CAREER: Quantifying Inadvertent Weather Modification and Education through Museum Programs

职业：通过博物馆项目量化无意的人工影响天气和教育

• 批准号: 1151627
• 负责人: Brian Ancell
• 金额: $ 72.19万
• 依托单位: Texas Tech University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2012
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2012-05-15 至 2020-04-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1151627&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CAREER; Quantifying; Inadvertent; Weather; Modification

Intellectual MeritAtmospheric perturbations can be created by a variety of human activities. Turbulence downstream of wind turbines that produces warming and drying, the urban heat island effect, and increased dew points near irrigated agricultural lands have all been shown to be ways that human beings change the atmosphere. Although some prior studies have focused on the effects of anthropogenic forcing on local climate, few have addressed how human-induced perturbations evolve to affect downstream atmospheric flow on a variety of spatial and temporal scales. Supporting the idea that these downstream effects may be significant, previous work involving adjoint sensitivity analysis has shown that high-impact aspects of the weather, such as the evolution of midlatitude cyclones, can be highly sensitive to localized, near-surface regions where human-induced perturbations can exist. The coexistence of these circumstances, anthropogenic perturbations and their potential to grow rapidly, suggest inadvertent weather modification may be a virtually unknown reality with serious consequences. As Earth's growing population will likely exacerbate the degree of present-day anthropogenic atmospheric forcing in the coming years, understanding inadvertent weather modification now is crucial.This research aims to gain a holistic understanding of the various means by which humans modify high-impact storm-scale, mesoscale, and synoptic-scale aspects of the weather. The approaches to achieving these goals are unique in that they focus on the interaction of estimated anthropogenic forcing and adjoint sensitivity analysis, which can effectively elucidate the important dynamics associated with different anthropogenic perturbation scenarios.Broader ImpactsIt is expected that this research will leads to an invaluable foundation of scientific results needed for society to responsibly mitigate current and future inadvertent weather modification. Similar to how the human race is currently addressing the role of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emission on global and local climate, a strong base of knowledge produced through this work can provide the information needed to strike a balance between beneficial human activities that perturb the atmosphere and the modification of sensible day-to-day weather such perturbations produce. In turn, this project has the potential to be intimately connected with the development of important government policy decisions worldwide.The educational component of this work, which includes a museum exhibit, summer science camps, and portable educational kits for area schools, will likely make positive impacts to society well outside the confines of academia. Museums provide a casual learning environment that attracts a large number of mostly nonscientific visitors. Thus, it is expected that the museum education activities will reach many who would otherwise be unexposed to important scientific issues like inadvertent weather modification that can affect society, the economy, and the environment. In turn, this work has the potential to provide science education to the general public in a unique and effective way, improving the ability for society to intelligently address inadvertent weather modification in the coming years.

各种各样的人类活动都能造成大气扰动。风力涡轮机下游的湍流导致变暖和干燥，城市热岛效应，以及灌溉农田附近露点的增加都被证明是人类改变大气的方式。虽然先前的一些研究侧重于人为强迫对局部气候的影响，但很少有研究涉及人类引起的扰动如何在各种时空尺度上演变并影响下游大气流动。支持这些下游影响可能是显著的观点，先前涉及伴随敏感性分析的工作表明，天气的高影响方面，如中纬度气旋的演变，对可能存在人为扰动的局部近地表区域可能高度敏感。这些情况的共存，人为干扰及其迅速增长的潜力，表明无意的人工影响天气可能是一个几乎未知的现实，会带来严重后果。由于地球上不断增长的人口可能会在未来几年加剧当前人为大气强迫的程度，现在了解无意的人工影响天气是至关重要的。这项研究旨在全面了解人类改变高影响风暴尺度、中尺度和天气尺度天气方面的各种手段。实现这些目标的方法是独特的，因为它们关注估计的人为强迫和伴随敏感性分析的相互作用，这可以有效地阐明与不同人为摄动情景相关的重要动力学。更广泛的影响预计这项研究将为社会负责任地减少当前和未来无意的人工影响天气提供宝贵的科学成果基础。类似于人类目前如何解决人为温室气体排放对全球和当地气候的作用，通过这项工作产生的强大知识基础可以提供在干扰大气的有益人类活动和改变这种扰动产生的日常天气之间取得平衡所需的信息。反过来，这个项目有可能与世界各国政府重要政策决定的发展密切相关。这项工作的教育组成部分，包括博物馆展览、暑期科学营和地区学校的便携式教育工具包，可能会对社会产生积极的影响，远远超出学术界的范围。博物馆提供了一个随意的学习环境，吸引了大量的非科学参观者。因此，预计博物馆的教育活动将触及许多原本无法接触重要科学问题的人，例如可能影响社会，经济和环境的无意的人工影响天气。反过来，这项工作有可能以一种独特而有效的方式向公众提供科学教育，提高社会在未来几年智能应对无意影响天气的能力。