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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 19 records

Contribution of Tibetan Plateau ecosystems to local and remote precipitation through moisture recycling

The ecosystems of the Tibetan Plateau (TP) provide multiple important ecosystem services that benefit both local populations and those beyond, such as through climate regulation services on precipitation for East Asia and China. However, the precipitation regulation service of the TP ecosystems for supplying moisture and maintaining precipitation is yet to be evaluated. In this study, we used the moisture recycling framework and a moisture tracking model to quantify the precipitation regulation services of TP ecosystems for their contribution to precipitation. We found TP ecosystems contributed substantially to local and downwind precipitation, with a declined contribution from 221 mm/year for the TP and neighboring areas, to <10 mm/year for eastern China and other surrounding countries. Among ecosystem types, grassland contributed most to precipitation, followed by barren and snow lands, forests, and shrublands. In terms of seasonality, precipitation contribution from TP ecosystems was greater in summer months than in non-summer months for western China, while the opposite was true for eastern China – though the magnitude was much smaller. Over the past two decades, the significant evapotranspiration increases in TP translated to a widespread increase in precipitation contribution for TP and downwind beneficiary regions from 2000 to 2020. Our study provides a quantitative way to understand the precipitation regulation services of TP ecosystems through moisture recycling, substantiating their key role to safeguard precipitation and the water cycle for downwind regions– effectively acting as an ecological security shelter that could be perceived by the public.

Li, Yan↗

Summer mean and extreme precipitation over the Mid-Atlantic region: climatological characteristics and contributions from different precipitation types

Based on a long-term observational dataset from the tracking of mesoscale convective systems (MCSs), isolated deep convection (IDC), and tropical cyclones (TCs), we examine the climatological characteristics of summer mean and extreme precipitation during 2004 – 2017 and their respective contributions from MCS, IDC, TC, and non-convective (NC) systems and the local vs. remote influence of MCS and IDC over the MAR. On average, MCS, IDC, TC, and NC contribute 22%, 29%, 4%, and 45% to the total summer mean precipitation in the region. While MCS and TC precipitation primarily occurs in the coastal areas east of the Appalachian Mountains, IDC precipitation is more concentrated in the southern MAR and near the mountain windward slopes. Each summer, ~41 MCSs with an average lifetime of 19.6 hours influence the MAR, with 80% initiated outside and traveling on average 10 hours to the region. Around 13 MCSs initiated in the Great Plains and Midwest propagate across the Appalachian Mountains and contribute 20-40% to summer MCS precipitation in the central Mid-Atlantic coastal areas. In contrast, more than 2000 IDCs with an average lifetime of 2.0 hours influence the MAR each summer, and 77% are initiated locally. MCS, IDC, TC, and NC contribute 31% (30%), 26% (31%), 18% (7%), and 26% (32%) to the top 1% (5%) extreme daily precipitation, respectively. Considering extreme hourly precipitation, however, the IDC contributions increase to 41% (top 1%) and 38% (top 5%) due to the shorter duration of IDC events than the other precipitation types.

Li, Jianfeng↗

Virtual diffraction simulations using the quasi-coarse-grained dynamics method to understand and interpret plasticity contributions during in situ shock experiments

The dynamic deformation response of metallic materials has contributions from dislocations, deformation twinning, and plastic deformation. The current state-of-art techniques can detail the complex mechanistic history of deformation modes under shock loading in real-time using in situ X-ray diffraction (XRD). However, the capability of these experiments to unravel plasticity contributions is challenging due to limitations in interpreting results and the lack of validation from atomistic simulations. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations can successfully capture various deformation modes in metals and complement experiments using simulated diffractograms at various stages of evolution. However, the difference in length and time scales of MD simulations and experiments is a substantial obstacle in completing and interpreting in situ diffractograms. Therefore, the existing modeling methods require various approximations to model defect evolution and interaction at the mesoscales. However, while using approximations to correlate the peak broadening behavior to the density of dislocations or the shifts/splitting due to the presence of twins, the interpretations of the plasticity contributions from diffractograms are non-trivial, especially when multiple modes of deformation may be operating. This viewpoint discusses combining a mesoscale modeling method called quasi-coarse-grained dynamics and virtual XRD to characterize the plasticity contributions in BCC metals from slip, twinning, and phase transformation behavior. Furthermore, the combined approach shows promise in bridging the mesoscale gap between the capabilities of atomic-scale simulations and in situ experiments to characterize the dynamic deformation of materials.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Translation of "Contribution a l'etude du diagramme pression-temperature du beryllium pur" (Contribution to the Study of the Pressure-Temperature Diagram of Pure Beryllium)

An unusual feature of beryllium’s phase diagram is the transition from a hexagonal close packed (hcp, or α) to a body-centered cubic (bcc, or β) structure ~20 K below the normal melting temperature of T melt ≈ 1560 K. An early thermal analysis of 99.7% pure Be found two arrests1 : one at 1533-1536 K and another at 1551-1557 K. Without ruling out an allotropic transformation in Be itself, Sloman attributed the first of these to solidification of a Be-BeO eutectic. Losano observed only the higher of the two in 99.962% Be, seeming to confirm the notion that the lower feature was an artifact of impurity. Teitel (99.4%) also measured two arrests and attributed the lower to impurity, but questioned whether oxygen was the culprit.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Chemical contributions to silicon anode calendar aging are dominant over mechanical contributions

Silicon (Si) anodes are a promising candidate for increasing the energy density of lithium (Li)-ion batteries for electric vehicles. However, they have recently been identified as having poor calendar life that is insufficient for commercial needs, in addition to the well-known issue of their poor cycle life resulting from large volume expansion. Here, a specially designed protocol with variable rest periods between intermittent cycling is used to evaluate the impact of the mechanical disruption of Si and solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) from cycling on calendar aging measurements. Si was found to undergo more mechanical degradation during calendar aging with intermittent cycling than graphite. However, Si anode capacity fade was still dominated by time, especially for rest periods greater than or equal to 1 month between cycling. Postmortem dQ/dV half-cell analysis indicated this was mainly due to Li inventory loss and an increase in electrode resistance. Isothermal microcalorimetry further demonstrated that Si passivation is more disrupted than graphite passivation with intermittent cycling and suggested that there may be a chemical buildup of a detrimental species in the electrolyte, leading to a large spike in heat after the Si and SEI are disrupted by cycling.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗

Inferring the Contribution of Microbial Taxa and Organic Matter Molecular Formulas to Ecological Assembly

Understanding the mechanisms underlying the assembly of communities has long been the goal of many ecological studies. While several studies have evaluated community wide ecological assembly, fewer have focused on investigating the impacts of individual members within a community or assemblage on ecological assembly. Here, we adapted a previous null model β-nearest taxon index (βNTI) to measure the contribution of individual features within an ecological community to overall assembly. This new metric, called feature-level βNTI (βNTI feat ), enables researchers to determine whether ecological features (e.g., individual microbial taxa) contribute to divergence, convergence, or have insignificant impacts across spatiotemporally resolved metacommunities or meta-assemblages. Using βNTI feat , we revealed that unclassified microbial lineages often contributed to community divergence while diverse groups (e.g., Crenarchaeota, Alphaproteobacteria, and Gammaproteobacteria) contributed to convergence. We also demonstrate that βNTI feat can be extended to other ecological assemblages such as organic molecules comprising organic matter (OM) pools. OM had more inconsistent trends compared to the microbial community though CHO-containing molecular formulas often contributed to convergence, while nitrogen and phosphorus-containing formulas contributed to both convergence and divergence. A network analysis was used to relate βNTI feat values from the putatively active microbial community and the OM assemblage and examine potentially common contributions to ecological assembly across different communities/assemblages. This analysis revealed that P-containing formulas often contributed to convergence/divergence separately from other ecological features and N-containing formulas often contributed to assembly in coordination with microorganisms. Additionally, members of Family Geobacteraceae were often observed to contribute to convergence/divergence in conjunction with both N- and P-containing formulas, suggesting a coordinated ecological role for family members and the nitrogen/phosphorus cycle. Overall, we show that βNTI feat offers opportunities to investigate the community or assemblage members, which shape the phylogenetic or functional landscape, and demonstrate the potential to evaluate potential points of coordination across various community types.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

Water-Leaving Contribution to Polarized Radiation Field Over Ocean

The top-of-atmosphere (TOA) radiation field from a coupled atmosphere-ocean system (CAOS) includes contributions from the atmosphere, surface, and water body. Atmo-spheric correction of ocean color imagery is to retrieve water-leaving radiance from the TOA measurement, from which ocean bio-optical properties can be obtained. Knowledge of the ab-solute and relative magnitudes of water-leaving signal in the TOA radiation field is important for designing new atmospheric correction algorithms and developing retrieval algorithms for new ocean biogeochemical parameters. In this paper we present a systematic sensitivity study of water-leaving contribution to the TOA radiation field, from 340 nm to 865 nm, with polarization included. Ocean water inherent optical properties are derived from bio-optical models for two kinds of waters, one dominated by phytoplankton (PDW) and the other by non-algae particles (NDW). In addition to elastic scattering, Raman scattering and fluorescence from dissolved organic matter in ocean waters are included. Our sensitivity study shows that the polarized reflectance is minimized for both CAOS and ocean signals in the backscattering half plane, which leads to numerical instability when calculating water leaving relative contribution, the ratio between polarized water leaving and CAOS signals. If the backscattering plane is excluded, the water-leaving polarized signal contributes less than 9% to the TOA polarized reflectance for PDW in the whole spectra. For NDW, the polarized water leaving contribution can be as much as 20% in the wavelength range from 470 to 670 nm. For wavelengths shorter than 452 nm or longer than 865 nm, the water leaving contribution to the TOA polarized reflectance is in general smaller than 5% for NDW. For the TOA total reflectance, the water-leaving contribution has maximum values ranging from 7% to 16% at variable wavelengths from 400 nm to 550 nm from PDW. The water leaving contribution to the TOA total reflectance can be as large as 35%for NDW, which is in general peaked at 550 nm. Both the total and polarized reflectances from water-leaving contributions approach zero in the ultraviolet and near infrared bands. These facts can be used as constraints or guidelines when estimating the water leaving contribution to the TOA reflectance for new atmospheric correction algorithms for ocean color imagery.

inelastic scatterin↗