Satre presents research at the State Capitol

AMES, IA (03/27/2018)-- Zane Satre, Ogden, joined other Iowa State University undergraduate students as well as their peers from the University of Iowa and University of Northern Iowa at the state capitol in April to showcase their research.

The 13th annual Research in the Capitol was Tuesday, April 3, in the rotunda of the state capitol building in Des Moines. Sixty projects - 20 from each Regent university - have been selected. The event is open to the public.

About Satre’s project

The poster Satre presented at the Capitol is a summary of his senior research thesis.

“The whole study centered around this strange phenomena I call ‘cold front-associated warming.’ Basically, people have noticed that sometimes when a cold front passes through at night, the temperature suddenly rises several degrees in a matter of minutes, which is unusual,” Satre said.

“The best explanation that meteorologists have come up with so far is, in scientific jargon, ‘vertical mixing of a nocturnal stable layer.’ In simple terms, it just means that during the night, the air close to the ground cools off faster than the air above. Eventually the temperature 100’ or so up (like the height of the water tower) could be several degrees warmer than at street level. The cool, dense, windy air of the cold front then comes along and pushes the warm air down to the surface.”

Read more in the April 11 issue of The Ogden Reporter.