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At least 829 records · Page 46
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1984

The electromagnetic field for an open magnetosphere

The boundary-layer-dominated models of the earth EM field developed by Heikkila (1975, 1978, 1982, and 1983) and Heikkila et al. (1979) to account for deficiencies in the electric-field descriptions of quasi-steady-state magnetic-field-reconnection models (such as that of Cowley, 1980) are characterized, reviewing the arguments and indicating the most important implications. The mechanisms of boundary-layer formation and field direction reversal are explained and illustrated with diagrams, and it is inferred that boundary-layer phenomena rather than magnetic reconnection may be the cause of large-scale magnetospheric circulation, convection, plasma-sheet formation and sunward convection, and auroras, the boundary layer acting basically as a viscous process mediating solar-wind/magnetosphere interactions.

Heikkila, W. J.↗
NASA NTRS1989

Mechano-caloric cooling device

The mechano-caloric effect is potentially useful in the He II temperature range. Aside from demonstration work, little quantification effort appears to have been known since other refrigeration possibilities have been available for some time. Successful He II use-related system examples are as follows: in space, the utilization of the latent heat of vaporization has been quite successful in vapor-liquid phase separation (VLPS) in conjunction with thermomechanical force application in plugs. In magnet cooling systems, the possibility of using the mechano-caloric cooling effect in conjunction with thermo-mechanical circulation pump schemes, has been assessed (but not quantified yet to the extent desirable). A third example is quoted in conjunction with superfluid wind tunnel studies and liquid helium tow tank for surface vessels respectively. In all of these (partially future) R and D areas, the question of refrigerator effectiveness using the mechano-caloric effect appears to be relevant, possibly in conjunction with questions of reliability and simplicity. The present work is concerned with quantification of phenomena including simplified thermodynamic cycle calculations.

Frederking, T. H. K.↗
NASA NTRS1990

Turbulent statistics in the vicinity of an SST front: A north wind case, FASINEX February 16, 1986

The technique of boxcar variances and covariances is used to examine NCAR Electra data from FASINEX (Frontal Air-Sea Interaction EXperiment). This technique was developed to examine changes in turbulent fluxes near a sea surface temperature (SST) front. The results demonstrate the influence of the SST front on the MABL (Marine Atmospheric Boundary Layer). Data shown are for February 16, 1986, when the winds blew from over cold water to warm. The front directly produced horizontal variability in the turbulence. The front also induced a secondary circulation which further modified the turbulence.

Stage, Steven A.↗
NASA NTRS1990

Large-scale dynamics and transport in the stratosphere

Stationary planetary waves in the southern stratosphere display a characteristic seasonal cycle. Previous research based on a one-dimensional model suggests that this behavior is mainly determined by seasonally varying transmission properties of the atmosphere with respect to wave propagation. The issue is investigated with the help of a hemispheric, linear, quasigeostrophic model. It reproduces well some of the observed qualitative features and is internally consistent in the sense that its seasonal wave cycle can be explained in terms of varying wave transmission properties of the mean circulation. On the other hand, the model does not yield the observed seasonal cycle. Despite considerable sensitivity to modifications in the basic state wind and dissipation parametrization, the model could not be reasonably fit to reproduce the observed seasonal cycle.

Plumb, R. A.↗
NASA NTRS1991

Marine research using data from TOPEX/Poseidon

The Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory (POL), the Institute of Oceanographic Sciences Deacon Laboratory (IOSDL), and the British National Space Centre (BNSC) plan to use radar altimeter data from the TOPEX/POSEIDON mission in five main areas of research. These are: (1) investigation of variations in Southern Ocean sea levels and circulation; (2) related numerical modeling and data assimilation; (3) global and regional ocean tides; (4) North Sea and northeast Atlantic studies; and (5) winds and waves. Each one of these topics is described briefly below while more information can be extracted from the United Kingdom response to the TOPEX/POSEIDON Announcement of Opportunity.

Woodworth, Philip L.↗
NASA NTRS1993

A study of the influence of satellite data on GLA analyses over the Atlantic Ocean during a period of blocking anticyclone development

This paper presents a statistical diagnosis of the differences between two Goddard Laboratory for Atmospheres analysis representations of temperature and wind speed, one containing satellite data influences (SAT analyses) and one without (NOSAT analyses), for a case of oceanic blocking anticyclone development. Results, obtained using area means and standard deviations of the two fields and correlation coefficients and root-mean-square differences between the two fields, indicate that the inclusion of satellite data can have significant impact on ocean-domain analyses. This is especially evident if one examines higher-order fields that represent gradients in the basic variable fields or contain covariances between two different variables (e.g., advections). More specifically, the inclusion of satellite data resulted in a cold (warm) temperature bias at low (high) levels and weaker temperature gradients, stronger winds, weaker vertical wind shears, and a warm-air advection bias at most levels. The SAT analyses also exhibited larger standard deviations than the NOSAT for wind speed, relative vorticity, vorticity advection, temperature advection, and 500-mb height tendencies, suggesting that for this case the spatial variability of the circulation features were enhanced by the inclusion of satellite data. Even so, since height tendencies forced by vorticity and temperature advection were less sensitive to the addition of satellite data than were the advection quantities themselves, the dynamics of the blocking system was apparently less influenced by the presence of satellite data than was the structure of the system.

Lamberty, Gregory L.↗
NASA NTRS1994

Air pollutant transport in a coastal environment. Part 1: Two-dimensional simulations of sea-breeze and mountain effects

Over the southern California coastal region, observations of the vertical distributions of pollutants show that maximum concentrations can occur within temperature inversion layers well above the surface. A mesoscale model is used to study the dynamical phenomena that cause such layers, including sea breezes and mountain flows, and to study the characteristics of air pollutant transport in a coastal environment capped by a temperature inversion. The mathematical and physical structure of the model is described. Two-dimensional simulations corresponding to four configurations of coastal plains and mountains are discussed. The simulations reveal that pollutant transport over a coastal plain is strongly influenced by the topographic configuration, including the height of coastal mountains and their distance from the coastline. Sea breezes induced by land-sea thermal contrasts, as well as upslope winds induced along mountain flanks, both create vertical transport that can lead to the formation of elevated pollution layers. The sea-breeze circulation generates pollution layers by undercutting the mixed layer and lofting pollutants into the stable layer. Heating of mountain slopes acts to vent pollutants above the mountain ridge during the day; during the evening, pollutants can be injected directly into the inversion layer from the decaying upslope flows. In a land-sea configuration with mountains close to the coastline, the sea breeze and heated-mountain flow are strongly coupled. In the afternoon, this interaction can produce upslope flow from which polluted air is detrained into the inversion layer as a return circulation. When the mountains lie farther inland, however, pollutants may be trapped aloft when the mixed layer stabilizes in the late afternoon. As the nocturnal boundary layer forms over the coast in the evening, polluted mixed-layer air is effectively left behind in the inversion layer. In the Los Angeles Basin, the formation mechanism for elevated polluted layers is most similar to our cases with inland mountains.

Lu, Rong↗
NASA NTRS2012

Observational Analysis of Cloud and Precipitation in Midlatitude Cyclones: Northern Versus Southern Hemisphere Warm Fronts

Extratropical cyclones are responsible for most of the precipitation and wind damage in the midlatitudes during the cold season, but there are still uncertainties on how they will change in a warming climate. An ubiquitous problem amongst General Circulation Models (GCMs) is a lack of cloudiness over the southern oceans that may be in part caused by a lack of clouds in cyclones. We analyze CloudSat, CALIPSO and AMSR-E observations for 3 austral and boreal cold seasons and composite cloud frequency of occurrence and precipitation at the warm fronts for northern and southern hemisphere oceanic cyclones. We find that cloud frequency of occurrence and precipitation rate are similar in the early stage of the cyclone life cycle in both northern and southern hemispheres. As cyclones evolve and reach their mature stage, cloudiness and precipitation at the warm front increase in the northern hemisphere but decrease in the southern hemisphere. This is partly caused by lower amounts of precipitable water being available to southern hemisphere cyclones, and smaller increases in wind speed as the cyclones evolve. Southern hemisphere cloud occurrence at the warm front is found to be more sensitive to the amount of moisture in the warm sector than to wind speeds. This suggests that cloudiness in southern hemisphere storms may be more susceptible to changes in atmospheric water vapor content, and thus to changes in surface temperature than their northern hemisphere counterparts. These differences between northern and southern hemisphere cyclones are statistically robust, indicating A-Train-based analyses as useful tools for evaluation of GCMs in the next IPCC report.

Naud, Catherine M.↗
NASA NTRS1983

The role of the equivalent blackbody temperature in the study of Atlantic Ocean tropical cyclones

Satellite measured equivalent blackbody temperatures of Atlantic Ocean tropical cyclones are used to investigate their role in describing the convection and cloud patterns of the storms and in predicting wind intensity. The high temporal resolution of the equivalent blackbody temperature measurements afforded with the geosynchronous satellite provided sequential quantitative measurements of the tropical cyclone which reveal a diurnal pattern of convection at the inner core during the early developmental stage; a diurnal pattern of cloudiness in the storm's outer circulation throughout the life cycle; a semidiurnal pattern of cloudiness in the environmental atmosphere surrounding the storms during the weak storm stage; an outward modulating atmospheric wave originating at the inner core; and long term convective bursts at the inner core prior to wind intensification.

Steranka, J.↗
NASA NTRS2013

Natural Air-Sea Flux of CO2 in Simulations of the NASA-GISS Climate Model: Sensitivity to the Physical Ocean Model Formulation

Results from twin control simulations of the preindustrial CO2 gas exchange (natural flux of CO2) between the ocean and the atmosphere are presented here using the NASA-GISS climate model, in which the same atmospheric component (modelE2) is coupled to two different ocean models, the Russell ocean model and HYCOM. Both incarnations of the GISS climate model are also coupled to the same ocean biogeochemistry module (NOBM) which estimates prognostic distributions for biotic and abiotic fields that influence the air-sea flux of CO2. Model intercomparison is carried out at equilibrium conditions and model differences are contrasted with biases from present day climatologies. Although the models agree on the spatial patterns of the air-sea flux of CO2, they disagree on the strength of the North Atlantic and Southern Ocean sinks mainly because of kinematic (winds) and chemistry (pCO2) differences rather than thermodynamic (SST) ones. Biology/chemistry dissimilarities in the models stem from the different parameterizations of advective and diffusive processes, such as overturning, mixing and horizontal tracer advection and to a lesser degree from parameterizations of biogeochemical processes such as gravitational settling and sinking. The global meridional overturning circulation illustrates much of the different behavior of the biological pump in the two models, together with differences in mixed layer depth which are responsible for different SST, DIC and nutrient distributions in the two models and consequently different atmospheric feedbacks (in the wind, net heat and freshwater fluxes into the ocean).

Gas exchange↗
NASA NTRS2022

Faster Tropical Upper Stratospheric Upwelling Drives Changes in Ozone Chemistry

Tropospheric trends in long-lived source gases N2O and the chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) cause trends in O3 through changes in their reactive product gases. Transport affects the product gases because it controls the distribution of the long-lived source gases. We find that large changes in tropical upwelling 10-5 hPa since 2012 have strengthened the northern branch of the upper stratospheric (UpS) transport circulation, dramatically altering the abundances of N2O and its odd nitrogen product gases, NOx and HNO3. Increased upwelling is connected to stronger and more frequent Quasi-Biennial Oscillation easterly winds at 10 hPa and above. We use simulations with and without time varying MERRA2 meteorology to quantify the impact of dynamical changes on O3 loss via the NOx and ClOx cycles. We find that dynamical impacts on these cycles explain the mid-stratospheric tropical O3 increase and Arctic UpS O3 decrease since 2005.

Middle atmosphere chemistry and composition↗
DOE OSTI2020

Projected increase of the East Asian summer monsoon ( Meiyu ) in Taiwan by climate models with variable performance

Abstract The active phase of the East Asian summer monsoon (EASM) in Taiwan during May and June, known as Meiyu , produces substantial precipitation for water uses in all sectors of society. Following a companion study that analysed the historical increase in the Meiyu precipitation, the present study conducted model evaluation and diagnosis based on the EASM lifecycle over Taiwan. Higher and lower skill groups were identified from 17 Couple Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) models, with five models in each group. Despite the difference in model performance, both groups projected a substantial increase in the Meiyu precipitation over Taiwan. In the higher skill group, weak circulation changes and reduced low‐level convergence point to a synoptically unfavourable condition for precipitation. In the lower skill group, intensified low‐level southwesterly winds associated with a deepened upper level trough enhance moisture pooling. Thus, the projected increase in Meiyu precipitation will likely occur through the combined effects of (1) the extension of a strengthened North Pacific anticyclone enhancing southwesterlies; and (2) more systematically, the Clausius–Clapeyron relationship that increases precipitation intensity in a warmer climate. The overall increase in the Meiyu precipitation projected by climate models of variable performance supports the observed tendency toward more intense rainfall in Taiwan and puts its early June 2017 extreme precipitation events into perspective.

Tung, Yu‐Shiang↗
DOE OSTI2025

Influence of Tibetan Plateau sensible heat on pre-monsoon dust burdens over South Asia: Observational and modeling evidence

Tibetan Plateau sensible heating (TPSH) effect is recognized as a key driver of the South Asian climate; however its role in regulating the regional dust burdens over South Asia during the pre-monsoon season remains unclear. Using long-term reanalysis and/or observational dust and TPSH data, we show that the dust optical depth at 550 nm (DOD 550 ) over South Asia is significantly positively correlated with TPSH at the interannual scale. DOD 550 over South Asia increases (decreases) by 20 % (12 %) in the strongest (weakest) TPSH years. The phenomenon of TPSH-dust relationships is reinforced by sensitivity experiments by altering TPSH from global climate models. Further mechanism analysis reveals that TPSH perturbation induces regional circulation anomalies over South Asia, which features a low-tropospheric cyclonic response around the Tibetan Plateau. This cyclonic anomaly strengthens the prevailing northwesterly winds, increasing regional dust emissions and transportation over South Asia. This novel mechanism helps understand the South Asian dust change.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
NASA NTRS1973

Sea-ice and surface water circulation, Alaskan continental shelf

The author has identified the following significant results. Over 1500 water samples from surface and from standard hydrographic depths were collected during June and July 1973 from Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska. The measurement of temperature, salinity, and productivity indicated that various distinct water masses cover the Bering Sea Shelf. The suspended load in surface waters will be correlated with the ERTS-1 imagery as it becomes available to delineate the surface water circulation. The movement of ice floes in the Bering Strait and Bering Sea indicated that movement of ice varies considerably and may depend on wind stress as well as ocean currents.

Wright, F. F.↗
NASA NTRS1979

Interactions Between Convective Storms and Their Environment

The ways in which intense convective storms interact with their environment are considered for a number of specific severe storm situations. A physical model of subcloud wind fields and vertical wind profiles was developed to explain the often observed intensification of convective storms that move along or across thermal boundaries. A number of special, unusually dense, data sets were used to substantiate features of the model. GOES imagery was used in conjunction with objectively analyzed surface wind data to develop a nowcast technique that might be used to identify specific storm cells likely to become tornadic. It was shown that circulations associated with organized meso-alpha and meso-beta scale storm complexes may, on occasion, strongly modify tropospheric thermodynamic patterns and flow fields.

Maddox, R. A.↗
NASA NTRS1991

What causes the seasonal cycle of stationary waves in the southern stratosphere?

Stationary planetary waves in the southern stratosphere display a characteristic seasonal cycle. Previous research based on a one-dimensional model suggests that this behavior is mainly determined by seasonally varying transmission properties of the atmosphere with respect to wave propagation. The issue is investigated with the help of a hemispheric, linear, quasi-geostrophic model. It reproduces well some of the observed qualitative features and is internally consistent in the sense that its seasonal wave cycle can be explained in terms of varying wave transmission properties of the mean circulation. On the other hand, the model does not yield the observed seasonal cycle. Despite considerable sensitivity to modifications in the basic-state wind and dissipation parameterization, the model could not be reasonably fit to reproduce the observed seasonal cycle. Possible reasons for the model deficiency are put forward. In summary, even though suggestive, the present study is not entirely conclusive about the degree to which the observed cycle is determined by wave transmission properties alone.

Wirth, Volkmar↗
NASA NTRS1994

The impact of land-surface wetness heterogeneity on mesoscale heat fluxes

Vertical heat fluxes associated with mesoscale circulations generated by land-surface wetness discontinuities are often stronger than turbulent fluxes, especially in the upper part of the atmospheric planetary boundary layer. As a result, they contribute significantly to the subgrid-scale fluxes in large-scale atmospheric models. Yet they are not considered in these models. To provide some insights into the possible parameterization of these fluxes in large-scale models, a state-of-the-art mesoscale numerical model was used to investigate the relationships between mesoscale heat fluxes and atmospheric and land-surface characteristics that play a key role in the generation of mesoscale circulations. The distribution of land-surface wetness, the wavenumber and the wavelength of the land-surface discontinuities, and the large-scale wind speed have a significant impact on the mesoscale heat fluxes. Empirical functions were derived to characterize the relationships between mesoscale heat fluxes and the spatial distribution of land-surface wetness. The strongest mesoscale heat fluxes were obtained for a wavelength of forcing corresponding approximately to the local Rossby deformation radius. The mesoscale heat fluxes are weakened by large-scale background winds but remain significant even with moderate winds.

Chen, Fei↗
NASA NTRS1998

Internal Dynamics and Boundary Forcing Characteristics Associated with Interannual Variability of the Asian Summer Monsoon

In this paper, we present a description of the internal dynamics and boundary forcing characteristics of two major components of the Asian summer monsoon (ASM), i.e., the South Asian (SAM) and the Southeast-East Asian monsoon (SEAM). The description is based on a new monsoon-climate paradigm in which the variability of ASM is considered as the outcome of the interplay of a "fast" and an "intermediate" monsoon subsystem, under the influenced of the "slow" varying external forcings. Two sets of regional monsoon indices derived from dynamically consistent rainfall and wind data are used in this study. For SAM, the internal dynamics is represented by that of a "classical" monsoon system where the anomalous circulation is governed by Rossby-wave dynamics, i.e., generation of anomalous vorticity induced by an off-equatorial heat source is balanced by planetary vorticity advection. On the other hand, the internal dynamics of SEAM is characterized by a "hybrid" monsoon system featuring multi-cellular meridional circulation over the East Asian section, extending from the deep tropics to midlatitudes. These meridional-cells link tropical heating to extratropical circulation system via the East Asian jetstream, and are responsible for the characteristic occurrences of zonally oriented anomalous rainfall patterns over East Asian and the subtropical western Pacific. In the extratropical regions, the major upper level vorticity balance is by anomalous vorticity advection and generation by the anomalous divergent circulation. A consequence of this is that compared to SAM, the SEAM is associated with stronger teleconnection patterns to regions outside the ASM. A strong SAM is linked to basin-scale sea surface temperature (SST) fluctuation with significant signal in the equatorial eastern Pacific. During the boreal spring SST warming in the Arabian Sea and the subtropical western Pacific may lead to a strong SAM. For SEAM, interannual variability is tied to SSTA over the Sea of Japan and the South China Sea regions, while the linkage to equatorial basin-scale SSTA is weak at best. A large scale SSTA dipole with warming (cooling) in the subtropical central (eastern) Pacific foreshadows a strong SEAM.

Lau, K.- M.↗