Subject: Internship at NOAA

Description:
My current office has proposed a summer research project (please see email
attachment). Many NOAA offices would benefit from students interns, so please
have students or faculty direct any questions or interest to myself or the
NOAA Education Office. Thank you and I look forward to hearing from you.

Best regards,
-Rachel

Rachel Krasna
Environmental Compliance Coordinator
NOAA, Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services (CO-OPS)

Project Title:  Investigating causes of changing tidal range and timing in
U.S. harbors
NOAA Mission Goal:  Resilient Coastal Communities and Economies

Hypothesis/Objectives:  The Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and
Services (CO-OPS) collects and disseminates water level, current, and
meteorological data from over 200 real-time stations along the US coastline.
The Applications and Analysis Team (AAT) is charged with carrying out
scientific and statistical analyses to develop new products based on
CO-OPS’ historical data.  Once the analysis results are complete they are
documented in a technical report to make the results available to the public.
The CO-OPS database contains over 50 years of hourly water level records for
from many stations and over 100 years of data at ten stations.  A year of
hourly data can be analyzed to obtain the tidal component as a set of
standard frequencies known as the tidal constituents, which have a unique
amplitude and phase at each station’s location.  It is known that at some
stations the overall range and timing of the tide has been slowly changing
over the decades; the goal of this project is to analyze each year of hourly
data for a number of long-term stations to find how much each of the five
largest tidal constituents are contributing the changing tide.  These changes
may be caused by factors such as morphological change, harbor deepening
through dredging, shoreline hardening and long-term sea level rise.  Any
significant long-term increase in a harbor’s tidal amplitude will likely
increase its flooding potential from future sea level rise.  Thus,
understanding these potential changes in the tide will be critical for
accurately assessing future flooding risk from sea level rise.

Academic Status: Undergraduate

Areas of Discipline:  Climate Change, Computer and Information Sciences,
Information Systems, Meteorology, Oceanography

Intern Duties/Responsibilities:  The applicant will work with scientists and
IT personnel to select and organize hourly data from a number of long-term
stations and then apply the harmonic analysis program for each year of data.
The applicant will work both independently and as a member of a team
responsible for the scientific analysis of oceanographic data. Applicant
develops and implements a plan to reach the project goals and then documents
and evaluates the results.

Special Skills or Training Required:  Applicant will analyze the data,
organize the results in tables and plots, and document the project in a
preliminary report.  Some experience with statistics and data analysis is
required.  The applicant is expected to be comfortable utilizing the MATLAB
computer software, along with at least minimal experience running and writing
simple code or scripts in the MATLAB environment.  Some physics based
environmental science background is helpful (e.g. physical oceanography,
fluid dynamics, etc.), but not required.

Expected Outcomes:  At the end of the internship, the intern will have
completed a research and analysis project and have created a preliminary
draft for a NOAA Technical Report.  If desired, the intern will have the
opportunity to be co-author on a future conference proceedings or journal
article.  The intern will have the opportunity to gain insight into the
working environment of an operational NOAA office which distributes vital
coastal oceanographic information to the public.

Guidance/Supervision:  Intern will work under the supervision of the CO-OPS
Chief Scientist and a Senior Oceanographer and collaborate with employees of
the CO-OPS Oceanographic Division.




Contact Person: Rachel Krasna
Contact Email: [log in to unmask]