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NASA NTRS1983

Long-term, hard X-ray observations of Scorpius X-1 from HEAO 1

The results of observations of Sco X-1 from three separate scanning epochs during 1977 and 1978 by the UCSD/MIT instruments aboard HEAO 1 in the 15-200 keV range are reported. Intensity and spectral variations have been studied on three time scales: 33-minute scans, daily averages, and weekly averages. No relationship was found between intensity and temperature over the very narrow range of temperatures observed, but comparison of the variability of the intensity, emission measure, and temperature implies at least two different emission mechanisms are at work. It is found that the spectral data are best fitted by either a thin-thermal-bremsstrahlung model of about 5 keV or a Comptonized thermal model of temperature about 3 keV. At higher energies (50-200 keV), no flux is found in excess of the thermal (as claimed by previous observers), and a 2-sigma upper limit from scanning data of 10 to the -5th photons/sq cm sec keV is set. This is an order of magnitude lower than reported detections. Using the distance derived from optical and UV measurements, X-ray luminosities from Sco X-1 incompatible with predictions for spherical accretion onto a white dwarf and emission volumes inconsistent with polar caps of white dwarfs are found.

Soong, Y.↗

NASA NTRS1994

Multiscale low-frequency circulation modes in the global atmosphere

In this paper, fundamental multiscale circulation modes in the global atmosphere are identified with the objective of providing better understanding of atmospheric low-frequency variabilities over a wide range of spatial and temporal scales. With the use of a combination of rotated principal component technique, singular spectrum analysis, and phase space portraits, three categories of basic multiscale modes in the atmosphere are found. The first is the interannual-mode (IAM), which is dominated by time scales longer than a year and can be attributed to heating and circulation anomalies associated with the coupled tropical ocean-atmosphere, in particular the El Nino-Southern Oscillation. The second is a set of tropical intraseasonal modes consisting of three separate multiscale patterns (ISO-1, -2, -3) related to tropical heating that can be identified with the different phases of the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO), including its teleconnection to the extratropics. The ISO spatial and temporal patterns suggest that the extratropical wave train in the North Pacific and North America is related to heating over the Maritime Continent and that the evolution of the MJO around the equator may require forcing from the extratropics spawning convection over the Indian Ocean. The third category represents extratropical intraseasonal oscillations arising from internal dynamics of the basic-state circulation. In the Northern Hemisphere, there are two distinct circulation modes with multiple frequencies in this category: the Pacific/North America (PNA) and the North Atlantic/Eurasia (NAE). In the Southern Hemisphere, two phase-locked modes (PSA-1 and PSA-2) are found depicting an eastward propagating wave train from eastern Australia, via the Pacific South America to the South Atlantic. The extratropical modes exhibit temporal characteristics such as phase locking and harmonic oscillations possibly associated with quadratically nonlinear dynamical systems. Additionally, the observed monthly and seasonal anomalies arise from a complex interplay of the various multiscale low-frequency modes. The relative dominance of the different modes varies widely from month to month and from year to year. On the monthly time scale, while one or two mechanisms may dominate in one year, no single mechanism seems to dominate for all years. There are indications that when the IAM, that is, ENSO heating patterns are strong, the extratropical modes may be suppressed and vice versa. For the seasonal mean, the interannual mode tends to dominate and the contribution from the PNA remains quite significant.

Lau, K.-M.↗

NASA NTRS2002

Scale Dependence of Statistics of Spatially Averaged Rain Rate Seen in TOGA COARE Comparison with Predictions from a Stochastic Model

A characteristic feature of rainfall statistics is that they in general depend on the space and time scales over which rain data are averaged. As a part of an earlier effort to determine the sampling error of satellite rain averages, a space-time model of rainfall statistics was developed to describe the statistics of gridded rain observed in GATE. The model allows one to compute the second moment statistics of space- and time-averaged rain rate which can be fitted to satellite or rain gauge data to determine the four model parameters appearing in the precipitation spectrum - an overall strength parameter, a characteristic length separating the long and short wavelength regimes and a characteristic relaxation time for decay of the autocorrelation of the instantaneous local rain rate and a certain 'fractal' power law exponent. For area-averaged instantaneous rain rate, this exponent governs the power law dependence of these statistics on the averaging length scale $L$ predicted by the model in the limit of small $L$. In particular, the variance of rain rate averaged over an $L \times L$ area exhibits a power law singularity as $L \rightarrow 0$. In the present work the model is used to investigate how the statistics of area-averaged rain rate over the tropical Western Pacific measured with ship borne radar during TOGA COARE (Tropical Ocean Global Atmosphere Coupled Ocean Atmospheric Response Experiment) and gridded on a 2 km grid depends on the size of the spatial averaging scale. Good agreement is found between the data and predictions from the model over a wide range of averaging length scales.

Kundu, Prasun K.↗

NASA NTRS1984

Flare build-up study - Homologous flares group. I

Solar Maximum Mission observations have been used to study the origin and amount of energy, mechanism of storage and release, and conditions for the occurrence of solar flares, and some results of these studies as they pertain to homologous flares are briefly discussed. It was found that every set of flares produced 'rafales' of homologous flares, i.e., two, three, four, or more flares separated in time by an hour or less. No great changes in macroscopic photospheric patterns were observed during these flaring periods. A quantitative brightness parameter of the relation between homologous flares is defined. Scale changes detected in the dynamic spectrum of flare sites are in good agreement with a theoretical suggestion by Sturrock. Statistical results for different homologous flare active regions show the existence in homologous flaring areas of a 'pivot' of previous filaments interpreted as a signature of an anomaly in the solar rotation.

Martres, M.-J.↗

NASA NTRS1987

An experimental low Reynolds number comparison of a Wortmann FX67-K170 airfoil, a NACA 0012 airfoil and a NACA 64-210 airfoil in simulated heavy rain

Wind tunnel experiments were conducted on Wortmann FX67-K170, NACA 0012, and NACA 64-210 airfoils at rain rates of 1000 mm/hr and Reynolds numbers of 310,000 to compare the aerodynamic performance degradation of the airfoils and to attempt to identify the various mechanisms which affect performance in heavy rain conditions. Lift and drag were measured in dry and wet conditions, a variety of flow visualization techniques were employed, and a computational code which predicted airfoil boundary layer behavior was used. At low angles of attack, the lift degradation in wet conditions varied significantly between the airfoils. The Wortmann section had the greatest overall lift degradation and the NACA 64-210 airfoil had the smallest. At high angles of attack, the NACA 64-210 and 0012 airfoils had improved aerodynamic performance in rain conditions due to an apparent reduction of the boundry layer separation. Performance degradation in heavy rain for all three airfoils at low angles of attack could be emulated by forced boundary layer transition near the leading edge. The secondary effect occurs at time scales consistent with top surface water runback times. The runback layer is thought to effectively alter the airfoil geometry. The severity of the performance degradation for the airfoils varied. The relative differences appeared to be related to the susceptibility of each airfoil to premature boundary layer transition.

Craig, Anthony P.↗

NASA NTRS1992

Coarsening following a morphological instability in the one-sided model

We study the coarsening of the interfacial pattern separating two coexisting phases after the pattern becomes morphologically unstable. Shortly after the instability, the scale of the structure is given by the most unstable wave number in the linear regime. At later times, nonlinear interactions cause the structure to coarsen. Coarsening is studied by monitoring the time dependence of the two-dimensional power spectrum of the pattern, especially for wave vectors transverse to the direction of growth. Characteristic length scales of the pattern obtained from moments of the power spectrum are asymptotically linear in time. Furthermore, the power spectrum is seen to satisfy a scaling relation, in agreement with previous studies. A normal-velocity autocorrelation function is calculated and found to decay substantially over length scales that are of the order of the scale of the pattern. The issue of spatial anisotropy in the correlation functions is also discussed.

Vinals, Jorge↗

NASA NTRS1997

Global Analysis of Empirical Relationships Between Annual Climate and Seasonality of NDVI

This paper describes the use of satellite data to calibrate a new climate-vegetation greenness relationship for global change studies. We examined statistical relationships between annual climate indexes (temperature, precipitation, and surface radiation) and seasonal attributes If the AVHRR Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) time series for the mid-1980's in order to refine our understanding of intra-annual patterns and global abiotic controls on natural vegetation dynamics. Multiple linear regression results using global 1o gridded data sets suggest that three climate indexes: degree days (growing/chilling), annual precipitation total, and an annual moisture index together can account to 70-80 percent of the geographic variation in the NDVI seasonal extremes (maximum and minimum values) for the calibration year 1984. Inclusion of the same annual climate index values from the previous year explains no substantial additional portion of the global scale variation in NDVI seasonal extremes. The monthly timing of NDVI extremes is closely associated with seasonal patterns in maximum and minimum temperature and rainfall, with lag times of 1 to 2 months. We separated well-drained areas from lo grid cells mapped as greater than 25 percent inundated coverage for estimation of both the magnitude and timing of seasonal NDVI maximum values. Predicted monthly NDVI, derived from our climate-based regression equations and Fourier smoothing algorithms, shows good agreement with observed NDVI for several different years at a series of ecosystem test locations from around the globe. Regions in which NDVI seasonal extremes are not accurately predicted are mainly high latitude zones, mixed and disturbed vegetation types, and other remote locations where climate station data are sparse.

Potter, C. S.↗

NASA NTRS1997

Global Analysis of Empirical Relationships Between Annual Climate and Seasonality of NDVI

This study describes the use of satellite data to calibrate a new climate-vegetation greenness function for global change studies. We examined statistical relationships between annual climate indexes (temperature, precipitation, and surface radiation) and seasonal attributes of the AVHRR Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) time series for the mid-1980s in order to refine our empirical understanding of intraannual patterns and global abiotic controls on natural vegetation dynamics. Multiple linear regression results using global l(sup o) gridded data sets suggest that three climate indexes: growing degree days, annual precipitation total, and an annual moisture index together can account to 70-80 percent of the variation in the NDVI seasonal extremes (maximum and minimum values) for the calibration year 1984. Inclusion of the same climate index values from the previous year explained no significant additional portion of the global scale variation in NDVI seasonal extremes. The monthly timing of NDVI extremes was closely associated with seasonal patterns in maximum and minimum temperature and rainfall, with lag times of 1 to 2 months. We separated well-drained areas from l(sup o) grid cells mapped as greater than 25 percent inundated coverage for estimation of both the magnitude and timing of seasonal NDVI maximum values. Predicted monthly NDVI, derived from our climate-based regression equations and Fourier smoothing algorithms, shows good agreement with observed NDVI at a series of ecosystem test locations from around the globe. Regions in which NDVI seasonal extremes were not accurately predicted are mainly high latitude ecosystems and other remote locations where climate station data are sparse.

Potter, C. S.↗

NASA NTRS2019

Recent Advances in Our Understanding of the Earth's Radiation Belts

The Earth's radiation belts were discovered by James van Allen more than fifty years ago and are a home to a plethora of fascinating processes ranging from low energy cold plasma to relativistic and ultra-relativistic particle populations. The traditional morphological picture of the radiation belts is that of an outer belt comprising mostly of electrons and an inner belt comprising mostly of protons with a so-called slot region separating the two. The inner belt is somewhat stable, while the outer radiation belt is very dynamical and shows variability in energetic electron populations over a wide range of energies, intensities, and time scales ranging from minutes, days and even years. This variability is due to dynamical processes of energization and loss with a variety of plasma waves playing an important and crucial role. The traditional picture has recently been challenged with new observations coming from the twin spacecraft mission, Van Allen Probes launched in the fall of 2012, which carries a comprehensive suite of instruments that measure particles and plasma waves. In more than 5 years of observations Van Allen Probes has advanced our understanding of fundamental questions regarding the acceleration and loss of outer Van Allen belt electron population. Van Allen Probes observations have also revealed new phenomena such as the "electron Storage ring", and the "impenetrable barrier". This article reviews electron dynamics in the Van Allen belts focusing on van Allen Probes observations and discuss exciting new ways of advancing radiation belt science with CubeSats and CubeSat constellations.

Relativistic electrons↗

NASA NTRS1977

A first-principles derivation of Doppler noise expected from solar wind density fluctuations

The level of Doppler noise (DN) expected from solar wind (SW) density fluctuations (DF) is derived beginning with the expression for refractive index variations. The calculation takes account of up and downlink paths and of the method actually used to produce the DN values. The usual assumptions that the DF are frozen in, that the large-scale radial variation can be separated from the DF, that the DF power spectrum is a power law with outer scale k sub 0 and that the DF are homogeneous on scales less than 2c delta t, delta t = sample time, are made. The result agrees quite well with previous observations of DN. Corrections for the finite number of points used in the actual algorithm are discussed.

Callahan, P. S.↗

NASA NTRS1983

Numerical modeling of turbulent flow in a channel

Two-dimensional incompressible turbulent flow in a channel with a backward-facing step was studied numerically by Chorin's Random Vortex Method (RVM), an algorithm capable of tracing the action of elementary turbulent eddies and their cumulative effects without imposing any restrictions upon their motions. The step occurs in one side of a channel with otherwise flat, parallel walls; its height equals 1/3, 1/4 or 1/5 the width of the channel downstream. The main objective was to investigate the behavior of the large-scale turbulent eddies in a flow and the flow characteristics in the separated shear layer, the reattached zone, and the rebuilding boundary layer after reattachment. The unsteady vorticity field and the distribution of time-averaged turbulent statistics were obtained. The effects of expansion step height and initial boundary layer state were also studied. Comparisons were made with the available experimental results. The agreement is satisfactory in the velocity profiles and in the reattachment length, and fairly good in the turbulence profiles. Also a mechanism of the development of the reattaching turbulent flow was suggested by the numerical results.

Dai, Y. W.↗

NASA NTRS2003

Lunar and Planetary Surface Dynamics and Early History

This document, submitted as part of this proposal renewal represents the Final Report required by NASA for Grant NAGS-9442. It should be emphasized that, while this work statement in the original proposal outlined anticipated directions of our research, the specific activities we carried out during this period differed slightly from those proposed, capitalizing on new unexpected results and new advances in analytical capability. The thrust of all the work we completed were completely within the stated research goals of the proposal and significantly advanced our knowledge of planetary processes and our understanding of the early solar system. The following summary outlines our achievements in the different areas of research. These include: A) Early solar system processes and time scales using I-Xe chronometry; B) The Active Capture of Volatiles: A new mechanism for the capture of heavy noble gases, possible implications for phase Q and planetary heavy noble gases; C) Separation of Xe-L from Xe-H: Physically selective experiments; D) Abundances of Presolar grains; E) Studies of Neon and Helium from single interstellar SiC and graphite grains; F) Pre-compaction exposure of meteoritic grains and chondrules; G) Geochemically Measured Half-Lives: Double beta-decay of Te and Ba isotopes; H) Noble gases in stratospheric interplanetary dust particles; I) New Analytical Instrument.

Source record↗

NASA NTRS2005

Relative Ages of the Highlands, Lowlands, and Transition Zone Along a Portion of the Mars Crustal Dichotomy from Densities of Visible and Buried Impact Craters

Understanding the fundamental age relationships of the different parts of the Mars Crustal Dichotomy is essential to fully understanding the events that shaped the early history and formation of the surface of Mars. A dominant question is what are the true relative ages of the Northern Lowlands and the Southern Highlands? Using MOLA data from the Mars Global Surveyor and Viking visual images, a dataset of both buried and visible crater diameters was created over a nine million sq km study area of a section of the dichotomy boundary stretching from Arabia Terra to Utopia Planitia. Cumulative frequency plots on a log-log scale were used to determine the relative ages for the Highlands, the Lowlands, and the Transition Zone, separately for the visible, the buried and the combined total (visible+ buried) populations. We find the overall Highland crater population in this area is slightly older than the Lowlands, consistent with previous global studies, but the Lowlands and Transition Zone are also very old and formed at roughly the same time. It appears that the formation of the Lowlands in this region formed contemporaneously with a large-scale resurfacing event in the Highlands, perhaps caused by the process responsible for the Lowland formation.

DeSoto, G. E.↗

NASA NTRS1989

VLA observations of the coronal plasma

VLA observations at 20 cm wavelength specify the brightness temperature and magnetic structure of plasma constrained within coronal loops in solar active regions. Comparisons with simultaneous SMM observations at soft x ray wavelengths lead to measurements of physical parameters like electron density, electron temperature and magnetic field strength. Such comparisons also indicate coronal loops can be detected at either radio or x ray wavelengths while remaining invisible in the other spectral domain, and that the dominant radiation mechanisms can be thermal bremsstrahlung or thermal gyroresonance radiation. VLA observations at the longer 90 cm wavelength reveal the thermal emission of a hot transition sheath enveloping a cooler, underlying H alpha filament seen in absorption. The 20 cm VLA observations indicate that the precursor, impulsive and post-flare components of solar flares originate in spatially separated and resolved sources. The 90 cm VLA data indicate that time-correlated radio bursts can occur in active regions on opposite sides of the solar equator. These regions are apparently linked by large scale, trans-equatorial magnetic loops at least 2.6 x 10(exp 5) km (or 6 feet) long; these loops act as magnetic conduits for relativistic electrons moving at one-third the velocity of light.

Lang, Kenneth R.↗

NASA NTRS1990

VLA observations of the coronal plasma

VLA observations at 20 cm wavelength specify the brightness temperature and magnetic structure of plasma constrained within coronal loops in solar active regions. Comparisons with simultaneous SMM observations at soft X-ray wavelengths lead to measurements of physical parameters like electron density, electron temperature and magnetic field strength. Such comparisons also indicate coronal loops can be detected at either radio X-ray wavelengths while remaining invisible in the other spectral domain and that the dominant radiation mechanisms can be thermal bremsstrahlung or thermal gyroresonance radiation. VLA observations at the longer 90 cm wavelength reveal the thermal emission of a hot transition sheath enveloping a cooler, underlying H alpha filament seen in absorption. The 20 cm VLA observations indicate that the precursor, impulsive and post-flare components of solar flares originate in spatially separated and resolved sources. The 90 cm VLA data indicate that time-correlated radio bursts can occur in active regions on opposite sides of the solar equator. These regions are apparently linked by large scale, trans-equatorial magnetic loops at least 2.6 x 10(exp 5) km (or 6 feet) long; these loops act as magnetic conduits for relativistic electrons moving at one-third the velocity of light.

Lang, Kenneth R.↗

NASA NTRS1996

The incremental unknowns-a multilevel scheme for the simulation of turbulent channel flows

In numerical simulation of complex flows, it is important to identify different length scales of the flow and treat them differently. In this report, we introduce a new multilevel scheme for simulating turbulent channel flows. Two different versions of the scheme, namely the spectral and finite difference versions, are presented. The spectral version of the scheme is based on a spectral-Galerkin formulation which provides a natural decomposition of the flow into small and large wavelength parts, and which leads to linear systems that can be solved with quasi-optimal computational complexity. In the finite difference version, the Incremental Unknown (IU) is used to separate the length scales. Preliminary numerical results indicate that the scheme is well suited for turbulence computations and provides results which are comparable to that by Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS) but with significantly less CPU time.

Chen, M.↗

NASA NTRS1983

Zonal and hemispheric variability of Nimbus 6 ERB longwave radiation

Radiation variability on a global and zonal scale is studied using outgoing longwave radiation data from the Nimbus 6 satellite for a period of 12 months. The analysis-of-variance technique, which permits the variance to be separated into spatial variance and time variance, is applied to latitudinal zones and to the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. For latitudinal zones, most of the variability of longwave radiation is in the tropics and subtropics and is due to spatial variance between regions within zones. Spatial variance in the Southern Hemisphere is much greater than in the Northern Hemisphere; daytime spatial variance is higher than nighttime spatial variance for both hemispheres.

Bess, T. D.↗

NASA NTRS1992

Large eddy simulation of compressible turbulent channel flows

The development of turbulence within rocket propulsion chamber flows remains a difficult problem to predict. Within solid propellant rockets, the flow can exhibit multiple regions of transition to turbulence, and is susceptible to various modes of aero-acoustic interaction. The objective is to formulate, develop, and validate, a large eddy simulation (LES) method for compressible channel flows. The LES method separates the resolvable scale motions from the unresolvable scales by applying a spatial filter to the compressible Navier-Stokes equations. The equations are solved numerically using a modified four-step Runge-Kutta procedure in time and second or fourth order finite differences in space. The current simulations have validated the algorithm in the incompressible limit and have demonstrated the ability of the method to simulate high subsonic Mach number flows.

Beddini, Robert A.↗