Investigation of Aerosol Properties and Transport on Severe Weather in Oklahoma USA from 2015-2019

Abstract:

Severe weather outbreaks can pose a major problem in the United States because of the damage caused and the risk to human life. Therefore, reliable severe weather forecasts and alerts mitigate the risk to human life. Although the quality of forecasting for these severe weather outbreaks has improved greatly over the last few decades, there are still parameterizations and assumptions that can cause high uncertainty in the forecast models. Recent investigations have pointed to diverse impacts of aerosols on severe weather. Diverse aerosol concentrations and properties can play a role in enhancing or depressing severe weather outbreaks. This study focuses on investigating the impact of aerosols on severe weather events in Oklahoma from 2015-2019 by using a combination of weather and aerosol optical measurements as well as statistical methods to further understand the aerosol effect on convective weather. Aerosol satellite products, as well as ground-based networks (e.g. AERONET, EPA, MPLNET and DOE ARM) provided insight about horizontal and vertical aerosol gradients, their associated physical properties, and determined whether the event was local or long-range transport. Severe weather events in Oklahoma were also analyzed by using MESONET weather stations and weather balloon soundings to study atmospheric instability and wind shear. These events were compared to the timing of the pollution events mentioned above. Finally, a statistical analysis was performed to determine if the pollution events had any significant correlations with the severe weather events in Oklahoma during this time frame.