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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 55 records · Page 3

A Machine Learning Approach to Determine Surface Radiative Fluxes based on CERES Observations

The Clouds and Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES) projects provides satellite-based observations of the radiative fluxes and clouds systems. CERES climate quality data products typically take several months of calibration and validation before release to the public. An alternative data product, Fast Longwave and Shortwave radiative Flux (FLASHFlux), was created to provide data to the applied sciences and educational users. FLASHFlux provides Top-of-Atmosphere radiative fluxes, Clouds properties, and parameterized surface radiative fluxes within four days for footprint (Level 2) data. We investigate the use of Artificial Neural Network (ANN) using MODerate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) derived clouds properties and meteorology from the Global Assimilation and Meteorology Office (GMAO) scaled to the CERES footprint from the CERES Clouds Radiative Swath (CRS) data product to compute surface radiative fluxes. We test ANN produce fluxes against surface fluxes produced from the Fu-Liou model used in CRS and the Langley Parameterized Shortwave Algorithm (LPSA) and Langley Parameterized Longwave Algorithm (LPLA) used in FLASHFlux. We also validated each model with ground-based observations. Furthermore, we investigate Leave-One-Feature-Out Importance (LOFO) to evaluate the significance of each feature in our training and provide insight for future models. Advances in machine learning, along with increases in computational capabilities and available data allow us to estimate effects of unresolved processes in our climate without direct modeling. This work evaluates the ability to create accurate data-driven models to supplement or replace current models that estimate surface radiative fluxes.

Climatology↗

ESS-DIVE Unoccupied Aerial Systems (UAS) Reporting Format v1

Here we present documentation of the ESS-DIVE reporting format for Unoccupied Aerial System (UAS) data and metadata. This reporting format provides guidance to data contributors on how to store data to maximize their discoverability, facilitate their efficient reuse, and add value to individual datasets. For data users, the reporting format will better allow data repositories to optimize data search and extraction, and more readily integrate similar data into harmonized synthesis products. The reporting format provides templates and guidance for the reporting of metadata for UAS experimental campaigns, individual flights, platform and sensor description. To improve data access and discoverability, the reporting format proposes a data description scheme of Levels based on the degree of processing, where Level 0 includes raw data, through to Level 3 being derived data end products. A range of examples of data types for each Level are given, with suggested file naming schemes. The reporting format presented here is intended to form a foundation for future development that will accommodate new UAS technologies and approaches to data access and use in the future. The reporting format documentation is maintained and updated on the ESS-DIVE Community Space GitHub at https://github.com/ess-dive-community/essdive-uas. This data package is the first published version of this reporting format, and comprises a zip file of the complete content of https://github.com/ess-dive-community/essdive-uas v1.0. The zip contains the reporting format description, instructions and variable definitions in GitHub markdown language (*.md) and metadata templates in csv format. The reporting format is designed to be compatible with other ESS-DIVE formats, and it is specifically recommended that this reporting format be used in conjunction with the File-level metadata (FLMD) and comma separated values (csv) reporting formats for submission to the ESS-DIVE repository.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Modeling the non-grey-body thermal emission from the full moon

The present series of thermophysical computer models for solid-surfaced planetary bodies whose surface roughness is modeled as paraboloidal craters of specified depth/diameter ratio attempts to characterize the nongrey-body brightness temperature spectra of the moon and of the Galilean satellites. This modeling, in which nondiffuse radiation properties and surface roughness are included for rigorous analysis of scattered and reemitted radiation within a crater, explains to first order the behavior of both limb-scans and disk-integrated IR brightness temperature spectra for the full moon. Only negative surface relief can explain lunar thermal emissions' deviation from smooth Lambert-surface expectations.

Vogler, Karl J.↗

Numerical Study of Solar Receiver Tube With Modified Surface Roughness for Enhanced and Selective Absorptivity in Concentrated Solar Power Tower

Abstract Concentrated solar power (CSP) is a reliable renewable energy source that is progressively lowering its cost of energy. However, the heat loss due to reflected and emitted radiation hinders the maximum achievable thermal efficiency for solar receiver tubes on the solar tower. Current solar selective coatings cannot withstand the high temperatures that come with state-of-the-art CSP towers often needing to be recoated soon after initial operation. We intend to use Inconel 718 with different additive manufacturing (AM) practices to construct surfaces that allow for more light-trapping to occur. By adjusting printing parameters, we can tailor a surface to allow for more absorption while diminishing emitted radiation heat loss. By using COMSOL Multiphysics, we can generate these theoretical surfaces to emulate a printed surface, and using the coupled Multiphysics we can simulate how the surface dictates radiation properties. Our results show that by having a rougher surface we can enhance the absorptivity of Inconel 718 (IN718) by 38.8%. We expect this work to transform how solar absorber tubes are manufactured without using selective coatings and supplement the US Department of Energy (DOE) 2030 SunShot Initiative.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

Landscape-scale Characterization of Arctic Tundra Vegetation Composition, Structure, and Function with a Multi-sensor Unoccupied Aerial System: Supporting Data.

Airborne remote sensing data collected using the Brookhaven National Laboratory's (BNL) heavy-lift unoccupied aerial system (UAS) octocopter platform, the Osprey, operated by the Terrestrial Ecosystem Science and Technology (TEST) group (https://www.bnl.gov/testgroup). This package includes data from three flights flown over the NGEE-Arctic Council, Kougarok and Teller sites in July, 2018. The Osprey is a multi-sensor UAS platform that simultaneously measures very high spatial resolution optical red/green/blue (RGB) and thermal infrared (TIR) surface 'skin' temperature imagery, as well as surface reflectance at 1 nm intervals in the visible to near-infrared spectral range 350 - 1000 nm measured at regular intervals along each flight path. Derived image products include ortho-mosaiced RGB and TIR images, an RGB-based digital surface model (DSM) using the structure from motion (SfM) technique, digital terrain model (DTM), and a canopy height model (CHM). In addition, a VNIR surface reflectance file is provided for the trigger locations collected during each flight campaign. Ancillary aircraft data, flight mission parameters, and general flight conditions provided by the onboard flight and data collection computers are also included. Unprocessed and processed data products are included in this package (processing levels 0-3). Data and metadata are provided as text (*.txt, *.json, *.kml, *hdr, *.enp), tabular (*.dat, *.csv, *.waypoint, ENVI format (no extension)), point cloud (*.laz) and image (*.jpg, *.tif, *png) formats. This metadata document contains flight campaign, instrument and file metadata, along with a description of data processing levels, data products and file naming scheme.The Next-Generation Ecosystem Experiments: Arctic (NGEE Arctic), a research effort to reduce uncertainty in Earth System Models by developing a predictive understanding of carbon-rich Arctic ecosystems and feedbacks to climate. NGEE Arctic was supported by the Department of Energy?s Office of Biological and Environmental Research.The NGEE Arctic project had two field research sites: 1) located within the Arctic polygonal tundra coastal region on the Barrow Environmental Observatory (BEO) and the North Slope near Utqiagvik (Barrow), Alaska and 2) multiple areas on the discontinuous permafrost region of the Seward Peninsula north of Nome, Alaska.Through observations, experiments, and synthesis with existing datasets, NGEE Arctic provided an enhanced knowledge base for multi-scale modeling and contributed to improved process representation at global pan-Arctic scales within the Department of Energy's Earth system Model (the Energy Exascale Earth System Model, or E3SM), and specifically within the E3SM Land Model component (ELM).

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Data from: 'Abiotic influences on continuous conifer forest structure across a subalpine watershed'

This package archives the core data used for analysis and inference in 'Abiotic influences on continuous conifer forest structure across a subalpine watershed' (Worsham et al., 2025). All data were collected in the East River, Washington Gulch, Slate River, and Coal Creek watersheds of Colorado. In the paper, we quantified the relative influence of climate, topographic, edaphic, and geologic factors on conifer stand structure and composition, and their functional relationships, at the watershed scale. We used waveform LiDAR data to derive spatially continuous stand structure metrics. We fused these with a species-level classification map to estimate tree species abundance. We applied generalized additive and generalized boosted models to evaluate the covariability of structural and compositional metrics with abiotic variables. The package contains the essential products required for reproducing our analysis and the tables and figures reported in the publication. The products comprise four classes: (1) geospatial data, (2) tabular data used for inferential analysis, (3) tabular data describing analytical results and performance statistics, and (4) a data user guide. (1) includes discretized waveform LiDAR data, locations and attributes of individual tree crowns, sampling locations and domain boundaries, a canopy height model, and raster files of estimated forest structural and compositional metrics at 100 m grid scale. (2) includes all response and explanatory variable values applied in inferential models. Response variables include conifer forest stand density, basal area, 95th percentile height, quadratic mean diameter, and others. Explanatory variables include climatic water deficit, actual evapotranspiration, elevation, heat load, soil available water content, and others. (3) includes results of training and testing several individual tree detection (ITD) algorithms, as well as inferential modeling results. (4) is a PDF user guide for this data package, including detailed descriptions and data dictionaries for all files. The data package root contains 17 assets: 8 compressed tape archive (.tar.gz) files, 5 comma-separated values (.csv) files, 3 Geographic Tagged Image File Format (GeoTIFF) (.tif) files, and 1 Portable Document Format (.pdf) file. The compressed .tar.gz archives contain ESRI shapefiles (.shp) .tif, compressed LASer (.laz), and .csv files. The archives must first be decompressed using the widely distributed command-line software utility TAR. All other files, including constituent files within the .tar.gz archives, can be opened in the open-source R statistical computing environment. Alternatively, .csv files may also be read in any simple text editor software or Microsoft Excel. Geospatial files including .shp and .tif files can also be opened in GIS software, such as QGIS (open-source) or ESRI ArcGIS (proprietary). The .pdf Data User Guide can be read with Adobe Acrobat Reader or other compatible readers.

2018 NEON and 2025 CHESS Campaigns↗

Earth Observing System: Global Observations to Study the Earth's Environment

The Earth Observing System (EOS) is a space-based observing system comprised of a series of satellite sensors by which scientists can monitor the Earth, a Data and Information System (EOSDIS) enabling researchers worldwide to access the satellite data, and an interdisciplinary science research program to interpret the satellite data. During the last couple of years, four EOS science missions were launched, representing observations of (i) total solar irradiance, (ii) Earth radiation budget, (iii) land cover & land use change, (iv) ocean processes (vector wind, sea surface temperature, and ocean color), (v) atmospheric processes (aerosol and cloud properties, water vapor, and temperature and moisture profiles), and (vi) tropospheric chemistry. In succeeding years many more satellites will be launched that will contribute immeasurably to our understanding of the Earth's environment. In this presentation I will describe how scientists are using NASA's Earth science data to examine land use and natural hazards, environmental air quality, including: dust storms over the worlds deserts, cloud and radiation properties, sea surface temperature, and winds over the ocean, with a special emphasis on satellite observations available for studying the southern African environment.

King, Michael D.↗

Earth Observing System: Global Observations to Study the Earth's Environment

The Earth Observing System (EOS) is a space-based observing system comprised of a series of satellite sensors by which scientists can monitor the Earth, a Data and Information System (EOSDIS) enabling researchers worldwide to access the satellite data, and an interdisciplinary science research program to interpret the satellite data. During the last couple of years, four EOS science missions were launched, representing observations of (1) total solar irradiance, (2) Earth radiation budget, (3) land cover & land use change, (4) ocean processes (vector wind, sea surface temperature, and ocean color), (5) atmospheric processes (aerosol and cloud properties, water vapor, and temperature and moisture profiles), and (6) tropospheric chemistry. In succeeding years many more satellites will be launched that will contribute immeasurably to our understanding of the Earth's environment. In this presentation I will describe how scientists are using NASA's Earth science data to examine land use and natural hazards, environmental air quality, including dust storms over the world's deserts, cloud and radiation properties, sea surface temperature, and winds over the ocean.

King, Michael D.↗

Insights on How NASA's Earth Observing System (EOS) Monitors Our World Environment

The Earth Observing System (EOS) is a space-based observing system comprised of a series of satellite sensors by which scientists can monitor the Earth, a Data and Information System (EOSDIS) enabling researchers worldwide to access the satellite data, and an interdisciplinary science research program to interpret the satellite data. During this year, four EOS science missions were launched, representing observations of (1) total solar irradiance, (2) Earth radiation budget, (3) land cover and land use change, (4) ocean processes (vector wind, sea surface temperature, and ocean color), (5) atmospheric processes (aerosol and cloud properties, water vapor, and temperature and moisture profiles), and (6) tropospheric chemistry. In succeeding years many more satellites will be launched that will contribute immeasurably to our understanding of the Earth's environment. In this presentation I will describe how scientists are using EOS data to examine land use and natural hazards, environmental air quality, including dust storms over the world's deserts, cloud and radiation properties, sea surface temperature, and winds over the ocean.

King, Michael D.↗

Overview of Terra

The Earth Observing System (EOS) is a space-based observing system comprised of a series of satellite sensors by which scientists can monitor the Earth, a Data and Information System (EOSDIS) enabling researchers worldwide to access the satellite data, and an interdisciplinary science research program to interpret the satellite data. During the last couple of years, seven EOS science missions were launched, representing observations of (i) total solar irradiance, (ii) Earth radiation budget, (iii) land cover & land use change, (iv) ocean processes (vector wind, sea surface temperature, ocean topography, and ocean color), (v) atmospheric processes (aerosol and cloud properties, water vapor, and temperature and moisture profiles), (v) tropospheric chemistry, (vi) sea ice concentration, and (viii) precipitation. In succeeding years many more satellites will be launched that will contribute immeasurably to our understanding of the Earth's environment. In this lecture I will describe how scientists are using NASA's Earth science data to examine land use and natural hazards, environmental air quality, including dust storms over the world's deserts, cloud and radiation properties, sea surface temperature, and tropospheric chemistry. This lecture will describe the Terra satellite, launched in December 1999 and still operating, and each of the five sensors onboard the spacecraft. This overview will highlight the goals and objectives of this mission, and describe the contributions and unique datasets provided by each sensor. This lecture will form the background for an extensive weeklong course on Terra and all the algorithms that have been developed and implemented to process the data from this spacecraft. This lecture will include a description of the Terra orbit, launch, data communication with the spacecraft, and data processing and archival of the data.

King, Michael D.↗

Custom surface reflectance, shade mask, and equivalent water thickness maps for the Colorado Headwaters Ecological Spectroscopy Study (2025)

This dataset contains land surface reflectance estimates and additional derived products generated from NEON Imaging Spectrometer (NIS) data collected in the Upper Gunnison river basin during June and July of 2025. Data was collected over three domains: the Upper East River (CRBU), Almont Triangle (ALMO), and the Upper Taylor Basin (UPTA). These products were derived from radiance and LiDAR data collected by the NEON Airborne Observation Platform (AOP) campaign funded by the Colorado Headwaters Ecological Spectroscopy Study (CHESS) (doi:10.15485/3017965). Products include per-pixel surface reflectance (rfl) and reflectance uncertainty (rfl_unc), observational data (obs), canopy equivalent water thickness (ewt), and shade masks. Atmospheric correction was performed per flightline using the ISOFIT (Imaging Spectrometer Optimal FITting) optimal estimation framework to estimate surface reflectance and the associated per-band reflectance uncertainty. Reflectance retrievals achieved a mean absolute error of 1.5% across diverse validation surfaces (see validation report.pdf). Equivalent water thickness was calculated from surface reflectance using the Beer–Lambert absorption of liquid water. Shade masks were generated based on the geometry between the sun angle, ground surface, and sensor at the time of flight. Data products are provided per-flightline and as mosaics for each domain. Flightline data products are provided as ENVI-formatted binary files (rfl, rfl_unc, ewt) and GeoTIFFs (shade). Reflectance and uncertainty mosaics are provided as tiled NetCDFs, while all other mosaicked products are provided as cloud-optimized GeoTIFFs. These formats are supported by common geospatial software (e.g., QGIS, ArcGIS, ENVI) and programmatic libraries in Python (e.g., rasterio, xarray, spectral, netCDF4) and R (e.g., terra, ncdf4). Processing workflows were designed to be equivalent to those used to generate the 2018 CHESS campaign airborne imaging spectroscopy data products (doi:10.15485/3013527). All outputs were co-registered to a common spatial grid to support time series analyses. CHESS Project Description: The Colorado Headwaters Ecological Spectroscopy Study (CHESS) comprised a multi-week airborne remote sensing and field observation campaign in the Upper Gunnison Basin, Colorado, conducted in June and July of 2025. Airborne remote sensing was conducted by the National Ecological Observatory Network Airborne Observation Platform (NEON AOP), concurrent with a field campaign run by the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory (RMBL), the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory Watershed Function Science Focus Area (SFA), and NASA-JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation (EMIT) program. Between June 10 and July 18, 2025, the NEON AOP flight team collected high-resolution aerial imaging spectroscopy and Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) data over three domains: the Upper East River (CRBU), Almont Triangle (ALMO), and the Upper Taylor Basin (UPTA). In coordination with the flights, a field campaign acquired ground-truth observations, including observations of vegetation composition, foliar traits, forest demography, and subsurface properties in 18 core sampling areas within the domains. Additional surface water observations were taken at over 380 point locations. All CHESS campaign datasets can be found within the CHESS ESS-DIVE data portal: https://data.ess-dive.lbl.gov/portals/chess. Funding Acknowledgment: Data acquisition was performed under a grant from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (80NSSC24K1005). Computational research was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (80NM0018D0004) and was funded by EMIT Extended Mission Phase E Science.

2018 NEON and 2025 CHESS Campaigns↗

Surface Meteorology and Solar Energy (SSE) Data Release 5.1

The Surface meteorology and Solar Energy (SSE) data set contains over 200 parameters formulated for assessing and designing renewable energy systems.The SSE data set is formulated from NASA satellite- and reanalysis-derived insolation and meteorological data for the 10-year period July 1983 through June 1993. Results are provided for 1 degree latitude by 1 degree longitude grid cells over the globe. Average daily and monthly measurements for 1195 World Radiation Data Centre ground sites are also available. [Location=GLOBAL] [Temporal_Coverage: Start_Date=1983-07-01; Stop_Date=1993-06-30] [Spatial_Coverage: Southernmost_Latitude=-90; Northernmost_Latitude=90; Westernmost_Longitude=-180; Easternmost_Longitude=180] [Data_Resolution: Latitude_Resolution=1 degree; Longitude_Resolution=1 degree].

Arctic heating↗

Robust Thermal Control of Propulsion Lines for Space Missions

A document discusses an approach to insulating propulsion lines for spacecraft. In spacecraft that have propulsion lines that are located externally with open bus architecture, the lines are typically insulated by Multi Layer Insulation (MLI) blankets. MLI on propulsion lines tends to have large and somewhat random variances in its heat loss properties (effective emittance) from one location to the next, which makes it an un-robust approach to control propulsion line temperatures. The approach described here consists of a clamshell design in which the inner surface of the shell is coated with low-emissivity aluminized Kapton tape, and the outer surface is covered with black tape. This clamshell completely encloses the propulsion line. The line itself is covered with its heater, which in turn, is covered completely with black tape. This approach would be low in heater power needs because even though the outer surface of the prop line (and its heater) is covered with black tape as well as the outer surface of the clamshell, the inner surface of the clamshell is covered with low-emissivity aluminized Kapton tape. Hence, the heat loss from the line will be small and comparable to the MLI based one. In terms of contamination changing the radiative properties of surfaces, since the clamshell s inner surface is always protected during handling and is only installed after all the work on the prop line has been completed, the controlling surface, which is the clamshell s inner surface, is always in pristine condition. This proposed design allows for a much more deterministic and predictable design using a very simple and implementable approach for thermal control. It also uses low heater power and is robust to handling and contamination during and after implementation.

Bhandari, Pradeep↗

Radiation heat transfer calculations for space structures

A method is presented for the computation of radiant heat flux between arbitrary surfaces which permits a user defined level of accuracy. The method can be applied to directionally dependent surface properties, specular radiation, or solar illumination, and ensures conservation of energy. The method is compared with others to demonstrate its value.

Emery, A. F.↗

An Estimate of Low-Cloud Feedbacks from Variations of Cloud Radiative and Physical Properties with Sea Surface Temperature on Interannual Time Scales

Simulations of climate change have yet to reach a consensus on the sign and magnitude of the changes in physical properties of marine boundary layer clouds. In this study, the authors analyze how cloud and radiative properties vary with SST anomaly in low-cloud regions, based on five years (March 2000 - February 2005) of Clouds and the Earth s Radiant Energy System (CERES) -- Terra monthly gridded data and matched European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) meteorological reanalaysis data. In particular, this study focuses on the changes in cloud radiative effect, cloud fraction, and cloud optical depth with SST anomaly. The major findings are as follows. First, the low-cloud amount (-1.9% to -3.4% /K) and the logarithm of low-cloud optical depth (-0.085 to -0.100/K) tend to decrease while the net cloud radiative effect (3.86 W/m(exp 2)/ K) becomes less negative as SST anomalies increase. These results are broadly consistent with previous observational studies. Second, after the changes in cloud and radiative properties with SST anomaly are separated into dynamic, thermodynamic, and residual components, changes in the dynamic component (taken as the vertical velocity at 700 hPa) have relatively little effect on cloud and radiative properties. However, the estimated inversion strength decreases with increasing SST, accounting for a large portion of the measured decreases in cloud fraction and cloud optical depth. The residual positive change in net cloud radiative effect (1.48 W/m(exp 2)/ K) and small changes in low-cloud amount (-0.81% to 0.22% /K) and decrease in the logarithm of optical depth (-0.035 to -0.046/ K) with SST are interpreted as a positive cloud feedback, with cloud optical depth feedback being the dominant contributor. Last, the magnitudes of the residual changes differ greatly among the six low-cloud regions examined in this study, with the largest positive feedbacks (approximately 4 W/m(exp 2)/ K) in the southeast and northeast Atlantic regions and a slightly negative feedback (-0.2 W/m(exp 2)/ K) in the south-central Pacific region. Because the retrievals of cloud optical depth and/or cloud fraction are difficult in the presence of aerosols, the transport of heavy African continental aerosols may contribute to the large magnitudes of estimated cloud feedback in the two Atlantic regions.

Eitzen, Zachary A.↗

International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) Stage DX Pixel Level Cloud Product - Revised Algorithm in Native (NAT) Format (ISCCP_DX_NAT)

Since 1983 an international group of institutions has collected and analyzed satellite radiance measurements from up to five geostationary and two polar orbiting satellites to infer the global distribution of cloud properties and their diurnal, seasonal and interannual variations. The primary focus of the first phase of the project (1983-1995) was the elucidation of the role of clouds in the radiation budget (top of the atmosphere and surface). In the second phase of the project (1995 onwards) the analysis also concerns improving understanding of clouds in the global hydrological cycle. [Location=TROPOSPHERE] [Temporal_Coverage: Start_Date=1983-07-01; Stop_Date=] [Spatial_Coverage: Southernmost_Latitude=-90; Northernmost_Latitude=90; Westernmost_Longitude=-180; Easternmost_Longitude=180] [Data_Resolution: Latitude_Resolution=30 Km; Longitude_Resolution=30 Km; Temporal_Resolution=3 Hourly].

CLOUD ICE↗

Radiation in the atmosphere

Questions of radiative transfer in realistic atmospheres are considered along with aspects related to radiative energy budgets and the solar constants, the radiative properties of atmosphere and surfaces, radiation instruments and measurements, and radiative interactions in dynamical systems. A number of special topics are discussed, taking into account remote sensing, air pollution, and the effect of turbulence on the propagation of light through the atmosphere. It is pointed out that numerous recent studies have been conducted of the properties and effects of atmospheric aerosols.

Coulson, K. L.↗