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At least 361 records · Page 20
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2024

Scaling Up: Demonstrating Risk Reduction and Cost Compression for Commercial Heat Pump Water Heaters - CRADA 625 (Abstract)

Commercial heat pump water heater (CHPWH) systems significantly decarbonize the commercial and multifamily sectors by eliminating the reliance on gas-fired water heating. CHPWH systems are also well suited to include load shift controls that enable load-up and shed commands for supporting grid reliability and time-of-use pricing structure. However, they have not had wide adoption due to factors including price, complexity, and perceived risk. Although CHPWHs have been available in the US for decades, they have not made significant market gains in part because the systems have required significant and costly engineering design expertise and proved lackluster performance. Successful widespread market adoption requires a different approach; a shift from the current custom specialized expertise project design and installation to a repeatable approach that requires little specialized knowledge or expertise and can deliver persistent performance. Using this type of holistic systems approach requires effectively integrating four CHPWH system key components: primary air-to-water heat pumps; primary thermal storage tanks, a temperature maintenance system, and a control system which has capabilities to manage the primary heat pump cycles, any back-up, supplemental, or temperature maintenance heating, alarms, and grid connectivity allowing for demand response (DR), and/or load shifting. The project team has developed and will implement a suite of tools to support faster, less expensive, and more reliable field installations of CHPWH technology and with the resulting data used to further improve the tool set. These tools include: (1) A tool for optimizing system size and costs. (2) A tool that predicts annual energy use and overall system efficiency. (3) The Advanced Water Heater Specification (AWHS 8.0) defining the components of a full CHPWH system addressing performance requirements by climate zone. (4) The Qualified Products List: (QPL) of approved products that meet the specifications requirements. (5) Training materials including online on-demand modules, instructor-led training, and virtual interactive video tours of CHPWH installations in multifamily buildings. Demonstration site identification in low-income buildings in underserved communities is currently underway. Preliminarily, the team anticipates having three demonstrations in the Pacific Northwest and three in the Northeast for a total of six sites. After the demonstration sites are finalized, and M&V instrumentation installations are complete, the team will gather performance data and confirm whether the CHPWH systems perform as predicted and use the data to improve the existing tools.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
NASA NTRS2004

How Consistent are Recent Variations in the Tropical Energy and Water Cycle Resolved by Satellite Measurements?

One notable aspect of Earth's climate is that although the planet appears to be very close to radiative balance at top-of-atmosphere (TOA), the atmosphere itself and underlying surface are not. Profound exchanges of energy between the atmosphere and oceans, land and cryosphere occur over a range of time scales. Recent evidence from broadband satellite measurements suggests that even these TOA fluxes contain some detectable variations. Our ability to measure and reconstruct radiative fluxes at the surface and at the top of atmosphere is improving rapidly. One question is 'How consistent, physically, are these diverse remotely-sensed data sets'? The answer is of crucial importance to understanding climate processes, improving physical models, and improving remote sensing algorithms. In this work we will evaluate two recently released estimates of radiative fluxes, focusing primarily on surface estimates. The International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project 'FD' radiative flux profiles are available from mid-1983 to near present and have been constructed by driving the radiative transfer physics from the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) global model with ISCCP clouds and TOVS (TIROS Operational Vertical Sounder)thermodynamic profiles. Full and clear sky SW and LW fluxes are produced. A similar product from the NASA/GEWEX Surface Radiation Budget Project using different radiative flux codes and thermodynamics from the NASA/Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS-1) assimilation model makes a similar calculation of surface fluxes. However this data set currently extends only through 1995. We also employ precipitation measurements from the Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) and the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM). Finally, ocean evaporation estimates from the Special Sensor Microwave Imager (SSM/I) are considered as well as derived evaporation from the NCAR/NCEP Reanalysis. Additional information is included in the original extended abstract.

Robertson, F. R.↗
NASA NTRS2008

Simulation of the Impact of New Aircraft and Satellite-Based Ocean Surface Wind Measurements on H*Wind Analyses

Accurate observations of surface ocean vector winds (OVW) with high spatial and temporal resolution are required for understanding and predicting tropical cyclones. As NASA's QuikSCAT and Navy's WindSat operate beyond their design life, many members of the weather and climate science communities recognize the importance of developing new observational technologies and strategies to meet the essential need for OVW information to improve hurricane intensity and location forecasts. The Hurricane Imaging Radiometer (HIRAD) is an innovative technology development which offers new and unique remotely sensed satellite observations of both extreme oceanic wind events and strong precipitation. It is based on the airborne Stepped Frequency Microwave Radiometer (SFMR), which is the only proven remote sensing technique for observing tropical cyclone (TC) ocean surface wind speeds and rain rates. The proposed HIRAD instrument advances beyond the current nadir viewing SFMR to an equivalent wide-swath SFMR imager using passive microwave synthetic thinned aperture radiometer (STAR) technology. This sensor will operate over 4-7 GHz (C-band frequencies) where the required TC remote sensing physics has been validated by both SFMR and WindSat radiometers. The instrument is described in more detail in a paper by Jones et al. presented to the Tropical Meteorology Special Symposium at this AMS Annual Meeting. Simulated HIRAD passes through a simulation of hurricane Frances are being developed to demonstrate HIRAD estimation of surface wind speed over a wide swath in the presence of heavy rain. These are currently being used in "quick" OSSEs (Observing System Simulation Experiments) with H'Wind analyses as the discriminating tool. The H'Wind analysis, a product of the Hurricane Research Division of NOAA's Atlantic , Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory, brings together wind measurements from a variety of observation platforms into an objective analysis of the distribution of wind speeds in a tropical cyclone. This product is designed to improve understanding of the extent and strength of the wind field, and to improve the assessment of hurricane intensity. See http://www.aoml.noaa._ov/hrd/data sub/wind.html. Observations have been simulated from both aircraft altitudes and space. The simulated flight patterns for the aircraft platform cases have been designed to duplicate the timing and flight patterns used in routine NOAA and USAF hurricane surveillance flights, and the spaceborne case simulates a TRMM orbit and altitude.

Miller, TImothy L.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Exploring the Elevated Water Vapor Signal Associated With the Free Tropospheric Biomass Burning Plume Over the Southeast Atlantic Ocean

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, resulting in aerosol effects which vary with time and location. Much work has focused on the effects of these aerosol plumes, but previous studies have also described an elevated free tropospheric water vapor signal over the SEA. Water vapor influences climate in its own right, and it is especially important to consider atmospheric water vapor when quantifying aerosol–cloud interactions and aerosol radiative effects. Here we present airborne observations made during the NASA ORACLES (ObseRvations of Aerosols above CLouds and their intEractionS) campaign over the SEA Ocean. In observations collected from multiple independent instruments on the NASA P-3 aircraft (from near-surface to 6–7 km), we observe a strongly linear correlation between pollution indicators (carbon monoxide (CO) and aerosol loading) and atmospheric water vapor content, seen at all altitudes above the boundary layer. The focus of the current study is on the especially strong correlation observed during the ORACLES-2016 deployment (out of Walvis Bay, Namibia), but a similar relationship is also observed in the August 2017 and October 2018 ORACLES deployments. Using reanalyses from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) and Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications, Version 2 (MERRA-2), 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 southern African easterly jet (AEJ-S). Our analysis indicates that air masses 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 ∼5–6 km) 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. Due to a combination of conditions and mixing between the smoky, moist continental boundary layer and the dry and fairly clean upper-troposphere air above (∼6 km), the smoky, humid air is transported by strong zonal winds and then advected over the SEA (to the ORACLES flight region) following largely isentropic trajectories. Hybrid Single-Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory model (HYSPLIT) back trajectories support this interpretation. This work thus gives insights into the conditions and processes which cause water vapor to covary with plume strength. Better understanding of this relationship, including how it varies spatially and temporally, is important to accurately quantify direct, semi-direct, and indirect aerosol effects over this region.

Kristina Pistone↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

High Latitude Considerations in the Latest GPCP monthly and daily products (V3.1)

The Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) product is a popular combined satellite-gauge precipitation data set in which the long-term standards of consistency and homogeneity is underlined. Here we discuss various high latitude analysis considered in the recently released GPCP V3.1 monthly and daily products. Satellite data are used over land and ocean and obtained from the Special Sensor Microwave Imager (SSMI), Special Sensor Microwave Imager/Sounder (SSMIS), geostationary imagers and polar orbiting infrared sounders. GPCP uses the Global Precipitation Climatology Centre (GPCC) over land, as its in situ component, but prior to combination with satellite data GPCC estimates are adjusted for gauge undercatch. Advanced sensors aboard the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM), CloudSat, and Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission have enabled more accurate estimation of rain and snowfall rates in recent years. Started with GPCP V3.1 these observations are integrated into GPCP through the development of the Tropical Combined Climatology (TCC) used at lower latitudes and the Merged CloudSat, TRMM, and GPM (MCTG) climatology used over the extra tropics and higher latitudes. Improved calibrations of Television-Infrared Operational Satellite (TIROS) Operational Vertical Sounder (TOVS) and Advanced Infrared Sounder (AIRS) precipitation are used outside 60ºN-S, where inside this zone the Goddard Profiling (GPROF) algorithm retrievals from SSMI/SSMIS is used to calibrate geostationary IR based precipitation estimate at monthly scale. The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) mass change observations are used to determine snowfall accumulations over frozen land and arctic basins and to assess gauge undercatch corrections. Observations of snow on sea ice from NASA’s Operation IceBridge (OIB) flights are utilized as an additional tool for snowfall assessment over sea ice. GPCP V3.1 has higher spatial resolution (0.5ox0.5o) than earlier versions (2.5ox2.5o) over both land and ocean, going back to 1983. Version 3 Daily product uses the Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission (IMERG) Final Run V06 estimates, where available (initially restricted to 60°N-S), as well as rescaled TOVS/AIRS data in high-latitude areas, all calibrated to the GPCP V3.1 Monthly estimate. GPCP V3.1 shows about 6% increase in global oceanic precipitation and about 4.5% increase over global land and ocean compared to the previous version (V2.3), some major changes occur over the ocean and around 40oS and 60 oS. We will discuss other important changes of GPCP V3.1, compared to the earlier versions, and our future plans. Through this presentation we will also discuss that while ACCP will provide key information about precipitation, synergistic use of other Earth observing systems (e.g., mass change; recognized as a designated mission in 2017 decadal survey) can also help refine precipitation analysis, especially in high latitude and cold regions.

Ali Behrangi↗
DOE OSTI2021

Exploring the elevated water vapor signal associated with the free tropospheric biomass burning plume over the southeast Atlantic Ocean

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, resulting in aerosol effects which vary with time and location. Much work has focused on the effects of these aerosol plumes, but previous studies have also described an elevated free tropospheric water vapor signal over the SEA. Water vapor influences climate in its own right, and it is especially important to consider atmospheric water vapor when quantifying aerosol-cloud interactions and aerosol radiative effects. Here we present airborne observations made during the NASA ORACLES (ObseRvations of Aerosols above CLouds and their intEractionS) campaign over the SEA Ocean. In observations collected from multiple independent instruments on the NASA P-3 aircraft (from near-surface to 6-7 km), we observe a strongly linear correlation between pollution indicators (carbon monoxide (CO) and aerosol loading) and atmospheric water vapor content, seen at all altitudes above the boundary layer. The focus of the current study is on the especially strong correlation observed during the ORACLES-2016 deployment (out of Walvis Bay, Namibia), but a similar relationship is also observed in the August 2017 and October 2018 ORACLES deployments. Using reanalyses from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) and Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications, Version 2 (MERRA-2), 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 southern African easterly jet (AEJ-S). Our analysis indicates that air masses 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 ~5-6 km) 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. Due to a combination of conditions and mixing between the smoky, moist continental boundary layer and the dry and fairly clean upper-troposphere air above (~6 km), the smoky, humid air is transported by strong zonal winds and then advected over the SEA (to the ORACLES flight region) following largely isentropic trajectories. Hybrid Single-Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory model (HYSPLIT) back trajectories support this interpretation. This work thus gives insights into the conditions and processes which cause water vapor to covary with plume strength. Better understanding of this relationship, including how it varies spatially and temporally, is important to accurately quantify direct, semi-direct, and indirect aerosol effects over this region.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
NASA NTRS2001

The Bi-Modal Pattern of the Summer Circulation Over South America

Submonthly variations in warm-season (January-February) precipitation over South America, in special over the Amazon basin, central southwest Brazil, north Argentina, and Paraguay are shown to be strongly linked to variations in the moisture entering the continent from the Atlantic ocean. Two distinct regimes of lower tropospheric winds (westerlies and easterlies) were observed in Rondonia during the Wet Season Atmospheric Mesoscale Campaign (WETAMC) component of the Large Scale Atmosphere-Biosphere Experiment in Amazonia (LBA) and the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) field campaign. The westerly (easterly) winds were associated with the strong (weak) convective activity over the South Atlantic Convergence Zone (SACZ). The whole period of this study (January-February) was divided into SACZ and NSACZ (No SACZ) events. The vertically integrated moisture fluxes over the Amazon and Prata basin from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration/Goddard Data Assimilation Office (NASA/DAO) assimilation show that during SACZ (NSACZ) event strong (weak) convergence occurred over the Amazon basin with divergence (convergence) over the Prata basin. Submonthly variations in the SACZ also can be linked to extreme climate anomalies such as droughts or flooding conditions over the Amazon and Prata basin.

Herdies, Dirceu Luis↗
DOE OSTI2020

DPSIR-ESA Vulnerability Assessment (DEVA) Framework: Synthesis, Foundational Overview, and Expert Case Studies

Land resources are central to understanding the relationship between humans and their environment. We broadly define a land resource to include all the ecological resources of climate, water, soil, landforms, flora, and fauna, and all the socioeconomic systems that interact with agriculture, forestry, and other land uses within some system boundary. Understanding the vulnerability of land resources to changes in land management or climate forcing is critical to developing sustainable land management strategies. Vulnerability assessments are complex given the multiple uses of the assessments, the multi-disciplinary nature of the problem, limited understanding, the dynamic structure of vulnerability, scale issues, and problems with identifying effective vulnerability indicators. Here, we propose a novel conceptual framework for vulnerability assessments of land resources that combines the driver– pressure–state–impact–response (DPSIR) framework adopted by the European Environment Agency to describe interactions between society and the environment, and the exposure-sensitivity-adaptive capacity (ESA) framework used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to assess impacts of climate change. The DPSIR-ESA Vulnerability Assessment (DEVA) framework operationalizes the process of assessing the vulnerability of a target system to external stressors. The DEVA framework includes the following elements: 1) Definition of the target system (Land resource), 2) Description of internal characteristics of the target system (State), 3) Description of target system vulnerability indicators (Adaptive capacity, Sensitivity), 4) Description of stressor characteristics (Drivers, Pressures), 5) Description of stressor vulnerability indicators (Exposure), 6) Description of target system response to stressors (Impacts), and 7) Description of modifications to target systems or stressors (Responses). In stating that they have “applied the DEVA framework”, analysts acknowledge that they have (a) considered the full breadth of each DEVA element, (b) have made conscious decisions to limit the scope and complexity of certain elements, and (c) can communicate both the rationale for these decisions and the impact of these decisions on the vulnerability assessment results and recommendations. The DEVA framework was refined during invited presentations and follow-up discussions from a series of Special Sessions with leading experts at two successive ASABE Annual International Meetings. Six case studies drawn from the sessions elaborate upon the DEVA framework and provide concrete examples of the key concepts. The DEVA approach gives engineers, planners, and analysts a new, flexible framework to apply a broad array of useful tools toward assessment of land resource system vulnerability.

Anandhi, Aauvadi↗
NASA NTRS2009

UAS Related Activities at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center

NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center is completing its refurbishment and initial flights of one the pre-production Global Hawk aircraft it received from the U.S. Air Force. NASA Dryden has an agreement with the Global Hawk s manufacturer, Northrop Grumman, to partner in the refurbishment and flight operations of the vehicles. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has also partnered on the project and is assisting NASA with project management and pilot responsibilities for the aircraft. NASA and NOAA will be using the Global Hawks to conduct earth science research. The earth science community is increasing utilizing UAS of all sizes and capabilities to collect important data on a variety of issues including important global climate change issues. To pursue the data collection needs of the science community there is a growing demand for international collaboration with respect to operating UAS in global airspace. Operations of NASA s Ikhana aircraft continued this past year. The Ikhana is a modified Predator B UAS. A UAS dedicated to research at NASA Dryden is the X-48B blended wing body research aircraft. Flight tests with the 500- pound, remotely piloted test vehicle are now in a block 4 phase involving parameter identification and maneuvers to research the limits of the engine in stall situations. NASA s participation in the blended wing body research effort is focused on fundamental, advanced flight dynamics and structural design concepts within the Subsonic Fixed Wing project, part of the Fundamental Aeronautics program managed through NASA s Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate. Potential benefits of the aircraft include increased volume for carrying capacity, efficient aerodynamics for reduced fuel burn and possibly significant reductions in noise due to propulsion integration options. NASA Dryden continues to support the UAS industry by facilitating access to three specially designated test areas on Edwards Air Force Base for the development of small UAS.

Bauer, Jeffrey E.↗
NASA NTRS1992

Detecting change as it occurs

Traditionally climate changes have been detected from long series of observations and long after they have happened. Our 'inverse sequential' procedure, for detecting change as soon as it occurs, describes the existing or most recent data by their frequency distribution. Its parameter(s) are estimated both from the existing set of observations and from the same set augmented by 1,2,....j new observations. Individual-value probability products ('likelihoods') are used to form ratios which yield two probabilities for erroneously accepting the existing parameter(s) as valid for the augmented data set, and vice versa. A genuine parameter change is signaled when these probabilities (or a more stable compound probability) show a progressive decrease. New parameter values can then be estimated from the new observations alone using standard statistical techniques. The inverse sequential procedure will be illustrated for global annual mean temperatures (assumed normally distributed), and for annual numbers of North Atlantic hurricanes (assumed to represent Poisson distributions). The procedure was developed, but not yet tested, for linear or exponential trends, and for chi-squared means or degrees of freedom, a special measure of autocorrelation.

Radok, Uwe↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

AI Foundation Models for Science: An Open Collaborative Initiative

Foundation Models (FMs), AI models designed to replace task-specific models, are increasingly being recognized for their versatility across numerous downstream applications. These models, trained using self-supervised techniques on any type of sequence data, circumvent the need for large annotated datasets, a major bottleneck in traditional AI model development. FMs can be applied to downstream tasks using few-shot learning and fine-tuning, significantly reducing the need for large labeled training datasets and computational resources. However, the development of FMs requires substantial resources, including access to data and compute power, expertise in the latest models, and specialized scientific knowledge for systematic evaluation. It is challenging for a single group to possess all these capabilities. To address this, NASA IMPACT has initiated an open collaborative effort, leveraging partnerships with the private sector and other groups within and outside NASA, to jointly build FMs. The overarching goal is to develop a consistent and collaborative approach to building FMs for high-value science datasets. This initiative has fostered collaboration within NASA and with external partners, including IBM Research, Clark University, DOE’s ORNL, ESA, and USGS. The effort focuses on identifying key datasets with a wide range of downstream applications, pretraining and building FMs using modified transformer architectures, evaluating compute infrastructure needs, and sharing models, pretraining and fine-tuning code, and data with the community. Furthermore, it aims to train the Earth science community to fine-tune these models for various downstream applications. Our initial effort resulted in the creation of a 100 million parameter HLS Geospatial Model within six months, which was released on HuggingFace. We are now expanding our scope to include data from weather and climate models and investigating multimodal models. We invite those interested in participating in this effort to join us by sharing their use cases, expertise, or data.

Rahul Ramachandran↗
NASA NTRS1993

Analysis of the tropospheric water distribution during FIRE 2

The Penn State/NCAR mesoscale model, as adapted for use at ARC, was used as a testbed for the development and validation of cloud models for use in General Circulation Models (GCM's). This modeling approach also allows us to intercompare the predictions of the various cloud schemes within the same dynamical framework. The use of the PSU/NCAR mesoscale model also allows us to compare our results with FIRE-II (First International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project Regional Experiment) observations, instead of climate statistics. Though a promising approach, our work to date revealed several difficulties. First, the model by design is limited in spatial coverage and is only run for 12 to 48 hours at a time. Hence the quality of the simulation will depend heavily on the initial conditions. The poor quality of upper-tropospheric measurements of water vapor is well known and the situation is particularly bad for mid-latitude winter since the coupling with the surface is less direct than in summer so that relying on the model to spin-up a reasonable moisture field is not always successful. Though one of the most common atmospheric constituents, water vapor is relatively difficult to measure accurately, especially operationally over large areas. The standard NWS sondes have little sensitivity at the low temperatures where cirrus form and the data from the GOES 6.7 micron channel is difficult to quantify. For this reason, the goals of FIRE Cirrus II included characterizing the three-dimensional distribution of water vapor and clouds. In studying the data from FIRE Cirrus II, it was found that no single special observation technique provides accurate regional distributions of water vapor. The Raman lidar provides accurate measurements, but only at the Hub, for levels up to 10 km, and during nighttime hours. The CLASS sondes are more sensitive to moisture at low temperatures than are the NWS sondes, but the four stations only cover an area of two hundred kilometers on a side. The aircraft give the most accurate measurements of water vapor, but are limited in spatial and temporal coverage. This problem is partly alleviated by the use of the MAPS analyses, a four-dimensional data assimilation system that combines the previous 3-hour forecast with the available observations, but its upper-level moisture analyses are sometimes deficient because of the vapor measurement problem. An attempt was made to create a consistent four-dimensional description of the water vapor distribution during the second IFO by subjectively combining data from a variety of sources, including MAPS analyses, CLASS sondes, SPECTRE sondes, NWS sondes, GOES satellite analyses, radars, lidars, and microwave radiometers.

Westphal, Douglas L.↗
NASA NTRS2018

Biocene 2018 - Welcome to the Period of New Life

Biocene is the period of new life. When our descendants look back at this period in time, they will see evidence, in the geologic and electronic record, of anthropic climate change, growing population, and scarcity of resources. But they will also see the rebirth of human ingenuity as we overcame the challenges that faced us through nature-inspired exploration. The Periodic Table of Life (PeTaL) is a proposed tool and open source framework that uses artificial intelligence to aid in the systematic inquiry of biology for its application to human systems. This presentation defines the PeTaL concept and workflow. Biomimicry, biophysics, biomimetics, bionics and numerous other terms refer to the use of biology and biological principles to inform practices in other disciplines. For the most part, the domain of inquiry in these fields have been confined to extant biological models with the proponents of biomimicry often citing the evolutionary success of extant organisms relative to extinct ones. The primary objective of this paper is to expand the domain of inquiry for human processes that seek to model those that are, were or could be found in nature with examples that relate to the field of aerospace and to spur development of tools that can work together to accelerate the use of artificial intelligence in problem solving. Specifically specialized fields such as paleomimesis, anthropomimesis and physioteleology are proposed in conjunction with artificial evolution. Blockchain technology may be vital in allowing open source design tools such as PeTaL to democratize design and yet protect intellectual property. The overarching philosophy outlined here can be thought of as physiomimetics, a holistic and systematic way of learning from natural history. The backbone of PeTaL integrates an unstructured database with an ontological model consisting of function, morphology, environment, state of matter and ecosystem. Tools include text classification, thesaurus, data visualization, and analysis. Applications of PeTaL include guiding human space exploration, understanding human and geological history, and discovering new or extinct life.

Biocene↗
DOE OSTI2025

Homoeolog expression divergence contributes to time of day changes in transcriptomic and glucosinolate responses to prolonged water limitation in Brassica napus

SUMMARY Water availability is a major determinant of crop production, and rising temperatures from climate change are leading to more extreme droughts. To combat the effects of climate change on crop yields, we need to develop varieties that are more tolerant to water‐limited conditions. We aimed to determine how diverse crop types (winter/spring oilseed, tuberous, and leafy) of the allopolyploid Brassica napus , a species that contains the economically important rapeseed oilseed crop, respond to prolonged water limitation. We exposed plants to an 80% reduction in water and assessed growth and color on a high‐throughput phenotyping system over 4 weeks and ended the experiment with tissue collection for a time course transcriptomic study. We found an overall reduction in growth across cultivars but to varying degrees. Diel transcriptome analyses revealed significant accession‐specific changes in time‐of‐day regulation of photosynthesis, carbohydrate metabolism, and sulfur metabolism. Interestingly, there was extensive variation in which homoeologs from the two parental subgenomes responded to water limitation across crop types that could be due to differences in regulatory regions in these allopolyploid lines. Follow‐up experiments on select cultivars confirmed that plants maintained photosynthetic health during the prolonged water limitation while slowing growth. In two cultivars examined, we found significant time of day changes in levels of glucosinolates, sulfur‐ and nitrogen ‐rich specialized metabolites, consistent with the diel transcriptomic responses. These results suggest that these lines are adjusting their sulfur and nitrogen stores under water‐limited conditions through distinct time of day regulation.

Ricono, Angela [University of Minnesota St. Paul M↗
NASA NTRS1998

Biomarkers in Carbonate Thermal Springs: Implications for Mars

Evidence of possible relict biogenic activity has been reported in carbonate inclusions within martian meteorite ALH 84001. The initial evidence included ovoid and elongated forms 50 - 500 nanometers in length, morphologically similar to but significantly smaller than many terrestrial microbes. More recently, thin structures resembling the remains of organic biofilms have been reported in the same meteorite. Carbonates have also been discussed in the context of Mars sample return missions. Thermal spring deposits have often been cited as prime locations for exobiological exploration. By analogy to Earth, specialized microbes may have existed in the heated, mineralized waters, and precipitates of carbonate and/or silica from these waters may have trapped and preserved evidence of life. Since the geological interactions that produce thermal springs can be recognized in orbital imagery, directed searches for microfossils in such deposits are deemed possible. We are engaged in a study of the signatures produced by contemporary biogenic activity (biomarkers) in carbonate thermal springs. We are examining the microbes that live in such environments and the preservation of microbial forms, biofilms, and petrographic fabrics indicative of life in thermal spring mineral deposits. This work is part of a much more extensive study to refine the appropriate tools, techniques, and approaches to seek evidence of life in a range of planetary samples. A deeper understanding of biological signatures will prepare us for the detailed search for life on Mars and eventually on other planets. Overall. the study of biomarkers in rocks and soils will provide insight into the evolution of life because such signatures are a record of how life interacts with its environment, how it adapts to changing conditions, and how life can influence geology and climate.

Allen, C. C.↗
NASA NTRS2012

Characterization Approaches to Place Invariant Sites on SI-Traceable Scales

The effort to understand the Earth's climate system requires a complete integration of remote sensing imager data across time and multiple countries. Such an integration necessarily requires ensuring inter-consistency between multiple sensors to create the data sets needed to understand the climate system. Past efforts at inter-consistency have forced agreement between two sensors using sources that are viewed by both sensors at nearly the same time, and thus tend to be near polar regions over snow and ice. The current work describes a method that would provide an absolute radiometric calibration of a sensor rather than an inter-consistency of a sensor relative to another. The approach also relies on defensible error budgets that eventually provides a cross comparison of sensors without systematic errors. The basis of the technique is a model-based, SI-traceable prediction of at-sensor radiance over selected sites. The predicted radiance would be valid for arbitrary view and illumination angles and for any date of interest that is dominated by clear-sky conditions. The effort effectively works to characterize the sites as sources with known top-of-atmosphere radiance allowing accurate intercomparison of sensor data that without the need for coincident views. Data from the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection and Radiometer (ASTER), Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+), and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) are used to demonstrate the difficulties of cross calibration as applied to current sensors. Special attention is given to the differences caused in the cross-comparison of sensors in radiance space as opposed to reflectance space. The radiance comparisons lead to significant differences created by the specific solar model used for each sensor. The paper also proposes methods to mitigate the largest error sources in future systems. The results from these historical intercomparisons provide the basis for a set of recommendations to ensure future SI-traceable cross calibration using future missions such as CLARREO and TRUTHS. The paper describes a proposed approach that relies on model-based, SI-traceable predictions of at-sensor radiance over selected sites. The predicted radiance would be valid for arbitrary view and illumination angles and for any date of interest that is dominated by clear-sky conditions. The basis of the method is highly accurate measurements of at-sensor radiance of sufficient quality to understand the spectral and BRDF characteristics of the site and sufficient historical data to develop an understanding of temporal effects from changing surface and atmospheric conditions.

Thome, Kurtis↗
NASA NTRS2011

Land and Atmosphere Near-Real-Time Capability for Earth Observing System

The past decade has seen a rapid increase in availability and usage of near-real-time data from satellite sensors. The EOSDIS (Earth Observing System Data and Information System) was not originally designed to provide data with sufficiently low latency to satisfy the requirements for near-real-time users. The EOS (Earth Observing System) instruments aboard the Terra, Aqua and Aura satellites make global measurements daily, which are processed into higher-level 'standard' products within 8-40 hours of observation and then made available to users, primarily earth science researchers. However, applications users, operational agencies, and even researchers desire EOS products in near-real-time to support research and applications, including numerical weather and climate prediction and forecasting, monitoring of natural hazards, ecological/invasive species, agriculture, air quality, disaster relief and homeland security. These users often need data much sooner than routine science processing allows, usually within 3 hours, and are willing to trade science product quality for timely access. While Direct Broadcast provides more timely access to data, it does not provide global coverage. In 2002, a joint initiative between NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration), NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), and the DOD (Department of Defense) was undertaken to provide data from EOS instruments in near-real-time. The NRTPE (Near Real Time Processing Effort) provided products within 3 hours of observation on a best-effort basis. As the popularity of these near-real-time products and applications grew, multiple near-real-time systems began to spring up such as the Rapid Response System. In recognizing the dependence of customers on this data and the need for highly reliable and timely data access, NASA's Earth Science Division sponsored the Earth Science Data and Information System Project (ESDIS)-led development of a new near-real-time system called LANCE (Land, Atmosphere Near-Real-Time Capability for EOS) in 2009. LANCE consists of special processing elements, co-located with selected EOSDIS data centers and processing facilities. A primary goal of LANCE is to bring multiple near-real-time systems under one umbrella, offering commonality in data access, quality control, and latency. LANCE now processes and distributes data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS), Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer Earth Observing System (AMSR-E), Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) and Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) instruments within 3 hours of satellite observation. The Rapid Response System and the Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS) capabilities will be incorporated into LANCE in 2011. LANCE maintains a central website to facilitate easy access to data and user services. LANCE products are extensively tested and compared with science products before being made available to users. Each element also plans to implement redundant network, power and server infrastructure to ensure high availability of data and services. Through the user registration system, users are informed of any data outages and when new products or services will be available for access. Building on a significant investment by NASA in developing science algorithms and products, LANCE creates products that have a demonstrated utility for applications requiring near-real-time data. From lower level data products such as calibrated geolocated radiances to higher-level products such as sea ice extent, snow cover, and cloud cover, users have integrated LANCE data into forecast models and decision support systems. The table above shows the current near-real-time product categories by instrument. The ESDIS Project continues to improve the LANCE system and use the experience gained through practice to seek adjustments to improve the quality and performance of the system. For example, anGC-compliant Web Map Service (WMS) will be added shortly that will allow users to download geo-referenced MODIS images for arbitrary bounding boxes. Further, an OGC-compliant Web Coverage Service (WCS) will be added later this year that will expedite user access to arbitrary data subsets or re-formatted products. AIRS images are now served through WMS and available in multiple formats (PNG, GeoTIFF, KMZ). NASA has established a LANCE User Working Group to steer the development of the system and create a forum for sharing ideas and experiences that are expected to further improve the LANCE capabilities. The LANCE system has proved a success by satisfying the growing needs of the applications and operational communities for land and atmosphere data in near-real-time. NASA's Earth Sciences Division was able to leverage existing science research capabilities to provide the near-real-time community with products and imagery that support monitoring of disasters in a timely manner.

Murphy, Kevin J.↗
DOE OSTI2023

Quantitative Representativeness and Constituency of the Long-Term Agroecosystem Research Network and Analysis of Complementarity with Existing Ecological Networks

Abstract Studies conducted at sites across ecological research networks usually strive to scale their results to larger areas, trying to reach conclusions that are valid throughout larger enclosing regions. Network representativeness and constituency can show how well conditions at sampling locations represent conditions also found elsewhere and can be used to help scale-up results over larger regions. Multivariate statistical methods have been used to design networks and select sites that optimize regional representation, thereby maximizing the value of datasets and research. However, in networks created from already established sites, an immediate challenge is to understand how well existing sites represent the range of environments in the whole area of interest. We performed an analysis to show how well sites in the USDA Long-Term Agroecosystem Research (LTAR) Network represent all agricultural working lands within the conterminous United States (CONUS). Our analysis of 18 LTAR sites, based on 15 climatic and edaphic characteristics, produced maps of representativeness and constituency. Representativeness of the LTAR sites was quantified through an exhaustive pairwise Euclidean distance calculation in multivariate space, between the locations of experiments within each LTAR site and every 1 km cell across the CONUS. Network representativeness is from the perspective of all CONUS locations, but we also considered the perspective from each LTAR site. For every LTAR site, we identified the region that is best represented by that particular site—its constituency—as the set of 1 km grid locations best represented by the environmental drivers at that particular LTAR site. Representativeness shows how well the combination of characteristics at each CONUS location was represented by the LTAR sites’ environments, while constituency shows which LTAR site was the closest match for each location. LTAR representativeness was good across most of the CONUS. Representativeness for croplands was higher than for grazinglands, probably because croplands have more specific environmental criteria. Constituencies resemble ecoregions but have their environmental conditions “centered” on those at particular existing LTAR sites. Constituency of LTAR sites can be used to prioritize the locations of experimental research at or even within particular sites, or to identify the extents that can likely be included when generalizing knowledge across larger regions of the CONUS. Sites with a large constituency have generalist environments, while those with smaller constituency areas have more specialized environmental combinations. These “specialist” sites are the best representatives for smaller, more unusual areas. The potential of sharing complementary sites from the Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) Network and the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) to boost representativeness was also explored. LTAR network representativeness would benefit from borrowing several NEON sites and the Sevilleta LTER site. Later network additions must include such specialist sites that are targeted to represent unique missing environments. While this analysis exhaustively considered principal environmental characteristics related to production on working lands, we did not consider the focal agronomic systems under study, or their socio-economic context.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗