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At least 91 records · Page 5

Brief state-of-the-art review on optical communications for the NASA ISES workshop

The current state of the art of optical communications is briefly reviewed. This review covers NASA programs, DOD and other government agency programs, commercial aerospace programs, and foreign programs. Included is a brief summary of a recent NASA workshop on optical communications. The basic conclusions from all the program reviews is that optical communications is a technology ready to be accepted but needed to be demonstrated. Probably the most advanced and sophisticated optical communications system is the Laser Intersatellite Transmission Experiment (LITE) system developed for flight on the Advanced Communications Technology Satellite (ACTS). Optical communications technology is available for the applications of data communications at data rates in the under 300 MBits/sec for nearly all applications under 2 times GEO distances. Applications for low-earth orbiter (LEO) to ground will allow data rates in the multi-GBits/sec range. Higher data rates are limited by currently available laser power. Phased array lasers offer technology which should eliminate this problem. The major problem of cloud coverage can probably be eliminated by look ahead pointing, multiple ground stations, and knowledge of weather conditions to control the pointing. Most certainly, optical communications offer a new spectral region to relieve the RF bands and very high data communications rates that will be required in less than 10 years to solve the communications problems on Earth.

Hendricks, Herbert D.↗

The classification of the Arctic Sea ice types and the determination of surface temperature using advanced very high resolution radiometer data

The accurate quantification of new ice and open water areas and surface temperatures within the sea ice packs is a key to the realistic parameterization of heat, moisture, and turbulence fluxes between ocean and atmosphere in the polar regions. Multispectral NOAA advanced very high resolution radiometer/2 (AVHRR/2) satellite images are analyzed to evaluate how effectively the data can be used to characterize sea ice in the Bering and Greenland seas, both in terms of surface type and physical temperature. The basis of the classification algorithm, which is developed using a late wintertime Bering Sea ice cover data, is that frequency distributions of 10.8- micrometers radiances provide four distinct peaks, represeting open water, new ice, young ice, and thick ice with a snow cover. The results are found to be spatially and temporally consistent. Possible sources of ambiguity, especially associated with wider temporal and spatial application of the technique, are discussed. An ice surface temperature algorithm is developed for the same study area by regressing thermal infrared data from 10.8- and 12.0- micrometers channels against station air temperatures, which are assumed to approximate the skin temperatures of adjacent snow and ice. The standard deviations of the results when compared with in situ data are about 0.5 K over leads and polynyas to about 0.5-1.5 K over thick ice. This study is based upon a set of in situ data limited in scope and coverage. Cloud masks are applied using a thresholding technique that utilizes 3.74- and 10.8- micrometers channel data. The temperature maps produced show coherence with surface features like new ice and leads, and consistency with corresponding surface type maps. Further studies are needed to better understand the effects of both the spatial and temporal variability in emissivity, aerosol and precipitable atmospheric ice particle distribution, and atmospheric temperature inversions.

Massom, Robert↗

Research support of the WETNET Program

This study examines various aspects of the Microwave Vegetation Index (MVI). MVI is a derived signal created by differencing the spectral response of the 37 GHz horizontally and vertically polarized passive microwave signals. The microwave signal employed to derive this index is thought to be primarily influenced by vegetation structure, vegetation growth, standing water, and precipitation. The state of California is the study site for this research. Imagery from the Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I) is used for the creation of MVI datasets analyzed in this research. The object of this research is to determine whether MVI corresponds with some quantifiable vegetation parameter (such as vegetation density) or whether the index is more affected by known biogeophysical parameters such antecedent precipitation. A secondary question associated with the above is whether the vegetation attributes that MVI is employed to determine can be more easily and accurately evaluated by other remote sensing means. An important associated question to be addressed in the study is the effect of different multi-temporal composting techniques on the derived MVI dataset. This work advances our understanding of the fundamental nature of MVI by studying vegetation as a mixture of structural types, such as forest and grassland. The study further advances our understanding by creating multitemporal precipitation datasets to compare the affects of precipitation upon MVI. This work will help to lay the groundwork for the use of passive microwave spectral information either as an adjunct to visible and near infrared imagery in areas where that is feasible or for the use of passive microwave alone in areas of moderate cloud coverage. In this research, an MVI dataset, spanning the period February 15, 1989 through April 25, 1990, has been created using National Aeronautic and Space Administration (NASA) supplied brightness temperature data. Information from the DMSP satellite 37 GHz wavelength SSM/I sensor in both horizontal and vertical polarization has been processed using the MVI algorithm. In conjunction with the MVI algorithm a multitemporal compositing technique was used to create datasets that correspond to 14 day periods. In this technical report, Section Two contains background information on the State of California and the three MVI study sites. Section Three describes the methods used to create the MVI and independent variables datasets. Section Four presents the results of the experiment. Section Five summarizes and concludes the work.

Estes, John E.↗

MM-Wave Radiometric Measurements of Low Amounts of Precipitable Water Vapor

An experiment was conducted during March, 1999 to study ways in which to improve techniques for measuring low amounts of total-column precipitable water vapor (PWV). The experiment was conducted at the DOE's ARM program's North Slope of Alaska/Adjacent Arctic Ocean Cloud and Radiation Testbed site (DoE ARM NSA/AAO CaRT) located just outside Barrow, Alaska. NASA and NOAA deployed a suite of radiometers covering 25 channels in the frequency range of 20 GHz up to 340 GHz including 8 channels around the 183 GHz water vapor absorption line. In addition to the usual CaRT site instrumentation the NOAA Depolarization and Backscatter Unattended Lidar (DABUL), the SUNY Rotating Shadowband Spectroradiometer (RSS) and other surface based meteorological instrumentation were deployed during the intensive observation period. Vaisala RS80 radiosondes were launched daily as well as nearby National Weather Service VIZ sondes. Atmospheric conditions ranged from clear calm skies to blowing snow and heavy multi-layer cloud coverage. Measurements made by the radiosondes indicate the PWV varied from approx. 1 to approx. 5 mm during the experiment. The near-surface temperature varied between about -40 C to - 15 C. In this presentation, an overview of the experiment with examples of data collected will be presented. Application of the data for assessing the potential and limitations of millimeter-wave radiometry for retrieving very low amounts of PWV will be discussed.

Racette, P.↗

Modeling of Convective-Stratiform Precipitation Processes: Sensitivity to Partitioning Methods and Numerical Advection Schemes

Six different convective-stratiform separation techniques, including a new technique that utilizes the ratio of vertical and terminal velocities, are compared and evaluated using two-dimensional numerical simulations of a tropical [Tropical Ocean Global Atmosphere Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere Response Experiment (TOGA COARE)] and midlatitude continental [Preliminary Regional Experiment for STORM-Central (PRESTORM)] squall line. The simulations are made using two different numerical advection schemes: 4th order and positive definite advection. Comparisons are made in terms of rainfall, cloud coverage, mass fluxes, apparent heating and moistening, mean hydrometeor profiles, CFADs (Contoured Frequency with Altitude Diagrams), microphysics, and latent heating retrieval. Overall, it was found that the different separation techniques produced results that qualitatively agreed. However, the quantitative differences were significant. Observational comparisons were unable to conclusively evaluate the performance of the techniques. Latent heating retrieval was shown to be sensitive to the use of separation technique mainly due to the stratiform region for methods that found very little stratiform rain. The midlatitude PRESTORM simulation was found to be nearly invariant with respect to advection type for most quantities while for TOGA COARE fourth order advection produced numerous shallow convective cores and positive definite advection fewer cells that were both broader and deeper penetrating above the freezing level.

Lang, Steve↗

A Time-Frequency Analysis of the Effects of Solar Activities on Tropospheric Thermodynamics

Whether the Sun has significantly influenced the climate during the last century has been under extensive debates for almost two decades. Since the solar irradiance varies very little in a solar cycle, it is puzzling that some geophysical parameters show proportionally large variations which appear to be responding to the solar cycles. For example, variation in low altitude clouds is shown correlated with solar cycle, and the onset of Forbush decrease is shown correlated with the reduction of the vorticity area index. A possible sun-climate connection is that galactic cosmic rays modulated by solar activities influence cloud formation. In this paper, we apply wavelet transform to satellite and surface data to examine this hypothesis. Data analyzed include the time series for solar irradiance, sunspots, UV index, temperature, cloud coverage, and neutron counter measurements. The interactions among the elements in the Earth System under the external and internal forcings give out very complex signals.The periodicity of the forcings or signals could range widely. Since wavelet transforms can analyze multi-scale phenomena that are both localized in frequency and time, it is a very useful technique for detecting, understanding and monitoring climate changes.

Kiang, Richard K.↗

Modeling of Convective-Stratiform Precipitation Processes: Sensitivity to Partitioning Methods

Six different convective-stratiform separation techniques, including a new technique that utilizes the ratio of vertical and terminal velocities, are compared and evaluated using two-dimensional numerical simulations of a tropical [Tropical Ocean Global Atmosphere Coupled Ocean Atmosphere Response Experiment (TOGA COARE)] and midlatitude continental [Preliminary Regional Experiment for STORM-Central (PRESTORM)] squall line. Comparisons are made in terms of rainfall, cloud coverage, mass fluxes, apparent heating and moistening, mean hydrometeor profiles, CFADs (Contoured Frequency with Altitude Diagrams), microphysics, and latent heating retrieval. Overall, it was found that the different separation techniques produced results that qualitatively agreed. However, the quantitative differences were significant. Observational comparisons were unable to conclusively evaluate the performance of the techniques. Latent heating retrieval was shown to be sensitive to the use of separation technique mainly due to the stratiform region for methods that found very little stratiform rain.

Lang, S. E.↗

Aerosol and Cloud Observations and Data Products by the GLAS Polar Orbiting Lidar Instrument

The Geoscience Laser Altimeter System (GLAS) launched in 2003 is the first polar orbiting satellite lidar. The instrument was designed for high performance observations of the distribution and optical scattering cross sections of clouds and aerosol. The backscatter lidar operates at two wavelengths, 532 and 1064 nm. Both receiver channels meet and exceed their design goals, and beginning with a two month period through October and November 2003, an excellent global lidar data set now exists. The data products for atmospheric observations include the calibrated, attenuated backscatter cross section for cloud and aerosol; height detection for multiple cloud layers; planetary boundary layer height; cirrus and aerosol optical depth and the height distribution of aerosol and cloud scattering cross section profiles. The data sets are now in open release through the NASA data distribution system. The initial results on global statistics for cloud and aerosol distribution has been produced and in some cases compared to other satellite observations. The sensitivity of the cloud measurements is such that the 70% global cloud coverage result should be the most accurate to date. Results on the global distribution of aerosol are the first that produce the true height distribution for model inter-comparison.

Spinhirne, J. D.↗

Comparison of 2017 OWLETS Mobile Ozone Data to the National Air Quality Forecast (NAQFC) Model

The OWLETS study occurred during the summer of 2017 [Sullivan et al.]. The motivation for this study was to better understand significant ozone (O3) land-water gradients in coastal regions that can occur due to differences in surface deposition, boundary layer height, and cloud coverage. This study focuses on data collected by a marine research vessel that obtained NO2and O3 measurements on the Chesapeake Bay over a span of two days.

Amber Verstynen↗

Design and Modeling of a Coded-Interleaving System in the Presence of Fading

Future deep space links are migrating towards higher frequency bands such as Ka band and optical. These links are susceptible to non linear effects (e.g. cloud coverage, atmospheric turbulence, scintillation, antenna mis-pointing, jitter, relative motion, etc.) that cause various degrees of fading loss over various time scales. We consider a channel experiencing block fading where the channel coherence time is a lot longer than the length of a codeword. As long as the fading duration is not excessive, an interleaver can be used in a coded-communication system that randomizes the fades among symbols of multiple codewords. This achieves an “averaging” effect that spreads the signal energy more evenly among the codewords, and improves the likelihood that each of them can be decoded correctly. For simplicity, we consider a block interleaver where adjacent symbols of a codeword have a fixed delay (or separation) with each other, and investigate the error-rate performance of a coded-interleaving system (with fixed and finite interleaving depth) in the presence of block fading. Unlike prior research which assumes theoretical channel coherence models, we aim to build upon our analysis using empirical spacecraft signal measurements obtained with the Deep Space Network, and to use the fundamental theories of probability and statistics (e.g. variations of Law of Large Numbers) to quantify the error-rate performance of the coded-interleaving system. We propose to utilize these results in the design of a two-dimensional coded-interleaving system for fading channels.

Sanchez-Net, Marc↗

Daytime Sky Quality at El Leoncito, Argentina

We characterize the daytime sky quality in terms of brightness, cloud coverage, and mainweather variables at the Carlos Ulrico Cesco station of the Felix Aguilar Astronomical Ob-servatory (OAFA), located in El Leoncito National Park, San Juan, Argentina. We have col-lected more than 15 years of daily observations from the auxiliary sky brightness detectorsof the Mirror Coronagraph for Argentina (MICA, in operations from 1997 to 2012), includ-ing daily observing reports. We additionally present data from two meteorological stationsoperated at the site from 2000 to 2020. We determine the main statistical properties andseasonal variability of daytime sky brightness, clear sky time fraction (CSTF), precipitablewater vapor (WV), temperature, humidity, and wind speed, which are relevant for solar,particularly coronal observations.Our results confirm that El Leoncito is an excellent place to perform daytime astro-nomical observations. We measure a median sky brightness of 15.8 ppm, estimated at526.0±1.0 nm and 6 solar radii from the solar disk center; a median CSTF of 0.7; anda median WV below 6 mm. These values, and those of other relevant weather variables, arecomparable to the levels found among the best astronomical observing sites in the world.Due to the extended period of time analyzed and high sampling frequency, the novel dataand results presented in this report contribute to the analysis and interpretation of historicalsky brightness data and are of great value for the future planning of daytime astronomicalinstrumentation at El Leoncito.

F A Iglesias↗

Stereo Camera Deployment in Support of TRACER (Field Campaign Report)

An improved understanding of the salient environmental controls on cloud formation, evolution, and eventual dissipation is critical to address ongoing challenges with cloud process and parameterization representations in global climate and Earth system models. One goal for the recent U.S. Department of Energy Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) user facility’s Tracking Aerosol Convection Interactions Experiment (TRACER) campaign was to collect a comprehensive data set that enabled such convective cloud process studies and key demonstrations for those controls that influenced cloud life cycle (i.e., aerosols, thermodynamics) in the Houston, Texas region. To help accomplish this, ARM instrumentation during TRACER was tasked with tracking a large number of individual, isolated convective cells – and to follow the evolution of these cells at high spatiotemporal resolution to characterize changes in cloud dynamic and microphysical properties. Since Houston experiences a range of convective clouds, it was known that the standard ARM Mobile Facility (AMF) instruments may not be sufficient to completely document initiating, transient, or dissipating low- or shallow-cloud behaviors that were also expected during this campaign (in terms of sensitivity, resolution, and/or operational availability). As one partial solution, a supplemental stereo camera deployment (this sub-campaign) was requested to augment the ARM AMF instrumentation to better address shallow and shallow-to-deep transitional types of cloud process drivers during TRACER (ARM stereo cameras for clouds [STEREOCAM]; Romps and Öktem 2018). The primary scientific focus was the relationships between cloud properties and the ambient conditions, which points to several key TRACER science questions including: ‘What is the relationship between cloud size or updraft intensity to the environmental wind shear and/or humidity?’ Overall, the ARM TRACER stereo camera deployment demonstrated unique effectiveness in observing a wide range of critical shallow, congestus, and transitioning or time-evolving cloud characteristics. The data sets from these cameras include information on the clouds' horizontal dimensions, elevations, and depths, while also enabling potential products for cloud initiation and dissipation rates, and vertical velocities. Stereo cameras simultaneously inform on cloud life cycle stage and spatial properties such as cloud fractional coverage, which should provide complementary information for ARM users when combined with TRACER cloud radars, lidar, and/or other profiling sensors. Moreover, camera products offer large-eddy simulation (LES),-scale-appropriate cloud coverage, depth, and spatial variability estimates, while opening additional avenues to challenge difficult process questions on cloud updrafts/entrainment and their covariability with environmental controls such as wind shear and humidity.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗

Radiation budget studies using collocated observations from advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer, High-Resolution Infrared Sounder/2, and Earth Radiation Budget Experiment instruments

Collocated observations from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR), High-Resolution Infrared Sounder/2 (HIRS/2), and Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) instruments onboard the NOAA 9 satellite are combined to describe the broadband and spectral radiative properties of the earth-atmosphere system. Broadband radiative properties are determined from the ERBE observations, while spectral properties are determined from the HIRS/2 and AVHRR observations. The presence of clouds, their areal coverage, and cloud top pressure are determined from a combination of the HIRS/2 and the AVHRR observations. The CO2 slicing method is applied to the HIRS/2 to determine the presence of upper level clouds and their effective emissivity. The AVHRR data collocated within the HIRS/2 field of view are utilized to determine the uniformity of the scene and retrieve sea surface temperature. Changes in the top of the atmosphere longwave and shortwave radiative energy budgets, and the spectral distribution of longwave radiation are presented as a function of cloud amount and cloud top pressure. The radiative characteristics of clear sky conditions over oceans are presented as a function of sea surface temperature and atmospheric water vapor structure.

Ackerman, Steven A.↗

The effect of cloud type on earth's energy balance - Results for selected regions

International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) C1 cloud information is compared with planetary albedo, outgoing longwave radiation (OLR), and net radiation measured at the top of the atmosphere by the Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE). Principal component analysis indicates that the day-to-day variations of the abundances of the 35 cloud types of the C1 data are correlated with each other, so that for many purposes the data set can be well represented by about five cloud types. Using stepwise multiple regression, the ISCCP C1 data can be used to predict the day-to-day variations of the energy balance measured by ERBE for 2.5-deg regions. Total fractional area coverage of cloudiness is a relatively poor predictor of radiation budget quantities. If the total fractional area coverage by clouds is divided into contributions from several distinct cloud types, the fractional coverages by these several cloud types will together form a much better prediction of radiation budget quantities than the single variable of total fractional-area cloud coverage. The regression equations can be used to estimate the net effect of clouds on the radiation balance and the contributions from particular types of clouds to albedo, OLR, and net radiation.

Ockert-Bell, Maureen E.↗

The Earth Observing System Terra Mission

Langley's remarkable solar and lunar spectra collected from Mt. Whitney inspired Arrhenius to develop the first quantitative climate model in 1896. After the launch in Dec. 16 1999, NASA's Earth Observing AM Satellite (EOS-Terra) will repeat Langley's experiment, but for the entire planet, thus pioneering a wide array of calibrated spectral observations from space of the Earth System. Conceived in response to real environmental problems, EOS-Terra, in conjunction with other international satellite efforts, will fill a major gap in current efforts by providing quantitative global data sets with a resolution better than 1 km on the physical, chemical and biological elements of the earth system. Thus, like Langley's data, EOS-Terra can revolutionize climate research by inspiring a new generation of climate system models and enable us to assess the human impact on the environment. In the talk I shall review the historical perspective of the Terra mission and the key new elements of the mission. We expect to have first images that demonstrate the most innovative capability from EOS Terra 5 instruments: MODIS - 1.37 micron cirrus cloud channel; 250m daily coverage for clouds and vegetation change; 7 solar channels for land and aerosol studies; new fire channels; Chlorophyll fluorescence; MISR - first 9 multi angle views of clouds and vegetation; MOPITT - first global CO maps and C114 maps; ASTER - Thermal channels for geological studies with 15-90 m resolution.

Kaufman, Yoram J.↗

Overview of SatCORPS Satellite-Derived Cloud and Radiation Retrieval Coverage of ARM Domains

The ARM Climate Research Facility program maintains a number of climatically representative sites, which provide long-term cloud- and climate-monitoring records via ground-based instrumentation. These measurements provide a valuable data record over a localized region, but can be greatly enhanced by use of satellite monitoring. Satellite analyses over larger domains can provide parameters helpful for monitoring climate and evaluating models. The NASA/Langley Cloud group routinely derives such cloud and radiative parameters, from various geostationary and polar-orbiting satellite coverage over ARM sites; the group provides near-realtime analyses covering the 3 ARM fixed sites, as well as the GO-Amazon AMF site. This is accomplished by employing a suite of algorithms including VISST (Visible Infrared Solar Split-Window Technique), SIST (Solar Infrared Split-Window Technique), and SINT (Solar-infrared Infrared Near-Infrared Technique), now collectively called SatCORPS (Satellite Cloud Observations and Radiative Property retrieval System). An overview and catalog of SatCORPS-derived datasets processed for ASR, and available from both the ARM archive and the NASA/Langley Cloud group website, is provided. Specific improvements included in recently added datasets such as GO-Amazon and Azores are highlighted, including an improved cloud-detection mask, as well as improvements in derived Top-of-Atmosphere (TOA) SW albedoes and LW fluxes. New narrowband-to-broadband (NB-BB) fits and corrections for improved TOA fluxes are illustrated, including MTSAT-1/CERES Aqua NB-BB fits for the TWPICE field campaign, as well as new fits covering the Azores region which incorporate GERB TOA fluxes (Geostationery Earth Radiation Budget). Finally, validation of the reprocessed SatCORPS datasets is shown.

M M Khader↗

Let’s Unleash the Network Judgment: A Self-Supervised Approach for Cloud Image Analysis

Accurate cloud type identification and coverage analysis are crucial in understanding the Earth’s radiative budget. Traditional computer vision methods rely on low-level visual features of clouds for estimating cloud coverage or sky conditions. Several handcrafted approaches have been proposed; however, scope for improvement still exists. Newer deep neural networks (DNNs) have demonstrated superior performance for cloud segmentation and categorization. These methods, however, need expert engineering intervention in the preprocessing steps—in the traditional methods—or human assistance in assigning cloud or clear sky labels to a pixel for training DNNs. Such human mediation imposes considerable time and labor costs. We present the application of a new self-supervised learning approach to autonomously extract relevant features from sky images captured by ground-based cameras, for the classification and segmentation of clouds. We evaluate a joint embedding architecture that uses self-knowledge distillation plus regularization. We use two datasets to demonstrate the network’s ability to classify and segment sky images—one with ~85,000 images collected from our ground-based camera and another with 400 labeled images from the WSISEG database. We find that this approach can discriminate full-sky images based on cloud coverage, diurnal variation, and cloud base height. Additionally, it semantically segments the cloud areas without labels. The approach shows competitive performance in all tested tasks, suggesting a new alternative for cloud characterization.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Aerosol-Induced Changes of Convective Cloud Anvils Produce Strong Climate Warming

The effect of aerosol on clouds poses one of the largest uncertainties in estimating the anthropogenic contribution to climate change. Small human-induced perturbations to cloud characteristics via aerosol pathways can create a change in the top-of-atmosphere radiative forcing of hundreds of Wm(exp-2) . Here we focus on links between aerosol and deep convective clouds of the Atlantic and Pacific Intertropical Convergence Zones, noting that the aerosol environment in each region is entirely different. The tops of these vertically developed clouds consisting of mostly ice can reach high levels of the atmosphere, overshooting the lower stratosphere and reaching altitudes greater than 16 km. We show a link between aerosol, clouds and the free atmosphere wind profile that can change the magnitude and sign of the overall climate radiative forcing. We find that increased aerosol loading is associated with taller cloud towers and anvils. The taller clouds reach levels of enhanced wind speeds that act to spread and thin the anvi1 clouds, increasing areal coverage and decreasing cloud optical depth. The radiative effect of this transition is to create a positive radiative forcing (warming) at top-of-atmosphere. Furthermore we introduce the cloud optical depth (r), cloud height (Z) forcing space and show that underestimation of radiative forcing is likely to occur in cases of non homogenous clouds. Specifically, the mean radiative forcing of towers and anvils in the same scene can be several times greater than simply calculating the forcing from the mean cloud optical depth in the scene. Limitations of the method are discussed, alternative sources of aerosol loading are tested and meteorological variance is restricted, but the trend of taller clouds; increased and thinner anvils associated with increased aerosol loading remains robust through all the different tests and perturbations.

Koren, I.↗