Award Date

5-2011

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Mathematical Science

Department

Mathematical Sciences

First Committee Member

Chih-Hsiang Ho, Chair

Second Committee Member

Amei Amei

Third Committee Member

Kaushik Ghosh

Graduate Faculty Representative

Sheniz Moonie

Number of Pages

68

Abstract

Dust elevated into the atmosphere by dust storms has numerous environmental consequences. These include contributing to climate change; modifying local weather conditions; producing chemical and biological changes in the oceans; and affecting soil formation, surface water, groundwater quality, crop growth, and survival (Goudie and Middleton, 1992). Societal impacts include disruptions to air, road and rail traffic; interruption of radio services; the myriad effects of static-electricity generation; property damage; and health effects on humans and animals (Warner, 2004).

In this thesis, we extend the idea of empirical recurrence rate (ERR), developed by Ho (2008), to model the temporal trend of the sand-dust storms in northern China. Specifically, we show that the ERR time series has the following characteristics: (1) it is a potent surrogate for a point process; (2) it is created to take advantage of the well-developed and powerful time series modeling tools; and (3) it can produce reliable forecasts, capable of retrieving the corresponding mean numbers of strong sand-dust storms.

Keywords

China; Dust storms – Forecasting; Mathematical models; Sandstorms – Forecasting; Statistics

Disciplines

Applied Mathematics | Applied Statistics | Environmental Sciences | Statistics and Probability

File Format

pdf

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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