JoBeth Minniear attends Iowa State University as a meteorology major.. But this
summer, she came west
to Colorado and CMMAP to research how water vapor, temperature, and vertical
velocity relate to one another in a very high resolution simulation of a
tropical convection system.
With guidance from Professor David Randall and CMMAP researcher Mark Branson,
she plotted vertical profiles, variance, skewness, and flux of these variables
along with a few others. She also plotted the CAPE and CIN at the surface level
of the simulation.
She found that the parcel population near the surface gives a wide variety of CAPEs and the average CAPE was not the most likely CAPE. JoBeth hopes to continue this research by analyzing CAPE and CIN and their relation to convective kinetic energy and by working with temperature, precipitation, and vertical velocity in relation to thunderstorm energetics. 
A poster of her summer work
may be found here.
JoBeth's research interests include clouds, climate storms and weather related
outreach. Outside of school, she plays softball and enjoys ultimate frisbee,
running, reading and listening to music.
|