SOARS Manuscripts

Tropical cyclones (TCs) that develop in the southwest Caribbean Sea (SWCS) commonly make landfall due to their relatively close proximity to land masses, bringing flooding rains, high winds, and destructive storm surge to the impacted areas. Despite the dangers posed by SWCS TCs, there are relativel…

The Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) is a tropical phenomenon developing over the Indian Ocean. This intraseasonal oscillation involves an extensive area of convection, approximately 1000 km across, releasing latent heat in the mid-troposphere. This heating generates planetary-scale waves that travel…

Surface ozone (O3) is detrimental and can pose several health problems to humans, such as increased number of and intensity of asthma attacks. Considering this, it is important that these ozone levels be monitored. While municipal air quality monitors are present in cities like Boulder, Colorado, th…

This research aimed to find links between the projected changes in oceanic oxygen minimum zones (OMZs) and the Hadley Circulation (HC). OMZs are regions of very low oxygen concentrations. Latitudinal ocean oxygen slices place the OMZs in the eastern edges of ocean basins. Recent research suggests th…

Extra-tropical cyclones are the main source of weekly weather variability across much of the middle latitudes and are often associated with damaging winds, coastal erosion, and significant precipitation. Under the right dynamic and thermodynamic conditions, these cyclones may rapidly intensify. This…

Statistically, flooding is the most devastating natural disaster not only in the US, but in the world. Of the many different severe and normal weather events, floods typically cause the most casualties and damage. Within Hazard Services of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, softwar…

High levels of ozone in the troposphere are recognized to produce a myriad of harmful effects on human health. Due to significant interest in the quality of air along the Front Range in Colorado, the Front Range Air Pollution and Photochemistry Experiment (FRAPPÉ) launched a field campaign utilizing…

Atmospheric blocking is an unusual weather phenomenon that is often associated with severe weather events such as heat waves, cold spells, and droughts. Improved understanding of the long-term variability of atmospheric blocking has important societal implication, but its mechanisms are not well und…

The Boulder flood of September 2013 resulted in significant structural damage, inundated communities, and accelerated land erosion in central and northern Colorado. Approximately 11,000 people were evacuated in the area as more than 17 inches of rain fell in parts of Boulder County, Colorado in 7 da…

This research investigated the climate system's response to large volcanic eruptions in the Community Earth System Model-Large Ensemble (CESM-LE). Using 29 CESM-LE global simulations with each ensemble member having a unique prediction about the weather and how climate will change; the climate syste…

The Mesoscale Model Evaluation Testbed (MMET) has been established by the Developmental Testbed Center (DTC) to assist the research community in efficiently testing and evaluating newly developed model techniques aimed at more accurately predicting the weather and potentially implementing them into …

Over half of the world's population in developing nations heat their homes and cook using open fire or cookstoves fueled by solid biofuels. The emissions generated from the burning of biofuels have the potential to have a significant impact on human health, air quality, and the regional and global c…

In order to accurately simulate storms and their precipitation within atmospheric models, we need to ensure that atmospheric processes are well parameterized. In the case of the Thompson microphysics parameterization, the rain, snow, cloud drop, cloud ice and graupel/hail hydrometeor categories have…

Most major cities are located on coastlines, vulnerable to the direct impacts of tropical cyclones. Therefore, it is critical to understand and improve the prediction of these storms in order to make communities more resilient. Though hurricane warning systems have improved in recent years, these wa…

Accumulation of CO2 impacts climate resulting in an increase of global temperatures. It is vital to know the underlying processes driving the uptake of CO2 emissions by the biosphere and oceans to infer the rate at which CO2 concentrations will increase in the atmosphere. In this paper, we compare v…

Anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases have led to an increase in CO₂ and temperature in the atmosphere, as well as an increase in the sea surface temperature (SST). It has been suggested that a rise in SST leads to an increase in ocean stratification, surface nutrient limitation, and a possibl…

The GLOBE Program is a community program of students, teachers, and scientists who collect and analyze Earth Science data to help sustain, understand and improve the earth. In one of the GLOBE projects, students from around the world record and submit cloud type and contrail data online. The purpose…

It has been observed that local ozone concentrations can be impacted by both local emissions and emissions that were transported from distant source regions. Thus, changes in ozone concentration in a particular region can only be understood by analyzing the precursor emission sources, such as nitrog…

Recent research argued that the Hadley circulation (HC) is composed of three regional cells located at the eastern edges of the ocean basins, rather than a single, globe-encircling cell as the classic textbook view suggests. The HC is expected to expand in concert with global warming, which means th…

Because the human population is expected to surpass 8 billion by the year 2050, food security is a pressing issue. In the face of elevated temperatures and precipitation associated with climate change (CC), elevated carbon dioxide (CO2) and elevated ozone (O3) concentrations, food productivity is un…

The statistics of volcanic eruptions and injections of sulfur dioxide (SO2) into the atmosphere during 2004-2013 are determined using information gathered from the Smithsonian's Global Volcanism Program and the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI), respectively. Volcanic eruptions are observed during t…

Convectively induced turbulence (CIT) has been shown to cause or factor into a large portion of weather-related commercial aviation accidents. Determining areas of CIT is difficult since CIT is a relatively small scale phenomenon. The Federal Aviation Administration issued guidelines for pilots to a…

The terrestrial carbon cycle regulates carbon pools and fluxes throughout the Earth system. Currently, the Pacific Northwest is a carbon sink; it is gaining more carbon than it is releasing into the atmosphere. Investigating changes to this carbon sink is critical for understanding ecosystem respons…

Earth's planetary boundary layer (PBL) plays an important role in water vapor and heat exchange between the surface and atmosphere through turbulent processes. Using data from the COSMIC/ FORMOSAT-3 global positioning system (GPS) radio occultation (RO) soundings and high-resolution radiosondes laun…

Ozone in the upper troposphere is considered a greenhouse gas, which can contribute to climate change. Convection in thunderstorms can carry ozone precursors upward from the boundary layer into the upper tropospheric region. Production of nitrogen oxides associated with lightning in the storm can al…