Academic literature on the topic 'Frequency STORM'

Thesis (M.S. in Physical Oceanography) Naval Postgraduate School, December 1996.<br>Thesis advisor(s): Robert H. Bourke, James H. Wilson. "December 1996." Includes bibliographical references (p. 131-132). Also available online.

Elevated nutrient concentrations present significant challenges to surface water quality management globally, and dissolved organic matter mediates several key biogeochemical processes. Storm events often dominate riverine loads of nitrate, phosphorus, and dissolved organic matter, and are expected to increase in frequency and intensity in many regions due to climate change. The recent development of in situ optical sensors has revolutionized water quality monitoring and has highlighted the important role storms play in water quality. This dissertation focuses on improving the application of in situ optical water quality sensors and interpreting the high-frequency data they produce to better understand biogeochemical and watershed processes that are critical for resource management. We deployed in situ sensors to monitor water quality in three watersheds with contrasting land use / land cover, including agricultural, urban, and forested landscapes. The sensors measured absorbance of ultraviolet-visible light through the water column at 2.5 nanometer wavelength increments at 15-minute intervals for three years. These deployments provided a testbed to evaluate the sensors and improve models to predict concentrations of nitrate, three phosphorus fractions, and dissolved organic carbon using absorbance spectra and laboratory analyses through multivariate statistical techniques. In addition, an improved hysteresis calculation method was used to determine short-timescale storm dynamics for several parameters during 220 storm events. Goals of each dissertation chapter were to: (1) examine the influences of seasonality, storm size, and dominant land use / land cover on storm dissolved organic carbon and nitrate hysteresis and loads; (2) evaluate the utility of the sensors to determine total, dissolved, and soluble reactive phosphorus concentrations in streams draining different land use / land covers, and perform the first statistically robust validation technique applied to optical water quality sensor calibration models; and (3) analyze storm event dissolved organic matter quantity and character dynamics by calculating hysteresis indices for DOC concentration and spectral slope ratio, and develop a novel analytical framework that leverages these high frequency measurements to infer biogeochemical and watershed processes. Each chapter includes key lessons and future recommendations for using in situ optical sensors to monitor water quality.

The United States Weather Bureau had published Technical Paper No. 40 (TP-40) in 1961 which provides a rainfall atlas for the United States. These rainfall frequencies have been used by engineers throughout the United States including Jefferson Parish, Louisiana. Rainfall from Audubon and the New Orleans International Airport rain gauge stations were used with the Log Pearson Method to provide rainfall frequency for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana. The results from the frequency rainfall that were developed for this research along with the current Jefferson Parish design storm rainfall were applied to a typical urban development to evaluate the extent of flooding.

Storms can be both destructive and valuable at the same time. They expose coastal areas to various risks but can also enhance the supply of wind energy and provide marine ecosystems with oxygen rich water. As the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) is known to have a significant impact on the wind climate in Europe, investigating its interconnection to storm frequency and intensity under global warming circumstances in the Northern Baltic Sea region was of interest in this study. Wind speed data series of annual storm counts were obtained from five meteorological stations along with PC-based NAO values over the period 1960-2017. The data series were analysed in Microsoft Excel and modelled using a Poisson regression or negative binomial regression model in SPSS Statistics. The results display an unsystematic spatial pattern both in the association to the NAO as well as in the overall storm frequency. However, storm (≥ 21 m s-1) frequency has generally been decreasing, whereas the proportion of severe storms (≥ 24 m s-1) has slightly been increasing, suggesting a tendency toward stronger but fewer storms. Even though only certain data series display statistically significant findings (p ≤ .05), a majority of the winter storms and severe winter storms display a positive association, indicating that a higher NAOI is related to a greater number of winter storms. The spatial and temporal variability in the obtained results can partially be explained by storm tracks and prevalent wind directions. Nevertheless, inhomogeneities do presumably affect the wind speed observations through internal and external influences and changes related to the meteorological stations. Future research should, therefore, also consider integrating other storm related parameters, such as direct air pressure measurements, wave heights and storm surges, as well as implement different data homogenization methods and techniques.

As the globe continues to warm, coastal communities across the world will increasingly be faced with rising sea levels, as well as changes in storm surge frequency and magnitude. Significantly, most infrastructure, settlements and facilities are located near the coast. While coastal communities have benefitted from the many advantages of living and working in these areas, inevitably they also face the threat of natural disasters. With concern for the consequences of sea level rise (SLR) and associated storm surge (SS), the primary, and most urgent topics for decision makers are the assessment of vulnerability and the evaluation of adaptation measures. However, due to uncertainty in climate change predictions, many vulnerability and adaptation assessments and most town planning activities, which are based on an the assumption that the sea level will remain stable in the future, are in a state of flux. Added to the dilemma is the realisation that the impacts of SLR will, most likely, be spatially non-uniform across the world. It is therefore essential for decision-makers to consider the dynamic and spatial characteristics of these changes in assessing the impacts of SLR when making decisions about future infrastructure and community life.<br>Thesis (PhD Doctorate)<br>Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)<br>Griffith School of Engineering<br>Science, Environment, Engineering and Technology<br>Full Text

Extreme rainfall statistics are important for the design and management of the water resource infrastructure. The standard approach for extreme rainfall event severity assessment is the Intensity-Duration-Frequency (IDF) method. However, this approach does not consider the spatial context of rainfall and consequently does not properly describe rainfall storm severity, nor rarity. This study provides a critical account of the current standard practice and presents an approach that takes into consideration both the spatial context of rainfall storms, and indirectly incorporates runoff to produce a representative approach to assessing urban rainfall storm severity in terms of flood potential. A stepwise regression analysis was performed on a dataset of individual rainfall storm characteristics to best represent documented basement floodings in the City of Edmonton. Finally, the urban rainfall storm flood severity index was shown to be most representative of the documented basement floodings' severity when compared to that of the IDF method.

Recent events such as the New Orleans floods and the Japanese tsunami of 2011 have highlighted the uncertainty in the quantification of the magnitude of natural hazards. The research undertaken here has focussed on the uncertainty in evaluating storm surge magnitudes based on a range of statistical techniques including the Generalised Extreme Value distribution, Joint Probability and Monte Carlo simulations. To support the evaluation of storm surge frequency magnitude relationships a unique hard copy observed sea level data set, recording hourly observations, was acquired and digitised for Devonport, Plymouth, creating a 40 year data set. In conjunction with Devonport data, Newlyn (1915-2012) tide gauge records were analysed, creating a data set of 2 million data points. The different statistical techniques analysed led to an uncertainty range of 0.4 m for a 1 in 250 year storm surge event, and 0.7 m for a 1 in 1000 storm surge event. This compares to a 0.5 m uncertainty range between the low and high prediction for sea level rise by 2100. The Geographical Information system modelling of the uncertainty indicated that for a 1 in 1000 year event the level uncertainty (0.7 m) led to an increase of 100% of buildings and 50% of total land affect. Within the study area of south-west England there are several critical structures including a nuclear licensed site. Incorporating the uncertainty in storm surge and wave height predictions indicated that the site would be potentially affected today with the combination of a 1 in 1000 year storm surge event coincident with a 1 in 1000 wave. In addition to the evaluation of frequency magnitude relations this study has identified several trends in the data set. Over the data period sea level rise is modelled as an exponential growth (0.0001mm/yr2), indicating the modelled sea level rise of 1.9 mm/yr and 2.2 mm/yr for Newlyn and Devonport, will potentially increase over the next century by a minimum of 0.2 m by 2100.The increase in storm frequency identified as part of this analysis has been equated to the rise in sea level, rather than an increase in the severity of storms, with decadal variations in the observed frequency, potentially linked to the North Atlantic Oscillation. The identification as part of this study of a significant uncertainty in the evaluation of storm surge frequency magnitude relationships has global significance in the evaluation of natural hazards. Guidance on the evaluation of external hazards currently does not adequately consider the effect of uncertainty; an uncertainty of 0.7 m identified within this study could potentially affect in the region of 500 million people worldwide living close to the coast.

Large-scale atmospheric disturbances play important roles in determining the general circulation of the atmosphere during the North Pacific boreal winter. A number of scientific questions have been raised due to these disturbances’ spatial and temporal complexity as well as the hydrological implication associated with them. In this dissertation, the principal goal is to further improve our understanding of the atmospheric high frequency (HF) and intermediate frequency (IF) disturbances active over the North Pacific. The study focuses on their energetics, intraseasonal and interannual variability, and the resulting hydrological impact over the eastern North Pacific and Western U.S. including extreme events. To delineate the characteristics of HF and IF disturbances in the troposphere, we first derive a new set of equations governing the local eddy kinetic energy (EKE), and assess the critical processes maintaining local budgets of the HF and IF EKE. The diagnosis assesses the 3-D patterns of energy flux convergence (EFC), barotropic conversion (BT), baroclinic conversion (BC), and cross-frequency eddy-eddy interaction (CFEI). The local EKE budget analysis is followed by an investigation of the modulation of HF and IF eddy activity by different modes of low frequency climate variability. On interannual timescales, the response of various local energetic processes to El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) determines the HF and IF EKE anomalies and the role of CFEI process is important in producing these anomalies. Also on interannual timescales, winter precipitation deficits associated with suppressed cyclonic activity, i.e., negative HF EKE anomalies, are linked to severe droughts over the U.S. Southern Great Plain (SGP) region. The suppressed cyclonic activity is, in turn, tied to phase changes in the West Pacific (WP) teleconnection pattern. On intraseasonal timescales, variations in HF disturbances (a.k.a. storm tracks) over the North Pacific are closely coupled with tropical convection anomalies induced by the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO), and partly drive larger scale intraseasonal flow anomalies in this region through eddy-eddy interactions. Anomalous HF eddy activity induces subseasonal transitions between “wet” and “dry” regimes over the west coast of North America. Also on intraseasonal timescales, the East Asian cold surge (EACS) is found to provide a remote forcing of the winter precipitation anomalies in the western U.S. This modulation is achieved through “atmospheric rivers” (ARs), which are narrow channels of concentrated moisture transport in the atmosphere and are responsible for over 70% of the extreme precipitation events in the western U.S.. EACS effectively modulates the IF disturbance activity over the North Pacific, and the anomalous IF disturbances lead to the formation of an AR over the eastern North Pacific that ultimately induces precipitation anomalies in the western U.S. Analyses of the simulations from the NCAR Community Climate System Model version 4 (CCSM4) demonstrate that the connections among the EACS, AR and western U.S. precipitation are better captured by a model with higher spatial resolutions. The improved simulation of these connections is achieved mainly through a better representation of the IF disturbances, and the associated scale-interaction processes in the higher resolution model.