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At least 703 records · Page 39

Ion cyclotron waves observed in the polar cusp.

During the penetration by Ogo 5 of the low-latitude disturbed polar cusp region on Nov. 1, 1968, while a major magnetic storm was in progress, a variety of plasma wave activity was observed. Observations of waves with amplitudes less than 2% of the background magnetic field intensity and having frequencies between approximately 0.67 and 0.87 times the local proton gyrofrequency are described. The polarization of these waves indicates that they are propagating at an appreciable angle to the local geomagnetic field line direction. The source of these waves has not been determined, but currents and gradient drifts are suggested as possible agents.

Fredricks, R. W.↗

Magnetic field and electric current structure in the chromosphere

The three-dimensional vector magnetic field structure in the chromosphere above an active region is deduced by using high-resolution H-alpha filtergrams together with a simultaneous digital magnetogram. An analog model of the field is made with 400 metal wires representing field lines that outline the H-alpha structure. The height extent of the field is determined from vertical field-gradient observations around sunspots, from observed fibril heights, and from an assumption that the sources of the field are largely local. The computed electric currents (typically 10 mA/sq m) are found to flow in patterns not similar to observed features and not parallel to magnetic fields. Force structures correspond to observed solar features; the dynamics to be expected include: downward motion in bipolar areas in the lower chromosphere, an outflow of the outer chromosphere into the corona with radially outward flow above bipolar plage regions, and motion of arch filament systems.

Dravins, D.↗

Shield volcanism and lithospheric structure beneath the Tharsis plateau, Mars

The heights of four great shield volcanoes, when interpreted as reflecting the local hydrostatic head on a common source of upwelling magma, provide significant constraints on models of lithospheric structure beneath the Tharsis plateau. If Bouguer gravity anomalies are modeled in terms of a variable thickness crust, and a two-component (crust/mantle) earth-like structure is assumed for the Martian lithosphere, the derived model lithosphere beneath the Tharsis plateau has the following properties: (1) the upper low-density 'crustal' component is thickened beneath the Tharsis plateau; (2) the lower high-density 'mantle' component is thinned beneath the Tharsis plateau; and (3) there is a net gradient on the base of the Martian lithosphere directed downward away from beneath the summit of the Tharsis plateau. A long history of magmatic intrusion is hypothesized to have been the cause of the updoming of the Tharsis plateau and the maintenance of the plateau in a state of only partial compensation.

Blasius, K. R.↗

Band limited emission with central frequency around 2 Hz accompanying powerful cyclones

It has been found that powerful cyclones are proceeded, accompanied and followed by narrow band electromagnetic emission with central frequency around 2 Hz. It is shown that the signal from this emission is unique and clearly distinguishable from known types of magnetic pulsations, spectra of local thunderstorms, and signals from industrial sources. This emission was first observed during an unusually powerful cyclone with tornadoes in the western European part of the Soviet Union, which passed by the observatory of Borok from south to north-east. The emission has been confirmed by analysis of similar events in Antarctica. The phenomenon described presents a new aspect of interactions of processes in the lower atmosphere and the ionosphere.

Troitskaia, V. A.↗

The intrinsic magnetic field and solar-wind interaction of Mars

The Venus-like interaction between the solar wind and the atmosphere of Mars is examined. The bow shock and magnetosheath of Mars indicate the presence of an obstacle to the solar wind that is somewhat larger than the size of the planet and its observed ionosphere, and also relatively larger than the Venus obstacle under comparable conditions. The intrinsic magnetic field of Mars must be no greater than 1.5 x 10 exp 12 T/cu m, or about 0.0001 times as strong as that of the earth to produce an obstacle of such small size. At least for solar minimum conditions, like those prevailing at the time of the Viking Landers, the ionospheric plasma (thermal) pressure is insufficient to balance the incident solar-wind pressure by itself. The ion and electron temperatures in the Martian ionosphere indicate the presence of local horizontal magnetic fields and heat sources in excess of solar radiation alone.

Luhmann, J. G.↗

Supernova remnant candidates for the soft gamma-ray repeater 1900+14

Motivated by the association of two soft gamma-ray repeaters (SGRs) with supernova remnants (SNR) we have carried out radio, optical and X-ray studies of two cataloged SNRs in the large KONUS error box 11 deg x 8 min of SGR 1900+14. Our very large array (VLA) observations of SNR G43.9+1.6 do not reveal any obvious plerionic component. A radio flat-spectrum source, close to, but outside the error box was found. We suggest this to be a distant H II region foreground to the SNR. A sensitive VLA image at meter wavelengths show that the other SNR, G42.8+0.6, is an ordinary typical SNR with a shell morphology with no peculiarities such as a plerionic component. No ROSAT source with an apparent flux greater than or approximately 10(exp -13) ergs cm(exp -2) s(exp -1) is found within the two SNRs. Recently, Hurley et al. have reported a new very small error box close to G42.8+0.6. There is no radio feature within or close to the error box. However, a ROSAT source is found just outside this localization. We speculate that this is the quiescent X-ray counterpart of SGR 1900+14. We suggest that SGR 1900+14 is a neutron star that was born with high speed which has now overtaken the expanding shell of SNR G42.8+0.6. Owing to the low confining pressure, there has been no development of a synchrotron bubble which explains the absence of the radio plerion. In our picture, SGR 1900+14 is the oldest known SGR.

Vasisht, G.↗

Coordinated Polar Spacecraft, Geosynchronous Spacecraft, and Ground-based Observations of Magnetopause Oscillations and Pc5 Waves in the Magnetosphere

In this paper, we present in situ observations of surface waves at the magnetopause and oscillatory magnetospheric field lines, and coordinated observations Pc5 waves at geosynchronous orbit by the GOES spacecraft, and on the ground by CANOPUS and 210 Degree Magnetic Meridian (210MMJ magnetometer arrays. On February 7,2002 during a highspeed solar wind stream, the Polar spacecraft was skimming the magnetopause in a post-noon meridian plane for approximately 3 hours. During this interval, it made two short excursions and a few partial crossings into the magnetosheath and observed quasi-periodic cold ion bursts in the region adjacent to the magnetopause current layer. The multiple magnetopause crossings as well as the velocity of the cold ion bursts indicate that the magnetopause was oscillating with about 6 minute period. Simultaneous observations of Pc5 waves at geosynchronous orbit by the GOES spacecraft and on the ground by the CANOPUS magnetometer array reveal that these magnetospheric pulsations were forced oscillations of magnetic field lines directly driven by the magnetopause oscillations. The magnetospheric pulsations occurred only in a limited longitudinal region in the post-noon dayside sector, and were not a global phenomenon as one would expect for global field line resonance. Thus, the magnetopause oscillations at the source were also limited to a localized region spanning about 4 hours in local time.

Le, G.↗

Direct Measurement of Wave Kernels in Time-Distance Helioseismology

Solar f-mode waves are surface-gravity waves which propagate horizontally in a thin layer near the photosphere with a dispersion relation approximately that of deep water waves. At the power maximum near 3 mHz, the wavelength of 5 Mm is large enough for various wave scattering properties to be observable. Gizon and Birch (2002,ApJ,571,966)h ave calculated kernels, in the Born approximation, for the sensitivity of wave travel times to local changes in damping rate and source strength. In this work, using isolated small magnetic features as approximate point-sourc'e scatterers, such a kernel has been measured. The observed kernel contains similar features to a theoretical damping kernel but not for a source kernel. A full understanding of the effect of small magnetic features on the waves will require more detailed modeling.

Duvall, T. L., Jr.↗

Importance of Rain Evaporation and Continental Convection in the Tropical Water Cycle

Atmospheric moisture cycling is an important aspect of the Earth's climate system, yet the processes determining atmospheric humidity are poorly understood. For example, direct evaporation of rain contributes significantly to the heat and moisture budgets of clouds, but few observations of these processes are available. Similarly, the relative contributions to atmospheric moisture over land from local evaporation and humidity from oceanic sources are uncertain. Lighter isotopes of water vapour preferentially evaporate whereas heavier isotopes preferentially condense and the isotopic composition of ocean water is known. Here we use this information combined with global measurements of the isotopic composition of tropospheric water vapour from the Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer (TES) aboard the Aura spacecraft, to investigate aspects of the atmospheric hydrological cycle that are not well constrained by observations of precipitation or atmospheric vapour content. Our measurements of the isotopic composition of water vapour near tropical clouds suggest that rainfall evaporation contributes significantly to lower troposphere humidity, with typically 20% and up to 50% of rainfall evaporating near convective clouds. Over the tropical continents the isotopic signature of tropospheric water vapour differs significantly from that of precipitation, suggesting that convection of vapour from both oceanic sources and evapotranspiration are the dominant moisture sources. Our measurements allow an assessment of the intensity of the present hydrological cycle and will help identify any future changes as they occur.

Worden, John↗

U.S. Government Open Internet Access to Sub-meter Satellite Data

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) has contracted United States commercial remote sensing companies GeoEye and Digital Globe to provide very high resolution commercial quality satellite imagery to federal/state government agencies and those projects/people who support government interests. Under NextView contract terms, those engaged in official government programs/projects can gain online access to NGA's vast global archive. Additionally, data from vendor's archives of IKONOS-2 (IK-2), OrbView-3 (OB-3), GeoEye-1 (GE-1), QuickBird-1 (QB-1), WorldView-1 (WV-1), and WorldView-2 (WV-2), sensors can also be requested under these agreements. We report here the current extent of this archive, how to gain access, and the applications of these data by Earth science investigators to improve discoverability and community use of these data. Satellite commercial quality imagery (CQI) at very high resolution (< 1 m) (here after referred to as CQI) over the past decade has become an important data source to U.S. federal, state, and local governments for many different purposes. The rapid growth of free global CQI data has been slow to disseminate to NASA Earth Science community and programs such as the Land-Cover Land-Use Change (LCLUC) program which sees potential benefit from unprecedented access. This article evolved from a workshop held on February 23rd, 2012 between representatives from NGA, NASA, and NASA LCLUC Scientists discussion on how to extend this resource to a broader license approved community. Many investigators are unaware of NGA's archive availability or find it difficult to access CQI data from NGA. Results of studies, both quality and breadth, could be improved with CQI data by combining them with other moderate to coarse resolution passive optical Earth observation remote sensing satellites, or with RADAR or LiDAR instruments to better understand Earth system dynamics at the scale of human activities. We provide the evolution of this effort, a guide for qualified user access, and describe current to potential use of these data in earth science.

Neigh, Christopher S. R>↗

Correlation among Cirrus Ice Content, Water Vapor and Temperature in the TTL as Observed by CALIPSO and Aura-MLS

Water vapor in the tropical tropopause layer (TTL) has a local radiative cooling effect. As a source for ice in cirrus clouds, however, it can also indirectly produce infrared heating. Using NASA A-Train satellite measurements of CALIPSO and Aura/MLS we calculated the correlation of water vapor, ice water content and temperature in the TTL. We find that temperature strongly controls water vapor (correlation r =0.94) and cirrus clouds at 100 hPa (r = −0.91). Moreover we observe that the cirrus seasonal cycle is highly (r =−0.9) anticorrelated with the water vapor variation in the TTL, showing higher cloud occurrence during December-January-February. We further investigate the anticorrelation on a regional scale and find that the strong anticorrelation occurs generally in the ITCZ (Intertropical Convergence Zone). The seasonal cycle of the cirrus ice water content is also highly anticorrelated to water vapor (r = −0.91) and our results support the hypothesis that the total water at 100 hPa is roughly constant. Temperature acts as a main regulator for balancing the partition between water vapor and cirrus clouds. Thus, to a large extent, the depleting water vapor in the TTL during DJF is a manifestation of cirrus formation.

Flury, T.↗

Turbulence in a Global Magnetohydrodynamic Simulation of the Earth's Magnetosphere during Northward and Southward Interplanetary Magnetic Field

We report the results of MHD simulations of Earth's magnetosphere for idealized steady solar wind plasma and interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) conditions. The simulations feature purely northward and southward magnetic fields and were designed to study turbulence in the magnetotail plasma sheet. We found that the power spectral densities (PSDs) for both northward and southward IMF had the characteristics of turbulent flow. In both cases, the PSDs showed the three scale ranges expected from theory: the energy-containing scale, the inertial range, and the dissipative range. The results were generally consistent with in-situ observations and theoretical predictions. While the two cases studied, northward and southward IMF, had some similar characteristics, there were significant differences as well. For southward IMF, localized reconnection was the main energy source for the turbulence. For northward IMF, remnant reconnection contributed to driving the turbulence. Boundary waves may also have contributed. In both cases, the PSD slopes had spatial distributions in the dissipative range that reflected the pattern of resistive dissipation. For southward IMF there was a trend toward steeper slopes in the dissipative range with distance down the tail. For northward IMF there was a marked dusk-dawn asymmetry with steeper slopes on the dusk side of the tail. The inertial scale PSDs had a dusk-dawn symmetry during the northward IMF interval with steeper slopes on the dawn side. This asymmetry was not found in the distribution of inertial range slopes for southward IMF. The inertial range PSD slopes were clustered around values close to the theoretical expectation for both northward and southward IMF. In the dissipative range, however, the slopes were broadly distributed and the median values were significantly different, consistent with a different distribution of resistivity.

magnetohydrodynamics (MHD)↗

On the Feasibility of Monitoring Carbon Monoxide in the Lower Troposphere from a Constellation of Northern Hemisphere Geostationary Satellites (PART 1)

By the end of the current decade, there are plans to deploy several geostationary Earth orbit (GEO) satellite missions for atmospheric composition over North America, East Asia and Europe with additional missions proposed. Together, these present the possibility of a constellation of geostationary platforms to achieve continuous time-resolved high-density observations over continental domains for mapping pollutant sources and variability at diurnal and local scales. In this paper, we use a novel approach to sample a very high global resolution model (GEOS-5 at 7 km horizontal resolution) to produce a dataset of synthetic carbon monoxide pollution observations representative of those potentially obtainable from a GEO satellite constellation with predicted measurement sensitivities based on current remote sensing capabilities. Part 1 of this study focuses on the production of simulated synthetic measurements for air quality OSSEs (Observing System Simulation Experiments). We simulate carbon monoxide nadir retrievals using a technique that provides realistic measurements with very low computational cost. We discuss the sampling methodology: the projection of footprints and areas of regard for geostationary geometries over each of the North America, East Asia and Europe regions; the regression method to simulate measurement sensitivity; and the measurement error simulation. A detailed analysis of the simulated observation sensitivity is performed, and limitations of the method are discussed. We also describe impacts from clouds, showing that the efficiency of an instrument making atmospheric composition measurements on a geostationary platform is dependent on the dominant weather regime over a given region and the pixel size resolution. These results demonstrate the viability of the "instrument simulator" step for an OSSE to assess the performance of a constellation of geostationary satellites for air quality measurements.

GEOS-5↗

Superconducting Notch Filter for RFI Mitigation in Ground-Based Radio Telescope

This paper presents a high-rejection, thin-film HTS, microstrip bandstop filter to prevent a local and high-power RFI source from interfering with NASA GGAO’s VGOS cryogenic receiver. This filter has an excellent 2.7%, 50-dB-fractionalbandwidth and a center stop-band frequency of 9.41 GHz. It does not contain any narrow or interdigital features as found in some designs, which reduces the fringing electric fields and improves its power handling capability. The YBCO films were grown on 435-µm-thick R-plane sapphire substrate and the anisotropic behavior was modeled and simulated with a high degree of accuracy. The device was tested while cooled to 77 K and the measurements agree well with simulation.

high-temperature superconductors↗

Atmospheric Transformation of Refrigerants: Current Research Developments and Knowledge Gaps

Refrigerants have evolved through the years to reduce their global warming potential while providing sufficient cooling in refrigeration systems. Replacements for hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) are the hydrofluoroolefins (HFOs), which contain reactive double bonds that decrease the atmospheric lifetime of fluorinated compounds. However, the transformation of unsaturated fluorinated compounds in the atmosphere could generate persistent pollutants, particularly trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) which is the simplest Perfluoroalkyl carboxylic acids (PFCAs). Understanding the transformation of refrigerants is critical in assessing their contribution to atmospheric levels of TFA and their impact on watersheds and human health. This article will present the reactivity of the refrigerants, atmospheric oxidation source, and sink processes of fluorinated refrigerants under daytime conditions, particularly the variability of TFA from refrigerants. Moreover, the discussion will suggest experimental procedures that can quantify the low concentration (~parts per trillion) of TFA generated from the transformation of HFOs. New state-of-the-art techniques such as chemical ionization mass spectrometers (HR-CIMS) will be assessed in providing high temporal resolution (minutes to hourly) to fully capture the atmospheric sources and variability of TFA. Likewise, local, regional, and global concentrations of TFA accounted from the oxidation of refrigerants will be examined. This will include data from both experimental procedures and simulation models. Participation of TFA in critical atmospheric processes such as new particle formation will also be included in this study. Lastly, overall knowledge gaps related to the oxidation products and their dispersion in the environment will be summarized to guide future research needs.

Salvador, Christian↗

Passive continuous variable quantum key distribution scheme using a thermal source

A passive continuous variable quantum key distribution scheme, where Alice splits the output of a thermal source into two beams, measures one locally and transmits the other mode to Bob after applying attenuation. A secure key can be established based on measurements of the two beams without the use of a random number generator or an optical modulator.

Qi, Bing↗

Electromagnetic heating of Io

The electromagnetic heating of the Io interior is considered as an alternative to tidal dissipation to account for the observed volcanic activity. The characteristics of the time-varying magnetic field of Jupiter as seen from Io are discussed, and the range of possible rock conductivities is examined. Interior heating due to the transverse electric and transverse magnetic modes is calculated. It is found that the TM mode appears to be insignificant as a heating source due to the high conductivity of the ionosphere, even when TM heating is concentrated in local hot regions. The TE mode is a more promising source of heating, although electromagnetic heating by either mode does not appear significant in comparison with other heat sources at present.

Colburn, D. S.↗

Self-Aware Local Autonomous and Semi-Cooperative Control for Cross-Layered Resilience (SLAC3R)

The objective of this work is to develop and demonstrate novel, adaptive, lightweight algorithms that enable the decision-making agents in a large cyber-physical network to act both autonomously and in collaborative harmony to enforce assured resilience across spatiotemporal layers, even under unforeseen adversarial scenarios (e.g., high- impact-low-probability events). Towards this end, the proposed solution will serve as minimally invasive add-on layers that bridge the existing (faster, reactive) local myopic controls and (slower, predictive) centralized optimization. Importantly, the proposed algorithms will enable the multi-agent network to autonomously and collaboratively enforce resilient operation under no or limited communication environment typical of severe cyber- physical adversarial events. The expected outcome of this effort is a suite of prototype, open-source, software algorithms for safety-aware local autonomous and semi-cooperative control (SLAC3R), demonstrated on networked microgrids (via RD2C/Thrust-1 OPAL-RT testbed).

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗