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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 289 records · Page 16
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2018

Swelling of Transported Smoke from Savanna fires over the Southeast Atlantic Ocean

We use the recently released Version 4 (V4) lidar data products from CALIPSO to study the smoke plumes transported from Southern African biomass burning areas. The significant improvements in CALIPSO V4 Level 1 calibration and the V4 Level 2 aerosol subtyping algorithms, the latter being particularly relevant to biomass burning smoke over this area, lead to a better representation of their optical properties. For the first time, we show evidence of smoke particles increasing in size, evidenced in their particulate color ratios, as they are transported over the South Atlantic Ocean from the source regions over Southern Africa. This is likely due to hygroscopic swelling of the smoke particles and is reflected in the higher relative humidity in the middle troposphere for profiles with smoke. This finding may have implications for radiative forcing estimates over this area and is relevant to the ORACLES field mission that is currently underway.

Kar, J.↗
NASA NTRS2018

Swelling of Transported Smoke from Savanna Fires over the Southeast Atlantic Ocean

We use the recently released Cloud Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO) Version 4.1 (V4) lidar data to study the smoke plumes transported from Southern African biomass burning areas. Significant improvements in the CALIPSO V4 Level 1 calibration and V4 Level 2 algorithms lead to a better representation of their optical properties, with the aerosol subtype improvements being particularly relevant to smoke over this area. For the first time, we show evidence of smoke particles increasing in size, evidenced in their particulate color ratios, as they are transported over the South Atlantic Ocean from the source regions over Southern Africa. We hypothesize that this is due to hygroscopic swelling of the smoke particles and is reflected in the higher relative humidity in the middle troposphere for profiles with smoke. This finding may have implications for radiative forcing estimates over this area and is also relevant to the ORACLES field mission.

Kar, J.↗
NASA NTRS2018

Swelling of Transported Smoke from Savanna Fires over the Southeast Atlantic Ocean

We use the recently released Cloud Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO) Version 4.1 (V4) lidar data to study the smoke plumes transported from Southern African biomass burning areas. Significant improvements in the CALIPSO V4 Level 1 calibration and V4 Level 2 algorithms lead to a better representation of their optical properties, with the aerosol subtype improvements being particularly relevant to smoke over this area. For the first time, we show evidence of smoke particles increasing in size, as demonstrated by their particulate color ratios, as they are transported over the South Atlantic Ocean from the source regions over Southern Africa. We hypothesize that this is due to hygroscopic swelling of the smoke particles and is reflected in the higher relative humidity in the middle troposphere for profiles with smoke. This finding may have implications for radiative forcing estimates over this area and is also relevant to the ORACLES field mission.

J. Kar↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Identifying Chemical and Optical Smoke Signatures in Suborbital Observations to Improve Model Projections

Biomass Burning (BB) fires are expected to occur more frequently in the future due to climate change, the build‐up of fuels due to fire suppression, and the expansion of the wildland‐urban interface [Schoennagel et al., 2017; Shivdenko & Schepaschenko, 2013; Stevens et al., 2014; Turner et al., 2019; Yue et al., 2015; Tilman et al., 2001]. Accurate knowledge of the abundance, distribution, and optical properties of absorbing aerosols such as BB smoke is essential to understanding regional and global aerosol radiative effects [Boucher et al., 2013]. It is recognized that differing fuel types (e.g., rice straw, ponderosa pine), combustion modes (i.e., flaming, smoldering or both) and temperature/ moisture content produce smoke with differing optical characteristics (e.g., aerosol light scattering and absorption) and component mixing ratios [e.g., BC, OC and inorganic species such as sulfate, potassium, chloride; Streets et al. 2003; Reid et al., 2005a, b; Janhäll et al., 2010; Sayer et al., 2014]. However, climate models often ascribe a fixed set of emission factors [i.e., amount of particulate for a given species released in the atmosphere per unit dry fuel burned; Darmenov and Dasilva, 2013] and optical properties [Hess et al., 1998] to all BB aerosol plumes, inherently limiting accurate representation of the global and regional heterogeneity of BB. The overarching goal of the proposed work is to improve the microphysical and optical representation of different types of Biomass Burning in Chemistry Transport Models. Our strategy is to capitalize on multiple airborne campaigns (e.g., ARCTAS, SEAC4RS, ORACLES, FIREX-AQ), which sampled different types of BB plumes at different aging stages. Models, when improved and combined with satellite, airborne, and ground observations will help address many aerosol science objectives from the NASA Decadal survey [National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2018].

Meloe Shenandoah F Kacenelenbogen↗
NASA NTRS2001

Risk analysis simulation of rover operations for Mars surface exploration

Risk management advocates have long sought to directly influence the early stages of the systems engineering process through a more effective role in system design trade studies. The principal obstacle to this has been the lack of credible ways to represent and quantify mission risk—that is, a combination of the probability of mission success (“system safety”) and science value—for the project manager and the rest of the design team. If it were possible to quantify mission risk, then the effects of proposed mission and system design changes could be calculated, and along with life-cycle costs, could be used to explore the design space more extensively and select better designs. JPL has been working to build the capability to quantify the probability of mission success using a federation of diverse simulations and models, each of which contributes some vital piece of the puzzle. The initial institutional focus has been on Mars surface operations. This ensemble computing framework enables the diverse models and simulations to work together seamlessly. Recent work at JPL has demonstrated the capability to exercise this ensemble from end-to-end using an Oracle-based database to automatically move results from one model/simulation to the next stage in the analysis.

Shishko, Robert↗
NASA NTRS2017

Runtime Verification Logics A Language Design Perspective

Runtime Verification is a light-weight approach to systems verification, where actual executions of a system are processed and analyzed using rigorous techniques. In this paper we shall narrow the term’s definition to represent the commonly studied variant consisting of verifying that a single system execution conforms to a specification written in a formal specification language. Runtime verification (in this sense) can be used for writing test oracles during testing when the system is too complex for full formal verification, or it can be used during deployment of the system as part of a fault protection strategy, where corrective actions may be taken in case the specification is violated. Specification languages for runtime verification appear to differ from for example temporal logics applied in model checking, in part due to the focus on monitoring of events that carry data, and specifically due to the desire to relate data values existing at different time points, resulting in new challenges in both the complexity of the monitoring approach and the expressiveness of languages. Over the recent years, numerous runtime verification specification languages have emerged, each with its different features and levels of expressiveness and usability. This paper presents an overview and a discussion of this design space.

Reger, Giles↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

NNREPAIR: Constraint-based Repair of Neural Network Classifiers

We present NNREPAIR, a constraint-based technique for repairing neural network classifiers by i) fixing the logic of the network at an intermediate layer, and ii) fixing the decision conditions of the network at the last layer. NNREPAIR first uses fault localization to find potentially faulty network parameters (specifically weights) and then performs repair using constraint solving to apply small modifications to remedy the defects. We present novel strategies to enable precise yet efficient repair such as inferring correctness specifications to act as oracles for intermediate layer repair, and generation of experts wrt each class. We demonstrate the technique in the context of three different scenarios: (1) Improving the over all accuracy of a model, (2) Fixing security vulnerabilities caused by poisoning of training data and (3) Improving the robustness of the network against adversarial attacks. Our evaluation on MNIST and CIFAR-10 models shows that NNREPAIR can improve the accuracy by 45.56% on poisoned data and 11.11% on adversarial data. NNREPAIR also provides improvement, albeit modest, in the overall accuracy of models, without requiring new data or re-training.

Repair↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Biomass Burning Smoke and Coincident Water Vapor Over the Southeast Atlantic Stratocumulus Region: Results from Observations and Models

In southern Africa, widespread agricultural fires produce substantial biomass burning (BB) emissions over the region. The seasonal smoke plumes associated with these emissions are then advected westward over the persistent stratocumulus cloud deck in the Southeast Atlantic (SEA) Ocean. We present airborne observations made during the NASA ORACLES (ObseRvations of Aerosols above CLouds and their intEractionS) campaign over the SEA. Using multiple airborne datasets, we observe a strongly linear correlation between biomass burning indicators (carbon monoxide (CO) and aerosol loading) and atmospheric water vapor content, seen at all altitudes above the boundary layer. This relationship was particularly strong in the 2016 observations, but was also present in the 2017 and 2018 deployments. Using ECMWF and MERRA-2 reanalyses and specialized WRF-Chem simulations, we trace the plume-vapor relationship to an initial humid, smoky continental source region, where it mixes with clean, dry upper-tropospheric air and then is subjected to conditions of strong westward advection, namely the South African Easterly Jet (AEJ-S). Our analysis indicates that airmasses likely left the continent with the same relationship between water vapor and carbon monoxide as was observed by aircraft. This linear relationship developed over the continent due to daytime convection within a deep continental boundary layer (up to ~5-6km) and mixing with higher-altitude air, which resulted in fairly consistent vertical gradients in CO and water vapor, decreasing with altitude and varying in time, but this water vapor does not originate as a product of the BB combustion itself. The smoky, humid mixed air is then subjected to strong zonal winds and advected over the SEA following largely isentropic trajectories. HYSPLIT back trajectories support this interpretation. With better understanding of this relationship, and its spatial and temporal variations, we are working towards accurately quantifying the radiative and dynamical effects of both aerosol and water vapor over this region.

Kristina Pistone↗
NASA NTRS2021

Dare Mighty Things

Winston Churchill once said, “To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.” JPL’s Property Accountability objective is to provide superior services related to property accountability, reutilization, and disposition. JPL must report property reutilized and disposed through either sales, donation, or scrap. Implementing the JPL designed and built Property Information Reporting System (PIRS), opened a new perspective with our data and what are we reporting to NASA. With this new depth of visibility, we self-implemented as assessment to validate the fiduciary and stewardship responsibilities of what is being reporting to NASA. JPL strives to perform at a level beyond the basic primary expectations of our NASA requirements. JPL developed the PIRS - which rolled out in 2018 - to simplify the delivery of JPL’s Personal Property and Equipment (PP&E) reporting: PIRS takes the raw data from Oracle to generate the NASA Form (NF) 1018 and Contractor Held Asset Reporting System (CHATS) Reports, and to meet the requirements established for AS9100 compliance. The data presented from PIRS is exportable and used to analyze our property records. JPL is also embarking on an effort to define the JPL of the future with “Enterprise 2.0”. Enterprise 2.0 is the driving force of JPL’s strategy to digitally transform the Laboratory from the current legacy processes and systems to a modern, integrated, information-driven highway of business transactions. This should include automation of routine processes and data-related tasks, integration of data and systems, advanced search and analytics, and improved information sharing and collaboration. As JPL’s evolving landscape of digital technologies advance to meet the future, JPL Property Accountability is making strides to surpass these expectations. For every cause there is an effect: a revealing of something that aids in the further development and transformation of JPL best business practices.

Sucher, Jay M↗
NASA NTRS2022

Vertical structure of biomass burning aerosol transported over the southeast Atlantic Ocean

Biomass burning in southwestern Africa produces smoke plumes that are transported over the Atlantic Ocean and overlie vast regions of stratocumulus clouds. This aerosol layer contributes to direct and indirect radiative forcing of the atmosphere in this region particularly during the months of August, September, and October. There was a multi-year international campaign to study this aerosol and its interactions with clouds. Here, we report on the evolution of aerosol distributions and properties as measured by the airborne high spectral resolution lidar (HSRL-2) during the ORACLES (Observations of Aerosols above Clouds and their intEractionS) campaign in September 2016. The NASA Langley HSRL-2 instrument was flown on the NASA ER-2 aircraft for several days in September 2016. Data were aggregated at two pairs of 2° × 2° grid boxes to examine the evolution of the vertical profile of aerosol properties during transport over the ocean. Results showed that the structure of the profile of aerosol extinction and microphysical properties is maintained over a 1 to 2 d timescale. In the 3–5 km altitude range, 95 % of the aerosol extinction was contributed by particles in the 0.05–0.50 µm radius size range with the aerosol in this size range having an average effective radius of 0.16 µm. This indicates that there is essentially no scavenging or dry deposition at these altitudes. Moreover, there is very little day-to-day variation in these properties, such that time sampling as happens in such campaigns may be representative of longer periods such as monthly means. Below 3 km, there is considerable mixing with larger aerosol, most likely continental source near land. Furthermore, these measurements indicated that there was often a distinct gap between the bottom of the aerosol layer and cloud tops at the selected locations as evidenced by a layer of several hundred meters that contained relatively low aerosol extinction values above the clouds.

lidar↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Excessive Subsidence of the Southeast Atlantic Biomass Burning Aerosol Plume in the NASA Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS) Model

Global models struggle to accurately represent the meteorological environment over the Southeast Atlantic Ocean, as evidenced by the poor representation of persistent marine stratocumulus decks off the west coast of southern Africa. This complex regime also experiences significant seasonal biomass burning aerosol plumes that are transported from southern Africa over the Atlantic Ocean, which gradually descend via large scale subsidence and interact radiatively and microphysically with the cloudy environment of the region. In comparisons to space borne lidar and aircraft observations we find that the NASA Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS) model’s MERRA-2 aerosol and meteorology reanalysis shows that the aerosol plume descends too rapidly due to exaggerated large-scale downward vertical motion. This complicates the evaluation of aerosol properties utilizing aircraft observations collected throughout the ORACLES campaign as well as the model’s representation of the heating rate profiles due to the aerosol itself and its radiative interaction with the semi-permanent cloud deck typically located lower in altitude than the smoke. Two types of modeling experiments using GEOS will be presented to diagnose deficiencies in the model related to the excessive subsidence. Ensembles of free-running model simulations with and without radiatively active biomass burning aerosol will be used to quantify the impact of smoke on the atmospheric circulation. It will be demonstrated that heating within the aerosol layer results in self lofting through a reduction of the subsidence but did not alter the vertical placement or speed of the African Easterly jet. The amount of aerosol absorption required to eliminate the bias in the height of the aerosol plume through self-lofting will then be quantified. Finally, a second type of modeling experiment will be discussed in which the meteorology is constrained to observations. This will allow for biases in the height of the aerosol plume due to the general circulation model to be distinguished from biases that may be induced through the data assimilation process.

Allison Collow↗
NASA NTRS2020

Integrated Modeling and Development of Component-Based Embedded Software in Scala

Programming of embedded systems is challenging due to the low-level design patterns normally applied in the implementation of such systems. Furthermore, programming languages normally considered suitable for this level of programming, such as C and C++, are themselves low-level compared to more modern programming languages. We report on an effort exploring modeling and programming of embedded systems in modern high-level programming languages combining object-oriented and functional programming. We present an integration of four separate internal DSLs (libraries), considered useful for embedded program- ming, in the Scala programming language, for programming and testing component-based systems. These include a DSL for defining components and their connections, and a DSL for programming the individual components as hierarchical state machines. Two additional DSLs support testing, and include a DSL for writing temporal logic flavored test oracles for monitoring program executions, and a DSL for rule-based test input generation. The paper discusses the gap between Scala as used here and the needs for embedded systems programming.

Bocchino, Robert↗
NASA NTRS2023

Multi-Campaign Ship and Aircraft Observations of Marine Cloud Condensation Nuclei and Droplet Concentrations

In-situ marine cloud droplet number concentrations (CDNCs), cloud condensation nuclei (CCN), and CCN proxies, based on particle sizes and optical properties, are accumulated from seven field campaigns: ACTIVATE; NAAMES; CAMP2EX; ORACLES; SOCRATES; MARCUS; and CAPRICORN2. Each campaign involves aircraft measurements, ship-based measurements, or both. Measurements collected over the North and Central Atlantic, Indo-Pacific, and Southern Oceans, represent a range of clean to polluted conditions in various climate regimes. With the extensive range of environmental conditions sampled, this data collection is ideal for testing satellite remote detection methods of CDNC and CCN in marine environments. Remote measurement methods are vital to expanding the available data in these difficult-to-reach regions of the Earth and improving our understanding of aerosolcloud interactions. The data collection includes particle composition and continental tracers to identify potential contributing CCN sources. Several of these campaigns include High Spectral Resolution Lidar (HSRL) and polarimetric imaging measurements and retrievals that will be the basis for the next generation of space-based remote sensors and, thus, can be utilized as satellite surrogates.

Atmospheric chemistry↗
DOE OSTI2016

EnergyIQ

EnergyIQ-the first "action-oriented" benchmarking tool for non-residential buildings-provides a standardized opportunity assessment based on benchmarking results. along with decision-support information to help refine action plans. EnergyIQ offers a wide array of benchmark metrics, with visuall as well as tabular display. These include energy, costs, greenhouse-gas emissions, and a large array of characteristics (e.g. building components or operational strategies). The tool supports cross-sectional benchmarking for comparing the user's building to it's peers at one point in time, as well as longitudinal benchmarking for tracking the performance of an individual building or enterprise portfolio over time. Based on user inputs, the tool generates a list of opportunities and recommended actions. Users can then explore the "Decision Support" module for helpful information on how to refine action plans, create design-intent documentation, and implement improvements. This includes information on best practices, links to other energy analysis tools and more. The variety of databases are available within EnergyIQ from which users can specify peer groups for comparison. Using the tool, this data can be visually browsed and used as a backdrop against which to view a variety of energy benchmarking metrics for the user's own building. User can save their project information and return at a later date to continue their exploration. The initial database is the CA Commercial End-Use Survey (CEUS), which provides details on energy use and characteristics for about 2800 buildings (and 62 building types). CEUS is likely the most thorough survey of its kind every conducted. The tool is built as a web service. The EnergyIQ web application is written in JSP with pervasive us of JavaScript and CSS2. EnergyIQ also supports a SOAP based web service to allow the flow of queries and data to occur with non-browser implementations. Data are stored in an Oracle 10g database. References: Mills, Mathew, Brook and Piette. 2008. "Action Oriented Benchmarking: Concepts and Tools." Energy Engineering, Vol.105, No. 4, pp 21-40. LBNL-358E; Mathew, Mills, Bourassa, Brook. 2008. "Action-Oriented Benchmarking: Using the CEUS Database to Benchmark Commercial Buildings in California." Energy Engineering, Vol 105, No. 5, pp 6-18. LBNL-502E.

MILLS, EVAN↗
DOE OSTI2016

Waste Information Management System v. 1.0

WIMS is a functional interface to an Oracle database for managing the required regulatory information about the handling of Hazardous Waste. WIMS does not have a component to track Radiological Waste data. And it does not have the ability to manage sensitive information.

Bustamante, David G.↗
DOE OSTI2017

STK Address Converter

This package of software offers various converters between different drive address schemes used by Oracle StorageTek software and hardware.

Cleary, Geoff↗
DOE OSTI2014

Tour Robot Dance

This program exercises the robotic elements in Oracle Storage Tek tape libraries. This is useful for two known cases: 1.) shaking out marginal or new hardware by ensuring hardware robustness under high-duty usage. 2.) ensuring tape libraries are visually interesting during datacenter tours

Cleary, Geoff↗
DOE OSTI2018

Layered Atlantic Smoke Interactions with Clouds (LASIC) Field Campaign Report

Southern Africa is the world’s largest emitter of biomass burning aerosols. Their westward transport over the remote southeast Atlantic Ocean co-locates some of the largest atmospheric loadings of absorbing aerosol with the least examined of the Earth’s major subtropical stratocumulus decks. Global aerosol model results highlight that the largest positive top-of-atmosphere (TOA) forcing in the world occurs in the southeast Atlantic, but this region exhibits large differences in magnitude and sign between reputable models, in part because of high variability in the underlying model cloud distributions. Many uncertainties contribute to the highly variable model radiation fields: the aging of the shortwave-absorbing aerosol during transport, how much of the aerosol mixes into the cloudy boundary layer, and how the low clouds adjust to smoke-radiation and smoke-cloud interactions. In addition, the ability of the biomass burning aerosol to absorb shortwave radiation is known to vary seasonally as the fuel type on land changes. LASIC (Layered Atlantic Smoke Interactions with Clouds) is a strategy to improve our understanding of aged carbonaceous aerosol, its seasonal evolution, and the mechanisms by which clouds adjust to the presence of the aerosol. The observational strategy centers on deploying the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility first ARM Mobile Facility (AMF1) cloud, aerosol, and atmospheric profiling instrumentation to Ascension Island, located within the trade-wind shallow cumulus regime (14.50W, 80S) 3000 km offshore of continental Africa. The location is within the latitude zone of the maximum outflow of aerosol, with the deepening boundary layer known to entrain free-tropospheric smoke. The primary activities for LASIC are: 1) to improve current knowledge on aged biomass burning aerosol and its radiative properties as a function of the seasonal cycle; 2) to use surface-based remote sensing to sensitively interrogate the atmosphere for the relative vertical location of aerosol and clouds; 3) to improve our understanding of the cloud adjustments to the presence of shortwave-absorbing aerosol within the vertical column, both through aerosol-radiation and through aerosol-cloud interactions; 4) to aid low cloud parameterization efforts for climate models. The measurements span June 1, 2016-October 31, 2017, encompassing two July-October biomass burning seasons. The August-September, 2016, months include an intensive operational period (IOP) with 8x/daily radiosondes. In 2017, from 16 August through 7 September, the United Kingdom Facility for Airborne Atmospheric Measurements (FAAM) BAe-146 plane was deployed from Ascension, providing complementary data on the atmosphere’s vertical structure as part of the Cloud-Aerosol-Radiation Interactions and Forcing (CLARIFY) project, with similar scientific goals. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Observations of Clouds above Aerosols and their Interactions (ORACLES) aircraft campaign, sharing similar objectives to LASIC, deployed from Namibia in September, 2016, and Sao Tome in August, 2017. The latter included a suitcase flight to Ascension spanning August 18-21. In 2017 a cavity-attenuated phase shift single-scattering albedo (CAPS-SSA) instrument belonging to Aerodyne was brought to Ascension, gathering data primarily for August, towards providing a second, independent measurement of aerosol absorption. Ascension Island is also an Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) site.

biomass burning, aerosols, black carbon, boundary-↗