Indiana University
People  |    

Sara C. Pryor | Faculty

Sara C. Pryor Provost Professor, Department of Geography

Office: MSB II 300
TEL: 855-5155
Email: spryor@indiana.edu

Curriculum Vitae
Webpage

Education

Ph.D., 1992, East Anglia

Research

  • Atmospheric chemistry and biogeochemical cycling: Atmosphere-surface exchange of reactive gases and particles. Particle formation, dynamics and deposition processes. Numerical modeling of gas to particle conversion and pollutant transport.
  • Physical climatology/climate change and variability: Climate downscaling. Regional manifestations of climate change and variability. Scaling issues in atmospheric science. Synoptic meteorology and climatology. Evaluation of GCM products.

Current Projects

  • Particle nucleation events in the Ohio River Valley
  • Improved models of particle dry deposition
  • Human health consequences of heavy metals in atmospheric particles
  • Development and evaluation of downscaling techniques for near-surface wind climates
  • Multiple wake interactions in large wind farms
  • Climate change impacts, vulnerability and adaptation in the Midwest
  • Climate change – extremes and critical energy infrastructure

Teaching

  • G107 Physical Systems of the Environment
  • G304 Physical Meteorology and Climatology
  • G339 Weather Analysis and Forecasting
  • G433 Synoptic Meteorology and Climatology
  • G434 Air Pollution Meteorology
  • G475 Climate Change
  • G501 Research Methods II
  • G533 Synoptic Meteorology and Climatology
  • G534 Air Pollution Meteorology
  • G575 Climate Change
  • G602 Topical Seminar in Atmospheric Science

Representative Publications

Atmospheric chemistry and atmosphere-surface exchange:

  • Pryor S.C., Barthelmie R.J., Sørensen L.L., McGrath J.G., Hopke P., Petäjä T. (2011): Spatial and vertical extent of nucleation events in the Midwestern USA: Insights from the Nucleation In ForesTs (NIFTy) experiment. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 11 1641-1657
  • Pryor S.C., Spaulding A.M., Barthelmie R.J. (2010): New particle formation in the Midwestern USA: Event characteristics, meteorological context and vertical profiles. Atmospheric Environment http://www.sciencedirect.com/scidirimg/clear.gif44 4413-4425
  • Pryor S.C., Barthelmie R.J., Spaulding A.M., Larsen S.E., Petroff A. (2009): Size-resolved aerosol particle fluxes over forests. Journal of Geophysical Research 114 D18212 doi:10.1029/2009JD012248.
  • Petroff A., Zhang L., Pryor S.C. and Belot Y. (2009): Modeling aerosol dry deposition on leaf canopies. Journal of Aerosol Science 40 218-240
  • Pryor S.C., Barthelmie R.J., Larsen S.E., Sørensen L.L., Sempreviva A.M., Grönholm T., Kulmala M., Rannik  Ǘ. and Vesala T. (2008): Upward particle number fluxes over forest: Where, when, why? Tellus 60B 372-380
  • Pryor S.C., Larsen S.E., Sørensen L.L. and Barthelmie R.J. (2008): Particle fluxes above forests: Observations, methodological considerations and method comparisons. Environmental Pollution (special issue) 152/3 667-678.
  • Pryor S.C., Gallagher M., Sievering H., Larsen S., Barthelmie R.J., Birsan F., Nemitz E., Kulmala M., Rinne J., Grönholm T., Taipale R. and Vesala T. (2008): A review of measurement and modelling tools for quantifying particle atmosphere-surface exchange. Tellus 60B 42-75

Climate change and variability (Regional Climate change)

  • Pryor S.C., Barthelmie R.J., Clausen N.E., Drew M., MacKellar I., Kjellström E. (2011): Analyses of possible changes in intense and extreme wind speeds over northern Europe under climate change scenarios. Climate Dynamics (in press).
  • Schoof J.T., Pryor S.C., Suprenant J. (2010): Development of daily precipitation projections for the United States based on probabilistic downscaling. Journal of Geophysical Research 115 D13106 doi:10.1029/2009JD013030
  • Pryor S.C. and Schoof J.T. (2010): Importance of the SRES in projections of climate change impacts on near-surface wind regimes Meteorologische Zeitschrift 19 267-274
  • Pryor S.C. and Ledolter J. (2010): Addendum to:  Wind speed trends over the contiguous USA. Journal of Geophysical Research  115 D10103 doi:10.1029/2009JD013281
  • Pryor S.C. and Barthelmie R.J. (2010) Climate change impacts on wind energy: A review. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 14 430-437
  • Pryor S.C., Howe J.A. and Kunkel K.E. (2009): How spatially coherent and statistically robust are temporal changes in extreme precipitation across the contiguous USA. International Journal of Climatology 29 31-45
  • Pryor S.C. and Schoof J.T. (2008): Changes in the seasonality of precipitation over the contiguous USA. Journal of Geophysical Research 113, D21108, doi:10.1029/2008JD010251
  • Schoof J.T. and Pryor S.C. (2008): On the proper order of Markov chain model for daily precipitation occurrence in the contiguous United States. Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology 47, 2477-2486

Service

  • Editor: Journal of Geophysical Research – Atmospheres
  • National Science Foundation: Panelist
  • Member editorial board. Advances in Meteorology, The Open Atmospheric Science Journal, TheScientificWorld
  • Director of Graduate Studies – IUB Geography
  • Director of Atmospheric Science Program – IUB Geography

Student Theses

  • Fredi Bisan, Ph.D., in progress
  • Paola Crippa, Ph.D., in progress
  • Mark Belding, M.S., in progress
  • Andrea Spaulding, Meteorological influences on particle nucleation over a deciduous forest in the Midwest M.S., 2010
  • Jessica Howe, Analysis of extreme precipitation across the Midwest during the twentieth century, M.S., 2008
  • Jennifer Hutton, In canopy isoprene oxidation, Ph.D., 2008
  • Fredi Birsan, Particle Dry Deposition to a Forest Canopy: A Flux Based Analytical Model, M.S., 2005
  • Justin Schoof, Generating regional climate change scenarios using GCMs and empirical downscaling, Ph.D., 2004
  • Nathan Polderman, Linking synoptic climate to historical lake level variability in the Lake Michigan-Huron basin, M.S., 2002
  • Sean Potter, Characterizing air quality in Indianapolis, Indiana, M.S., 2000
  • Brooks Pearson, An estimation of potential production of agri-based ethanol and its contribution to transportation emissions, Ph.D., 1999. 1st prize for a Dissertation in Transportation Geography, American Association of Geographers.
  • Justin Schoof, Synoptic circulation classification and downscaling for the Midwestern United States, M.S., 1999. Awarded the Esther L. Kinsley thesis award, Indiana University for best Masters thesis.