Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences

Funded IRP Projects, 2013

Unmanned aircraft measure wind turbine wakes

Investigators: John Cassano (CIRES, ATOC), Julie Lundquist (RASEI, ATOC, NREL), Brian Argrow (ASEN), Eric Frew (ASEN), Katja Friedrich (ATOC)

When wind passes through the blades of a wind turbine, it loses speed and increases in turbulence. On wind farms, wind turbines are arrayed relatively close together, and the wake from upstream turbines can reduce the efficiency of downstream turbines if the turbines are not spaced properly. Computer models that predict wind movement through wind farms are often inaccurate so CIRES’ John Cassano and his colleagues have devised an innovative way to measure the effects of wind turbines on wind movement. They will fly small, unmanned aircraft quite close to wind turbines to measure changes in wind variables. If data gathered using unmanned aircraft prove reliable, investigators will be able to gather data covering the entire atmospheric volume of a wind farm, which should prove to be a powerful tool for designing optimal groupings of turbines.

Measuring airborne microbial communities

Investigators: Noah Fierer (CIRES, CU Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology), Joanne Emerson (CIRES), Anne Perring (CIRES, NOAA), Joshua Schwarz (CIRES, NOAA), David Fahey (CIRES, NOAA)

With every breath we take, we inhale small particles such as dust, liquids, and microbes including fungal spores, bacteria, and archaea. These airborne microbes can affect the health of humans, animals, and crops while also influencing atmospheric chemistry and the creation of clouds. Despite their importance, scientists know little about the abundance and diversity of airborne microbes across space and time. To fill in these knowledge gaps, investigators will be collecting airborne microbes at ground level and at over 800 feet above the Earth’s surface during different times of the day and year. At the same time they will be testing a new detection system, which uses fluorescence to count the numbers of microorganisms in the atmosphere. For the first time, scientists will be able to watch short-term fluctuations in airborne microbial communities in real-time.

Teaching stewardship and conservation through the arts

Investigators: Shilpi Gupta (CIRES, NOAA), Marda Kirn (EcoArts Connections, Boulder, CO)

Scientists concerned with the environmental challenges facing humanity often find that their facts and figures do not evoke changes in human behavior. Social science now suggests that to foster effective decision making and action, good communication must include cognition and affect (or intellect and emotions) working together. Since prehistoric times, the affective power of the arts has moved people - emotionally and physically - to act. In this study, scientists and artists are collaborating to create science-informed artworks for a room-sized animated globe display system called Science On a Sphere® (sos.noaa.gov).  The team hopes these sustainability-focused narratives will inspire audience members to become more engaged in the stewardship and conservation of the main character of the stories: the Earth. 

Using lightning strikes to investigate the Earth’s ionosphere

Investigators: Steven Hansen (CIRES), Anne Sheehan (CIRES, CU Department of Geological Sciences), Paul Bedrosian (USGS), Timothy Fuller-Rowell (CIRES)

The ionosphere is a region of charged particles, which encompasses the uppermost potions of the Earth’s atmosphere and affects telecommunications and space weather. Investigators have borrowed a geophysical technique often used for finding oil and gas deposits to gain an understanding of the ionosphere’s structure. Seismic waves propagate through the Earth’s crust, and these waves reflect off of subsurface structures before returning to sensors on the Earth’s surface. The data from these sensors are processed to create an image of the Earth’s interior. Analogously, investigators will measure lighting-derived radio waves that have been reflected back to the Earth to investigate the properties of the ionosphere. With roughly 50 lightning strikes occurring on Earth every second, they hope to create detailed images of the structure of the ionosphere as it changes over time and space – important information for understanding and forecasting disruptions to critical systems such as communications.

Unmanned aircrafts measure atmosphere dynamics with formation flying

Investigators: Dale Lawrence (CU Department of Aerospace Engineering)

Researchers are already using small, unmanned aircraft to take single-point atmospheric measurements like wind speed, air temperature, and air pressure. By flying multiple unmanned aircraft in tight formation while they are simultaneously recording atmospheric data, investigators could distinguish temporal vs spatial variations and could directly measure important atmospheric parameters that depend on gradients. Until now, scientists have only been able to hypothesize about small-scale changes in atmospheric dynamics. With this new technology, they will be able to gather information on complex processes such as the generation of turbulence and pollution transport. Successful test flights in Utah and Peru have already uncovered unexpected fine-scale temperature variations that may be due to spatial gradients, and investigators will soon be conducting proof-of-concept formation flight testing over the Colorado Front Range.

PIdentifying tsunamis in real time with observations of magnetic fields

Investigators: Manoj Nair (CIRES), Stefan Maus (CIRES), Patrick Alken (CIRES), Neesha Schnepf (MIT), Arnauld Chulliat (Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris)

Scientists have placed observatories throughout the Pacific Ocean to measure the Earth’s magnetic field. Ocean water also produces magnetic fields, weaker than Earth’s, but detectable with recently improved technologies. Manoj Nair and his team suspect they can learn to detect tsunami-related magnetic signals in oceans, which are often masked by small fluctuations in the Earth’s magnetic field. With support from a CIRES Innovative Research Proposal, Manoj Nair and his colleagues will try to peak under this mask. The investigators will monitor magnetic signals on two islands, Easter Island and Tahiti, and identify the commonalities between the magnetic signals on both islands. These commonalities represent the Earth’s magnetic field, which does not vary over space, and they can be subtracted from the total magnetic signals collected on both islands. The ocean magnetic signals, which are affected by local ocean dynamics, can be extracted from the remaining magnetic signals. Eventually, the researchers hope that by monitoring Earth and ocean magnetic signals, they will be able to identify tsunamis in real time to support warning systems.

India’s historical lakes could shed light on future climate patterns

Investigators: Balaji Rajagopalan (CIRES, CU Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering), Peter Molnar (CIRES, CU Department of Geological Sciences), Emily Gill (CIRES)

Northwestern India, which is currently a desert region, was speckled with lakes ~6000 years ago according to paleo-evidence. CIRES’ Balaji Rajagopalan and his colleagues will use computer models to reconstruct the paleo history of these extinct lakes – and they hope to gain insight on the region’s future climate, along the way. The lake reconstruction model will simulate the growth, sustenance, and demise of these historical lakes by manipulating the amounts of precipitation, evaporation, and runoff occurring across northwestern India. The lakes existed during the Holocene, 6,000 years ago, when northwestern India was warmer and wetter than it is today. Climate models project the region will be warmer and wetter in the future so new findings pertaining to India’s Holocene climate could shed light on future monsoon and precipitation patterns. Modeling the evolution of regional lakes will allow investigators to actually quantify differences between India’s present climate and Holocene climate.

Developing laser-based technology that could track SO₂ dispersal

Investigators: Andrew Rollins (CIRES, NOAA), Troy Thornberry (CIRES, NOAA), Ryan Neely (CIRES, NOAA, NCAR), Ru-Shan Gao (NOAA)

Anthropogenic SO₂ emissions, which stem from combustion processes, are increasing rapidly in developing nations like China and India. Once in the atmosphere, SO₂ significantly affects air quality and climate. The mechanisms that might rapidly transport SO₂ molecules from Earth’s surface high into the atmosphere are not well understood and have been difficult to measure. Rollins and his colleagues have designed a small, sensitive, laser-based instrument that will use fluorescence to detect SO₂ and they plan to demonstrate that the instrument could be operated on small, unmanned aircraft. This type of aircraft is ideal for measuring SO₂ concentrations in the stratosphere, and investigators will use the gathered data to understand decadal climate variability and the movement of SO₂ around the Earth.