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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 73 records · Page 4
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2024

Data from "A Bayesian Record Linkage Approach to Applications in Tree Demography Using Overlapping LiDAR Scans"

Processed LiDAR data and environmental covariates from 2015 and 2019 LiDAR scans in the Vicinity of Snodgrass Mountain (Western Colorado, USA), in a geographic subset used in primary analysis for the research paper.This package contains LiDAR-derived canopy height maps for 2015 and 2019, crown polygons derived from the height maps using a segmentation algorithm, and environmental covariates supporting the model of forest growth. Source datasets include August 2015 and August 2019 discrete-return LiDAR point clouds collected by Quantum Geospatial for terrain mapping purposes on behalf of the Colorado Hazard Mapping Program and the Colorado Water Conservation Board. Both datasets adhere to the USGS QL2 quality standard. The point cloud data were processed using the R package lidR to generate a canopy height model representing maximum vegetation height above the ground surface, using a pit-free algorithm.This dataset was compiled to assess how spatial patterns of tree growth in montane and subalpine forests are influenced by water and energy availability. Understanding these growth patterns can provide insight into forest dynamics in the Southern Rocky Mountains under changing climatic conditions.This dataset contains .tif, .csv, and .txt files. This dataset additionally includes a file-level metadata (flmd.csv) file that lists each file contained in the dataset with associated metadata; and a data dictionary (dd.csv) file that contains column/row headers used throughout the files along with a definition, units, and data type.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2022

Genome-scale modelling of the primary-specialized metabolism interface

Environmental challenges and development require plants to reallocate resources between primary and specialized metabolites to survive. Genome-scale metabolic models, which map carbon flux through metabolic pathways, are a valuable tool in the study of tradeoffs that arise at this interface. Due to annotation gaps, models that characterize all the enzymatic steps in individual specialized pathways and their linkages to each other and to central carbon metabolism are difficult to construct. Recent studies have successfully curated subsystems of specialized metabolism and characterized the interfaces where flux is diverted to the precursors of glucosinolates, terpenes, and anthocyanins. Although advances in metabolite profiling can help to constrain models at this interface, quantitative analysis remains challenging because of the different timescales on which specialized metabolites from constitutive and reactive pathways accumulate.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2023

Dispersal, habitat filtering, and eco-evolutionary dynamics as drivers of local and global wetland viral biogeography

Abstract Wetlands store 20–30% of the world’s soil carbon, and identifying the microbial controls on these carbon reserves is essential to predicting feedbacks to climate change. Although viral infections likely play important roles in wetland ecosystem dynamics, we lack a basic understanding of wetland viral ecology. Here 63 viral size-fraction metagenomes (viromes) and paired total metagenomes were generated from three time points in 2021 at seven fresh- and saltwater wetlands in the California Bodega Marine Reserve. We recovered 12,826 viral population genomic sequences (vOTUs), only 4.4% of which were detected at the same field site two years prior, indicating a small degree of population stability or recurrence. Viral communities differed most significantly among the seven wetland sites and were also structured by habitat (plant community composition and salinity). Read mapping to a new version of our reference database, PIGEONv2.0 (515,763 vOTUs), revealed 196 vOTUs present over large geographic distances, often reflecting shared habitat characteristics. Wetland vOTU microdiversity was significantly lower locally than globally and lower within than between time points, indicating greater divergence with increasing spatiotemporal distance. Viruses tended to have broad predicted host ranges via CRISPR spacer linkages to metagenome-assembled genomes, and increased SNP frequencies in CRISPR-targeted major tail protein genes suggest potential viral eco-evolutionary dynamics in response to both immune targeting and changes in host cell receptors involved in viral attachment. Together, these results highlight the importance of dispersal, environmental selection, and eco-evolutionary dynamics as drivers of local and global wetland viral biogeography.

Environmental Sciences & Ecology↗
DOE OSTI2023

Amazon windthrow disturbances are likely to increase with storm frequency under global warming

Abstract Forest mortality caused by convective storms (windthrow) is a major disturbance in the Amazon. However, the linkage between windthrows at the surface and convective storms in the atmosphere remains unclear. In addition, the current Earth system models (ESMs) lack mechanistic links between convective wind events and tree mortality. Here we find an empirical relationship that maps convective available potential energy, which is well simulated by ESMs, to the spatial pattern of large windthrow events. This relationship builds connections between strong convective storms and forest dynamics in the Amazon. Based on the relationship, our model projects a 51 ± 20% increase in the area favorable to extreme storms, and a 43 ± 17% increase in windthrow density within the Amazon by the end of this century under the high-emission scenario (SSP 585). These results indicate significant changes in tropical forest composition and carbon cycle dynamics under climate change.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
NASA NTRS1989

A dual-armed free flyer

This summary presents the main conclusions and results of the design studies conducted by a group of 13 students at the University of Maryland. The students, all participants in the spring 1989 course ENEE418 in the Electrical Engineering Department, met weekly in a two-hour class to discuss and evaluate design alternatives. The main problem considered was the design and control of a planar testbed simulating a free-flying space robot for applications in satellite servicing. This project grew out of the 1988 class where a dual-armed free flyer (DAFF) was designed and partially built. This year, a group of six students continued the development of the DAFF, achieving computer-controlled motion of the DAFF's arms. All fabrication and testing of the DAFF is being conducted in the Intelligent Servosystems Laboratory at the University of Maryland. While the work related to the design and development of the DAFF is the main subject of the report, it should be noted that other students in the ENEE418 class have investigated additional issues related to manipulation in space. For example, one group studied a new parallel linkage based manipulator for fine motion applications such as in assembly operations in space. They investigated the mechanism's kinematics, its reachable workspace, and precision of applying forces and torques. In yet another project, a student set out to measure and map the friction characteristics of the actuators used in the Modular Dextrous Hand, which has been recently developed in the Intelligent Servosystems Laboratory. The results are expected to help compensate for this friction, which is a highly nonlinear disturbance and presents significant problems in high-precision, low-speed operations. This summary continues with the discussion of the results obtained by the group of students who have been working on developing the DAFF testbed.

Beck, D.↗
NASA NTRS2024

Alignment of NASA’s Human System Risks with Technological Capability Gaps to Enable Integrated Research and Technology Development Strategic Planning

BACKGROUND: Radiation, reduced gravity, distance from earth, isolation and confinement, and habitation within artificially created and controlled life support environments are hazards that present risk to human space explorers. NASA’s Human System Risk Board (HSRB) maintains a set of twenty-nine different Human System Risks with subject matter experts from across the agency providing regular updates to the estimated likelihood and consequence associated with each risk. The Human Research Program (HRP) has historically used these risk classifications as a primary basis for identifying and prioritizing human research investments aimed at characterizing and/or mitigating the respective human system risks. In many cases, technology development is required to mature and validate risk mitigation strategies, however, NASA’s primary technology development programs have not typically used Human System Risks as a basis for strategic planning. A primary function of the Environmental Control and Life Support Systems (ECLSS) – Crew Health and Performance (CHP) System Capability Leadership Team (SCLT) is to continually identify, review, and update technological capability gaps and to establish and oversee multiyear strategic roadmaps aimed at guiding NASA’s technology development priorities in these areas. These roadmaps are intended to be agency-wide and independent of any program, directorate, or other organization within NASA. DESCRIPTION: The SCLT and HRP collaborated to establish a set of Human System Capability Gaps, which establish a formal linkage between the capability gaps used to prioritize investments across much of NASA, and the Human System Risks that are primarily used to inform and prioritize human research. This set of twenty-eight gaps was developed by subject matter experts, and each gap mapped to the primary associated Human System Risks. The gaps and risk mapping were then reviewed and approved via the HSRB, thereby formally aligning the research-focused Human System Risks with the technology-focused capability gaps. DISCUSSION: This effort has enabled development of integrated roadmaps and budget coordination with research and technology development activities that are formally linked to agency-recognized capability gaps and Human System Risks. Close and ongoing coordination between the SCLT, HRP, Mars Campaign Office, and the Health & Medical Technical Authority (HMTA) is essential to ensure alignment and prioritization of CHP-related research and technology development to enable NASA’s future exploration missions.

Andrew F J Abercromby↗
NASA NTRS2012

CARVE: The Carbon in Arctic Reservoirs Vulnerability Experiment

The Carbon in Arctic Reservoirs Vulnerability Experiment (CARVE) is a NASA Earth Ventures (EV-1) investigation designed to quantify correlations between atmospheric and surface state variables for the Alaskan terrestrial ecosystems through intensive seasonal aircraft campaigns, ground-based observations, and analysis sustained over a 5-year mission. CARVE bridges critical gaps in our knowledge and understanding of Arctic ecosystems, linkages between the Arctic hydrologic and terrestrial carbon cycles, and the feedbacks from fires and thawing permafrost. CARVE's objectives are to: (1) Directly test hypotheses attributing the mobilization of vulnerable Arctic carbon reservoirs to climate warming; (2) Deliver the first direct measurements and detailed maps of CO2 and CH4 sources on regional scales in the Alaskan Arctic; and (3) Demonstrate new remote sensing and modeling capabilities to quantify feedbacks between carbon fluxes and carbon cycle-climate processes in the Arctic (Figure 1). We describe the investigation design and results from 2011 test flights in Alaska.

Arctic Carbon Cycle↗
NASA NTRS1988

Late Pleistocene variations in Antarctica sea ice. I - Effect of orbital isolation changes. II - Effect of interhemispheric deep-ocean heat exchange

A dynamic-thermodynamic sea-ice model is presently used to ascertain the effects of orbitally-induced insolation changes on Antarctic sea-ice cover; the results thus obtained are compared with modified CLIMAP reconstructions of sea-ice 18,000 years ago. The minor influence exerted by insolation on Pleistocene sea-ice distributions is attributable to a number of factors. In the second part of this investigation, variations in the production of warm North Atlantic Deep Water are proposed as a mechanism constituting the linkage between climate fluctuations in the Northern and Southern hemispheres during the Pleistocene; this hypothesis is tested by examining the sensitivity of the dynamic-thermodynamic model for Antarctic sea-ice changes in vertical ocean heat flux, and comparing the simulations with modified CLIMAP sea-ice maps for 18,000 years ago.

Crowley, Thomas J.↗
NASA NTRS1993

The national geomagnetic initiative

The Earth's magnetic field, through its variability over a spectrum of spatial and temporal scales, contains fundamental information on the solid Earth and geospace environment (the latter comprising the atmosphere, ionosphere, and magnetosphere). Integrated studies of the geomagnetic field have the potential to address a wide range of important processes in the deep mantle and core, asthenosphere, lithosphere, oceans, and the solar-terrestrial environment. These studies have direct applications to important societal problems, including resource assessment and exploration, natural hazard mitigation, safe navigation, and the maintenance and survivability of communications and power systems on the ground and in space. Studies of the Earth's magnetic field are supported by a variety of federal and state agencies as well as by private industry. Both basic and applied research is presently supported by several federal agencies, including the National Science Foundation (NSF), U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) (through the Navy, Air Force, and Defense Mapping Agency). Although each agency has a unique, well-defined mission in geomagnetic studies, many areas of interest overlap. For example, NASA, the Navy, and USGS collaborate closely in the development of main field reference models. NASA, NSF, and the Air Force collaborate in space physics. These interagency linkages need to be strengthened. Over the past decade, new opportunities for fundamental advances in geomagnetic research have emerged as a result of three factors: well-posed, first-order scientific questions; increased interrelation of research activities dealing with geomagnetic phenomena; and recent developments in technology. These new opportunities can be exploited through a national geomagnetic initiative to define objectives and encourage coordination of efforts among federal and state agencies, academic institutions, and industry to systematically characterize the spatial and temporal behavior of the Earth's magnetic field on local, regional, and global scales in order to understand the physical processes in the solid earth and geospace environment, and to apply this understanding to a variety of scientific problems and to technical and societal needs.

Source record↗
DOE OSTI2024

Novel, active, and uncultured hydrocarbon-degrading microbes in the ocean

ABSTRACT Given the vast quantity of oil and gas input to the marine environment annually, hydrocarbon degradation by marine microorganisms is an essential ecosystem service. Linkages between taxonomy and hydrocarbon degradation capabilities are largely based on cultivation studies, leaving a knowledge gap regarding the intrinsic ability of uncultured marine microbes to degrade hydrocarbons. To address this knowledge gap, metagenomic sequence data from the Deepwater Horizon (DWH) oil spill deep-sea plume was assembled to which metagenomic and metatranscriptomic reads were mapped. Assembly and binning produced new DWH metagenome-assembled genomes that were evaluated along with their close relatives, all of which are from the marine environment (38 total). These analyses revealed globally distributed hydrocarbon-degrading microbes with clade-specific substrate degradation potentials that have not been reported previously. For example, methane oxidation capabilities were identified in all Cycloclasticus . Furthermore, all Bermanella encoded and expressed genes for non-gaseous n -alkane degradation; however, DWH Bermanella encoded alkane hydroxylase, not alkane 1-monooxygenase. All but one previously unrecognized DWH plume member in the SAR324 and UBA11654 have the capacity for aromatic hydrocarbon degradation. In contrast, Colwellia were diverse in the hydrocarbon substrates they could degrade. All clades encoded nutrient acquisition strategies and response to cold temperatures, while sensory and acquisition capabilities were clade specific. These novel insights regarding hydrocarbon degradation by uncultured planktonic microbes provides missing data, allowing for better prediction of the fate of oil and gas when hydrocarbons are input to the ocean, leading to a greater understanding of the ecological consequences to the marine environment. IMPORTANCE Microbial degradation of hydrocarbons is a critically important process promoting ecosystem health, yet much of what is known about this process is based on physiological experiments with a few hydrocarbon substrates and cultured microbes. Thus, the ability to degrade the diversity of hydrocarbons that comprise oil and gas by microbes in the environment, particularly in the ocean, is not well characterized. Therefore, this study aimed to utilize non-cultivation-based ‘omics data to explore novel genomes of uncultured marine microbes involved in degradation of oil and gas. Analyses of newly assembled metagenomic data and previously existing genomes from other marine data sets, with metagenomic and metatranscriptomic read recruitment, revealed globally distributed hydrocarbon-degrading marine microbes with clade-specific substrate degradation potentials that have not been previously reported. This new understanding of oil and gas degradation by uncultured marine microbes suggested that the global ocean harbors a diversity of hydrocarbon-degrading bacteria, which can act as primary agents regulating ecosystem health.

Howe, Kathryn L.↗
DOE OSTI2022

Generative Adversarial Networks and Mixture Density Networks-Based Inverse Modeling for Microstructural Materials Design

Abstract There are two broad modeling paradigms in scientific applications: forward and inverse. While forward modeling estimates the observations based on known causes, inverse modeling attempts to infer the causes given the observations. Inverse problems are usually more critical as well as difficult in scientific applications as they seek to explore the causes that cannot be directly observed. Inverse problems are used extensively in various scientific fields, such as geophysics, health care and materials science. Exploring the relationships from properties to microstructures is one of the inverse problems in material science. It is challenging to solve the microstructure discovery inverse problem, because it usually needs to learn a one-to-many nonlinear mapping. Given a target property, there are multiple different microstructures that exhibit the target property, and their discovery also requires significant computing time. Further, microstructure discovery becomes even more difficult because the dimension of properties (input) is much lower than that of microstructures (output). In this work, we propose a framework consisting of generative adversarial networks and mixture density networks for inverse modeling of structure–property linkages in materials, i.e., microstructure discovery for a given property. The results demonstrate that compared to baseline methods, the proposed framework can overcome the above-mentioned challenges and discover multiple promising solutions in an efficient manner.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
NASA NTRS2011

Utilization of Ancillary Data Sets for Conceptual SMAP Mission Algorithm Development and Product Generation

The planned Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission is one of the first Earth observation satellites being developed by NASA in response to the National Research Council's Decadal Survey, Earth Science and Applications from Space: National Imperatives for the Next Decade and Beyond [1]. Scheduled to launch late in 2014, the proposed SMAP mission would provide high resolution and frequent revisit global mapping of soil moisture and freeze/thaw state, utilizing enhanced Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) mitigation approaches to collect new measurements of the hydrological condition of the Earth's surface. The SMAP instrument design incorporates an L-band radar (3 km) and an L band radiometer (40 km) sharing a single 6-meter rotating mesh antenna to provide measurements of soil moisture and landscape freeze/thaw state [2]. These observations would (1) improve our understanding of linkages between the Earth's water, energy, and carbon cycles, (2) benefit many application areas including numerical weather and climate prediction, flood and drought monitoring, agricultural productivity, human health, and national security, (3) help to address priority questions on climate change, and (4) potentially provide continuity with brightness temperature and soil moisture measurements from ESA's SMOS (Soil Moisture Ocean Salinity) and NASA's Aquarius missions. In the planned SMAP mission prelaunch time frame, baseline algorithms are being developed for generating (1) soil moisture products both from radiometer measurements on a 36 km grid and from combined radar/radiometer measurements on a 9 km grid, and (2) freeze/thaw products from radar measurements on a 3 km grid. These retrieval algorithms need a variety of global ancillary data, both static and dynamic, to run the retrieval models, constrain the retrievals, and provide flags for indicating retrieval quality. The choice of which ancillary dataset to use for a particular SMAP product would be based on a number of factors, including its availability and ease of use, its inherent error and resulting impact on the overall soil moisture or freeze/thaw retrieval accuracy, and its compatibility with similar choices made by the SMOS mission. All decisions regarding SMAP ancillary data sources would be fully documented by the SMAP Project and made available to the user community.

freeze/thaw↗
NASA NTRS1998

Network Coronal Bright Points: Coronal Heating Concentrations Found in the Solar Magnetic Network

We examine the magnetic origins of coronal heating in quiet regions by combining SOHO/EIT Fe xii coronal images and Kitt Peak magnetograms. Spatial filtering of the coronal images shows a network of enhanced structures on the scale of the magnetic network in quiet regions. Superposition of the filtered coronal images on maps of the magnetic network extracted from the magnetograms shows that the coronal network does indeed trace and stem from the magnetic network. Network coronal bright points, the brightest features in the network lanes, are found to have a highly significant coincidence with polarity dividing lines (neutral lines) in the network and are often at the feet of enhanced coronal structures that stem from the network and reach out over the cell interiors. These results indicate that, similar to the close linkage of neutral-line core fields with coronal heating in active regions (shown in previous work), low-lying core fields encasing neutral lines in the magnetic network often drive noticeable coronal heating both within themselves (the network coronal bright points) and on more extended field lines rooted around them. This behavior favors the possibility that active core fields in the network are the main drivers of the heating of the bulk of the quiet corona, on scales much larger than the network lanes and cells.

Falconer, D. A.↗
NASA NTRS1991

Analysis of the potential application of the Davenport/Short information technology model to a research and development organization

Part of the role of the Mission Operations Lab is the development of budget inputs for Huntsville Operations/Payload Crew Training Center/Payload Operations Control Center (HOSC/PCTC/POCC) activity. These budget inputs are part of the formal Program Operating Plan (POP) process, which occurs twice yearly, and of the formal creation of the yearly operating plan. Both POPs and the operation plan serve the purpose of mapping out planned expenditures for the next fiscal year and for a number of outlying years. Based on these plans, the various Project Offices at the Center fund the HOSC/PCTC/POCC activity. Because of Mission Operations Lab's role in budget development, some of the Project Offices have begun looking to Mission Operations, and specifically the EO02 branch, to track expenditures and explain/justify any deviations from plans. EO02 has encountered difficulties acquiring the necessary information to perform this function. It appears that the necessary linkages with other units had not been fully developed and integrated with the flow of information in budget implementation. The purpose of this study is to document the budget process from the point of view of EO02 and to identify the steps necessary for it to effectively perform this role on a continuous basis.

Decker, Deron R.↗
NASA NTRS1997

Network Coronal Bright Points: Coronal Heating Concentrations Found in the Solar Magnetic Network

We examine the magnetic origins of coronal heating in quiet regions by combining SOHO/EIT Fe XII coronal images and Kitt Peak magnetograms. Spatial filtering of the coronal images shows a network of enhanced structures on the scale of the magnetic network in quiet regions. Superposition of the filtered coronal images on maps of the magnetic network extracted from the magnetograms shows that the coronal network does indeed trace and stem from the magnetic network. Network coronal bright points, the brightest features in the network lanes, are found to have a highly significant (8 sigma above random chance) coincidence with polarity dividing lines (neutral lines) in the network, and are often at the feet of enhanced coronal structures that stem from the network and reach out over the cell interiors. These results indicate that, similar to the close linkage of neutral-line core fields with coronal heating in active regions, low-lying core fields encasing neutral lines in the magnetic network often drive noticeable coronal heating both within themselves (the network coronal bright points) and on more extended fields lines rooted around them. This behavior favors the possibility that active core fields in the network are the main drivers of the heating of the bulk of the quiet corona, on scales much larger than the network lanes and cells.

Falconer, D. A.↗
NASA NTRS2017

Machine Learning Approaches to Increasing Value of Spaceflight Omics Databases

The number of spaceflight bioscience mission opportunities is too small to allow all relevant biological and environmental parameters to be experimentally identified. Simulated spaceflight experiments in ground-based facilities (GBFs), such as clinostats, are each suitable only for particular investigations -- a rotating-wall vessel may be 'simulated microgravity' for cell differentiation (hours), but not DNA repair (seconds) -- and introduce confounding stimuli, such as motor vibration and fluid shear effects. This uncertainty over which biological mechanisms respond to a given form of simulated space radiation or gravity, as well as its side effects, limits our ability to baseline spaceflight data and validate mission science. Machine learning techniques autonomously identify relevant and interdependent factors in a data set given the set of desired metrics to be evaluated: to automatically identify related studies, compare data from related studies, or determine linkages between types of data in the same study. System-of-systems (SoS) machine learning models have the ability to deal with both sparse and heterogeneous data, such as that provided by the small and diverse number of space biosciences flight missions; however, they require appropriate user-defined metrics for any given data set. Although machine learning in bioinformatics is rapidly expanding, the need to combine spaceflight/GBF mission parameters with omics data is unique. This work characterizes the basic requirements for implementing the SoS approach through the System Map (SM) technique, a composite of a dynamic Bayesian network and Gaussian mixture model, in real-world repositories such as the GeneLab Data System and Life Sciences Data Archive. The three primary steps are metadata management for experimental description using open-source ontologies, defining similarity and consistency metrics, and generating testing and validation data sets. Such approaches to spaceflight and GBF omics data may soon enable unique insight into which measured phenomena correlate to biological mechanisms that are truly affected by spaceflight conditions; which are most likely to be confounded by other variables; and which are insufficiently characterized, significantly increasing existing and future science return from ISS and spaceflight missions.

Gentry, Diana↗
NASA NTRS2005

Spatial Predictive Modeling and Remote Sensing of Land Use Change in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed

This project was focused on modeling the processes by which increasing demand for developed land uses, brought about by changes in the regional economy and the socio-demographics of the region, are translated into a changing spatial pattern of land use. Our study focused on a portion of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed where the spatial patterns of sprawl represent a set of conditions generally prevalent in much of the U.S. Working in the region permitted us access to (i) a time-series of multi-scale and multi-temporal (including historical) satellite imagery and (ii) an established network of collaborating partners and agencies willing to share resources and to utilize developed techniques and model results. In addition, a unique parcel-level tax assessment database and linked parcel boundary maps exists for two counties in the Maryland portion of this region that made it possible to establish a historical cross-section time-series database of parcel level development decisions. Scenario analyses of future land use dynamics provided critical quantitative insight into the impact of alternative land management and policy decisions. These also have been specifically aimed at addressing growth control policies aimed at curbing exurban (sprawl) development. Our initial technical approach included three components: (i) spatial econometric modeling of the development decision, (ii) remote sensing of suburban change and residential land use density, including comparisons of past change from Landsat analyses and more traditional sources, and (iii) linkages between the two through variable initialization and supplementation of parcel level data. To these we added a fourth component, (iv) cellular automata modeling of urbanization, which proved to be a valuable addition to the project. This project has generated both remote sensing and spatially explicit socio-economic data to estimate and calibrate the parameters for two different types of land use change models and has undertaken analyses of these models. One (the CA model) is driven largely by observations on past patterns of land use change, while the other (the EC model) is driven by mechanisms of the land use change decision at the parcel level. Our project may be the first serious attempt at developing both types of models for the same area, using as much common data as possible. We have identified the strengths and weaknesses of the two approaches and plan to continue to revise each model in the light of new data and new lessons learned through continued collaboration. Questions, approaches, findings, publication and presentation lists concerning the research are also presented.

Goetz, Scott J.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Polar Vortex Outbreak Air Transport: Observation using Satellite IR Sounder Derived Ozone Product and Comparison with Model

The Single Field of View (SFOV) Sounder Atmospheric Products (SiFSAP) derived from Cross-track Infrared Sounder (CrIS) on SNPP and JPSS have a spatial resolution ( ~14.5 km) better than most global weather and climate models. Most recent significant improvement in the quality of these products enables us to use these high-resolution observation-based sounding data for weather studies and model evaluation. The aim of this study is to explore the value to use these SFOV products for studying the dynamic transport associated with polar vortex outbreak. In a few cases studies, we used SiFSAP products, especially ozone, as well as the data of wind, geopotential height (GPH) and potential velocity (PV) from the fifth-generation ECMWF reanalysis (ERA5) data, to analyze the variation of total ozone, relative humidity and ozone in different layers, as well as their correlation with GPH and PV. Some comparison of the retrieved temperature and water vapor with ERA5 data, and ozone with the Ozone Mapping and Profiler Suite (OMPS) measurements have also been made. It is found (1) the transport of O3-riched polar air accompanying the polar vortex breakup to lower latitude and lower atmosphere, and (2) the transport path of O3 agreeing well with the path of polar cold air (illustrated using the retrieved RH, wind fields and GPH). These results demonstrate the 3-D structure of O3 distribution as derived from CrIS measurements provides some insights of the cold air transport, and can be used to track the dynamic transport of polar cold air following the outbreak of polar vortex. The observed enhancement of O3 following the polar vortex outbreak also suggests some possible linkage between the tropospheric cold air advected with stratospheric air source.

Xiaozhen Xiong↗