Hi, my name is Katrina Virts.  Welcome to my (extremely bare bones) webpage!  I am a graduate student at the University of Washington, working with Mike Wallace. My research has focused primarily on tropical intraseasonal variability, which I have investigated using a suite of satellite datasets and reanalysis fields. My published articles and posters are below.

More recently, I’ve analyzed the lightning diurnal cycle in various parts of the world using data from the World Wide Lightning Location Network (WWLLN). Check out my lightning page, which includes hourly lightning climatologies.

Publications

Virts, K. S., J. A. Thornton, J. M. Wallace, M. L. Hutchins, R. H. Holzworth, and A. R. Jacobson, 2011: Daily and intraseasonal relationships between lightning and NO₂ over the Maritime Continent. Geophys. Res. Lett., 38, L19803, doi:10.1029/2011GL048578. PDF version here; supplementary material here.

Virts, K. S., J. M. Wallace, Q. Fu, and T. P. Ackerman, 2010:  Tropical Tropopause Transition Layer Cirrus as Represented by CALIPSO Lidar Observations.  J. Atmos. Sci., 67, 3113-3129.  PDF version here.

Virts, K. S., and J. M. Wallace, 2010:  Annual, Interannual, and Intraseasonal Variability of Tropical Tropopause Transition Layer Cirrus.  J. Atmos. Sci., 67, 3097-3112.  PDF version here.

Virts, K. S., 2009:  Cirrus in the Tropical Tropopause Transition Layer:  Formation Mechanisms and Influence of the Local and Planetary-Scale Environment.  Masters thesis.  PDF version here.  [Note:  Since the publication of this thesis, NASA has released a new version of the CALIPSO cloud data that substantially decreases low cloud fraction.  The published versions of Virts et al. and Virts and Wallace (see above) include corrected cloud cross sections. The primary TTL cirrus results were not affected.]

Posters

“Signature of the Madden-Julian Oscillation in the Tropical Tropopause Transition Layer,” AMS annual meeting 2011. PDF version here.

"Cirrus in the Tropical Tropopause Transition Layer:  Association with Planetary-Scale Waves and the Madden-Julian Oscillation," AGU fall meeting 2009.  PDF version here.

The best way to contact me is via email.