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At least 973 records · Page 54

A 4-D Climatology (1979-2009) of the Monthly Tropospheric Aerosol Optical Depth Distribution over the Mediterranean Region from a Comparative Evaluation and Blending of Remote Sensing and Model Products

Since the 1980s several spaceborne sensors have been used to retrieve the aerosol optical depth (AOD) over the Mediterranean region. In parallel, AOD climatologies coming from different numerical model simulations are now also available, permitting to distinguish the contribution of several aerosol types to the total AOD. In this work, we perform a comparative analysis of this unique multiyear database in terms of total AOD and of its apportionment by the five main aerosol types (soil dust, seasalt, sulfate, black and organic carbon). We use 9 different satellite-derived monthly AOD products: NOAA/AVHRR, SeaWiFS (2 products), TERRA/MISR, TERRA/MODIS, AQUA/MODIS, ENVISAT/MERIS, PARASOL/POLDER and MSG/SEVIRI, as well as 3 more historical datasets: NIMBUS7/CZCS, TOMS (onboard NIMBUS7 and Earth- Probe) and METEOSAT/MVIRI. Monthly model datasets include the aerosol climatology from Tegen et al. (1997), the climate-chemistry models LMDz-OR-INCA and RegCM-4, the multi-model mean coming from the ACCMIP exercise, and the reanalyses GEMS and MACC. Ground-based Level- 2 AERONET AOD observations from 47 stations around the basin are used here to evaluate the model and satellite data. The sensor MODIS (on AQUA and TERRA) has the best average AOD scores over this region, showing a relevant spatio-temporal variability and highlighting high dust loads over Northern Africa and the sea (spring and summer), and sulfate aerosols over continental Europe (summer). The comparison also shows limitations of certain datasets (especially MERIS and SeaWiFS standard products). Models reproduce the main patterns of the AOD variability over the basin. The MACC reanalysis is the closest to AERONET data, but appears to underestimate dust over Northern Africa, where RegCM-4 is found closer to MODIS thanks to its interactive scheme for dust emissions. The vertical dimension is also investigated using the CALIOP instrument. This study confirms differences of vertical distribution between dust aerosols showing a large vertical spread, and other continental and marine aerosols which are confined in the boundary layer. From this compilation, we propose a 4-D blended product from model and satellite data, consisting in monthly time series of 3-D aerosol distribution at a 50 km horizontal resolution over the Euro-Mediterranean marine and continental region for the 2003-2009 period. The product is based on the total AOD from AQUA/MODIS, apportioned into sulfates, black and organic carbon from the MACC reanalysis, and into dust and sea-salt aerosols from RegCM-4 simulations, which are distributed vertically based on CALIOP climatology.We extend the 2003-2009 reconstruction to the past up to 1979 using the 2003-2009 average and applying the decreasing trend in sulfate aerosols from LMDz-OR-INCA, whose AOD trends over Europe and the Mediterranean are median among the ACCMIP models. Finally optical properties of the different aerosol types in this region are proposed from Mie calculations so that this reconstruction can be included in regional climate models for aerosol radiative forcing and aerosol-climate studies.

troposphere↗

Wide range of possible trajectories of North Atlantic climate in a warming world

Decadal variability in the North Atlantic Ocean impacts regional and global climate, yet changes in internal decadal variability under anthropogenic radiative forcing remain largely unexplored. Here we use the Community Earth System Model 2 Large Ensemble under historical and the Shared Socioeconomic Pathway 3-7.0 future radiative forcing scenarios and show that the ensemble spread in northern North Atlantic sea surface temperature (SST) more than doubles during the mid-twenty-first century, highlighting an exceptionally wide range of possible climate states. Furthermore, there are strikingly distinct trajectories in these SSTs, arising from differences in the North Atlantic deep convection among ensemble members starting by 2030. We propose that these are stochastically triggered and subsequently amplified by positive feedbacks involving coupled ocean-atmosphere-sea ice interactions. Freshwater forcing associated with global warming seems necessary for activating these feedbacks, accentuating the impact of external forcing on internal variability. Further investigation on seven additional large ensembles affirms the robustness of our findings. By monitoring these mechanisms in real time and extending dynamical model predictions after positive feedbacks activate, we may achieve skillful long-lead North Atlantic decadal predictions that are effective for multiple decades.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

James Webb Space Telescope Initial Mid-Course Correction Monte Carlo Implementation using Task Parallelism

The James Webb Space Telescope will be launched into a highly elliptical orbit that does not possess sufficient energy to achieve a proper Sun-Earth/Moon L2 libration point orbit. Three mid-course correction (MCC) maneuvers are planned to rectify the energy deficit: MCC-1a, MCC-1b, and MCC-2. To validate the propellant budget and trajectory design methods, a set of Monte Carlo analyses that incorporate MCC maneuver modeling and execution are employed. The first analysis focuses on the effects of launch vehicle injection errors on the magnitude of MCC-1a. The second on the spread of potential V based on the performance of the propulsion system as applied to all three MCC maneuvers. The final highlights the slight, but notable, contribution of the attitude thrusters during each MCC maneuver. Given the possible variations in these three scenarios, the trajectory design methods are determined to be robust to errors in the modeling of the flight system.

James Webb Space Telescope↗

James Webb Space Telescope Initial Mid-Course Correction Monte Carlo Implementation using Task Parallelism

The James Webb Space Telescope will be launched into a highly elliptical orbit that does not possess sufficient energy to achieve a proper Sun-Earth L2 libration point orbit. Three mid-course correction (MCC) maneuvers are planned to rectify the energy deficit: MCC-1a, MCC-1b, and MCC-2. To validate the propellant budget and trajectory design methods, a set of Monte Carlo analyses that incorporate MCC maneuver modeling and execution are employed. The first analysis focuses on the effects of launch vehicle injection errors on the magnitude of MCC-1a. The second on the spread of potential V based on the performance of the propulsion system as applied to all three MCC maneuvers. The final highlights the slight, but notable, contribution of the attitude thrusters during each MCC maneuver. Given the possible variations in these three scenarios, the trajectory design methods are determined to be robust to errors in the modeling of the flight system.

Libration Point Orbit↗

Chaos, Percolation and the Coronavirus Spread

The dynamics of the spreading of the COVID-19 virus has similar features to the turbulent flow, chaotic maps and other non-linear systems: a small seed grows exponentially and eventually saturates. Like in the percolation model, the virus is mostly dangerous if the probability of transmission (or the bond probability p in the percolation model) is high. This suggests a relation with the population density, ρ s , which must be higher than a certain value (ρ s > 1000 persons/km 2 ). A ‘seed’ implanted in such towns grows vigorously and affects nearby places at distance x. Thus, the spreading is governed by the ratio ρ = ρ s /x. Assuming a power law dependence τ of the number of positives to the virus N + from ρ, we find τ = 0.55, 0.75 and 0.96 for S.Korea, Italy and China respectively.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

Studying Turbulence Using Numerical Simulation Databases: Proceedings of the Summer Program - No. 7

The Seventh Summer Program of the Center for Turbulence Research took place in the four-week period, July 5 to July 31, 1998. This was the largest CTR Summer Program to date, involving thirty-six participants from the U. S. and nine other countries. Thirty-one Stanford and NASA-Ames staff members facilitated and contributed to most of the Summer projects. A new feature, and perhaps a preview of the future programs, was that many of the projects were executed on non-NASA computers. These included supercomputers located in Europe as well as those operated by the Departments of Defense and Energy in the United States. In addition, several simulation programs developed by the visiting participants at their home institutions were used. Another new feature was the prevalence of lap-top personal computers which were used by several participants to carry out some of the work that in the past were performed on desk-top workstations. We expect these trends to continue as computing power is enhanced and as more researchers (many of whom CTR alumni) use numerical simulations to study turbulent flows. CTR's main role continues to be in providing a forum for the study of turbulence for engineering analysis and in facilitating intellectual exchange among the leading researchers in the field. Once again the combustion group was the largest. Turbulent combustion has enjoyed remarkable progress in using simulations to address increasingly complex and practically more relevant questions. The combustion group's studies included such challenging topics as fuel evaporation, soot chemistry, and thermonuclear reactions. The latter study was one of three projects related to the Department of Energy's ASCI Program (www.llnl.gov/asci); the other two (rocket propulsion and fire safety) were carried out in the turbulence modeling group. The flow control and acoustics group demonstrated a successful application of the so-called evolution algorithms which actually led to a previously unknown forcing strategy for jets yielding increased spreading rate. A very efficient algorithm for flow in complex geometries with moving boundaries based on the immersed boundary forcing technique was tested with very encouraging results. Also a new strategy for the destruction of aircraft trailing vortices was introduced and tested. The Reynolds Averaged Modeling (RANS) group demonstrated that the elliptic relaxation concept for RANS calculations is also applicable to transonic flows with shocks; however, prediction of laminar/turbulent transition remains an important pacing item. A large fraction of the LES effort was devoted to the development and testing of a new algorithmic procedure (as opposed to phenomenological model) for subgrid scale modeling based on regularized de-filtering of the flow variables. This appears to be a very promising approach, and a significant effort is currently underway to assess its robustness in high Reynolds number flows and in conjunction with numerical methods for complex flows. As part of the Summer Program two review tutorials were given on Turbulent structures in hydrocarbon pool fires (Sheldon Tieszen), and Turbulent combustion modeling: from RANS to LES via DNS (Luc Vervisch); and two seminars entitled Assessment of turbulence models for engineering applications (Paul Durbin) and Subgrid-scale modeling for non-premixed, turbulent reacting flows (James Riley) were presented. A number of colleagues from universities, government agencies, and industry attended the final presentations of the participants on July 31 and participated in the discussions. There are twenty-six papers in this volume grouped in five areas. Each group is preceded with an overview by its coordinator.

Source record↗

Electric Field Conjugation in the Presence of Model Uncertainty

The Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) is a 2.4-meter-diameter space telescope NASA program. The payload will include a coronagraph instrument (CGI). The CGI designs under development use deformable mirrors (DM) to create a point spread function (PSF) with a dark region around the obscured star object. Electric field conjugation (EFC) is an iterative nonlinear optimization procedure that uses measurements of the electric field at the image to determine the DM displacements to modify the PSF to create the region of high contrast in the image. EFC requires a numerical model of the coronagraph to calculate the Jacobian of the system, which is used, along with regularization, to solve for the DM displacements for each iteration of the nonlinear optimization. Ideally, the coronagraph is aligned and calibrated, and the calibration data are used in the numerical model for calculating the Jacobian. However, calibration and alignment measurements always contain uncertainty resulting in calibration error. Therefore, the Jacobian calculated from the numerical model is not an exact representation of the physical coronagraph, and the resulting DM solution for an EFC iteration does not have the exact impact on the electric field of the coronagraph as predicted by the EFC. The result is slow convergence, and, as will be shown, drives the use of more restrictive regularization. Using Monte Carlo trials, we investigate the effect of calibration error on EFC convergence and regulatization. Comparison to results from the High Contrast Imaging Testbed Hybrid Lyot Coronagraph are also presented.

Marx, David↗

Impact of Module Configuration on Lithium-Ion Battery Performance and Degradation: Part I. Energy Throughput, Voltage Spread, and Current Distribution

Batteries are commonly connected in series and parallel to create modules that fulfill the power and energy requirements of specific applications. However, conclusions about battery performance and degradation under different conditions, as well as predictive models, are often derived from single cell cycling results. In this study, we evaluate the performance of six different series-parallel configurations of commercial lithium nickel manganese cobalt cells over hundreds of cycles. Each cell within the modules was individually instrumented for voltage, current, and temperature monitoring. We quantified the impact of module configuration on overall energy throughput, the voltage spread among series-connected cells, and the current heterogeneity in parallel-connected cells. This module cycling study, one of the broadest reported to date, supports systematic evaluation of the performance trade-offs, pack penalty, and safety implications of different module configurations.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗

The International Reference Ionosphere - Climatological Standard for the Ionosphere

The International Reference Ionosphere (IRI) a joint project of URSI and COSPAR is the defacto standard for a climatological specification of ionospheric parameters. IRI is based on a wide range of ground and space data and has been steadily improved since its inception in 1969 with the ever-increasing volume of ionospheric data and with better mathematical descriptions of the observed global and temporal variation patterns. The IRI model has been validated with a large amount of data including data from the most recent ionospheric satellites (KOMPSAT, ROCSAT and TIMED) and data from global network of ionosondes. Several IRI teams are working on specific aspects of the IRI modeling effort including an improved representation of the topside ionosphere with a seamless transition to the plasmasphere, a new effort to represent the global variation of F2 peak parameters using the Neural Network (NN) technique, and the inclusion of several additional parameters in IRI, e.g., spread-F probability and ionospheric variability. Annual IRI workshops are the forum for discussions of these efforts and for all science activities related to IRI as well as applications of the IRI model in engineering and education. In this paper I will present a status report about the IRI effort with special emphasis on the presentations and results from the most recent IRI Workshops (Paris, 2004; Tortosa, 2005) and on the most important ongoing IRI activities. I will discuss the latest version of the IRI model, IRI-2006, highlighting the most recent changes and additions. Finally, the talk will review some of the applications of the IRI model with special emphasis on the use for radiowave propagation studies and communication purposes.

Bilitza, Dieter↗

Arctic Amplification: Process Drivers and Sources of Uncertainty

Arctic amplification (AA) is a coupled atmosphere-sea ice-ocean process. This understanding has evolved from the early concept of AA, as a consequence of snow ice line progressions, through more than a century of research that has clarified the relevant processes and driving mechanisms of AA. The predictions made by early modeling studies, namely the fall/winter maximum, bottom-heavy structure, the prominence of surface albedo feedback, and the importance of stable stratification have withstood the scrutiny of multi-decadal observations and more complex models. Yet, the uncertainty in Arctic climate projections is larger than in any other region of the planet, making the assessment of high-impact, near-term regional changes difficult or impossible. Reducing this large spread in Arctic climate projections requires a quantitative process understanding. This presentation synthesizes current knowledge of AA and describes a set of recommendations to guide future research. It briefly reviews the history of AA science, summarizes observed Arctic changes, discusses modeling approaches and feedback diagnostics, and assesses the current understanding of the most relevant feedbacks to AA. These sections culminate in a conceptual model of the fundamental physical mechanisms causing AA and a collection of recommendations to accelerate progress towards reduced uncertainty in Arctic climate projections. Our conceptual model highlights the need to account for local feedback and remote process interactions within the context of the annual cycle to constrain projected AA.

Patrick C Taylor↗

Autocrine and paracrine interferon signalling as ‘ring vaccination’ and ‘contact tracing’ strategies to suppress virus infection in a host

The innate immune response, particularly the interferon response, represents a first line of defence against viral infections. The interferon molecules produced from infected cells act through autocrine and paracrine signalling to turn host cells into an antiviral state. Although the molecular mechanisms of IFN signalling have been well characterized, how the interferon response collectively contribute to the regulation of host cells to stop or suppress viral infection during early infection remain unclear. Here, we use mathematical models to delineate the roles of the autocrine and the paracrine signalling, and show that their impacts on viral spread are dependent on how infection proceeds. In particular, we found that when infection is well-mixed, the paracrine signalling is not as effective; by contrast, when infection spreads in a spatial manner, a likely scenario during initial infection in tissue, the paracrine signalling can impede the spread of infection by decreasing the number of susceptible cells close to the site of infection. Furthermore, we argue that the interferon response can be seen as a parallel to population-level epidemic prevention strategies such as ‘contact tracing’ or ‘ring vaccination’. Thus, our results here may have implications for the outbreak control at the population scale more broadly.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

Measuring signatures in photon angular spectra to distinguish nonlinear Compton scattering models

The collision of a high-energy electron beam with a laser pulse may be used to study radiation reaction and nonlinear Compton scattering among many other processes in strong-field quantum electrodynamics. Predictions from simulation and theory for these interactions rely on a number of approximations and assumptions that have not been experimentally tested. Here, experimentally measurable signatures are identified that might be able to distinguish between radiation reaction models, i.e., classical or quantum, or between the local constant field and local monochromatic approximations used to calculate the properties of the nonlinear Compton process. These signatures are considered through Monte Carlo simulations of various experimental conditions that are relevant to today's laser facilities. Potential detection schemes for measuring the signatures are proposed. We find that single-photon counting of keV photons to resolve harmonics and scintillator-based detection of MeV photons may allow us to validate nonlinear Compton scattering models and radiation reaction models respectively. This will require electron beams with divergence angles less than 2 mrad and less than 20% energy spread.

Russell, Brandon K↗

Lifetime of Almost Strong Edge-Mode Operators in One-Dimensional, Interacting, Symmetry Protected Topological Phases

Almost strong edge-mode operators arising at the boundaries of certain interacting one-dimensional symmetry protected topological phases with Z 2 symmetry have infinite temperature lifetimes that are nonperturbatively long in the integrability breaking terms, making them promising as bits for quantum information processing. We extract the lifetime of these edge-mode operators for small system sizes as well as in the thermodynamic limit. For the latter, a Lanczos scheme is employed to map the operator dynamics to a one-dimensional tight-binding model of a single particle in Krylov space. We suggest this model to be that of a spatially inhomogeneous Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model with a hopping amplitude that increases away from the boundary, and a dimerization that decreases away from the boundary. We associate this dimerized or staggered structure with the existence of the almost strong mode. Thus, the short time dynamics of the almost strong mode is that of the edge mode of the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model, while the long time dynamics involves decay due to tunneling out of that mode, followed by chaotic operator spreading. Furthermore, we show that competing scattering processes can lead to interference effects that can significantly enhance the lifetime.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

The interplanetary magnetic field and energetic electrons from Jupiter

The reported four-month 'season' for observation of Jovian electron events at AU is shown to be a plausible consequence of field-line random walk in the solar wind. Values of the field-line random-walk coefficient deduced earlier in connection with observations of solar protons, photospheric supergranulation, and the interplanetary magnetic-field power spectrum, lead to an approximate value for the spread of Jovian electrons at 1 AU, which corresponds to an approximate four-month duration of events. This model is consistent with a point source at Jupiter.

Jokipii, J. R.↗

Computer-aided analysis and design of the shape rolling process for producing turbine engine airfoils

Mild steel (AISI 1018) was selected as model cold-rolling material and Ti-6Al-4V and INCONEL 718 were selected as typical hot-rolling and cold-rolling alloys, respectively. The flow stress and workability of these alloys were characterized and friction factor at the roll/workpiece interface was determined at their respective working conditions by conducting ring tests. Computer-aided mathematical models for predicting metal flow and stresses, and for simulating the shape-rolling process were developed. These models utilize the upper-bound and the slab methods of analysis, and are capable of predicting the lateral spread, roll-separating force, roll torque and local stresses, strains and strain rates. This computer-aided design (CAD) system is also capable of simulating the actual rolling process and thereby designing roll-pass schedule in rolling of an airfoil or similar shape. The predictions from the CAD system were verified with respect to cold rolling of mild steel plates. The system is being applied to cold and hot isothermal rolling of an airfoil shape, and will be verified with respect to laboratory experiments under controlled conditions.

Lahoti, G. D.↗

Tectonic stress - Models and magnitudes

It is shown that global data on directions of principal stresses in plate interiors can serve as a test of possible plate tectonic force models. Such tests performed to date favor force models in which ridge pushing forces play a significant role. For such models the general magnitude of regional deviatoric stresses is comparable to the 200-300 bar compressive stress exerted by spreading ridges. An alternative approach to estimating magnitudes of regional deviatoric stresses from stress orientations is to seek regions of local stress either demonstrably smaller than or larger than the regional stresses. The regional stresses in oceanic intraplate regions are larger than the 100-bar compression exerted by the Ninetyeast Ridge and less than the bending stresses (not less than 1 kbar) beneath Hawaii.

Solomon, S. C.↗

Software simulations of the detection of rapidly moving asteroids by a charge-coupled device

A rendezvous of an unmanned probe to an earth-approaching asteroid has been given a high priority in the planning of interplanetary missions for the 1990s. Even without a space mission, much could be learned about the history of asteroids and comet nuclei if more information were available concerning asteroids with orbits which cross or approach the orbit of earth. It is estimated that the total number of earth-crossers accessible to ground-based survey telescopes should be approximately 1000. However, in connection with the small size and rapid angular motion expected of many of these objects an average of only one object is discovered per year. Attention is given to the development of the software necessary to distinguish such rapidly moving asteroids from stars and noise in continuously scanned CCD exposures of the night sky. Model and input parameters are considered along with detector sensitivity, aspects of minimum detectable displacement, and the point-spread function of the CCD.

Mcmillan, R. S.↗

Velocity and temperature decay characteristics of inverted-profile jets

In order to design efficient, lightweight flap systems for future engine under-the-wing STOL aircraft, the velocity and temperature decay rate of the jet plume must be increased relative to that for single-stream nozzles in order to provide local flap loads and structural temperatures within acceptable limits. The jet plume decay rate of dual flow engines can be increased by resorting to inverted-profile velocity and temperature nozzle concepts. The peak axial decay characteristics of model-scale, two-stream inverted-profile nozzle flows are empirically correlated. Also discussed are the radial and spreading characteristics of inverted-profile nozzle flows.

Vonglahn, U.↗