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At least 955 records · Page 53

Atlas of Seasonal Means Simulated by the NSIPP 1 Atmospheric GCM

This atlas documents the climate characteristics of version 1 of the NASA Seasonal-to-Interannual Prediction Project (NSIPP) Atmospheric General Circulation Model (AGCM). The AGCM includes an interactive land model (the Mosaic scheme), and is part of the NSIPP coupled atmosphere-land-ocean model. The results presented here are based on a 20-year (December 1979-November 1999) "ANIIP-style" integration of the AGCM in which the monthly-mean sea-surface temperature and sea ice are specified from observations. The climate characteristics of the AGCM are compared with the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) and the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF) reanalyses. Other verification data include Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSNM) total precipitable water, the Xie-Arkin estimates of precipitation, and Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) measurements of short and long wave radiation. The atlas is organized by season. The basic quantities include seasonal mean global maps and zonal and vertical averages of circulation, variance/covariance statistics, and selected physics quantities.

Suarez, Max J.↗

PolyA Single Strand DNA Translocation Through an Alpha-Hemolysin Pore Stem

A new model for the polymer-pore interaction energy is introduced, based on an atomic-scale description of coulombic polymer-pore interaction. The enhanced drift velocity, experimentally observed for short polymers, is successfully accounted for, using this interaction energy model. For R/R(sub 0)>4 (R(sub 0)=7 angstroms) the translocation velocity approaches the free space drift velocity v(sub 0). This motivates the need to appropriately derivatize artificial nanopores, where R>R(sub 0).

OKeeffe, James↗

Understanding Climate Policy Data Needs. NASA Carbon Monitoring System Briefing: Characterizing Flux Uncertainty, Washington D.C., 11 January 2012

Climate policy in the United States is currently guided by public-private partnerships and actions at the local and state levels. This mitigation strategy is made up of programs that focus on energy efficiency, renewable energy, agricultural practices and implementation of technologies to reduce greenhouse gases. How will policy makers know if these strategies are working, particularly at the scales at which they are being implemented? The NASA Carbon Monitoring System (CMS) will provide information on carbon dioxide fluxes derived from observations of earth's land, ocean and atmosphere used in state of the art models describing their interactions. This new modeling system could be used to assess the impact of specific policy interventions on CO2 reductions, enabling an iterative, results-oriented policy process. In January of 2012, the CMS team held a meeting with carbon policy and decision makers in Washington DC to describe the developing modeling system to policy makers. The NASA CMS will develop pilot studies to provide information across a range of spatial scales, consider carbon storage in biomass, and improve measures of the atmospheric distribution of carbon dioxide. The pilot involves multiple institutions (four NASA centers as well as several universities) and over 20 scientists in its work. This pilot study will generate CO2 flux maps for two years using observational constraints in NASA's state-of -the-art models. Bottom-up surface flux estimates will be computed using data-constrained land and ocean models; comparison of the different techniques will provide some knowledge of uncertainty in these estimates. Ensembles of atmospheric carbon distributions will be computed using an atmospheric general circulation model (GEOS-5), with perturbations to the surface fluxes and to transport. Top-down flux estimates will be computed from observed atmospheric CO2 distributions (ACOS/GOSAT retrievals) alongside the forward-model fields, in conjunction with an inverse approach based on the CO2 model of GEOS ]Chem. The forward model ensembles will be used to build understanding of relationships among surface flux perturbations, transport uncertainty and atmospheric carbon concentration. This will help construct uncertainty estimates and information on the true spatial resolution of the top-down flux calculations. The relationship between the top-down and bottom-up flux distributions will be documented. Because the goal of NASA CMS is to be policy relevant, the scientists involved in the flux modeling pilot need to understand and be focused on the needs of the climate policy and decision making community. If policy makers are to use CMS products, they must be aware of the modeling effort and begin to design policies that can be evaluated with information. Improving estimates of carbon sequestered in forests, for example, will require information on the spatial variability of forest biomass that is far more explicit than is presently possible using only ground observations. Carbon mitigation policies being implemented by cities around the United States could be designed with the CMS data in mind, enabling sequential evaluation and subsequent improvements in incentives, structures and programs. The success of climate mitigation programs being implemented in the United States today will hang on the depth of the relationship between scientists and their policy and decision making counterparts. Ensuring that there is two-way communication between data providers and users is important for the success both of the policies and the scientific products meant to support them..

Brown, Molly E.↗

Sub-Seasonal Forecasting of the Stratospheric Wave Events, Sudden Stratospheric Warmings, and Their Influence on the Troposphere

Stratospheric wave events and major sudden stratospheric warming (SSW) events are well captured in high-resolution global forecasts out to 10 days. Tropospheric influences of SSW include statistically significant shifts in the storm tracks and associated surface temperature and precipitation pattern changes. Since these events can in turn influence the troposphere on time scales of 30-60 days the ability to predict these events and the subsequent long-term response on time scales beyond 10 days is of interest. Here we examine the prediction of stratospheric wave events and their evolution using the NASA GMAO (Global Modeling and Assimilation Office) Sub-Seasonal to Seasonal (S2S) system. This is a recently released subseasonal to seasonal forecast system, GEOS-S2S version 2.1. Compared to GMAO's previous system, the new version runs at higher atmospheric resolution (approximately 1/2 degree globally), contains a substantially improved model of the cryosphere, includes additional interactive aerosol model components, and the ocean data assimilation system has been replaced with a Local Ensemble Transform Kalman Filter. Results are based on a comprehensive series of hindcasts starting from the year 2000. They show that while the S2S system is not as accurate at 10 days in forecasting major SSW events as the NASA GMAO Forward Processing system, it can usefully predict stratospheric anomalies out to 20 days and the subsequent stratospheric/tropospheric evolution beyond 30 days.

Coy, L.↗

Attribution of Stratospheric and Tropospheric Ozone Changes Between 1850 and 2014 in CMIP6 Models

We quantify the impacts of halogenated ozone-depleting substances (ODSs), greenhouse gases (GHGs), and short-lived ozone precursors on ozone changes between 1850 and 2014 using single-forcing perturbation simulations from several Earth system models with interactive chemistry participating in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Aerosol and Chemistry Model Intercomparison Project. We present the responses of ozone to individual forcings and an attribution of changes in ozone columns and vertically resolved stratospheric and tropospheric ozone to these forcings. We find that whilst substantial ODS-induced ozone loss dominates the stratospheric ozone changes since the 1970s, in agreement with previous studies, increases in tropospheric ozone due to increases in short-lived ozone precursors and methane since the 1950s make increasingly important contributions to total column ozone (TCO) changes. Increases in methane also lead to substantial extra-tropical stratospheric ozone increases. Impacts of nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide on stratospheric ozone are significant but their impacts on TCO are small overall due to several opposing factors and are also associated with large dynamical variability. The multi-model mean (MMM) results show a clear change in the stratospheric ozone trends after 2000 due to now declining ODSs, but the trends are generally not significantly positive, except in the extra-tropical upper stratosphere, due to relatively small changes in forcing over this period combined with large model uncertainty. Although the MMM ozone compares well with the observations, the inter-model differences are large primarily due to the large differences in the models' representation of ODS-induced ozone depletion.

Halogenated ozone-depleting substances↗

Role of PHM in Autonomous Decision-Making: Aerospace applications

There is an increased need for onboard decision-making capabilities in cyber-physical systems be it in energy, automotive, aviation, space, or other industries as they aim for increased efficiency, resiliency, and mission assurance capabilities. Emerging next-gen technologies such as multi-rover planetary missions, distributed satellites, unmanned ground and aerial vehicle operations and smart grid systems rely on in-time risk assessment and autonomous decision-making. One critical piece of the autonomy puzzle is reliable prediction of system behavior under time-varying and potentially uncertain environmental conditions. Further, if agent states change during operation such as initiation of faults or degradation, reliable diagnostic tools need to be investigated. In this tutorial, we will revise approaches that integrates existing physics-based and data-driven models of agents interacting with probability models of the environment and component operation state. Role of existing PHM methodologies as they feed into decision-making under uncertainty will be studied. Balancing critical trade-offs between high-fidelity prognostic models, prediction time-horizons and the computational requirements for in-time cost-effective decision-making will be discussed through the implementation of surrogate models. Finally, the audience will be introduced to a real-time application of in-time trajectory planning of an unmanned aerial system (UAS) based on its PHM assessments under uncertain and varying wind conditions.

decision-making↗

Floating Node Method and Virtual Crack Closure Technique for Modeling Matrix Cracking-Delamination Interaction

A novel approach is proposed for high-fidelity modeling of progressive damage and failure in composite materials that combines the Floating Node Method (FNM) and the Virtual Crack Closure Technique (VCCT) to represent multiple interacting failure mechanisms in a mesh-independent fashion. In this study, the approach is applied to the modeling of delamination migration in cross-ply tape laminates. Delamination, matrix cracking, and migration are all modeled using fracture mechanics based failure and migration criteria. The methodology proposed shows very good qualitative and quantitative agreement with experiments.

DeCarvalho, N. V.↗

Analysis of Inter Converter Interactions using Harmonic State Space Modeling

Power converters have become a key participant within the modern grid, facilitating the grid's interaction with renewable energy sources and various loads, among others. These converters can also interact with each other, creating harmonics that were previously absent in the grid. While some previous research studies have focused on inter-converter interactions, not much focus has been on the role of pulse width modulators in these inter-converter interactions. This paper focuses on the issue and builds upon harmonic state-space modeling (HSS) to observe inter-converter harmonic interactions. A new modulator model is developed, and its implementation within HSS modeling to observe harmonic coupling between multiple inverters is highlighted. A simulation testbench is developed, and to verify the advantages and limitations of the proposed modeling approach, it is compared with two other traditional modeling methods: namely, average and switching models. The proposed method is shown to be significantly more accurate and informative than conventional average modeling methods and has considerably lower computation costs and simulation time than detailed switching models. The results are verified using extensive simulations on MATLAB.

Xue, Yaosuo↗

Uncertainty Propagation within Chained Models for Machine Learning Reconstruction of Neutrino-LAr Interactions

Sequential or chained models are increasingly prevalent in machine learning for scientific applications, due to their flexibility and ease of development. Chained models are particularly useful when a task is separable into distinct steps with a hierarchy of meaningful intermediate representations. In reliability-critical tasks, it is important to quantify the confidence of model inferences. However, chained models pose an additional challenge for uncertainty quantification, especially when input uncertainties need to be propagated. In such cases, a fully uncertainty-aware chain of models is required, where each step accepts a probability distribution over the input space, and produces a probability distribution over the output space. In this work, we present a case study for adapting a single model within an existing chain, designed for reconstruction within neutrino-Argon interactions, developed for neutrino oscillation experiments such as MicroBooNE, ICARUS, and the future DUNE experiment. We test the performance of an input uncertainty-enabled model against an uncertainty-blinded model using a method for generating synthetic noise. By comparing these two, we assess the increase in inference quality achieved by exposing models to upstream uncertainty estimates.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Status of Mercury and Imp: Two Monte Carlo Transport Codes Developed Using Shared Infrastructure at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

The Monte Carlo Transport Project at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory develops two Monte Carlo transport codes used in production by a sizable internal user community. Mercury is a Monte Carlo particle transport code used to model the interaction of neutrons, gammas, and light ions with a material. Imp is an implicit Monte Carlo thermal x-ray photon transport code used to model the interaction of x-ray photons with a material. This paper describes the two codes and highlights recent developments.

Pozulp, Michael↗

Interactive Soil Dust Aerosol Model in the GISS GCM: Sensitivity of the Soil Dust Cycle to Radiative Properties of Soil Dust Aerosols - Part 1

The sensitivity of the soil dust aerosol cycle to the radiative forcing by soil dust aerosols is studied. Four experiments with the NASA/GISS atmospheric general circulation model, which includes a soil dust aerosol model, are compared, all using a prescribed climatological sea surface temperature as lower boundary condition. In one experiment, dust is included as dynamic tracer only (without interacting with radiation), whereas dust interacts with radiation in the other simulations. Although the single scattering albedo of dust particles is prescribed to be globally uniform in the experiments with radiatively active dust, a different single scattering albedo is used in those experiments to estimate whether regional variations in dust optical properties, corresponding to variations in mineralogical composition among different source regions, are important for the soil dust cycle and the climate state. On a global scale, the radiative forcing by dust generally causes a reduction in the atmospheric dust load corresponding to a decreased dust source flux. That is, there is a negative feedback in the climate system due to the radiative effect of dust. The dust source flux and its changes were analyzed in more detail for the main dust source regions. This analysis shows that the reduction varies both with the season and with the single scattering albedo of the dust particles. By examining the correlation with the surface wind, it was found that the dust emission from the Saharan/Sahelian source region and from the Arabian peninsula, along with the sensitivity of the emission to the single scattering albedo of dust particles, are related to large scale circulation patterns, in particular to the trade winds during Northern Hemisphere winter and to the Indian monsoon circulation during summer. In the other regions, such relations to the large scale circulation were not found. There, the dependence of dust deflation to radiative forcing by dust particles is probably dominated by physical processes with short time scales. The experiments show that dust radiative forcing can lead to significant changes both in the soil dust cycle and in the climate state. To estimate dust concentration and radiative forcing by dust more accurately, dust size distributions and dust single scattering albedo in the model should be a function of the source region, because dust concentration and climate response to dust radiative forcing are sensitive to dust radiative parameters.

Perlwitz, Jan↗

Fourier transform infrared studies of the interaction of HCl with model polar stratospheric cloud films

Heterogeneous reactions involving hydrochloric acid adsorbed on the surfaces of polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs) are postulated to contribute to polar ozone loss. Using FTIR spectroscopy to probe the condensed phase, we have examined the interaction of HCl with ice and nitric acid trihydrate (NAT) films representative of types II and I PSCs, respectively. For HCl pressures in the range of 10 exp -7 to 10 exp -5 Torr, our FTIR studies show that a small amount of crystalline HCl-6H2O formed on or in ice at 155 K. However, for higher HCl pressures, we observed that the entire film of ice rapidly converted into an amorphous 4:1 H2O:HCl mixture. From HCl-uptake experiments with P(HCl) = 8 x 10 exp -7 Torr, we estimate roughly that the diffusion coefficient of HCl in ice is around 2 x 10 exp -12 sq cm/s at 158 K. For higher temperatures more closely approximating those found in the stratosphere, we were unable to detect bulk HCl uptake by ice. Indirect evidence suggests that HCl adsorption onto the surface of model PSC films inhibited the evaporation of both ice and NAT by 3-5 K.

Koehler, Birgit G.↗

Cognition and procedure representational requirements for predictive human performance models

Models and modeling environments for human performance are becoming significant contributors to early system design and analysis procedures. Issues of levels of automation, physical environment, informational environment, and manning requirements are being addressed by such man/machine analysis systems. The research reported here investigates the close interaction between models of human cognition and models that described procedural performance. We describe a methodology for the decomposition of aircrew procedures that supports interaction with models of cognition on the basis of procedures observed; that serves to identify cockpit/avionics information sources and crew information requirements; and that provides the structure to support methods for function allocation among crew and aiding systems. Our approach is to develop an object-oriented, modular, executable software representation of the aircrew, the aircraft, and the procedures necessary to satisfy flight-phase goals. We then encode in a time-based language, taxonomies of the conceptual, relational, and procedural constraints among the cockpit avionics and control system and the aircrew. We have designed and implemented a goals/procedures hierarchic representation sufficient to describe procedural flow in the cockpit. We then execute the procedural representation in simulation software and calculate the values of the flight instruments, aircraft state variables and crew resources using the constraints available from the relationship taxonomies. The system provides a flexible, extensible, manipulative and executable representation of aircrew and procedures that is generally applicable to crew/procedure task-analysis. The representation supports developed methods of intent inference, and is extensible to include issues of information requirements and functional allocation. We are attempting to link the procedural representation to models of cognitive functions to establish several intent inference methods including procedural backtracking with concurrent search, temporal reasoning, and constraint checking for partial ordering of procedures. Finally, the representation is being linked to models of human decision making processes that include heuristic, propositional and prescriptive judgement models that are sensitive to the procedural content in which the valuative functions are being performed.

Corker, K.↗

A classical model for three-body interactions in aqueous ionic systems

We present a classical induction model to evaluate the three-body ion–water–water (I–W–W) and water–water–water (W–W–W) interactions in aqueous ionic systems. The classical description of the induction energy is based on electrostatic distributed multipoles up to hexadecapole and distributed polarizabilities up to quadrupole–quadrupole on the O and H atoms of water. The monatomic ions were described by a point charge and a dipole–dipole polarizability, while for the polyatomic ions, distributed multipoles up to hexadecapole and distributed polarizabilities up to quadrupole–quadrupole were used. The accuracy of the classical model is benchmarked against an accurate dataset of 936 (I–W–W) and 2184 (W–W–W) three-body terms for 13 different monatomic and polyatomic cation and anion systems. The classical model shows excellent agreement with the reference second order Moller–Plesset and coupled-cluster single double and perturbative triple [CCSD(T)] three-body energies. The Root-Mean-Square-Errors (RMSEs) for monatomic cations, monatomic anions, and polyatomic ions were 0.29, 0.25, and 0.12 kcal/mol, respectively. The corresponding RMSE for 1744 CCSD(T)/aVTZ three-body (W–W–W) energies, used to train MB-pol, was 0.12 kcal/mol. The accuracy of the proposed classical model demonstrates that the three-body term for aqueous ionic systems can be accurately modeled classically. This approach provides a fast, efficient, and as-accurate path toward modeling the three-body term in aqueous ionic systems that is fully transferable across systems with different ions without the need to fit to tens of thousands of ab initio calculations for each ion to extend existing many-body force fields to interactions between water and ions.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Uncertainty characterization in a coupled human-natural system: Modeling agricultural adaptation in the Great Lakes Region

The Great Lakes Region's water quality and ecological health are threatened by the export of nutrients from agricultural lands, which causes eutrophication, hypoxia, and destructive algal blooms. The intensification of hydrologic cycles brought about by climate change is expected to exacerbate nutrient loading in the region, and, at the same time, agricultural adaptation to changing conditions is also expected to affect loading through shifting amounts and timing of fertilization. Quantifying these future effects and their interactions necessitates modeling both the human and natural processes as a coupled system, by pairing land use and agricultural management with hydrologic modeling. At the same time, compounding uncertainties arising from the complex interactions in both systems significantly limit our predictive understanding of the region's impacts. This study utilizes the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT), developed for simulating the impact of various farmer decisions on watershed functions in Western Lake Erie watersheds, and an under-development agent-based model (ABM) for agricultural management decisions. The aim of this study is to use global sensitivity analysis on the coupled ABM and SWAT models to quantify how uncertainty in both models interactively affects nutrient loading. To do so, we will conduct Sobol sensitivity analysis experiments at different levels of coupling assumptions to quantify how various uncertain factors (e.g., soil moisture and crop choice) and their interactions affect our estimates of nutrient loading. The results of this analysis will allow us to quantify how complex interactions and dependencies between both systems amplify the effect of uncertainties. Insights gained from this study will have broader implications for modeling the adaptive co-evolution of human and natural systems under climate change and can inform effective management of nutrient loading in the Great Lakes Region.

Climate Change↗

Intercomparison, Visualization, and Analysis Testbed System for EOS Global Assimilated Datasets and Satellite Data

The Space Science and Engineering Center (SSEC) of the University of Wisconsin - Madison had two primary goals for NASA grant NAG5-2906. (1) Collaborate with scientists at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) to integrate SSEC's Vis5D software into NASA's Interactive Image Spread Sheet (IISS). Vis5D provides environmental modelers with interactive three-dimensional visualization of their model output. Integration of Vis5D with the IISS would give 3-D graphics capability to the iiss. (2) Make improvements in Vis5D as required by scientists at the NASA Data Assimilation Office (DAO). We were successful in both of these goals. Furthermore, the generic approach taken to achieving the first goal has enabled Vis5D to be integrated into many other software systems.

Source record↗

Sensitivity of Dislocation-GB interactions to simulation setups in atomistic models

Dislocation-grain boundary (GB) interactions play an integral role in strengthening of crystalline materials, and are dependent on external loading conditions and atomic arrangements at the grain boundary. While molecular dynamics (MD) simulations can provide critical insights into relationships between these parameters and the exact interaction, the outcomes are sensitive to the computational setup. Here, in this work, we explore the effect of computational setup (system size, GB orientation and boundary conditions) on stress-controlled dislocation-grain boundary (DGB) reactions using MD simulations for a well-studied copper symmetric $\langle$1 1 2$\rangle$ tilt boundary. The study demonstrates that the DGB reactions (pinning, absorption, transmission, etc.) are sensitive to the system size and the orientation of the GB to the applied stress. Additionally, the current work shows that there is a critical system size for the dislocation-grain boundary reaction stresses to converge, one which was found to be much larger than the setups in comparable MD studies. This was attributed to the specific stress states and the influence of surfaces, fixed or free, as these computational setups are modified. Finally, a stress-controlled setup with minimal model artifacts is examined, and the effect of coupled Schmid and non-Schmid stress components on the dislocation-GB reactions are discussed.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Dynamical interactions between the middle atmosphere and thermosphere

Based on modeling some interactions between the middle atmosphere and thermosphere are presented. The interactions studied include the thermospheric circulations driven by radiative and auroral heating affecting the O concentration and temperature of the upper mesosphere through the exchange of chemical energy. Considering Kellog's mechanism, an interaction between the mesosphere and thermosphere that is driven by Joule heating is discussed.

Mayr, H. G.↗