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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 379 records · Page 21
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2024

Towards Marine Carbon Dioxide Removal (mCDR) Centers of Excellence

A diverse portfolio of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies will be essential to meeting climate goals while supporting sustainable development. In particular, marine carbon dioxide removal (mCDR) methods can help diversify the existing portfolio, which currently relies heavily on engineered direct air capture systems for large-scale atmospheric removals. To fulfill their potential in the CDR ecosystem, these early-stage mCDR technologies require additional research and development. Here, we propose regional mCDR Technology Centers of Excellence that will provide inventors and developers with access to right-scale facilities and engineering expertise that will meet their needs wherever they are on the journey from bench- to pilot-scale development. To support innovation across the technological readiness level spectrum, these Centers will provide collaborative access to ocean-based mCDR testing sites; other opportunities for partnering with multidisciplinary experts in technology development and commercialization; provide meaningful pathways for integrated engagement with local industrial and regulatory systems; and help in developing tailored, impactful community benefit models. Ideal sites are co-located in areas with a favorable natural environment for testing mCDR, well studied baselines, accessible infrastructure for multidisciplinary marine research, and technology commercialization support. As a case study, we offer the Pacific Northwest as particularly suitable for a regional mCDR Technology Center of Excellence given existing and potential growth of all the characteristics of ideal sites listed above, and which could especially benefit from the region’s growing marine climate technology sector. Last, we offer a brief whole-of-government perspective for supporting and regulating these Centers of Excellence, including identification of mCDR Science Centers of Excellence to ensure that the development of mCDR technologies dovetails with much-needed advancements in oceanographic observation and simulation infrastructure.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2022

Linking climate change and human systems: a case study of Arctic pipelines

This case study estimates the potential economic risk from permafrost thaw on oil and gas pipelines in the Russian Arctic as part of a larger effort to better understand complex interactions between human and earth systems in the Arctic. Pan-Arctic simulations of permafrost thaw-depth from the Community Land Model version 4.5 and ground ice characteristics were used to generate ground subsidence projections over the period 2020 to 2040 with a quantification of uncertainty. Russian oil and gas transmission pipeline networks were then overlaid on the permafrost thaw projections in ArcGIS to identify pipelines vulnerable to damage from permafrost thaw. Recent pipeline construction costs were used to estimate the total replacement costs for at-risk pipelines under several thaw scenarios. The results indicate that permafrost thaw poses a major threat to pipeline infrastructure, especially gas pipelines, in the Russian Arctic. Over the twenty-year study period, total replacement costs for oil and gas pipelines were estimated at $\$$110 billion in 2020 USD. Reduced economic viability of pipelines under climate change will likely trigger major shifts in the Russian oil and gas industry, which would have impacts on markets, emissions, and geopolitics.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2024

Response Of Salt Intrusion In A Tidal Estuary To Regional Climatic Forcing (FVCOM Output for the baseline scenario)

Salinity distribution in a large tidal estuary is subject to estuarine adjustment under the influences of multiple physical drivers such as freshwater pulses and sea level rise, and is crucial to upstream water quality, aquaculture, and ecosystem functions of the estuary. To better understand the estuarine salinity response to climate change, the unstructured-grid Finite Volume Community Ocean Model was implemented to simulate the salt intrusion in the Delaware Bay Estuary. The model was first validated by multiple observational data sets and subsequently applied in an idealized setting to examine the response of salt front to freshwater pulses in high flow conditions, followed by a long-term drought condition supported by a multi-decadal streamflow drought analysis in the estuary. The model results showed that after the freshwater pulses the salt front location moved further upstream with sea level rise. Under the simulated long-term drought condition, the adjustment timescale of salt intrusion varies nonlinearly with sea level rise. With a significant increase in sea level rise, the adjustment timescale starts to decrease. This shift suggests a transition into a different regime where the estuary becomes more stratified, as indicated by an increasing bulk Simpson number with rising sea levels. These findings have been summarized into a journal manuscript. The data included in this information release request are FVCOM model output associated with the numerical simulations described in the journal manuscript.

Liu, Jinliang↗
DOE OSTI2021

Characterizing the Non-linear Interactions Between Tide, Storm Surge, and River Flow in the Delaware Bay Estuary, United States

Low-lying coastal areas in the mid-Atlantic region are prone to compound flooding resulting from the co-occurrence of river floods and coastal storm surges. To better understand the contribution of non-linear tide-surge-river interactions to compound flooding, the unstructured-grid Finite Volume Community Ocean Model was applied to simulate coastal storm surge and flooding in the Delaware Bay Estuary in the United States. The model was validated with tide gauge data in the estuary for selected hurricane events. Non-linear interactions between tide-surge-river were investigated using a non-stationary tidal analysis method, which decomposes the interactions’ components at the frequency domain. Model results indicated that tide-river interactions damped semidiurnal tides, while the tide-surge interactions mainly influenced diurnal tides. Tide-river interactions suppressed the water level upstream while tide-surge interaction increased the water level downstream, which resulted in a transition zone of damping and enhancing effects where the tide-surge-river interaction was prominent. Evident compound flooding was observed as a result of non-linear tide-surge-river interactions. Furthermore, sensitivity analysis was carried out to evaluate the effect of river flooding on the non-linear interactions. The transition zone of damping and enhancing effects shifted downstream as the river flow rate increased.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2020

Modulation of springtime surface sensible heating over the Tibetan Plateau on the interannual variability of East Asian dust cycle

Previous observational evidence and numerical simulations have revealed that the surface sensible heating in spring (March–April–May, MAM) over the Tibetan Plateau (TPSH) can affect the Asian regional hydrological cycle, surface energy balance, and climate through altering atmospheric heat source of the Tibetan Plateau (TP). This study aims to investigate the impacts of MAM TPSH on the interannual variability of East Asian dust cycle by using CAM4-BAM (version 4 of the Community Atmosphere Model coupled to a bulk aerosol model), MERRA-2 (version 2 of the Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications) surface dust concentration, and TPSH measurements. Our simulations show that the surface dust concentrations over the East Asian (EA) dust source region and over the northwestern Pacific (NP) in MAM are significantly positively correlated with TPSH, with regionally averaged correlation coefficients of 0.49 for EA and 0.44 for NP. Similar positive correlations are also shown between the MAM TPSH measurements averaged over the 73 observation sites and the surface dust concentration from MERRA-2. Simulation-based comparisons between strongest and weakest TPSH years reveal that, the MAM surface dust concentration in the strongest TPSH years increases with relative differences of 13.1 % over EA and 36.9 % over NP. These corresponding differences are found in MERRA-2 with 22.9 % and 13.3 % over EA and NP, respectively. Further simulated results show that the processes of whole dust cycles (e.g., dust loading, emission, and transport, as well as dust deposition) are also significantly enhanced during the strongest TPSH years over EA and NP. Through enhancing the TP heat source, stronger TPSH in MAM generates an anticyclonic anomaly in middle and upper troposphere over the TP and over the downstream Pacific region, respectively. These atmospheric circulation anomalies induced by the increased TPSH result in increasing the westerly winds over both EA and NP, which in turn increases dust emissions over the dust source, and dust transport over these two regions, as well as the regional dust cycles. These results suggest that addressing the East Asian dust changes in the future climates requires considering not only increasing greenhouse gas emissions but also the variations of the TP's heat source under global warming.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2020

Trends and source apportionment of aerosols in Europe during 1980-2018

Aerosols have significantly affected health, environment, and climate in Europe. Aerosol concentrations have been declining since the 1980s in Europe,mainly owing to a reduction of local aerosol and precursor emissions.Emissions from other source regions of the world, which have been changing rapidly as well, may also perturb the historical and future trends of aerosols and change their radiative impact in Europe. This study examines trends of aerosols in Europe during 1980–2018 and quantifies contributions from 16 source regions using the Community Atmosphere Model version 5 with Explicit Aerosol Source Tagging (CAM5-EAST). The simulated near-surface total mass concentration of sulfate, black carbon, and primary organic carbon had a 62 % decrease during 1980–2018. The majority of which was contributed to reductions of local emissions in Europe, and 8 %–9 % was induced by a decrease in emissions from Russia–Belarus–Ukraine. With the decreases in the fractional contribution of local emissions, aerosols transported from other source regions are increasingly important for air quality in Europe. During 1980–2018, the decrease in sulfate loading led to a warming effect of 2.0 W m –2 in Europe, with 12 % coming from changes in non-European sources, especially from North America and Russia–Belarus–Ukraine. According to the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSP) scenarios, contributions to the sulfate radiative forcing over Europe from both local European emissions and non-European emissions should decrease at a comparable rate in the next 3 decades, suggesting that future changes in non-European emissions are as important as European emissions for causing possible regional climate change associated with aerosols in Europe.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2020

Atmospheric teleconnection processes linking winter air stagnation and haze extremes in China with regional Arctic sea ice decline

Abstract. Recent studies suggested significant impacts of boreal cryosphere changes on wintertime air stagnation and haze pollution extremes in China. However, the underlying mechanisms of such a teleconnection relationship remains unclear. Here we use the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model (WACCM) to investigate dynamic processes leading to atmospheric circulation and air stagnation responses to Arctic sea ice changes. We conduct four climate sensitivity experiments by perturbing sea ice concentrations (SIC) and corresponding sea surface temperature (SST) in autumn and early winter over the whole Arctic and three subregions in the climate model. The results indicate distinct responses in circulation patterns and regional ventilation to the region-specific Arctic changes, with the largest increase of both the probability (by 132 %) and the intensity (by 30 %) of monthly air stagnation extremes being found in the experiment driven by SIC and SST changes over the Pacific sector of the Arctic (the East Siberian and Chukchi seas). The increased air stagnation extremes are mainly driven by an amplified planetary-scale atmospheric teleconnection pattern that resembles the negative phase of the Eurasian (EU) pattern. Dynamical diagnostics suggest that convergence of transient eddy forcing in the vicinity of Scandinavia in winter is largely responsible for the amplification of the teleconnection pattern. Transient eddy vorticity fluxes dominate the transient eddy forcing and produce a barotropic anticyclonic anomaly near Scandinavia and wave train propagation across Eurasia to the downstream regions in East Asia. The piecewise potential vorticity inversion analysis reveals that this long-range atmospheric teleconnection of Arctic origin takes place primarily via the middle and upper troposphere. The anomalous ridge over East Asia in the middle and upper troposphere worsens regional ventilation conditions by weakening monsoon northwesterlies and enhancing temperature inversions near the surface, leading to more and stronger air stagnation and pollution extremes over eastern China in winter. Ensemble projections based on state-of-the-art climate models in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) corroborate this teleconnection relationship between high-latitude environmental changes and midlatitude weather extremes, though the tendency and magnitude vary considerably among each participating model.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2021

Aerosol transport pathways and source attribution in China during the COVID-19 outbreak

Abstract. Due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, human activities and industrial productions were strictly restricted during January–March 2020 in China. Despite the fact that anthropogenic aerosol emissions largely decreased, haze events still occurred. Characterization of aerosol transport pathways and attribution of aerosol sources from specific regions are beneficial to air quality and pandemic control strategies. This study establishes source–receptor relationships in various regions covering all of China during the COVID-19 outbreak based on the Community Atmosphere Model version 5 with Explicit Aerosol Source Tagging (CAM5-EAST). Our analysis shows that PM2.5 burden over the North China Plain between 30 January and 19 February is mostly contributed by local emissions (40 %–66 %). For other regions in China, PM2.5 burden is largely contributed from nonlocal sources. During the most polluted days of the COVID-19 outbreak, local emissions within the North China Plain and eastern China contributed 66 % and 87 % to the increase in surface PM2.5 concentrations, respectively. This is associated with the anomalous mid-tropospheric high pressure at the location of the climatological East Asia trough and the consequently weakened winds in the lower troposphere, leading to the local aerosol accumulation. The emissions outside China, especially those from South Asia and Southeast Asia, contribute over 50 % to the increase in PM2.5 concentration in southwestern China through transboundary transport during the most polluted day. As the reduction in emissions in the near future is desirable, aerosols from long-range transport and unfavorable meteorological conditions are increasingly important to regional air quality and need to be taken into account in clean-air plans.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2022

Exploring dimethyl sulfide (DMS) oxidation and implications for global aerosol radiative forcing

Abstract. Aerosol indirect radiative forcing (IRF), which characterizes how aerosols alter cloud formation and properties, is very sensitive to the preindustrial (PI) aerosol burden. Dimethyl sulfide (DMS), emitted from the ocean, is a dominant natural precursor of non-sea-salt sulfate in the PI and pristine present-day (PD) atmospheres. Here we revisit the atmospheric oxidation chemistry of DMS, particularly under pristine conditions, and its impact on aerosol IRF. Based on previous laboratory studies, we expand the simplified DMS oxidation scheme used in the Community Atmospheric Model version 6 with chemistry (CAM6-chem) to capture the OH-addition pathway and the H-abstraction pathway and the associated isomerization branch. These additional oxidation channels of DMS produce several stable intermediate compounds, e.g., methanesulfonic acid (MSA) and hydroperoxymethyl thioformate (HPMTF), delay the formation of sulfate, and, hence, alter the spatial distribution of sulfate aerosol and radiative impacts. The expanded scheme improves the agreement between modeled and observed concentrations of DMS, MSA, HPMTF, and sulfate over most marine regions, based on the NASA Atmospheric Tomography (ATom), the Aerosol and Cloud Experiments in the Eastern North Atlantic (ACE-ENA), and the Variability of the American Monsoon Systems (VAMOS) Ocean-Cloud-Atmosphere-Land Study Regional Experiment (VOCALS-REx) measurements. We find that the global HPMTF burden and the burden of sulfate produced from DMS oxidation are relatively insensitive to the assumed isomerization rate, but the burden of HPMTF is very sensitive to a potential additional cloud loss. We find that global sulfate burden under PI and PD emissions increase to 412 Gg S (+29 %) and 582 Gg S (+8.8 %), respectively, compared to the standard simplified DMS oxidation scheme. The resulting annual mean global PD direct radiative effect of DMS-derived sulfate alone is −0.11 W m−2. The enhanced PI sulfate produced via the gas-phase chemistry updates alone dampens the aerosol IRF as anticipated (−2.2 W m−2 in standard versus −1.7 W m−2, with updated gas-phase chemistry). However, high clouds in the tropics and low clouds in the Southern Ocean appear particularly sensitive to the additional aqueous-phase pathways, counteracting this change (−2.3 W m−2). This study confirms the sensitivity of aerosol IRF to the PI aerosol loading and the need to better understand the processes controlling aerosol formation in the PI atmosphere and the cloud response to these changes.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2023

Biomass-burning smoke's properties and its interactions with marine stratocumulus clouds in WRF-CAM5 and southeastern Atlantic field campaigns

Abstract. A large part of the uncertainty in climate projections comes from uncertain aerosol properties and aerosol–cloud interactions as well as the difficulty in remotely sensing them. The southeastern Atlantic functions as a natural laboratory to study biomass-burning smoke and to constrain this uncertainty. We address these gaps by comparing the Weather Research and Forecasting with Chemistry Community Atmosphere Model (WRF-CAM5) to the multi-campaign observations ORACLES (ObseRvations of Aerosols above CLouds and their intEractionS), CLARIFY (CLoud–Aerosol–Radiation Interaction and Forcing), and LASIC (Layered Atlantic Smoke Interactions with Clouds) in the southeastern Atlantic in August 2017 to evaluate a large range of the model's aerosol chemical properties, size distributions, processes, and transport, as well as aerosol–cloud interactions. Overall, while WRF-CAM5 is able to represent smoke properties and transport, some key discrepancies highlight the need for further analysis. Observations of smoke composition show an overall decrease in aerosol mean diameter as smoke ages over 4–12 d, while the model lacks this trend. A decrease in the mass ratio of organic aerosol (OA) to black carbon (BC), OA:BC, and the OA mass to carbon monoxide (CO) mixing ratio, OA:CO, suggests that the model is missing processes that selectively remove OA from the particle phase, such as photolysis and heterogeneous aerosol chemistry. A large (factor of ∼2.5) enhancement in sulfate from the free troposphere (FT) to the boundary layer (BL) in observations is not present in the model, pointing to the importance of properly representing secondary sulfate aerosol formation from marine dimethyl sulfide and gaseous SO2 smoke emissions. The model shows a persistent overprediction of aerosols in the marine boundary layer (MBL), especially for clean conditions, which multiple pieces of evidence link to weaker aerosol removal in the modeled MBL than reality. This evidence includes several model features, such as not representing observed shifts towards smaller aerosol diameters, inaccurate concentration ratios of carbon monoxide and black carbon, underprediction of heavy rain events, and little evidence of persistent biases in modeled entrainment. The average below-cloud aerosol activation fraction (NCLD/NAER) remains relatively constant in WRF-CAM5 between field campaigns (∼0.65), while it decreases substantially in observations from ORACLES (∼0.78) to CLARIFY (∼0.5), which could be due to the model misrepresentation of clean aerosol conditions. WRF-CAM5 also overshoots an observed upper limit on liquid cloud droplet concentration around NCLD= 400–500 cm−3 and overpredicts the spread in NCLD. This could be related to the model often drastically overestimating the strength of boundary layer vertical turbulence by up to a factor of 10. We expect these results to motivate similar evaluations of other modeling systems and promote model development to reduce critical uncertainties in climate simulations.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2024

Observation-constrained kinetic modeling of isoprene SOA formation in the atmosphere

Isoprene has the largest global non-methane hydrocarbon emission, and the oxidation of isoprene plays a crucial role in the formation of secondary organic aerosol (SOA). Two primary processes are known to contribute to SOA formation from isoprene oxidation: (1) the reactive uptake of isoprene-derived epoxides on acidic or aqueous particle surfaces and (2) the absorptive gas–particle partitioning of low-volatility oxidation products. In this study, we developed a new multiphase condensed isoprene oxidation mechanism that includes these processes with key molecular intermediates and products. The new mechanism was applied to simulate isoprene gas-phase oxidation products and SOA formation from previously published chamber experiments under a variety of conditions and atmospheric observations during the Southern Oxidant and Aerosol Studies (SOAS) field campaign. Our results show that SOA formation from most of the chamber experiments is reasonably reproduced using our mechanism, except when the concentration ratios of initial nitric oxide to isoprene exceed ~ 2, the formed SOA is significantly underpredicted. The SOAS simulations also reasonably agree with the measurements regarding the diurnal pattern and concentrations of different product categories, while the total isoprene SOA remains underestimated. The molecular compositions of the modeled SOA indicate that multifunctional low-volatility products contribute to isoprene SOA more significantly than previously thought, with a median mass contribution of ~ 57 % to the total modeled isoprene SOA. However, this contribution is intricately intertwined with IEPOX-derived SOA (IEPOX: isoprene-derived epoxydiols), posing challenges for their differentiation using bulk aerosol composition analysis (e.g., the aerosol mass spectrometer with positive matrix factorization). Furthermore, the SOA from these pathways may vary greatly, mainly dependent on the volatility estimation and treatment of particle-phase processes (i.e., photolysis and hydrolysis). Our findings emphasize that the various pathways to produce these low-volatility species should be considered in models to more accurately predict isoprene SOA formation. The new condensed isoprene chemical mechanism can be further incorporated into regional-scale air quality models, such as the Community Multiscale Air Quality Modelling System (CMAQ), to assess isoprene SOA formation on a larger scale.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2025

Observationally constrained analysis on the distribution of fine- and coarse-mode nitrate in global models

Nitrate plays an important role in the Earth system and air quality. A key challenge in simulating the life cycle of nitrate aerosol in global models is to accurately represent mass size distribution of nitrate aerosol. In this study, we evaluate the performance of the Energy Exascale Earth System Model version 2 (E3SMv2) and the Community Earth System Model version 2 (CESM2), along with Aerosol Comparisons between Observations and Models (AeroCom) phase III models, in simulating spatial distribution of fine-mode nitrate, the mass size distribution of fine- and coarse-mode nitrate, and the gas–aerosol partitioning between nitric acid gas and nitrate, using long-term ground-based observations and measurements from multiple aircraft campaigns. We find that most models underestimate the annual mean PM 2.5 (particulate matter with diameter less than 2.5 µm) nitrate surface concentration averaged over all sites. The observed nitrate PM 2.5 / PM 10 and PM 1 / PM 4 ratios are influenced by the relative contribution of fine sulfate or organic particles and coarse dust or sea salt particles. Overall, the ground-based observations give an annual mean surface nitrate PM 2.5 / PM 10 ratio of 0.7. Most models underestimate the annual mean PM 2.5 / PM 10 ratio in all regions. There are large spreads in the modeled nitrate PM 1 / PM 4 ratios, which span the full range from 0 to 1. Most models underestimate the surface molar ratio of nitrate to total inorganic nitrate averaged across all sites. Our study indicates the importance of gas–aerosol partition parameterization and the simulation of dust and sea salt in correctly simulating the mass size distribution of nitrate.

Nitrate↗
DOE OSTI2025

Aircraft in-situ measurements from SOCRATES constrain the anthropogenic perturbations of cloud droplet number

Aerosol-cloud interactions (ACI) in warm clouds alter reflected shortwave radiation by influencing cloud microphysical and macrophysical properties. The variable of state controlling ACI is the cloud droplet number concentration (N d ). Here, we examine the perturbations in N d due to anthropogenic aerosols (ΔN d, PD-PI ) using a perturbed parameter ensemble (PPE) hosted in the sixth Community Atmosphere Model (CAM6). Surrogate models are created for the CAM6 PPE outputs and are used to generate 1 million model variants of CAM6 by sampling 45 sources of parameter uncertainty. The range of uncertain physical parameters related to ACI are constrained with observations of aerosol and cloud properties from SOCRATES. The likely range of uncertain parameters and the associated range of ΔN d, PD-PI are more strongly constrained with observations of N d relative to observations of cloud condensation nuclei. We conduct sensitivity tests of how constraints on ΔN d, PD-PI are affected by systematic uncertainties in observations and our limitations in our surrogate models created for CAM6 PPE outputs. Based on this, we provide guidance on the impact of reducing systematic uncertainty in airborne microphysical observations and in surrogate models.

Song, Ci [Univ. of Wyoming, Laramie, WY (United St↗
DOE OSTI2025

Constraining aerosol–cloud adjustments by uniting surface observations with a perturbed parameter ensemble

Abstract. Aerosol–cloud interactions (ACIs) are the largest source of uncertainty in inferring the magnitude of future warming consistent with the observational record. The effective radiative forcing due to ACI (ERFaci) is dominated by liquid clouds and is composed of two terms: the change in cloud albedo due to redistributing liquid over a larger number of cloud droplets (Nd) and the change in cloud macrophysical properties due to changes in cloud microphysics. These terms are, respectively, referred to as the radiative forcing due to ACI (RFaci) and aerosol–cloud adjustments. While the magnitude of RFaci is uncertain, its sign is confidently negative and results in a cooling in the historical record. In contrast, the adjustment of cloud liquid water path (LWP) to enhanced Nd and associated radiative forcing is uncertain in sign. Increased LWP in response to increased Nd is consistent with precipitation suppression, while decreased LWP in response to increased Nd is consistent with enhanced evaporation from cloud top. Observational constraints of these processes are poor in part because of causal ambiguity in the relationship between Nd and LWP. To better understand this relationship, precipitation (P), Nd, and LWP surface observations from the Eastern North Atlantic (ENA) atmospheric observatory are combined with the output from a perturbed parameter ensemble (PPE) hosted in the Community Atmosphere Model version 6 (CAM6). This allows for causal interpretation of observed covariability. Observations of precipitation and cloud from ENA constrain the range of possible LWP aerosol–cloud adjustments relative to the prior from the PPE by 15 %, resulting in a global value that is confidently positive (a historical cooling) ranging from 2.1 to 6.9 g m−2. It is found that observed covariability between Nd and LWP is dominated by coalescence scavenging and that this observed covariability is not strongly related to aerosol–cloud adjustments.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2024

Experimental design for the Marine Ice Sheet–Ocean Model Intercomparison Project – phase 2 (MISOMIP2)

The Marine Ice Sheet–Ocean Model Intercomparison Project – phase 2 (MISOMIP2) is a natural progression of previous and ongoing model intercomparison exercises that have focused on the simulation of ice-sheet and ocean processes in Antarctica. The previous exercises motivate the move towards realistic configurations, as well as more diverse model parameters and resolutions. The main objective of MISOMIP2 is to investigate the performance of existing ocean and coupled ice-sheet–ocean models in a range of Antarctic environments through comparisons to observational data. We will assess the status of ice-sheet–ocean modelling as a community and identify common characteristics of models that are best able to capture observed features. As models are highly tuned based on present-day data, we will also compare their sensitivity to prescribed abrupt atmospheric perturbations leading to either very warm or slightly warmer ocean conditions compared to the present day. The approach of MISOMIP2 is to welcome contributions of models as they are, including global and regional configurations, but we request standardized variables and common grids for the outputs. We target the analysis at two specific regions, the Amundsen Sea and the Weddell Sea, since they describe two different ocean environments and have been relatively well observed compared to other areas of Antarctica. An observational “MIPkit” synthesizing existing ocean and ice-sheet observations for a common period is provided to evaluate ocean and ice-sheet models in these two regions.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2025

CoCoMET v1.0: a unified open-source toolkit for atmospheric object tracking and analysis

Advances in performance and analysis capabilities have accelerated the development of object tracking algorithms for atmospheric research. This has resulted in a growing number of studies using Lagrangian tracking techniques to analyze the evolution of atmospheric phenomena and the underlying processes. However, the increasing complexity and variety of tracking algorithms present a steep learning curve for new users and make it difficult for existing users to compare algorithm performance. We introduce CoCoMET (Community Cloud Model Evaluation Toolkit), an open-source toolkit that addresses these issues. CoCoMET simplifies the process of running multiple tracking algorithms simultaneously and analyzing objects in both model and observational datasets by specifying parameters in a single configuration file. It standardizes input data from different sources into a consistent format and unifies the tracking output across algorithms. CoCoMET enhances the functionality of existing tracking methods by calculating additional properties such as cell growth and dissipation rates, perimeter, surface area, convexity, and irregularity. In addition, CoCoMET includes a novel method for identifying mergers and splits in 2D and 3D tracks and supports the integration of Eulerian/stationary datasets external to the tracking data for process studies. Its potential utility is demonstrated through examples of model intercomparison, model evaluation against observations, and comparisons between tracking algorithms. Designed for open-source environments, CoCoMET will continue to expand with future releases, incorporating more input data types and tracking algorithms.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2026

CLM5 Simulations of Soil Moisture and Grain Carbon for CONUS at 0.125 degrees

This dataset provides 0.125° gridded simulations of soil moisture and crop grain carbon for the Contiguous United States (CONUS), generated using the Community Land Model version 5 (CLM5) with the biogeochemistry module enabled. The data covers a historical baseline (1980–2015) and mid-century future projections (2020–2055). Future projections are organized into two sets of scenarios to distinguish the impacts of different drivers: (1) Atmospheric Only (ATM-only): These scenarios apply future atmospheric forcings while holding land use and land cover change (LULCC) at historical baseline levels. The atmospheric forcings represent moderately versus severely hotter/drier atmospheric conditions (dynamically downscaled perturbed thermodynamics simulations based on CMIP6 SSP245 and SSP585 warming signals), each with cooler versus hotter Earth System Model temperature sensitivity instantiations. These scenarios are identified in the file names as atm45cooler, atm45hotter, atm85cooler, and atm85hotter. (2) Coupled Atmospheric and Land-Use (LAND+ATM): These scenarios apply future atmospheric forcing together with future LULCC by pairing atmospheric pathways with lower versus higher population/economic growth scenarios representing Shared Socioeconomic Pathways 3 and 5 (SSP3 and SSP5). These scenarios are identified in the file names as atm45cooler_ssp3, atm45hotter_ssp3, atm45cooler_ssp5, atm45hotter_ssp5, atm85cooler_ssp3, atm85hotter_ssp3, atm85cooler_ssp5, and atm85hotter_ssp5. Please refer to the README file for detailed information on file structure, variables, units, and data formats.

Yao, Lili [Pacific Northwest National Laboratory] ↗
DOE OSTI2026

CLM5 Simulations of Soil Moisture and Gross Primary Productivity for CONUS at 0.125 degrees

This dataset provides 0.125-degree gridded simulations of soil moisture and gross primary productivity (GPP) for the Contiguous United States (CONUS), generated using the Community Land Model version 5 (CLM5) with the biogeochemistry module enabled. The data covers a historical baseline (1980-2015) and mid-century future projections (2020-2055). Future projections are organized into two sets of scenarios to distinguish the impacts of different drivers: (1) Atmospheric Only (ATM): These scenarios apply future atmospheric forcings while holding land use and land cover (LULC) at historical baseline levels. The atmospheric forcings represent moderately versus severely hotter/drier atmospheric conditions (dynamically downscaled perturbed thermodynamics simulations based on CMIP6 SSP245 and SSP585 warming signals), each with cooler versus hotter Earth System Model temperature sensitivity instantiations. These scenarios are identified in the folder names as rcp45_cooler_near, rcp45_hotter_near, rcp85_cooler_near, and rcp85_hotter_near. (2) Coupled Atmospheric and Land-Use (LAND+ATM): These scenarios apply future atmospheric forcing together with future LULC by pairing atmospheric pathways with lower versus higher population/economic growth scenarios representing Shared Socioeconomic Pathways 3 and 5 (SSP3 and SSP5). These scenarios are identified in the file names as ssp3_rcp45_cooler_near, ssp3_rcp45_hotter_near, ssp5_rcp85_cooler_near, and ssp5_rcp85_hotter_near. Please refer to the "README_first.md" file for detailed information on file structure, variables, units, and data formats.

drought↗