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At least 379 records · Page 21
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2022

A modified thermodynamic sea ice model and its application

This paper presents a modified thermodynamic sea ice model based on the Winton’s three-layer model framework. Several improvements focused on the vertical thermodynamics have been made in the model. Results from a series of one-dimensional experiments show that equilibrium ice thickness in our modified model is increased by about 45 cm when compared with the original Winton’s model. Sensitivity tests indicate that all modifications mentioned above contribute to this change of ice thickness, among which the increase of ice layer has the most significant effect followed by the sea ice conductivity parameterization. The modified thermodynamic sea ice model is then coupled into the sea ice component SIS in GFDL MOM4 to exert long-term integration experiments forced by CORE2.0 data. Results indicate that the modified model shows significant improvement in simulating the Arctic sea ice, including an increase in both the sea ice thickness and volume over the whole Arctic region. This confirms the above founding from 1-D simulations.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2014

SEA effectiveness for landscape and master planning: An investigation in Sardinia

The Italian administrative bodies and planning agencies have embraced with mixed feedbacks the introduction of Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) through the European Directive 2001/42/EC. Concurrently, regional and local spatial planning practice have been characterized by a new approach inspired by landscape planning. The Italian region of Sardinia has been one of the pioneering administrative bodies in the Italian and European arena that has adopted landscape principles for the construction of its regional master plan (PPR, Piano Paesaggistico Regionale). Municipalities are now carrying out the review of their master plans to the PPR's prescriptions and indications. Against this background, the aim of this paper is to assess the level of SEA implementation in the municipal master plans of Sardinia, six years after the approval of the PPR. Rooted in the SEA international literature we construct a modular and adaptable on-line survey for officers involved in the review of municipal master plans. The results show that many Sardinian municipalities have not reviewed their master plans to the PPR's regulations yet and only a few municipalities have started this review process according to the SEA procedure. - Highlights: • We study strategic environmental assessment (SEA) effectiveness on land use plans • Four SEA implementation key issues are drawn from international literature • Data collection has included an on-line survey with close and open questions • Results indicate that SEA has been poorly implemented in landscape and master plans • Weak aspects include planning alternatives, financial resources, and monitoring.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2019

The Relationship Between U.S. East Coast Sea Level and the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation: A Review

Abstract Scientific and societal interest in the relationship between the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) and U.S. East Coast sea level has intensified over the past decade, largely due to (1) projected, and potentially ongoing, enhancement of sea level rise associated with AMOC weakening and (2) the potential for observations of U.S. East Coast sea level to inform reconstructions of North Atlantic circulation and climate. These implications have inspired a wealth of model‐ and observation‐based analyses. Here, we review this research, finding consistent support in numerical models for an antiphase relationship between AMOC strength and dynamic sea level. However, simulations exhibit substantial along‐coast and intermodel differences in the amplitude of AMOC‐associated dynamic sea level variability. Observational analyses focusing on shorter (generally less than decadal) timescales show robust relationships between some components of the North Atlantic large‐scale circulation and coastal sea level variability, but the causal relationships between different observational metrics, AMOC, and sea level are often unclear. We highlight the importance of existing and future research seeking to understand relationships between AMOC and its component currents, the role of ageostrophic processes near the coast, and the interplay of local and remote forcing. Such research will help reconcile the results of different numerical simulations with each other and with observations, inform the physical origins of covariability, and reveal the sensitivity of scaling relationships to forcing, timescale, and model representation. This information will, in turn, provide a more complete characterization of uncertainty in relevant relationships, leading to more robust reconstructions and projections.

Little, Christopher M.↗
DOE OSTI2023

Impact of Ural Blocking on Early Winter Climate Variability Under Different Barents‐Kara Sea Ice Conditions

Abstract Ural blocking (UB) is a prominent mode of variability of the Northern Hemisphere atmospheric circulation, particularly in fall. It can persist for several days and exert a lagged influence on the wintertime NH circulation, providing predictability at the subseasonal time scale. Using two atmospheric models, we explore how the early winter atmospheric circulation responds to a 2‐week persistent UB anomaly imposed in early November. Experiments are carried out with two different configurations of Barents‐Kara (BK) sea‐ice concentration to examine whether it plays a role in how UB impacts atmospheric variability. In both models, the UB anomaly is followed by a weakening of the stratospheric polar vortex and a negative phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), which lasts up to 2 months after the forcing is released. Interestingly, the response is more persistent under low BK sea‐ice conditions, that is, BK sea ice modulates the atmospheric response to UB. Additional experiments with prescribed sea ice concentration anomalies alone suggest that BK sea ice exerts a limited influence on early winter NH atmospheric variability. The response to UB involves a weakening of the polar vortex that persists longer under low BK sea ice, which explains the more persistent response in that configuration. Our study highlights that UB variability in November is a robust precursor for early winter NAO/polar stratosphere anomalies, and this may be more relevant in the context of declining Arctic sea‐ice extent. Provided that climate models accurately capture this teleconnection, it has the potential to improve subseasonal predictions of the NH wintertime climate.

Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences↗
DOE OSTI2025

Environmental Factors Associated With Fall Phytoplankton Blooms in the Northern Bering and Chukchi Seas

This study investigates environmental drivers of fall phytoplankton blooms in the Arctic, focusing on the northern Bering and Chukchi seas. Random Forests models were used to analyze covariates of fall phytoplankton blooms from 2013 to 2018, incorporating shipboard, remote sensing, and modeled environmental properties. Four regional models and one comprehensive all-station model considered fall as well as midsummer conditions. Midsummer properties included suspended particulate matter, chlorophyll-a, and the proportion of degraded pheophytin to chlorophyll-a used as a proxy for bloom stage. Open water duration was one of the highest ranked factors in predicting fall blooms. Open water duration also influences the stage of midsummer (July) blooms as indicated by pheophytin proportions, which in turn were the highest-ranked factor for predicting fall bloom events in the Chirikov Basin (northern Bering Sea between St. Lawrence Island and the Bering Strait) and the Chukchi Sea. Wind direction, specifically easterly winds, was an important predictor in the northern Bering Sea. Maximum wind speed ranked highly at stations located within the nutrient-poor Alaska Coastal Current in the Chukchi Sea. However, stormy days, average and maximum wind speeds generally ranked low in importance as a predictor of fall bloom events. Other parameters, including photosynthetic active radiation, modeled nutrient concentrations, mixed layer depth, and time since sea ice breakup date showed strong but regionally varying relationships with fall blooms. Altogether, results from these Random Forests models suggest that high wind events and storms in the absence of sea ice provide an incomplete narrative for initiating fall bloom events.

Gaffey, C. B. [Clark University, Worcester, MA (Un↗
DOE OSTI2019

Arctic amplification is caused by sea-ice loss under increasing CO 2

Warming in the Arctic has been much faster than the rest of the world in both observations and model simulations, a phenomenon known as the Arctic amplification (AA) whose cause is still under debate. By analyzing data and model simulations, here we show that large AA occurs only from October to April and only over areas with significant sea-ice loss. AA largely disappears when Arctic sea ice is fixed or melts away. Periods with larger AA are associated with larger sea-ice loss, and models with bigger sea-ice loss produce larger AA. Increased outgoing longwave radiation and heat fluxes from the newly opened waters cause AA, whereas all other processes can only indirectly contribute to AA by melting sea-ice. We conclude that sea-ice loss is necessary for the existence of large AA and that models need to simulate Arctic sea ice realistically in order to correctly simulate Arctic warming under increasing CO 2 .

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2023

Arctic warming by abundant fine sea salt aerosols from blowing snow

Abstract The Arctic warms nearly four times faster than the global average, and aerosols play an increasingly important role in Arctic climate change. In the Arctic, sea salt is a major aerosol component in terms of mass concentration during winter and spring. However, the mechanisms of sea salt aerosol production remain unclear. Sea salt aerosols are typically thought to be relatively large in size but low in number concentration, implying that their influence on cloud condensation nuclei population and cloud properties is generally minor. Here we present observational evidence of abundant sea salt aerosol production from blowing snow in the central Arctic. Blowing snow was observed more than 20% of the time from November to April. The sublimation of blowing snow generates high concentrations of fine-mode sea salt aerosol (diameter below 300 nm), enhancing cloud condensation nuclei concentrations up to tenfold above background levels. Using a global chemical transport model, we estimate that from November to April north of 70° N, sea salt aerosol produced from blowing snow accounts for about 27.6% of the total particle number, and the sea salt aerosol increases the longwave emissivity of clouds, leading to a calculated surface warming of +2.30 W m −2 under cloudy sky conditions.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2019

Remote Sensing of Sea Salt Aerosol below Trade Wind Clouds

Abstract Sea salt aerosol in the boundary layer below shallow cumulus clouds is remotely observed with a Ka-band cloud radar at the Barbados Cloud Observatory and is detected in 76% of the measurements over 1 year. Carried by convection, sea salt particles with a diameter larger than 500 nm show an upward motion of 0.2 m s−1 below shallow cumulus clouds for a 2-day case study. Caused by an increasing relative humidity with increasing altitude, the sea salt particles become larger as they move closer to the cloud base. By using combined measurements of a Ka-band cloud radar and a Raman lidar, the retrieved equivolumetric diameter of the hygroscopically grown sea salt particles is found to be between 6 and 11 μm with a total number concentration of 20 cm−3 near cloud base. Assuming a fixed shape parameter, a size distribution of sea salt particles under high-relative-humidity conditions below cloud base is estimated and agrees with measurements taken by a dry-deposition sampler and online aerosol observations. The methods outlined in this paper can be used in future studies to get a better understanding of the vertical and temporal sea salt distribution in the boundary layer and sea salt aerosol–cloud interaction processes.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2016

Changes in Sea Salt Emissions Enhance ENSO Variability

Two 150-year pre-industrial simulations with and without interactive sea salt emissions from the Community Earth System Model (CESM) are performed to quantify the interactions between sea salt emissions and El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Variations in sea salt emissions over the tropical Pacific Ocean are affected by changing wind speed associated with ENSO variability. ENSO-induced interannual variations in sea salt emissions result in decreasing (increasing) aerosol optical depth (AOD) by 0.03 over the equatorial central-eastern (western) Pacific Ocean during El Niño events compared to those during La Niña events. These changes in AOD further increase (decrease) radiative fluxes into the atmosphere by +0.2 W m -2 (-0.4 W m -2 ) over the tropical eastern (western) Pacific. Thereby, sea surface temperature increases (decreases) by 0.2–0.4 K over the tropical eastern (western) Pacific Ocean during El Niño compared to La Niña events and enhances ENSO variability by 10%. The increase in ENSO amplitude is a result of systematic heating (cooling) during the warm (cold) phase, of ENSO in the eastern Pacific. Interannual variations in sea salt emissions then produce the anomalous ascent (subsidence) over the equatorial eastern (western) Pacific between El Niño and La Niña events, which is a result of heating anomalies. Due to variations in sea salt emissions, the convective precipitation is enhanced by 0.6–1.2 mm day -1 over the tropical central-eastern Pacific Ocean and weakened by 0.9–1.5 mm day -1 over the Maritime Continent during El Niño compared to La Niña events, enhancing the precipitation variability over the tropical Pacific.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2024

Steric Sea Level Rise and Relationships with Model Drift and Water Mass Representation in GFDL CM4 and ESM4

Abstract Density-driven steric seawater changes are a leading-order contributor to global mean sea level rise. However, intermodel differences in the magnitude and spatial patterns of steric sea level rise exist at regional scales and often emerge during the spinup and preindustrial control integrations of climate models. Steric sea level results from an eddy-permitting climate model, GFDL CM4, are compared with a lower-resolution counterpart, GFDL-ESM4. The results from both models are examined through basin-scale heat budgets and watermass analysis, and we compare the patterns of ocean heat uptake, redistribution, and sea level differ in ocean-only [i.e., Ocean Model Intercomparison Project (OMIP)] and coupled climate configurations. After correcting for model drift, both GFDL CM4 and GFDL-ESM4 simulate nearly equivalent ocean heat content change and global sea level rise during the historical period. However, the GFDL CM4 model exhibits as much as a 40% increase in surface ocean heat uptake in the Southern Ocean and subsequent increases in horizontal export to other ocean basins after bias correction. The results suggest regional differences in the processes governing Southern Ocean heat export, such as the formation of Antarctic Intermediate Water (AAIW), Subpolar Mode Water (SPMW), and gyre transport between the two models, and that sea level changes in these models cannot be fully bias-corrected. Since the process-level differences between the two models are evident in the preindustrial control simulations of both models, these results suggest that the control simulations are important for identifying and correcting sea level–related model biases.

Krasting, John P. [a NOAA/OAR/Geophysical Fluid Dy↗
DOE OSTI2012

Two modes of sea-ice gravity drainage

Processes that change the vertical salinity profile of sea ice have a significant impact on sea-ice properties and biogeochemistry. One of the most important processes affecting sea-ice salinity is gravity drainage where cold dense brine within newly formed sea ice drains out and is replaced by seawater resulting in a significant desalination of the sea ice. Using time-resolved bulk salinity and temperature observations of forming sea ice we show that gravity drainage occurs as two distinct modes: rapid drainage at the base of the ice and slow drainage occurring more deeply in the ice. We have developed a parameterization for gravity drainage, that includes these two modes, which is suitable for inclusion in a global climate model. The parameterization is included in an all new thermodynamic component, based on mushy layer theory, for the Los Alamos Sea Ice Model (CICE).

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2017

A New Discrete Element Sea-Ice Model for Earth System Modeling

Sea ice forms a frozen crust of sea water oating in high-latitude oceans. It is a critical component of the Earth system because its formation helps to drive the global thermohaline circulation, and its seasonal waxing and waning in the high north and Southern Ocean signi cantly affects planetary albedo. Usually 4{6% of Earth's marine surface is covered by sea ice at any one time, which limits the exchange of heat, momentum, and mass between the atmosphere and ocean in the polar realms. Snow accumulates on sea ice and inhibits its vertical growth, increases its albedo, and contributes to pooled water in melt ponds that darken the Arctic ice surface in the spring. Ice extent and volume are subject to strong seasonal, inter-annual and hemispheric variations, and climatic trends, which Earth System Models (ESMs) are challenged to simulate accurately (Stroeve et al., 2012; Stocker et al., 2013). This is because there are strong coupled feedbacks across the atmosphere-ice-ocean boundary layers, including the ice-albedo feedback, whereby a reduced ice cover leads to increased upper ocean heating, further enhancing sea-ice melt and reducing incident solar radiation re ected back into the atmosphere (Perovich et al., 2008). A reduction in perennial Arctic sea-ice during the satellite era has been implicated in mid-latitude weather changes, including over North America (Overland et al., 2015). Meanwhile, most ESMs have been unable to simulate observed inter-annual variability and trends in Antarctic sea-ice extent during the same period (Gagne et al., 2014).

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2021

Modeling Sea Ice Effects for Wave Energy Resource Assessments

Wave-generated power has potential as a valuable coastal resource, but the wave climate needs to be mapped for feasibility before wave energy converters are installed. Numerical models are used for wave resource assessments to quantify the amount of available power and its seasonality. Alaska is the U.S. state with the longest coastline and has extensive wave resources, but it is affected by seasonal sea ice that dampens the wave energy and the full extent of this dampening is unknown. To accurately characterize the wave resource in regions that experience seasonal sea ice, coastal wave models must account for these effects. The aim of this study is to determine how the dampening effects of sea ice change wave energy resource assessments in the nearshore. Here, we show that by combining high-resolution sea ice imagery with a sea ice/wave dampening parameterization in an unstructured grid, the Simulating Waves Nearshore (SWAN) model improves wave height predictions and demonstrates the extent to which wave power decreases when sea ice is present. The sea ice parametrization decreases the bias and root mean square errors of wave height comparisons with two wave buoys and predicts a decrease in the wave power of up to 100 kW/m in areas around Prince William Sound, Alaska. The magnitude of the improvement of the model/buoy comparison depends on the coefficients used to parameterize the wave–ice interaction.

16 TIDAL AND WAVE POWER↗
DOE OSTI2022

Distributed Real-time Plume Monitoring for Deep Sea Mineral Extraction​

In the emerging industry of deep-sea mining for minerals and deposits (e.g. polymetallic nodules for nickel, cobalt, copper, and manganese), more data is required to understand the effects of sediment plume generation and predict the distribution of disturbed sediment. There are two main sources of plume generation, the first being at the active mining site where the “collector” directly removes the top layer of the sea floor. The other is the “midwater plume” consisting of unwanted sediment that was collected during extraction that is pumped back into the aphotic zone. The vast majority of plume generation is caused by the collector, causing detrimental and long-lasting impacts on seafloor ecosystems due to the lack of wave activity or strong currents at the sea floor. Therefore, it is crucial to invest in the infrastructure to support the study and constant monitoring over a large area of the sea floor where plume generation is present. Due to the limited number of usable channels and power requirements, current subsea wireless communications technologies are not well suited to instrumenting the large areas of the sea floor needed to monitor plume migration. The scope of this effort is to transition experimental demonstrations of high-bandwidth, full-duplex scalable underwater laser communications to the seafloor in an open ocean environment. Specifically tackling challenges associated with the dynamic nature of the subsea world, including but not limited to, deployment logistics, sustainability, and range. The goal is to enable the internet of underwater things for deep sea industries by broadening the capabilities of subsea communications. By using high-precision laser transmitters, many of the challenges current subsea optical systems face can be circumvented, such as power consumption, interference, and bandwidth limitations. This approach lends itself to wireless interlinking multi-node networks, in series or parallel, facilitating the implementation of a wide array of sensor types. This interlinking allows all the data gathered from the network to be processed through a single hardline uplink to the surface, lowering the complexity required for near real-time data processing. Additionally, the laser control systems produce metadata that can be used to help characterize the water column between the nodes. Combining data from various sensors such as turbidity, temperature, current velocity with metadata such as beam attenuation and deflection can produce a high-resolution model of sea floor conditions around an active mining zone. The resulting near real-time model can be used to optimize location and flow rate of the mining operation to minimize and quantify the environmental impact.

Mons, Ishan↗
DOE OSTI2020

Direct and semi-direct radiative forcing of biomass-burning aerosols over the southeast Atlantic (SEA) and its sensitivity to absorbing properties: a regional climate modeling study

Simulations are performed for the period 2000-2015 by two different regional climate models, ALADIN and RegCM, to quantify the direct and semi-direct radiative effects of biomass-burning aerosols (BBAs) in the southeast Atlantic (SEA) region. Different simulations have been performed using strongly absorbing BBAs in accordance with recent in situ observations over the SEA. For the July-August-September (JAS) season, the single scattering albedo (SSA) and total aerosol optical depth (AOD) simulated by the ALADIN and RegCM models are consistent with the MACv2 climatology and MERRA-2 and CAMS-RA reanalyses near the biomass-burning emission sources. However, the above-cloud AOD is slightly underestimated compared to satellite (MODIS and POLDER) data during the transport over the SEA. The direct radiative effect exerted at the continental and oceanic surfaces by BBAs is significant in both models and the radiative effects at the top of the atmosphere indicate a remarkable regional contrast over SEA (in all-sky conditions), with a cooling (warming) north (south) of 10°S, which is in agreement with the recent MACv2 climatology. In addition, the two models indicate that BBAs are responsible for an important shortwave radiative heating of ~0.5-1K per day over SEA during JAS with maxima between 2 and 4 km a.m.s.l. (above mean sea level). At these altitudes, BBAs increase air temperature by ~0.2-0.5 K, with the highest values being co-located with low stratocumulus clouds. Vertical changes in air temperature limit the subsidence of air mass over SEA, creating a cyclonic anomaly. The opposite effect is simulated over the continent due to the increase in lower troposphere stability. The BBA semi-direct effect on the lower troposphere circulation is found to be consistent between the two models. Changes in the cloud fraction are moderate in response to the presence of smoke, and the models differ over the Gulf of Guinea. Finally, the results indicate an important sensitivity of the direct and semi-direct effects to the absorbing properties of BBAs. Over the stratocumulus (Sc) region, DRE varies from +0.94 W m -2 (scattering BBAs) to +3.93 W m -2 (most absorbing BBAs).

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2023

Asymmetries in cloud microphysical properties ascribed to sea ice leads via water vapour transport in the central Arctic

To investigate the influence of sea ice openings like leads on wintertime Arctic clouds, the air mass transport is exploited as a heat and humidity feeding mechanism which can modify Arctic cloud properties. Cloud microphysical properties in the central Arctic are analysed as a function of sea ice conditions during the Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) expedition in 2019–2020. The Cloudnet classification algorithm is used to characterize the clouds based on remote sensing observations and the atmospheric thermodynamic state from the observatory on board the research vessel (RV) Polarstern. To link the sea ice conditions around the observational site with the cloud observations, the water vapour transport (WVT) being conveyed towards RV Polarstern has been utilized as a mechanism to associate upwind sea ice conditions with the measured cloud properties. This novel methodology is used to classify the observed clouds as coupled or decoupled to the WVT based on the location of the maximum vertical gradient of WVT height relative to the cloud-driven mixing layer. Only a conical sub-sector of sea ice concentration (SIC) and the lead fraction (LF) centred on the RV Polarstern location and extending up to 50 km in radius and with an azimuth angle governed by the time-dependent wind direction measured at the maximum WVT is related to the observed clouds. We found significant asymmetries for cases when the clouds are coupled or decoupled to the WVT and selected by LF regimes. Liquid water path of low-level clouds is found to increase as a function of LF, while the ice water path does so only for deep precipitating systems. Clouds coupled to WVT are found to generally have a lower cloud base and larger thickness than decoupled clouds. Thermodynamically, for coupled cases the cloud-top temperature is warmer and accompanied by a temperature inversion at the cloud top, whereas the decoupled cases are found to be closely compliant with the moist adiabatic temperature lapse rate. The ice water fraction within the cloud layer has been found to present a noticeable asymmetry when comparing coupled versus decoupled cases. This novel approach of coupling sea ice to cloud properties via the WVT mechanism unfolds a new tool to study Arctic surface–atmosphere processes. With this formulation, long-term observations can be analysed to enforce the statistical significance of the asymmetries. Furthermore, our results serve as an opportunity to better understand the dynamic linkage between clouds and sea ice and to evaluate its representation in numerical climate models for the Arctic system.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2016

Carbonate “clumped” isotope signatures in aragonitic scleractinian and calcitic gorgonian deep-sea corals

Deep-sea corals are a potentially valuable archive of the temperature and ocean chemistry of intermediate and deep waters. Living in near-constant temperature, salinity, and pH and having amongst the slowest calcification rates observed in carbonate-precipitating biological organisms, deep-sea corals can provide valuable constraints on processes driving mineral equilibrium and disequilibrium isotope signatures. Here we report new data to further develop “clumped” isotopes as a paleothermometer in deep-sea corals as well as to investigate mineral-specific, taxon-specific, and growth-rate-related effects. Carbonate clumped isotope thermometry is based on measurements of the abundance of the doubly substituted isotopologue 13 C 18 O 16 O 2 in carbonate minerals, analyzed in CO 2 gas liberated on phosphoric acid digestion of carbonates and reported as Δ 47 values. We analyzed Δ 47 in live-collected aragonitic scleractinian ( Enallopsammia sp.) and high-Mg calcitic gorgonian (Isididae and Coralliidae) deep-sea corals and compared results to published data for other aragonitic scleractinian taxa. Measured Δ 47 values were compared to in situ temperatures, and the relationship between Δ 47 and temperature was determined for each group to investigate taxon-specific effects. We find that aragonitic scleractinian deep-sea corals exhibit higher values than high-Mg calcitic gorgonian corals and the two groups of coral produce statistically different relationships between Δ 47 –temperature calibrations. These data are significant in the interpretation of all carbonate clumped isotope calibration data as they show that distinct Δ 47 –temperature calibrations can be observed in different materials recovered from the same environment and analyzed using the same instrumentation, phosphoric acid composition, digestion temperature and technique, CO 2 gas purification apparatus, and data handling. There are three possible explanations for the origin of these different calibrations. The offset between the corals of different mineralogy is in the same direction as published theoretical predictions for the offset between calcite and aragonite although the magnitude of the offset is different. One possibility is that the deep-sea coral results reflect high-Mg and aragonite crystals attaining nominal mineral equilibrium clumped isotope signatures due to conditions of extremely slow growth. In that case, a possible explanation for the attainment of disequilibrium bulk isotope signatures and equilibrium clumped isotope signatures by deep-sea corals is that extraordinarily slow growth rates can promote the occurrence of isotopic reordering in the interfacial region of growing crystals. We also cannot rule out a component of a biological “vital effect” influencing clumped isotope signatures in one or both orders of coral. Based on published experimental data and theoretical calculations, these biological vital effects could arise from kinetic isotope effects due to the source of carbon used for calcification, temperature- and pH-dependent rates of CO 2 hydration and/or hydroxylation, calcifying fluid pH, the activity of carbonic anhydrase, the residence time of dissolved inorganic carbon in the calcifying fluid, and calcification rate. A third possible explanation is the occurrence of variable acid digestion fractionation factors. Although a recent study has suggested that dolomite, calcite, and aragonite may have similar clumped isotope acid digestion fractionation factors, the influence of acid digestion kinetics on Δ 47 is a subject that warrants further investigation.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2022

Geometric remapping of particle distributions in the Discrete Element Model for Sea Ice (DEMSI v0.0)

Abstract. A new sea ice dynamical core, the Discrete Element Model for Sea Ice (DEMSI), is under development for use in coupled Earth system models. DEMSI is based on the discrete element method, which models collections of ice floes as interacting Lagrangian particles. In basin-scale sea ice simulations the Lagrangian motion results in significant convergence and ridging, which requires periodic remapping of sea ice variables from a deformed particle configuration back to an undeformed initial distribution. At the resolution required for Earth system models we cannot resolve individual sea ice floes, so we adopt the sub-grid-scale thickness distribution used in continuum sea ice models. This choice leads to a series of hierarchical tracers depending on ice fractional area or concentration that must be remapped consistently. The circular discrete elements employed in DEMSI help improve the computational efficiency at the cost of increased complexity in the effective element area definitions for sea ice cover that are required for the accurate enforcement of conservation. An additional challenge is the accurate remapping of element values along the ice edge, the location of which varies due to the Lagrangian motion of the particles. In this paper we describe a particle-to-particle remapping approach based on well-established geometric remapping ideas that enforces conservation, bounds preservation, and compatibility between associated tracer quantities, while also robustly managing remapping at the ice edge. One element of the remapping algorithm is a novel optimization-based flux correction that enforces concentration bounds in the case of nonuniform motion. We demonstrate the accuracy and utility of the algorithm in a series of numerical test cases.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗