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Show 192 Nipun Gunawardena Despite the many scientific and technological advances made by the human race over the last several hundred years, a system to accurately predict weather in regions of complex terrain has yet to be devised. For this project, two technologies have been used to develop the understanding of atmo-spheric phenomena in complex terrain. Complex terrain features such as those surrounding The Salt Lake Valley bring about events know as cold air pools, or inversions. When an inversion occurs, cold air becomes trapped under warmer air and the entire system becomes very stagnant and stable (Whiteman et al. 2001). This stability leads to elevated pollutant levels near the city, creating adverse health effects on the city's residents. To help characterize cold air pools, a Radio Acoustic Sounding System was assembled on the roof of the Kennecott Building on the University of Utah campus to measure temperature profiles of the Salt Lake City atmosphere up to 700 meters. The temperature profiles can be used to find virtual potential temperature profiles (which are closely related to air density and hence the ability of the atmosphere to mix). These data will then be correlated with turbulence and particulate measurements taken from other experiments. If this leads to better prediction of the evolution of cold air pools, steps can be taken to mitigate the health effects. The second piece of technology explored in this project is a low-cost portable weather station. There are many different weather stations that currently exist that can be easily deployed in the field; how-ever, they tend to be fairly expensive. To reduce costs, we are designing and building a solar powered low-cost weather station based around the open-source Arduino microcontroller. These stations con-tain parts that can be easily purchased at various online retailers. The stations will be tested along-side high-accuracy weather stations so that differences can be quantified. If the low-cost stations prove to be almost as accurate as the expensive stations, they will be a viable option as equipment for future studies. The stations will be deployed in September 2012 at the Dugway Proving Grounds near Tooele, Utah during an international field campaign to study meteorological processes in complex terrain. PREDICTING WEATHER IN COMPLEX TERRAIN Nipun Gunawardena, Derek Jensen, (Eric Pardyjak) Department of Mechanical Engineering University of Utah sustainability spring 2012 Derek Jensen Eric Pardyjak |