Iowa State University meteorology majors develop capability in six knowledge and skill areas that are considered important for professional and graduate work:
Physics and Dynamics of the Global
Atmosphere
Abstract
This project is about tracking large scale waves in the atmosphere at
500 mb. The 500 mb height is important in meteorology and weather
forecasting. It is difficult – as with other parts of the atmosphere –
to retrieve an idealized amount of data. Also we wanted to compare
actual data to Rossby wave theory to see how valid the theory is. The
data we collected was every 24 hours. By tracking the wave patterns
over a set time period and comparing the patterns to other
meteorological variables, it is possible to alleviate the need for as
much data as a better understanding is made of the 500 mb waves. Our
group classified the 500 mb flow by identifying the integer wave numbers
for each 500 mb image. We then used those integer wave numbers to
compare to other variables. The variables we compared it to were the
upper level wind speed, the date, the amplitude of the waves, and the
wave speed. We compared these variables by plotting multiple pairs of
variables – usually including wave number as one of the variables. We
used the plots to identify different patterns associated with each
plotted variable pair. We found that some of our results agree with
Rossby wave theory and some don’t. This may be due to measurement error
or the fact that the theory makes many approximations. The following
is our wave project in greater detail.
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Application of New Weather Technologies
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Weather Observing and Analysis
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Computer Programming and Modeling
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Effective Oral and Written Communication
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