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Results for “radiation absorption”

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
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2020

Accelerated Snowmelt Protocol to Simulate Climate Change Induced Impacts on Snowpack Dependent Ecosystems

Field studies that simulate the effects of climate change are important for a predictive understanding of ecosystem responses to a changing environment. Among many concerns, regional warming can result in advanced timing of spring snowmelt in snowpack dependent ecosystems, which could lead to longer snow-free periods and drier summer soils. Past studies investigating these impacts of climate change have manipulated snowmelt with a variety of techniques that include manual snowpack alteration with a shovel, infrared radiation, black sand and fabric covers. Within these studies however, sufficient documentation of methods is limited, which can make experimental reproduction difficult. Here, we outline a detailed plot-scale protocol that utilizes a permeable black geotextile fabric deployed on top of an isothermal spring snowpack to induce advanced snowmelt. The method offers a reliable and cost-effective approach to induce snowmelt by passively increasing solar radiation absorption at the snow surface. In addition, control configurations with no snowpack manipulation are paired adjacent to the induced snowmelt plot for experimental comparison. Past and ongoing deployments in Colorado subalpine ecosystems indicate that this approach can accelerate snowmelt by 14-23 days, effectively mimicking snowmelt timing at lower elevations. This protocol can be applied to a variety of studies to understand the hydrological, ecological, and geochemical impacts of regional warming in snowpack dependent ecosystems.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2026

Dust semi-direct effects: low-level cloud response to free-tropospheric dust-induced longwave radiation over the North Atlantic Ocean

Aerosol semi-direct effect is the adjustment of the radiative budget due to the cloud response to radiation absorption. Although dust accounts for about a third of aerosols' shortwave absorption, our understanding of its semi-direct effect often relies on traditional shortwave-focused mechanisms previously established for biomass-burning aerosols, and implications of dust longwave absorption on clouds have yet to be explored. Here, we assess the low-level cloud cover (LLCC) response to changes in properties and characteristics of the free-tropospheric dust layer over the North Atlantic Ocean (May–August, 2007–2017). We find that, consistent with previous studies, LLCC typically responds positively (increases in clouds) to an overlying dust layer. However, this response weakens with increasing dust optical depth (DOD), dust geometric thickness (DGT), and dust-layer base height (DBH). Specifically, we find that the LLCC response weakens by 4.3 ± 1.04 % and 1.6 ± 0.65 %, respectively, for a one-standard-deviation increase in DOD and DGT, and a smaller response to DBH (0.19 ± 0.45 %). We also find that the weakened LLCC response is primarily due to enhanced dust-induced longwave-dominated cloud-top warming, which counteracts the mean cloud-top cooling by as much as 19 % (mean of 9 %). Sensitivity analysis further indicates that the variability in dust properties, influenced by dust size distribution and refractive index, dominates the changes in dust-induced cloud-top warming, rather than variabilities in cloud properties or thermodynamic profiles. Our result adds to the traditional understanding of LLCC enhancement through shortwave-driven atmospheric stability, often associated with aerosol semi-direct effects, and highlights the role of dust-induced cloud-top longwave warming in dust semi-direct effects.

Pandey, Satyendra K. [Univ. of California, Merced,↗
DOE OSTI2026

Leveraging machine learning to enhance aerosol classification using Single-Particle Mass Spectrometry

Advancing automated classification of atmospheric aerosols from Single-Particle Mass Spectrometry (SPMS) data remains challenging due to overlapping ion signatures, compositional diversity, and limited labeled data. This study evaluates supervised and semi-supervised learning frameworks to enhance aerosol identification by jointly leveraging labeled and unlabeled spectra. Four models were compared: a supervised Support Vector Machine (SVM), a self-training SVM, a stacked autoencoder classifier, and a stacked autoencoder trained using a temporal-ensembling Mean Teacher approach. All models achieved high and stable accuracies (90.0 %–91.1 %), surpassing previous results on the same dataset (87 %) and matching the performance of state-of-the-art deep learning methods. Despite small global metric differences (≤ 1 %), semi-supervised variants yielded up to 5 %–10 % improvements for compositionally rare particle types – such as soot (0.77 % of spectra, F1-score: 0.93–0.97) and hazelnut pollen (0.98 % of spectra, F1-score: 0.97–1.00) – equating to roughly ∼ 187 additional correctly classified spectra. These gains are scientifically significant, as such rare particles exert disproportionate influence on radiative absorption and ice nucleation processes; their improved detection reduces modeled uncertainties in aerosol absorption optical depth and mixed-phase cloud ice nucleation rates. The models' residual misclassifications (≈ 9 %) largely arise from true spectral overlap among chemically adjacent species (e.g., Na- vs. K-feldspar, coated vs. uncoated feldspars), reflecting physical compositional continuity rather than algorithmic error. Collectively, these findings demonstrate that leveraging unlabeled data to learn robust spectral representations and refine classification enhances both fidelity and interpretability, bridging data-driven analysis with aerosol–climate process understanding.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
NASA NTRS1962

RE-ENTRY MATERIALS

The major requirement for a re-entry material is that it protect the vehicle from the aerodynamic heating associated with re-entry. A relatively short time ago, the term re-entry brought to mind a ballistic type trajectory and its characteristic heat pulse. Today, however, a variety of thermal re-entry conditions are common due to the various types of vehicles currently of interest. Extremes of re-entry heating-time conditions vary from the relatively low heat flux-long time pulse associated with glide and shallow orbital re-entries through high flux-short time ballistic re-entry to the very high heat flux-moderate time pulse associated with super orbital re-entry. Materials for providing thermal protection, therefore, vary considerably depending upon the type of reentry heat-time pulse. From a functional standpoint, thermal protection materials may be divided into two types; absorptive and radiative. The absorptive material dissipates heat by storage (heat sink) or mass transfer and chemical change (ablation, transpiration or sublimation).

Thermal protection↗
NASA NTRS1968

The expansion of H II regions.

H II regions expansion around O, B and A stars due to interstellar hydrogen ionization by stellar radiation absorption

Axford, W. I.↗
NASA NTRS1973

System statistical reliability model and analysis

A digital computer code was developed to simulate the time-dependent behavior of the 5-kwe reactor thermoelectric system. The code was used to determine lifetime sensitivity coefficients for a number of system design parameters, such as thermoelectric module efficiency and degradation rate, radiator absorptivity and emissivity, fuel element barrier defect constant, beginning-of-life reactivity, etc. A probability distribution (mean and standard deviation) was estimated for each of these design parameters. Then, error analysis was used to obtain a probability distribution for the system lifetime (mean = 7.7 years, standard deviation = 1.1 years). From this, the probability that the system will achieve the design goal of 5 years lifetime is 0.993. This value represents an estimate of the degradation reliability of the system.

Lekach, V. S.↗
NASA NTRS1973

Theory for radiatively driven harmonic acoustic waves in a confined gas.

A detailed theoretical study is made of radiatively driven acoustic waves inside a closed cylindrical tube. The formulation accounts for all the essential phenomena for a gas in vibrational equilibrium - namely, gas motion, longitudinal and radial viscous dissipation, longitudinal and radial heat conduction, and radiative transfer with spectral detail included. An approximate expression is derived for the pressure response. This solution is applicable to arbitrary spectral distribution of the radiative absorption coefficient, under conditions attainable in the laboratory. The solution includes both tuned and untuned acoustic conditions as well as the spectrophone limit - that is, the condition where the length of the tube is much smaller than the length of the acoustic wave. The influence of spectral detail on the pressure response is illustrated.

Chapman, G. T.↗
NASA NTRS1974

On possible interactions between upper and lower atmosphere

Comparison of geomagnetic data with data on tropospheric and stratospheric circulation characteristics shows a statistically highly significant shrinking in areal extent of the stratospheric vortex from the third to the eight day following a geomagnetic storm. During the contraction of the polar vortex edge, the mean height of the vortex central contour decreases only slightly. This indicates that a stratospheric warming event is associated with a steepening of the contour gradient rather than a warming over the entire area of the stratospheric polar vortex. The troposphere reacts to these weak, but nevertheless significant stratospheric warming events by a shrinkage of the area of the 500-mb cold air pool. It is shown that the observed warming of the stratosphere that follows a geomagnetically disturbed key day cannot be explained by simple radiation absorption.

Macdonald, B. C.↗
NASA NTRS1974

Radiative transfer of visible radiation in turbid atmosphere

Methods are presented for solving radiative transfer problems; they include the doubling method and the closely related matrix method, iterative method, Chandrasekhar's method of discrete ordinates, and Monte Carlo method. To consider radiation transport through turbid atmosphere, an atmospheric model was developed characterizing aerosols by parameters. Intensity and polarization of radiation in turbid atmospheres is discussed, as well as lower atmospheric heating due to solar radiation absorption by aerosols.

Yamamoto, G.↗
NASA NTRS1974

Isotope alpha irradiators for radiobiological research

Radiation absorption is considered for the case where the isotopic alpha source, in the form of a flat disk, and the axially located biological object, also in the form of a flat disk, are separated by a layer of gas. Frequently the biological object is covered by a polymer film with minimal thickness for protection against radioactive contaminants. The energy of the alpha particle is calculated at the place where the absorbed dose is determined, taking into account loss of energy in air, film and tissue. The level of energy is determined by the specific loss in energy of the alpha particle arriving from the point source to a point at the biological subject.

Drasher, V.↗
NASA NTRS1975

Some procedures for computerized electronic data processing of absorption measurements from artificial earth satellites

The processing of data obtained from solar absorption radiation measurements is discussed. The position of the satellite was obtained by numerical integration of the differential equations of motion using initial conditions. The position of the sun was calculated as a function of time, and the tangential elevation was determined approximately from the positions of the satellite and the sun. The coefficients of an approximation formula and of a data smoothing process were determined, and the inversion of an Abel integral equation is solved analytically.

Trinkkeller, B.↗