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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.

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At least 37 records · Page 2
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1980

Investigations of medium wavelength magnetic anomalies in the eastern Pacific using Magsat data

The author has identified the following significant results. Three long total magnetic field profiles taken over ocean basins were analyzed. It is found that there is a significant signal in the wavelength range of 1500 to 150 km. This is too short a wavelength to be caused by the core field, which becomes insignificant at about a wavelength of 1500 km; this intermediate wavelength signal is not caused by a typical sea floor spreading process, which should give maximum power in the wavelength region about 50 km. It is shown that the external magnetic field contributes very little to this intermediate wavelength signal. Efforts to explain the cause of this signal have failed.

Harrison, C. G. A.↗
NASA NTRS1981

Investigations of medium wavelength magnetic anomalies in the eastern Pacific using MAGSAT data

The suitability of using magnetic field measurements obtained by MAGSAT is discussed with regard to resolving the medium wavelength anomaly problem. A procedure for removing the external field component from the measured field is outlined. Various methods of determining crustal magnetizations are examined in light of satellite orbital parameters resulting in the selection of the equivalent source technique for evaluating scalar measurements. A matrix inversion of the vector components is suggested as a method for arriving at a scalar potential representation of the field.

Harrison, C. G. A.↗
NASA NTRS1980

Investigations of medium wavelength magnetic anomalies in the eastern Pacific using MAGSAT data

The computer program package for dealing with MAGSAT data was refined and a program listing and deck of cards was forwarded for use by interested investigators. Instead of doing equivalent source calculations, it is proposed to use spherical harmonics to model the observed data since spherical harmonic functions are orthogonal and addition of higher degree and order harmonics can be done without recalculation of the harmonics of lower degree and order already calculated. These functions are much more easy to manipulate in that the height of the term of the observation can be taken care of with great facility. Downward calculation (after suitable filtering) can also be performed very simply.

Harrison, C. G. A.↗
NASA NTRS1981

Investigations of medium wavelength magnetic anomalies in the Eastern Pacific using Magsat data

Processing continued on the data set covering the first three months of the mission. Orbits were selected over a specified range of longitude and latitude and those orbits falling within the geographical boundaries were stored on a disk and a listing made. To verify the quality of the data, plots were made showing altitude vs latitude, anomalous field vs latitude, and corrected anomalous field vs latitude. Results of the plotting showed that: (1) data from the first day of the mission are not usable because they are too noisy; (2) some orbits contain spikes, no doubt a processing error on the tape; (3) some orbits contain a 20 deg region in latitude, offset roughly 30 nT from the rest of the anomalous field profiles; and (4) the correlation between the adjacent orbits is poor. Even the new ring current coefficients provided with a later, corrected set of data tapes did not not yield the desired correlations.

Harrison, C. G. A.↗
NASA NTRS1982

Investigations of medium wavelength magnetic anomalies in the eastern Pacific using MAGSAT data

Efforts concerning spherical harmonic modeling of the Earth's magnetic field and the use of such models in removing core produced magnetic fields from magnetic fields of crustal origin are discussed. Results indicate that the terms of a spherical harmonic expansion do not uniquely determine a given wavelength of signal as the terms in a Fourier series do. Addition of terms of higher degree and order to a spherical harmonic expansion tend to fine tune the amplitude of the terms of lower degree and order. As a result, removal of such a model from a regional data set will not remove long wavelengths completely.

Harrison, C. G. A.↗
NASA NTRS1988

An eastern Pacific tropical plume

The synoptic structure of the atmosphere in the vicinity of a tropical cloud surge (or plume) is described on the basis of a single case study (the case study plume occurred during the Special Observing Period 1 of the FGGE), which was augmented with details of studies of three other systems. The tropical plume was accompanied by intense drying and subsidence within the trough to the northwest, and a strong subtropical jet within the plume, which originated near the equator. It is shown that the plume developed simultaneously out of several disturbances along its axis.

Mcguirk, James P.↗
NASA NTRS1991

Research aircraft observations of the mesoscale and microscale structure of a cold front over the eastern Pacific Ocean

The structure of an oceanic cold front is described on the basis of research aircraft observations taken during the Ocean Storms field experiment. Synoptic and mesoscale analyses compare the structure of an upper-level jet-front system observed slightly downstream from the wind speed maximum to its structure in the upstream entrance region. Stratospheric potential vorticity and ozone were found within the frontal zone down to about 800 mb. Microscale analyses of the front near the sea surface were carried out for a portion of the front having the signature of a 'rope' cloud in satellite imagery. A narrow (less than 1 km) zone of upward motion (about 4 m/s) and of horizontal shear (about 0.01/s) characterized the front near the surface. Significant alongfront variability was found, including lateral displacements in the frontal zone where there were weaker updrafts.

Bond, Nicholas A.↗
NASA NTRS1993

An evaluation of the National Meteorological Center weekly hindcast of upper-ocean temperature along the eastern Pacific equator in January 1992

The upper-ocean temperature distribution along the Pacific equator from 139 to 103 deg W was observed in January 1992 with temperature profiles recorded from a ship and inferred from an ocean general circulation model calculation involving data assimilation (i.e., hindcast). An El Nino episode was in progress. The l00-m-thick mixed layer depth, the mixed-layer temperature, and the depth-averaged temperature below the thermocline were similar in both data products. Considerable differences occurred in the representation of the 15-25 C thermocline, such as the depth-averaged temperatures above and below the 20 C isotherm, the east-west slope of the 20 C isotherm, and a 1000-km-wide depression. The longitudinal-averaged root-mean-square difference between the hindcast and observed depths of the center of the thermocline was 17 m. Most of the disparities could be attributed to a high wavenumber transient event that the model-based assimilation system was not intended to resolve.

Halpern, David↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Simultaneous lidar profiling of water vapor, aerosol, and wind over the eastern Pacific and implications for observational challenges on clouds, circulation, and climate sensitivity

Moist convective processes and related circulations are key components of the Earth’s climate system. Improving our understanding of moisture and cloud processes over oceans is especially challenging due to observational limitations, but also important due to the large radiative effects of cloud over ocean as well as the ties to local and global-scale circulations. A unique dataset for addressing these topics was collected over 5 flights with the NASA HALO (water vapor DIAL and aerosol HSRL) and DAWN (Doppler wind) lidar systems onboard the NASA DC-8 aircraft during the spring 2019 ADM-Aeolus Cal/Val test flight campaign. High-resolution water vapor, aerosol/cloud, and wind profiles were simultaneously collected and complimented with in situ high-resolution dropsonde measurements of temperature, relative humidity, and wind profiles. Airborne lidar measurements of these key variables captured both large-scale spatial variability across different cloud and atmospheric conditions as well as finer features, providing insight into processes from large-scale circulations down to aerosol/cloud interactions. The 5 flights spanned the northeast Pacific and southwest U.S. from 6 N to 52 N and 112 W to 157 W and captured several features of interest including moist layers from the ascending region of the Hadley circulation, very dry layers above midlatitude marine stratocumulus and cloud-free planetary boundary layers, and cloud top height and spatial variability. High covariance of aerosol and water vapor in the free troposphere was also observed for the first time. Preliminary analysis of these data sets will be presented as they apply to clouds and circulations, supplemented by model reanalysis to inform how regional water vapor structure and large-scale motion may contribute to observed shallow cloud formations and other meteorological processes that underpin our current understanding of how these state variables couple to impact the Earth’s weather and climate systems. The potential of complementary measurements in future field campaigns will also be mentioned.

Brian James Carroll↗