Bulletin of the American Physical Society
2014 Annual Meeting of the Far West Section of the APS
Volume 59, Number 14
Friday–Saturday, October 24–25, 2014; Reno, Nevada
Session C4: Education, Atmospheric Science and Other |
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Chair: Melodi Rodrigue, University of Nevada, Reno Room: JCSU 324 |
Friday, October 24, 2014 2:00PM - 2:12PM |
C4.00001: Summer as a Student Teacher and Researcher Fellow at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory E.B.I.T. Facility Dominique Davenport, Grecia Ramos, Heather Brown We will briefly describe the STAR (Student Teacher and Researcher) program as well as the research we participated in as STAR Fellows at Lawrence Livermore National Lab E.B.I.T. facility. The STAR Program allows pre-service teachers to intern at research facilities while attending weekly courses to review teaching standards. The E.B.I.T. or Electron Beam Ion Trap, is an instrument that allows us to probe into electron transitions of complex highly charged ions by use of a mono-energetic beam of electrons. X-rays are emitted from the electron excitations in these highly charged ions and can be detected by an assortment of X-ray spectrometers. Over the summer, we were able to characterize a High Resolution Spherically Bent Crystal Spectrometer for use at the Atomic Weapons Establishment and measure transition energies of highly charged Aluminum ions for the planned Astro-H mission. [Preview Abstract] |
Friday, October 24, 2014 2:12PM - 2:24PM |
C4.00002: Physics Instruction at the Davidson Academy of Nevada Brett Guisti There are three physics offerings at the Davidson Academy: 1) Physical Science - a middle school class which focuses on basic mechanics. 2) Physics - a high school class covering mechanics, waves, optics, thermodynamics, fluids, and special relativity. 3) Advanced Physics - a calculus-based course with a semester each of mechanics and electricity and magnetism. Basic concepts guiding all classes include conceptual understanding, computational practice, and comprehensive experiences. For the first time this year, the high school physics class is being taught using a ``Flipped Classroom'' approach where students watch videos of lectures at home and use class time to work on problem solving and labs. An emphasis on special relativity drawing heavily from the materials in Brian Greene's online World Science U course will also be added to the physics curriculum this year. [Preview Abstract] |
Friday, October 24, 2014 2:24PM - 2:36PM |
C4.00003: From Electrons Paired to Electric Power Delivered -- A Personal Journey in Physics Research and Applications at IBM, EPRI, and Beyond Paul Grant This talk will reprise a personal journey by the speaker in industrial and applied physics, commencing with his employment by IBM at age 17 in the early 1950s, and continuing through his corporate sponsored undergraduate and graduate years at Clarkson and Harvard Universities, followed by a 40-year career focusing on the properties of conducting and superconducting organic and polymeric materials, employing a wide variety of experimental and computational techniques, first at the IBM Almaden Research Center, and later with the Electric Power Research Institute. Now in ``retirement,'' he pursues and publishes his computational (DFT) studies on ``proxy'' copper monoxide structures in hope of clarifying the pairing mechanism underlying high temperature superconductivity. In summary, the speaker's career in applied physics demonstrates one can combine publishing a record three PRLs in one month with crawling around in substations alongside utility lineman helping install superconducting cables. [Preview Abstract] |
Friday, October 24, 2014 2:36PM - 2:48PM |
C4.00004: Assessment of Wildfire Smoke Plume Impacts in Reno, NV During the 2013 California Fires Sandra Loria-Salazar, Heather Holmes, Patrick Arnott The study of aerosol pollution transport and optical properties in the western U.S. is a challenge due to the complex terrain, bright surfaces, presence of anthropogenic and biogenic emissions, secondary organic aerosol formation, and smoke from wild fires. Here, we analyze data from August 2013 as a case study for wildfire smoke plumes in California and Nevada. During this time period, northern California was impacted by large wild fires known as the American and Yosemite Rim fires. The aim of the present work is to investigate the fire plume behavior and transport phenomena using ground level PM$_{2.5}$ concentrations from routine monitoring networks and aerosol optical properties from AERONET located in Reno Nevada. The multispectral photoacoustic instruments and reciprocal nephelometers located in Reno support the estimation of Approximated Aerosol Height (AOH). Preliminary results show that surface and columnar measurements agreed when the fire signal was high and the smoke plume stayed at low levels. However, there is significant aerosol pollution aloft due to increased mixing in the atmosphere from complex terrain and fire plume dynamics complicating the ability of remotely-sensed near-surface aerosol pollution from satellites. [Preview Abstract] |
Friday, October 24, 2014 2:48PM - 3:00PM |
C4.00005: Thermal Infrared Radiative Forcing by Atmospheric Aerosol Narayan Adhikari, William P. Arnott The radiative effect of aerosol in the longwave (LW) spectral domain is usually considered negligible and is often not included in climate models. We have demonstrated that both the bottom of the atmosphere (BOA) and top of the atmosphere (TOA) LW radiative forcing (RF) due to coarse mode aerosol, associated with large airborne mineral dust particles, and that due to fine mode aerosols, mainly associated with small biomass-burning smoke particles, are significant and positive. The LW RF produces heating at the Earth's surface, counterbalancing the well-known cooling effect associated with aerosol RF in the shortwave (SW) spectral region. Also, the aerosol LW forcings on typical conditions in Reno, NV, are comparable in magnitude to the enhancement due to increase in CO$_{2}$ concentration in the Earth's atmosphere since the preindustrial era of 1750. These results underscore that the importance for inclusion of accurate aerosol LW RF in atmospheric radiative transfer in general and climate models in particular. [Preview Abstract] |
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