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At least 775 records · Page 43

Data Assimilation of Photosynthetic Light-use Efficiency using Multi-angular Satellite Data: II Model Implementation and Validation

Spatially explicit and temporally continuous estimates of photosynthesis will be of great importance for increasing our understanding of and ultimately closing the terrestrial carbon cycle. Current capabilities to model photosynthesis, however, are limited by accurate enough representations of the complexity of the underlying biochemical processes and the numerous environmental constraints imposed upon plant primary production. A potentially powerful alternative to model photosynthesis through these indirect observations is the use of multi-angular satellite data to infer light-use efficiency (ε) directly from spectral reflectance properties in connection with canopy shadow fractions. Hall et al. (this issue) introduced a new approach for predicting gross ecosystem production that would allow the use of such observations in a data assimilation mode to obtain spatially explicit variations in ε from infrequent polar-orbiting satellite observations, while meteorological data are used to account for the more dynamic responses of ε to variations in environmental conditions caused by changes in weather and illumination. In this second part of the study we implement and validate the approach of Hall et al. (this issue) across an ecologically diverse array of eight flux-tower sites in North America using data acquired from the Compact High Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (CHRIS) and eddy-flux observations. Our results show significantly enhanced estimates of ε and therefore cumulative gross ecosystem production (GEP) over the course of one year at all examined sites. We also demonstrate that ε is greatly heterogeneous even across small study areas. Data assimilation and direct inference of GEP from space using a new, proposed sensor could therefore be a significant step towards closing the terrestrial carbon cycle.

Hilker, Thomas↗

A Random Walk Model for Biomass Particle Mixing in Bubbling Fluidized Beds

We propose a physically motivated random walk model to describe the spatial and temporal mixing of a single biomass particle in a bubbling fluidized bed. The model parameters are estimated from measurements of a magnetically tagged simulated biomass particle in a laboratory fluidized bed. We demonstrate that Monte Carlo simulations using the model match key statistical features of the observed behavior reasonably well. These results suggest that a model of this type can simulate the effects of biomass particle mixing in biomass conversion reactors. We suggest possible improvements to the random walk model and propose how it might be used in conjunction with computational fluid dynamics simulations.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗

PaleoSTeHM v1.0: a modern, scalable spatiotemporal hierarchical modeling framework for paleo-environmental data

Abstract. Geological records of past environmental change provide crucial insights into long-term climate variability, trends, non-stationarity, and nonlinear feedback mechanisms. However, reconstructing spatiotemporal fields from these records is statistically challenging due to their sparse, indirect, and noisy nature. Here, we present PaleoSTeHM, a scalable and modern framework for spatiotemporal hierarchical modeling of paleo-environmental data. This framework enables the implementation of flexible statistical models that rigorously quantify spatial and temporal variability from geological data while clearly distinguishing measurement and inferential uncertainty from process variability. We illustrate its application by reconstructing temporal and spatiotemporal paleo-sea-level changes across multiple locations. Using various modeling and analysis choices, PaleoSTeHM demonstrates the impact of different methods on inference results and computational efficiency. Our results highlight the critical role of model selection in addressing specific paleo-environmental questions, showcasing the PaleoSTeHM framework's potential to enhance the robustness and transparency of paleo-environmental reconstructions.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

Elucid—exploring the local universe with the reconstructed initial density field. I. Hamiltonian Markov chain Monte Carlo method with particle mesh dynamics

Simulating the evolution of the local universe is important for studying galaxies and the intergalactic medium in a way free of cosmic variance. Here we present a method to reconstruct the initial linear density field from an input nonlinear density field, employing the Hamiltonian Markov Chain Monte Carlo (HMC) algorithm combined with Particle-mesh (PM) dynamics. The HMC+PM method is applied to cosmological simulations, and the reconstructed linear density fields are then evolved to the present day with N-body simulations. These constrained simulations accurately reproduce both the amplitudes and phases of the input simulations at various z. Using a PM model with a grid cell size of 0.75 h {sup –1} Mpc and 40 time steps in the HMC can recover more than half of the phase information down to a scale k ∼ 0.85 h Mpc{sup –1} at high z and to k ∼ 3.4 h Mpc{sup –1} at z = 0, which represents a significant improvement over similar reconstruction models in the literature, and indicates that our model can reconstruct the formation histories of cosmic structures over a large dynamical range. Adopting PM models with higher spatial and temporal resolutions yields even better reconstructions, suggesting that our method is limited more by the availability of computer resource than by principle. Dynamic models of structure evolution adopted in many earlier investigations can induce non-Gaussianity in the reconstructed linear density field, which in turn can cause large systematic deviations in the predicted halo mass function. Such deviations are greatly reduced or absent in our reconstruction.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Cycles-L: A Coupled, 3-D, Land Surface, Hydrologic, and Agroecosystem Landscape Model

Managing landscapes to increase agricultural productivity and environmental stewardship can be informed by spatially-distributed models that operate at spatial and temporal scales that are intervention-relevant. This paper presents Cycles-L, a landscape-scale agroecosystem and hydrologic modeling system, using as a test case a watershed in Pennsylvania. Cycles-L emerges from melding the landscape and hydrology structure of Flux-PIHM, a 3-D land surface hydrologic model, with the agroecosystem processes in the Cycles model. Consequently, Cycles-L can simulate processes affected by topography, soil heterogeneity, and management practices, owing to its physically-based hydrology that can simulate horizontal and vertical transport of solutes with water. The model was tested at a 730-ha experimental watershed within the Mahantango Creek watershed. Cycles-L simulated well stream water and mineral nitrogen discharge (Nash-Sutcliffe coefficient 0.55 and 0.60, respectively) and grain yield (root mean square error 1.2 Mg ha -1 ). Cycles-L outputs are as good or better than those obtained with the uncoupled Flux-PIHM (water discharge) and Cycles (grain yield) models. Modeled spatial patterns of nitrogen fluxes like denitrification illustrate the combined control of crop management and topography. For example, denitrification is almost twice as high when simulated with Cycles-L than when simulated with Cycles 1-D. Due to its spatial and temporal resolution, Cycles-L fills a gap in the availability of models that operate at a scale relevant to evaluate interventions in the landscape. Cycles-L can become a central component in tools for climate change scenario analysis, precision agriculture, precision conservation, and artificial intelligence-based decision support systems.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Genomic responses in mouse models poorly mimic human inflammatory diseases

Murine models have been extensively used in recent decades to identify and test drug candidates for subsequent human trials (1–3). However, few of these human trials have shown success (4–7). The success rate is even worse for those trials in the field of inflammation, a condition present in many human diseases. To date, there have been nearly 150 clinical trials testing candidate agents intended to block the inflammatory response in critically ill patients, and every one of these trials failed (8–11). Despite commentaries that question the merit of an overreliance of animal systems to model human immunology (3, 12, 13), in the absence of systematic evidence, investigators and public regulators assume that results from animal research reflect human disease. To date, there have been no studies to systematically evaluate, on a molecular basis, how well the murine clinical models mimic human inflammatory diseases in patients. The Inflammation and Host Response to Injury, Large Scale Collaborative Research Program has completed multiple studies on the genomic responses to systemic inflammation in patients and human volunteers as well as murine models (14–18). These datasets include genome-wide expression analysis on white blood cells obtained from serial blood draws in 167 patients up to 28 d after severe blunt trauma (15), 244 patients up to 1 y after burn injury, and 4 healthy humans for 24 h after administration of low-dose bacterial endotoxin (14) and expression analysis on analogous samples from well-established mouse models of trauma, burns, and endotoxemia (16 treated and 16 controls per model) (16–18). In humans, severe inflammatory stress produces a genomic storm affecting all major cellular functions and pathways (15) and therefore, provided sufficient perturbations to allow comparisons between the genes in the human conditions and their orthologs in the murine models. In this article, we report on a systematic comparison of the genomic response between human inflammatory diseases andmurine models. First, we compared the correlations of gene expression changes with trauma, burns, and endotoxemia between human subjects and corresponding mouse models. Second, we characterized and compared the temporal gene response patterns seen in these human conditions and models. Third, we also identified the major signaling pathways significantly regulated in the inflammatory response to human injuries and compared them with the human in vivo endotoxemia model and three murine models. Fourth, we sought and evaluated representative patient and murine studies of several additional acute inflammatory diseases. These results show that the genomic responses to different acute inflammatory stresses are highly similar in humans, but these responses are not reproduced in the current mouse models. New approaches need be explored to improve the ways that human diseases are studied.

Seok, Junhee↗

Multimachine analysis of intermittent fluctuations in the scrape-off layer of magnetically confined fusion plasmas

Far scrape-off layer fluctuations, also known as blobs/filaments, are compared for the first time across six tokamaks: Alcator C-Mod, DIII-D, TCV, KSTAR, MAST, and MAST-U, under the context of stochastic modeling in Ohmic and low confinement mode scenarios. In this model, which well describes these fluctuations, measurements from Langmuir probes are modeled as a superposition of uncorrelated, two-sided exponential temporal pulses. The key parameters of this model are the mean waiting times between consecutive pulses, the pulse duration times and the mean of the pulse amplitudes. The study examines the influence of line-averaged density, plasma current, magnetic field and aspect ratio. The mean amplitudes and pulse waiting times increase with the line-averaged density across devices, while the pulse duration times remain constant. Whereas the variation in waiting times is gradual across the density scan, the mean amplitudes increase abruptly as the density profile broadens and flattens for Alcator C-Mod. The blob waiting times decrease with increasing plasma current and the toroidal magnetic field, while they increase with aspect ratio for conventional tokamaks. The duration times follow the same trends as the waiting times in these parameters but vary more slowly, resulting in the trends in the waiting times dominating the intermittency level of the fluctuations.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Satellite-based evaluation of AeroCom model bias in biomass burning regions

Global models are widely used to simulate biomass burning aerosol (BBA). Exhaustive evaluations on model representation of aerosol distributions and properties are fundamental to assess health and climate impacts of BBA. Here we conducted a comprehensive comparison of Aerosol Comparisons between Observations and Models (AeroCom) project model simulations with satellite observations. A total of 59 runs by 18 models from three AeroCom Phase-III experiments (i.e., biomass burning emissions, CTRL16, and CTRL19) and 14 satellite products of aerosols were used in the study. Aerosol optical depth (AOD) at 550 nm was investigated during the fire season over three key fire regions reflecting different fire dynamics (i.e., deforestation-dominated Amazon, Southern Hemisphere Africa where savannas are the key source of emissions, and boreal forest burning in boreal North America). The 14 satellite products were first evaluated against AErosol RObotic NETwork (AERONET) observations, with large uncertainties found. But these uncertainties had small impacts on the model evaluation that was dominated by modeling bias. Through a comparison with Polarization and Directionality of the Earth’s Reflectances measurements with the Generalized Retrieval of Aerosol and Surface Properties algorithm (POLDER-GRASP), we found that the modeled AOD values were biased by –93 % to 152 %, with most models showing significant underestimations even for the state-of-the-art aerosol modeling techniques (i.e., CTRL19). By scaling up BBA emissions, the negative biases in modeled AOD were significantly mitigated, although it yielded only negligible improvements in the correlation between models and observations, and the spatial and temporal variations in AOD biases did not change much. For models in CTRL16 and CTRL19, the large diversity in modeled AOD was in almost equal measures caused by diversity in emissions, lifetime, and the mass extinction coefficient (MEC). We found that in the AeroCom ensemble, BBA lifetime correlated significantly with particle deposition (as expected) and in turn correlated strongly with precipitation. Additional analysis based on Cloud-Aerosol LIdar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP) aerosol profiles suggested that the altitude of the aerosol layer in the current models was generally too low, which also contributed to the bias in modeled lifetime. Modeled MECs exhibited significant correlations with the Ångström exponent (AE, an indicator of particle size). Comparisons with the POLDER-GRASP-observed AE suggested that the models tended to overestimate the AE (underestimated particle size), indicating a possible underestimation of MECs in models. The hygroscopic growth in most models generally agreed with observations and might not explain the overall underestimation of modeled AOD. Our results imply that current global models contain biases in important aerosol processes for BBA (e.g., emissions, removal, and optical properties) that remain to be addressed in future research.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Climate Models

Climate models is a very broad topic, so a single volume can only offer a small sampling of relevant research activities. This volume of 14 chapters includes descriptions of a variety of modeling studies for a variety of geographic regions by an international roster of authors. The climate research community generally uses the rubric climate models to refer to organized sets of computer instructions that produce simulations of climate evolution. The code is based on physical relationships that describe the shared variability of meteorological parameters such as temperature, humidity, precipitation rate, circulation, radiation fluxes, etc. Three-dimensional climate models are integrated over time in order to compute the temporal and spatial variations of these parameters. Model domains can be global or regional and the horizontal and vertical resolutions of the computational grid vary from model to model. Considering the entire climate system requires accounting for interactions between solar insolation, atmospheric, oceanic and continental processes, the latter including land hydrology and vegetation. Model simulations may concentrate on one or more of these components, but the most sophisticated models will estimate the mutual interactions of all of these environments. Advances in computer technology have prompted investments in more complex model configurations that consider more phenomena interactions than were possible with yesterday s computers. However, not every attempt to add to the computational layers is rewarded by better model performance. Extensive research is required to test and document any advantages gained by greater sophistication in model formulation. One purpose for publishing climate model research results is to present purported advances for evaluation by the scientific community.

Druyan, Leonard M.↗

Satellite-Based Evaluation of AeroCom Model Bias in Biomass Burning Regions

Global models are widely used to simulate biomass burning aerosol (BBA). Exhaustive evaluations on model representation of aerosol distributions and properties are fundamental to assess health and climate impacts of BBA. Here we conducted a comprehensive comparison of Aerosol Comparisons between Observations and Models (AeroCom) project model simulations with satellite observations. A total of 59 runs by 18 models from three AeroCom Phase-III experiments (i.e., biomass burning emissions, CTRL16, and CTRL19) and 14 satellite products of aerosols were used in the study. Aerosol optical depth (AOD) at 550 nm was investigated during the fire season over three key fire regions reflecting different fire dynamics (i.e., deforestation-dominated Amazon, Southern Hemisphere Africa where savannas are the key source of emissions, and boreal forest burning in boreal North America). The 14 satellite products were first evaluated against AErosol RObotic NETwork (AERONET) observations, with large uncertainties found. But these uncertainties had small impacts on the model evaluation that was dominated by modeling bias. Through a comparison with Polarization and Directionality of the Earth’s Reflectances measurements with the Generalized Retrieval of Aerosol and Surface Properties algorithm (POLDER-GRASP), we found that the modeled AOD values were biased by −93 % to 152 %, with most models showing significant underestimations even for the state-of-the-art aerosol modeling techniques (i.e., CTRL19). By scaling up BBA emissions, the negative biases in modeled AOD were significantly mitigated, although it yielded only negligible improvements in the correlation between models and observations, and the spatial and temporal variations in AOD biases did not change much. For models in CTRL16 and CTRL19, the large diversity in modeled AOD was in almost equal measures caused by diversity in emissions, lifetime, and the mass extinction coefficient (MEC). We found that in the AeroCom ensemble, BBA lifetime correlated significantly with particle deposition (as expected) and in turn correlated strongly with precipitation. Additional analysis based on Cloud-Aerosol LIdar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP) aerosol profiles suggested that the altitude of the aerosol layer in the current models was generally too low, which also contributed to the bias in modeled lifetime. Modeled MECs exhibited significant correlations with the Ångström exponent (AE, an indicator of particle size). Comparisons with the POLDER-GRASP-observed AE suggested that the models tended to overestimate the AE (underestimated particle size), indicating a possible underestimation of MECs in models. The hygroscopic growth in most models generally agreed with observations and might not explain the overall underestimation of modeled AOD. Our results imply that current global models contain biases in important aerosol processes for BBA (e.g., emissions, removal, and optical properties) that remain to be addressed in future research.

biomass burning aerosols↗

Lab-on-a-chip platforms for quantification of multicellular interactions in bone remodeling

Highlights: • Microchips are developed for stimulating bone cells and quantifying activity. • A chip permits osteocyte loading and soluble signal analysis. • A chip enables quantification of bone resorption and formation. • This model may remove spatial and temporal limitations of existing systems. • This microfluidic approach shows promise for future discovery in the bone field. Researchers have been using lab-on-a-chip systems to isolate factors for study, simulate laboratory analysis and model cellular, tissue and organ level processes. The technology is increasing rapidly, but the bone field has been slow to keep pace. Novel models are needed that have the power and flexibility to investigate the elegant and synchronous multicellular interactions that occur in normal bone turnover and in disease states in which remodeling is implicated. By removing temporal and spatial limitations and enabling quantification of functional outcomes, the platforms should provide unique environments that are more biomimetic than single cell type systems while minimizing complex systemic effects of in vivo models. This manuscript details the development and characterization of lab-on-a-chip platforms for stimulating osteocytes and quantifying bone remodeling. Our platforms provide the foundation for a model that can be used to investigate remodeling interactions as a whole or as a standard mechanotransduction tool by which isolated activity can be quantified as a function of load.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

Optimized Temporal Monitors for SystemC

SystemC is a modeling language built as an extension of C++. Its growing popularity and the increasing complexity of designs have motivated research efforts aimed at the verification of SystemC models using assertion-based verification (ABV), where the designer asserts properties that capture the design intent in a formal language such as PSL or SVA. The model then can be verified against the properties using runtime or formal verification techniques. In this paper we focus on automated generation of runtime monitors from temporal properties. Our focus is on minimizing runtime overhead, rather than monitor size or monitor-generation time. We identify four issues in monitor generation: state minimization, alphabet representation, alphabet minimization, and monitor encoding. We conduct extensive experimentation and identify a combination of settings that offers the best performance in terms of runtime overhead.

Tabakov, Deian↗

A reduced-form approach for representing the impacts of wind and solar PV deployment on the structure and operation of the electricity system

In many climate change mitigation scenarios, integrated assessment models of the energy and climate systems rely heavily on renewable energy technologies with variable and uncertain generation, such as wind and solar PV, to achieve substantial decarbonization of the electricity sector. However, these models often include very little temporal resolution and thus have difficulty in representing the integration costs that arise from mismatches between electricity supply and demand. The global integrated assessment model, MESSAGE, has been updated to explicitly model the trade-offs between variable renewable energy (VRE) deployment and its impacts on the electricity system, including the implications for electricity curtailment, backup capacity, and system flexibility. These impacts have been parameterized using a reduced-form approach, which allows VRE integration impacts to be quantified on a regional basis. In addition, thermoelectric technologies were updated to include two modes of operation, baseload and flexible, to better account for the cost, efficiency, and availability penalties associated with flexible operation. In this paper, the modeling approach used in MESSAGE is explained and the implications for VRE deployment in mitigation scenarios are assessed. Three important stylized facts associated with integrating high VRE shares are successfully reproduced by our modeling approach: (1) the significant reduction in the utilization of non-VRE power plants; (2) the diminishing role for traditional baseload generators, such as nuclear and coal, and the transition to more flexible technologies; and (3) the importance of electricity storage and hydrogen electrolysis in facilitating the deployment of VRE.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗

Snow Albedo Feedbacks Enhance Snow Impurity-Induced Radiative Forcing in the Sierra Nevada

This study employs a fully coupled meteorology-chemistry-snow model to investigate the impacts of light-absorbing particles (LAPs) on snow darkening in the Sierra Nevada. After comprehensive evaluation with spatially and temporally complete satellite retrievals, the model shows that LAPs in snow reduce snow albedo by 0.013 (0-0.045) in the Sierra Nevada during the ablation season (April-July), producing a midday mean radiative forcing (RF) of 4.5 W m -2 which increases to 15-22 W m -2 in July. LAPs in snow accelerate snow aging processes and reduce snow cover fraction, which doubles the albedo change and radiative forcing caused by LAPs. The impurity-induced snow darkening effects decrease snow water equivalent and snow depth by 20 mm and 70 mm in June in Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep habitat. The earlier snowmelt reduces root zone soil moisture by 20%, deteriorating the forage productivity and playing a negative role in the survival of bighorn sheep.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Spectral characteristics of background error covariance and multiscale data assimilation

The spatial resolutions of numerical atmospheric and oceanic circulation models have steadily increased over the past decades. Horizontal grid spacing down to the order of 1 km is now often used to resolve cloud systems in the atmosphere and sub-mesoscale circulation systems in the ocean. These fine resolution models encompass a wide range of temporal and spatial scales, across which dynamical and statistical properties vary. In particular, dynamic flow systems for small scales can become spatially localized and temporarily intermittent. An analysis shows that the background correlation length scale is larger than 75 km for streamfunctions, even for a 2-km resolution model, and larger than 25 km for water vapor mixing ratios. The theoretical analyses suggest that such correlation length scales prevent the currently used data assimilation schemes from constraining spatial scales smaller than 150 km for streamfunctions and 50 km for water vapor mixing ratios. These results highlight the necessity of fundamentally modifying the currently used data assimilation algorithm for assimilating high-resolution observations into the aforementioned fine resolution models. A multiscale methodology based on scale decomposition is suggested, and challenges are discussed.

Li, Zhijin↗

Spatial Sampling of Weather Data for Regional Crop Yield Simulations

Field-scale crop models are increasingly applied at spatio-temporal scales that range from regions to the globe and from decades up to 100 years. Sufficiently detailed data to capture the prevailing spatio-temporal heterogeneity in weather, soil, and management conditions as needed by crop models are rarely available. Effective sampling may overcome the problem of missing data but has rarely been investigated. In this study the effect of sampling weather data has been evaluated for simulating yields of winter wheat in a region in Germany over a 30-year period (1982-2011) using 12 process-based crop models. A stratified sampling was applied to compare the effect of different sizes of spatially sampled weather data (10, 30, 50, 100, 500, 1000 and full coverage of 34,078 sampling points) on simulated wheat yields. Stratified sampling was further compared with random sampling. Possible interactions between sample size and crop model were evaluated. The results showed differences in simulated yields among crop models but all models reproduced well the pattern of the stratification. Importantly, the regional mean of simulated yields based on full coverage could already be reproduced by a small sample of 10 points. This was also true for reproducing the temporal variability in simulated yields but more sampling points (about 100) were required to accurately reproduce spatial yield variability. The number of sampling points can be smaller when a stratified sampling is applied as compared to a random sampling. However, differences between crop models were observed including some interaction between the effect of sampling on simulated yields and the model used. We concluded that stratified sampling can considerably reduce the number of required simulations. But, differences between crop models must be considered as the choice for a specific model can have larger effects on simulated yields than the sampling strategy. Assessing the impact of sampling soil and crop management data for regional simulations of crop yields is still needed.

upscaling↗

Temporal Lobe Reactions After Carbon Ion Radiation Therapy: Comparison of Relative Biological Effectiveness–Weighted Tolerance Doses Predicted by Local Effect Models I and IV

Purpose: To compare the relative biological effectiveness (RBE)–weighted tolerance doses for temporal lobe reactions after carbon ion radiation therapy using 2 different versions of the local effect model (LEM I vs LEM IV) for the same patient collective under identical conditions. Methods and Materials: In a previous study, 59 patients were investigated, of whom 10 experienced temporal lobe reactions (TLR) after carbon ion radiation therapy for low-grade skull-base chordoma and chondrosarcoma at Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung (GSI) in Darmstadt, Germany in 2002 and 2003. TLR were detected as visible contrast enhancements on T1-weighted MRI images within a median follow-up time of 2.5 years. Although the derived RBE-weighted temporal lobe doses were based on the clinically applied LEM I, we have now recalculated the RBE-weighted dose distributions using LEM IV and derived dose-response curves with Dmax,V-1 cm³ (the RBE-weighted maximum dose in the remaining temporal lobe volume, excluding the volume of 1 cm³ with the highest dose) as an independent dosimetric variable. The resulting RBE-weighted tolerance doses were compared with those of the previous study to assess the clinical impact of LEM IV relative to LEM I. Results: The dose-response curve of LEM IV is shifted toward higher values compared to that of LEM I. The RBE-weighted tolerance dose for a 5% complication probability (TD{sub 5}) increases from 68.8 ± 3.3 to 78.3 ± 4.3 Gy (RBE) for LEM IV as compared to LEM I. Conclusions: LEM IV predicts a clinically significant increase of the RBE-weighted tolerance doses for the temporal lobe as compared to the currently applied LEM I. The limited available photon data do not allow a final conclusion as to whether RBE predictions of LEM I or LEM IV better fit better clinical experience in photon therapy. The decision about a future clinical application of LEM IV therefore requires additional analysis of temporal lobe reactions in a comparable photon-treated collective using the same dosimetric variable as in the present study.

62 RADIOLOGY AND NUCLEAR MEDICINE↗

Reservoir scale reactive-transport modeling of a buoyancy-controlled CO 2 plume with impurities (SO 2 , NO 2 , O 2 )

We present that a demonstration project for the geological storage of CO 2 is currently being considered in the deep Precipice Sandstone formation of the Surat Basin, Queensland, Australia. Because of the presence of potential fresh water resources in this formation, a reservoir-scale two-dimensional reactive-transport model was developed to assess temporal and spatial changes in water quality imposed by co-injecting CO 2 with SO 2 , NO 2 , and O 2 at this location. The model shows that because the injection rate is relatively low (60,000 tons/year), flow is buoyancy-dominated and under these conditions the predicted CO 2 flow pattern is quite sensitive to fine-scale heterogeneities and the resolution of the numerical mesh. The model also shows that SO 2 and NO 2 readily partition into the aqueous phase in close vicinity of their injection point, lowering pH somewhat beyond the acidification from CO 2 dissolution. Only O 2 under redox disequilibrium conditions is modeled to persist in the CO 2 plume away from the injection point, however at sub-ppm levels. In conclusion, this modeling effort demonstrates acidification near the wellbore due to the preferential stripping of gas impurities, and accumulation of CO 2 around a lithostratigraphic boundary above the target formation, where relatively rapid mineral dissolution (muscovite, chlorite and calcite) and precipitation (ankerite, kaolinite and chalcedony) occur.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗