23STUDENT Analysis of Local Land-Atmosphere Interactions in Beltsville MD

This study aims to create a standardized framework for atmospheric boundary layer (e.g., land surface) modeling in terms of the natural and built environment. Using surface measurements from Beltsville Maryland, near-surface mixing diagrams were constructed. Mixing diagrams are often used to analyze land-atmosphere coupling relationships in climate variability aspects. Unlike other atmospheric modeling parameterization schemes, mixing diagrams are not computationally demanding and are thus easily accessible. The process of creating a mixing diagram involves taking temperature and humidity values and multiplying them by various constants to create a graph with equivalent units on both the x and y axes. The final result represents moisture and thermal energy. Although it is standard to use data values at a height of 2 meters, our data values were from a height of 1.4 meters. This had no significant impact on the quality and resulting visualization of the data. This research project focused on analyzing data from a pool of 92 days during the summer of 2012. We utilized Python to parse, clean, and eventually graph the data. To effectively display results, dry days and wet days are separated into individual graphs. The timeframe of 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. was used because this period included the most intense sunlight while avoiding erratic late night and early morning climate behavior. The preliminary results suggest that our dry day diagram aligns with historical data from similar sites. We are currently refining our algorithm to improve the wet day graph, as what constitutes a wet day is complicated from the raw data we analyzed. It is anticipated that with proper atmospheric mixing diagrams, information such as PBL growth and entrainment regimes can be discerned. Results from this effort can be built upon and expanded to auxiliary projects in the future.