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NASA NTRS1990

A review of recent research on improvement of physical parameterizations in the GLA GCM

A systematic assessment of the effect of a series of improvements in physical parameterizations of the Goddard Laboratory for Atmospheres (GLA) general circulation model (GCM) are summarized. The implementation of the Simple Biosphere Model (SiB) in the GCM is followed by a comparison of SiB GCM simulations with that of the earlier slab soil hydrology GCM (SSH-GCM) simulations. In the Sahelian context, the biogeophysical component of desertification was analyzed for SiB-GCM simulations. Cumulus parameterization is found to be the primary determinant of the organization of the simulated tropical rainfall of the GLA GCM using Arakawa-Schubert cumulus parameterization. A comparison of model simulations with station data revealed excessive shortwave radiation accompanied by excessive drying and heating to the land. The perpetual July simulations with and without interactive soil moisture shows that 30 to 40 day oscillations may be a natural mode of the simulated earth atmosphere system.

Sud, Y. C.↗

NASA NTRS2018

Observing Ice Sublimation From Water-Doped Lunar Simulant at Cryogenic Temperatures

NASA's Resource Prospector (RP) mission is intended to characterize the three-dimensional nature of volatiles in lunar polar and permanently shadowed regions. The Near-Infrared Volatile Spectrometer System (NIRVSS) observes while a drill penetrates to a maximum depth of 1 m. Any 10 cm increment of soil identified as containing water ice can be delivered to a heating crucible with the evolved gas delivered to a gas chromatograph / mass spectrometer. NIRVSS consists of two components; a spectrometer box (SB) and bracket assembly (BA), connected by two fiber optic cables. The SB contains separate short- and long-wavelength spectrometers, SW and LW respectively, that collectively span the 1600-3400 nm range. The BA contains an IR emitter (lamp), drill observation camera (DOC, 2048 x 2048 CMOS detector), 8 different wavelength LEDs, and a longwave calibration sensor (LCS) measuring the surface emissivity at four IR wavelengths. Tests of various RP sub-systems have been under-taken in a large cryo-vacuum chamber at Glenn Re-search Center. The chamber accommodates a tube (1.2 m high x 25.4 cm diameter) filled with lunar simulant, NU-LHT-3M, prepared with known abundances of water. Thermocouples are embedded at different depths, and also across the surface of the soil tube. In the chamber the tube is cooled with LN2 as the pressure is reduced to approx. 5-6x10(exp -6) Torr. For the May 2016 tests two soil tubes were prepared with initially 2.5 Wt.% water. The shroud surrounding the soil tube was held at different temperatures for each tube to simulate a warm and cold lunar environment. Table 1 provides a summary of experimental conditions and Figure 1 shows the nominal view of the NIRVSS components, the drill foot, and the top of the soil tube. Once the average soil temperature reached approx. 178 K, drilling commenced. During drilling activities NIRVSS was alternating between obtaining spectra and obtaining images. Here we discuss NIRVSS spectral data obtained during controlled drill percussions.

Roush, T. L.↗

NASA NTRS1997

Thermal and Hydrologic Signatures of Soil Controls on Evaporation: A Combined Energy and Water Balance Approach with Implications for Remote Sensing of Evaporation

The overall goal of this research is to examine the feasibility of applying a newly developed diagnostic model of soil water evaporation to large land areas using remotely sensed input parameters. The model estimates the rate of soil evaporation during periods when it is limited by the net transport resulting from competing effects of capillary rise and drainage. The critical soil hydraulic properties are implicitly estimated via the intensity and duration of the first stage (energy limited) evaporation, removing a major obstacle in the remote estimation of evaporation over large areas. This duration, or "time to drying" (t(sub d)), is revealed through three signatures detectable in time series of remote sensing variables. The first is a break in soil albedo that occurs as a small vapor transmission zone develops near the surface. The second is a break in either surface to air temperature differences or in the diurnal surface temperature range, both of which indicate increased sensible heat flux (and/or storage) required to balance the decrease in latent heat flux. The third is a break in the temporal pattern of near surface soil moisture. Soil moisture tends to decrease rapidly during stage 1 drying (as water is removed from storage), and then become more or less constant during soil limited, or "stage 2" drying (as water is merely transmitted from deeper soil storage). The research tasks address: (1) improvements in model structure, including extensions to transpiration and aggregation over spatially variable soil and topographic landscape attributes; and (2) applications of the model using remotely sensed input parameters.

Salvucci, Guido D.↗

NASA NTRS2000

Thermal and Hydrologic Signatures of Soil Controls on Evaporation: A Combined Energy and Water Balance Approach with Implications for Remote Sensing of Evaporation

The overall goal of this research is to examine the feasibility of applying a newly developed diagnostic model of soil water evaporation to large land areas using remotely sensed input parameters. The model estimates the rate of soil evaporation during periods when it is limited by the net transport resulting from competing effects of capillary rise and drainage. The critical soil hydraulic properties are implicitly estimated via the intensity and duration of the first stage (energy limited) evaporation, removing a major obstacle in the remote estimation of evaporation over large areas. This duration, or 'time to drying' (t(sub d)) is revealed through three signatures detectable in time series of remote sensing variables. The first is a break in soil albedo that occurs as a small vapor transmission zone develops near the surface. The second is a break in either surface to air temperature differences or in the diurnal surface temperature range, both of which indicate increased sensible heat flux (and/or storage) required to balance the decrease in latent heat flux. The third is a break in the temporal pattern of near surface soil moisture. Soil moisture tends to decrease rapidly during stage I drying (as water is removed from storage), and then become more or less constant during soil limited, or 'stage II' drying (as water is merely transmitted from deeper soil storage). The research tasks address: (1) improvements in model structure, including extensions to transpiration and aggregation over spatially variable soil and topographic landscape attributes; and (2) applications of the model using remotely sensed input parameters.

Salvucci, Guido D.↗

NASA NTRS1993

The effect of SST and soil moisture anomalies on GLA model simulations of the 1988 U.S. summer drought

A series of simulations of the late spring and early summer of 1988 were conducted in order to study the relative importance of different boundary forcings to the Goddard Laboratory for Atmospheres (GLA) model's simulation of the heat wave and drought over the Great Plains of the United States during this time period. Separate 60-day simulations were generated from 10, 20, and 30 May 1988 with a variety of boundary condition datasets. For the control experiment, climatological boundary conditions were used. This was followed by experiments in which either the observed 1988 sea surface temperatures (SST) or derived 1988 soil moisture values, or both, were used in place of the climatological fields. Additional experiments were conducted in which only tropical or midlatitude SST anomalies were used. The impact of the different boundary forcings was evaluated relative to the control simulations of the precipitation and surface air temperature over the Great Plains. It was found that the tropical SST anomalies had a significant effect in reducing precipitation in this area, while the midlatitude anomalies did not. Due to the prescribed climatological soil moistures for the SST experiments, a significant increase in surface temperature did not occur in these simulations. In contrast, the simulations with the anomalous 1988 soil moistures produced both a larger reduction of precipitation and a significant increase in surface temperature over the Great Plains. The simulations with both anomalous SST and soil moisture showed only a slight augmentation of the heat wave and drought relative to the experiments with anomalous soil moisture alone.

Atlas, R.↗

NASA NTRS1994

Linking boundary-layer circulations and surface processes during FIFE89. Part 1: Observational analysis

Surface, aircraft, and satellite observations are analyzed for the 21-day 1989 intensive field campaign of the First ISLSCP Field Experiment (FIFE) to determine the effect of precipitation, vegetation, and soil moisture distributions on the thermal properties of the surface including the heat and moisture fluxes, and the corresponding response in the boundary-layer circulation. Mean and variance properties of the surface variables are first documented at various time and space scales. These calculations are designed to set the stage for Part 2, a modeling study that will focus on how time-space dependent rainfall distribution influences the intensity of the feedback between a vegetated surface and the atmospheric boundary layer. Further analysis shows strongly demarked vegetation and soil moisture gradients extending across the FIFE experimental site that were developed and maintained by the antecedent and ongoing spatial distribution of rainfall over the region. These gradients are shown to have a pronounced influence on the thermodynamic properties of the surface. Furthermore, perturbation surface wind analysis suggests for both short-term steady-state conditions and long-term averaged conditions that the gradient pattern maintained a diurnally oscillating local direct circulation with perturbation vertical velocities of the same order as developing cumulus clouds. Dynamical and scaling considerations suggest that the embedded perturbation circulation is driven by surface heating/cooling gradients and terrain ef fects rather than the manifestation of an inertial oscillation. The implication is that at even relatively small scales (less than 30 km), the differential evolution in vegetation density and soil moisture distribution over a relatively homogenous ecotone can give rise to preferential boundary-layer circulations capable of modifying local-scale horizontal and vertical motions.

Smith, Eric A.↗

NASA NTRS1981

Evaluation of HCMM satellite data for estuarine tidal circulation patterns and thermal inertia soil moisture measurements

Digital thermal maps of the Cooper River (SC) and the Potomac River estuaries were prepared from heat capacity mapping radiometer (HCMR) tapes. Tidal phases were correctly interpreted and verified. Synoptic surface circulation patterns were charted by location thermal fronts and water mass boundaries within the estuaries. Thermal anomalies were detected adjacent of a conventional power plant on the Potomac. Under optimum conditions, estuaries as small as the Cooper River can be monitored for generalized thermal/tidal circulation patterns by the HCMM-type IR sensors. The HCMM thermal inertia approach to estimating soil moisture at the Luverne (MN) test site was found to be unsatisfactory as a NESS operational satellite technique because of cloud cover interference. Thermal-IR data show similar structure of the Baltimore and Washington heat islands when compared to NOAA AVHRR thermal-IR data. Thermal anomalies from the warm water discharge water of a nuclear power plant were mapped in Lake Anna, Virginia.

Wiesnet, D. R.↗

NASA NTRS2004

Detecting Pyrolysis Products from Bacteria in a Mars Soil Analogue

One of the primary objectives of the 1976 Viking missions was to determine whether organic compounds, possibly of biological origin, were present in the Martian surface soils. The Viking gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GCMS) instruments found no evidence for any organic compounds of Martian origin above a few parts per billion in the upper 10 cm of surface soil, suggesting the absence of a widely distributed Martian biota. However, it is now known that key organic compounds important to biology, such as amino acids, carboxylic acids and nucleobases, would likely have been missed by the Viking GCMS instruments. In this study, a Mars soil analogue that was inoculated with approx. 10 billion Escherichia coli cells was heated at 500 C under Martian ambient pressure to release volatile organic compounds from the sample. The pyrolysis products were then analyzed for amino acids and nucleobases using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and GCMS. Our experimental results indicate that at the part per billion level, the degradation products generated from several million bacterial cells per gram of Martian soil would not have been detected by the Viking GCMS instruments. Upcoming strategies for Mars exploration will require in-situ analyses by instruments that can assess whether any organic compounds, especially those that might be associated with life, are present in Martian surface samples.

Glavin, D. P.↗

NASA NTRS1994

On the use of radiative surface temperature to estimate sensible heat flux over sparse shrubs in Nevada

The accurate partitioning of available energy into sensible and latent heat flux is crucial to the understanding of surface atmosphere interactions. This issue is more complicated in arid and semi arid regions where the relative contribution to surface fluxes from the soil and vegetation may vary significantly throughout the day and throughout the season. A three component model to estimate sensible heat flux over heterogeneous surfaces is presented. The surface was represented with two adjacent compartments. The first compartment is made up of two components, shrubs and shaded soil, the second of open 'illuminated' soil. Data collected at two different sites in Nevada (U.S.) during the Summers of 1991 and 1992 were used to evaluate model performance. The results show that the present model is sufficiently general to yield satisfactory results for both sites.

Chehbouni, A.↗

NASA NTRS1981

The heat capacity mapping mission

The first in a series of low cost Atmospheric Explorer Satellites, the Heat Capacity Mapping Mission (HCMM) was designed to evaluate the utility of thermal inertial and other thermal and reflectance data for: (1) discriminating bedrock and unconsolidated regolith types; (2) mapping soil moisture; (3) measuring plant canopy temperatures; (4) examining thermal circulation in large bodies of water; and (5) monitoring urban heat islands. Final reports from the HCMM investigator's program are beginning to define the utility of day/the night thermal data. Under favorable circumstances, some major rock types can be identified, soil moisture in extensive agricultural and alluvial terrains can be detected and at least semiqualitatively assessed; and circulation of currents in large bodies of water can be followed by noting thermal patterns.

Short, N. M.↗

NASA NTRS1976

Viking labeled release biology experiment - Interim results

All results of the labeled-release life-detection experiment conducted on Mars prior to conjunction are summarized. Tests at both landing sites provide remarkably similar evolution of radioactive gas upon addition of a radioactive nutrient to the Mars sample. The 'active' agent in the sample is stable to 18 C, but is substantially inactivated by heat treatment for 3 hours at 50 C and completely inactivated at 160 C, as would be anticipated if the active response were caused by microorganisms. Results from test and heat-sterilized control samples are compared with those obtained from terrestrial soils and a lunar sample. Possible nonbiological explanations of the Mars data are reviewed. Although such explanations of the labeled-release data depend on UV irradiation, the labeled-release response does not appear to depend on recent direct UV activation of surface material. Available facts do not yet permit a conclusion regarding the existence of life on Mars.

Levin, G. V.↗

NASA NTRS1989

Using passive, thermal remote sensing techniques for detecting subsurface gravel accumulations in vegetated, unconsolidated sedimentary terrains

Multiband radiometric data from an airborne imaging thermal scanner are being studied for use in finding buried gravel deposits. The techniques are based on measuring relative differences in the thermal properties between gravel-laden targets and the surrounding gravelless background. These properties are determined from modeling the spectral radiant emittance recorded over both types of surfaces in conjunction with ground measurements of the most significant heat flows above and below the surface. Thermodynamic properties of sampled materials from control sites are determined, and diurnal and annual subsurface heat waves are recorded. Thermal models that account for heat exchange at the surface, as well as varying levels of soil moisture, humidity, and vegetation, are needed for adaptation and modification to simulate the physical and radiative environments of this region.

Burns, Gregory S.↗

NASA NTRS2002

The Effects of Implementing TopModel Concepts in the Noah Model

Topographic effects on runoff generation have been documented observationally (e.g., Dunne and Black, 1970) and are the subject of the physically based rainfall-runoff model TOPMODEL (Beven and Kirkby, 1979; Beven, 1986a;b) and its extensions, which incorporate variable soil transmissivity effects (Sivapalan et al, 1987, Wood et al., 1988; 1990). These effects have been shown to exert significant control over the spatial distribution of runoff, soil moisture and evapotranspiration, and by extension, the latent and sensible heat fluxes

Peters-Lidard, C. D.↗

NASA NTRS2008

Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS) Products from NASA Hydrology Data and Information Services Center (HDISC)

The Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS) is generating a series of land surface state (e.g., soil moisture and surface temperature) and flux (e.g., evaporation and sensible heat flux) products simulated by four land surface models (CLM, Mosaic, Noah and VIC). These products are now accessible at the Hydrology Data and Information Services Center (HDISC), a component of the NASA Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC). Current data holdings include a set of 1.0 degree resolution data products from the four models, covering 1979 to the present; and a 0.25 degree data product from the Noah model, covering 2000 to the present. The products are in Gridded Binary (GRIB) format and can be accessed through a number of interfaces. New data formats (e.g., netCDF), temporal averaging and spatial subsetting will be available in the future. The HDISC has the capability to support more hydrology data products and more advanced analysis tools. The goal is to develop HDISC as a data and services portal that supports weather and climate forecast, and water and energy cycle research.

Fang, Hongliang↗

NASA NTRS2009

Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS) Products, Services and Application from NASA Hydrology Data and Information Services Center (HDISC)

The Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS) is generating a series of land surface state (e.g., soil moisture and surface temperature) and flux (e.g., evaporation and sensible heat flux) products simulated by four land surface models (CLM, Mosaic, Noah and VIC). These products are now accessible at the Hydrology Data and Information Services Center (HDISC), a component of the NASA Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC). Current data holdings include a set of 1.0 degree resolution data products from the four models, covering 1979 to the present; and a 0.25 degree data product from the Noah model, covering 2000 to the present. The products are in Gridded Binary (GRIB) format and can be accessed through a number of interfaces. Users can search the products through keywords and perform on-the-fly spatial and parameter subsetting and format conversion of selected data. More advanced visualization, access and analysis capabilities will be available in the future. The long term GLDAS data are used to develop climatology of water cycle components and to explore the teleconnections of droughts and pluvial.

Fang, Hongliang↗

NASA NTRS2008

Customer-oriented Data Formats and Services for Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS) Products at the NASA GES DISC

Fang, Hongliang↗

NASA NTRS2009

Simulating the Effects of Irrigation over the U.S. in a Land Surface Model Based on Satellite Derived Agricultural Data

A novel method is introduced for integrating satellite derived irrigation data and high-resolution crop type information into a land surface model (LSM). The objective is to improve the simulation of land surface states and fluxes through better representation of agricultural land use. Ultimately, this scheme could enable numerical weather prediction (NWP) models to capture land-atmosphere feedbacks in managed lands more accurately and thus improve forecast skill. Here we show that application of the new irrigation scheme over the continental US significantly influences the surface water and energy balances by modulating the partitioning of water between the surface and the atmosphere. In our experiment, irrigation caused a 12% increase in evapotranspiration (QLE) and an equivalent reduction in the sensible heat flux (QH) averaged over all irrigated areas in the continental US during the 2003 growing season. Local effects were more extreme: irrigation shifted more than 100 W/m from QH to QLE in many locations in California, eastern Idaho, southern Washington, and southern Colorado during peak crop growth. In these cases, the changes in ground heat flux (QG), net radiation (RNET), evapotranspiration (ET), runoff (R), and soil moisture (SM) were more than 3 W/m(sup 2), 20 W/m(sup 2), 5 mm/day, 0.3 mm/day, and 100 mm, respectively. These results are highly relevant to continental- to global-scale water and energy cycle studies that, to date, have struggled to quantify the effects of agricultural management practices such as irrigation. Based on the results presented here, we expect that better representation of managed lands will lead to improved weather and climate forecasting skill when the new irrigation scheme is incorporated into NWP models such as NOAA's Global Forecast System (GFS).

Ozdogan, Mutlu↗

NASA NTRS2010

Towards Global Simulation of Irrigation in a Land Surface Model: Multiple Cropping and Rice Paddy in Southeast Asia

Agricultural land use significantly influences the surface water and energy balances. Effects of irrigation on land surface states and fluxes include repartitioning of latent and sensible heat fluxes, an increase in net radiation, and an increase in soil moisture and runoff. We are working on representing irrigation practices in continental- to global-scale land surface simulation in NASA's Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS). Because agricultural practices across the nations are diverse, and complex, we are attempting to capture the first-order reality of the regional practices before achieving a global implementation. This study focuses on two issues in Southeast Asia: multiple cropping and rice paddy irrigation systems. We first characterize agricultural practices in the region (i.e., crop types, growing seasons, and irrigation) using the Global data set of monthly irrigated and rainfed crop areas around the year 2000 (MIRCA2000) dataset. Rice paddy extent is identified using remote sensing products. Whether irrigated or rainfed, flooded fields need to be represented and treated explicitly. By incorporating these properties and processes into a physically based land surface model, we are able to quantify the impacts on the simulated states and fluxes.

Beaudoing, Hiroko Kato↗