Utilizing Gaussian-Schell model beams to mitigate atmospheric turbulence in free space optical communications / by Kyle R. Drexler.

Turbulence affects traditional free space optical communication by causing speckle to appear in the received beam profile. This occurs due to changes in the refractive index of the atmosphere that are caused by fluctuations in temperature and pressure, resulting in an inhomogeneous medium. The Gaussian-Schell model of partial coherence has been suggested as a means of mitigating these atmospheric inhomogeneities on the transmission side. This dissertation analyzed the Gaussian-Schell model of partial coherence by verifying the Gaussian-Schell model in the far-field, investigated the number of independent phase control screens necessary to approach the ideal Gaussian-Schell model, and showed experimentally that the Gaussian-Schell model of partial coherence is achievable in the far-field using a liquid crystal spatial light modulator. A method for optimizing the statistical properties of the Gaussian-Schell model was developed to maximize the coherence of the field while ensuring that it does not exhibit the same statistics as a fully coherent source. Finally a technique to estimate the minimum spatial resolution necessary in a spatial light modulator was developed to effectively propagate the Gaussian-Schell model through a range of atmospheric turbulence strengths. This work showed that regardless of turbulence strength or receiver aperture, transmitting the Gaussian-Schell model of partial coherence instead of a fully coherent source will yield a reduction in the intensity fluctuations of the received field. By measuring the variance of the intensity fluctuations and the received mean, it is shown through the scintillation index that using the Gaussian-Schell model of partial coherence is a simple and straight forward method to mitigate atmospheric turbulence instead of traditional adaptive optics in free space optical communications.

Long-Range Pollution Transport: Trans-Atlantic Mechanisms and Lagrangian Modeling Methods

Over the past several decades, it has become apparent that anthropogenic activities have resulted in the large-scale enhancement of the levels of many trace gases throughout the troposphere. More recently, attention has been given to the transport pathway taken by these emissions as they are dispersed throughout the atmosphere. The transport pathway determines the physical characteristics of emissions plumes and therefore plays an important role in the chemical transformations that can occur downwind of source regions. For example, the production of ozone (O3) is strongly dependent upon the transport its precursors undergo. O3 can initially be formed within air masses while still over polluted source regions. These polluted air masses can experience continued O3 production or O3 destruction downwind, depending on the air mass's chemical and transport characteristics. At present, however, there are a number of uncertainties in the relationships between transport and O3 production in the North Atlantic lower free troposphere. The first phase of the study presented here used measurements made at the Pico Mountain observatory and model simulations to determine transport pathways for US emissions to the observatory. The Pico Mountain observatory was established in the summer of 2001 in order to address the need to understand the relationships between transport and O3 production. Measurements from the observatory were analyzed in conjunction with model simulations from the Lagrangian particle dispersion model (LPDM), FLEX-PART, in order to determine the transport pathway for events observed at the Pico Mountain observatory during July 2003. A total of 16 events were observed, 4 of which were analyzed in detail. The transport time for these 16 events varied from 4.5 to 7 days, while the transport altitudes over the ocean ranged from 2-8 km, but were typically less than 3 km. In three of the case studies, eastward advection and transport in a weak warm conveyor belt (WCB) airflow was responsible for the export of North American emissions into the FT, while transport in the FT was governed by easterly winds driven by the Azores/Bermuda High (ABH) and transient northerly lows. In the fourth case study, North American emissions were lofted to 6-8 km in a WCB before being entrained in the same cyclone's dry airstream and transported down to the observatory. The results of this study show that the lower marine FT may provide an important transport environment where O3 production may continue, in contrast to transport in the marine boundary layer, where O3 destruction is believed to dominate. The second phase of the study presented here focused on improving the analysis methods that are available with LPDMs. While LPDMs are popular and useful for the analysis of atmospheric trace gas measurements, identifying the transport pathway of emissions from their source to a receptor (the Pico Mountain observatory in our case) using the standard gridded model output, particularly during complex meteorological scenarios can be difficult can be difficult or impossible. The transport study in phase 1 was limited to only 1 month out of more than 3 years of available data and included only 4 case studies out of the 16 events specifically due to this confounding factor. The second phase of this study addressed this difficulty by presenting a method to clearly and easily identify the pathway taken by only those emissions that arrive at a receptor at a particular time, by combining the standard gridded output from forward (i.e., concentrations) and backward (i.e., residence time) LPDM simulations, greatly simplifying similar analyses. The ability of the method to successfully determine the source-to-receptor pathway, restoring this Lagrangian information that is lost when the data are gridded, is proven by comparing the pathway determined from this method with the particle trajectories from both the forward and backward models. A sample analysis is also presented, demonstrating that this method is more accurate and easier to use than existing methods using standard LPDM products. Finally, we discuss potential future work that would be possible by combining the backward LPDM simulation with gridded data from other sources (e.g., chemical transport models) to obtain a Lagrangian sampling of the air that will eventually arrive at a receptor.

Free Troposphere Ozone and Carbon Monoxide over the North Atlantic for 2001-2011

Carbon Monoxide (CO) and Ozone (O3) are considered to be one of the most important atmospheric pollutants in the troposphere with both having significant effects on human health. Both are included in the U.S. E.P.A list of criteria pollutants. CO is primarily emitted in the source region whereas O3 can be formed near the source, during transport of the pollution plumes containing O3 precursors or in a receptor region as the plumes subside. The long chemical lifetimes of both CO and O3 enable them to be transported over long distances. This transport is important on continental scales as well, commonly referred to as inter-continental transport and affects the concentrations of both CO and O3 in downwind receptor regions, thereby having significant implications for their air quality standards. Over the period 2001-2011, there have been decreases in the anthropogenic emissions of CO and NOx in North America and Europe whereas the emissions over Asia have increased. How these emission trends have affected concentrations at remote sites located downwind of these continents is an important question. The PICO-NARE observatory located on the Pico Mountain in Azores, Portugal is frequently impacted by North American pollution outflow (both anthropogenic and biomass burning) and is a unique site to investigate long range transport from North America. This study uses in-situ observations of CO and O3 for the period 2001-2011 at PICO-NARE coupled with output from the full chemistry (with normal and fixed anthropogenic emissions) and tagged CO simulations in GEOS-Chem, a global 3-D chemical transport model of atmospheric composition driven by meteorological input from the Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS) of the NASA Global Modeling and Assimilation Office, to determine and interpret the trends in CO and O3 concentrations over the past decade. These trends would be useful in ascertaining the impacts emission reductions in the United States have had over Pico and in general over the North Atlantic. A regression model with sinusoidal functions and a linear trend term was fit to the in-situ observations and the GEOS-Chem output for CO and O3 at Pico respectively. The regression model yielded decreasing trends for CO and O3 with the observations (-0.314 ppbv/year & -0.208 ppbv/year respectively) and the full chemistry simulation with normal emissions (-0.343 ppbv/year & -0.526 ppbv/year respectively). Based on analysis of the results from the full chemistry simulation with fixed anthropogenic emissions and the tagged CO simulation it was concluded that the decreasing trends in CO were a consequence of the anthropogenic emission changes in regions such as USA and Asia. The emission reductions in USA are countered by Asian increases but the former have a greater impact resulting in decreasing trends for CO at PICO-NARE. For O3 however, it is the increase in water vapor content (which increases O3 destruction) along the pathways of transport from North America to PICO-NARE as well as around the site that has resulted in decreasing trends over this period. This decrease is offset by increase in O3 concentrations due to anthropogenic influence which could be due to increasing Asian emissions of O3 precursors as these emissions have decreased over the US. However, the anthropogenic influence does not change the final direction of the trend. It can thus be concluded that CO and O3 concentrations at PICO-NARE have decreased over 2001-2011.