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Artificial Intelligence for Future Earth Science Information Systems and Earth System Digital Twins

NASA's Advanced Information Systems Technology (AIST) Program is one of several Technology programs managed by the Earth Science Technology Office (ESTO) in the Earth Science Division (ESD). The AIST Program focuses on advanced information systems and novel computer science technologies that will be needed by NASA Earth Science in the next 5 to 10 years. The three main thrusts of the AIST Program deal with Novel Observing Strategies (NOS), Analytic Collaborative Frameworks (ACF) and Earth System Digital Twins (ESDT). This presentation summarizes the AIST Program with a special focus on the Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) technologies included in its funded projects.

Earth Science Remote Sensing; Information Systems↗
DOE OSTI2017

Reduced lattice thermal conductivity of Fe-bearing bridgmanite in Earth's deep mantle: Reduced Conductivity of Fe-Bridgmanite

Complex seismic, thermal, and chemical features have been reported in Earth's lowermost mantle. In particular, possible iron enrichments in the large low shear-wave velocity provinces (LLSVPs) could influence thermal transport properties of the constituting minerals in this region, altering the lower mantle dynamics and heat flux across core-mantle boundary (CMB). Thermal conductivity of bridgmanite is expected to partially control the thermal evolution and dynamics of Earth's lower mantle. Importantly, the pressure-induced lattice distortion and iron spin and valence states in bridgmanite could affect its lattice thermal conductivity, but these effects remain largely unknown. Here we precisely measured the lattice thermal conductivity of Fe-bearing bridgmanite to 120 GPa using optical pump-probe spectroscopy. The conductivity of Fe-bearing bridgmanite increases monotonically with pressure but drops significantly around 45 GPa due to pressure-induced lattice distortion on iron sites. Our findings indicate that lattice thermal conductivity at lowermost mantle conditions is twice smaller than previously thought. The decrease in the thermal conductivity of bridgmanite in mid-lower mantle and below would promote mantle flow against a potential viscosity barrier, facilitating slabs crossing over the 1000 km depth. Modeling of our results applied to LLSVPs shows that variations in iron and bridgmanite fractions induce a significant thermal conductivity decrease, which would enhance internal convective flow. Our CMB heat flux modeling indicates that while heat flux variations are dominated by thermal effects, variations in thermal conductivity also play a significant role. The CMB heat flux map we obtained is substantially different from those assumed so far, which may influence our understanding of the geodynamo.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2020

Initial Land Use/Cover Distribution Substantially Affects Global Carbon and Local Temperature Projections in the Integrated Earth System Model

Initial land cover distribution varies among Earth system models, an uncertainty in initial conditions that can substantially affect carbon and climate projections. We use the integrated Earth System Model to show that a 3.9 M km2 difference in 2005 global forest area (9–14% of total forest area) generates uncertainties in initial atmospheric CO2 concentration, terrestrial carbon, and local temperature that propagate through a future simulation following the Representative Concentration Pathway 4.5. By 2095, the initial 6 ppmv uncertainty range increases to 9 ppmv and the initial 26 PgC uncertainty range in terrestrial carbon increases to 33 PgC. The initial uncertainty range in annual average local temperature of -0.74 to 0.96 °C persists throughout the future simulation, with a seasonal maximum in Dec-Jan-Feb. These results highlight the importance of accurately characterizing historical land use and land cover to reduce overall initial condition uncertainty.

Di Vittorio, Alan↗
DOE OSTI2019

Alkaline earth ion exchange study in pure silica LTA zeolites using periodic first-principles calculations

Experiments show that Zeolites, such as Linde Type A (LTA), are promising materials for radioactive decontamination processes. In this work, the thermodynamic properties associated with alkaline earth ion (Ca2+, Sr2+ and Ba2+) exchange in pure silica LTA was studied using periodic first-principles calculations. The adsorption energies of alkaline earth ions compared with that of Na+ were investigated. The driving force for the alkaline earth exchange and related isotherms were calculated, and analyzed as a function of the electron chemical potential. The results demonstrate that Na+ in a pure silica LTA can completely be removed by Ba2+ and almost completely be removed by Sr2+ from a stream, but cannot be effectively exchanged by Ca2+. We also showed that electron-donating dopants should suppress the Sr2+ and Ba2+ ion exchange, and that there is a substantial preference for incorporating Ba2+ over Sr2+. Lastly, the substantial difference between the adsorption energies of the ions in an assumed vacuum and those computed in water suggests that a solvation model is needed for accurate representation of ion adsorption in an LTA zeolite.

Kocevski, Vancho↗
DOE OSTI2015

Role of surface oxygen-to-metal ratio on the wettability of rare-earth oxides

Hydrophobic surfaces that are robust can have widespread applications in drop-wise condensation, anti-corrosion, and anti-icing. Recently, it was shown that the class of ceramics comprising the lanthanide series rare-earth oxides (REOs) is intrinsically hydrophobic. The unique electronic structure of the rare-earth metal atom inhibits hydrogen bonding with interfacial water molecules resulting in a hydrophobic hydration structure where the surface oxygen atoms are the only hydrogen bonding sites. Hence, the presence of excess surface oxygen can lead to increased hydrogen bonding and thereby reduce hydrophobicity of REOs. Herein, we demonstrate how surface stoichiometry and surface relaxations can impact wetting properties of REOs. Using X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy and wetting measurements, we show that freshly sputtered ceria is hydrophilic due to excess surface oxygen (shown to have an O/Ce ratio of ∼3 and a water contact angle of ∼15°), which when relaxed in a clean, ultra-high vacuum environment isolated from airborne contaminants reaches close to stoichiometric O/Ce ratio (∼2.2) and becomes hydrophobic (contact angle of ∼104°). Further, we show that airborne hydrocarbon contaminants do not exclusively impact the wetting properties of REOs, and that relaxed REOs are intrinsically hydrophobic. This study provides insight into the role of surface relaxation on the wettability of REOs.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2021

Prediction of crystal structures and motifs in the Fe–Mg–O system at Earth’s core pressures

Abstract Fe, Mg, and O are among the most abundant elements in terrestrial planets. While the behavior of the Fe–O, Mg–O, and Fe–Mg binary systems under pressure have been investigated, there are still very few studies of the Fe–Mg–O ternary system at relevant Earth’s core and super-Earth’s mantle pressures. Here, we use the adaptive genetic algorithm (AGA) to study ternary Fe x Mg y O z phases in a wide range of stoichiometries at 200 GPa and 350 GPa. We discovered three dynamically stable phases with stoichiometries FeMg 2 O 4 , Fe 2 MgO 4, and FeMg 3 O 4 with lower enthalpy than any known combination of Fe–Mg–O high-pressure compounds at 350 GPa. With the discovery of these phases, we construct the Fe–Mg–O ternary convex hull. We further clarify the composition- and pressure-dependence of structural motifs with the analysis of the AGA-found stable and metastable structures. Analysis of binary and ternary stable phases suggest that O, Mg, or both could stabilize a BCC iron alloy at inner core pressures.

Wang, Renhai↗
DOE OSTI2015

A unified initiative to harness Earth's microbiomes

Despite their centrality to life on Earth, we know little about how microbes interact with each other, their hosts, or their environment. Although DNA sequencing technologies have enabled a new view of the ubiquity and diversity of microorganisms, this has mainly yielded snapshots that shed limited light on microbial functions or community dynamics. Given that nearly every habitat and organism hosts a diverse constellation of microorganisms—its “microbiome”—such knowledge could transform our understanding of the world and launch innovations in agriculture, energy, health, the environment, and more (see the photo). Here, we propose an interdisciplinary Unified Microbiome Initiative (UMI) to discover and advance tools to understand and harness the capabilities of Earth's microbial ecosystems. The impacts of oceans and soil microbes on atmospheric CO 2 are critical for understanding climate change. By manipulating interactions at the root-soil-microbe interface, we may reduce agricultural pesticide, fertilizer, and water use enrich marginal land and rehabilitate degraded soils. Microbes can degrade plant cell walls (for biofuels), and synthesize myriad small molecules for new bioproducts, including antibiotics. Restoring normal human microbial ecosystems can save lives [e.g., fecal microbiome transplantation for Clostridium difficile infections]. Rational management of microbial communities in and around us has implications for asthma, diabetes, obesity, infectious diseases, psychiatric illnesses, and other afflictions. The human microbiome is a target and a source for new drugs and an essential tool for precision medicine. The National Science Foundation's Microbial Observatories, the U.S. Department of Energy's Genomic Sciences program, the National Institutes of Health's Human Microbiome Project, and other efforts in the United States and abroad have served as critical first steps in revealing the diversity of microbes and their communities. However, we lack many tools required to advance beyond descriptive approaches to studies that enable a mechanistic, predictive, and actionable understanding of global microbiome processes. Developing these tools requires new collaborations between physical, life, and biomedical sciences; engineering; and other disciplines.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2013

National K-12 Educator Conference; "Earth Then, Earth Now: Our Changing Climate"

With the support of the Department of Energy, the National Science Teachers Association and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Imaginary Lines Inc. (dba Sally Ride Science) delivered a highly successful 2-day conference to 165 K-12 educators on climate change. The event took place o July 23rd and 24th, 2008 at the NOAA facility in Silver Spring, MD. The conference celebrated the 25th anniversary of Dr. Sally Ride’s first flight into space in 1983 and examined how our understanding of Earth has changed in those 25 years. One the first day of the conference, participants heard a keynote talk delivered by Dr. Sally Ride, followed by presentations by well-known climate change scientists: Dr. Richard Somerville, Dr. Inez Fung and Dr. Susan Solomon. These sessions were concurrently webcast and made available to educators who were unable to attend the conference. On the second day of the conference, participants attended breakout sessions where they performed climate change activities (e.g. “Neato Albedo!”, “Greenhouse in a Bottle”, “Shell-Shocked”) that they could take back to their classrooms. Additional break-out sessions on using remote sensing images to illustrate climate change effects on Earth’s surface and how to address the climate change debate, were also offered. During lunch, participants attended an Educator Street Fair and had the opportunity to interact with representatives from NOAA, NASA, the EPA, NEEF and the JASON project. A follow-up evaluation survey was administered to all conference attendees immediately following the conference to evaluate its effectiveness. The results of this survey were overwhelmingly positive. The conference materials: presentation Power Points, workshop handouts and activities were available for teachers to download after the conference from the Sally Ride Science website. In summary, the approximately $55K support for the Department of Energy was used to help plan, deliver and evaluate the “Earth Then, Earth Now: Our Changing Climate”, conference which took place on July 23rd and 24th, 2008 at the NOAA facility in Silver Spring, MD.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2021

Earth System Model Development - Energy Exascale Earth System Model (2020 Principal Investigator Meeting Report)

As part of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Biological and Environmental Research (BER), the Earth System Model Development (ESMD) program area supports significant research in Earth system model development, including major efforts in the Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM) project. Convened virtually on October 26–29, the 2020 ESMD-E3SM Principal Investigator (PI) Meeting provided a forum to survey ESMD sponsored research, recent progress made by the ESMD science team and the broader Earth system modeling community within and outside of DOE, foster interactions across ESMD projects, and discuss research gaps and opportunities for future advancements.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2017

Metal-silicate Partitioning and Its Role in Core Formation and Composition on Super-Earths

We use a thermodynamic framework for silicate-metal partitioning to determine the possible compositions of metallic cores on super-Earths. We compare results using literature values of the partition coefficients of Si and Ni, as well as new partition coefficients calculated using results from laser shock-induced melting of powdered metal-dunite targets at pressures up to 276 GPa, which approaches those found within the deep mantles of super-Earths. We find that larger planets may have little to no light elements in their cores because the Si partition coefficient decreases at high pressures. The planet mass at which this occurs will depend on the metal-silicate equilibration depth. We also extrapolate the equations of state (EOS) of FeO and FeSi alloys to high pressures, and present mass–radius diagrams using self-consistent planet compositions assuming equilibrated mantles and cores. We confirm the results of previous studies that the distribution of elements between mantle and core will not be detectable from mass and radius measurements alone. While observations may be insensitive to interior structure, further modeling is sensitive to compositionally dependent properties, such as mantle viscosity and core freeze-out properties. We therefore emphasize the need for additional high pressure measurements of partitioning as well as EOSs, and highlight the utility of the Sandia Z-facilities for this type of work.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Uncertainty-informed selection of CMIP6 Earth System Model subsets for use in multisectoral and impact models

Earth system models (ESMs) and general circulation models (GCMs) are heavily used to provide inputs to sectoral impact and multisector dynamic models, which include representations of energy, water, land, economics, and their interactions. Therefore, representing the full range of model uncertainty, scenario uncertainty, and interannual variability that ensembles of these models capture is critical to the exploration of the future co-evolution of the integrated human–Earth system. The pre-eminent source of these ensembles has been the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP). With more modeling centers participating in each new CMIP phase, the size of the model archive is rapidly increasing, which can be intractable for impact modelers to effectively utilize due to computational constraints and the challenges of analyzing large datasets. In this work, we present a method to select a subset of the latest phase, CMIP6, featuring models for use as inputs to a sectoral impact or multisector dynamics models, while prioritizing preservation of the range of model uncertainty, scenario uncertainty, and interannual variability in the full CMIP6 ensemble results. This method is intended to help impact modelers select climate information from the CMIP archive efficiently for use in downstream models that require global coverage of climate information. This is particularly critical for large-ensemble experiments of multisector dynamic models that may be varying additional features beyond climate inputs in a factorial design, thus putting constraints on the number of climate simulations that can be used. We focus on temperature and precipitation outputs of CMIP6 models, as these are two of the most used variables among impact models, and many other key input variables for impacts are at least correlated with one or both of temperature and precipitation (e.g., relative humidity). Besides preserving the multi-model ensemble variance characteristics, we prioritize selecting CMIP6 models in the subset that preserve the very likely distribution of equilibrium climate sensitivity values as assessed by the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report. This approach could be applied to other output variables of climate models and, possibly when combined with emulators, offers a flexible framework for designing more efficient experiments on human-relevant climate impacts. It can also provide greater insight into the properties of existing CMIP6 models.

Snyder, Abigail C.↗
NASA NTRS1963

Lunar Flight Study Series: Volume 6. A Study of Geometrical and Terminal Characteristics of Earth-Moon Transits Embedded in the Earth-Moon Plane

This report represents the results of a study of coplanar earth-moon transits. The study was initiated to provide information concerning coplanar geometrical characteristics of earth-moon trnasits. The geometrical aspects of transit behavior are related to variations injection conditions. The model of the earth-moon system used in this investigation is the Jacobian model of the restricted three body problem. All transits considered in this study are restricted to the moon-earth plane (MEP).

TRAJECTORY MEASURING SYSTEM↗
NASA NTRS1977

Perturbations of a close-earth satellite due to sunlight diffusely reflected from the earth. II - Variable albedo

A semianalytical method has been developed to calculate the radiation-pressure perturbations of a close-earth satellite due to sunlight reflected from the earth. It is assumed that the satellite is spherically symmetric and that the solar radiation is reflected from the earth according to Lambert's law. To account for the increasing reflectivity of the earth toward the poles, its albedo is assumed to have a latitudinal dependence. The effect of the terminator on the perturbations has been neglected. The perturbations within a particular revolution are given analytically, while the long-range perturbations are obtained by accumulation.

Lautman, D. A.↗
NASA NTRS1980

Earth survey applications division: Research leading to the effective use of space technology in applications relating to the Earth's surface and interior

Accomplishments and future plans are described for the following areas: (1) geology - geobotanical indicators and geopotential data; (2) modeling magnetic fields; (3) modeling the structure, composition, and evolution of the Earth's crust; (4) global and regional motions of the Earth's crust and earthquake occurrence; (5) modeling geopotential from satellite tracking data; (6) modeling the Earth's gravity field; (7) global Earth dynamics; (8) sea surface topography, ocean dynamics; and geophysical interpretation; (9) land cover and land use; (10) physical and remote sensing attributes important in detecting, measuring, and monitoring agricultural crops; (11) prelaunch studies using LANDSAT D; (12) the multispectral linear array; (13) the aircraft linear array pushbroom radiometer; and (14) the spaceborne laser ranging system.

Carpenter, L.↗
NASA NTRS1979

Earth-crossing asteroids - Orbital classes, collision rates with earth, and origin

Asteroids that can intersect the orbit of the earth are discussed, which include Aten asteroids (semimajor axis (a) less than 1 AU, aphelion greater than 0.983 AU), Apollo asteroids (a greater than 1 AU, perihelion less than 1.017 AU), and Amor asteroids (perihelion distance between 1.017 and 1.3 AU). The principal sources of earth-crossing asteroids appear to be extinct comet nuclei and collision fragments from regions in the main asteroid belt. The total population of earth-crossers is estimated at 13,000, of which approximately 8% are Atens, 50% are Apollos, and 40% are Amors,and the present collision rate of such asteroids with the earth is estimated at about 3.5 objects, to absolute magnitude 18, per million years.

Shoemaker, E. M.↗
NASA NTRS1990

The Galileo mission earth encounters - An earth remote sensing perspective

After its Venus-Earth-Earth Gravity Assist trajectory, the Galileo spacecraft will arrive at Jupiter in 1995. The gravity-assist portion of the mission, however, will allow the spacecraft, which is equipped with a unique set of remote-sensing instruments, to observe earth from 970 km during its December 1990 approach, and from as little as 304 km in its second and last approach of December, 1992. An evaluation is presented of the role that the Galileo instrument suite can play in these earth encounters in virtue of their outstanding spectral and spatial resolutions.

Ocampo, Adriana↗