Search NASA⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search NASA

Results for “Gulf Coast”

Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 181 records · Page 10
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2013

Geospatial Modeling of Asthma Population in Relation to Air Pollution

Current observations indicate that asthma is growing every year in the United States, specific reasons for this are not well understood. This study stems from an ongoing research effort to investigate the spatio-temporal behavior of asthma and its relatedness to air pollution. The association between environmental variables such as air quality and asthma related health issues over Mississippi State are investigated using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) tools and applications. Health data concerning asthma obtained from Mississippi State Department of Health (MSDH) for 9-year period of 2003-2011, and data of air pollutant concentrations (PM2.5) collected from USEPA web resources, and are analyzed geospatially to establish the impacts of air quality on human health specifically related to asthma. Disease mapping using geospatial techniques provides valuable insights into the spatial nature, variability, and association of asthma to air pollution. Asthma patient hospitalization data of Mississippi has been analyzed and mapped using quantitative Choropleth techniques in ArcGIS. Patients have been geocoded to their respective zip codes. Potential air pollutant sources of Interstate highways, Industries, and other land use data have been integrated in common geospatial platform to understand their adverse contribution on human health. Existing hospitals and emergency clinics are being injected into analysis to further understand their proximity and easy access to patient locations. At the current level of analysis and understanding, spatial distribution of Asthma is observed in the populations of Zip code regions in gulf coast, along the interstates of south, and in counties of Northeast Mississippi. It is also found that asthma is prevalent in most of the urban population. This GIS based project would be useful to make health risk assessment and provide information support to the administrators and decision makers for establishing satellite clinics in future.

Kethireddy, Swatantra R.↗
NASA NTRS2013

North American Tropical Cyclone Landfall and SST: A Statistical Model Study

A statistical-stochastic model of the complete life cycle of North Atlantic (NA) tropical cyclones (TCs) is used to examine the relationship between climate and landfall rates along the North American Atlantic and Gulf Coasts. The model draws on archived data of TCs throughout the North Atlantic to estimate landfall rates at high geographic resolution as a function of the ENSO state and one of two different measures of sea surface temperature (SST): 1) SST averaged over the NA subtropics and the hurricane season and 2) this SST relative to the seasonal global subtropical mean SST (termed relSST). Here, the authors focus on SST by holding ENSO to a neutral state. Jackknife uncertainty tests are employed to test the significance of SST and relSST landfall relationships. There are more TC and major hurricane landfalls overall in warm years than cold, using either SST or relSST, primarily due to a basinwide increase in the number of storms. The signal along the coast, however, is complex. Some regions have large and significant sensitivity (e.g., an approximate doubling of annual major hurricane landfall probability on Texas from -2 to +2 standard deviations in relSST), while other regions have no significant sensitivity (e.g., the U.S. mid-Atlantic and Northeast coasts). This geographic structure is due to both shifts in the regions of primary TC genesis and shifts in TC propagation.

El Nino↗
NASA NTRS2019

Assessing Dual-Polarization Radar Estimates of Extreme Rainfall During Hurricane Harvey

Hurricane Harvey hit the Texas Gulf Coast as a major hurricane on August 25, 2017 before exiting the state as a tropical storm on August 29, 2017. Left in its wake was historic flooding, with some locations measuring more than 60 inches of rain over a five-day period. The WSR-88D radar (KHGX) maintained operations for the entirety of the event. Rain gauge data from the Harris County Flood Warning System (HCFWS) was used for validation with the full radar data set to retrieve daily and event-total precipitation estimates for the period August 25-29, 2017. The KHGX precipitation estimates were then compared to the HCFWS gauges. Three different hybrid polarimetric rainfall retrievals were used, along with attenuation-based retrieval that employs the radar-observed differential propagation. An advantage of using a attenuation-based retrieval is its immunity to partial beam blockage and calibration errors in reflectivity and differential reflectivity. All of the retrievals are susceptible to changes in the observed Drop Size Distribution (DSD). No in situ DSD data were available over the study area, so changes in the DSD were interpreted by examining the observed radar data. We examined the parameter space of two key values in the attenuation retrieval to test the sensitivity of the rain retrieval. Selecting a value of α=0.015 and β=0.600 and β=0.625 provided the best overall results, relative to the gauges, but more work needs to be done to develop an automated technique to account for changes in the ambient DSD.

David B Wolff↗
NASA NTRS2019

Assessing Dual-Polarization Radar Estimates of Extreme Rainfall During Hurricane Harvey

Hurricane Harvey hit the Texas Gulf Coast as a major hurricane on 25 August 2017 before exiting the state as a tropical storm on 29 August 2017. Left in its wake was historic flooding, with some locations measuring more than 60 in. (150 cm) of rain over a 5-day period. The WSR-88D radar (KHGX) maintained operations for the entirety of the event. Rain gauge data from the Harris County Flood Warning System (HCFWS) was used for validation with the full radar dataset to retrieve daily and event-total precipitation estimates for the period 25–29 August2017. The KHGX precipitation estimates were then compared with the HCFWS gauges. Three different hybrid polarimetric rainfall retrievals were used, along with attenuation-based retrieval that employs the radar-observed differential propagation. An advantage of using a attenuation-based retrieval is its immunity to partial beam blockage and calibration errors in reflectivity and differential reflectivity. All of the retrievals are susceptible to changes in the observed drop size distribution (DSD). No in situ DSD data were available over the study area, so changes in the DSD were interpreted by examining the observed radar data. We examined the parameter space of two key values in the attenuation retrieval to test the sensitivity of the rain retrieval. Selecting a value ofa50.015 andb50.600 provided the best overall results, relative to the gauges, but more work needs to be done to develop an automated technique to account for changes in the ambient DSD.

David Billings Wolff↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Evolution of Drop Size Distributions during Hurricane Harvey and Their Effects on Rain Intensity

Hurricane Harvey hit the Texas Gulf Coast as a major hurricane on August 25, 2017, before exiting the state as a tropical storm on August 29, 2017. Left in its wake was historic flooding over southeast Texas with some locations measuring more than 60 inches of rain. The Houston NEXRAD radar (KHGX) maintained operations for the entirety of the event and is utilized in this study to better understand the evolution of the drop size distribution (DSD) in the lower (liquid) portions of the storm and how changes in the DSD were tied to observed and measured changes in rain intensities. From the KHGX dual-polarimetric radar data several DSD parameters were retrieved, including three different rain rate retrievals, as well as the mass-weighted mean-drop diameter Dm, and the normalized intercept parameter NW of the gamma distribution. Two of the rain retrievals are popular hybrid approaches, where reflectivity, differential and specific differential phase are used. The other is an attenuation-based retrieval. In a previous study, it was found that both hybrid retrievals significantly underestimated the rainfall during the heaviest rain periods, while the attenuation-based retrieval, with proper adjustment, agreed quite well with a large network of gauges from the Harris County Flood Warning System. Using Dm and NW as proxies for drop size and concentration, respectively, we will show that the heaviest rain intensities were associated in areas of the storm where there was a large concentration of large drops present. It is envisaged that results of this study can be used to develop a near-real-time tuning of the attenuation-based retrieval, thus providing timely, and possibly life-saving warnings during inundating rainfall.

David B. Wolff↗
NASA NTRS2019

Multi-Agency Annual Southeastern Beach Mouse Habitat Occupancy Monitoring

The southeastern beach mouse (Peromyscus polionotus niveiventris, hereafter SEBM), a federally threatened species was identified by Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge (MINWR) as one of the top five priorities for management. The Kennedy Space Center (KSC) Environmental Management Branch was asked to provide support in the form of population monitoring for SEBM on KSC and the surrounding properties. When we began the project, the SEBM was known to occupy sites ranging from Volusia through Brevard and Indian River Counties, but the exact distribution within the Federal lands encompassing the Cape Canaveral Barrier Island Complex (CCBIC) was not well known. The broad range of habitat conditions encompassing the species’ historical range and the diversity of sites historically known to contain SEBM required a landscape-scale approach for both monitoring the population and for investigating species habitat relationships. We designed a monitoring plan for the SEBM with the goal of estimating the habitat occupancy of beach mice annually each winter/spring throughout the entire area of suitable coastal habitat (approximately 72 km linear distance along the beach). Methods were tested in a 2008 pilot study, and during 2010-2018 we monitored the proportion of coastal habitat occupied by the SEBM on the CCBIC. Monitoring was focused on using dynamic habitat occupancy surveys with data collected with rapid assessment techniques (i.e., track tubes or live-traps) to detect SEBM occurrence at sampling stations. An important component of the study design was the use of repeated samples that provided the information needed to estimate detectability. Measuring detectability was required to account for the fact that surveys could fail to detect animals at sites at which they were actually present (Mackenzie et al., 2002). This monitoring framework is very flexible, allowing numerous hypothesis to be tested about how various factors influence beach mouse occupancy using habitat, geographic, and environmental covariates. Our survey has been the longest survey conducted for any of the seven extant beach mouse subspecies and has encompassed nearly the entire remaining range of the SEBM. Although occupancy surveys of other beach mouse subspecies via track tubes have been conducted on the Gulf coast of Florida by Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC), United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), and various universities, we expanded previous methods to fit unique aspects of the SEBM, and thus our study was very different from any of the previous studies. To achieve this specificity, we employed an adaptive approach throughout the study, with all activities aimed at providing managers with information related to environmental compliance and natural resource management on KSC and the surrounding Federal lands.

Eric Douglas Stolen↗
DOE OSTI2021

Assessing and mapping extreme wave height along the Gulf of Mexico coast

The effect of extreme waves on the coastal community includes inundation, loss of habitats, increasing shoreline erosion, and increasing risks to coastal infrastructures (e.g., ports, breakwaters, oil and gas platforms), important for supporting coastal resilience. The coastal communities along the US Gulf of Mexico are very low-lying, which makes the region particularly vulnerable to impacts of extreme waves generated by storm events. We propose assessing and mapping the risks from extreme waves for the Gulf of Mexico coast to support coastal resiliency planning. The risks will be assessed by computing n-year recurring wave height (e.g., 1, 5, 50, 100-year) using 32-year wave hindcast data and various extreme value analysis techniques including Peak- Over-Threshold and Annual Maxima method. The characteristics of the extreme waves, e.g., relations between the mean and extreme wave climates, directions associated with extreme waves, will be investigated. Hazard maps associated with extreme wave heights at different return periods will be generated to help planners identify potential risks and envision places that are less susceptible to future storm damage.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
NASA NTRS2010

The Application of Remotely Sensed Data and Models to Benefit Conservation and Restoration Along the Northern Gulf of Mexico Coast

New data, tools, and capabilities for decision making are significant needs in the northern Gulf of Mexico and other coastal areas. The goal of this project is to support NASA s Earth Science Mission Directorate and its Applied Science Program and the Gulf of Mexico Alliance by producing and providing NASA data and products that will benefit decision making by coastal resource managers and other end users in the Gulf region. Data and research products are being developed to assist coastal resource managers adapt and plan for changing conditions by evaluating how climate changes and urban expansion will impact land cover/land use (LCLU), hydrodynamics, water properties, and shallow water habitats; to identify priority areas for conservation and restoration; and to distribute datasets to end-users and facilitating user interaction with models. The proposed host sites for data products are NOAA s National Coastal Data Development Center Regional Ecosystem Data Management, and Mississippi-Alabama Habitat Database. Tools will be available on the Gulf of Mexico Regional Collaborative website with links to data portals to enable end users to employ models and datasets to develop and evaluate LCLU and climate scenarios of particular interest. These data will benefit the Mobile Bay National Estuary Program in ongoing efforts to protect and restore the Fish River watershed and around Weeks Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve. The usefulness of data products and tools will be demonstrated at an end-user workshop.

Quattrochi, Dale↗
NASA NTRS2009

Watershed and Hydrodynamic Modeling for Evaluating the Impact of Land Use Change on Submerged Aquatic Vegetation and Seagrasses in Mobile Bay

There is a continued need to understand how human activities along the northern Gulf of Mexico coast are impacting the natural ecosystems. The gulf coast is experiencing rapid population growth and associated land cover/land use change. Mobile Bay, AL is a designated pilot region of the Gulf of Mexico Alliance (GOMA) and is the focus area of many current NASA and NOAA studies, for example. This is a critical region, both ecologically and economically to the entire United States because it has the fourth largest freshwater inflow in the continental USA, is a vital nursery habitat for commercially and recreational important fisheries, and houses a working waterfront and port that is expanding. Watershed and hydrodynamic modeling has been performed for Mobile Bay to evaluate the impact of land use change in Mobile and Baldwin counties on the aquatic ecosystem. Watershed modeling using the Loading Simulation Package in C++ (LSPC) was performed for all watersheds contiguous to Mobile Bay for land use Scenarios in 1948, 1992, 2001, and 2030. The Prescott Spatial Growth Model was used to project the 2030 land use scenario based on observed trends. All land use scenarios were developed to a common land classification system developed by merging the 1992 and 2001 National Land Cover Data (NLCD). The LSPC model output provides changes in flow, temperature, sediments and general water quality for 22 discharge points into the Bay. These results were inputted in the Environmental Fluid Dynamics Computer Code (EFDC) hydrodynamic model to generate data on changes in temperature, salinity, and sediment concentrations on a grid with four vertical profiles throughout the Bay s aquatic ecosystems. The models were calibrated using in-situ data collected at sampling stations in and around Mobile bay. This phase of the project has focused on sediment modeling because of its significant influence on light attenuation which is a critical factor in the health of submerged aquatic vegetation. The impact of land use change on sediment concentrations was evaluated by analyzing the LSPC and EFDC sediment simulations for the four land use scenarios. Such analysis was also performed for storm and non-storm periods. In- situ data of total suspended sediments (TSS) and light attenuation were used to develop a regression model to estimate light attenuation from TSS. This regression model was used to derive marine light attenuation estimates throughout Mobile bay using the EFDC TSS outputs. The changes in sediment concentrations and associated impact on light attenuation in the aquatic ecosystem were used to perform an ecological analysis to evaluate the impact on seagreasses and Submerged Aquatic Vegetation (SAV) habitat. This is the key product benefiting the Mobile Bay coastal environmental managers that integrates the influences of sediments due to land use driven flow changes with the restoration potential of SAVs.

Estes, Maurice G.↗
NASA NTRS2022

Evaluation of IMERG Satellite Precipitation Over the Land-Coast-Ocean Continuum – Part Ii: Quantification

To understand and manage water systems under a changing climate and meet an increasing demand for water, a quantitative understanding of precipitation is most important in coastal regions. The capabilities of the Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for Global Precipitation Measurement (IMERG) V06B product for precipitation quantification are examined over three coastal regions of the United States: the West Coast, the Gulf of Mexico, and the East Coast, all of which are characterized by different topographies and precipitation climatologies. A novel uncertainty analysis of IMERG is proposed that considers environmental and physical parameters such as elevation and distance to the coastline. The IMERG performance is traced back to its components, i.e., passive microwave (PMW), infrared (IR), and morphing-based estimates. The analysis is performed using high-resolution, high-quality Ground Validation Multi-Radar/Multi-Sensor (GV-MRMS) rainfall estimates as ground reference at the native resolution of IMERG of 30 min and 0.1°. IMERG Final (IM-F) quantification performance heavily depends on the respective contribution of PMW, IR, and morph components. IM-F and its components overestimate the contribution of light rainfall (<1 mm h−1) and underestimate the contribution of high rainfall rates (>10 mm h−1) to the total rainfall volume. Strong regional dependencies are highlighted, especially over the West Coast, where the proximity of complex terrain to the coastline challenges precipitation estimates. Other major drivers are the distance from the coastline, elevation, and precipitation types, especially over the land and coast surface types, that highlight the impact of precipitation regimes.

Atmosphere↗
NASA NTRS1973

Distribution and movement of suspended sediment in the Gulf of Mexico off the Texas coast

ERTS-1 imagery has proven very useful in studies of the distribution of suspended sediment in the Gulf of Mexico off the Texas coast. Moreover, by using suspended matter concentrations as tags on water masses, much information on water movement can be obtained. The utility of suspended sediment as a tracer is dependent on the sediment remaining in suspension long enough to travel an appreciable distance or to be visible on successive images. Although the evidence is not conclusive, it seems likely that much of the suspended sediment in Gulf of Mexico nearshore waters during normal seastate conditions has remained in suspension since the time of its entry into the Gulf of Mexico through rivers and tidal inlets.

Hunter, R. E.↗
DOE OSTI2025

Characterization of Field-Exposed Photovoltaic Modules Featuring Signs of Contact Degradation

Here, this work investigates several photovoltaic (PV) modules that have shown signs of metal contact corrosion due to field exposure in a hot and humid climate. This includes two multicrystalline silicon aluminum back surface field systems with 10 and 14 years of exposure and one monocrystalline silicon passivated emitter and rear cell system with four years of exposure. A comprehensive, multiscale characterization process is used to evaluate these PV modules in great detail. Current–voltage (I−V), Suns-V OC measurements, electroluminescence imaging, infrared imaging, and ultraviolet fluorescence imaging were performed, and locations of interest were cored and analyzed using cross-sectional scanning electron microscopy (SEM). A rigorous, quantitative analysis procedure for the cross-sectional SEM images is proposed and implemented. Careful characterization does reveal that some of these PV modules do indeed exhibit the same classic signs of acetic-acid-based corrosion of the glass frit that is present at the silver/silicon interface, which have been observed previously in PV modules exposed to damp heat in an environmental chamber.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2025

How some tropical trees benefit from being struck by lightning: evidence for Dipteryx oleifera and other large‐statured trees

Lightning strikes kill hundreds of millions of trees annually, but their role in shaping tree life history and diversity is largely unknown. Here, in this study, we use data from a unique lightning location system to show that some individual trees counterintuitively benefit from being struck by lightning. Lightning killed 56% of 93 directly struck trees and caused an average of 41% crown dieback among the survivors. However, among these struck trees, 10 direct strikes caused negligible damage to Dipteryx oleifera trees while killing 78% of their lianas and 2.1 Mg of competitor tree biomass. Nine trees of other long-lived taxa survived lightning with similar benefits. On average, a D. oleifera tree > 60 cm in diameter is struck by lightning at least five times during its lifetime, conferring these benefits repeatedly. We estimate that the ability to survive lightning increases lifetime fecundity 14-fold, largely because of reduced competition from lianas and neighboring trees. Moreover, the unusual heights and wide crowns of D. oleifera increase the probability of a direct strike by 49–68% relative to trees of the same diameter with average allometries. These patterns suggest that lightning plays an underappreciated role in tree competition, life history strategies, and species coexistence.

competition↗
DOE OSTI2022

Mudstone Baffles and Barriers in Lower Cretaceous Strata at a Proposed CO 2 Storage Hub in Kemper County, Mississippi, United States

The Cretaceous and Tertiary deposits in Mississippi, Alabama, and the adjacent continental shelf constitute a widespread succession of sandstone, mudstone, and carbonate that has proven to be an important target for geologic CO 2 storage in the onshore Gulf of Mexico basin. Integrated analysis of stratigraphy, sedimentology, and reservoir properties based on cores and geophysical well logs indicates that the Paluxy Formation and Washita- Fredericksburg interval present gigatonne-class storage opportunities. The distribution, geometry, and composition of the area is a direct reflection of the original depositional environments, and understanding these factors is essential for understanding the geologic storage potential of the Paluxy Formation and Washita-Fredericksburg interval at the Kemper County energy facility in Mississippi. Geologic characterization of the Mississippi Embayment at the energy facility focused primarily on characterizing the confinement potential of the storage complex. Integration of core analyses and geophysical well logs has yielded a high-resolution stratigraphic analysis of storage reservoirs, baffles, barriers, and seals. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) coupled with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), and quantitative X-ray diffraction (XRD) was used to characterize microfabric, pore types, and mineralogy within mudstone of the east-central Mississippi Embayment at the Kemper County energy facility. Mudstone beds in the Paluxy Formation and Washita-Fredericksburg interval have variable thickness and continuity. High water saturation in the Cretaceous mudstone units influences swelling smectite clay and mudrock permeability based on pulse decay analysis is 1–96 nD. These low permeability values indicate that the mudstone units are effective baffles, barriers, and confining intervals that make significant migration of injected CO 2 out of the storage complex unlikely. The numerous baffles and barriers within the target reservoir intervals, moreover, favor the retention of multiple CO 2 in plumes within the abundant stacked sandstone bodies.

03 NATURAL GAS↗
NASA NTRS1972

Oceanographic applications of color-enhanced satellite imageries.

Black and white infrared imageries obtained from satellites over the oceans were transformed into color presentations. Investigations in different regions (Persian Gulf, Arabian Coast, Somali Coast and the Northwest Coast of Australia) revealed that temperature gradients and temperature differences of two degrees Celsius can be displayed by the color process from the imageries. This data display can be used for a rapid analysis of information obtained with an APT station.

Szekielda, K.-H.↗
DOE OSTI2023

Intensification of Hurricane Sally (2020) over the Mississippi River Plume

Abstract Tropical Cyclone (TC) Sally formed on 11 September 2020, traveled through the Gulf of Mexico (GMX), and intensified rapidly before making landfall on the Alabama coast as a devastating category-2 TC with extensive coastal and inland flooding. In this study, using a combination of observations and idealized numerical model experiments, we demonstrate that the Mississippi River plume played a key role in the intensification of Sally near the northern Gulf Coast. As the storm intensified and its translation slowed before landfall, sea surface cooling was reduced along its track, coincident with a pronounced increase in SSS. Further analysis reveals that TC Sally encountered a warm Loop Current eddy in the northern GMX close to the Mississippi River plume. Besides deepening the thermocline, the eddy advected low-salinity Mississippi River plume water into the storm’s path. This resulted in the development of strong upper-ocean salinity stratification, with a shallow layer of freshwater lying above a deep, warm “barrier layer.” Consequently, TC-induced mixing and the associated sea surface cooling were reduced, aiding Sally’s intensification. These results suggest that the Mississippi River plume and freshwater advection by the Loop Current eddies can play an important role in TC intensification near the U.S. Gulf Coast.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
NASA NTRS2011

Attitude Determination and Control Systems

In the year 1900, Galveston, Texas, was a bustling community of approximately 40,000 people. The former capital of the Republic of Texas remained a trade center for the state and was one of the largest cotton ports in the United States. On September 8 of that year, however, a powerful hurricane struck Galveston island, tearing the Weather Bureau wind gauge away as the winds exceeded 100 mph and bringing a storm surge that flooded the entire city. The worst natural disaster in United States history even today the hurricane caused the deaths of between 6000 and 8000 people. Critical in the events that led to such a terrible loss of life was the lack of precise knowledge of the strength of the storm before it hit. In 2008, Hurricane Ike, the third costliest hurricane ever to hit the United States coast, traveled through the Gulf of Mexico. Ike was gigantic, and the devastation in its path included the Turk and Caicos Islands, Haiti, and huge swaths of the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Once again, Galveston, now a city of nearly 60,000, took the direct hit as Ike came ashore. Almost 200 people in the Caribbean and the United States lost their lives; a tragedy to be sure, but far less deadly than the 1900 storm. This time, people were prepared, having received excellent warning from the GOES satellite network. The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites have been a continuous monitor of the world's weather since 1975, and they have since been joined by other Earth-observing satellites. This weather surveillance to which so many now owe their lives is possible in part because of the ability to point accurately and steadily at the Earth below. The importance of accurately pointing spacecraft to our daily lives is pervasive, yet somehow escapes the notice of most people. But the example of the lives saved from Hurricane Ike as compared to the 1900 storm is something no one should ignore. In this section, we will summarize the processes and technologies used in designing and operating spacecraft pointing (i.e. attitude) systems.

Starin, Scott R.↗