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At least 55 records · Page 3

The Impact of Drifting Orbits on the Monthly Regional TOA Flux Assuming Constant Meteorology

The NASA Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) gridded Single Scanner Footprint (SSF1deg) product provides TOA SW and LW monthly 1° regional all-sky fluxes, which are used to monitor the Earth’s energy balance. The CERES long-term climate data record relies on Terra and Aqua satellite sun-synchronous orbits that are maintained at 10:30 and 1:30 local equator crossing times (LECT), respectively. The Terra and Aqua satellites are expected to drift outside of their respective LECT during mid 2022. Both Terra and Aqua will drift over several years towards sunrise and sunset, respectively, and eventually will be deorbited. The CERES SSF1deg product monthly regional fluxes are based on the well calibrated and stable CERES observed fluxes and are temporally interpolated assuming constant meteorology between measurements to resolve the regional diurnal flux cycle to obtain a daily averaged flux. The drifting orbits may impact the monthly regional TOA flux over regions with systematic diurnal cycles, because the observations will shift in local time. The CERES project would like to determine the maximum Terra and Aqua LECT time shift before the monthly regional fluxes are diurnally impacted and become unreliable for long-term climate monitoring. To determine the impact of the drifting orbits on the SSF1deg monthly regional fluxes,15-minute Geostationary Earth Radiation Budget (GERB) broadband observed fluxes over the Meteosat geostationary satellite domain (±60° in longitude and latitude) are used as proxy CERES observations. The drifting orbit sampling pattern is achieved by simply incrementing the observation time by steps of 15 minutes from the CERES footprint time. For each 15-minute time interval, the CERES observed fluxes are replaced by the GERB observed fluxes. The-15 minute incremented monthly regional fluxes based on constant meteorology are compared to the reference 10:30 and 1:30 LECT fluxes. Regions with systematic diurnal cycles, include morning maritime stratus, where the clouds dissipate during the morning, and land afternoon convection, where clouds increase in the afternoon will impact the regional flux differences. Based on January and July 2010 GERB data, even a 15-minute LECT change caused regional monthly flux differences that would impact long term regional trend analysis. Results will be shown at the conference.

David Doelling↗

The Orbital Drift Impact on the Monthly Regional TOA Flux Assuming Constant Meteorology

The NASA Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) gridded Single Scanner Footprint (SSF1deg) product provides TOA SW and LW monthly 1° regional all-sky fluxes, which are used to monitor the Earth’s energy balance. The CERES long-term climate data record relies on Terra and Aqua satellite sun-synchronous orbits that are maintained at 10:30 and 1:30 local equator crossing times (LECT), respectively. The Terra and Aqua satellites are expected to drift outside of their respective LECT during mid 2022. Both Terra and Aqua will drift over several years towards sunrise and sunset, respectively, and eventually will be deorbited. The CERES SSF1deg product monthly regional fluxes are based on the well calibrated and stable CERES observed fluxes and are temporally interpolated assuming constant meteorology between measurements to resolve the regional diurnal flux cycle to obtain a daily averaged flux. The drifting orbits may impact the monthly regional TOA flux over regions with systematic diurnal cycles, because the observations will shift in local time. The CERES project would like to determine the maximum Terra and Aqua LECT time shift before the monthly regional fluxes are diurnally impacted and become unreliable for long-term climate monitoring. To determine the impact of the drifting orbits on the SSF1deg monthly regional fluxes,15-minute Geostationary Earth Radiation Budget (GERB) broadband observed fluxes over the Meteosat geostationary satellite domain (±60° in longitude and latitude) are used as proxy CERES observations. The drifting orbit sampling pattern is achieved by simply incrementing the observation time by steps of 15 minutes from the CERES footprint time. For each 15-minute time interval, the CERES observed fluxes are replaced by the GERB observed fluxes. The-15 minute incremented monthly regional fluxes based on constant meteorology are compared to the reference 10:30 and 1:30 LECT fluxes. Regions with systematic diurnal cycles, include morning maritime stratus, where the clouds dissipate during the morning, and land afternoon convection, where clouds increase in the afternoon will impact the regional flux differences. Based on January and July 2010 GERB data, even a 15-minute LECT change caused regional monthly flux differences that would impact long term regional trend analysis. Results will be shown at the conference.

D R Doelling↗

Unsteady Thick Airfoil Aerodynamics: Experiments, Computation, and Theory

An experimental, computational and theoretical investigation was carried out to study the aerodynamic loads acting on a relatively thick NACA 0018 airfoil when subjected to pitching and surging, individually and synchronously. Both pre-stall and post-stall angles of attack were considered. Experiments were carried out in a dedicated unsteady wind tunnel, with large surge amplitudes, and airfoil loads were estimated by means of unsteady surface mounted pressure measurements. Theoretical predictions were based on Theodorsen's and Isaacs' results as well as on the relatively recent generalizations of van der Wall. Both two- and three-dimensional computations were performed on structured grids employing unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (URANS). For pure surging at pre-stall angles of attack, the correspondence between experiments and theory was satisfactory; this served as a validation of Isaacs theory. Discrepancies were traced to dynamic trailing-edge separation, even at low angles of attack. Excellent correspondence was found between experiments and theory for airfoil pitching as well as combined pitching and surging; the latter appears to be the first clear validation of van der Wall's theoretical results. Although qualitatively similar to experiment at low angles of attack, two-dimensional URANS computations yielded notable errors in the unsteady load effects of pitching, surging and their synchronous combination. The main reason is believed to be that the URANS equations do not resolve wake vorticity (explicitly modeled in the theory) or the resulting rolled-up un- steady flow structures because high values of eddy viscosity tend to \smear" the wake. At post-stall angles, three-dimensional computations illustrated the importance of modeling the tunnel side walls.

Strangfeld, C.↗

Jitter Controller Software

Sinusoidal jitter is produced by simply modulating a clock frequency sinusoidally with a given frequency and amplitude. But this can be expressed as phase jitter, frequency jitter, or cycle-to-cycle jitter, rms or peak, absolute units, or normalized to the base clock frequency. Jitter using other waveforms requires calculating and downloading these waveforms to an arbitrary waveform generator, and helping the user manage relationships among phase jitter crest factor, frequency jitter crest factor, and cycle-to-cycle jitter (CCJ) crest factor. Software was developed for managing these relationships, automatically configuring the generator, and saving test results documentation. Tighter management of clock jitter and jitter sensitivity is required by new codes that further extend the already high performance of space communication links, completely correcting symbol error rates higher than 10 percent, and therefore typically requiring demodulation and symbol synchronization hardware to operating at signal-to-noise ratios of less than one. To accomplish this, greater demands are also made on transmitter performance, and measurement techniques are needed to confirm performance. It was discovered early that sinusoidal jitter can be stepped on a grid such that one can connect points by constant phase jitter, constant frequency jitter, or constant cycle-cycle jitter. The tool automates adherence to a grid while also allowing adjustments off-grid. Also, the jitter can be set by the user on any dimension and the others are calculated. The calculations are all recorded, allowing the data to be rapidly plotted or re-plotted against different interpretations just by changing pointers to columns. A key advantage is taking data on a carefully controlled grid, which allowed a single data set to be post-analyzed many different ways. Another innovation was building a software tool to provide very tight coupling between the generator and the recorded data product, and the operator's worksheet. Together, these allowed the operator to sweep the jitter stimulus quickly along any of three dimensions and focus on the response of the system under test (response was jitter transfer ratio, or performance degradation to the symbol or codeword error rate). Additionally, managing multi-tone and noise waveforms automated a tedious manual process, and provided almost instantaneous decision- making control over test flow. The code was written in LabVIEW, and calls Agilent instrument drivers to write to the generator hardware.

Lansdowne, Chatwin↗

Evaluating the design of an earth radiation budget instrument with system simulations. Part 2: Minimization of instantaneous sampling errors for CERES-I

Much of the new record of broadband earth radiation budget satellite measurements to be obtained during the late 1990s and early twenty-first century will come from the dual-radiometer Clouds and Earth's Radiant Energy System Instrument (CERES-I) flown aboard sun-synchronous polar orbiters. Simulation studies conducted in this work for an early afternoon satellite orbit indicate that spatial root-mean-square (rms) sampling errors of instantaneous CERES-I shortwave flux estimates will range from about 8.5 to 14.0 W/m on a 2.5 deg latitude and longitude grid resolution. Rms errors in longwave flux estimates are only about 20% as large and range from 1.5 to 3.5 W/sq m. These results are based on an optimal cross-track scanner design that includes 50% footprint overlap to eliminate gaps in the top-of-the-atmosphere coverage, and a 'smallest' footprint size to increase the ratio in the number of observations lying within to the number of observations lying on grid area boundaries. Total instantaneous measurement error also depends on the variability of anisotropic reflectance and emission patterns and on retrieval methods used to generate target area fluxes. Three retrieval procedures from both CERES-I scanners (cross-track and rotating azimuth plane) are used. (1) The baseline Earth Radiaton Budget Experiment (ERBE) procedure, which assumes that errors due to the use of mean angular dependence models (ADMs) in the radiance-to-flux inversion process nearly cancel when averaged over grid areas. (2) To estimate N, instantaneous ADMs are estimated from the multiangular, collocated observations of the two scanners. These observed models replace the mean models in computation of satellite flux estimates. (3) The scene flux approach, conducts separate target-area retrievals for each ERBE scene category and combines their results using area weighting by scene type. The ERBE retrieval performs best when the simulated radiance field departs from the ERBE mean models by less than 10%. For larger perturbations, both the scene flux and collocation methods produce less error than the ERBE retrieval. The scene flux technique is preferable, however, because it involves fewer restrictive assumptions.

Stowe, Larry↗

The Sensitivity of African Easterly Waves to Eastern Tropical Atlantic Sea-Surface Temperatures

The results of two regional atmospheric model simulations are compared to assess the influence of the eastern tropical Atlantic sea-surface temperature maximum on local precipitation, transient easterly waves and the West African summer monsoon. Both model simulations were initialized with reanalysis 2 data (US National Center for Environmental Prediction and Department of Energy) on 15 May 2006 and extended through 6 October 2006, forced by synchronous reanalysis 2 lateral boundary conditions introduced four times daily. One simulation uses 2006 reanalysis 2 sea-surface temperatures, also updated four times daily, while the second simulation considers ocean forcing absent the sea-surface temperature maximum, achieved here by subtracting 3 K at every ocean grid point between 0 and 15 N during the entire simulation. The simulation with 2006 sea-surface temperature forcing produces a realistic distribution of June-September mean precipitation and realistic westward propagating swaths of maximum rainfall, based on validation against Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) estimates. The simulation without the sea-surface temperature maximum produces only 57% of the control June-September total precipitation over the eastern tropical Atlantic and about 83% of the Sahel precipitation. The simulation with warmer ocean temperatures generates generally stronger circulation, which in turn enhances precipitation by increasing moisture convergence. Some local precipitation enhancement is also attributed to lower vertical thermal stability above the warm water. The study shows that the eastern tropical Atlantic sea-surface temperature maximum enhances the strength of transient easterly waves and broadens the spatial extent of associated precipitation. However, large-scale circulation and its interaction with the African continent, and not sea-surface temperatures, control the timing and trajectories of the waves.

Druyan, Leonard M.↗

Cloud Properties Derived From GOES-7 for Spring 1994 ARM Intensive Observing Period Using Version 1.0.0 of ARM Satellite Data Analysis Program

This document describes the initial formulation (Version 1.0.0) of the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) program satellite data analysis procedures. Techniques are presented for calibrating geostationary satellite data with Sun synchronous satellite radiances and for converting narrowband radiances to top-of-the-atmosphere fluxes and albedos. A methodology is documented for combining geostationary visible and infrared radiances with surface-based temperature observations to derive cloud amount, optical depth, height, thickness, temperature, and albedo. The analysis is limited to two grids centered over the ARM Southern Great Plains central facility in north-central Oklahoma. Daytime data taken during 5 Apr. - 1 May 1994, were analyzed on the 0.3 deg and 0.5 deg latitude-longitude grids that cover areas of 0.9 deg x 0.9 deg and 10 deg x 14 deg, respectively. Conditions ranging from scattered low cumulus to thin cirrus and thick cumulonimbus occurred during the study period. Detailed comparisons with hourly surface observations indicate that the mean cloudiness is within a few percent of the surface-derived sky cover. Formats of the results are also provided. The data can be accessed through the World Wide Web computer network.

Minnis, Patrick↗

A synchronous strobed laser light sheet for helicopter model rotor flow visualization

A synchronous, strobed laser light sheet has been developed for use in flow visualization of a helicopter rotor model. The light sheet strobe circuit included selectable blade position, strobe duration, and multiple pulses per revolution for rotors having 2 to 9 blades. The flow was seeded with propylene glycol. Between runs, a calibration grid board was placed in the plane of the laser sheet and recorded with the video camera at the position used to record the flow field. A slip-sync mode permitted slow motion visualization of the flow field over complete rotations of the rotor. The system was used to make two-dimensional flow field cuts of a four-bladed rotor operating at advance ratio of 0.37 at wind tunnel speeds up to 79.25 meters per second (260 feet per second).

Leighty, Bradley D.↗

Performance optimized, small structurally integrated ion thruster system

A 5-cm structurally integrated ion thruster has been developed for attitude control and stationkeeping of synchronous satellites. As optimized with a conventional ion extraction system, the system demonstrates a thrust T = 0.47 mlb at a beam voltage of 1600 V, total mass efficiency of 76%, and electrical efficiency of 56%. Under the subject contract effort, no significant performance change was noted for operation with two dimensional electrostatic thrust-vectoring grids. Structural integrity with the vectoring grids was demonstrated for shock (+ or - 30 G), sinusoidal (9 G), and random (19.9 G rms) accelerations. System envelope is 31.2 cm long by 13.4 cm flange bolt circle, with a mass of 9.0 Kg, including 6.8 Kg mercury propellant.

Hyman, J., Jr.↗

AEROELASTIC SIMULATION TOOL FOR INFLATABLE BALLUTE AEROCAPTURE

A multidisciplinary analysis tool is under development for predicting the impact of aeroelastic effects on the functionality of inflatable ballute aeroassist vehicles in both the continuum and rarefied flow regimes. High-fidelity modules for continuum and rarefied aerodynamics, structural dynamics, heat transfer, and computational grid deformation are coupled in an integrated multi-physics, multi-disciplinary computing environment. This flexible and extensible approach allows the integration of state-of-the-art, stand-alone NASA and industry leading continuum and rarefied flow solvers and structural analysis codes into a computing environment in which the modules can run concurrently with synchronized data transfer. Coupled fluid-structure continuum flow demonstrations were conducted on a clamped ballute configuration. The feasibility of implementing a DSMC flow solver in the simulation framework was demonstrated, and loosely coupled rarefied flow aeroelastic demonstrations were performed. A NASA and industry technology survey identified CFD, DSMC and structural analysis codes capable of modeling non-linear shape and material response of thin-film inflated aeroshells. The simulation technology will find direct and immediate applications with NASA and industry in ongoing aerocapture technology development programs.

Liever, P. A.↗

Interactive Visualization of High-Dimensional Petascale Ocean Data

We describe an application for interactive visualization of 5 petabytes of time-varying multivariate data from a high-resolution global ocean circulation model. The input data are 10311 hourly (ocean time) time steps of various 2D and 3D fields from a 22-billion point 1/48- degree “lat-lon cap” configuration of the MIT General Circulation Model (MITgcm). We map the global horizontal model domain onto our 128-screen (8x16) tiled display wall to produce a canonical tiling with approximately one MITgcm grid point per display pixel, and using this tiling we encode the entire time series for multiple native and computed scalar quantities at a collection of ocean depths. We reduce disk bandwidth requirements by converting the model’s floating point data to 16-bit fixed point values, and compressing those values with a lossless video encoder, which together allow synchronized playback at 24 time steps per second across all 128 displays. The application allows dynamic assignment of any two encoded tiles to any display, and has multiple interfaces for quickly specifying various orderly arrangements of tiles. All subsequent rendering is done on the fly, with run time control of colormaps, transfer functions, histogram equalization, and labeling. The two data streams on each screen can be rendered independently and combined in various ways, including blending, differencing, horizontal/ vertical wipes, and checkerboarding. The two data streams on any screen can optionally be displayed as a scatterplot in their joint attribute space. All scatterplots and map-view plots from the same x/y location and depth are linked so they all show the current brushable selection. Ocean scientists have used the system, and have found previously unidentified features in the data.

Interactive↗

Assessment of Version 4 of the SMAP Passive Soil Moisture Standard Product

NASAs Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission launched on January 31, 2015 into a sun-synchronous 6 am6 pm orbit with an objective to produce global mapping of high-resolution soil moisture and freeze-thaw state every 2-3 days. The SMAP radiometer began acquiring routine science data on March 31, 2015 and continues to operate nominally. SMAPs radiometer-derived standard soil moisture product (L2SMP) provides soil moisture estimates posted on a 36-km fixed Earth grid using brightness temperature observations and ancillary data. A beta quality version of L2SMP was released to the public in October, 2015, Version 3 validated L2SMP soil moisture data were released in May, 2016, and Version 4 L2SMP data were released in December, 2016. Version 4 data are processed using the same soil moisture retrieval algorithms as previous versions, but now include retrieved soil moisture from both the 6 am descending orbits and the 6 pm ascending orbits. Validation of 19 months of the standard L2SMP product was done for both AM and PM retrievals using in situ measurements from global core calval sites. Accuracy of the soil moisture retrievals averaged over the core sites showed that SMAP accuracy requirements are being met.

SMAP↗

Sea Surface Height Anomalies of the Arctic Ocean from Icesat-2: A First Examination and Comparisons with Cryosat-2

Accurately resolving spatio-temporal variations in sea surface height across the polar oceans is key to improving our understanding of ocean circulation variability and change. Here, we examine the first two years (2018-2020) of Arctic Ocean sea surface height anomalies (SSHA) from the photon-counting laser altimeter onboard NASA’s ICE, Cloud, and Land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2). ICESat-2 SSHA estimates are compared to estimates from ESA’s CryoSat-2 mission, including semi-synchronous along-track measurements from the recent CRYO2ICE orbit alignment campaign. There are documented residual centimeter-scale range biases between the ICESat-2 beams (in release-003 data) and we opted for a single-beam approach in our comparisons. We find good agreement in the along-track estimates (spatial correlation coefficient >0.8 and mean differences <0.03 m) as well as in the gridded monthly SSHA estimates (temporal correlation coefficient of 0.76 and a mean difference of 0.01 m) from the two altimeters, suggesting ICESat-2 adds to the CryoSat-2 SSHA estimates.

ICESat-2↗

AirShow 1.0 CFD Software Users' Guide

AirShow is visualization post-processing software for Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). Upon reading binary PLOT3D grid and solution files into AirShow, the engineer can quickly see how hundreds of complex 3-D structured blocks are arranged and numbered. Additionally, chosen grid planes can be displayed and colored according to various aerodynamic flow quantities such as Mach number and pressure. The user may interactively rotate and translate the graphical objects using the mouse. The software source code was written in cross-platform Java, C++, and OpenGL, and runs on Unix, Linux, and Windows. The graphical user interface (GUI) was written using Java Swing. Java also provides multiple synchronized threads. The Java Native Interface (JNI) provides a bridge between the Java code and the C++ code where the PLOT3D files are read, the OpenGL graphics are rendered, and numerical calculations are performed. AirShow is easy to learn and simple to use. The source code is available for free from the NASA Technology Transfer and Partnership Office.

Mohler, Stanley R., Jr.↗

Problem size, parallel architecture and optimal speedup

The communication and synchronization overhead inherent in parallel processing can lead to situations where adding processors to the solution method actually increases execution time. Problem type, problem size, and architecture type all affect the optimal number of processors to employ. The numerical solution of an elliptic partial differential equation is examined in order to study the relationship between problem size and architecture. The equation's domain is discretized into n sup 2 grid points which are divided into partitions and mapped onto the individual processor memories. The relationships between grid size, stencil type, partitioning strategy, processor execution time, and communication network type are analytically quantified. In so doing, the optimal number of processors was determined to assign to the solution, and identified (1) the smallest grid size which fully benefits from using all available processors, (2) the leverage on performance given by increasing processor speed or communication network speed, and (3) the suitability of various architectures for large numerical problems.

Nicol, David M.↗

Problem size, parallel architecture, and optimal speedup

The communication and synchronization overhead inherent in parallel processing can lead to situations where adding processors to the solution method actually increases execution time. Problem type, problem size, and architecture type all affect the optimal number of processors to employ. The numerical solution of an elliptic partial differential equation is examined in order to study the relationship between problem size and architecture. The equation's domain is discretized into n sup 2 grid points which are divided into partitions and mapped onto the individual processor memories. The relationships between grid size, stencil type, partitioning strategy, processor execution time, and communication network type are analytically quantified. In so doing, the optimal number of processors was determined to assign to the solution, and identified (1) the smallest grid size which fully benefits from using all available processors, (2) the leverage on performance given by increasing processor speed or communication network speed, and (3) the suitability of various architectures for large numerical problems.

Nicol, David M.↗

Distributed parallel processing applied to an implicit multigrid Euler/Navier-Stokes algorithm

An implicit multigrid algorithm for the solution of the Euler and Navier-Stokes equations has been implemented within the framework of multiple block-structured grids in which the physical domain is spatially decomposed into several blocks and the solution is advanced in parallel on each block. Utilities have been developed to implement such a scheme in a distributed computing environment. The multi-block algorithm is designed so that the explicit residual calculation is identical to that of single-block scheme, and therefore converged solutions for both schemes must be the same. To accelerate convergence, synchronous and asynchronous multigrid strategies are implemented. Significant speedups have been achieved in a multiple processor environment, while convergence rates similar to those of the single-block scheme are observed.

Tysinger, T. L.↗

TPSAS-NF1676L-32467-DND

With the launch of a new generation of Geostationary satellites (GEO) such as Himawari and GOES-16 & 17, cloud detection using satellite imager data has been greatly enhanced with increased spectral bands, and higher temporal and spatial resolutions. A concern for all geostationary sensors, however, are changes in instrument sensitivity and algorithm performance at different viewing for daytime and nighttime. CALIPSO lidar observations provide a valuable reference for assessing these impacts as the satellite flies in a sun-synchronous orbit and crosses a wide range of GEO viewing angles each day. This paper will present the cloud mask results using the imager data from Himawari (AHI) and GOES-16&17 (ABI). The detection algorithms have been adapted from the Cloud and Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES) MODIS Edition 4 cloud mask, and adjusted and tuned to geo-satellites. They are used operationally for the CERES Time and Space Averaging (TISA) gridded cloud products and for near-real-time retrievals for weather and nowcasting applications.

Qing Z. Trepte↗