In January of 2005 I began work on my Ph.D. project, Quantification of volcanic water vapor using the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS). Here’s the abstract from my thesis proposal:
Increases in stratospheric water vapor can increase surface temperatures, cool the atmosphere, expedite chemical reactions, and increase the residence time of volcanic aerosols. Volcanic eruption columns are an important mechanism for transporting not only magmatic, but also atmospheric water vapor entrained in the column, to the relatively dry stratosphere. Due to the natural abundance of water vapor in the lower atmosphere, the retrieval of this pervasive volcanic gas has largely been ignored. NASA’s Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) provides us with the potential to retrieve volcanogenic water. Model spectra will be created using a radiative transfer forward model for varying atmospheric conditions and compiled into a data library. The new retrieval algorithm will compare AIRS radiance data to the model spectra using a fitting algorithm, where the differences in spectra in fitting windows will be used to quantify the amount of water vapor in the volcanic plume.
Progress to date:
I’ve been making some decent progress on things recently. Quite frankly, the project is pretty overwhelming and there have been a lot of gaps in my knowledge that I’ve had to fill before getting too ahead of myself. This summer (2006), I headed to the University of Bristol, England to work with my advisor, Matt Watson, on some programming things. We finally figured out how to input water vapor in the current working model of Synplume (developed by Vince Realmuto). Though we thought it was going to be relatively simple, it turned out to be far more complex. I also created some helper routines. One reads in several models at a time and plots them against each other. Another reformats atmospheric profiles for use in the program. Since programming is clearly the main component of my work, I took 2 courses in programming in IDL (Interactive Data Language). This is the language that I’m using to run the models and develop the retrieval algorithm. The next step of the project is development of a data library, which will be compared to actual AIRS data. Finally, the retrieval algorithm will be written.
*******************************************************
In December 2004, I completed my M.S. degree in Geology. The project, Multisensor analysis of the August 18 and 28, 2000 eruption clouds of Miyakejima Volcano, Japan, compared four satellite sensors to place constraints on the masses and distributions of ash, SO2, and aerosols from the eruptions. In addition to determining the amounts of ash and gas emitted by these eruptions, the different retrieval techniques were compared to evaluate the limitations of each.
*******************************************************
Life after graduate school will hopefully find me teaching
at the undergraduate level and continuing with research in remote sensing of
volcanic emissions. My dream job is to teach at a small liberal arts school,
like the one I went to. During my undergraduate career, I was given the
opportunity to work on a professor’s major research project and a summer
project, which I developed. I think this was vital in preparing me for graduate
school and would like to give the same opportunity to other students.
Home
|