Search for: All records

Atmospheric rivers (ARs) are filamentary structures within the atmosphere that account for a substantial portion of poleward moisture transport and play an important role in Earth's hydroclimate. However, there is no one quantitative definition for what constitutes an atmospheric river, leading to uncertainty in quantifying how these systems respond to global change. This study seeks to better understand how different AR detection tools (ARDTs) respond to changes in climate states utilizing single‐forcing climate model experiments under the aegis of the Atmospheric River Tracking Method Intercomparison Project (ARTMIP). We compare a simulation with an early Holocene orbital configuration and another with CO₂levels of the Last Glacial Maximum to a preindustrial control simulation to test how the ARDTs respond to changes in seasonality and mean climate state, respectively. We find good agreement among the algorithms in the AR response to the changing orbital configuration, with a poleward shift in AR frequency that tracks seasonal poleward shifts in atmospheric water vapor and zonal winds. In the low CO₂simulation, the algorithms generally agree on the sign of AR changes, but there is substantial spread in their magnitude, indicating that mean‐state changes lead to larger uncertainty. This disagreement likely arises primarily from differences between algorithms in their thresholds for water vapor and its transport used for identifying ARs. These findings warrant caution in ARDT selection for paleoclimate and climate change studies in which there is a change to the mean climate state, as ARDT selection contributes substantial uncertainty in such cases. 

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted education on all fronts with no warning. The response from K-12 education’s transition has not been as straight forward. Existing issues of equity, access, and inclusion required school districts, schools, and teachers to adopt a variety of solutions, including no instruction, online instruction, and shipping materials/supplies to students at home. The pilot cohort of [program name] teachers provides a unique opportunity to understand how teachers had to transition, especially when implementing a new and innovative engineering curriculum. An anonymous social media post had some interesting insight: “We gave educators almost no notice. We asked them to completely redesign what school looks like, and in about 24 hours, local teachers and administrations fixed it. No state or national agency did this, the local educators fixed it in HOURS. In the midst of a global crisis. In fact, state and national policies actually created roadblocks. Local schools figured out how to work around these. No complaining, no handwringing, just solutions and amazingly clever plans. Get out of the way of a teacher and watch with amazement at what really happens.” We know that high schools adapted quickly. This work-in-progress discusses initial findings from teacher interviews on what happened during this unforeseen and unique transition. Teacher interviews were supplemented with data from teacher focus groups, with data analyzed to examine the impact of the COVID-19 disruption from the perspective of a teacher new to an engineering curriculum. Specifically, we will examine the following research question: How did the pilot year [program name] teachers adapt and deliver the curriculum during the COVID-19 disruption? We are exploring teacher delivery of the [program name] curriculum through a variety of levels to capture the drivers that prompted decisions, identify pedagogical adjustments, and identify drivers behind the chosen changes.