Atmospheric perturbations can be created by a variety of human activities. Turbulence downstream of wind turbines that produces warming and drying, the urban heat island effect, and increased dew points near irrigated agricultural lands have all been shown to be ways that human beings change the atmosphere. Although some prior studies have focused on the effects of anthropogenic forcing on local climate, few have addressed how human-induced perturbations evolve to affect downstream atmospheric flow on a variety of spatial and temporal scales. Supporting the idea that these downstream effects may be significant, previous work involving adjoint sensitivity analysis has shown that high-impact aspects of the weather, such as the evolution of midlatitude cyclones, can be highly sensitive to localized, near-surface regions where human-induced perturbations can exist. The coexistence of these circumstances, anthropogenic perturbations and their potential to grow rapidly, suggest inadvertent weather modification may be a virtually unknown reality with serious consequences. As Earth's growing population will likely exacerbate the degree of present-day anthropogenic atmospheric forcing in the coming years, understanding inadvertent weather modification now is crucial.
This research aims to gain a holistic understanding of the various means by which humans modify high-impact storm-scale, mesoscale, and synoptic-scale aspects of the weather. The approaches to achieving these goals are unique in that they focus on the interaction of estimated anthropogenic forcing and adjoint sensitivity analysis, which can effectively elucidate the important dynamics associated with different anthropogenic perturbation scenarios.
Broader Impacts It is expected that this research will leads to an invaluable foundation of scientific results needed for society to responsibly mitigate current and future inadvertent weather modification. Similar to how the human race is currently addressing the role of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emission on global and local climate, a strong base of knowledge produced through this work can provide the information needed to strike a balance between beneficial human activities that perturb the atmosphere and the modification of sensible day-to-day weather such perturbations produce. In turn, this project has the potential to be intimately connected with the development of important government policy decisions worldwide.
The educational component of this work, which includes a museum exhibit, summer science camps, and portable educational kits for area schools, will likely make positive impacts to society well outside the confines of academia. Museums provide a casual learning environment that attracts a large number of mostly nonscientific visitors. Thus, it is expected that the museum education activities will reach many who would otherwise be unexposed to important scientific issues like inadvertent weather modification that can affect society, the economy, and the environment. In turn, this work has the potential to provide science education to the general public in a unique and effective way, improving the ability for society to intelligently address inadvertent weather modification in the coming years.
