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Selected Research Projects |
| DRI Faculty: | Matt Bailey (PI), John Hallett |
| Title: | Laboratory Simulation of Lightning and Dusty Plasmas |
| Sponsor(s): | NSF EPSCoR |
| Objectives-Results: | DRI, in collaboration with the Nevada Terawatt Facility of the University of Nevada, Reno Department of Physics, has constructed a lightning simulation chamber for studying the production of nitrogen oxides or NOx from intracloud lightning and the stratospheric electrical discharges collectively referred to as transient luminous events (TLE’s). TLE’s, including upwards lightning, blue jets, and sprites, have been shown to be a significant source of stratospheric NOx. Plans are to continue with these studies with attention given to the effects of ice crystals on lightning discharges, lightning initiation, and NOx chemistry on ice surfaces.
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| DRI Faculty: | Vanda Grubišić (PI), Harold Klieforth (Emeritus) |
| Title: | Collaborative Research: An Observational, Modeling, and Climatological Study of Sierra Rotors |
| Sponsor(s): | National Science Foundation |
| Objectives-Results: | James Doyle, Naval Research Laboratory; Dale Durran, University of Washington; Joachim Kuettner, National Center for Atmospheric Research
Objective/Results: The objective of this research program is to advance our understanding of the dynamics and evolution of atmospheric rotors to improve the forecasting of this severe complex-terrain phenomenon. Atmospheric rotors are low-level intense horizontal vortices that form in a strong westerly flow over the Sierra Nevada in association with large-amplitude mountain waves. As high levels of turbulence are found within rotors, they are known to pose a serious hazard to aviation. This project involves a collaboration of DRI, University of Washington (UW), Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), and consists of an organization and conduct of a field experiment and the attendant data analysis and numerical experiment research effort. The field experiment, the Sierra Rotors project (SRP) was conducted in March and April 2006 in the central part of Owens Valley, in the lee of the southern Sierra Nevada, with the involvement of DRI, UW, NRL, NCAR, National Weather Service (NWS), and the Naval Air Station (NAS) Lemoore. The core of the instrumentation in SRP consisted of a long-term ground-based network of 16 automatic weather stations with telemetry, the design and installation of which was funded by this grant. The network was installed in February 2004 and has been operated since in collaboration with the Western Regional Climate Center http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/trex. Additional instrumentation in SRP consisted of two Integrated Sounding Systems (NCAR) and two special rawinsonde systems (NCAR and NAS Lemoore) in the Central Valley upwind. A number of strong wave and rotor events were documented during SRP. The data analysis of these events at DRI is currently being conducted in conjunction with ultra-high resolution real-data numerical simulations, carried out on the Sierra Cluster – the PI’s Mesoscale Dynamics and Modeling Laboratory’s 64-processor 64-Gbyte Beowulf-class computer cluster for atmospheric modeling http://www.mdml.dri.edu.
The SRP and this research program represent the first phase of a large international coordinated effort to study mountain waves, rotors and the attendant phenomena in complex terrain. The second phase is the Terrain-induced Rotor Experiment (T-REX), and involves a larger field effort to take place in March and April 2006 also in Owens Valley. The findings from SRP were instrumental in the formulation of scientific objectives and experimental design of T-REX. The participants in T-REX include investigators from a large number of US universities and agencies, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, and several European universities and research institutes. T-REX is led by the Scientific Steering Committee chaired by Dr. Grubišić. |
Upwards blue jet from the top of a thunder cloud