resources Division (ANRD) has identified the Upper Illinois River Watershed (UIRW; 11110103), a hydrologic unit code (HUC) 8 watershed, located in Northwest Arkansas for prioritization by the Nonpoint Source (NPS) Management Program. URIW encompasses the Illinois River from its headwaters to the state line with Oklahoma and has been the subject of interstate disputes over water quality for decades. Nonpoint source pollution concerns in UIRW are excess nutrients from agriculture and sediment from changes in land use/land cover (LULC).

Local, state, and national groups, including the NPS Source Management Program, have invested in …

Constituent Loads And Trends In The Upper White River Basin: A Nonpoint Source Management Program Priority Watersheds, Erin M. Grantz, Brian E. Haggard

Technical Reports

The Arkansas Department of Agriculture – Natural Resources Division (ANRD) has identified the Upper White River Basin (UWRB; HUC 11010001) a hydrologic unit code (HUC) 8 watersheds, located in Northwest Arkansas, for prioritization by the Nonpoint Source (NPS) Management Program. UWRB includes Beaver Lake in its borders, the drinking water source for 1 in 6 Arkansans. Nonpoint source pollution concerns in these watersheds are excess nutrients from agriculture and sediment from changes in land use/land cover (LULC).

Local, state, and national groups, including the NPS Source Management Program, have invested in education, best management practices, and streambank restoration in the …

Remote Internal Wave Forcing Of Regional Ocean Simulations Near The U.S. West Coast, Oladeji Q. Siyanbola, Maarten C. Buijsman, Audrey Delpech, Lionel Renault, Roy Barkan, Jay F. Shriver, Brian K. Arbic, James C. Mcwilliams

Faculty Publications

Low mode internal waves are able to propagate across ocean basins and modulate ocean dynamics thousands of kilometers away from their generation sites. In this study, the impact of remotely generated internal waves on the internal wave energetics near the U.S. West Coast is investigated with realistically forced regional ocean simulations. At the open boundaries, we impose high-frequency oceanic state variables obtained from a global ocean simulation with realistic atmospheric and astronomical tidal forcing. We use the Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) technique in separating ingoing and outgoing internal tide energy fluxes at the open boundaries in order to quantify internal …

2023 February - Tennessee Monthly Climate Report, Tennessee Climate Office, East Tennessee State University

Tennessee Climate Office Monthly Report

No abstract provided.

International Advisory Proceedings On Climate Change, Benoit Mayer

Michigan Journal of International Law

Several island states are expected to be severely harmed by climate change and rising sea levels. In late 2021, several island states launched two legal initiatives aimed at requesting advisory opinions of international courts on the law applicable to climate change. In the hope of fostering more action to combat climate change, these states are asking international courts to clarify the obligations of states to cut greenhouse gas emissions and pay reparations for harm already caused.

This article provides the first comprehensive assessment of the feasibility and desirability of international advisory proceedings on climate change. It analyzes recent developments and …

Soil Organic Matter Diagenetic State Informs Boreal Forest Ecosystem Feedbacks To Climate Change, Allison N. Myers-Pigg, Karl Kaiser, Ronald Benner, Susan E. Ziegler

Faculty Publications

The fate of soil organic carbon (SOC) in boreal forests is dependent on the integrative ecosystem response to climate change. For example, boreal forest productivity is often nitrogen (N) limited, and climate warming can enhance N cycling and primary productivity. However, the net effect of this feedback on the SOC reservoir and its longevity with climate change remain unclear due to difficulty in detecting small differences between large and variable carbon (C) fluxes needed to determine net changes in soil reservoirs. The diagenetic state of SOC – resulting from the physicochemical and biological transformations that alter the original biomolecular composition …

What Drives Larval Condition For Northern Anchovy (Engraulis Mordax)? Implications For Coastal Pelagic Species Recruitment Fluctuations And Fishery Management Practices, Michelle Robidas

Theses

Discerning the causes of population boom and bust cycles for coastal pelagic species (CPS) has been a major focus of fisheries management research for over a century. Year-class strength is contingent on larval survival and condition, which can be influenced by larval size at age and growth rate. These two factors, in turn, can be affected by maternal investment and environmental variables such as water temperature, salinity, oxygen, and chlorophyll a. We evaluated each of these factors from 127 two to eight week-old Northern Anchovy (Engraulis mordax) larvae off the coast of San Diego to San Francisco, …

Holocene Evolution Of Parabolic Dunes, White River Badlands, South Dakota, Usa, Revealed By High-Resolution Mapping, Paul Evans Baldauf, Gregory S. Baker, Maraina Miles, Patrick Burkhart, Allen Gontz, Madeline Rinka, Michael Levenson

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

The White River Badlands (WRB) of South Dakota record eolian activity spanning the late Pleistocene through the latest Holocene (21 ka to modern), reflecting the effects of the last glacial period and Holocene climate fluctuations (Holocene Thermal Maximum, Medieval Climate Anomaly, and Little Ice Age). The WRB dune fields are important paleoclimate indicators in an area of the Great Plains with few climate proxies. The goal of this study is to use 1 m/pixel-resolution digital elevation models from drone imagery to distinguish Early to Middle Holocene parabolic dunes from Late Holocene parabolic dunes. Results indicate that relative ages of dunes …

2023 January 26 - Tennessee Weekly Drought Summary, Tennessee Climate Office, East Tennessee State University

Tennessee Climate Office Weekly Drought Summaries

No abstract provided.

Time Domain Reflectometry Waveform Interpretation With Convolutional Neural Networks, Zhuangji Wang, Shan Hua, Dennis Timlin, Yuki Kojima, Songtao Lu, Wenguang Sun, David Fleisher, Robert Horton, Vangimalla R. Reddy, Katherine Tully

Nebraska Water Center: Faculty Publications

Interpreting time domain reflectometry (TDR) waveforms obtained in soils with non-uniform water content is an open question. We design a new TDR waveform interpretation model based on convolutional neural networks (CNNs) that can reveal the spatial variations of soil relative permittivity and water content along a TDR sensor. The proposed model, namely TDR-CNN, is constructed with three modules. First, the geometrical features of the TDR waveforms are extracted with a simplified version of VGG16 network. Second, the reflection positions in a TDR waveform are traced using a 1D version of the region proposal network. Finally, the soil relative permittivity values …

Evaluating Knowledge Gaps In Sea-Level Rise Assessments From The United States, Andra J. Garner, Sarah E. Sosa, Fangyi Tan, Christabel Wan Jie Tan, Gregory G. Garner, Benjamin P. Horton

School of Earth & Environment Departmental Research

There have been many scientific advances regarding future sea-level projections, however it is unclear if these have been transferred to assessment reports used by stakeholders. Here, we present a first-of-its-kind comprehensive analysis of regional sea-level rise (SLR) assessments for the United States (U.S.). We identify variations in time horizons over which regions plan for SLR, with 25 projections from the U.S. Northeast and West that extend to 2150 or beyond, but no projections from the U.S. South beyond 2100. The majority of 2100 projections from the U.S. Northeast (77%) and West (83%) include ranges of future SLR, while 88% of …

2023 January 19 - Tennessee Weekly Drought Summary, Tennessee Climate Office, East Tennessee State University

Tennessee Climate Office Weekly Drought Summaries

No abstract provided.

Gravity Wave Drag Parameterizations For Earth’S Atmosphere, Christopher J. Heale, Christopher G. Kruse, Jadwiga H. Richter, M. Joan Alexander, Julio T. Bacmeister, Junhong Wei

Publications

Atmospheric gravity waves (GWs), or buoyancy waves, transport momentum and energy through Earth’s atmosphere. GWs are important at nearly all levels of the atmosphere, though, the momentum they transport is particularly important in general circulation of the middle and upper atmosphere. Primary sources of atmospheric GWs are flow over mountains, moist convection, and imbalances in jet/frontal systems. Secondary GWs can also be generated as a result of dissipation of a primary GWs. Gravity waves typically have horizontal wavelengths of 10’s to 100’s of kilometers, though, they can have scales of 1’s to 1000’s of kilometers as well. Current effective resolutions …

Larval Dispersal Patterns And Connectivity Of Acropora On Florida’S Coral Reef And Its Implications For Restoration, Samantha King, Antoine Saint-Amand, Brian K. Walker, Emmanuel Hanert, Joana Figueiredo

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

Since the 1980s, populations of Acropora cervicornis and A. palmata have experienced severe declines due to disease and anthropogenic stressors; resulting in their listing as threatened, and their need for restoration. In this study, larval survival and competency data were collected and used to calibrate a very high-resolution hydrodynamic model (up to 100m) to determine the dispersal patterns of Acropora species along the Florida’s Coral Reef. The resulting connectivity matrices was incorporated into a metapopulation model to compare strategies for restoring Acropora populations. This study found that Florida’s Coral Reef was historically a well-connected system, and that spatially selective restoration …

Insights From The Management Of Offshore Energy Resources: Toward An Ecosystem-Services Based Management Approach For Deep-Ocean Industries, M. Emilia Bravo, Miriam I. Brandt, Jesse M. A. Van Der Grient, Thomas G. Dahlgren, Patricia Esquete, Sabine Gollner, Daniel O. B. Jones, Lisa A. Levin, Craig R. Mcclain, Bhavani E. Narayanaswamy, Tracey Sutton, Lissette Victorero, Erik E. Cordes

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

The deep ocean comprises complex ecosystems made up of numerous community and habitat types that provide multiple services that benefit humans. As the industrialization of the deep sea proceeds, a standardized and robust set of methods and metrics need to be developed to monitor the baseline conditions and any anthropogenic and climate change-related impacts on biodiversity, ecosystem function, and ecosystem services. Here, we review what we have learned from studies involving offshore-energy industries, including state-of-the-art technologies and strategies for obtaining reliable metrics of deep-sea biodiversity and ecosystem function. An approach that includes the detection and monitoring of ecosystem services, with …

2023 January 12 - Tennessee Weekly Drought Summary, Tennessee Climate Office, East Tennessee State University

Tennessee Climate Office Weekly Drought Summaries

No abstract provided.

Home Tap Water In Nonmetropolitan Nebraska, Rebecca J. Vogt

Cornhusker Economics

Water is an important resource in Nebraska. Most of the drinking water in the state (85%) comes from groundwater sources. Public water sources are required to test their water to ensure it is safe. However, private wells are not subject to any safety or quality standards. Given that, what are the main sources of home tap water for rural Nebraskans? Do they test or treat their water? The 2022 Nebraska Rural Poll examined these questions.

The Future Of Pandemics: Land Use Controls As Means Of Preventing Zoonotic Disease, Bailey Andree

Pace International Law Review

Zoonotic diseases are increasing in frequency as climate change worsens around the world, with the recent COVID-19 pandemic highlighting the inadequate mechanisms in place to counteract disease spread. This article reviews various zoonotic diseases and their patterns of spread, highlighting land use change as the key driver of disease to demonstrate the need for legal intervention. International land use law is a little-developed subsect of environmental law that holds the key to combating this disease spread, and this article proposes solutions through this legal lens. Land use techniques which may be used to combat disease spread include conservation laws, setback …

Identifying Factors To Develop And Validate A Heat Vulnerability Tool For Pakistan – A Review, Salman Muhammad Soomar, Sarmad Muhammad Soomar

Department of Emergency Medicine

Objective: This review will provide better insight into developing and validating a heat vulnerability assessment tool for Pakistan.
Methods: A literature search was done to identify studies onon heat vulnerability assessment published from January 2012 to January 2021 (10 years). Online databases PubMed, Google Scholar, Scopus, and Web of science were used for the literature search.
Results: Heat vulnerability can be evaluated by some specific determinants that have heat-related health events, including social, economic, environmental, housing, and geographical factors.
Conclusion: This tool will identify heat vulnerability risks and mitigate morbidity and mortality.

2023 January 5 - Tennessee Weekly Drought Summary, Tennessee Climate Office, East Tennessee State University

Tennessee Climate Office Weekly Drought Summaries

No abstract provided.

How Hurricanes Impact Florida's Tourism Industry, Arthur Huang

Rosen Research Review

Almost every year, hurricanes bear down upon the state of Florida. The storms appear to be growing in occurrence and severity. While the media cover the damage and death toll, the impacts on the state's critical tourism sector remain largely anecdotal. The full story lies buried in data. Dr. Arthur Huang from UCF's Rosen College of Hospitality Management has investigated different data sets to understand the impact of hurricanes on the tourism industry. What has been uncovered has significance not only for Florida but for tourism sectors elsewhere affected by these giant storms.

Integrating Human Dimensions In Decadal-Scale Prediction For Marine Social Ecological Systems: Lighting The Grey Zone, Jess Melbourne-Thomas, Desiree Tommasi, Marion Gehlen, Eugene J. Murphy, Jennifer Beckensteiner, Francisco Bravo, Tyler D. Eddy, Mibu Fischer, Elizabeth Fulton, Mayya Gogina, Eileen Hofmann, Maya Ito, Sara Mynott, Kelly Ortega-Cisneros, Anna N. Osiecka, Mark R. Payne, Romeo Saldívar-Lucio, Kim J.N. Scherrer

CCPO Publications

The dynamics of marine systems at decadal scales are notoriously hard to predict-hence references to this timescale as the "grey zone" for ocean prediction. Nevertheless, decadal-scale prediction is a rapidly developing field with an increasing number of applications to help guide ocean stewardship and sustainable use of marine environments. Such predictions can provide industry and managers with information more suited to support planning and management over strategic timeframes, as compared to seasonal forecasts or long-term (century-scale) predictions. The most significant advances in capability for decadal-scale prediction over recent years have been for ocean physics and biogeochemistry, with some notable advances …

The Response Of Sea Ice And High-Salinity Shelf Water In The Ross Ice Shelf Polynya To Cyclonic Atmosphere Circulations, Xiaoqiao Wang, Zhaoru Zhang, Michael S. Dinniman, Petteri Uotila, Xichen Li, Meng Zhou

CCPO Publications

Coastal polynyas in the Ross Sea are important source regions of high-salinity shelf water (HSSW) – the precursor of Antarctic Bottom Water that supplies the lower limb of the thermohaline circulation. Here, the response of sea ice production and HSSW formation to synoptic-scale and mesoscale cyclones was investigated for the Ross Ice Shelf Polynya (RISP) using a coupled ocean–sea ice–ice shelf model targeted on the Ross Sea. When synoptic-scale cyclones prevailed over RISP, sea ice production (SIP) increased rapidly by 20 %–30 % over the entire RISP. During the passage of mesoscale cyclones, SIP increased by about 2 times over …

Seasonal Variations In Circumpolar Deep Water Intrusions Into The Ross Sea Continental Shelf, Yufei Wang, Meng Zhou, Zhaoru Zhang, Michael S. Dinniman

CCPO Publications

Intrusions of the warm and nutrient-rich Circumpolar Deep Water (CDW) across the Ross Sea shelf break play an important role in providing heat for ice shelf basal melting and setting the physical environment for biochemical processes. Several mechanisms driving CDW intrusions into the Ross Sea were proposed such as mesoscale eddies, tidal rectification, and interactions between Antarctic Slope Current (ASC) and topographic features. The seasonal variations in the poleward transport of CDW are investigated using ERA-Interim wind data and a Ross Sea circulation model based on the Regional Ocean Modeling System (ROMS) between September 1999 and September 2014. The analyses …