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At least 379 records · Page 21

Geophysical Retrievals and Cloud Analyses from Merged Airborne Radiometer Datasets Covering 10–684 GHz

Airborne microwave radiometers provide insight about numerous aspects of Earth’s atmosphere and yield critical validation datasets for spaceborne radiometers. Three radiometers that are important to NASA’s airborne remote-sensing arsenal include: the Advanced Microwave Precipitation Radiometer (AMPR), covering 10–85 GHz; the Conical Scanning Millimeter-wave Imaging Radiometer (CoSMIR), covering 50–183 GHz; and the Compact Scanning Submillimeter-wave Imaging Radiometer (CoSSIR), covering 170–684 GHz. The NASA field campaigns of interest to this study include: the Integrated Precipitation and Hydrology Experiment (IPHEx) in 2014, the Olympic Mountains Experiment and Radar Definition Experiment (OLYMPEX/RADEX) in 2015–2016, the Investigation of Microphysics and Precipitation for Atlantic Coast-Threatening Snowstorms (IMPACTS) in 2020–2023, and the Airborne Lightning Observatory for FEGS and TGFs (ALOFT) in 2023. To provide a more comprehensive perspective on clouds and precipitation observed during these airborne field campaigns, AMPR data were merged spatiotemporally with CoSMIR data for IPHEx, OLYMPEX/RADEX, and IMPACTS (2020 and 2022), while considering differences in instrument characteristics and operations, providing brightness temperature (Tb) values from 10–183 GHz in a common background grid throughout each flight. AMPR and CoSSIR data were similarly merged for IMPACTS (2023) and ALOFT, providing a common background grid with Tb values covering 10–684 GHz throughout each flight. These merged Tb data were employed in geophysical retrievals using the Community Radiative Transfer Model (CRTM), an Eddington radiative transfer model, and a one-dimensional variational (1DVAR) inversion method. Retrievals of cloud liquid water path were of primary interest. This presentation will include an overview of the methods for the radiometer data mergers, the radiative transfer methods, the geophysical retrievals, and detailed results from examining trends in Tb and cloud liquid water path in clouds, precipitation, and cloud-to-precipitation transition zones.

Corey G Amiot↗

The Penn State ORSER system for processing and analyzing ERTS data

The Office for Remote Sensing of Earth Resources (ORSER) of the Space Science and Engineering Laboratory (SSEL) at The Pennsylvania State University has developed an extensive operational system for processing and analyzing ERTS-1 and similar multispectral data. Specific results obtained by using this system include a study of land use, discrimination between types of forest resources and vegetation, detection of previously unknown geologic faults and correlation of these with known mineral deposits and ground water, mapping of mine spoils in the anthracite region of eastern Pennsylvania, mapping of strip mines and acid mine drainage in Central Pennsylvania, agricultural land use mapping, and detection of gypsy moth infestation.

Mcmurtry, G. J.↗

The Penn State ORSER system for processing and analyzing ERTS and other MSS data

The Office for Remote Sensing of Earth Resources (ORSER) of the Space Science and Engineering Laboratory (SSEL) at the Pennsylvania State University has developed an extensive operational system for processing and analyzing ERTS-1 and similar multispectral data. The ORSER system was developed for use by a wide variety of researchers working in remote sensing. Both photointerpretive techniques and automatic computer processing methods have been developed and used, separately and in a combined approach. A Remote Job Entry (RJE) system permits use of an IBM 370/168 computer from any compatible remote terminal, including equipment tied in by long-distance telephone connections. An elementary cost analysis has been prepared for the processing of ERTS data.

Mcmurtry, G. J.↗

Hydrogeologic Model Based on Reduced Complexity

This data set provides the basic hydrogeologic model used for development of the TOUGH2 reservoir modeling results for the Kimberlina site. The hydrogeologic model is based on the static geologic model provided as a separate data set but has some simplifications regarding the geologic layers. Some geologic layers have been merged for the hydrogeologic model because the hydrogeologic properties were very similar. The data set contains several files. The word file explains the structure of the data files. The pdf contains a table with the hydrogeologic properties. The data set also includes 15 thickness files for 15 geological layers (including 3 Vedder sand layers and 3 Vedder shale layers), three elevations files (with reference elevation at ground surface/model top at 9000 m), and one fault trace file for seven faults. Most users may only need 2-3 faults close to the injection well (also see the figure). The arrangement of these layer thickness and elevations files can be see from the three layer files (for Tecplot). To develop a grid structure, start with the Vedder top elevation (REFVedderTop.dat) and add/subtract the thicknesses of layers above/below.

3D Groundwater Model↗

Investigation into Cloud Computing for More Robust Automated Bulk Image Geoprocessing

Geospatial resource assessments frequently require timely geospatial data processing that involves large multivariate remote sensing data sets. In particular, for disasters, response requires rapid access to large data volumes, substantial storage space and high performance processing capability. The processing and distribution of this data into usable information products requires a processing pipeline that can efficiently manage the required storage, computing utilities, and data handling requirements. In recent years, with the availability of cloud computing technology, cloud processing platforms have made available a powerful new computing infrastructure resource that can meet this need. To assess the utility of this resource, this project investigates cloud computing platforms for bulk, automated geoprocessing capabilities with respect to data handling and application development requirements. This presentation is of work being conducted by Applied Sciences Program Office at NASA-Stennis Space Center. A prototypical set of image manipulation and transformation processes that incorporate sample Unmanned Airborne System data were developed to create value-added products and tested for implementation on the "cloud". This project outlines the steps involved in creating and testing of open source software developed process code on a local prototype platform, and then transitioning this code with associated environment requirements into an analogous, but memory and processor enhanced cloud platform. A data processing cloud was used to store both standard digital camera panchromatic and multi-band image data, which were subsequently subjected to standard image processing functions such as NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index), NDMI (Normalized Difference Moisture Index), band stacking, reprojection, and other similar type data processes. Cloud infrastructure service providers were evaluated by taking these locally tested processing functions, and then applying them to a given cloud-enabled infrastructure to assesses and compare environment setup options and enabled technologies. This project reviews findings that were observed when cloud platforms were evaluated for bulk geoprocessing capabilities based on data handling and application development requirements.

Brown, Richard B.↗

High-Latitude Topside Ionospheric Vertical Electron-Density-Profile Changes in Response to Large Magnetic Storms

Large magnetic-storm induced changes have been detected in high-latitude topside vertical electron-density profiles Ne(h). The investigation was based on the large database of topside Ne(h) profiles and digital topside ionograms from the International Satellites for Ionospheric Studies (ISIS) program available from the NASA Space Physics Data Facility (SPDF) at http://spdf.gsfc.nasa.gov/isis/isis-status.html. This large database enabled Ne(h) profiles to be obtained when an ISIS satellite passed through nearly the same region of space before, during, and after a major magnetic storm. A major goal was to relate the magnetic-storm induced high-latitude Ne(h) profile changes to solar-wind parameters. Thus an additional data constraint was to consider only storms where solar-wind data were available from the NASA/SPDF OMNIWeb database. Ten large magnetic storms (with Dst less than -100 nT) were identified that satisfied both the Ne(h) profile and the solar-wind data constraints. During five of these storms topside ionospheric Ne(h) profiles were available in the high-latitude northern hemisphere and during the other five storms similar ionospheric data were available in the southern hemisphere. Large Ne(h) changes were observed during each one of these storms. Our concentration in this paper is on the northern hemisphere. The data coverage was best for the northern-hemisphere winter. Here Ne(h) profile enhancements were always observed when the magnetic local time (MLT) was between 00 and 03 and Ne(h) profile depletions were always observed between 08 and 10 MLT. The observed Ne(h) deviations were compared with solar-wind parameters, with appropriate time shifts, for four storms.

solar wind↗

Adaptations of human skeletal muscle fibers to spaceflight

Human skeletal muscle fibers seem to share most of the same interrelationships among myosin ATPase activity, myosin heavy chain (MHC) phenotype, mitochondrial enzyme activities, glycolytic enzyme activities, and cross-sectional area (CSA) as found in rat, cat, and other species. One difference seems to be that fast fibers with high mitochrondrial content occur less frequently in humans than in the rat or cat. Recently, we have reported that the type of MHC expressed and the size of the muscle fibers in humans that have spent 11 days in space change significantly. Specifically, about 8% more fibers express fast MHCs and all phenotypes atrophy in the vastus lateralis (VL) post compared to preflight. In the present paper we examine the relationships among the population of myonuclei, MHC type, and CSA of single human muscle fibers before and after spaceflight. These are the first data that define the relationship among the types of MHC expressed, myonuclei number, and myonuclei domain of single fibers in human muscle. We then compare these data to similar measures in the cat. In addition, the maximal torque that can be generated by the knee extensors and their fatigability before and after spaceflight are examined. These data provide some indication of the potential physiologica consequences of the muscle adaptations that occur in humans in response to spaceflight.

M. Kathleen Day↗

Method for Real-Time State Estimation of Structural Modes for an Aeroelastic Wind Tunnel Model

A method for estimating displacements, velocities, and accelerations of structural modes in generalized coordinates from measured sensor data in real time is developed and demonstrated. Data from conventional strain gauges and fiber optic strain sensors (FOSS) were combined with strain mode shapes to produce least-squares estimates of the structural mode displacements. Similarly, accelerometer data were combined with displacement mode shapes to estimate structural mode accelerations. Estimates were then combined using a Kalman filter to refine the displacement estimates and produce structural mode velocity estimates. The approach was demonstrated using simulation data for the NASA-Boeing collaboration called the Integrated Adaptive Wing Technology Maturation (IAWTM) project in both a stable open-loop condition and an unstable condition where estimated displacement and velocity states were used for feedback control. Results supported the feasibility of using this approach for feedback control and system identification applications for wind tunnel tests.

Aeroservoelasticity↗

Global Carbon Budget 1800-2018 Loss of Additional Sink Capacity and Present Transient Difference

A dataset of two global carbon fluxes: the loss of additional sink capacity (LASC) and present versus transient difference (PTD). The loss of additional sink capacity is the loss of indirect anthropogenic sink capacity in land ecosystems caused by the loss of ecosystems that can increase carbon in response to changing environments, primarily forests. The present transient difference refers to the direct anthropogenic flux in land ecosystems (from land cover and land use change) and the difference in that flux when calculated assuming "present day" (actually more like 1980) ecosystem carbon stocks or when calculated assuming transient carbon stocks (i.e. caused by environmental change). In this dataset, the LASC and PTD fluxes were calculated using the TRENDY ensemble of Dynamic Global Vegetation Models (DGVMs; Sitch et al., 2024) following the methods described therein and in Obermeier et al. (2021). For further details see Obermeier et al. (2021), Friedlingstein et al. (2019), Sitch et al. (2024), and Walker et al. (2025). The dataset includes ensemble means and standard deviations for annual fluxes, fluxes cumulated annually over the whole time period, and cumulated since 1959. These data were originally collected to compare different approaches (DGVMs versus bookkeeping models) for estimating land use and land cover change (LULCC) emissions (Obermeier et al. 2021). More recently, and similarly, these data were used to harmonize the estimates of the direct and indirect anthropogenic fluxes in the global carbon cycle and to recalculate the global carbon budget (Walker et al., 2025).

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Correlation Filtering of Modal Dynamics using the Laplace Wavelet

Wavelet analysis allows processing of transient response data commonly encountered in vibration health monitoring tasks such as aircraft flutter testing. The Laplace wavelet is formulated as an impulse response of a single mode system to be similar to data features commonly encountered in these health monitoring tasks. A correlation filtering approach is introduced using the Laplace wavelet to decompose a signal into impulse responses of single mode subsystems. Applications using responses from flutter testing of aeroelastic systems demonstrate modal parameters and stability estimates can be estimated by correlation filtering free decay data with a set of Laplace wavelets.

Freudinger, Lawrence C.↗

Development of a Computer Architecture to Support the Optical Plume Anomaly Detection (OPAD) System

The NASA OPAD spectrometer system relies heavily on extensive software which repetitively extracts spectral information from the engine plume and reports the amounts of metals which are present in the plume. The development of this software is at a sufficiently advanced stage where it can be used in actual engine tests to provide valuable data on engine operation and health. This activity will continue and, in addition, the OPAD system is planned to be used in flight aboard space vehicles. The two implementations, test-stand and in-flight, may have some differing requirements. For example, the data stored during a test-stand experiment are much more extensive than in the in-flight case. In both cases though, the majority of the requirements are similar. New data from the spectrograph is generated at a rate of once every 0.5 sec or faster. All processing must be completed within this period of time to maintain real-time performance. Every 0.5 sec, the OPAD system must report the amounts of specific metals within the engine plume, given the spectral data. At present, the software in the OPAD system performs this function by solving the inverse problem. It uses powerful physics-based computational models (the SPECTRA code), which receive amounts of metals as inputs to produce the spectral data that would have been observed, had the same metal amounts been present in the engine plume. During the experiment, for every spectrum that is observed, an initial approximation is performed using neural networks to establish an initial metal composition which approximates as accurately as possible the real one. Then, using optimization techniques, the SPECTRA code is repetitively used to produce a fit to the data, by adjusting the metal input amounts until the produced spectrum matches the observed one to within a given level of tolerance. This iterative solution to the original problem of determining the metal composition in the plume requires a relatively long period of time to execute the software in a modern single-processor workstation, and therefore real-time operation is currently not possible. A different number of iterations may be required to perform spectral data fitting per spectral sample. Yet, the OPAD system must be designed to maintain real-time performance in all cases. Although faster single-processor workstations are available for execution of the fitting and SPECTRA software, this option is unattractive due to the excessive cost associated with very fast workstations and also due to the fact that such hardware is not easily expandable to accommodate future versions of the software which may require more processing power. Initial research has already demonstrated that the OPAD software can take advantage of a parallel computer architecture to achieve the necessary speedup. Current work has improved the software by converting it into a form which is easily parallelizable. Timing experiments have been performed to establish the computational complexity and execution speed of major components of the software. This work provides the foundation of future work which will create a fully parallel version of the software executing in a shared-memory multiprocessor system.

Katsinis, Constantine↗

Applying Gaussian Process Machine Learning and Modern Probabilistic Programming to Satellite Data to Infer CO 2 Emissions

Satellite data provides essential insights into the spatiotemporal distribution of CO 2 concentrations. However, many atmospheric inverse models fail to adequately incorporate the spatial and temporal correlations inherent in satellite observations and often lack rigorous methods for estimating parameters like spatial length scales. We introduce an inference model that processes the spatiotemporal covariance in satellite data and estimates hyperparameters such as covariance length scales. Our approach uses the Gaussian process (GP) machine learning (ML) and modern probabilistic programming languages (PPLs) to perform atmospheric inversions of emissions from satellite data. We develop a GP ML inversion system based on modern PPLs and the GEOS-Chem chemical transport model, simulating atmospheric CO 2 concentrations corresponding to the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2/3 (OCO-2/3) data for July 2020. In our supervised learning framework, we treat the GEOS-Chem simulated data set as the target, with predictors derived by scaling the target with sector-specific factors hidden from the GP machine. Our results show that the GP model, combined with GPU-enabled PPLs, effectively retrieves true emission scaling factors and infers noise levels concealed within the data. This suggests that our method could be applied over larger areas with more complex covariance structures, enabling comprehensive analysis of the spatiotemporal patterns observed in OCO-2/3 and similar satellite data sets.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Future Sterile Neutrino Searches in NOvA using the Booster Neutrino Beam

The NOvA experiment’s most recent search for eV-scale sterile neutrinos under a 3+1 model simultaneously analyses muon neutrino and neutral current datasets from the NuMI beam at it's Near ($\sim$1 km baseline) and Far (810 km baseline) detectors to look for oscillations consistent with a sterile neutrino. The analysis is systematically limited in the region of parameter space where $\Delta m^{2}_{41} $>~1 eV^2$. This region of parameter space is preferred by sterile neutrino interpretations of current experimental anomalies and so improving sensitivity here is high-priority. The Near Detector’s position on-site at Fermilab means that it is also able to observe neutrinos from a second neutrino beam, the BNB, 160 mrad off-axis. This data probes a similar L/E to the NuMI data, but using a different neutrino energy, and being subject to different beam-related uncertainties. Jointly analysing these datasets can help us to constrain our systematic uncertainties, improving our sensitivity. NOvA has been taking BNB data since 2015, but has not yet analysed these data. This poster will present first sensitivities from the combined analysis of the BNB and NuMI datasets.

Lister, Adam [U. Wisconsin, Madison (main)]↗

Uncertainty quantification of machine learning models to improve streamflow prediction under changing climate and environmental conditions

Machine learning (ML) models, and Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) networks in particular, have demonstrated remarkable performance in streamflow prediction and are increasingly being used by the hydrological research community. However, most of these applications do not include uncertainty quantification (UQ). ML models are data driven and can suffer from large extrapolation errors when applied to changing climate/environmental conditions. UQ is required to quantify the influence of data noises on model predictions and avoid overconfident projections in extrapolation. In this work, we integrate a novel UQ method, called PI3NN, with LSTM networks for streamflow prediction. PI3NN calculates Prediction Intervals by training 3 Neural Networks. It can precisely quantify the predictive uncertainty caused by the data noise and identify out-of-distribution (OOD) data in a non-stationary condition to avoid overconfident predictions. We apply the PI3NN-LSTM method in the snow-dominant East River Watershed in the western US and in the rain-driven Walker Branch Watershed in the southeastern US. Results indicate that for the prediction data which have similar features as the training data, PI3NN precisely quantifies the predictive uncertainty with the desired confidence level; and for the OOD data where the LSTM network fails to make accurate predictions, PI3NN produces a reasonably large uncertainty indicating that the results are not trustworthy and should avoid overconfidence. PI3NN is computationally efficient, robust in performance, and generalizable to various network structures and data with no distributional assumptions. It can be broadly applied in ML-based hydrological simulations for credible prediction.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Autocorrelation in Landsat data

Many computer algorithms for the analysis of Landsat data have a statistical basis which requires that the observations comprise independent samples. Four distinct methods are employed to show that this assumption commonly is not fulfilled for these data. Each leads to a similar conclusion; the data must be sampled no closer than every 10th pixel in order to yield independent estimators. The implications of this are illustrated with a simple example.

Craig, R. G.↗

Accessing and Visualizing scientific spatiotemporal data

This paper discusses work done by JPL 's Parallel Applications Technologies Group in helping scientists access and visualize very large data sets through the use of multiple computing resources, such as parallel supercomputers, clusters, and grids These tools do one or more of the following tasks visualize local data sets for local users, visualize local data sets for remote users, and access and visualize remote data sets The tools are used for various types of data, including remotely sensed image data, digital elevation models, astronomical surveys, etc The paper attempts to pull some common elements out of these tools that may be useful for others who have to work with similarly large data sets.

data sets↗

The Penn State ORSER system for processing and analyzing ERTS and other MSS data

The author has identified the following significant results. The office for Remote Sensing of Earth Resources (ORSER) of the Space Science and Engineering Laboratory at the Pennsylvania State University has developed an extensive operational system for processing and analyzing ERTS-1 and similar multispectral data. The ORSER system was developed for use by a wide variety of researchers working in remote sensing. Both photointerpretive techniques and automatic computer processing methods have been developed and used, separately and in a combined approach. A remote Job Entry system permits use of an IBM 370/168 computer from any compatible remote terminal, including equipment tied in by long distance telephone connections. An elementary cost analysis has been prepared for the processing of ERTS data.

Mcmurtry, G. J.↗

Relationship Between Ecosystem Productivity and Photosynthetically Active Radiation for Northern Peatlands

We analyzed the relationship between net ecosystem exchange of carbon dioxide (NEE) and irradiance (as photosynthetic photon flux density or PPFD), using published and unpublished data that have been collected during midgrowing season for carbon balance studies at seven peatlands in North America and Europe, NEE measurements included both eddy-correlation tower and clear, static chamber methods, which gave very similar results. Data were analyzed by site, as aggregated data sets by peatland type (bog, poor fen, rich fen, and all fens) and as a single aggregated data set for all peatlands. In all cases, a fit with a rectangular hyperbola (NEE = alpha PPFD P(sub max)/(alpha PPFD + P(sub max) + R) better described the NEE-PPFD relationship than did a linear fit (NEE = beta PPFD + R). Poor and rich fens generally had similar NEE-PPFD relationships, while bogs had lower respiration rates (R = -2.0 micro mol m(exp -2) s(exp -1) for bogs and -2.7 micro mol m(exp -2) s(exp -1)) for fens) and lower NEE at moderate and high light levels (P(sub max)= 5.2 micro mol m(exp -2) s(exp -1) for bogs and 10.8 micro mol m(exp -2) s(exp -1) for fens). As a single class, northern peatlands had much smaller ecosystem respiration (R = -2.4 micro mol m(exp -2) s(exp -1)) and NEE rates (alpha = 0.020 and P(sub max)= 9.2 micro mol m(exp -2) s(exp -1)) than the upland ecosystems (closed canopy forest, grassland, and cropland). Despite this low productivity, northern peatland soil carbon pools are generally 5-50 times larger than upland ecosystems because of slow rates of decomposition caused by litter quality and anaerobic, cold soils.

Frolking, S. E.↗