The National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL), a federal research laboratory within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, is located on the north campus of the University. Two senior scientists in NSSL, Drs. MacGorman and Rust, hold adjunct positions with the Department and regularly advise students. Working with NSSL provides students the opportunity to pursue a physics career with emphasis on the atmosphere, which covers a wide range of physical scales. Graduate research opportunities include the electrical properties of precipitation, lightning physics, in situ and remote measurements of storm parameters, storm electrification models, lightning data assimilation into weather forecast models, and climatic impacts of weather systems and lightning. More details about the range of topics for experimental and theoretical research on problems in atmospheric physics are described below.
Donald R. MacGorman
Adjunct Associate Professor
B.S. 1973 Rice University
Ph.D. 1978 Rice University
My research focuses on storm electrification: How do storms become electrified? What causes lightning to occur, and what controls where it propagates? How do storm characteristics affect the lightning that is produced? What effects do lightning flashes have on the environment? These and related questions motivate the research in which I have been involved. Experiments to address these issues at NSSL usually involve collecting and analyzing data from existing systems, such as NSSL's radar and three-dimensional lightning strike mapping system, or use numerical cloud models to simulate electrified storms and lightning.
D.R. MacGorman and W.D. Rust, The Electrical Nature of Storms, Oxford University Press, 422 pp (1998).
D. R. MacGorman and C. D. Morgenstern, ``Some characteristics of cloud to ground lightning in mesoscale convective systems'', Journal of Geophysical Research 103, 14011 (1998).
M. A. Shafer, D. R. MacGorman, and F. H. Carr, "Cloud-to-ground lightning throughout the lifetime of a severe storm system in Oklahoma", Monthly Weather Review, 128, 1798, (2000).
W. David Rust
Adjunct Professor
B.S. 1966 Southwestern Univ.
Ph.D. 1973 N.M. Inst. of Tech.
Graduate research opportunities with me are focused in the areas of making measurements of electrical parameters using both the fixed-base instruments and mobile laboratories. Examples include balloon-borne instruments to make storm electricity measurements in and near storms.
D.R. MacGorman and W.D. Rust, The Electrical Nature of Storms, Oxford University Press, 422 pp (1998).
M. Stolzenburg, W. D. Rust, and T. C. Marshall, ``Electrical Structure in Thunderstorm Convective Regions 3. Synthesis," Journal of Geophysical Research 103, 14,097 (1998).
W. D. Rust and T. C. Marshall, ``On Abandoning the Thunderstorm Tripole-Charge Paradigm," Journal of Geophysical Research 101, 23,504 (1996).
M. G. Bateman, W. D. Rust, and T. C. Marshall, ``A Balloon-Borne Instrument for Measuring the Charge and Size of Precipitation Particles Inside Thunderstorms'', Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology 11, 161 (1994).