Carl Drews

Software Engineer III

Webmaster
Atmospheric Chemistry Division
National Center for Atmospheric Research

P.O. Box 3000
Boulder, Colorado 80305-3000

Phone: (303) 497-1429
Fax: (303) 497-1400
E-Mail: drews

ucar.edu
Office: Foothills Lab 0, 2102

Contents: Curriculum Vitae, Creek, Interests,

Curriculum Vitae

Graduated from Stanford University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering.

Previous Employers

Athene Software and CSG Systems
SmartTalk.com
Jambo Productions, Inc.
Micro Analysis & Design
Storage Technology Corporation

Graduate-Level Education

Research paper "Detecting Climate Change in Canadian Ice Data" is posted at http://www.highestlake.com/canadice.html.
Master's candidate in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, University of Colorado at Boulder; expected graduation May 2009. My Master's thesis will involve using the Regional Ocean Modeling System (ROMS) to model storm surge. I will use WRF output to force the ocean model.

Publications

"A Modeling System Designed Around the User Interface", Carl Drews and Ron Laughery. 1985 Summer Computer Simulation Conference, July 1985, Chicago, Illinois.

"Development of Military Performance Models for the Assessment of Pyschopharmacological Agent Impact", Carl Drews and Ron Laughery. Annual summary report for U.S. Army Research and Development Command, Fort Detrick, Frederick, Maryland, January 1986.

"Using TENA to Distribute Weather Data in Synthetic Environments"; by Carl Drews, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Dr. Elford Astling, U.S. Army Dugway Proving Ground, and James Morris, Keane Corporation. ITEA Conference, Las Cruces, New Mexico, December 12-15, 2005.

Boulder - Whiterock Ditch

There is an irrigation ditch to the east of UCAR's Foothills Lab named "Boulder and Whiterock Ditch." I am measuring the water level in this creek every day at lunchtime. I measure from the footbridge at 40 degrees 02.212 minutes North, 105 degrees 14.438 minutes West. The creek is human-controlled for irrigation purposes, but it does react to heavy precipitation (note the spike of 34 cm on March 5, 2004). It's unlikely that I can extract any useful climate information from these controlled water levels, so the purpose of this project is more to investigate the issues of human data collection. The photo below shows me taking the measurement at the bridge:

If I ever find myself someday asking Andean villagers to measure some glacial-fed river somewhere, at least I'll know what they can expect! Here are some of the leassons learned so far:

Humans are not very good at routine measurements (this human, anyway). There is a big temptation just to glance at the water and write down yesterday's number. There is a tendency to round off the numbers, or to use a slightly different measuring technique. It's better to automate the process as much as possible.
Humans are very good at noticing unexpected differences. In particular, sometime between March 30 and April 2, 2004 The Boulder and White Rock Ditch and Reservoir Company dredged the creek with a bulldozer! An automated system probably would not have noticed that the creek bottom was lowered by 8 centimeters, but this human re-measured the creek bottom and adjusted his spreadsheet from that point onward.
The normal times are rather tedious. The extreme events are much more interesting. I live for floodwaters! I was also interested to note that on March 16, 2004 there was no water flowing in the creek at all! None! I used to work on Mitchell Lane during the 1980s, and I had never seen that situation before.

The project is also a nice introduction to data collection, graphing, and display over the Internet. I created the graph above with IDL and used a simple Linux shell script to transfer it to the web server.

Boulder - Whiterock Ditch begins at Broadway and Canyon in Boulder as a spur canal off Boulder Creek. One can go inner-tubing from there all the way to Mitchell Lane during high water, but the low bridges are dangerous. The canal runs by Hayden Lake, but does not normally drain into the lake unless a certain gate is open. Boulder and Whiterock Ditch eventually runs through Gunbarrel and Niwot all the way out to Panama Reservoir Number 1.

Here are plots of creek levels from 2004 - 2007:

Other Interests

During 2002-2004 I identified and named the highest lake in the United States: Pacific Tarn at 13,420 feet near Breckenridge, Colorado. You can read all about it at highestlake.com. The picture below shows me standing on the summit of Pacific Peak at dawn on July 14, 2002 during the CHAOS scientific expedition to the lake. Pacific Tarn and Quandary Peak are behind me.

I maintain a web page on hurricane metrics with an emphasis on separating the ACE index into its components.

Last update: November 26, 2007