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At least 37 records · Page 2

Ensemble Canonical Correlation Prediction of Seasonal Precipitation Over the United States: Raising the Bar for Dynamical Model Forecasts

This paper presents preliminary results of an ensemble canonical correlation (ECC) prediction scheme developed at the Climate and Radiation Branch, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center for determining the potential predictability of regional precipitation, and for climate downscaling studies. The scheme is tested on seasonal hindcasts of anomalous precipitation over the continental United States using global sea surface temperature (SST) for 1951-2000. To maximize the forecast skill derived from SST, the world ocean is divided into non-overlapping sectors. The canonical SST modes for each sector are used as the predictor for the ensemble hindcasts. Results show that the ECC yields a substantial (10-25%) increase in prediction skills for all the regions of the US in every season compared to traditional CCA prediction schemes. For the boreal winter, the tropical Pacific contributes the largest potential predictability to precipitation in the southwestern and southeastern regions, while the North Pacific and the North Atlantic are responsible to the enhanced forecast skills in the Pacific Northwest, the northern Great Plains and Ohio Valley. Most importantly, the ECC increases skill for summertime precipitation prediction and substantially reduces the spring predictability barrier over all the regions of the US continent. Besides SST, the ECC is designed with the flexibility to include any number of predictor fields, such as soil moisture, snow cover and additional local observations. The enhanced ECC forecast skill provides a new benchmark for evaluating dynamical model forecasts.

Lau, William K. M.↗

Electrochemical concentration cell ozonesonde accuracy and precision

This paper is concerned with the results of a study designed to evaluate experimentally the accuracy and precision of electrochemical concentration cell (ECC) ozonesondes as prepared and flown by NASA, as a function of altitude. A combination of dual-instrument soundings and laboratory work using an environmental chamber was employed in the study. The ECC ozonesonde is a small, balloon-borne sensor developed for obtaining vertical profiles of atmospheric ozone. Attention is given to the design of the employed environmental chamber, ozone and temperature profiles used in simulated ozonesonde soundings, absolute and relative ECC ozonesonde precision estimates determined with the environmental chamber and from dual-instrument balloon soundings, and the ECC ozonesonde accuracy.

Barnes, R. A.↗

A New Ensemble Canonical Correlation Prediction Scheme for Seasonal Precipitation

Department of Mathematical Sciences, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada This paper describes the fundamental theory of the ensemble canonical correlation (ECC) algorithm for the seasonal climate forecasting. The algorithm is a statistical regression sch eme based on maximal correlation between the predictor and predictand. The prediction error is estimated by a spectral method using the basis of empirical orthogonal functions. The ECC algorithm treats the predictors and predictands as continuous fields and is an improvement from the traditional canonical correlation prediction. The improvements include the use of area-factor, estimation of prediction error, and the optimal ensemble of multiple forecasts. The ECC is applied to the seasonal forecasting over various parts of the world. The example presented here is for the North America precipitation. The predictor is the sea surface temperature (SST) from different ocean basins. The Climate Prediction Center's reconstructed SST (1951-1999) is used as the predictor's historical data. The optimally interpolated global monthly precipitation is used as the predictand?s historical data. Our forecast experiments show that the ECC algorithm renders very high skill and the optimal ensemble is very important to the high value.

Kim, Kyu-Myong↗

An Automated Method for Ozonesonde Calibration: New Insights

An automated method for preparation of the electrochemical concentration cell (ECC) ozonesonde is presented. Development of a computer-controlled system for preparation and calibration of the ECC is an improvement over the manual preparation method, and reduces subjectivity considerably. Preparation measurements in digital form aids analysis of the ECC before release and enhances post-flight data certification. Calibration of ozonesondes over a range of ozone concentrations between 0 mPA and 30 mPA is discussed. This presentation describes the automatic system, gives examples of calibrations. The automated system enables comparison of varying potassium iodide (KI) concentrations that should allow adjustment of earlier ozonesonde data obtained with different KT concentrations used since 1970, i.e., 2, 1.5, 1, and 0.5 percent. Preliminary results indicate ECC accuracy has a strong dependence on the electrolyte concentration and should not be considered linear with altitude.

Schmidlin, F. J.↗

Performance evaluation of electrochemical concentration cell ozonesondes

Laboratory calibrations of more than a hundred electrochemical concentration cell (ECC) ozonesondes were determined relative to UV-photometry. The average intercept and slope, 0 plus or minus 5 nb and 0.96 plus or minus 0.06, respectively, indicate reasonable agreement with UV photometry, but with considerable variation from one ECC ozonesonde to another. The time required to reach 85% of the final reaction to a step-change in ozone concentration was found to average 51 seconds. Application of the individual calibrations to 20 sets of 1976 flight data reduced the average of the differences between ozonesonde and Dobson spectrophotometric measurements of total ozone from 3.9 to 1.3%. A similar treatment of a set of 10 1977 flight records improved the average ECC-Dobson agreement from -8.5 to -1.4%. Although systematic differences were reduced, no significant effect on the random variations was evident.

Torres, A. L.↗

Total ozone, ozone vertical distributions, and stratospheric temperatures at South Pole, Antarctica, in 1986 and 1987

Seventy-six electrochemical cell (ECC) ozonesondes were flown at South Pole, Antarctica, during 1987 in a continuing program to document year-round changes in Antarctica ozone that are dynamically and photochemically induced. Dobson spectrophotometer total ozone observations were also made. For the twilight months of March and September when Dobson instrument observations cannot be made at South Pole, total ozone amounts were deduced from the ECC ozonesonde soundings. ECC sonde total ozone data obtained during the polar night (April to August), supplemented the sparse total ozone data obtained from Dobson instrument moon observations. Similar ozone profile and total ozone observations were made at South Pole in 1986.

Komhyr, W. D.↗

Importance of eccentric actions in performance adaptations to resistance training

The importance of eccentric (ecc) muscle actions in resistance training for the maintenance of muscle strength and mass in hypogravity was investigated in experiments in which human subjects, divided into three groups, were asked to perform four-five sets of 6 to 12 repetitions (rep) per set of three leg press and leg extension exercises, 2 days each weeks for 19 weeks. One group, labeled 'con', performed each rep with only concentric (con) actions, while group con/ecc with performed each rep with only ecc actions; the third group, con/con, performed twice as many sets with only con actions. Control subjects did not train. It was found that resistance training wih both con and ecc actions induced greater increases in muscle strength than did training with only con actions.

Dudley, Gary A.↗

Influence of eccentric actions on the metabolic cost of resistance exercise

The contributions of concentric (con) and eccentric (ecc) muscle actions are evaluated with respect to increasing the metabolic cost of resistance exercise. Male subjects perform leg exercise with either con and ecc actions or only con actions while the net energy cost of the exercise is measured by oxygen consumption data. In both groups, the con actions require 290 J/kg body weight of total work, with an energy cost of 0.003 cal/J. The energy costs for the con/ecc actions of the second group is increased by 14 percent. The metabolic cost of leg exercise is concluded to be primarily generated by the con leg actions, and ecc leg actions increase the resistance with only a slight increase in required energy. The findings are significant for practical applications that emphasize the conservation of energy expenditure during exercise in spacecraft environments.

Dudley, Gary A.↗

Magnetic resonance imaging and electromyography as indexes of muscle function

A hypothesis is tested that exercise-induced magnetic resonance (MR) contrast shifts would relate to electromyography (EMG) amplitude if both measures reflect muscle use during exercise. Both magnetic resonance images (MRI) and EMG data were obtained for separate eccentric (ECC) and cocentric (CON) exercise of increasing intensity for seven subjects 30-32 yr old. CON and ECC actions caused increased integrated EMG (IEMG) and T2 values which were strongly related with relative resistance. The rate of increase and absolute value of both T2 and IEMG were found to be greater for CON than for ECC actions. For both actions IEMG and T2 were correlated. Data obtained suggest that surface IEMG accurately reflects the contractile behavior of muscle and exercise-induced increases in MRI T2 values reflect certain processes that scale with muscle use.

Adams, Gregory R.↗

Links between N-modular redundancy and the theory of error-correcting codes

N-Modular Redundancy (NMR) is one of the best known fault tolerance techniques. Replication of a module to achieve fault tolerance is in some ways analogous to the use of a repetition code where an information symbol is replicated as parity symbols in a codeword. Linear Error-Correcting Codes (ECC) use linear combinations of information symbols as parity symbols which are used to generate syndromes for error patterns. These observations indicate links between the theory of ECC and the use of hardware redundancy for fault tolerance. In this paper, we explore some of these links and show examples of NMR systems where identification of good and failed elements is accomplished in a manner similar to error correction using linear ECC's.

Bobin, V.↗

Extended cooperative control synthesis

This paper reports on research for extending the Cooperative Control Synthesis methodology to include a more accurate modeling of the pilot's controller dynamics. Cooperative Control Synthesis (CCS) is a methodology that addresses the problem of how to design control laws for piloted, high-order, multivariate systems and/or non-conventional dynamic configurations in the absence of flying qualities specifications. This is accomplished by emphasizing the parallel structure inherent in any pilot-controlled, augmented vehicle. The original CCS methodology is extended to include the Modified Optimal Control Model (MOCM), which is based upon the optimal control model of the human operator developed by Kleinman, Baron, and Levison in 1970. This model provides a modeling of the pilot's compensation dynamics that is more accurate than the simplified pilot dynamic representation currently in the CCS methodology. Inclusion of the MOCM into the CCS also enables the modeling of pilot-observation perception thresholds and pilot-observation attention allocation affects. This Extended Cooperative Control Synthesis (ECCS) allows for the direct calculation of pilot and system open- and closed-loop transfer functions in pole/zero form and is readily implemented in current software capable of analysis and design for dynamic systems. Example results based upon synthesizing an augmentation control law for an acceleration command system in a compensatory tracking task using the ECCS are compared with a similar synthesis performed by using the original CCS methodology. The ECCS is shown to provide augmentation control laws that yield more favorable, predicted closed-loop flying qualities and tracking performance than those synthesized using the original CCS methodology.

Davidson, John B.↗

Results of the NY-Alesund ozone measurements intercomparison NAOMI

Worldwide, about ten Differential Absorption Lidars are used for long-term monitoring of stratospheric ozone. These systems are an important component of the Network for the Detection of Stratospheric Change. Although DIALs are self-calibrating in principle, regular intercomparisons with other ozone-lidars, microwave radiometers or ozone-sondes are highly desirable to ensure high data quality at a well known level. The Network for the Detection of Stratospheric Change (NDSC) validation policy suggests that such intercomparisons be "blind", meaning all participants submit their data to an impartial referee, without seeing results from the other participants. Here we report on the "blind" intercomparison taking place from January 20th to February 10th 1998 at Ny-Alesund, Spitsbergen (78.92 deg N, 11.95 deg E). Participating groups were from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Potsdam, operating the NDSC DIAL system at Ny-Alesund, from the University of Bremen operating the NDSC microwave radiometer for ozone profiling at Ny-Alesund, and the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center group with the "NDSC travelling standard" STROZ-LITE. The first author acted as the impartial referee. Also used for the intercomparison were data from ECC-6A/Vaisala RS80 ozone sondes routinely launched at Ny-Alesund by the AWI group. A 1% KI solution (3 ml) and the 1986 ECC pump correction (1.092 at 5 hPa) are used. The ECC-data were available to all participants during the campaign and thus were not "blind". Table 1 summarizes the expected performance of the instruments participating in the ozone intercomparison reported in this paper.

Steinbrecht, W.↗

An Interoperability Consideration in Selecting Domain Parameters for Elliptic Curve Cryptography

Elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) will be an important technology for electronic privacy and authentication in the near future. There are many published specifications for elliptic curve cryptosystems, most of which contain detailed descriptions of the process for the selection of domain parameters. Selecting strong domain parameters ensures that the cryptosystem is robust to attacks. Due to a limitation in several published algorithms for doubling points on elliptic curves, some ECC implementations may produce incorrect, inconsistent, and incompatible results if domain parameters are not carefully chosen under a criterion that we describe. Few documents specify the addition or doubling of points in such a manner as to avoid this problematic situation. The safety criterion we present is not listed in any ECC specification we are aware of, although several other guidelines for domain selection are discussed in the literature. We provide a simple example of how a set of domain parameters not meeting this criterion can produce catastrophic results, and outline a simple means of testing curve parameters for interoperable safety over doubling.

Ivancic, Will↗

Profiling the SO2 Plume from Volcan Turrialba: Ticosonde Balloon Measurements Compared with OMI and OMPS Retrievals

The summit of Volcan Turrialba (elev. 3340 m) lies less than 50 km upstream in the prevailing easterlies from the Ticosonde balloon launch site at San Jose, Costa Rica, where ECC ozone sondes have been launched regularly since 2005. In 2006 we began to see telltale notches in the ozone profiles in the altitude range between 2 and 6 km. Given the proximity of Turrialba, it seemed likely that SO2 in the volcano's plume was interfering in the chemical reaction in the ECC ozone sonde used to detect ozone. In early 2010, fumarolic activity in the Turrialba crater increased strongly, and the profile notches in our soundings increased in frequency as well, consistent with this hypothesis. In February 2012 we tested a dual ECC sonde system, where an additional sonde is flown on the same payload using a selective SO2 filter. The difference of the measurements in the dual sonde is a direct measure of the amount of SO2 encountered. This first dual sonde passed through the plume, and the data indicated a tropospheric SO2 column of 1.4 DU, comparing favorably with a total column of 1.7 DU in the OMI 3-km linear fit (LF) product at the sonde profile location and at nearly the same time. We are now launching dual sondes on a regular basis with 18 launches in the first 12 months through July 2014; 11 of these have detectable SO2 signals. These soundings have great potential for validation of the Aura OMI and the Suomi-NPP OMPS retrievals of SO2. Here we present the sonde measurements and compare them with two satellite datasets: the Aura OMI Linear Fit (LF) product and the Suomi-NPP OMPS Principal Components Analysis (PCA) boundary layer product. The PCA algorithm reduces retrieval noise and artifacts by more accurately accounting for various interferences in SO2 retrievals such as O3 absorption and rotational Raman scattering. The comparisons with the in situ observations indicate a significant improvement of the PCA algorithm in capturing relatively weak volcanic SO2 signals.

sondes↗

Tropospheric Ozone Assessment Report: Tropospheric Ozone From 1877 to 2016, Observed Levels, Trends and Uncertainties

From the earliest observations of ozone in the lower atmosphere in the 19th century, both measurement methods and the portion of the globe observed have evolved and changed. These methods have different uncertainties and biases, and the data records differ with respect to coverage (space and time), information content, and representativeness. In this study, various ozone measurement methods and ozone datasets are reviewed and selected for inclusion in the historical record of background ozone levels, based on relationship of the measurement technique to the modern UV absorption standard, absence of interfering pollutants, representativeness of the well-mixed boundary layer and expert judgement of their credibility. There are significant uncertainties with the 19th and early 20th-century measurements related to interference of other gases. Spectroscopic methods applied before 1960 have likely underestimated ozone by as much as 11% at the surface and by about 24% in the free troposphere, due to the use of differing ozone absorption coefficients. There is no unambiguous evidence in the measurement record back to 1896 that typical mid-latitude background surface ozone values were below about 20 nmol mol–1, but there is robust evidence for increases in the temperate and polar regions of the northern hemisphere of 30–70%, with large uncertainty, between the period of historic observations, 1896–1975, and the modern period (1990–2014). Independent historical observations from balloons and aircraft indicate similar changes in the free troposphere. Changes in the southern hemisphere are much less. Regional representativeness of the available observations remains a potential source of large errors, which are difficult to quantify. The great majority of validation and intercomparison studies of free tropospheric ozone measurement methods use ECC ozonesondes as reference. Compared to UV-absorption measurements they show a modest (~1–5% ±5%) high bias in the troposphere, but no evidence of a change with time. Umkehr, lidar, and FTIR methods all show modest low biases relative to ECCs, and so, using ECC sondes as a transfer standard, all appear to agree to within one standard deviation with the modern UV-absorption standard. Other sonde types show an increase of 5–20% in sensitivity to tropospheric ozone from 1970–1995. Biases and standard deviations of satellite retrieval comparisons are often 2–3 times larger than those of other free tropospheric measurements. The lack of information on temporal changes of bias for satellite measurements of tropospheric ozone is an area of concern for long-term trend studies.

UV absorption standard↗

An Examination of the Recent Stability of Ozonesonde Global Network Data

The recent Assessment of Standard Operating Procedures for OzoneSondes (ASOPOS 2.0; WMO/GAW Report #268) addressed questions of homogeneity and long-term stability in global electrochemical concentration cell (ECC) ozone sounding network time series. Among its recommendations was adoption of a standard for evaluating data quality in ozonesonde time series. Total column ozone (TCO) derived from the sondes compared to TCO from Aura’s Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) is a primary quality indicator. Comparisons of sonde ozone with Aura’s Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) are used to assess the stability of stratospheric ozone. This paper provides a comprehensive examination of global ozonesonde network data stability and accuracy since 2004 in light of the sudden post-2013 TCO “dropoff” of ~3-4% that was reported previously at select stations (Stauffer et al., 2020). Comparisons with Aura OMI TCO averaged across the network of 60 stations are stable within about ±2% over the past 18 years. Sonde TCO has similar stability compared to three other TCO satellite instruments, and the stratospheric ozone measurements average to within ±5% of MLS from 50 to 10 hPa. Thus, sonde data are reliable for trends, but with a caveat applied for a subset of dropoff stations in the tropics and subtropics. The dropoff is associated with only one of two major ECC instrument types. A detailed examination of ECC serial numbers pinpoints the timing of the dropoff. However, we find that overall, ozonesonde data are stable and accurate compared to independent measurements over the past two decades.

Ryan M. Stauffer↗

Electrochemical concentration cell ozonesonde performance evaluation

A large number of electrochemical concentration cell (EDD) ozonesondes were calibrated relative to ultraviolet photometric absorption (254 nm) to determine their precision and accuracy. The average agreement with UV photometry was found to be good, but with considerable variation from one ECC ozonesonde to another. Applying individual calibrations to vertical ozone profiles reduced the systematic differences between ECC ozonesonde total ozone values and Dobson spectrophotometric determinations of the same quantity, but did not improve random differences.

Torres, A. L.↗

Performance characteristics of the electrochemical concentration cell ozonesonde

A large number of electrochemical concentration cell (ECC) ozonesondes were calibrated in relation to a UV photometric absorption ozone instrument prior to using the ozonesondes in atmospheric soundings. The two methods of measuring ozone were in reasonable agreement on the average, but there was considerable variation from one ozonesonde to another. Averaging the individual linear regressions gives an ECC ozone concentration equal to 0 + or - 8 nbar plus (0.96 + or - 0.10) times the concentration determined with the UV instrument, where uncertainties represent 90% confidence limits. Applying individual calibration corrections to atmospheric sounding data reduced the mean difference between Dobson spectrophotometric measurements of total ozone overburdens and corresponding values obtained from ozonesonde data from -8.5 + or - 8.2 to -1.4 + or - 7.3% for a series of measurements carried out in 1977. Corresponding uncorrected and corrected differences averaged 3.2 + or - 9.7 and 1.9 + or - 10.6%, respectively, for soundings carried out in 1976.

Torres, A. L.↗