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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 199 records · Page 11
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2020

Contrasting aerosol effects on longwave cloud forcing in South East Asia and Amazon simulated with Community Atmosphere Model version 5.3

Aerosols modify cloud microphysical and radiative properties and thus impact the shortwave (SW) and longwave cloud forcing (LWCF). This study first reports the finding of contrasting aerosol effects on LWCF in South East Asia and Amazon in the Community Atmosphere Model version 5.3 (CAM5.3), which corresponds to the sum of LW indirect and semi-direct effects investigated in Ghan et al., (2012). A series of numerical experiments is conducted to decompose the complex aerosol effects on LWCF. Our analysis indicates that the cooling (negative aerosol effects on LWCF) in Amazon is due mainly to the aerosol effects on warm clouds and the inhibition of vertical motion by the aerosol-induced radiative cooling. In contrast, the warming (positive aerosol effects on LWCF) in South East Asia is due mainly to the aerosol effect on homogeneous freezing, thus reducing the ice particle size and prolonging the existence of ice cloud. Our results emphasize that a comprehensive analysis of integrated aerosol effects on both warm and ice clouds is necessary for better understanding the aerosol effects on LWCF.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2021

Evaluation of the Causes of Wet-Season Dry Biases Over Amazonia in CAM5

This study investigates the causes of pronounced low precipitation bias over Amazonia in the Community Atmosphere Model version 5 (CAM5), a common feature in many global climate models. Our analysis is based on a suite of 3-day long hindcasts starting every day at 00Z from 1997 to 2012 and an AMIP simulation for the same period. The Amazonia dry bias appears by the second day in the hindcasts and is very robust for all the seasons with the largest bias magnitude during the wet season (December–February). The bias pattern and magnitude do not change much during different dynamical wind regimes on sub-seasonal time scales. We further classify the diurnal cycle of precipitation near the LBA sites from observations and hindcasts into three convective regimes: no precipitation, late afternoon deep convection, and nighttime deep convection. CAM5 can only simulate the late afternoon convective regime and completely fails to simulate the nighttime convection, which is mostly from propagating convective systems originating from remote locations. CAM5 mainly underestimates precipitation in the late afternoon and nighttime convective regimes, which occur during ~67% of wet season days and account for ~75% of accumulated precipitation amount in observations. The persistent warm temperature bias and slightly higher moisture below 850 mb likely trigger deep convection too frequently, resulting in an earlier but weaker rainfall peak in the diurnal cycle. Finally, shallow convection may not effectively transport moisture from boundary layer to the free atmosphere, which also leads to weaker deep convection events.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2022

Carbon Accumulation, Flux, and Fate in Stordalen Mire, a Permafrost Peatland in Transition

Abstract Stordalen Mire is a peatland in the discontinuous permafrost zone in arctic Sweden that exhibits a habitat gradient from permafrost palsa, to Sphagnum bog underlain by permafrost, to Eriophorum ‐dominated fully thawed fen. We used three independent approaches to evaluate the annual, multi‐decadal, and millennial apparent carbon accumulation rates (aCAR) across this gradient: seven years of direct semi‐continuous measurement of CO 2 and CH 4 exchange, and 21 core profiles for 210 Pb and 14 C peat dating. Year‐round chamber measurements indicated net carbon balance of −13 ± 8, −49 ± 15, and −91 ± 43 g C m −2 y −1 for the years 2012–2018 in palsa, bog, and fen, respectively. Methane emission offset 2%, 7%, and 17% of the CO 2 uptake rate across this gradient. Recent aCAR indicates higher C accumulation rates in surface peats in the palsa and bog compared to current CO 2 fluxes, but these assessments are more similar in the fen. aCAR increased from low millennial‐scale levels (17–29 g C m −2 y −1 ) to moderate aCAR of the past century (72–81 g C m −2 y −1 ) to higher recent aCAR of 90–147 g C m −2 y −1 . Recent permafrost collapse, greater inundation and vegetation response has made the landscape a stronger CO 2 sink, but this CO 2 sink is increasingly offset by rising CH 4 emissions, dominated by modern carbon as determined by 14 C. The higher CH 4 emissions result in higher net CO 2‐equivalent emissions, indicating that radiative forcing of this mire and similar permafrost ecosystems will exert a warming influence on future climate.

Holmes, M. E.↗
DOE OSTI2022

Quantifying Northern High Latitude Gross Primary Productivity (GPP) Using Carbonyl Sulfide (OCS)

The northern high latitude (NHL, 40°N to 90°N) is where the second peak region of gross primary productivity (GPP) other than the tropics. The summer NHL GPP is about 80% of the tropical peak, but both regions are still highly uncertain. Carbonyl sulfide (OCS) provides an important proxy for photosynthetic carbon uptake. Here we optimize the OCS plant uptake fluxes across the NHL by fitting atmospheric concentration simulation with the GEOS-CHEM global transport model to the aircraft profiles acquired over Alaska during NASA's Carbon in Arctic Reservoirs Vulnerability Experiment (2012–2015). We use the empirical biome-specific linear relationship between OCS plant uptake flux and GPP to derive the six plant uptake OCS fluxes from different GPP data. Such GPP-based fluxes are used to drive the concentration simulations. We evaluate the simulations against the independent observations at two ground sites of Alaska. The optimized OCS fluxes suggest the NHL plant uptake OCS flux of -247 Gg S year -1 , about 25% stronger than the ensemble mean of the six GPP-based OCS fluxes. GPP-based OCS fluxes systematically underestimate the peak growing season across the NHL, while a subset of models predict early start of season in Alaska, consistent with previous studies of net ecosystem exchange. The OCS optimized GPP of 34 PgC yr -1 for NHL is also about 25% more than the ensembles mean from six GPP data. Further work is needed to fully understand the environmental and biotic drivers and quantify their rate of photosynthetic carbon uptake in Arctic ecosystems.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2022

Modeling the Dynamics of Energetic Protons in Earth's Inner Magnetosphere

Recently, Van Allen Probes data have revealed the interesting energy-dependent dynamics of energetic protons in Earth's inner magnetosphere. To quantify the role of radial diffusion and charge exchange to the observed energy-dependent dynamics of ring current protons, a 1D radial diffusion model with charge exchange loss is implemented. The observed proton flux over the long-term period of November 2012 to September 2013 is first converted to phase space densities, which are then simulated by our model driven by an outer boundary condition at L* = 5.5 derived from the data. The simulation results show that our model generally captures the transport and acceleration of energetic protons at μ = 30, 50, and 80 MeV/G and K = 0.11 G 1/2 R E , suggesting that radial diffusion is the dominant source mechanism for >75 keV protons at L* = 3.5–5.5. Additionally, the observed fast decay of protons at lower μ and slow decay at higher μ are well captured by the model, demonstrating the dominant role of charge exchange in explaining the observed energy-dependent proton decay. For higher μ protons, prompt losses of protons on the time scale of hours are observed over a wide range of L*, which is too fast to be explained by charge exchange. Some of the prompt losses at high L* regions are reproduced by the model with outward radial diffusion to the outer boundary. However, many prompt losses observed at lower L* regions are not captured by the model, which could be due to other loss mechanisms including electromagnetic ion cyclotron wave scattering and field line curvature scattering.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2021

Warming and Increased Respiration Have Transformed an Alpine Steppe Ecosystem on the Tibetan Plateau From a Carbon Dioxide Sink Into a Source

Cold region ecosystems store vast amounts of soil organic carbon (C), which upon warming and decomposition can affect the C balance and potentially change these ecosystems from C sinks to carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) sources. We quantified the decadal year-round CO 2 flux from an alpine steppe-ecosystem on the Tibetan Plateau using eddy covariance and automatic chamber approaches during a period of significant warming (0.13°C per 10 years; and 0.18°C in the non-growing season alone: 1st October to next 30th April). The results showed that ongoing climate change, mainly warming within the topsoil layers, is the main reason for the site’s change from a sink for to a source of CO 2 in the atmosphere. Non-growing-season ecosystem respiration accounted for 51% of the annual ecosystem respiration and has increased significantly. The growing seasons (1st May to 30th September) were consistent CO 2 sink periods without significant changes over the study period. Observations revealed high-emission events from the end of the non-growing season to early in the growing season (1st March to fifteenth May), which significantly (p < 0.01) increased at a rate of 22.6 g C m -2 decade -1 , ranging from 14.6 ± 10.7 g C m -2 yr -1 in 2012 to 35.3 ± 12.1 g C m -2 yr -1 in 2017. Further, structural equation modeling suggested that active layer warming was the key factor in explaining changes in ecosystem respiration, leading to significant changes in net ecosystem exchange over the period 2011–2020 and indicated that these changes have already transformed the ecosystem from a CO 2 sink into a source. These results can be used to improve our understanding of the sensitivity of ecosystem respiration to increased warming during the non-growing period.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2023

Outer Radiation Belt Flux and Phase Space Density Response to Sheath Regions: Van Allen Probes and GPS Observations

Turbulent and compressed sheath regions preceding interplanetary coronal mass ejections strongly impact electron dynamics in the outer radiation belt. Changes in electron flux can occur on timescales of tens of minutes, which are unlikely to be captured by a two-satellite mission. The recently released Global Positioning System (GPS) data set generally has shorter revisit times (at L ~ 4–8) owing to the large number of satellites in the constellation equipped with energetic particle detectors. Investigating electron fluxes at energies from 140 keV to 4 MeV and sheaths observed in 2012–2018, we show that the flux response to sheaths on a timescale of 6 hr, previously reported from Van Allen Probes (RBSP) data, is reproduced by GPS measurements. Furthermore, GPS data enables derivation of the response on a timescale of 30 min, which further confirms that the energy and L-shell dependent changes in electron flux are associated with the impact of the sheath. Sheath-driven loss is underestimated over longer timescales as the electrons recover during the ejecta. We additionally show the response of electron phase space density (PSD), which is a key quantity in identifying non-adiabatic loss from the system and electron energization through wave-particle interactions. The PSD response is calculated from both RBSP and GPS data for the 6 hr timescale, as well as from GPS data for the 30 min timescale. The response is divided based on the geoeffectiveness of the sheaths revealing that electrons are effectively accelerated only during geoeffective sheaths, while loss commonly occurs during all sheaths.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Contributions to Loss Across the Magnetopause During an Electron Dropout Event

Abstract Dropout events are dramatic decreases in radiation belt electron populations that can occur in as little as 30 minutes. Loss to magnetopause due to a combination of magnetopause shadowing and outward radial transport plays a significant role in these events. We examine the dropout of relativistic electron populations during the October 2012 geomagnetic storm using simulated electron phase space density, evaluating the contribution of different processes to losses across the magnetopause. We compare loss contribution from outward transport calculated using a standard empirical radial diffusion model that assumes a dipolar geomagnetic field to an event‐specific radial diffusion model evaluated with a non‐dipolar geomagnetic field. We additionally evaluate the contribution of Shabansky type 1 particles, which bounce along magnetic field lines with local equatorial maxima, to the loss calculated during this event. We find that the empirical radial diffusion model with a dipolar background field underestimates the contribution of radial diffusion to this dropout event by up to 10% when compared to the event‐specific, non‐dipolar radial diffusion model. We additionally find that including Shabansky type 1 particles in the initial electron phase space density, that is, allowing some magnetic field lines distorted from the typical single‐minima configuration in drift shell construction, increases the calculated loss by an average of 0.75%. This shows that the treatment of the geomagnetic field significantly impacts the calculation of electron losses to the magnetopause during dropout events, with the non‐dipolar treatment of radial diffusion being essential to accurately quantify the loss of outer radiation belt populations.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Estimating Individual Tree Mortality in the Sierra Nevada Using Lidar and Multispectral Reflectance Data

Widespread tree mortality events occur during periods of severe drought in temperate conifer forests and are expected to become more frequent in many areas due to climate change. Improved mapping of individual tree mortality is needed to identify risk factors and design effective conservation strategies. In this study, we used National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) lidar and multispectral reflectance airborne observations to map individual tree mortality over a 160 km 2 area during and after the 2012–2016 drought for two sites in California's Sierra National Forest. We used NEON lidar to derive tree locations and crown perimeters and multispectral data to map tree mortality for more than 1 million trees. We found that 25.4% of the trees in our study area died between 2013 and 2017, with considerably higher mortality at the lower-elevation Soaproot Saddle site. Between 2017 and 2019, an additional 2.0%–2.8% of the trees died each year. Two wildfires in 2020 and 2021 increased tree mortality within burned area perimeters by 49%–89% between 2019 and 2021. Consistent with previous work, we found that tree mortality risk increased as a function of tree height. Tree mortality was positively associated with distance from rivers, trees per hectare, and decreasing slope at the lower elevation site. In contrast, increasing slope was positively associated with tree mortality at the higher elevation site. Our approach and dataset provide a means to study the combined effects of drought and wildfire on tree mortality and may improve projections of forest resilience under a changing climate.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2022

Modeling Isoprene Emission Response to Drought and Heatwaves Within MEGAN Using Evapotranspiration Data and by Coupling With the Community Land Model

We introduce two new drought stress algorithms designed to simulate isoprene emission with the Model of Emissions of Gases and Aerosols from Nature (MEGAN) model. The two approaches include the representation of the impact of drought on isoprene emission with a simple empirical approach for offline MEGAN applications and a more process-based approach for online MEGAN in Community Land Model (CLM) simulations. The two versions differ in their implementation of leaf-temperature impacts of mild drought. For the online version of MEGAN that is coupled to CLM, the impact of drought on leaf temperature is simulated directly and the calculated leaf temperature is considered for the estimation of isoprene emission. For the offline version, we apply an empirical algorithm derived from whole-canopy flux measurements for simulating the impact of drought ranging from mild to severe stage. In addition, the offline approach adopts the ratio ($f$ PET ) of actual evapotranspiration to potential evapotranspiration to quantify the severity of drought instead of using soil moisture. We applied the two algorithms in the CLM-CAM-chem (the Community Atmosphere Model with Chemistry) model to simulate the impact of drought on isoprene emission and found that drought can decrease isoprene emission globally by 11% in 2012. We further compared the formaldehyde (HCHO) vertical column density simulated by CAM-chem to satellite HCHO observations. We found that the proposed drought algorithm can improve the match with the HCHO observations during droughts, but the performance of the drought algorithm is limited by the capacity of the model to capture the severity of drought.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2022

The Age of Evapotranspiration: Lower‐Bound Constraints From Distributed Water Fluxes Across the Continental United States

Abstract Unlike streamflow, which can be sampled in aggregate at the catchment outlet, evapotranspiration (ET) is spatially dispersed, challenging large‐scale age estimation. Here, we introduce an approach for constraining the age of ET via mass balance and present the minimum flux‐weighted age of ET across the continental United States using distributed, publicly available water flux data sets. The lower‐bound constraint on ET age can be calculated by assuming that ET is preferentially sourced from the most recent precipitation through a last‐in, first‐out algorithm. From 2012 to 2017, ET was at least several months old across large areas of the western continental United States, including in Mediterranean and (semi‐)arid climate zones and shrub and evergreen needleleaf plant communities. The primary limitation of this approach is that it provides only a minimum flux‐weighted average age to satisfy the mass balance of outgoing fluxes; true ET fluxes are composed of distributions of ages and may be composed of much older water. The primary advantage of the approach is that flux time series of precipitation and ET are sufficient to constrain ET age, and model parameterization is unnecessary. ET ages can be used to validate tracer‐aided and modeling approaches and inform studies of biogeochemistry, water‐rock interactions, and plant water sourcing under drought.

Hahm, W. J.↗
DOE OSTI2024

Trends and Drivers of Terrestrial Sources and Sinks of Carbon Dioxide: An Overview of the TRENDY Project

The terrestrial biosphere plays a major role in the global carbon cycle, and there is a recognized need for regularly updated estimates of land-atmosphere exchange at regional and global scales. An international ensemble of Dynamic Global Vegetation Models (DGVMs), known as the “Trends and drivers of the regional scale terrestrial sources and sinks of carbon dioxide” (TRENDY) project, quantifies land biophysical exchange processes and biogeochemistry cycles in support of the annual Global Carbon Budget assessments and the REgional Carbon Cycle Assessment and Processes, phase 2 project. DGVMs use a common protocol and set of driving data sets. A set of factorial simulations allows attribution of spatio-temporal changes in land surface processes to three primary global change drivers: changes in atmospheric CO 2 , climate change and variability, and Land Use and Land Cover Changes (LULCC). Here, we describe the TRENDY project, benchmark DGVM performance using remote-sensing and other observational data, and present results for the contemporary period. Simulation results show a large global carbon sink in natural vegetation over 2012–2021, attributed to the CO 2 fertilization effect (3.8 ± 0.8 PgC/yr) and climate (–0.58 ± 0.54 PgC/yr). Forests and semi-arid ecosystems contribute approximately equally to the mean and trend in the natural land sink, and semi-arid ecosystems continue to dominate interannual variability. The natural sink is offset by net emissions from LULCC (–1.6 ± 0.5 PgC/yr), with a net land sink of 1.7 ± 0.6 PgC/yr. Despite the largest gross fluxes being in the tropics, the largest net land-atmosphere exchange is simulated in the extratropical regions.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2025

Radiocarbon Fingerprinting Black Carbon Source History in the Himalayas

Abstract Black carbon (BC) is considered as an important contributor to the Himalayan glaciers melt in the past few decades. However, the long‐term source apportionment of BC remains unclear. Here we present the first radiocarbon ( 14 C)‐based annual variation of BC source apportionment in an ice core spanning the period of 1959–2012 drilled from the Southeastern Tibetan Plateau, a receptor site of South Asia outflow. We find fossil fuel combustion is a major contribution (73% ± 5%), yet the biomass burning fraction ( ƒ biomass ) has grown from 24% ± 4% to 30% ± 4% since 1990. Intriguingly, we further find the ƒ biomass demonstrating a robust correlation with South Asian wildfires linked to climate oscillations. Thus, for mitigating BC impacts on Himalayan glaciers, South Asia's transition from fossil fuels to clean energy is a more efficient and urgent strategy than reducing residential biomass burning.

Wang, Mo [State Key Laboratory of Tibetan Plateau ↗
DOE OSTI2024

Review of the August 1972 and March 1989 (Allen) Space Weather Events: Can We Learn Anything New From Them?

Abstract Updated summaries of the August 1972 and March 1989 space weather events have been constructed. The features of these two events are compared to the Carrington 1859 event and a few other major space weather events. It is concluded that solar active regions release energy in a variety of forms (X‐rays, EUV photons, visible light, coronal mass ejection (CME) plasmas and fields) and they in turn can produce other energetic effects (solar energetic particles (SEPs), magnetic storms) in a variety of ways. It is clear that there is no strong one‐to‐one relationship between these various energy sinks. The energy is often distributed differently from one space weather event to the next. Concerning SEPs accelerated at interplanetary CME (ICME) shocks, it is concluded that the Fermi mechanism associated with quasi‐parallel shocks is relatively weak and that the gradient drift mechanism (electric fields) at quasi‐perpendicular shocks will produce harder spectra and higher fluxes. If the 4 August 1972 intrinsic magnetic cloud condition (southward interplanetary magnetic field instead of northward) and the interplanetary Sun to 1 au conditions were different, a 4 August 1972 magnetic storm and magnetospheric dawn‐to‐dusk electric fields substantially larger than the Carrington event would have occurred. Under these special interplanetary conditions, a Miyake et al. (2012), https://doi.org/10.1038/nature11123 ‐like extreme SEP event may have been formed. The long duration complex 1989 storm was probably greater than the Carrington storm in the sense that the total ring current particle energy was larger.

Tsurutani, Bruce T.↗
DOE OSTI2025

ELM–Wet: Inclusion of a Wet–Landunit With Sub–Grid Representation of Eco–Hydrological Patches and Hydrological Forcing Improves Methane Emission Estimations in the E3SM Land Model (ELM)

Wetlands are the largest emitters of biogenic methane (CH 4 ) and represent the highest source of uncertainty in global CH 4 budgets. Here, we aim to improve the realism of wetland representation in the U.S. Department of Energy's Exascale Earth System Model land surface model, ELM, thereby reducing uncertainty of CH 4 flux predictions. We develop an updated version, ELM-Wet, where we activate a separate landunit for wetlands that handles multiple wetland-specific eco-hydrological patch functional types. We introduce more realistic hydrological forcing through prescribing site-level constraints on surface water elevation, which allows resolving different sustained inundation depth for different patches, and if data exists, prescribing inundation depth. We modified the calculation of aerenchyma transport diffusivity based on observed conductance per leaf area for different vegetation types. We use Bayesian Optimization to parameterize CO 2 and CH 4 fluxes in the developed wet-landunit. Site-level simulations of a coastal non-tidal freshwater wetland in Louisiana were performed with the updated model. Eddy covariance observations of CO 2 and CH 4 fluxes from 2012 to 2013 were used to train the model and data from 2021 were used for validation. Patch-specific chamber flux observations and observations of CH 4 concentration profiles in the soil porewater from 2021 were used for evaluation of the model performance. Our results show that ELM-Wet reduces the model's CH 4 emission root mean squared error by up to 33% and is able to represent inter-daily CO 2 and CH 4 flux variability across the wetland's eco-hydrological patches, including during periods of extreme dry or wet conditions.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2025

Climatic and Socioeconomic Drivers of Water Use and Their Spatio‐Temporal Patterns for Small and Mid‐Sized Cities in the Contiguous United States

This study explores the drivers of urban water use and their spatial-temporal patterns in 142 small and mid-sized cities across the Contiguous United States (CONUS) by analyzing the data directly collected from these cities and using advanced machine learning techniques. We identify five distinguished clusters across CONUS, each showing unique trends of the impact of drivers on water use. We find that socioeconomic factors significantly influence water use in eastern and southwestern cities, while climatic variables such as precipitation and temperature range dominate in central and northwestern regions. Temporal analysis reveals the impacts of major socioeconomic and climatic disruptions on urban water use in the period 2011–2021, including the COVID lockdown, the rapid growth of data centers, and the drought of 2012. In addition, our analysis suggests that economic growth in small and mid-sized US cities continues to be accompanied by rising water use, contrasting with the opposite trend observed in large cities in prior studies. This implies that as smaller cities develop, their water use may increase above current levels until incomes reach a higher threshold, highlighting the need to improve water use efficiency. This study also presents useful insights for developing effective water demand management strategies in response to climatic variability and socioeconomic growth in small and mid-sized cities.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2026

Comprehensive Characterization of Water Group Ion Composition and Distributions in Saturn's Magnetosphere With Cassini Plasma Spectrometer Data

Saturn's magnetosphere is continuously supplied with neutrals from the Enceladus plume and the icy rings, which undergo ionization and charge-exchange to form a complex water-group plasma environment. While the Cassini Plasma Spectrometer (CAPS) instrument has provided extensive compositional information, detailed separation of individual water-group ion species in time-of-flight (TOF) data has not previously been achieved. In this study, we perform forward modeling of CAPS-IMS energy-per-charge (E/Q) and TOF spectra obtained between 2004 and 2012 to resolve O + , OH + , H 2 O + , and H 3 O + and to characterize their plasma properties, including number density, temperature, and thermodynamic κ. Our results demonstrate that O + is the dominant thermal ion species throughout Saturn's magnetosphere, comprising up to ∼70% of the total ion population beyond ∼5 Saturn radii (R S ). In contrast, molecular ions such as OH + , H 2 O + , and H 3 O + dominate closer to Enceladus but rapidly dissociate into atomic ions between ∼5 and 10 R S . This radial region is also characterized by the steepest increase in plasma flow speed, which rises from ∼40% to ∼80% of rigid corotation. Simultaneously, ion velocity distributions approach Maxwell–Boltzmann equilibrium, as indicated by high kappa values. These findings provide new constraints on the ion–neutral chemistry that regulates the balance between molecular and atomic ions in Saturn's magnetosphere. They also emphasize the critical role of the 5–10 R S region as a transition zone for both plasma composition and dynamics. Our results refine previous CAPS-based studies and underscore the need to incorporate seasonal variability and ionospheric coupling into future global models of Saturn's plasma environment.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2020

Polysaccharide niche partitioning of distinct Polaribacter clades during North Sea spring algal blooms

Massive releases of organic substrates during marine algal blooms trigger growth of many clades of heterotrophic bacteria. Algal polysaccharides represent the most diverse and structurally complex class of these substrates, yet their role in shaping the microbial community composition is poorly understood. We investigated, whether polysaccharide utilization capabilities contribute to niche differentiation of Polaribacter spp. (class Flavobacteriia; known to include relevant polysaccharidedegraders) that were abundant during 2009–2012 spring algal blooms in the southern North Sea. We identified six distinct Polaribacter clades using phylogenetic and phylogenomic analyses, quantified their abundances via fluorescence in situ hybridization, compared metagenome-assembled genomes, and assessed in situ gene expression using metaproteomics. Four clades with distinct polysaccharide niches were dominating. Polaribacter 2-a comprised typical first responders featuring small genomes with limited polysaccharide utilization capacities. Polaribacter 3-a were abundant only in 2010 and possessed a distinct sulfated α-glucoronomannan degradation potential. Polaribacter 3-b responded late in blooms and had the capacity to utilize sulfated xylan. Polaribacter 1-a featured high numbers of glycan degradation genes and were particularly abundant following Chattonella algae blooms. These results support the hypothesis that sympatric Polaribacter clades occupy distinct glycan niches during North Sea spring algal blooms.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗