In my year as chair of Atmospheric Sciences, I have been struck by the critical importance of the research that takes place within our department. The faculty, staff, postdocs, and students that make up the fabric of Atmos are working diligently to advance solutions to significant problems that matter— to people, ecosystems, and planetary processes.
As chair, I am required to provide a final reading of each graduate student’s thesis, giving me a window into the ways our current research advances understanding of clouds, circulation, drought, emissions, and air quality. With extensive place-based observations spanning the Wasatch Front’s mountains, cities, and lakes, we are contributing to our community’s well-being.
Atmos research impacts communities across the state of Utah and ecosystems across the Intermountain West. Core observational infrastructure such as MesoWest and Storm Peak Lab serve the national and global scientific community. The department’s reach is vast— crossing all ocean basins and spanning all latitudes. In fact, the Atmos research footprint spans planetary scales, explaining climate and weather on other planets, moons, and times in the deep geologic past.
Research across Atmos is thriving with a diverse portfolio of state and federal support. Our faculty are recognized internationally for our contributions in cloudclimate interactions, mountain meteorology, climate physics and dynamics, weather and climate modeling, and atmospheric chemistry and air quality. These
researchers are building new sensors, deploying them in clever new ways, and creating and applying new models in partnership with communities who need these tools.
It is an exciting time to be a part of Atmospheric Sciences! It is also a time of significant change. With a new chair, a new college, and new faculty, Atmos is at an inflection point. In Spring 2025, we look forward to moving into our new home, the L.S. Skaggs Applied Science Building. We're grateful for the substantial contribution made by our former chair and emeritus faculty Ed Zipser. We extend our heartfelt thanks to Ed for his generosity and years of service.
Other changes include new faculty members Alyssa Stansfield and Makoto Kelp who bring research expertise in climate and weather extremes. We are grateful for our partnership with the Wilkes Center for Climate Science & Policy in these efforts.
Thank you for your continued support of Atmospheric Sciences. I am humbled by the generosity of our alumni, faculty, students, and the broader community. Together we can make amazing things happen.
Sincerely,
Chair Brenda Bowen
Cover: Close-up of a snowflake.
Air Currents is the official magazine of the Department of Atmospheric Sciences, University of Utah, published in partnership with Marketing & Communications, College of Science.
Associate Director of Marketing & Communications: Bianca Lyon
Writer & Editor: David Pace
Designer/Photographer: Todd Anderson
Follow us on social media @uofu_atmos
Prefer only a digital version of Air Currents? Send us an email. office@atmos.utah.edu
THE SCIENCE BEHIND SNOWFLAKES
UTAH RESEARCHERS DISCOVER THAT SNOWFLAKE MOVEMENT IS ASTONISHINGLY PREDICTABLE.
by BRIAN MAFFLY
TIM GARRETT HAS DEVOTED HIS SCIENTIFIC CAREER TO CHARACTERIZING SNOWFLAKES, THE PROTEAN PARTICLES OF ICE THAT FORM IN CLOUDS AND DRAMATICALLY CHANGE AS THEY FALL TO EARTH.
Now the University of Utah atmospheric scientist is unlocking the mystery of how snowflakes move in response to air turbulence that accompanies snowfall using novel instrumentation developed on campus. And after analyzing more than half a million snowflakes, what his team has discovered has left him astonished.
Rather than something incomprehensibly complicated, predicting how snowflakes move proved to be surprisingly simple, they found.
“How snowflakes fall has attracted a lot of interest for many decades because it is a critical parameter
for predicting weather and climate change,” Garrett says. “This is related to the speed of the water cycle. How fast moisture falls out of the sky determines the lifetime of storms.”
LETTERS FROM HEAVEN
The famed Japanese physicist Ukichiro Nakaya termed snow crystals “letters sent from heaven” because their delicate structures carry information about temperature and humidity fluctuations in the clouds where crystal basal and prism facets compete for water vapor deposition.
While every snowflake is believed to be unique, how these frosty particles fall through the air—as they accelerate, drift and swirl—follows patterns, according to new research by Garrett and colleagues in the College of Engineering. Snowflake movement has important implications for weather forecasting and climate change, even in the tropics.
“Most precipitation starts as snow. The question of how fast it falls affects predictions of where on the ground precipitation lands, and how long clouds last to reflect radiation to outer space,” says Garrett. “It can even affect forecasts of a hurricane trajectory.”
Also involved with the study published in the journal Physics of Fluids are Dhiraj Singh and Eric Pardyjak of the U’s Department of Mechanical Engineering. The research was funded by the National Science Foundation.
To study snowflake movement, the team needed a way to measure individual snowflakes, which has been a challenging puzzle for years.
“They have very low masses. They may only weigh 10 micrograms, a hundredth of a milligram, so they cannot be weighed with very high precision,” explains Garrett.
Working with engineering faculty, Garrett developed instrumentation called the Differential Emissivity Imaging Disdrometer, or DEID, which measures snowflakes’ hydrometeor mass, size, and density. This device has since been commercialized by a company Garrett co-founded called Particle Flux Analytics. The Utah Department of Transportation has deployed the equipment in Little Cottonwood Canyon to help with avalanche forecasting, he says.
For Garrett’s field experiments, his team set up at Alta, the snowiest place in Utah, for the winter of 2020-21. The instruments were deployed alongside measurements of air temperature, relative humidity, and turbulence and placed directly beneath a particle tracking system consisting of a laser light sheet and a single-lens reflex camera.
“By measuring the turbulence, the mass, density, and size of the snowflakes and watching how they meander in the turbulence,” Garrett says, “we are able to create a comprehensive picture never obtained before in a natural environment before.”
UNEXPECTED FINDINGS
Despite the intricate shapes of snowflakes and the uneven movement of the air they encounter, the researchers found they could predict how snowflakes would accelerate based on a parameter known as the Stokes number (St), which reflects how quickly the particles respond to changes in the surrounding air movements.
When the team analyzed the acceleration of individual snowflakes, the average increased in a nearly linear fashion with the Stokes number. Moreover, the distribution of these accelerations could be described by a single exponential curve independent of the Stokes number.
The researchers found that the same mathematical pattern could be connected to how changing snowflake shapes and sizes affect how fast they fall, suggesting a fundamental connection between the way the air moves and how snowflakes change as they fall from the clouds to the ground.
“That, to me, almost seems mystical,” Garrett says. “There is something deeper going on in the atmosphere that leads to mathematical simplicity rather than the extraordinary complexity we would expect from looking at complicated snowflake structures swirling chaotically in turbulent air. We just have to look at it the right way, and our new instruments enable us to see that.” <
This article originally appeared in @TheU.
PREDICTING DECLINING SNOWPACK
In a new $4.8 million research project, Atmos faculty are attempting to better understand how snowfall processes are impacted by complex mountainous terrain.
Part of a multi-institutional team led by the University of Michigan and funded by the National Science Foundation, U researchers will conduct the Snow Sensitivity to Clouds in a Mountain Environment (S2noCliME) Field Campaign during the 2024-2025 winter season. Much of the data collection will stem from the U's unique Storm Peak Laboratory, a premier high-elevation atmospheric monitoring station in northern Colorado.
"By deploying an integrated network of ground-based, airborne and satellite instruments,” explains Atmos’s Jay Mace, a lead on the remote sensing components of the field campaign, “we can gain valuable insights into the chain of processes shaping snowfall, from large weather systems down to the microscale."
The coordinated deployment brings together more than 30 cutting-edge instruments from five research universities. <
ORIGINS OF THE WASATCH’S
by BRIAN MAFFLY
MAJOR SNOWSTORMS IN UTAH’S WASATCH MOUNTAINS ARE BOTH A BLESSING AND A CURSE.
They deliver much-needed moisture that supplies water to the state’s biggest metropolitan area and fluffy light snow to support the world’s finest powder skiing.
But heavy snowfall also wreaks havoc on canyon roads and creates extreme avalanche hazards that can sometimes shut down busy winter recreation sites. Skiing at the head of Little Cottonwood Canyon, for instance, can be reached by vehicle only via a winding road that rises 3,000 feet in eight miles, crossing about 50 avalanche paths.
University of Utah atmospheric scientists have set out to better understand extreme snowfall, defined as events in the top five percent in terms of snow accumulations, by analyzing hundreds of events over a 23-year period at Alta, the famed ski destination in the central Wasatch
outside Salt Lake City. The resulting study published in Monthly Weather Review illustrates the remarkable diversity of storm characteristics producing orographic snowfall extremes in the ranges of the Intermountain West.
The orographic effect occurs when air is forced to flow up and over mountains, which cools the air and condenses its water vapor.
INTEGRATED VAPOR TRANSPORT
Some of the new findings surprised researchers. For example, they looked for an association between heavy snow and a weather factor called “integrated vapor transport,” or IVT, but found a complicated relationship.
“IVT is essentially a measure of the amount of water vapor that is being transported horizontally through the atmosphere," says lead author Michael Wasserstein, a graduate student in atmospheric sciences. “In certain regions high IVT can produce extremely heavy precipitation. That
can be the case for the Wasatch, but not always.”
In the West Coast’s Sierra Nevada and Cascade Range, by contrast, there is a stronger relationship between high-IVT storms blowing in from the Pacific and extreme precipitation and snowfall.
Spanning the years 2000 to 2022, the study, which was funded by the National Science Foundation, analyzed a total of 2,707 snow events, each covering a 12-hour period. The average amount of snow deposited during each event was 11.2 centimeters (4.4 inches), while the median amount was just 7.6 (3 inches). Alta ski patrollers did much of the data collection at the monitoring station located near the ski area’s Wildcat Lift.
The researchers homed in on “extreme” events above the 95th percentile, or 138 storms in which 30.5 centimeters (12 inches) or more snow fell. “Those would be snowfall rates of about an average of an inch an
hour,” says Atmos’s Jim Steenburgh, the study’s senior author. The biggest 12-hour accumulation was 65 centimeters (26 inches), recorded on March 30, 2005. They also examined “extreme” water-equivalent snowfall events above the 95th percentile, or 116 storms with at least 27.9 mm (1.11 inches) of water equivalent precipitation. The water equivalent of precipitation measures the amount of water in the snowfall and is important for water resources and avalanches.
Among other discoveries, the researchers found the storm systems reaching Utah that carried relatively little water vapor were still capable of dropping heavy snows as they passed over the central Wasatch. And it wasn’t just a result of Utah’s notorious “lake effect,” snowfall associated with
moisture getting extracted off Great Salt Lake, according to Steenburgh.
IVT is measured in terms of kilograms of water moving a meter each second and “is one of the ways that we identify atmospheric rivers,” says Steenburgh. He notes that an IVT value of 250 qualifies as an atmospheric river, like the one that pounded Southern California in late January earlier this year. “And the higher the IVT, the more extreme the atmospheric river is.”
PROFESSOR POWDER
Steenburgh is affectionately known around campus and Utah’s ski community as "Professor Powder" because of his intimate knowledge of the meteorological factors behind the Wasatch Mountains’ famous snow.
APPLIED SCIENCE BUILDING NAMED
The ALSAM Foundation has made a substantial gift toward the latest addition to the science campus at the University of Utah: the L.S. Skaggs Applied Science Building
The new home of the Department of Atmospheric Sciences, the 100,000-square-foot building will include modern classrooms and instruction spaces, cutting-edge physics and atmospheric science research laboratories, and faculty and student spaces. The building is
named to honor L.S. “Sam” Skaggs, the philanthropist and businessman whose retail footprint once spread across the Mountain West and the U.S.
Expressing profound gratitude for the foundation’s transformative gift, Peter Trapa, dean of the College of Science, shared that the new space will be “a beacon of scientific innovation, [and] will play an essential role in educating students in STEM programs throughout the University of Utah.” The building, which will also
“We rarely get true atmospheric river conditions at Alta,” he says. “We might get an atmospheric river that decays upstream, and by the time it gets here, the IVT values are below the minimum threshold.”
Even in the driest of winters, Alta still receives ample snowfall with seasonal totals almost always exceeding 300 inches and averaging more than 500 inches.
“If you go to the Sierra, most of their big snowfall events are big atmospheric river events,” explains Steenburgh. “But at Alta, some of their biggest snowfall events are relatively low IVT events. They are incredibly efficient at producing snowfall.” <
An expanded version of this article first appeared in @The U.
house the Department of Physics & Astronomy and the Wilkes Center for Climate Science and Policy, will also serve the region’s expanding workforce needs.
The construction of the L.S. Skaggs Applied Science Building is part of the Applied Science Project, which also includes the renovation of the historical William Stewart Building. The overall project is scheduled to be completed by summer 2025. <
“HEAT WAVES DON’T CATCH US UNAWARE,” SAYS DANIEL MENDOZA , WHO STUDIES ENVIRONMENTAL REFUGES AND HOW CITIES CAN BETTER PROTECT VULNERABLE INDIVIDUALS.
“They are events that we can predict and, given the right policies, minimize the impact on human health, particularly for vulnerable individuals in populations that really suffer the most because they lack proper shelter.”
Here, he answers questions about his recent study on environmental refuges that appeared in the peerreviewed journal Buildings
HOW ARE HEAT AND HEALTH RELATED?
High temperatures during the evening are more insidious [than those during the day]—you’re very vulnerable to your environment while you’re sleeping….When it’s too hot at night, you’re not recovering at a cellular level. This can cause chronic health issues that for some, can lead to strokes, among other negative effects.
HOW WILL CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACT OUR EXPOSURE TO HEAT?
Not only are average temperatures rising, but our cities essentially generate this brick oven effect where there’s so much concrete, it absorbs the heat during the day and radiates it back out at night. We’re starting to see that there’s a disproportionate health impact of heat-related illness,
in a similar manner as we’ve noticed for air quality.
WHAT IS THE COOL ZONE PROGRAM IN SALT LAKE COUNTY?
Within the county, all the libraries, rec centers, and senior centers are designated locations where people can get relief from the heat. In our recent study, we wanted to look closely at the cool zones to assess whether they are useful and accessible and to provide recommendations based on our data. For example, many of these cool zones close around 2 or 3 pm, and those are the hottest times of the day…. How can we make cool zones, or better yet, environmental refuges, more effective?
YOUR STUDY ANALYZED HOW COOL ZONES BLOCKED HEAT AND OZONE, A COMMON AIR POLLUTANT DURING THE SUMMER. WHY DID YOU FOCUS ON BOTH HEAT AND OZONE?
Climate change exposes us to compounding environmental exposures. In the study we asked, "Can cool zones protect individuals from heat and poor air quality?" Ozone is dangerous because it basically causes a sunburn in your lungs that impacts respiratory and cardiovascular health. [In our first study] we found that Millcreek Library was cooler than outside, obviously because the temperature was regulated, but also reduced the exposure to ozone by almost 80 percent compared to the outside concentrations. So, being
inside the building not only protected you from elevated temperatures, but also from poorer air quality.
WHAT ARE SOME POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS, BASED ON YOUR FINDINGS?
We should be thinking about how to make these [refuges or cooling centers] more accessible, for example, keeping them open for longer hours to protect people during the hottest parts of the day from ozone, wildfires, and dust events, which we’re seeing more often. … [Keep in mind] nighttime is a completely different story.
WHAT ARE YOUR NEXT STEPS FOR IMPROVING ENVIRONMENTAL REFUGES?
We need to quantify refuge usage, and the reason for usage. Are people going there because they would normally go to the library or the senior center activities? Or are people making a conscious decision to protect themselves? A way to quantify this would be an active public health campaign which includes tracking some health statistics. < This article originally appeared in @TheU.
JEAN M. CANNON AND KEN J. PARKER SCHOLARSHIP
“After Jean’s passing, I was looking for ways to celebrate her legacy,” says Ken Parker, BS’74 meteorology, of his deceased wife. The Cannon/ Parker Scholarship is a tribute to two “meteorology undergraduates [who] met and over the next four decades came to understand that
MASSEY FAMILY ATMOSPHERIC
SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY ENDOWMENT
Jeff, PhD’15 atmospheric sciences, and Courtney Massey, MS'15 mathematics,
each shared the same intense interest and wonder about Earth sciences and the same passion for education.” Following graduation from the U, Ken spent 32 years with the National Weather Service, serving in a wide range of positions from agricultural and aviation meteorologist to senior forecaster and meteorologist-incharge. At the same time Jean, BS’75 meteorology, pursued a 22-year career as a meteorologist in the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Air Force Reserves where she made the rank of major, followed by positions at numerous aerospace companies. In the end, however, Jean went back to her first love of teaching,
this time for 15 years in classrooms made up of middle school students. (She also taught as an adjunct at Boise State University for two decades.)
“What better way to continue this love of Earth sciences and education than the formation of … a scholarship for a U undergraduate meteorology student who is also passionate about those same studies?” says Parker. The scholarship will be awarded annually, based on financial need and academic merit, to one or more undergraduate students pursuing a degree offered through Atmos. <
created the Massey Family Atmospheric Science Technology Endowment to increase student exposure to data science applications in the atmospheric sciences. Their gift achieves this through an endowment to fund awards to graduate students for demonstrable contributions that advance broadly defined data science applications in the atmospheric sciences.
“During my career as a private sector atmospheric scientist,” says Jeff, “I discovered how powerful and valuable skills in computer programming, artificial intelligence, statistical model development, and cloud computing are when
coupled with core atmospheric science knowledge. … We know the University of Utah’s Department of Atmospheric Sciences can be a leader in this space, and its students can help develop the technologies of tomorrow.” <
Learn more about how to support the Department of Atmospheric Sciences through an endowed scholarship or other vehicle. Contact TJ McMullin at travis.mcmullin@utah.edu
A ROMANCE WITH SEVERE WEATHER EVENTS
by
SADIE DUNN recipient
of the For Utah Scholarship
GROWING UP, I ALWAYS KNEW WHAT I WAS GOING TO STUDY IN COLLEGE. I WAS KIND OF SHOCKED THAT THE UNIVERSITY OF UTAH IS THE ONLY SCHOOL IN THE STATE THAT OFFERS AN ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES DEGREE. SO THAT’S HOW I ENDED UP HERE.
The For Utah Scholarship has been an amazing opportunity for me because, honestly, I would not have been able to afford college on my own.
I am from Chicago, and I grew up with really severe summer storms in the Midwest, so I guess that’s what really fostered my love for weather. Then I moved to Utah when I was 13 where there is a ton of snow and crazy windstorms which sparked my curiosity.
Throughout junior high and high school, I knew studying weather was my goal. As a senior in high school, we had an internship class, and I got to intern at ABC 4 News in their weather department, which was cool. That was definitely the moment when I was like, “This is real. I’m working towards this, and this is the goal.” So it’s really exciting to take this love
I’ve had since I was little and turn it into a career.
While interning at a broadcast station was fun, it’s not something that interests me as a career. But my atmospheric sciences degree can take me a bunch of different places. It offers research opportunities with organizations like the National Weather Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. You can also work with private organizations. There are
serious meteorologists in every field, which I think is one of the coolest parts about this job.
I’m still kind of feeling out what I want to do. It’s a STEM major, and it’s very math- and physics- and chemistryheavy. I consider myself to be smart, but I am not a natural in those courses. So I don’t think research is something I will do. I am really passionate about climate change, so I’m looking more into the field of sustainability.
Since I grew up with a love of severe weather, I would also love to be able can’t stop them. They are going to hit and destroy everything. So I would love to find ways to lessen the effects of those or find better ways to prepare
The For Utah Scholarship program
and mandatory fees are covered by grant and scholarship assistance version of this story was first
REGIONAL INNOVATION ENGINE
CREATING FOCUSED RESEARCH & TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER HUBS
by XOEL CARDENAS U Office of the VP for Research
WITH FUNDING FROM THE NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION (NSF), THE UNIVERSITY OF UTAH ALONG WITH SIX CORE ACADEMIC PARTNERS WILL BE PART OF A MULTI-INSTITUTIONAL ENTERPRISE TO CONFRONT THE CLIMATE CHALLENGES FACING THE DESERT SOUTHWEST AND SPUR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN THE REGION.
The effects of climate change are acutely evident in the Southwest, from the desertification of Utah’s Great Salt Lake to the recordbreaking extreme heat in Arizona and the dwindling supply of the Colorado River reaching Nevada.
NSF Engines: Southwest
Sustainability Innovation Engine (SWSIE) will use these challenges to catalyze economic opportunity and seeks to establish the Southwest as a leader in carbon capture, water security, and renewable energy and bring high-wage industries to
the region. SWSIE unites academic, community, nonprofit, and industry partners across Arizona, Nevada, and Utah that are committed to this goal.
SWSIE is among the first proposals selected by the NSF to establish a Regional Innovation Engine, a firstof-its-kind NSF program to create focused research and technology transfer hubs. The NSF will fund SWSIE’s initial development and growth with $15 million over the next
to our state and region through innovation and collaboration—all while driving economic prosperity.
The team includes over 20 senior personnel including faculty from Atmospheric Sciences, Biological Sciences, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Communications, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Geography, and Geology and Geophysics.
two years. The engine can be renewed for up to 10 years with $160 million in funding available for each regional engine.
Driven by the U’s mission to find solutions for society’s critical challenges, SWSIE is an opportunity to tackle one of the biggest threats
“We are so thrilled to have the opportunity to grow academic, industry, and community partnerships that unite Utah, Nevada, and Arizona as we innovate sustainable solutions for water, energy, and carbon,” says geologist and chair of Atmos Brenda Bowen, co-principal investigator who serves as the U lead on SWSIE. “This is work that needs to happen, and this award will allow us to align our efforts to maximize the positive impacts across the region.” <
INTERNATIONAL HEADLINES
HAVE CARRIED THE BAD NEWS: GREAT SALT LAKE IS THREATENED BY A NUMBER OF FACTORS, INCLUDING HUMAN ACTIVITIES, DROUGHT, AND CLIMATE CHANGE.
With its various water environments, remote islands and shorelines, Great Salt Lake includes Utah's highest density of wetlands which provide habitat for plants, brine shrimp, reptiles, amphibians, mammals, shorebirds, and waterfowl. More than 10 million birds rely on the Lake, a critical link in the Pacific Flyway between North and South America.
To head off the shrinking of the Lake and its ecological collapse, the 22-member Great Salt Lake Strike Team was assembled and in 2023 produced its first policy assessment, executive summary, and presentation. The worst consequences, the report stated, can be avoided by raising the lake level to around 4,198 feet, a level that “is deemed ‘beneficial’ for most uses.” Filling the Lake up to that level in 10 years will require an inflow of more than two million acre-feet per year. One acre-foot is the volume of
water that would cover an acre of land to a depth of one foot, equivalent to 325,851 gallons. On average, since 2000, the Lake receives around 1.6 million acre-feet from its primary tributaries, the Bear, Jordan, and Weber Rivers, every year.
Atmos researchers were and continue to be critical members of the Team and include Kevin Perry, John Lin, and Court Strong.
Kevin Perry has spent hours on the drying and shrinking bed of Great Salt Lake, testing
patches of the Lake surface for potentially toxic metals and trying to understand the recipe for dust storms. The exposed lakebed has created conditions for storms of dust laden with metals (including arsenic) that now threaten two million people. This new hazard, which adds to the already (frequently) polluted air of valleys along the Wasatch, including Salt Lake
where oil refineries, a power plant, and a gravel mine exist and whose emissions get trapped by surrounding mountains. “We have 2.5 million residents along the edges of the Lake,” Perry reported to NBC News. “These dust plumes come off and make the air unhealthy regardless of what’s in it.”
Another Strike Team member, Associate Director of the Wilkes Center for Climate Science and Policy
John Lin has over 20 years of experience researching the emissions and transport of greenhouse gases and atmospheric pollutants. His research group carries out greenhouse gas and air quality observations in the Salt Lake City area, as well as in the Uinta Basin. He also works regularly with satellite observations from NASA to determine carbon emissions from cities around the world. As a member of the Strike Team he is tasked with synthesizing broad scientific knowledge, measurements,
and observed trends to inform policy decisions surrounding Great Salt Lake. Pollutants such as black carbon, nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter, he says, “tend to be higher in lower-income neighborhoods, places with minoritized populations.”
One of those vulnerable areas is Salt Lake City’s west side, which is more exposed to dust plumes from the dry lakebed.
While Perry and Lin have trained their sights on air pollutants, climate scientist Court Strong's research group studies processes
involving the atmosphere and cryosphere, which is the frozen part of the climate system including our region’s mountain snowpack. They analyze observational data and simulate climate change using models run on powerful supercomputers. His team works, in part, to improve precipitation and temperature predictions through statistical downscaling with machine learning. “Downscaling is essential to producing high-spatial-resolution data desired for forecasts and to support research in other earth science disciplines,” says Savanna Wolvin, a graduate student in Atmos advised by Strong. The relationship of precipitation and temperature with elevation in complex terrain, predicted using a convolutional neural network, is critical to understanding the processes of replenishing the Lake
through natural means (as opposed to countermanding water diversions).
Mountain meteorology, statistical modeling, machine learning, and climate variability are at the center of the work being done by Strong’s research group in this area.
IN 2012, JARED CAMPBELL DECIDED TO RUN UP AND DOWN SALT LAKE CITY’S GRANDEUR PEAK FOR 24 HOURS TO RAISE MONEY FOR AIR QUALITY ADVOCACY WORK.
The following year, a few friends joined in. The next year: even more.
After 11 years, Campbell’s solo project has morphed into Running Up For Air: a worldwide movement with dozens of races, hundreds of runners and tens of thousands of dollars raised around the globe. Patagonia produced a short film about Campbell’s story which features Atmos’s John Lin talking about the science behind air
The formation of the Great Salt Lake Strike Team signifies a significant milestone in Utah’s endeavors to tackle the intricate challenges confronting the Lake, and Atmos researchers are clearly on the first line of defense. As emphasized by Brian Steed, Great Salt Lake Commissioner and co-chair of the Great Salt Lake Strike Team, the restoration journey demands a coordinated, data-driven strategy. The Strike Team plays a pivotal role as catalyst to that strategy. < Scan here to watch.
challenges in the basins along the Wasatch Front. Since its debut April 10 on YouTube, the film has accumulated over 356,500 views. Use the QR code here to watch how trail running builds community that can jump-start change far beyond the trails. <
TWO SUMMERS AGO, WHILE CAMBRIA WHITE WAS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF UTAH FOR THE RESEARCH EXPERIENCE IN ALPINE METEOROLOGY (REALM) INTERNSHIP PROGRAM, SHE EXPERIENCED A DIRECT ATMOSPHERIC EVENT: WILDFIRE.
“Within a few hours, the picturesque skyline of the Salt Lake Valley was overcome by a thick layer of smoke and a warm orange glow,” she remembers. “I couldn’t help but wonder about the drastic changes in air quality and how the fire was affecting local residents.”
While White already had an interest in anthropogenic effects on climate and atmospheric conditions, that orange vision of the warming valley under smoke propelled her to pursue wildfire and air quality research. That’s when the REALM program helped turbo-charge her academic career, connecting her to faculty member Derek Mallia. “Participating in REALM … introduced me to the LandAtmosphere Interactions Research Group and provided a glimpse into day-to-day life as a graduate researcher in Atmos.”
REALM
STUDENT BRIDGE TO A CAREER IN ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES
First initiated in 2019 under the direction of faculty member Gannet Hallar, REALM relies on the natural scientific environment provided by the nearby Wasatch Mountains and adjacent urban areas designed to enhance student awareness of societal challenges, such as water availability and air quality. This awareness requires understanding the influence of alpine terrain on weather and climate processes.
Atmos is the leading program for weather and climate education and research in the Intermountain West and is recognized internationally for its expertise in atmospheric studies related to mountain environments, including measurement, analysis and prediction of orographic precipitation, fire weather, and air quality. The department has a rich history of involving undergraduates in research.
More than 100 students annually apply for the program’s eight slots. Applicants know what they’re angling for: an inclusive and supportive environment in which each participant interacts with a mentoring team. That team includes a trained faculty advisor, a student peer mentor from within the cohort, and STEM
subject matter mentors that provide enhanced targeted training and feedback regarding writing, public speaking, computer programming, and field work and safety.
Recent REALM alumna Loren Brink was a happy recipient of what she calls a “transformative” experience, as “it introduced me to the vast possibilities within my fields of study.” Here she found the faculty’s “passion and commitment to advancing knowledge in atmospheric sciences … contagious, and it deeply inspired me."
This past summer the cohort visited Storm Peak Laboratory, the U’s high-elevation research facility near Steamboat Springs, Colorado, where they also attended a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) conference. They also visited an air quality site in the Uinta Basin, toured the nimble, low-altitude surveyor NOAA Twin Otter aircraft, and presented at the summer symposium.
It’s been the kind of experiential learning—REALM’s signature— designed to elaborate on atmospheric events similar to what Cambria White witnessed as she watched smoke from wildfires fill up the Salt Lake Valley. <
2021 REALM cohort on Hidden Peak in Little Cottonwood Canyon
WITH DISTINCTION
RON PERLA
PhD’71 meteorology
2024 Distinguished Alumnus Award
Read more at science.utah.edu/alumni/ron-perla
JIM STEENBURGH
University Distinguished Teaching
NSF Unidata Russell L. DeSouza
GRAD STUDENT SCHOLARSHIP RECIPIENTS
THOMAS DEWITT
Norihiko Fukuta Memorial
The question of how clouds will change in a warming climate cannot be answered using known physics. By applying ideas from statistical mechanics to the atmosphere, DeWitt hopes to help discover a new theory of clouds.
KARLIE REES
Edward J. Zipser
Rees studies the fractal properties of clouds and their relationship to turbulence. She also studies turbulent processes in fog and turbulence as it relates to field density measurements of snowflakes.
KEVIN PERRY
Presidential Society Impact (See story below.)
SAVANNA WOLVIN
Massey Family
Wolvin’s research aims to downscale precipitation from forecast and climate models in mountainous terrain through statistical downscaling and deep-learning algorithms.
PRESIDENTIAL SOCIETAL IMPACT SCHOLAR
ATMOS’S KEVIN PERRY WAS NAMED BY PRESIDENT
TAYLOR RANDALL AS ONE OF FIVE 2024-25 PRESIDENTIAL SOCIETAL IMPACT SCHOLARS. The award—$10,000 and support from University Marketing & Communications to promote each recipient’s research scholarship and initiatives—recognizes exemplary public engagement.
Perry has studied the impacts of mineral dust for more than two
decades, a research focus that took on major importance with the shrinking of Great Salt Lake. Riding a fat-tire bicycle, he surveyed the 800-mile exposed lakebed and found dust from the Lake contains high concentrations of toxic metals.
Perry, who regularly shares his findings with policy makers, has also shared his research to the public in three documentary films and more than 115 print, radio, and TV interviews to date. <
Thank you to our many alumni and friends who contribute to the Department of Atmospheric Sciences. Your support enables us to provide exceptional education, conduct groundbreaking research, and prepare the next generation of leaders in our discipline.
If you’d like to support our efforts, please consider contributing to the L.S. Skaggs Applied Science Building which will serve as the department’s new home. Donors who contribute a total of $1,000 or more can choose to
be listed on the building’s permanent donor wall. Gifts of any amount are greatly appreciated. You can contribute here:
Opportunities are also available to name specific rooms in the building.
We are grateful for your investment in our students, faculty, and staff. We’d love to hear from you or have you stop by campus for a visit. You are always welcome here at the University of Utah!
For more information about giving to Atmospheric Sciences, contact:
