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At least 397 records · Page 22

Characterizing the Spatial and Temporal Distribution of Aerosol Optical Thickness Over the Atlantic Basin Utilizing GOES-8 Multispectral Data

In recent years, modeling and analysis efforts have suggested that the direct and indirect radiative effects of both anthropogenic and natural aerosols play a major role in the radiative balance of the earth and are an important factor in climate change calculations. The direct effects of aerosols on radiation and indirect effects on cloud properties are not well understood at this time. In order to improve the characterization of aerosols within climate models it is important to accurately parameterize aerosol forcing mechanisms at the local, regional, and global scales. This includes gaining information on the spatial and temporal distribution of aerosols, transport regimes and mechanisms, aerosol optical thickness, and size distributions. Although there is an expanding global network of ground measurements of aerosol optical thickness and size distribution at specific locations, satellite data must be utilized to characterize the spatial and temporal extent of aerosols and transport regimes on regional and global scales. This study was part of a collaborative effort to characterize aerosol radiative forcing over the Atlantic basin associated with the following three major aerosol components in this region: urban/sulfate, Saharan dust, and biomass burning. In-situ ground measurements obtained by a network of sun photometers during the Smoke Clouds and Radiation Experiment in Brazil (SCAR-B) and the Tropospheric Aerosol Radiative Forcing Observational Experiment (TARFOX) were utilized to develop, calibrate, and validate a Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES)-8 aerosol optical thickness (AOT) product. Regional implementation of the GOES-8 AOT product was used to augment point source measurements to gain a better understanding of the spatial and temporal distributions of Atlantic basin aerosols during SCAR-B and TARFOX.

Fox, Robert↗

Wind and Weather Variability within the Californian Offshore Wind Energy Areas

Weather variability over the Northeast Pacific (NEP) region and its influence on wind resources within the Californian offshore wind energy areas (WEAs) at Humboldt and Morro Bay are characterized using 20-years reanalysis model and satellite data. The hub-height (180 m) winds at both locations are predominantly northwesterly driven by the NEP high pressure system, with strong coastal gradients in surface pressure, fluxes, planetary boundary layer (PBL) depths and cloudiness. These sharp coastal gradients and strong annual cycles of temperature and moisture advections pose potential challenges in accurately modeling the local wind resource. Hub-height wind speeds and power capacity factors significantly vary for different regimes of PBL depths, surface fluxes and rain area fractions. This highlights the importance of studying the physical mechanisms driving these weather regimes, hence our analysis of how large-scale NEP weather variability drives the local meteorology at the WEAs. Furthermore, at both WEAs, PBL tops and cloud boundaries intersect the rotor layer (80-280 m) more than 30% and 20% of the time, respectively. While PBL depths significantly modulates hub-height winds and power, cloud boundaries do not have a similar impact, likely due to reanalysis errors in simulating cloud boundaries accurately. These findings underscore the challenges in deploying tall wind turbines in shallow cloudy boundary layers, where the interaction between clouds, precipitation, and atmospheric layers can impact turbine efficiency. As turbines grow taller and are deployed in more complex meteorological conditions, understanding these interactions is crucial for improving wind power forecasting and optimizing energy production in coastal regions.

17 WIND ENERGY↗

Use of microwave satellite data to study variations in rainfall over the Indian Ocean

The University of Wisconsin Space Science and Engineering Center mapped rainfall over the Indian Ocean using a newly developed Scanning Multichannel Microwave Radiometer (SMMR) rain-retrieval algorithm. The short-range objective was to characterize the distribution and variability of Indian Ocean rainfall on seasonal and annual scales. In the long-range, the objective is to clarify differences between land and marine regimes of monsoon rain. Researchers developed a semi-empirical algorithm for retrieving Indian Ocean rainfall. Tools for this development have come from radiative transfer and cloud liquid water models. Where possible, ground truth information from available radars was used in development and testing. SMMR rainfalls were also compared with Indian Ocean gauge rainfalls. Final Indian Ocean maps were produced for months, seasons, and years and interpreted in terms of historical analysis over the sub-continent.

Hinton, Barry B.↗

Wire Insulation Flammability Experiment: USML-1 One Year Post Mission Summary

Herein we report the results from the Wire Insulation Flammability (WIF) Experiment performed in the Glovebox Facility on the USML-1 mission. This experiment explored various aspects of electrically induced fire scenarios in a reduced gravity environment. Under quiescent microgravity conditions, heat and mass transfer are dominated by diffusive and radiative transport; while in normal-gravity buoyancy induced convection often dominates. Of considerable scientific and practical interest is the intermediate situation of combustion occurring in the presence of imposed gas flows, with lower characteristic velocities than those induced by buoyancy in noma1 gravity. Two distinct cases naturally arise: flow direction opposed to, or concurrent with, the flame spread direction. Two tests of each kind were conducted in the WIF experiment, providing the first controlled demonstration of flame spreading in forced convection ever conducted in space. Four test modules were flown. The wire insulation, 1.5 mm in diameter, was polyethylene, extruded onto nichrome wire. Temperatures of the wh3 cores and insulation heated in quiescent and flowing environments were measured. Video and still-camera images of the samples, burning in air flowing at approximately 10 cm/sec, were recorded to obtain flame characteristics including spread rate, structure and temperature. Flame spread rates in concurrent flow were approximately twice those in opposed flow. In concurrent and opposed flow regimes, the spreading flames stabilized around a bead of molten insulation material, within which bubble nucleation was observed. An ignition attempt without flow mated a quiescent cloud of vaporized fuel which ignited dramatically yet failed to sustain normal flame spread. Finally, all tests produced substantial soot agglomerates, particularly the concurrent flow tests; and the collected soot has a morphology very distinct from soot formed in normal gravity flames. Several unexpected and unique microgravity combustion phenomena were observed.

Greenberg, Paul S.↗

Large-Scale Covariability Between Aerosol and Precipitation Over the 7-SEAS Region: Observations and Simulations

One of the seven scientific areas of interests of the 7-SEAS field campaign is to evaluate the impact of aerosol on cloud and precipitation (http://7-seas.gsfc.nasa.gov). However, large-scale covariability between aerosol, cloud and precipitation is complicated not only by ambient environment and a variety of aerosol effects, but also by effects from rain washout and climate factors. This study characterizes large-scale aerosol-cloud-precipitation covariability through synergy of long-term multi ]sensor satellite observations with model simulations over the 7-SEAS region [10S-30N, 95E-130E]. Results show that climate factors such as ENSO significantly modulate aerosol and precipitation over the region simultaneously. After removal of climate factor effects, aerosol and precipitation are significantly anti-correlated over the southern part of the region, where high aerosols loading is associated with overall reduced total precipitation with intensified rain rates and decreased rain frequency, decreased tropospheric latent heating, suppressed cloud top height and increased outgoing longwave radiation, enhanced clear-sky shortwave TOA flux but reduced all-sky shortwave TOA flux in deep convective regimes; but such covariability becomes less notable over the northern counterpart of the region where low ]level stratus are found. Using CO as a proxy of biomass burning aerosols to minimize the washout effect, large-scale covariability between CO and precipitation was also investigated and similar large-scale covariability observed. Model simulations with NCAR CAM5 were found to show similar effects to observations in the spatio-temporal patterns. Results from both observations and simulations are valuable for improving our understanding of this region's meteorological system and the roles of aerosol within it. Key words: aerosol; precipitation; large-scale covariability; aerosol effects; washout; climate factors; 7- SEAS; CO; CAM5

Huang, Jingfeng↗

Electrification Within Wintertime Stratiform Regions Sampled During the 2020/2022 NASA IMPACTS Field Campaign

Two nor'easter events—sampled during the NASA Investigation of Microphysics and Precipitation for Atlantic Coast-Threatening Snowstorms (IMPACTS) field campaign—were examined to characterize the microphysics in relation to the underlying electrification processes within wintertime stratiform regions. A theoretical model was developed to determine whether accretion or diffusion growth regimes were preferential during periods of greatest electrification. Model simulation with electrification parameterization was used to provide supplemental context to the physical processes of in-cloud microphysics and electrification. The strongest electric fields (i.e., ∼80 V m −1 at 20 km) during the 2020 NASA IMPACTS deployment was associated with large non-rimed ice crystals colliding with each other. During the 29–30 January 2022 science flight, the NASA P-3 microphysical probe data demonstrated that non-inductive charging was possible off the coastline of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Later in the science flight, when the NASA P-3 and ER-2 were coordinating with each other, measured electric fields consistently were less than 8 V m −1 and electrification was subdued owing to reduced concentrations of graupel and large ice hydrometeors. Altogether, the in-situ observations provide evidence for the non-riming collisional charging mechanism and demonstrates that graupel and supercooled liquid water may not be necessary for weak electrification within wintertime stratiform regions. Model output from simulation of both events suggested that the main synoptic snowbands were associated with elevated hydrometeor snow charge density and electric fields.

snowfall↗

An experimental and theoretical study of the ice accretion process during artificial and natural icing conditions

Real-time measurements of ice growth during artificial and natural icing conditions were conducted using an ultrasonic pulse-echo technique. This technique allows ice thickness to be measured with an accuracy of + or - 0.5 mm; in addition, the ultrasonic signal characteristics may be used to detect the presence of liquid on the ice surface and hence discern wet and dry ice growth behavior. Ice growth was measured on the stagnation line of a cylinder exposed to artificial icing conditions in the NASA Lewis Icing Research Tunnel (IRT), and similarly for a cylinder exposed in flight to natural icing conditions. Ice thickness was observed to increase approximately linearly with exposure time during the initial icing period. The ice accretion rate was found to vary with cloud temperature during wet ice growth, and liquid runback from the stagnation region was inferred. A steady-state energy balance model for the icing surface was used to compare heat transfer characteristics for IRT and natural icing conditions. Ultrasonic measurements of wet and dry ice growth observed in the IRT and in flight were compared with icing regimes predicted by a series of heat transfer coefficients. The heat transfer magnitude was generally inferred to be higher for the IRT than for the natural icing conditions encountered in flight. An apparent variation in the heat transfer magnitude was also observed for flights conducted through different natural icing-cloud formations.

Kirby, Mark S.↗

Environmental Characteristics of Convective Systems During TRMM-LBA

In this paper, data collected from 51 days of continual upper atmospheric soundings and TOGA radar at ABRACOS Hill during the TRMM-LBA experiment are used to describe the mean thermodynamic and kinematic airmass properties of wet season convection over Rondonia, Brazil. Distinct multi-day easterly and westerly lower tropospheric wind regimes occurred during the campaign with contrasting airmass characteristics. Westerly wind periods featured modest CAPE (1000 J/kg), moist conditions (>90% RH) extending through 700 mb and shallow (900 mb) speed shear on the order of 10(exp -4)/s. This combination of characteristics promoted convective systems that featured a relatively large fraction of stratiform rainfall and weak convection nearly devoid of lightning. The environment is very similar to the general airmass conditions experienced during the Darwin, Australia monsoon convective regime. In contrast, easterly regime convective systems were more strongly electrified and featured larger convective rain rates and reduced stratiform rainfall fraction. These systems formed in an environment with significantly larger CAPE (1500 J/kg), drier lower and middle level humidities (< 80% RH) and a wind shear layer that was both stronger (10(exp -3)/s) and deeper (700 mb). The larger CAPE resulted from strong insolation under relatively cloud-free skies (owing to reduced column humidity) and was also weakly capped in the lowest 1-2 km, thus contributing to a more explosive growth of convection. The time series of low- and mid-level averaged humidity exhibited marked variability between westerly and easterly regimes and was characterized by low frequency (i.e., multi-day to weekly) oscillations. The synoptic scale origins of these moisture fluctuations are examined, which include the effects of variable low-level airmass trajectories and upper-level, westward migrating cyclonic vortices. The results reported herein provide an environmental context for ongoing dual Doppler analyses and numerical modeling case studies of individual TRMM-LBA convective systems.

Halverson, Jeffrey B.↗

On the origin of asteroids

A general scenario is described for the early history of the solar system. The primitive solar nebula is formed from the infall of gas from a collapsing interstellar cloud fragment. It becomes repeatedly unstable against collapse to form giant gaseous protoplanets. In the course of protoplanet evolution the center of the protoplanet enters a thermodynamic regime in which common rocky minerals become liquids; convection brings solids to the central region where a substantial fraction of them rain out to form a protoplanetary core. In the inner solar system protoplanetary envelopes are tidally stripped away, thus injecting into the solar nebula large equantities of chondrules and inclusions. Late in the development of the solar nebula, after most of the gas has disappeared, turbulence dies out and the small solids settle into a thin layer at midplane of the nebula. Gravitational instabilities in this layer form asteroidal and cometary bodies. Some further consequences of this scenario are discussed.

Cameron, A. G. W.↗

Collapse and fragmentation of rotating, adiabatic clouds

A numerical hydrodynamics code has been used to calculate the collapse of rotating, adiabatic clouds. The three-dimensional nature of the calculation allows the clouds to fragment in the dynamic collapse phase. Clouds with adiabatic exponent of 7/5 and initial cos(2 phi) density variations fragment into binary systems if the initial ratio of thermal to gravitational energy is small (about 0.05). Clouds with higher thermal energy, however, damp the density variation and form near-equilibrium ellipsoids, with ratios of rotational to gravitational energy less than the critical value for dynamic growth of nonaxisymmetry in Maclaurin spheroids. Even with an adiabatic pressure law, dynamic fragmentation of a collapsing cloud is possible, implying for star formation theory that the low thermal energy fragments produced in isothermal collapse calculations may undergo a subsequent dynamic fragmentation in the nonisothermal regime.

Boss, A. P.↗

GEWEX Continental-scale International Project (GCIP)

The Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment (GEWEX) represents the World Climate Research Program activities on clouds, radiation, and land-surface processes. The goal of the program is to reproduce and predict, by means of suitable models, the variations of the global hydrological regime and its impact on atmospheric and oceanic dynamics. However, GEWEX is also concerned with variations in regional hydrological processes and water resources and their response to changes in the environment such as increasing greenhouse gases. In fact, GEWEX contains a major new international project called the GEWEX Continental-scale International Project (GCIP), which is designed to bridge the gap between the small scales represented by hydrological models and those scales that are practical for predicting the regional impacts of climate change. The development and use of coupled mesoscale-hydrological models for this purpose is a high priority in GCIP. The objectives of GCIP are presented.

Try, Paul↗

Observations of Two Non-Standard Grain Components

We discuss evidence for two non-standard grain components: small conglomerates and astronomical iron. The small conglomerates are small, temperature fluctuating grains made up of loosely bound 12 micron emitters (either PAH's or dielectrics). When these grains are exposed to strong UV radiation fields they break apart into smaller pieces. For high UV radiation regimes, such as H II regions, conglomerate grains best explain the reduction of 25 micron emission relative to 12 micron. Astronomical iron was originally proposed for isolated cirrus clouds in order to account for the strength of the 60 micron emission. Within the diffuse ISM, these grains emit at a relatively high equilibrium temperature of 50 K. Our analysis of IRAS data shows the presence of a strong 60 micron emitter in the Lambda Orionis H II region and a component within the Rosette Nebula emitting primarily at 25 micron. Both of these observations can be accommodated by the presence of iron grains within the H II regions.

Shipman, R. F.↗

Venus Flagship Mission Concept: A Decadal Survey Study

More than any other known planet, Venus is essential to our understanding of the evolution and habitability of Earth-size planets throughout the galaxy. We address two critical questions for planetary science: 1) How, if at all, did Venus evolve through a habitable phase? 2) What circumstances affect how volatiles shape habitable worlds? More than any other group, volatile elements have a strong influence on the evolutionary paths of rocky bodies and are critical to understanding solar system evolution. It is clear that Venus experienced a different volatile element history from the Earth and provides the only accessible example of one end-state of habitable Earth-size planets. Venus will allow us to identify the mechanisms that operate together to produce and maintain habitable worlds like our own.The (VFM) concept architecture relies on five collaborative platforms: an Orbiter, Lander, variable-altitude Aerobot and two Small Satellites (SmallSats) delivered via a single launch on a Falcon 9 heavy expendable. The platforms would use multiple instruments to measure the exosphere, atmosphere and surface at multiple scales with high precision and over time. VFM would provide the first measurements of mineralogy and geochemistry of tessera terrain to examine rocks considered to be among the most likely to have formed in a habitable climate regime. Landed, descent, aerial and orbital platforms would work synergistically to measure the chemical composition of the atmosphere including the Aerobot operating for 60 days in the Venus clouds. Loss mechanisms would be constrained by the SmallSats in two key orbits. The baseline payload for VFM includes instruments to make the first measurements of seismicity and remanent magnetism, the first long-lived (60 day) surface platform and the first life detection instrument at Venus to interrogate what could be an inhabited world.The VFM concept directly addresses each of the three Venus Exploration Analysis Group (VEXAG) goals as well as several of the strategic objectives of the 2020 NASA Science Plan, Planetary Science Division, Heliophysics and Astrophysics. The simultaneous, synergistic measurements of the solid body, surface, atmosphere and space environment provided by the VFM would allow us to target the most accessible Earth-size planet in our galaxy, and gain a profound new understanding of the evolution of our solar system and habitable worlds.

Segura, Marcia↗

Field intercomparison of ice nucleation measurements: the Fifth International Workshop on Ice Nucleation Phase 3 (FIN-03)

Abstract. The third phase of the Fifth International Ice Nucleation Workshop (FIN-03) was conducted at the Storm Peak Laboratory in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, in September 2015 to facilitate the intercomparison of instruments measuring ice-nucleating particles (INPs) in the field. Instruments included two online and four offline measurement systems for INPs, which are a subset of those utilized in the laboratory study that comprised the second phase of FIN (FIN-02). The composition of the total aerosols was characterized using the Particle Analysis by Laser Mass Spectrometry (PALMS) and Wideband Integrated Bioaerosol Sensor (WIBS) instruments, and aerosol size distributions were measured by a laser aerosol spectrometer (LAS). The dominant total particle compositions present during FIN-03 were composed of sulfates, organic compounds, and nitrates, as well as particles derived from biomass burning. Mineral-dust-containing particles were ubiquitous throughout and represented 67 % of supermicron particles. Total WIBS fluorescing particle concentrations for particles with diameters of > 0.5 µm were 0.04 ± 0.02 cm−3 (0.1 cm−3 highest; 0.02 cm−3 lowest), typical of the warm season in this region and representing ≈ 9 % of all particles in this size range as a campaign average. The primary focus of FIN-03 was the measurement of INP concentrations via immersion freezing at temperatures > −33 °C. Additionally, some measurements were made in the deposition nucleation regime at these same temperatures, representing one of the first efforts to include both mechanisms within a field campaign. INP concentrations via immersion freezing agreed within factors ranging from nearly 1 to 5 times on average between matched (time and temperature) measurements, and disagreements only rarely exceeded 1 order of magnitude for sampling times coordinated to within 3 h. Comparisons were restricted to temperatures lower than −15 °C due to the limits of detection related to sample volumes and very low INP concentrations. Outliers of up to 2 orders of magnitude occurred between −25 and −18 °C; a better agreement was seen at higher and lower temperatures. Although the 5–10 factor agreement of INP measurements found in FIN-03 aligned with the results of the FIN-02 laboratory comparison phase, giving confidence in progress of this measurement field, this level of agreement still equates to temperature uncertainties of 3.5 to 5 °C that may not be sufficient for numerical cloud modeling applications that utilize INP information. INP activity in the immersion-freezing mode was generally found to be an order of magnitude or more, making it more efficient than in the deposition regime at 95 %–99 % water relative humidity, although this limited data set should be augmented in future efforts. To contextualize the study results, an assessment was made of the composition of INPs during the late-summer to early-fall period of this study inferred through comparison to existing ice nucleation parameterizations and through measurement of the influence of thermal and organic carbon digestion treatments on immersion-freezing ice nucleation activity. Consistent with other studies in continental regions, biological INPs dominated at temperatures of > −20 °C and sometimes colder, while arable dust-like or other organic-influenced INPs were inferred to dominate below −20 °C.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Polarization Difference - The Scientific Story Behind One Variable and Its Practical Applications

Cloud ice and snow microphysical characteristics play an important role in determining cloud radiative effect. They are also closely connected to the details of surface precipitation characteristics. Ice orientation is one microphysical property that is traditionally believed to have trivial impact on the weather systems/climate, and it is hard to measure from space. In this presentation, I will show how many scientific stories can be told from one variable – the brightness temperature difference between vertically-polarized and horizontally-polarized 166 GHz measurements from the Global Precipitation Measurement Microwave Imager (GPM-GMI). Through scrutinizing collocated CloudSat, GMI and GPM radar observations together with the aid of radiative transfer model simulations, we can not only tell apart the particle size, shape and orientation, but also understand the precipitation regime as well as the life stage of a a precipitation system. In the second half of my talk, I will showcase how this variable can be used for predicting precipitation flags and separating mixed-phase cloud from liquid and ice with the powerful machine learning/artificial intelligence (ML/AI) technique.

cloud ice and snow microphysical characteristics↗

Dependence of Aerosol-Droplet Partitioning on Turbulence in a Laboratory Cloud

Activation is the first step in aerosol-cloud interactions, which have been identified as one of the principal uncertainties in Earth's climate system. Aerosol particles become cloud droplets, or activate, when the ambient saturation ratio exceeds a threshold, which depends on the particle's size and hygroscopicity. In the traditional formulation of the process, only average, uniform saturation ratios are considered. Furthermore, turbulent environments like clouds intrinsically have fluctuations around mean values in the scalar fields of temperature and water vapor concentration, which determine the saturation ratio. Through laboratory measurements, we show that these fluctuations are an important parameter that needs to be addressed to fully describe activation. Our results show, even for single-sized, chemically homogeneous aerosols, that fluctuations blur the correspondence between activation and a particle's size and chemical composition, that turbulence can increase the fraction of aerosol particles which activate, and that the activated fraction decreases monotonically as the concentration of aerosol increases. Taken together, our data demonstrate that fluctuations can have effects equivalent to the aerosol limited and updraft limited regimes, known from adiabatic parcel theory.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

Gravitational instability in a primordial collapsing gas cloud

This paper presents an analysis of the linear evolution of short-wavelength perturbations in a background fluid flow which is undergoing gravitational collapse on large scales. Local evolution equations for perturbations to an arbitrary flow are derived in the linear regime and the short-wavelength limit. Local perturbation behavior in an inhomogeneous flow is found to be the same as that in a homogeneous anisotropic flow having the same local velocity field. Background flows in which the scale factors vary as power laws in time are considered to illustrate the relative effects of self-gravity, pressure and kinematics of the background flow on the density perturbation evolution. Perturbation analyses are then presented for more realistic background flows arising from the evolution into the nonlinear regime of initially small density perturbations in an isotropically expanding cosmological model. For low-pressure, inhomogeneous collapses, kinematic effects tend to dominate over self-gravity in driving perturbation growth as the collapse proceeds.

Lacey, Cedric G.↗

Multi-campaign ship and aircraft observations of marine cloud condensation nuclei and droplet concentrations

In situ marine cloud droplet number concentrations (CDNCs), cloud condensation nuclei (CCN), and CCN proxies, based on particle sizes and optical properties, are accumulated from seven field campaigns: ACTIVATE; NAAMES; CAMP 2 EX; ORACLES; SOCRATES; MARCUS; and CAPRICORN2. Each campaign involves aircraft measurements, ship-based measurements, or both. Measurements collected over the North and Central Atlantic, Indo-Pacific, and Southern Oceans, represent a range of clean to polluted conditions in various climate regimes. With the extensive range of environmental conditions sampled, this data collection is ideal for testing satellite remote detection methods of CDNC and CCN in marine environments. Remote measurement methods are vital to expanding the available data in these difficult-to-reach regions of the Earth and improving our understanding of aerosol-cloud interactions. The data collection includes particle composition and continental tracers to identify potential contributing CCN sources. Several of these campaigns include High Spectral Resolution Lidar (HSRL) and polarimetric imaging measurements and retrievals that will be the basis for the next generation of space-based remote sensors and, thus, can be utilized as satellite surrogates.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗