SOARS Manuscripts

CO₂ fluxes between the biosphere and the atmosphere are strongly related to plant photosynthesis and respiration. Northern hemisphere forests invoke a strong seasonality in these fluxes as photosynthesis drives summertime uptake of carbon from the atmosphere and respiration drives wintertime release…

This research analyses the impact of using surface observations and observations at 70 m above the surface to estimate mixing ration and potential temperature throughout the summer daytime boundary layer. Soundings were created to represent the actual conditions, and errors were computed when surfac…

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…

Analysis of the 17 April 1995 data collected by the National Center for Atmospheric Research airborne Electra Doppler Radar (ELDORA) during the Verification of the Origins of Rotation in Tornadoes Experiment (VORTEX) was used to investigate the wind structure hypothesized in conceptual models of hai…

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 …

Nitrogen monoxide (NO) and nitrogen dioxide (NO₂), the components of NOX, are important trace gases influencing many atmospheric chemical processes. We correlated the presence of NOX in the upper troposphere with deep convection and lightning activity using three sources of archived data at two pres…

Over the past decade, a network of Multifilter Rotating Shadowband Radiometers (MFRSRs) have been monitoring aerosol properties across the nation. The process of extracting aerosol data from the MFRSR's reading is very lengthy and difficult, making it very timely to produce results. A novel automate…

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 …

It is important to understand the tropical oceanic circulation because of its effects on global climate. The bifurcation of the South Equatorial Current (SEC) might have significant effects on regional climates as a result of the contributions of mass and heat flowing north or south. The objectives …

Global climate models are tools that allow scientists to simulate the climate conditions of the past, present, and future to a reasonable degree with the exception that climate model projections contain biases. Biases exist such as differences between modeled temperatures and observed temperatures. …

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…

Global Positioning System (GPS) Radio Occultation (RO) is a new technique for obtaining profiles of atmospheric properties, specifically: refractivity, temperature, pressure, water vapor pressure in the neutral atmosphere, and electron density in the ionosphere. The data received from GPS RO contrib…

The mesopause region of the Earth's atmosphere is characterized by abnormal seasonal temperature and large tidal variations. Scientists of the National Center for Atmospheric Research developed the Thermosphere-Ionosphere-Mesophere-Electrodynamics General Circulation Model (TIME-GCM) in part to stud…

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…

The community of Barrow, Alaska, Alaska has experienced coastal flooding during extreme weather events throughout events in the past 60 years. To improve the predictions of coastal flooding in coastal communities worldwide, models have been used to simulate flooding caused by storm surges. In many c…

To advance our understanding of the behavior of the large-scale atmospheric circulation, the daily cycle of the near-surface wind field over the tropical Pacific Ocean was examined. Hourly wind measurements collected from 53 moored buoys in the Tropical Atmosphere Ocean array (9째N-8째S, 165째E-180째W) …

The lowest part of the troposphere is called the planetary boundary layer (PBL). The depth of the PBL depends on the amount of solar heating and friction at the surface of the earth. These surface processes cause turbulence in the PBL, which initiates the growth of the PBL. This growth involves the …

Workflow management is crucial in monitoring and controlling business processes. Advancements have been made in computer-based workflow management, which allowed for the partial or complete automation of these processes. However, existing computer-based systems have not been successful in highly dis…

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) have studied the distribution of oxygen and hydrogen isotopes in precipitation since the 1960s. However, very few sites in the United States (U.S.) have been studied compared to the rest of the world. Since…

Barrow, Alaska is a coastal community that is vulnerable to coastal flooding and structural damage from local high-wind events during the "ice-free" season from late summer through autumn. Historically, high latitude cyclonic storms with high-winds rarely have affected Barrow, however, with the curr…

This project investigated whether a quantitative detection could be made of a variable star, in our case CY Aquarii shown in Figure 1, and whether the period could be confirmed by the existing literature. Variable stars are either intrinsic or extrinsic. CY Aqr is an intrinsic variable star since it…

It is of interest to monitor aerosols (i.e. desert dusts and sulfate aerosols from industrial emissions) over land and ocean because aerosol particles influence the temperature structure and chemistry of the Earth's troposphere. MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) observations of v…

Atmospheric scientists have used the global climate models for the past 35 years to obtain a better understanding of the earth's climate. However, due to the spatial and temporal resolution or moist processes such as rain rates, clouds and cloud water, these processes have not been accurately resolv…

Global levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide have been monitored for over 40 years, yet the regional carbon dioxide emissions are still poorly analyzed. In order to effectively study the global carbon cycle one must have sufficient data collected from measuring networks. In May 2002, NCAR held a work…

The major goal of the Tropospheric Ozone Production about the Spring Equinox (TOPSE) field campaign (2000) was to study the cause of the spring Arctic ozone maximum in the free troposphere. Sources for tropospheric ozone (O₃) are transport of O₃ from the stratosphere and in-situ photochemical produc…