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At least 109 records · Page 6

Examining Tropical Convection Features at Storm-Resolving Scales Over the Maritime Continent Region

Global Storm Resolving Models (GSRMs) provide a way to understand weather and climate events across scales for better-informed climate impacts. In this work, we apply the recently developed and validated CAM (Community Atmosphere Model)—MPAS (Model for Prediction Across Scales) modeling framework, based on the open-source Community Earth System Model (CESM2), to examine the tropical convection features at the storm resolving scale over the Maritime Continent region at 3 km horizontal spacing. We target two global numerical experiments during the winter season of 2018 for comparison with observation in the region. Here we focus on the investigation of the representations of the convective systems, precipitation statistics, and tropical cyclone behaviors. We found that regional-refined experiments show more accurate precipitation distributions, diurnal cycles, and better agreement with observations for tropical cyclone features in terms of intensity and strength statistics. We expect the exploration of this work will further advance the development and use of the storm-resolving model in precipitation predictions across scales.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

The Effective Field Theory of Large Scale Structures at two loops

Here, large scale structure surveys promise to be the next leading probe of cosmological information. It is therefore crucial to reliably predict their observables. The Effective Field Theory of Large Scale Structures (EFTofLSS) provides a manifestly convergent perturbation theory for the weakly non-linear regime of dark matter, where correlation functions are computed in an expansion of the wavenumber k of a mode over the wavenumber associated with the non-linear scale k NL . Since most of the information is contained at high wavenumbers, it is necessary to compute higher order corrections to correlation functions. After the one-loop correction to the matter power spectrum, we estimate that the next leading one is the two-loop contribution, which we compute here. At this order in k/k NL , there is only one counterterm in the EFTofLSS that must be included, though this term contributes both at tree-level and in several one-loop diagrams. We also discuss correlation functions involving the velocity and momentum fields. We find that the EFTofLSS prediction at two loops matches to percent accuracy the non-linear matter power spectrum at redshift zero up to k~ 0.6 h Mpc –1 , requiring just one unknown coefficient that needs to be fit to observations. Given that Standard Perturbation Theory stops converging at redshift zero at k~ 0.1 h Mpc –1 , our results demonstrate the possibility of accessing a factor of order 200 more dark matter quasi-linear modes than naively expected. If the remaining observational challenges to accessing these modes can be addressed with similar success, our results show that there is tremendous potential for large scale structure surveys to explore the primordial universe.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Towards physics responsible for large-scale Lyman-α forest bias parameters

Using a series of carefully constructed numerical experiments based on hydrodynamic cosmological SPH simulations, we attempt to build an intuition for the relevant physics behind the large scale density (b δ ) and velocity gradient (b η ) biases of the Lyman-α forest. Starting with the fluctuating Gunn-Peterson approximation applied to the smoothed total density field in real-space, and progressing through redshift-space with no thermal broadening, redshift-space with thermal broadening and hydrodynamically simulated baryon fields, we investigate how approximations found in the literature fare. We find that Seljak's 2012 analytical formulae for these bias parameters work surprisingly well in the limit of no thermal broadening and linear redshift-space distortions. We also show that his b η formula is exact in the limit of no thermal broadening. Since introduction of thermal broadening significantly affects its value, we speculate that a combination of large-scale measurements of b η and the small scale flux PDF might be a sensitive probe of the thermal state of the IGM. Lastly, we find that large-scale biases derived from the smoothed total matter field are within 10–20% to those based on hydrodynamical quantities, in line with other measurements in the literature.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

The Ecosystem as Super-Organ/ism, Revisited: Scaling Hydraulics to Forests under Climate Change

Synopsis Classic debates in community ecology focused on the complexities of considering an ecosystem as a super-organ or organism. New consideration of such perspectives could clarify mechanisms underlying the dynamics of forest carbon dioxide (CO2) uptake and water vapor loss, important for predicting and managing the future of Earth’s ecosystems and climate system. Here, we provide a rubric for considering ecosystem traits as aggregated, systemic, or emergent, i.e., representing the ecosystem as an aggregate of its individuals or as a metaphorical or literal super-organ or organism. We review recent approaches to scaling-up plant water relations (hydraulics) concepts developed for organs and organisms to enable and interpret measurements at ecosystem-level. We focus on three community-scale versions of water relations traits that have potential to provide mechanistic insight into climate change responses of forest CO2 and H2O gas exchange and productivity: leaf water potential (Ψcanopy), pressure volume curves (eco-PV), and hydraulic conductance (Keco). These analyses can reveal additional ecosystem-scale parameters analogous to those typically quantified for leaves or plants (e.g., wilting point and hydraulic vulnerability) that may act as thresholds in forest responses to drought, including growth cessation, mortality, and flammability. We unite these concepts in a novel framework to predict Ψcanopy and its approaching of critical thresholds during drought, using measurements of Keco and eco-PV curves. We thus delineate how the extension of water relations concepts from organ- and organism-scales can reveal the hydraulic constraints on the interaction of vegetation and climate and provide new mechanistic understanding and prediction of forest water use and productivity.

Zoology↗

UV background fluctuations and three-point correlations in the large-scale clustering of the Lyman α forest

Using the Lyman α (Lyα) Mass Association Scheme, we make theoretical predictions for the three-dimensional three-point correlation function (3PCF) of the Lyα forest at redshift z = 2.3. We bootstrap results from the (100 h -1 Mpc) 3 Horizon hydrodynamic simulation to a (1 h -1 Gpc) 3 N -body simulation, considering both a uniform ultraviolet background (UVB) and a fluctuating UVB sourced by quasars with a comoving n q ≈ 10 -5 h 3 Mpc -3 placed either in massive haloes or randomly. On scales of 10–30 h -1 Mpc, the flux 3PCF displays hierarchical scaling with the square of the two-point correlation function (2PCF), but with an unusual value of Q ≡ ζ 123 /(ξ 12 ξ 13 + ξ 12 ξ 23 + ξ 13 ξ 23 ) ≈ -4.5 that reflects the low bias of the Lyα forest and the anticorrelation between mass density and transmitted flux. For halo-based quasars and an ionizing photon mean free path of λ = 300 h -1 Mpc comoving, UVB fluctuations moderately depress the 2PCF and 3PCF, with cancelling effects on Q . For λ = 100 or 50 h -1 Mpc, UVB fluctuations substantially boost the 2PCF and 3PCF on large scales, shifting the hierarchical ratio to Q ≈ -3. We scale our simulation results to derive rough estimate of the detectability of the 3PCF in current and future observational data sets for the redshift range z = 2.1–2.6. At r = 10 and 20 h -1 Mpc, we predict a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of ~9 and ~7, respectively, for both Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) and extended BOSS (eBOSS), and ~37 and ~25 for Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI). At r = 40 h -1 Mpc the predicted SNR is lower by a factor of ~3–5. Measuring the flux 3PCF would provide a novel test of the conventional paradigm of the Lyα forest and help separate the contributions of UVB fluctuations and density fluctuations to Lyα forest clustering, thereby solidifying its foundation as a tool of precision cosmology.

Astronomy & Astrophysics↗

Subaru Hyper Suprime-Cam revisits the large-scale environmental dependence on galaxy morphology over 360 deg2 at z = 0.3–0.6

This study investigates the role of large-scale environments on the fraction of spiral galaxies at z = 0.3–0.6 sliced to three redshift bins of Δz = 0.1. Here, we sample 276220 massive galaxies in a limited stellar mass of 5 × 1010 solar mass (~M*) over 360 deg2, as obtained from the Second Public Data Release of the Hyper Suprime-Cam Subaru Strategic Program (HSC-SSP). By combining projected two-dimensional density information (Shimakawa et al. 2021, MNRAS, 503, 3896) and the CAMIRA cluster catalog (Oguri et al. 2018, PASJ, 70, S20), we investigate the spiral fraction across large-scale overdensities and in the vicinity of red sequence clusters. We adopt transfer learning to reduce the cost of labeling spiral galaxies significantly and then perform stacking analysis across the entire field to overcome the limitations of sample size. Here we employ a morphological classification catalog by the Galaxy Zoo Hubble (Willett et al., 2017, MNRAS, 464, 4176) to train the deep learning model. Based on 74103 sources classified as spirals, we find moderate morphology–density relations on a 10 comoving Mpc scale, thanks to the wide-field coverage of HSC-SSP. Clear deficits of spiral galaxies have also been confirmed, in and around 1136 red sequence clusters. Furthermore, we verify whether there is a large-scale environmental dependence on rest-frame u - r colors of spiral galaxies; such a tendency was not observed in our sample.

Astronomy & Astrophysics↗

Automatic and Transparent Resource Contention Mitigation for Improving Large-Scale Parallel File System Performance

Proportional to the scale increases in HPC systems, many scientific applications are becoming increasingly data intensive, and parallel I/O has become one of the dominant factors impacting the large-scale HPC application performance. On a typical large-scale HPC system, we have observed that the lack of a global workload coordination coupled with the shared nature of storage systems cause load imbalance and resource contention over the end-to-end I/O paths resulting in severe performance degradation. I/O load imbalance on HPC systems is generally a self-inflicted wound and mostly occurs between the I/O paths and resources consumed by each individual job. In this paper, we introduce TAPP-IO, a dynamic, shared load balancing framework for mitigating resource contention. TAPP-IO extends our previous work and solves two major limitations: First, it transparently intercepts file creation calls during runtime to balance the workload over all available storage targets. The usage of TAPP-IO requires no application source code modifications and is independent from any I/O middleware. The framework can be applied to almost any HPC platform and is suitable for systems that lack a centralized file system resource manager. Second, the framework proposes a new placement strategy to support not only file-per-process I/O, but also single shared file I/O. This opens the door to a new class of scientific applications that can leverage the placement library for improved performance. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our integration on the Titan system at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Our experiments with a synthetic benchmark and real-world HPC workload show that, even in a noisy production environment, TAPP-IO can improve large-scale application performance significantly.

Neuwirth, Sarah↗

Leveraging observed soil heterotrophic respiration fluxes as a novel constraint on global-scale models

Microbially-explicit models may improve understanding and projections of carbon dynamics in response to future climate change, but their fidelity in simulating global-scale soil heterotrophic respiration (RH), a stringent test for soil biogeochemical models, has never been evaluated. We used statistical global RH products, as well as 7,821 daily site-scale RH measurements, to evaluate the spatio-temporal performance of one first-order decay model (CASA-CNP) and two microbially-explicit biogeochemical models (CORPSE and MIMICS) that were forced by two different climate datasets. CORPSE and MIMICS did not provide any measurable performance improvement; instead, the models were highly sensitive to the meteorological input data used to drive them. Spatial RH variability was generally well simulated except in the northern middle latitudes (~50°N) and arid regions; models captured the seasonal variability of RH well, but showed more divergence in tropic and arctic regions. Our results demonstrate that the next generation of biogeochemical models shows promise, but also needs to be improved for realistic spatio-temporal variability of RH. Finally, we emphasize the importance of net primary production, soil moisture, and soil temperature inputs, and that jointly evaluating soil models for their spatial (global scale) and temporal (site scale) performance provides crucial benchmarks for improving biogeochemical models.

Jian, Jinshi↗

Diving into Petascale Production File Systems through Large Scale Profiling and Analysis

As leadership computing facilities grow their storage capacity into the multi- petabyte range, the number of files and directories leap into the scale of billions. A complete profiling of such a parallel file system in a production environment presents a unique challenge. On one hand, the time, resources, and negative performance impact on production users can make regular profiling difficult. On the other hand, the result of such profiling can yield much needed understanding of the file system's general characteristics, as well as provide insight to how users write and access their data on a grand scale. This paper presents a lightweight and scalable profiling solution that can efficiently walk, analyze, and profile multi-petabyte parallel file systems. This tool has been deployed and is in regular use on very large-scale production parallel file systems at both Oak Ridge National Lab's Oak Ridge Leadership Facility (OLCF) and Lawrence Livermore National Lab's Livermore Computing (LC) facilities. We present the results of our initial analysis on the data collected from these two large-scale production systems, organized into three use cases: (1) file system snapshot and composition, (2) striping pattern analysis for Lustre, and (3) simulated storage capacity utilization in preparation for future file systems. Our analysis shows that on the OLCF file system, over 96% of user files exhibit the default stripe width, potentially limiting performance on large files by underutilizing storage servers and disks. Our simulated block analysis quantitatively shows the space overhead when doing a forklift system migration. It also reveals that due to the difference in system compositions (OLCF vs. LC), we can achieve better performance and space trade-offs by employing different native file system block sizes.

Wang, Feiyi↗

Overview of the HI-SCALE Field Campaign: A New Perspective on Shallow Convective Clouds

Shallow convective clouds are common, occurring over many areas of the world, and are an important component in the atmospheric radiation budget. In addition to synoptic and mesoscale meteorological conditions, land-atmosphere interactions and aerosol-radiation-cloud interactions can influence the formation of shallow clouds and their properties. However, these processes exhibit large spatial and temporal variability and occur at the sub-grid scale for all climate and operational forecast models and must be represented by parameterizations. Uncertainties in shallow cloud parameterization predictions arise from many sources, including insufficient coincident data needed to adequately represent the coupling of cloud macrophysical and microphysical properties with inhomogeneity in the surface layer, boundary layer, and aerosol properties. Predictions in the transition of shallow to deep convection and the onset of precipitation are also affected by errors in simulated shallow clouds. Coincident data is a key factor needed to achieve a more complete understanding of the lifecycle of shallow convective clouds and to develop improved model parameterizations. To address these issues, the Holistic Interactions of Shallow Clouds, Aerosols and Land Ecosystems (HI-SCALE) campaign was conducted near the Atmospheric Radiation and Measurement (ARM) Southern Great Plains site in north-central Oklahoma during 2016. We describe the scientific objectives of HI-SCALE as well as the experimental approach, the overall weather conditions during the campaign, and preliminary findings from the measurements. Finally, we discuss the remaining scientific gaps in our understanding of shallow clouds that can be addressed by analysis and modeling studies that use HI-SCALE data including: the effects of heterogeneous land-use, vegetation, and soil moisture conditions on boundary layer mixing and consequently cloud formation; factors that contribute to the transition of shallow to deep convection; the role of cloud population on

Fast, Jerome D.↗

A PDF-Based Parameterization of Subgrid-Scale Hydrometeor Transport in Deep Convection

Abstract A parameterization scheme is proposed for the subgrid-scale transport of hydrometeors in an assumed probability density function (PDF) scheme. Joint distributions of vertical velocity and hydrometeor mixing ratios are typically unknown, but marginal (1D) PDFs of these variables are available. The parameterization is developed using high-resolution simulations of continental and tropical deep convection. A 3D cloud-resolving model (CRM) providing benchmark solutions has a horizontal grid spacing of 250 m and employs the Morrison microphysics scheme, which treats prognostically mass and number mixing ratios for four types of precipitating hydrometeors (rain, graupel, snow, and ice) as well as cloud droplet number mixing ratio. The subgrid-scale hydrometeor transport scheme assumes input given in the form of marginal PDFs of vertical velocity and hydrometeor mixing ratios; in this study, these marginal distributions are provided by the cloud-resolving model. Conditional sampling and scaling are then applied to the marginal distributions to account for subplume correlations. The parameterized fluxes tested for four episodes of deep convection show good agreement with benchmark fluxes computed directly from the CRM output. The results demonstrate the potential use of the subgrid-scale hydrometeor transport scheme in an assumed PDF scheme to parameterize the covariances of vertical velocity and hydrometeor mixing ratios.

Wong, May↗

FINAL REPORT: Mechanistically-Base Field Scale Models of Uranium Biogeochemistry from Upscaling Pore-Scale Experiments and Models

Biogeochemical reactive transport processes in the subsurface environment are important to many contemporary environmental issues of significance to DOE. Quantification of risks and impacts associated with environmental management options, and design of remediation systems where needed, require that we have at our disposal reliable predictive tools (usually in the form of numerical simulation models). However, it is well known that even the most sophisticated reactive transport models available today have poor predictive power, particularly when applied at the field scale. Although the lack of predictive ability is associated in part with our inability to characterize the subsurface and limitations in computational power, significant advances have been made in both of these areas in recent decades and can be expected to continue. In this research, we examined the upscaling (pore to Darcy and Darcy to field) the problem of bioremediation via biofilms in porous media. The principle idea was to start with a conceptual description of the bioremediation process at the pore scale, and apply upscaling methods to formally develop the appropriate upscaled model at the so-called Darcy scale. The purpose was to determine (1) what forms the upscaled models would take, and (2) how one might parameterize such upscaled models for applications to bioremediation in the field. We were able to effectively upscale the bioremediation process to explain how the pore-scale phenomena were linked to the field scale. The end product of this research was to produce a set of upscaled models that could be used to help predict field-scale bioremediation. These models were mechanistic, in the sense that they directly incorporated pore-scale information, but upscaled so that only the essential features of the process were needed to predict the effective parameters that appear in the model. In this way, a direct link between the microscale and the field scale was made, but the upscaling process helped inform potential users of the model what kinds of information would be needed to accurately characterize the system.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Estimating returns to scale and scale efficiency for energy consuming appliances

Energy consuming appliances accounted for over 40% of the energy use and $17 billion in sales in the U.S. in 2014. Whether such amounts of money and energy were optimally combined to produce household energy services is not straightforwardly determined. The efficient allocation of capital and energy to provide an energy service has been previously approached, and solved with Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) under constant returns to scale. That approach, however, lacks the scale dimension of the problem and may restrict the economic efficient models of an appliance available in the market when constant returns to scale does not hold. We expand on that approach to estimate returns to scale for energy using appliances. We further calculate DEA scale efficiency scores for the technically efficient models that comprise the economic efficient frontier of the energy service delivered, under different assumptions of returns to scale. We then apply this approach to evaluate dishwashers available in the market in the U.S. Our results show that (a) for the case of dishwashers scale matters, and (b) the dishwashing energy service is delivered under non-decreasing returns to scale. The results further demonstrate that this method contributes to increase consumers’ choice of appliances.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

Relationships between persistent large-scale flow anomalies and variation in synoptic-scale eddy activity and cyclogenesis

Observational analyses to study the relationships between large-scale flow anomalies and variations in synoptic-scale eddy activity and cyclogenesis are presented. The way in which changes in the large-scale flow influence the behavior of synoptic-scale eddies and the way in which changes in eddies may feedback to influence the large-scale flow anomalies are examined. Situations characterized by differing large-scale flows are compared, showing well-defined diferences in synoptic-scale eddy activity. The net forcings of anomalous mean flows by eddies as deduced from tendency methods and E-vector analyses suggest that synoptic-scale eddies may play an important role in maintaining certain anomalous flow patterns such as blocking.

Dole, Randall M.↗

An Analysis of Model Scale Data Transformation to Full Scale Flight Using Chevron Nozzles

Ground-based model scale aeroacoustic data is frequently used to predict the results of flight tests while saving time and money. The value of a model scale test is therefore dependent on how well the data can be transformed to the full scale conditions. In the spring of 2000, a model scale test was conducted to prove the value of chevron nozzles as a noise reduction device for turbojet applications. The chevron nozzle reduced noise by 2 EPNdB at an engine pressure ratio of 2.3 compared to that of the standard conic nozzle. This result led to a full scale flyover test in the spring of 2001 to verify these results. The flyover test confirmed the 2 EPNdB reduction predicted by the model scale test one year earlier. However, further analysis of the data revealed that the spectra and directivity, both on an OASPL and PNL basis, do not agree in either shape or absolute level. This paper explores these differences in an effort to improve the data transformation from model scale to full scale.

Brown, Clifford↗

Informing field-scale CO 2 storage simulations with sandbox experiments: The effect of small-scale heterogeneities

Small-scale heterogeneities can significantly affect the fate of the CO 2 plume and trapping during CO 2 migration. We conducted geologic carbon storage field-scale simulations to investigate the impact of small-scale heterogeneities on plume dynamics and trapping performance. Small-scale heterogeneities have been shown to increase the amount of trapped CO 2 during buoyancy-driven flow. The trapped CO 2 saturation is validated by previous sandbox experimental work during buoyancy-driven flow in realistic heterogeneous domains and is implemented through the critical CO 2 saturation parameter (i.e., the first non-zero value in the drainage CO 2 relative permeability curve). Depending on the type and degree of heterogeneity, various critical CO 2 saturation values are exhibited. Furthermore, we investigated the effect of small-scale heterogeneities when multiple capillary pressure models are employed. This study demonstrates that an increase in critical CO 2 saturation reduces the CO 2 plume size and lateral extent, accompanying an increase in residual trapping and a decrease in solubility trapping. Lastly, we show that independent of the capillary pressure model used, an increase in critical saturation leads to similar CO 2 plume dynamics distribution and trapping performance. These results emphasize the importance of quantifying the effect of small-scale heterogeneity as they affect the large-scale behavior of the CO 2 plume.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

Vibrational frequency scaling factors for correlation consistent basis sets and the methods CC2 and MP2 and their spin-scaled SCS and SOS variants

We present scaling factors for vibrational frequencies calculated within the harmonic approximation and the correlated wave-function methods coupled cluster singles and doubles model (CC2) and Møller-Plesset perturbation theory (MP2) with and without a spin-component scaling (SCS or spin-opposite scaling (SOS)). Frequency scaling factors and the remaining deviations from the reference data are evaluated for several non-augmented basis sets of the cc-pVXZ family of generally contracted correlation-consistent basis sets as well as for the segmented contracted TZVPP basis. We find that the SCS and SOS variants of CC2 and MP2 lead to a slightly better accuracy for the scaled vibrational frequencies. The determined frequency scaling factors can also be used for vibrational frequencies calculated for excited states through response theory with CC2 and the algebraic diagrammatic construction through second order and their spin-component scaled variants.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗