SOARS Manuscripts

Mineral aerosols, also referred to as desert dust or soil particles, represent an important radiative forcing agent on the climate system, but the anthropogenic contribution to total dust loading is not well known. Results of several studies attempting to constrain the landuse portion of mineral aer…

The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) Thermosphere Ionosphere Mesosphere Electrodynamics General Circulation Model (TIME-GCM) simulated diurnal tides also observed in National Aeronautics Space Administration (NASA) Thermosphere Ionosphere Mesosphere Energetic Dynamics (TIMED) satellit…

A mesoscale convective system (MCS) is a complex of thunderstorms that is organized on a much larger scale than an individual thunderstorm and can persist for several hours. MCS characteristics (intensity, structure, propagation speed) are thought to be influenced by the thermodynamic properties of …

Recently, ice cores covering the last 10,000 years have been recovered from Mt. Kilimanjaro. Past studies have suggested that East African precipitation is primarily driven by local-scale processes rather than large-scale atmospheric circulation. Interestingly, the changes seen in the Kilimanjaro ic…

The National Science Foundation (NSF) funds the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). The Scientific Computing Division (SCD) is responsible for monitoring the purchases and administering computational equipment funded by the NSF. One of these systems is bluesky, which was purchased from …

The boundary layer contains a significant amount of the atmosphere's water vapor, which is important for storm development. However, operational meteorologists have difficulty determining representative specific humidity values through this layer because the tools that they use do not give enough in…

Dual-Doppler analysis of the 17 April 1995 data collected by the National Center for Atmospheric Research airborne Electra Doppler Radar during the Verification of the Origins of Rotation in Tornadoes Experiment was used to resolve the kinematic structure of the storm, which was used to perform a ha…

One of the more significant forms of mesoscale convective organization is the bow echo. Although bow-shaped convective lines are relatively small in scale (20-120 km long), they can produce damaging straight-line winds over periods of several hours across swaths of several hundred kilometers. Bow ec…

Several differences in velocity profiles were observed in the high- and low-mode data collected by the 915-MHz wind profiler at San Cristóbal Island, Galápagos. Those differences are important because they prevent us from merging the data into one set. Some types of differences are expected because …

Stable oxygen isotope ratios (δ¹⁸O) can be used to better quantify sources and sinks of carbon dioxide (CO₂), a major greenhouse gas. Furthermore, because δ¹⁸O serves as a link between water and carbon cycles, it can be used to understand how climate change will impact precipitation. The Institute o…

A mesoscale convective system (MCS) is a complex of thunderstorms that is organized on a much larger scale than an individual thunderstorm and can persist for several hours. MCS characteristics (intensity, structure, propagation speed) are thought to be influenced by the thermodynamic properties of …

The Pentagon Shield Project is an antiterrorist initiative to develop a system that models and predicts the dispersion of airborne toxins around the Pentagon. This system will depend on wind measuring instruments and estimation, or retrieval, techniques to provide input to dispersion models. A field…

The Nimbus data processor was developed for the National Center for Atmospheric Research's Research Aviation Facility to process the raw data collected during research flights and to compute derived variables dependent on these measured parameters. Over its years of use scientists accepted on faith …

Climate change and air quality are two intimately linked environmental problems. An increasing amount of heat-trapping gases have been emitted into the atmosphere because of anthropogenic activities, such as the combustion of fossil fuels. Some of the emitted gases both cause the atmosphere to warm …

Over the past decade, a network of Multifilter Rotating Shadowband Radiometers (MFRSRs) has been monitoring aerosol properties across the nation. Data collected by the MFRSRs could improve climate models, characterize weather events, and correct and validate satellite signals. Before this can happen…

MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Radio Spectrometer) data were analyzed to determine if different aerosol types, i.e. desert dust, forest fire smoke, and human produced (anthropogenic) aerosols, can be identified using the angstrom coefficient. Aerosol optical depths, fine mode ratios, and angstro…

Global Positioning System (GPS) radio occultation (RO) is a new technique for obtaining profiles of atmospheric properties, specifically: refractivity, temperature, pressure, water vapor, and electron density. Low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellites, equipped with a GPS receiver, track GPS radio signals as…

Research on the formation of tropical cyclones, while spanning decades, has been limited compared to research on the dynamics and prediction of mature tropical cyclones. The relative de-emphasis on tropical cyclone formation research is linked with the tendency of these systems to form several days …

The outflow from deep convection influences the budgets of water vapor and other trace constituents in the upper troposphere, and may lead to ozone depletion and long term climate change as a result of radiative cooling. However, the processes that control the altitude of convective outflow are poor…

Climate models are important tools to understand and determine past, present, and future climate conditions. Therefore climate model validation is necessary. The aim of this project is to compare the Parallel Climate Model (PCM) with the National Centers for Environmental Prediction/National Center …

The goal of the research was to test and modify two infrared carbon dioxide (CO₂) analyzers. The two analyzers are the LI-820 series and RMT DX 6100 series. They both operate on the principle of infrared light absorption. Accurate measurements of carbon dioxide play an important role in understandin…

The relationship between lightning and storm severity has been a topic of much interest to the meteorological community. Implementation of detailed radar and lightning detection networks have enabled researchers to further investigate the relationship between the electrification and microphysics of …

Calibration is needed for the quantification of values obtained from any instrument used for scientific measurements. In particular, when using Chemical Ionization Mass Spectrometry (CIMS) for atmospheric determinations, instrument response can be dependent upon many different atmospheric variables …

One of the more significant forms of mesoscale convective organization is the bow echo. Although bow-shaped convective lines are relatively small in scale (20-120 km long), they can produce damaging straight-line winds over periods of several hours across swaths of several hundred kilometers. Bow ec…

Studies have shown that Mexico City is the most polluted city in the world. One of the types of pollution that affects Mexico City is photochemical smog, which is caused when volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) react with sunlight to form ozone (O₃). The purpose of this study…