Team: 18
School: Monte del Sol
Area of Science: Computer Science
Interim: Problem Definition:
Although water is necessary for life, it actually may be our leading downfall when it comes to climate change. Water vapor contributes to climate change because it is a greenhouse gas, as it absorbs longwave radiation and returns it back to the Earth. Rising atmospheric temperatures evaporate more water from the surface of the Earth, which adds more water vapor to the atmosphere, in turn increasing atmospheric temperatures. In this project, we will examine the relationship between the amount of water vapor, temperature, and altitude in the atmosphere.
Problem Solution:
We will solve the problem computationally by first collecting real-world data with a drone that we launch in the atmosphere and then inputting that data into a simulation. In a Python simulation, we will then put that altitude and temperature data into different scenarios to see which of these simulations produces the most water vapor. Once we have figured out the main problem with that simulation we will change the main problem with that simulation to see how it fixes itself and, with that, we will try to apply it to real-world problems. By computerizing the world's problems with water vapor we can fix it in a simulation and then in the real world.
Progress to Date
The progress that we have made is that we have obtained an Adafruit Circuit Playground Express microcontroller with a BME680 sensor that can measure temperature and humidity. We will fly these on a drone into our local atmosphere. As well, we found some sample code for that sensor that works for water vapor that we will modify and change some aspects of it to fit our project much better. We have also contacted a mentor for a project, and we have been meeting biweekly. We have also started to get information from other models that represent how water vapor moves around and what it needs to exist. These models will help us understand what we are looking for and what certain criteria need to be met for it to exist.
Expected Results
We intend to examine how various factors contribute to changes in water vapor in the atmosphere. Specifically, we will examine the effects of temperature and altitude on the presence of atmospheric water vapor. We expect that when temperature increases, the amount of water vapor increases as well because higher temperatures increase the evaporation of water from the surface of the Earth. As altitude increases, we expect that water vapor will decrease because temperatures are lower the farther from the surface of the Earth and have less capacity to hold water.
References
ACS Climate Science Toolkit. “Water Vapor and Climate Change.†Available at
https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/climatescience/climatesciencenarratives/its-water-vapor-not-the-co2.html#:~:text=Although%20water%20vapor%20probably%20accounts,not%20control%20the%20Earth's%20temperature.&text=Because%20these%20gases%20are%20not,much%20more%20of%20these%20gases.
Cronin, T., et al. “Convection, Atmospheric Water Vapor, and Cloud Formation.†Available at
https://cgcs.mit.edu/research/convection-atmospheric-water-vapor-and-cloud-formation
EDP Science. “Atmospheric extinction properties above Mauna Kea from the Nearby
SuperNova Factory spectro-photometric data set†Available at
https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/pdf/2013/01/aa19834-12.pdf
Hansen, K. “Water Vapor conformed as Major player in Climate Change.†Available at
https://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/vapor_warming.html
Kharkar, R. “Getting Weather Data in 3 easy steps†Available at
https://towardsdatascience.com/getting-weather-data-in-3-easy-steps-8dc10cc5c859
Kuong, P. “Weather Service Python†available at
https://github.com/paulokuong/noaa
Perrefort, D. “PWV_Kpno†Available at
https://mwvgroup.github.io/pwv_kpno/1.0.0/documentation/html/index.html
SV-Zanshin. “Arduino Library to access the Bosch BME680 - temperature, pressure,
humidity, and gas sensor†Available at https://github.com/Zanduino/BME680
Team Members:
Sponsoring Teacher: Rhonda Crespo