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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 145 records · Page 8

The 4DEnVar-based weakly coupled land data assimilation system for E3SM version 2

Abstract. A new weakly coupled land data assimilation (WCLDA) system based on the four-dimensional ensemble variational (4DEnVar) method is developed and applied to the fully coupled Energy Exascale Earth System Model version 2 (E3SMv2). The dimension-reduced projection four-dimensional variational (DRP-4DVar) method is employed to implement 4DVar using the ensemble technique instead of the adjoint technique. With an interest in providing initial conditions for decadal climate predictions, monthly mean anomalies of soil moisture and temperature from the Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS) reanalysis from 1980 to 2016 are assimilated into the land component of E3SMv2 within the coupled modeling framework with a 1-month assimilation window. The coupled assimilation experiment is evaluated using multiple metrics, including the cost function, assimilation efficiency index, correlation, root-mean-square error (RMSE), and bias, and compared with a control simulation without land data assimilation. The WCLDA system yields improved simulation of soil moisture and temperature compared with the control simulation, with improvements found throughout the soil layers and in many regions of the global land. In terms of both soil moisture and temperature, the assimilation experiment outperforms the control simulation with reduced RMSE and higher temporal correlation in many regions, especially in South America, central Africa, Australia, and large parts of Eurasia. Furthermore, significant improvements are also found in reproducing the time evolution of the 2012 US Midwest drought, highlighting the crucial role of land surface in drought lifecycle. The WCLDA system is intended to be a foundational resource for research to investigate land-derived climate predictability.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

MapSpace: POI-based Multi-Scale Global Land Use Modeling

Accurate and up-to-date land use maps are important to the study of human-environment interactions, urban morphology, environmental justice, etc. Traditional land use mapping approaches involve several surveys and expert knowledge of the region to be mapped. While traditional approaches generate accurate and authoritative maps, it is expensive and takes a long time to develop a new version of map. Besides, such maps have region-specific spatial embedding, making them difficult to benchmark and compare against other land use maps. This work introduces a scalable POI-based land use modeling approach to generate global land use maps at multiple spatial scales and different semantic granularities. In addition, our land use maps adhere to a unified land use categories and can be compared for accuracy and precision.

Thakur, Gautam Malviya↗

The Land Sparing, Water Surface Use Efficiency, and Water Surface Transformation of Floating Photovoltaic Solar Energy Installations

Floating photovoltaic solar energy installations (FPVs) represent a new type of water surface use, potentially sparing land needed for agriculture and conservation. However, standardized metrics for the land sparing and resource use efficiencies of FPVs are absent. These metrics are critical to understanding the environmental and ecological impacts that FPVs may potentially exhibit. Here, we compared techno-hydrological and spatial attributes of four FPVs spanning different climatic regimes. Next, we defined and quantified the land sparing and water surface use efficiency (WSUE) of each FPV. Lastly, we coined and calculated the water surface transformation (WST) using generation data at the world’s first FPV (Far Niente Winery, California). The four FPVs spare 59,555 m2 of land and have a mean land sparing ratio of 2.7:1 m2 compared to ground-mounted PVs. Mean direct and total capacity-based WSUE is 94.5 ± 20.1 SD Wm−2 and 35.2 ± 27.4 SD Wm−2, respectively. Direct and total generation-based WST at Far Niente is 9.3 and 13.4 m2 MWh−1 yr−1, respectively; 2.3 times less area than ground-mounted utility-scale PVs. Our results reveal diverse techno-hydrological and spatial attributes of FPVs, the capacity of FPVs to spare land, and the utility of WSUE and WST metrics.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

Interactive effects of precipitation, temperature, and grazing pressure on the net ecosystem carbon balance of grazing lands across the continental United States

Grazing lands cover approximately one-third of the contiguous United States, support much of the nation's beef production, and are an important component of the U.S. terrestrial carbon budget. In this study, we quantified net ecosystem carbon balance (NECB), the net status of grazing lands as a carbon sink (C-sink) or source (C-source) and a key determinant of soil health and productivity. Our primary objective was to synthesize multiple years of annual NECB across heterogeneous grazing lands across the continental U.S and evaluate annual NECB against physical drivers (mean annual precipitation (MAP), mean annual temperature (MAT), vegetation, and moisture condition) and management practices (grazing pressure index (GPI) and fertilization history). We hypothesized that (1) NECB is higher in mesic and fertilized grasslands; (2) NECB increases with MAP and MAT but decreases with GPI; and (3) interactive effects exist among MAP, MAT, and GPI. Using carbon fluxes measured by eddy covariance towers and methane emissions including both enteric methane and manure derived from stocking rates across seven USDA Long-term Agroecosystem Research Network sites, we found: (1) grazing lands were a C-sink or carbon neutral at most sites; (2) vegetation type, moisture conditions, or fertilization had no significant effect on NECB; (3) NECB increased with MAP and MAT, but decreased with a higher GPI; and (4) MAT had a significant positive effect on NECB when MAP exceeded 750 mm (greater water availability). The effect of GPI on NECB was significantly negative when MAP was below 1000 mm, significantly negative when MAT < 12 °C and significantly positive when MAT > 16 °C. Thus, most grazing lands in our study acted as C-sinks unless water deficit, low temperature, or heavy grazing were interactively present. Understanding how climate and management influence NECB of grazing lands is key to maintaining resilient agroecosystems that secure beef production and sustain rural prosperity.

LTAR↗

Response to “how robust are reductions in modeled estimates from GTAP-BIO of the indirect land use change induced by conventional biofuels?”

Malins et al. (2020) recently published "How robust are reductions in modeled estimates from GTAP-BIO of the indirect land use change induced by conventional biofuels?", provided their narrative from the model improvements in GTAP-BIO over time, made several critical points regarding this model, and argued that the implemented improvements in this model tended to decrease Induce Land Use Changes (ILUC) emissions. Furthermore, they also provided several critical points regarding the Carbon Calculator for Land Use Change from Biofuels Production (CCLUB) emissions model. In this response to Malins et al. we address these critiques point-by-point by providing our detailed responses to key issues: 1) the GTAP-BIO model and its improvements over time; 2) the inclusion of cropland pasture in the model; 3) the observed land use changes in the US that have been the bases for improvements in GTAP-BIO model, 4) the time trends in corn price and yield to challenge the concept of the yield to price response; 5) some sources of land intensification in crop production; 6) the FAO notifications with respect to the comparison between harvested area and arable land; and 7) the GTAP-BIO results for multiple cropping. We also provided responses to Malins et al. critical points regarding the CCLUB emissions model. We hope that this response letter will open more constructive discussion among the LUC modeling community to remain focused on the big picture regarding agriculture's role as a very effective GHG mitigation tool that can shape the new policies to govern the production and consumption of biofuels.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗

Land-based resources for engineered carbon dioxide removal in the United States exceed the expected needs

Gigatonne-scale atmospheric carbon dioxide removal (CDR), alongside deep emission cuts, is critical to stabilizing the climate. However, some of the most scalable CDR technologies are also the most land intensive. Here, we examine whether adequate land resources exist in the contiguous United States to meet CDR targets when prioritizing grid emissions reduction, food production, and the protection of sensitive ecosystems. We focus on biomass carbon removal and storage (BiCRS) and direct air capture and storage (DACS) and show that suitable lands exceed the expected needs: 37.6 million hectares of land are available for BiCRS, resulting in 0.26 GtCO 2 of CDR/year, and 34 million hectares are suitable for wind- and solar-powered DACS, resulting in 4.8 GtCO 2 of CDR/year if facilities are co-located with geologic CO 2 storage. We identify biomass and energy supply hotspots to meet CDR targets while ensuring land protection and minimizing land competition.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Unsteady Land-Sea Breeze Circulations in the Presence of a Synoptic Pressure Forcing

Unsteady land-sea breezes (LSBs) that result from time-varying surface temperature contrasts Δθ(t) are explored in the presence of a constant synoptic pressure forcing, M g , oriented from sea to land (α = 0°) or land to sea (α = 180°). Large eddy simulations reveal the development of four distinctive regimes, depending on the joint interaction between M g , α, and Δθ(t) in modulating the fine-scale dynamics. Time lags, computed as the shifts that maximize correlation coefficients of the velocity between the unsteady and the corresponding steady scenarios at Δθ = Δθ max , are found to be significant and to extend 2 hr longer for α = 0° compared to α = 180°. These diurnal dynamics result in nonequilibrium conditions that are significantly affected by the flow history, and that behave differently over the two patches for the different α’s. Turbulence is found to be out of equilibrium with the mean flow, and the mean itself is found to be out of equilibrium with the thermal forcing. The sea surface heat flux is consistently more sensitive than its land counterpart to the time-varying external forcing Δθ(t), and more so for synoptic forcing from land to sea (α = 180°). Hence, although the land reaches equilibrium faster, the sea patch is found to exert a stronger control on the turbulence-mean flow equilibrium response. Finally, the vertical velocity profile at the shore and shore-normal velocity transects at the first grid level are shown to encode the multiscale regimes of the LSBs evolution and can thus be used to identify these regimes using k-means clustering.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

Impacts of Topography-Based Subgrid Scheme and Downscaling of Atmospheric Forcing on Modeling Land Surface Processes in the Conterminous US

The effects of small-scale topography-induced land surface heterogeneity are not well represented in current Earth System Models (ESMs). In this study, a new topography-based subgrid structure referred to as topographic units (TGU) designed to better capture subgrid topographic effects, and methods to downscale atmospheric forcing to the land TGUs have been implemented in the Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM) Land Model (ELM). Effects of the subgrid scheme and downscaling methods on ELM simulated land surface processes are evaluated over the conterminous United States (CONUS). For this purpose, ELM simulations are performed using two configurations without (NoD ELM) and with (D ELM) downscaling, both using TGUs derived for the 0.5-degree grids and the same land surface parameters. Simulations using the two ELM configurations are compared over the CONUS domain, regional levels, and at observational sites (e.g., SNOTEL). The CONUS-level results suggest that D ELM simulates more snowfall and snow water equivalent (SWE), higher runoff, and less ET during spring and summer. Regional-level results suggest more pronounced impacts of downscaling over regions dominated by higher elevation TGUs and regions with maximum precipitation occurring during cool seasons. Results at the SNOTEL sites suggest that D ELM has superior capability of reproducing the observed SWE at 83% of the sites, with more pronounced performance over topographically heterogeneous TGUs with their maximum precipitation occurring during cool seasons. The results highlight the importance of improving representation of small-scale surface heterogeneity in ESMs and motivate future research to understand their effects on land-atmosphere interactions, streamflow, and water resources management over mountainous regions.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Changes in global land use and CO 2 emissions from us bioethanol production: what drives differences in estimates between corn and cellulosic ethanol?

Land use change (LUC) CO 2 emissions associated with bioenergy production depend on the amount of land required to produce bioenergy crops, the carbon stored in such crops (including in the leaves, stalk, roots and soil), and the carbon emitted when another land cover is directly or indirectly displaced as a result. In this study, we use a global integrated assessment model [the Global Change Analysis Model (GCAM)] to explore the differences in estimates of LUC CO 2 emissions for two crops (corn and switchgrass) used to produce ethanol in the United States under alternative assumptions about natural lands protection. Varying the latter assumptions for corn ethanol results in net LUC CO 2 emissions between 7 and 41 gCO 2 per MJ of ethanol, whereas varying the same assumptions for switchgrass ethanol results in net emissions between -26 and 14 gCO 2 per MJ of ethanol. The low-end estimate for each occurs when natural lands are assumed to be fully protected everywhere, which leads to significant cropland intensification. The high-end estimate for each occurs when natural lands are assumed to be unprotected everywhere, leading to greater cropland expansion and associated conversion of unmanaged forest and pasture. Results from this study could be used to inform scenarios of future energy system change or life cycle assessment of biofuels for which LUC emissions would be an input.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Farmers’ Perceptions of Marginal Land for Biofuel Crops

The dataset includes the survey results about farmers’ perceptions of marginal land availability and the likelihood of a land pixel being marginal based on a machine learning model trained from the survey. Two spreadsheet files are the farmer and farm characteristics (marginal_land_survey_data_shared.xlsx), and the existing land use of marginal lands (land_use_info_sharing.xlsx). Note: the blank cells in these two spreadsheets mean missing values in the survey response. The GeoTiff file includes two bands, one the marginal land likelihood in the Midwestern states (0-1), the other the dominant reason of land marginality (0-5; 0 for farm size, 1 for growing season precipitation, 2 for root zone soil water capacity, 3 for average slope, 4 for growing season mean temperature, and 5 for growing season diurnal range of temperature). To read the data, please use a GIS software such as ArcGIS or QGIS.

marginal land↗

Exploring the Impact of Near-Term Innovations on the Technical Potential of Land-Based Wind Energy

Land based wind may play a critical role in reaching emissions reductions goals and high renewable contribution scenarios with capacity expansion modeling results estimating over 1 terawatt of land-based wind by 2035 to reach 100% clean electricity. Deployment of land-based wind at this magnitude may require significant investments in transmission infrastructure and will require significant land area for new wind and transmission. Cost reductions via technological advancements in wind turbine design, construction, and maintenance will have a major role in enabling the scale of deployment required. Since 1998, the levelized cost of wind energy has fallen by over 60% due to improvements in capacity factors, advancements in turbine controls, and cost reductions in installation, operation, and maintenance. These cost reduction pathways, generally referred to as wind technology "innovations", have enabled significant increases in the capacity and electric generation share of wind power in the United States. Nevertheless, achievements of past wind innovations have not led to widespread wind deployment outside of high wind speed geographies. This study evaluates the potential of near-term innovations to expand the geographic range of economically viable land-based wind power production in the United States. Many challenges to future deployment of wind power can be associated with increasing concentration in high-wind areas. As more wind power is deployed in these same areas, it is likely that residential and regulatory resistance to further deployment will increase, access to transmission will diminish, and options for distant companies and governments with renewable energy goals will remain limited. Therefore, this analysis aims to emphasize the potential for innovations to enable land-based wind in regions with limited wind deployment and with lower wind resource and better access to transmission.

17 WIND ENERGY↗

An Accurate Vegetation and Non-Vegetation Differentiation Approach Based on Land Cover Classification

Accurate vegetation detection is important for many applications, such as crop yield estimation, land cover land use monitoring, urban growth monitoring, drought monitoring, etc. Popular conventional approaches to vegetation detection incorporate the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), which uses the red and near infrared (NIR) bands, and enhanced vegetation index (EVI), which uses red, NIR, and the blue bands. Although NDVI and EVI are efficient, their accuracies still have room for further improvement. In this paper, we propose a new approach to vegetation detection based on land cover classification. That is, we first perform an accurate classification of 15 or more land cover types. The land covers such as grass, shrub, and trees are then grouped into vegetation and other land cover types such as roads, buildings, etc. are grouped into non-vegetation. Similar to NDVI and EVI, only RGB and NIR bands are needed in our proposed approach. If Laser imaging, Detection, and Ranging (LiDAR) data are available, our approach can also incorporate LiDAR in the detection process. Results using a well-known dataset demonstrated that the proposed approach is feasible and achieves more accurate vegetation detection than both NDVI and EVI. In particular, a Support Vector Machine (SVM) approach performed 6% better than NDVI and 50% better than EVI in terms of overall accuracy (OA).

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Comprehensive Land Use and Environmental Stewardship

Comprehensive Land Use and Environmental Stewardship (CLUES) Report serves as a summary document of the land use and environmental stewardship activities occurring on the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) Site (Desert) and the Research and Education Campus (REC) within Idaho Falls. Land and facility use planning and decisions at the INL Site are guided by a comprehensive planning process in accordance with the United States (U.S.) Department of Energy (DOE) Order 430.1C, “Real Property Asset Management,” which states "Establish a data-driven, risk-informed, performance-based approach to the life-cycle management of real property assets that aligns the real property portfolio with DOE mission needs; acquire, manage, positively account for, and dispose of real property assets in a safe, secure, cost-effective, and sustainable manner; and ensure the real property portfolio is appropriately sized, aligned, and in the proper condition to support efficient mission execution." Land use planning, like Campus Master Planning and 5-Year Facility Planning, provides a means for better, more sustainable use of the INL Site in a coordinated effort to ensure current and future mission needs are met, including acquisition, recapitalization, maintenance, disposition, real property utilization and long-term stewardship. This document and all functions of INL are guided by the DOE Vision for INL and the INL Mission and builds on the baseline established in the FY 2015 CLUES Report. However, it delivers a revised structure with focus on new resource management zones, which provide organization of key management considerations and access restrictions to optimize land use and environmental stewardship. A new set of thematic Guiding Principles presented in this report provide the intent and sustainable management direction to protect the INL Site natural environment. They demonstrate that the mission and vision of DOE and INL can be realized with inclusion of first of a kind technology, private sector development, and globally recognized testing and demonstration. This CLUES Report encourages comprehensive management decision-making with additional resource discussions for sustainability, the built environment, and the ecological landscape at the INL Site. Enhanced resource considerations and trends emphasize the importance of air, land use, environmental, subsurface, and cultural resources. The INL Site supports exceptional and interdependent resources. A diversity of bat species are accommodated by culturally significant caves distributed around the Site. Big game species like elk, deer, and moose seek vegetation communities which are protected by long-term stewardship and monitoring programs.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗

The lay of the land: What we know about non-operating agricultural and absentee forest landowners in the U.S. and Europe

While non-operating agricultural and absentee forest landowners across the U.S. and Europe are an important group of landowners, our understanding of them remains relatively limited. In this paper, we conduct a systematic literature review on these landowners to encapsulate a current lay of the land in terms of what we know about these landowners and move the dialogue on this topic forward. Eighty-one articles are identified in our search of empirical literature. For each of the landowner types, we discuss their demographics and the three primary themes that emerged related to land management: participation in land management decisions, attitudes regarding land use and ownership, and resource needs in working with these landowners. For agricultural non-operating landowners, we find limited participation in land management decisions, particularly among women, a variety of individual and social factors play a role in involvement, and while they have pro-conservation attitudes, implementation of conservation practices is more limited. Absentee forest landowners we find are more willing to use management plans, yet less willing to engage in active management and risk reduction. These landowners have a range of attitudes regarding land use, with studies highlighting recreation, conservation, and profit motivations. In conclusion, our review concludes with identifying specific needs for more research and outreach on these landowners.

absentee↗

Northern Hemisphere Snow Drought in Earth System Model Simulations and ERA5‐Land Data in 1980–2014

Abstract Low snow levels over the past few decades and predictions of a low‐to‐no snow future have spurred research into snow droughts, which pose a threat to water security and management. Systematic data‐model comparisons of snow drought have been lacking, hindering our understanding of the drivers of snow drought in the past. To address this gap, we analyzed snow drought events using standardized snow water equivalent index derived from monthly results of four numerical experiments using the E3SM Land Model (ELM) and ERA5‐Land data during the period of 1980–2014. Additionally, we compared snow drought duration calculated from models with those from the ERA5‐Land data during selected El Niño‐Southern Oscillation (ENSO) years. The numerical experiments were conducted with ELM driven by two prescribed atmospheric forcings, and with the coupled land‐atmosphere configuration of E3SM with and without plant hydraulics scheme feedback. Analysis reveals that 20%–30% of snow droughts occur due to factors other than above‐normal temperature and low snowfall, such as low soil moisture, warm soil temperature, and low relative humidity, etc., especially in high latitudes (50° North). Furthermore, our study highlights the exacerbating effect of ENSO events on snow drought conditions in various regions, despite some discrepancies between model and ERA5‐Land results. We also identified limitations of the coupled land‐atmosphere models in our current configuration in capturing the spatial patterns of snow droughts. This study underscores the challenge of predicting and mitigating snow drought and the need for a comprehensive understanding of the factors contributing to snow drought.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Implementation and Evaluation of Emission‐Driven Land‐Atmosphere Coupled Simulation in E3SMv2.1

Emissions-driven (prognostic CO 2 ) simulations are essential for representing two-way carbon-climate feedback in Earth System Models. We present an emissions-driven land–atmosphere coupled biogeochemistry (BGC) configuration (BGCLNDATM_progCO2) in version 2.1 of the Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SMv2.1). This is the first E3SM configuration that performs land-atmosphere emission-hindcasts. Here, we document its implementation, evaluate the model's performance against observations and other models, and propose a structured evaluation protocol for such emissions-driven simulations. We conducted transient historical simulations (1850–2014) with BGCLNDATM_progCO2 and compare them to reference simulations—a land-atmosphere coupled simulation without BGC and a standalone land simulation with BGC, both using prescribed CO 2 concentrations—and to observations. BGCLNDATM_progCO2 overestimates atmospheric CO 2 concentrations by 11–23 ppm yet stays within the 40-ppm spread CMIP6 emission-driven models and retains physical climate properties comparable to the reference runs. The CO 2 biases are partly attributed to underrepresented oceanic CO 2 uptake and inadequate representations of some terrestrial processes. In general, introducing prognostic CO 2 did not change physical climate metrics at the global scale but had larger regional effects, particularly over land where spatially heterogeneous CO 2 and prognostic leaf area index influenced surface energy balance. Finally, we propose a general evaluation protocol including spin-up assessment, atmospheric CO 2 benchmarking, physical climate evaluation, and land biogeochemical analysis to support scientific rigor and facilitate inter-model comparisons. The new configuration lays the groundwork for future enhancements, including improved terrestrial biogeochemical processes, integrated marine biogeochemistry, and additional human–Earth system interactions. These developments advance E3SM toward fully coupled emissions-driven simulations, enabling more accurate carbon–climate feedback projections and informing mitigation policy by providing physically consistent carbon-budget metrics for mitigation scenarios.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Trade-offs in land-based carbon removal measures under 1.5 °C and 2 °C futures

Land-based carbon removals, specifically afforestation/reforestation and bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), vary widely in 1.5 °C and 2 °C scenarios generated by integrated assessment models. Because underlying drivers are difficult to assess, we use a well-known integrated assessment model, GCAM, to demonstrate that land-based carbon removals are sensitive to the strength and scope of land-based mitigation policies. We find that while cumulative afforestation/reforestation and BECCS deployment are inversely related, they are both typically part of cost-effective mitigation pathways, with forestry options deployed earlier. While the CO 2 removal intensity (removal per unit land) of BECCS is typically higher than afforestation/reforestation over long time horizons, the BECCS removal intensity is sensitive to feedstock and technology choices whereas the afforestation/reforestation removal intensity is sensitive to land policy choices. Finally, we find a generally positive relationship between agricultural prices and removal effectiveness of land-based mitigation, suggesting that some trade-offs may be difficult to avoid.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Fallowed agricultural lands dominate anthropogenic dust sources in California

Air pollution remains a major problem in many parts of California, significantly impacting public health and regional climate. However, the contribution of anthropogenic dust from agricultural sources, among major pollutants in California’s semi-arid Central Valley, remains largely unclear. Here, we used the Cropland Data Layer from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to identify crop types and land use/cover and leveraged satellite-derived estimates of major dust events between 2008 and 2022 over California. We identified fallowed land—an unplanted agricultural land parcel—as a key anthropogenic dust source in California. Specifically, we find that the Central Valley accounts for about 77% of total fallowed land areas in California, where they are associated with about 88% of major anthropogenic dust events. We also find that the geographic coverage of these fallowed lands expanded between 2008 and 2022 with associated increasing anthropogenic dust activities. Additionally, these anthropogenic dust activities are sensitive to the drought severity over the fallowed lands, with potential cumulative effects on downstream dust burden during prolonged multi-year drought conditions. Overall, our results have important implications for public health, including increased risk for Valley fever and for regional climates, such as increases in extreme precipitation and snowmelt over the Sierra Nevada.

Climate sciences↗