Engineering PapersSearch

Engineering topics

Yee, J.-H.

Publications and source records attributed to Yee, J.-H..

CubeSat Constellation Cloud Winds(C3Winds) A New Wind Observing System to Study Mesoscale Cloud Dynamics and Processes

The CubeSat Constellation Cloud Winds (C3Winds) is a NASA Earth Venture Instrument (EV-I) concept with the primary objective to better understand mesoscale dynamics and their structures in severe weather systems. With potential catastrophic damage and loss of life, strong extratropical and tropical cyclones (ETCs and TCs) have profound three-dimensional impacts on the atmospheric dynamic and thermodynamic structures, producing complex cloud precipitation patterns, strong low-level winds, extensive tropopause folds, and intense stratosphere-troposphere exchange. Employing a compact, stereo IR-visible imaging technique from two formation-flying CubeSats, C3Winds seeks to measure and map high-resolution (2 km) cloud motion vectors (CMVs) and cloud geometric height (CGH) accurately by tracking cloud features within 5-15 min. Complementary to lidar wind observations from space, the high-resolution wind fields from C3Winds will allow detailed investigations on strong low-level wind formation in an occluded ETC development, structural variations of TC inner-core rotation, and impacts of tropopause folding events on tropospheric ozone and air quality. Together with scatterometer ocean surface winds, C3Winds will provide a more comprehensive depiction of atmosphere-boundary-layer dynamics and interactive processes. Built upon mature imaging technologies and long history of stereoscopic remote sensing, C3Winds provides an innovative, cost-effective solution to global wind observations with potential of increased diurnal sampling via CubeSat constellation.

mesoscale dynamics

Nature's Autonomous Oscillators

Nonlinearity is required to produce autonomous oscillations without external time dependent source, and an example is the pendulum clock. The escapement mechanism of the clock imparts an impulse for each swing direction, which keeps the pendulum oscillating at the resonance frequency. Among nature's observed autonomous oscillators, examples are the quasi-biennial oscillation and bimonthly oscillation of the Earth atmosphere, and the 22-year solar oscillation. The oscillations have been simulated in numerical models without external time dependent source, and in Section 2 we summarize the results. Specifically, we shall discuss the nonlinearities that are involved in generating the oscillations, and the processes that produce the periodicities. In biology, insects have flight muscles, which function autonomously with wing frequencies that far exceed the animals' neural capacity; Stretch-activation of muscle contraction is the mechanism that produces the high frequency oscillation of insect flight, discussed in Section 3. The same mechanism is also invoked to explain the functioning of the cardiac muscle. In Section 4, we present a tutorial review of the cardio-vascular system, heart anatomy, and muscle cell physiology, leading up to Starling's Law of the Heart, which supports our notion that the human heart is also a nonlinear oscillator. In Section 5, we offer a broad perspective of the tenuous links between the fluid dynamical oscillators and the human heart physiology.

Mayr, H. G.

Ozone Observations by the Gas and Aerosol Measurement Sensor during SOLVE II

The Gas and Aerosol Measurement Sensor (GAMS) was deployed aboard the NASA DC-8 aircraft during the second SAGE III Ozone Loss and Validation Experiment (SOLVE II). GAMS acquired line-of-sight (LOS) direct solar irradiance spectra during the sunlit portions of ten science flights of the DC-8 between 12 January and 4 February 2003. Differential line-of-sight (DLOS) optical depth spectra are produced from the GAMS raw solar irradiance spectra. Then, DLOS ozone number densities are retrieved from the GAMS spectra using a multiple linear regression spectral fitting technique. Both the DLOS optical depth spectra and retrieved ozone data are compared with coincident measurements from two other solar instruments aboard the DC-8 platform to demonstrate the robustness and stability of the GAMS data. The GAMS ozone measurements are then utilized to evaluate the quality of the Wulf band ozone cross sections, a critical component of the SAGE III aerosol, water vapor, and temperature/pressure retrievals. Results suggest the ozone cross section compilation of Shettle and Anderson currently used operationally in SAGE III data processing may be in error by as much as 10-20% in theWulf bands, and their lack of reported temperature dependence is a significant deficiency. A second, more recent, cross section database compiled for the SCIAMACHY satellite mission appears to be of much better quality in the Wulf bands, but still may have errors as large as 5% near the Wulf band absorption peaks, which is slightly larger than their stated uncertainty. Additional laboratory measurements of the Wulf band cross sections should be pursued to further reduce their uncertainty and better quantify their temperature dependence.

Pitts, M. C.

Retrieval of Ozone Column Content from Airborne Sun Photometer Measurements During SOLVE II: Comparison with SAGE III, POAM III,THOMAS and GOME Measurements

During the Second SAGE 111 Ozone Loss and Validation Experiment (SOLVE II), the 14- channel NASA Ames Airborne Trackmg Sunphotometer (AATS-14) was mounted on the NASA DC-8 and successfully measured spectra of total and aerosol optical depth (TOD and AOD) during the sunlit portions of eight science flights. Values of ozone column content above the aircraft have been derived from the AATS-14 data by using a linear least squares method. For each AATS-14 measured TOD spectrum, this method iteratively finds the ozone column content that yields the best match between measured and calculated TOD. The calculations assume the known Chappuis ozone band shape and a three-parameter AOD shape (quadratic in log-log space). Seven of the AATS-14 channels (each employing an interference filter with a nominal full-width at half maximum bandpass of -5 nm) are within the Chappuis band, with center wavelengths between 452.9 nm and 864.5 nm. One channel (604.4 nm) is near the peak, and three channels (499.4, 519.4 and 675.1 nm) have ozone absorption within 30-40% of that at the peak. For the typical DC-8 SOLVE II cruising altitudes of approx. 8-12 km and the background stratospheric aerosol conditions that prevailed during SOLVE 11, absorption of incoming solar radiation by ozone comprised a significant fraction of the aerosol-plus-ozone optical depth measured in the four AATS-14 channels centered between 499.4 and 675.1 nm. Typical AODs above the DC-8 ranged from 0.003-0.008 in these channels. For comparison, an ozone overburden of 0.3 atm-cm (300 DU) translates to ozone optical depths of 0.009,0.014, 0.041, and 0.012, respectively, at these same wavelengths. In this paper, we compare AATS-14 values of ozone column content with temporally and spatially near-coincident values derived from measurements acquired by the Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment III (SAGE III) and the Polar Ozone and Aerosol Measurement 111 (POAM III) satellite sensors. We also compare AATS-14 ozone retrievals during selected DC-8 latitudinal and longitudinal transects with total column ozone data acquired by the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) and the Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment (GOME) satellite sensors. To enable this comparison, the amount of ozone in the column below the aircraft is estimated by combining SAGE and/or POAM data with high resolution, fast response in-situ ozone measurements acquired during the DC-8 ascent at the start of each science flight.

Livingston, J.

Airborne Sun Photometer Measurements of Aerosol Optical Depth during SOLVE II: Comparison with SAGE III and POAM III Measurements

The 14-channel NASA Ames Airborne Tracking Sunphotometer (AATS-14) was operated aboard the NASA DC-8 during the Second SAGE III Ozone Loss and Validation Experiment (SOLVE II) and obtained successful measurements during the sunlit segments of eight science flights. These included six flights out of Kiruna, Sweden, one flight out of NASA Dryden Flight Research Center (DFRC), and the Kiruna-DFRC return transit flight. Values of spectral aerosol optical depth (AOD), columnar ozone and columnar water vapor have been derived from the AATS-14 measurements. In this paper, we focus on AATS-14 AOD data. In particular, we compare AATS-14 AOD spectra with temporally and spatially near-coincident measurements by the Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment III (SAGE III) and the Polar Ozone and Aerosol Measurement III (POAM III) satellite sensors. We examine the effect on retrieved AOD of uncertainties in relative optical airmass (the ratio of AOD along the instrument-to-sun slant path to that along the vertical path) at large solar zenith angles. Airmass uncertainties result fiom uncertainties in requisite assumed vertical profiles of aerosol extinction due to inhomogeneity along the viewing path or simply to lack of available data. We also compare AATS-14 slant path solar transmission measurements with coincident measurements acquired from the DC-8 by the NASA Langley Research Center Gas and Aerosol Measurement Sensor (GAMS).

Russell, P.

Collisional quenching of O(1D) by O(3P)

Metastable O(1D) atoms may be quenched in collisions with ground state O(3P) atoms by transitions in the avoided crossing regions of the three lowest 3Pi(g) states of O2 of which the lowest separates to O(3P) + O(3P) and the two upper to O(3P) + O(1D). Quantal calculations of the adiabatic potential energy curves of the 3Pi(g) states are carried out with particular attention to an avoided crossing region in the lowest two states around a nuclear separation of 3.2a(0). Diabatic potential matrix elements are constructed from the adiabatic curves by imposing the requirement that they be smooth everywhere. A multi-state diabatic formulation is used to describe the scattering and the cross-sections for the collision-induced quenching of O(1D) atoms are calculated.

Yee, J.-H.

The Atmosphere Explorer optical glow near the perigee altitudes

The altitude variation of the Atmosphere Explorer optical glow intensity suggests that two different processes are responsible for the glow. One, dominant for altitudes above 180 km, has an emission brightness proportional to the ambient atomic oxygen density whereas the other, dominant at altitudes below 160 km, produces an emission whose intensity is proportional to the product of the densities of any of N2, O2 or NO. The first mechanism apparently has two components, one from the surface recombination of O and H and the other from a process similar to that producing the Shuttle glow. Unless the efficiency of the second mechanism is much enhanced on the Shuttle its contribution to the Shuttle glow is negligible.

Yee, J.-H.

Characteristics of the spacecraft optical glow

The optical glow induced by spacecraft-environment interaction under daytime conditions is analyzed using photometric data obtained by the Visible Airglow Experiment on board the Atmospheric Explorer Satellite. Because of the increased ambient oxygen density, the glow is more intense in the daytime. The daytime production efficiency, meausured in Rayleighs per oxygen atom, is similar to the nighttime value. No dependence of the glow intensity on the ambient plasma density was found. The production efficiency increased with time throughout the duration of the spacecraft in orbit.

Yee, J.-H.

Optical effects of spacecraft-environment interaction Spectrometric observations by the DE-B satellite

Data from the Fabry-Perot interferometer on board the Dynamics Explorer-B satellite is used to show that the contaminant glow observed by Yee and Abreu at 7320A on the AE satellites is produced by emission lines of one or more species. A comparison is made of the contaminant spectrum near 7320A with the nightglow OH spectrum measured below 155km. Evidence is presented to the effect that OH might be one of the metastable species producing the glow.

Abreu, V. J.

Hot oxygen atoms in the upper atmosphere of Venus

Using data obtained by an ultraviolet spectrometer on the Pioneer-Venus Orbiter, energy and altitude distribution of nonthermal oxygen atoms in the Venus atmosphere for typical daytime and nighttime conditions are calculated using two different numerical methods. Agreement is found between results obtained by the two-stream transport method and the diffusion equation technique. Dissociative recombination of molecular oxygen ions and charge exchange of atomic oxygen ions with the neutral hydrogen and oxygen gas are the source terms, and calculations show that the dissociative recombination term is the dominant one. It is shown that measured hot atom concentrations exceed estimates of the thermal hydrogen atom concentrations derived from Brinton et al. (1980) over most of the daytime exosphere, and the calculated concentrations do so to an even greater extent. It is concluded that hot oxygen atoms are an important component of the dayside exosphere of Venus, their most important effect being the absorption of solar wind.

Nagy, A. F.