During this summer, I will be working on a study that examines the number of tornadoes spawned by landfalling tropical cyclones. Given the recent increase in hurricane intensity across the North Atlantic, this study seeks to determine if the number of tornadoes spawned by these systems has increased or decreased for the United States. Furthermore, this study will also verify past studies that have shown that most tornadoes from landfalling tropical cyclones are produced by the most intense hurricanes. In order to complete this analysis, past storm reports, which are archived by the National Climatic Data Center, will be examined for each landfalling tropical cyclone prior to and after landfall. Then, upon verification with available satellite and radar data, the number of tornadoes from each landfalling tropical cyclone will be recorded. In addition, in order to determine if possible discontinuities exist between available tornado data and the introduction of NEXRAD radar, locations across the Gulf Coast will be chosen to examine the tornado record from 1980 to 2005.

The main focus of my study will be to probe the relationship between El Niño activity and sea surface temperature changes in the topical Pacific. I will use an inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometer to measure the metal concentrations and calculate the strontium/calcium ratio in coral samples and compare this data to existing coral δ¹⁸O data provided by Dr. Kim Cobb. The results from the study will quantify past sea surface temperature and salinity variability and allow for an assessment of how, if at all, these ocean variables affect the frequency and severity of El Niño events in the last millennium. This information can provide insight into the causes of El Niño fluctuations, potentially contributing to improved predictions of El Niño behavior as ocean temperatures continue to increase over the next decades.

I am working on a NASA funded project involving the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in a variety of civil applications. My primary area of research involves sensors that can be integrated on UAVs. These sensors measure meteorological, geophysical, and chemical parameters in order to better understand the earth system. I will research specifications such as sensitivity, weight, power, dimensions, and temperature range for each sensor. Furthermore, the sensor information will be included in an online UAV resource center for earth observations.

This summer I am working with a group of graduate students on a Georgia Power-funded project called ASACA (Assessment of Spatial Aerosol Composition in Atlanta). ASACA is an air quality project measuring PM 2.5 in the Atlanta area. This project was started in 1999 in order to attain more PM2.5 data for Atlanta because significant information on this type of research was limited. Scientific studies give evidence for linking increased concentrations of fine particulate matter with adverse health effects. The aim of this project is to use long-term results in order to determine the overall statistical significance of airborne PM2.5 exposure in association with cardiovascular and respiratory disease and to help make further conclusions on its association with and contribution to global warming. Another goal is to analyze where Atlanta stands on an annual basis in connection with National Ambient Air Quality Standards set forth by the USEPA. There are four monitoring sites used in this project, three of which border the Atlanta perimeter at Tucker, South Dekalb, and Ft. McPherson. The fourth is located in Winder, GA at Ft.Yargo State Park. Each site measures PM2.5 mass and composition by means of a Particle Composition Monitor (PCM). Each PCM has three main channels leading to a Nylon, Teflon, or Quartz filter. I prepare the filters in the lab and take them to each PCM to replace the previous day's filters and then bring them back to the lab to be analyzed. Another part of my responsibility this summer is maintaining each of the four sites by figuring out and fixing any errors that occur in the PCM. I plan to continue this work in the fall and hope to be able to someday assist in reporting and publishing the findings from ASACA.

My own personal experiences during renovation of a Florida vacation condominium after Hurricanes Frances and Jeanne in 2004 and the devastation caused by Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma along the Gulf Coast during the record-breaking 2005 Atlantic hurricane season have piqued my interest in tropical cyclones. I am involved in web-based research with Drs. Curry and Webster on past hurricane damage and current vulnerabilities affecting states along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts. My research involves case studies of the destruction and ecological impacts of previous major hurricanes for the various states along the Gulf and Atlantic coastlines within the last century. This includes official data and statistics from the National Hurricane Center (NHC), storm surge, flooding, and tornado damage documented by the National Weather Service (NWS) or from other personal accounts, as well as the effects of the hurricanes' storm surges on marine, freshwater, and estuarine ecosystems. From this hurricane research, my goal is to inform citizens as well as state and local officials in hurricane-prone areas about the realistic dangers of storm surge and irreversible ecological damage from hurricanes. It is my hope that illuminating the risks from storm surge will better prepare state and local emergency management for another above-average hurricane season this year.

The work I am doing over the summer is part of a project using geophysical equipment to get a better understanding of how the Earth moves and deforms. I am working with the non-profit company UNAVCO that is funded to deploy these instruments from the NSF and NASA. The information that is gathered is made available for researchers as well as the general public. The majority of the work that I do will be for the Plate Boundary Observatory which studies the strain field caused by the plate boundary between the Pacific and North American plates. I will be traveling around southern California and possibly Alaska assisting in the installation of permanent GPS stations that will be used to detect regional as well as general plate movement.

For the past two years, the Atlantic hurricane season has left the United States reeling as an incessant parade of intense storms has battered our coasts. The abnormally high number of tropical systems has sparked intense public debate as scientists and politicians both vie for the public's attention. Many on both sides of the fence have concentrated solely on the United States when analyzing the hurricanes from the last two seasons. The problem is that several intense hurricanes form and never make landfall on American soil. Instead, they ravage the Lesser Antilles, the Bahamas, and the countries of Central America often causing more death and destruction than U.S. landfalls. I am currently compiling a list of both Atlantic and Pacific basin hurricanes that have made landfall or directly affected Central America, Mexico, or the Caribbean. Currently there is a plethora of information regarding systems that affect the states but very little with regard to others. If we are to establish any trends in hurricane intensity and frequency, it is necessary to consider all hurricanes and not just the ones that are directly affecting the U.S. Also, increasing numbers of intense storms in recent years have helped renew the study of the African Easterly Waves (AEW). It has been estimated that 85 percent of intense hurricanes in the Atlantic basin have their roots as disturbances in the African Easterly Jet (AEJ), and a good majority of Pacific basin storms can be traced back to Africa. Even though we know that a notable portion of Atlantic storms originate with these waves, we still are not sure which characteristics and conditions are necessary in order to produce the next monster storm. I will soon begin working with graduate students under Drs. Webster and Curry as they study these easterly waves and perform statistical analysis on archived years and model simulations in an attempt to properly understand why certain waves develop and others do not.

Understanding the composition of bioaerosols present in Atlanta's air helps scientists understand possible health effects related to air quality and helps the US government develop reliable sensors to trace biological weapons. Under Dr. Bergin, I am currently investigating the quantity and types of bioaerosols - defined as bacteria, fungi, molds, viruses, or any other living organisms in the atmosphere - through two methods. For both methods, I use an impinger to pull air through a buffer solution which catches bioaersols. Then I either plate this air sample on a Petri dish to grow the bioaerosols or I put this air sample in a Coulter Counter to count the total number of particles in the air. Eventually, I am hoping to run the air sample through a Flow Cytometer in order to calculate a ratio of live to dead organisms in the air. To qualify the types of bioaerosols present in the air, I have also performed DNA sequencing on some of the bacteria samples that grew on the Petri dishes. Each of these techniques not only helps us understand the composition of bioaerosols further, but they allow Dr. Bergin and I to think about constructing an instrument that calculates the composition of bioaerosols in real time.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are a rapidly developing technology in the field of aviation. Once known exclusively for their roles in the military, UAVs are steadily making their presence known in the civilian market. Established as a three-year project, the UAV Resource Center for Earth Observations is dedicated to making UAVs accessible to scientific researchers. Our goal is to develop a website that would allow scientists to identify certain parameters of their research, and then would relay what commercially available UAVs, instruments, and sensors are best adapted for the research mission. For my second year working on the project, my duties entail gathering information on commercially available UAVs and their enabling technologies such as autopilots, aircraft telemetry, data acquisition, and satellite telecommunications. Hopefully, our efforts with enable scientists to gain a better understanding of our environment.

My research this summer involves forecasting air quality for Macon, Georgia. I am part of a team including Georgia Tech and the Georgia Environmental Protection Division that is responsible for issuing air quality advisories (smog alerts, etc.) around the state.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are a promising and emerging tool for atmospheric research. Their ability to fly and collect data in conditions considered as dull, dirty or dangerous gives them a significant advantage over manned aircraft containing similar instrumentation. UAV and relevant sensor technologies are advancing rapidly, and it is the goal of the UAV group to synthesize the available platforms and sensor technology into a user-friendly website created with the scientific researcher in mind. My contribution towards the website has been researching sensor technologies, considering both commercial and emerging technologies for a wide range of applications. My primary research project involves the analysis of data collected by an Aerosonde UAV in the Arctic (Barrow, Alaska). The Aerosonde was equipped with a mini Video Ice Particle Sampler (mini-VIPS), a sensor which provides continuous imagery of cloud particles collected during flight profiles through a cloud. Dr. Nenes, Julie and I are analyzing these ice particle images to determine the microphysical properties of these Arctic clouds and therefore achieve a better understanding of how these ice particles may influence a cloud's radiative properties. Additionally, it is our goal to correlate our results with air pollution data to determine if an increasing amount of pollution alters the microphysical properties and hence the radiative balance of these Arctic clouds. The Arctic is a critically important region to study, yet high resolution data is sparse. UAVs can contribute greatly to this "gap" in scientific knowledge, and my investigation is just one example of the potential benefits. Cirrus clouds, for example, are widespread globally and more accurate microphysical data from these clouds in all regions can lead to more accurate global climate models of the future.

This is the second summer of the UAV Systems Analysis for Earth Observations: Education and Outreach program. We are continuing the research to identify available unmanned aerial vehicles for use with sensors in the field. The UAV resource center database is being restructured to be more useful and efficient. I am still a part of the aircraft-sensor integration team which involves building, testing, and flying a radio controlled aircraft with an atmospheric/earth sensor. Potential flying locations are still being sought out to test the aircraft and sensor performance. I will also be keeping up to date on regulatory issues for UAVs with the FAA. They are becoming a major concern for us when we want to fly larger aircrafts over populated airspace.

My research work this summer relates to the flow of ocean currents in multiple regions around the world. I examine the mud core samples taken from the ocean floor, picking out certain foraminifera that are most abundant. These foraminifera are then run through the mass spectrometer to find the O18 content. From this information, the temperature and density of the ocean at the depth of the core can be found. The temperature and density then determine the strength of the currents at the corresponding depth.

My research seeks to use the resources available through the National Weather Service office in Peachtree City, GA, to attempt to put together a detailed database of hail events and the amount of damage that they cause in North and Central Georgia. The data will then be closely examined to determine if a direct relationship exists between the size of the hail and the amount of damage that occurs. The study will also take into account factors such as average property values and population density, which likely also have an effect on the amount of damage that occurs. One final factor to consider will be the path length and width of the hail swath, which likely also plays a significant role in the amount of damage that occurs.

I am working with the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Resource Center group, a project sponsored by NASA, over the course of this summer. The project involves developing a website containing information on UAVs available for atmospheric observations and their specifications. Information on other subsystems that provide support during the flight will also be provided on the website. These subsystems include meteorological sensors, autopilot system, data telemetry, and satellite communication system. I will be doing research on the data telemetry and satellite communication system during these three months and will make a database containing information on available systems and their compatibility with other UAV subsystems. Based on my research I will also make recommendations to purchase a communication system for the Georgia Tech UAV flight experiment.

I am a senior Applied Mathematics major. This summer I will be working with Dr. Fu and Dr. Wang to attempt to further explain onset of Atlantic El Niño. I will be analyzing QuikSCAT wind data and PIRATA buoy data over the tropical Atlantic in order to assess when the onsets of recent Atlantic El Niño events occurred. My goal is to determine whether or not these events are correlated with convectively coupled atmospheric Kelvin waves originating from South America. In the elementary sense, this will consist of identifying these Kelvin waves using the QuikSCAT data and observing sea surface temperature and thermocline anomalies associated with them. If time permits, I will also attempt to obtain a spectral analysis of convectively coupled Kelvin waves so that they can be more easily identified.

I am researching hurricane impacts on the public sector. I am currently working on two projects: the first project involves investigating damages sustained by various industries in hurricane-prone areas of the country. The second project probes the public sector's understanding of hurricanes and examines the public's preparation during the hurricane season. Both projects involve designing and distributing surveys to the general public in addition to analyzing the results.

I am researching the past climate in Malaysia through oxygen isotopic ratios found in cave stalagmites. Past climate data are becoming eagerly sought after to better understand the recent global climate and environmental changes, and only through researching the past can be better understand the present. Using a machine called a mass spectrometer, oxygen isotopic ratios can be found in samples of stalagmites. The differences in these ratios indicate both temperature and rainfall differences. I will be looking at two stalagmites data from about 3000 years ago to the present in order to get high resolution data which will focus on the how our recent climate has changed. Along with these two stalagmites is a third which is undergoing the same process at a collaborating lab at Caltech. When all three stalagmites data have been compiled I will compare them to one another to check for reproducibility and then for changing climate conclusions.