The Earth System Prediction Suite: Toward a Coordinated U.S. Modeling Capability

Science.gov (United States)

Theurich, Gerhard; DeLuca, C.; Campbell, T.; Liu, F.; Saint, K.; Vertenstein, M.; Chen, J.; Oehmke, R.; Doyle, J.; Whitcomb, T.;

Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM) Project Strategy

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bader, D. [Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)

2017-09-18

The E3SM project will assert and maintain an international scientific leadership position in the development of Earth system and climate models at the leading edge of scientific knowledge and computational capabilities. With its collaborators, it will demonstrate its leadership by using these models to achieve the goal of designing, executing, and analyzing climate and Earth system simulations that address the most critical scientific questions for the nation and DOE.

Modeling Sustainability: Population, Inequality, Consumption, and Bidirectional Coupling of the Earth and Human Systems

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Motesharrei, Safa; Rivas, Jorge; Kalnay, Eugenia; Asrar, Ghassem R.; Busalacchi, Antonio J.; Cahalan, Robert F.; Cane, Mark A.; Colwell, Rita R.; Feng, Kuishuang; Franklin, Rachel S.; Hubacek, Klaus; Miralles-Wilhelm, Fernando; Miyoshi, Takemasa; Ruth, Matthias; Sagdeev, Roald; Shirmohammadi, Adel; Shukla, Jagadish; Srebric, Jelena; Yakovenko, Victor M.; Zeng, Ning

2016-12-11

Over the last two centuries, the impact of the Human System has grown dramatically, becoming strongly dominant within the Earth System in many different ways. Consumption, inequality, and population have increased extremely fast, especially since about 1950, threatening to overwhelm the many critical functions and ecosystems of the Earth System. Changes in the Earth System, in turn, have important feedback effects on the Human System, with costly and potentially serious consequences. However, current models do not incorporate these critical feedbacks. We argue that in order to understand the dynamics of either system, Earth System Models must be coupled with Human System Models through bidirectional couplings representing the positive, negative, and delayed feedbacks that exist in the real systems. In particular, key Human System variables, such as demographics, inequality, economic growth, and migration, are not coupled with the Earth System but are instead driven by exogenous estimates, such as United Nations population projections. This makes current models likely to miss important feedbacks in the real Earth–Human system, especially those that may result in unexpected or counterintuitive outcomes, and thus requiring different policy interventions from current models. The importance and imminence of sustainability challenges, the dominant role of the Human System in the Earth System, and the essential roles the Earth System plays for the Human System, all call for collaboration of natural scientists, social scientists, and engineers in multidisciplinary research and modeling to develop coupled Earth–Human system models for devising effective science-based policies and measures to benefit current and future generations.

Next generation framework for aquatic modeling of the Earth System

Science.gov (United States)

Fekete, B. M.; Wollheim, W. M.; Wisser, D.; Vörösmarty, C. J.

2009-03-01

Earth System model development is becoming an increasingly complex task. As scientists attempt to represent the physical and bio-geochemical processes and various feedback mechanisms in unprecedented detail, the models themselves are becoming increasingly complex. At the same time, the complexity of the surrounding IT infrastructure is growing as well. Earth System models must manage a vast amount of data in heterogeneous computing environments. Numerous development efforts are on the way to ease that burden and offer model development platforms that reduce IT challenges and allow scientists to focus on their science. While these new modeling frameworks (e.g. FMS, ESMF, CCA, OpenMI) do provide solutions to many IT challenges (performing input/output, managing space and time, establishing model coupling, etc.), they are still considerably complex and often have steep learning curves. The Next generation Framework for Aquatic Modeling of the Earth System (NextFrAMES, a revised version of FrAMES) have numerous similarities to those developed by other teams, but represents a novel model development paradigm. NextFrAMES is built around a modeling XML that lets modelers to express the overall model structure and provides an API for dynamically linked plugins to represent the processes. The model XML is executed by the NextFrAMES run-time engine that parses the model definition, loads the module plugins, performs the model I/O and executes the model calculations. NextFrAMES has a minimalistic view representing spatial domains and treats every domain (regardless of its layout such as grid, network tree, individual points, polygons, etc.) as vector of objects. NextFrAMES performs computations on multiple domains and interactions between different spatial domains are carried out through couplers. NextFrAMES allows processes to operate at different frequencies by providing rudimentary aggregation and disaggregation facilities. NextFrAMES was designed primarily for

2012 Community Earth System Model (CESM) Tutorial - Proposal to DOE

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Holland, Marika [National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO (United States); Bailey, David A [National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO (United States)

2013-03-18

The Community Earth System Model (CESM) is a fully-coupled, global climate model that provides state-of-the-art computer simulations of the Earth's past, present, and future climate states. This document provides the agenda and list of participants for the conference. Web materials for all lectures and practical sessions available from: http://www.cesm.ucar.edu/events/tutorials/073012/ .

Development and application of earth system models.

Science.gov (United States)

Prinn, Ronald G

2013-02-26

The global environment is a complex and dynamic system. Earth system modeling is needed to help understand changes in interacting subsystems, elucidate the influence of human activities, and explore possible future changes. Integrated assessment of environment and human development is arguably the most difficult and most important "systems" problem faced. To illustrate this approach, we present results from the integrated global system model (IGSM), which consists of coupled submodels addressing economic development, atmospheric chemistry, climate dynamics, and ecosystem processes. An uncertainty analysis implies that without mitigation policies, the global average surface temperature may rise between 3.5 °C and 7.4 °C from 1981-2000 to 2091-2100 (90% confidence limits). Polar temperatures, absent policy, are projected to rise from about 6.4 °C to 14 °C (90% confidence limits). Similar analysis of four increasingly stringent climate mitigation policy cases involving stabilization of greenhouse gases at various levels indicates that the greatest effect of these policies is to lower the probability of extreme changes. The IGSM is also used to elucidate potential unintended environmental consequences of renewable energy at large scales. There are significant reasons for attention to climate adaptation in addition to climate mitigation that earth system models can help inform. These models can also be applied to evaluate whether "climate engineering" is a viable option or a dangerous diversion. We must prepare young people to address this issue: The problem of preserving a habitable planet will engage present and future generations. Scientists must improve communication if research is to inform the public and policy makers better.

Presentation, calibration and validation of the low-order, DCESS Earth System Model

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Shaffer, G.; Olsen, S. Malskaer; Pedersen, Jens Olaf Pepke

2008-01-01

A new, low-order Earth system model is described, calibrated and tested against Earth system data. The model features modules for the atmosphere, ocean, ocean sediment, land biosphere and lithosphere and has been designed to simulate global change on time scales of years to millions of years...... remineralization. The lithosphere module considers outgassing, weathering of carbonate and silicate rocks and weathering of rocks containing old organic carbon and phosphorus. Weathering rates are related to mean atmospheric temperatures. A pre-industrial, steady state calibration to Earth system data is carried...

The Australian Computational Earth Systems Simulator

Science.gov (United States)

Mora, P.; Muhlhaus, H.; Lister, G.; Dyskin, A.; Place, D.; Appelbe, B.; Nimmervoll, N.; Abramson, D.

2001-12-01

Numerical simulation of the physics and dynamics of the entire earth system offers an outstanding opportunity for advancing earth system science and technology but represents a major challenge due to the range of scales and physical processes involved, as well as the magnitude of the software engineering effort required. However, new simulation and computer technologies are bringing this objective within reach. Under a special competitive national funding scheme to establish new Major National Research Facilities (MNRF), the Australian government together with a consortium of Universities and research institutions have funded construction of the Australian Computational Earth Systems Simulator (ACcESS). The Simulator or computational virtual earth will provide the research infrastructure to the Australian earth systems science community required for simulations of dynamical earth processes at scales ranging from microscopic to global. It will consist of thematic supercomputer infrastructure and an earth systems simulation software system. The Simulator models and software will be constructed over a five year period by a multi-disciplinary team of computational scientists, mathematicians, earth scientists, civil engineers and software engineers. The construction team will integrate numerical simulation models (3D discrete elements/lattice solid model, particle-in-cell large deformation finite-element method, stress reconstruction models, multi-scale continuum models etc) with geophysical, geological and tectonic models, through advanced software engineering and visualization technologies. When fully constructed, the Simulator aims to provide the software and hardware infrastructure needed to model solid earth phenomena including global scale dynamics and mineralisation processes, crustal scale processes including plate tectonics, mountain building, interacting fault system dynamics, and micro-scale processes that control the geological, physical and dynamic

Representing Reservoir Stratification in Land Surface and Earth System Models

Science.gov (United States)

Yigzaw, W.; Li, H. Y.; Leung, L. R.; Hejazi, M. I.; Voisin, N.; Payn, R. A.; Demissie, Y.

2017-12-01

A one-dimensional reservoir stratification modeling has been developed as part of Model for Scale Adaptive River Transport (MOSART), which is the river transport model used in the Accelerated Climate Modeling for Energy (ACME) and Community Earth System Model (CESM). Reservoirs play an important role in modulating the dynamic water, energy and biogeochemical cycles in the riverine system through nutrient sequestration and stratification. However, most earth system models include lake models that assume a simplified geometry featuring a constant depth and a constant surface area. As reservoir geometry has important effects on thermal stratification, we developed a new algorithm for deriving generic, stratified area-elevation-storage relationships that are applicable at regional and global scales using data from Global Reservoir and Dam database (GRanD). This new reservoir geometry dataset is then used to support the development of a reservoir stratification module within MOSART. The mixing of layers (energy and mass) in the reservoir is driven by eddy diffusion, vertical advection, and reservoir inflow and outflow. Upstream inflow into a reservoir is treated as an additional source/sink of energy, while downstream outflow represented a sink. Hourly atmospheric forcing from North American Land Assimilation System (NLDAS) Phase II and simulated daily runoff by ACME land component are used as inputs for the model over the contiguous United States for simulations between 2001-2010. The model is validated using selected observed temperature profile data in a number of reservoirs that are subject to various levels of regulation. The reservoir stratification module completes the representation of riverine mass and heat transfer in earth system models, which is a major step towards quantitative understanding of human influences on the terrestrial hydrological, ecological and biogeochemical cycles.

New earth system model for optical performance evaluation of space instruments.

Science.gov (United States)

Ryu, Dongok; Kim, Sug-Whan; Breault, Robert P

2017-03-06

In this study, a new global earth system model is introduced for evaluating the optical performance of space instruments. Simultaneous imaging and spectroscopic results are provided using this global earth system model with fully resolved spatial, spectral, and temporal coverage of sub-models of the Earth. The sun sub-model is a Lambertian scattering sphere with a 6-h scale and 295 lines of solar spectral irradiance. The atmospheric sub-model has a 15-layer three-dimensional (3D) ellipsoid structure. The land sub-model uses spectral bidirectional reflectance distribution functions (BRDF) defined by a semi-empirical parametric kernel model. The ocean is modeled with the ocean spectral albedo after subtracting the total integrated scattering of the sun-glint scatter model. A hypothetical two-mirror Cassegrain telescope with a 300-mm-diameter aperture and 21.504 mm × 21.504-mm focal plane imaging instrument is designed. The simulated image results are compared with observational data from HRI-VIS measurements during the EPOXI mission for approximately 24 h from UTC Mar. 18, 2008. Next, the defocus mapping result and edge spread function (ESF) measuring result show that the distance between the primary and secondary mirror increases by 55.498 μm from the diffraction-limited condition. The shift of the focal plane is determined to be 5.813 mm shorter than that of the defocused focal plane, and this result is confirmed through the estimation of point spread function (PSF) measurements. This study shows that the earth system model combined with an instrument model is a powerful tool that can greatly help the development phase of instrument missions.

A Community Framework for Integrative, Coupled Modeling of Human-Earth Systems

Science.gov (United States)

Barton, C. M.; Nelson, G. C.; Tucker, G. E.; Lee, A.; Porter, C.; Ullah, I.; Hutton, E.; Hoogenboom, G.; Rogers, K. G.; Pritchard, C.

2017-12-01

We live today in a humanized world, where critical zone dynamics are driven by coupled human and biophysical processes. First generation modeling platforms have been invaluable in providing insight into dynamics of biophysical systems and social systems. But to understand today's humanized planet scientifically and to manage it sustainably, we need integrative modeling of this coupled human-Earth system. To address both scientific and policy questions, we also need modeling that can represent variable combinations of human-Earth system processes at multiple scales. Simply adding more code needed to do this to large, legacy first generation models is impractical, expensive, and will make them even more difficult to evaluate or understand. We need an approach to modeling that mirrors and benefits from the architecture of the complexly coupled systems we hope to model. Building on a series of international workshops over the past two years, we present a community framework to enable and support an ecosystem of diverse models as components that can be interconnected as needed to facilitate understanding of a range of complex human-earth systems interactions. Models are containerized in Docker to make them platform independent. A Basic Modeling Interface and Standard Names ontology (developed by the Community Surface Dynamics Modeling System) is applied to make them interoperable. They are then transformed into RESTful micro-services to allow them to be connected and run in a browser environment. This enables a flexible, multi-scale modeling environment to help address diverse issues with combinations of smaller, focused, component models that are easier to understand and evaluate. We plan to develop, deploy, and maintain this framework for integrated, coupled modeling in an open-source collaborative development environment that can democratize access to advanced technology and benefit from diverse global participation in model development. We also present an initial

Technical Note: The Modular Earth Submodel System (MESSy - a new approach towards Earth System Modeling

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

P. Jöckel

2005-01-01

Full Text Available The development of a comprehensive Earth System Model (ESM to study the interactions between chemical, physical, and biological processes, requires coupling of the different domains (land, ocean, atmosphere, .... One strategy is to link existing domain-specific models with a universal coupler, i.e. an independent standalone program organizing the communication between other programs. In many cases, however, a much simpler approach is more feasible. We have developed the Modular Earth Submodel System (MESSy. It comprises (1 a modular interface structure to connect to a , (2 an extendable set of such for miscellaneous processes, and (3 a coding standard. MESSy is therefore not a coupler in the classical sense, but exchanges data between a and several within one comprehensive executable. The internal complexity of the is controllable in a transparent and user friendly way. This provides remarkable new possibilities to study feedback mechanisms (by two-way coupling. Note that the MESSy and the coupler approach can be combined. For instance, an atmospheric model implemented according to the MESSy standard could easily be coupled to an ocean model by means of an external coupler. The vision is to ultimately form a comprehensive ESM which includes a large set of submodels, and a base model which contains only a central clock and runtime control. This can be reached stepwise, since each process can be included independently. Starting from an existing model, process submodels can be reimplemented according to the MESSy standard. This procedure guarantees the availability of a state-of-the-art model for scientific applications at any time of the development. In principle, MESSy can be implemented into any kind of model, either global or regional. So far, the MESSy concept has been applied to the general circulation model ECHAM5 and a number of process boxmodels.

Facilitating the Easy Use of Earth Observation Data in Earth System Models through CyberConnector

Science.gov (United States)

Di, L.; Sun, Z.; Zhang, C.

2017-12-01

Earth system models (ESM) are an important tool used to understand the Earth system and predict its future states. On other hand, Earth observations (EO) provides the current state of the system. EO data are very useful in ESM initialization, verification, validation, and inter-comparison. However, EO data often cannot directly be consumed by ESMs because of the syntactic and semantic mismatches between EO products and ESM requirements. In order to remove the mismatches, scientists normally spend long time to customize EO data for ESM consumption. CyberConnector, a NSF EarthCube building block, is intended to automate the data customization so that scientists can be relieved from the laborious EO data customization. CyberConnector uses web-service-based geospatial processing models (GPM) as the mechanism to automatically customize the EO data into the right products in the right form needed by ESMs. It can support many different ESMs through its standard interfaces. It consists of seven modules: GPM designer, GPM binder, GPM runner, GPM monitor, resource register, order manager, and result display. In CyberConnector, EO data instances and GPMs are independent and loosely coupled. A modeler only needs to create a GPM in the GMP designer for EO data customization. Once the modeler specifies a study area, the designed GPM will be activated and take the temporal and spatial extents as constraints to search the data sources and customize the available EO data into the ESM-acceptable form. The execution of GMP is completely automatic. Currently CyberConnector has been fully developed. In order to validate the feasibility, flexibility, and ESM independence of CyberConnector, three ESMs from different geoscience disciplines, including the Cloud-Resolving Model (CRM), the Finite Volume Coastal Ocean Model (FVCOM), and the Community Multiscale Air Quality Model (CMAQ), have been experimented with CyberConnector through closely collaborating with modelers. In the experiment

AMOC decadal variability in Earth system models: Mechanisms and climate impacts

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Fedorov, Alexey [Yale Univ., New Haven, CT (United States)

2017-09-06

This is the final report for the project titled "AMOC decadal variability in Earth system models: Mechanisms and climate impacts". The central goal of this one-year research project was to understand the mechanisms of decadal and multi-decadal variability of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) within a hierarchy of climate models ranging from realistic ocean GCMs to Earth system models. The AMOC is a key element of ocean circulation responsible for oceanic transport of heat from low to high latitudes and controlling, to a large extent, climate variations in the North Atlantic. The questions of the AMOC stability, variability and predictability, directly relevant to the questions of climate predictability, were at the center of the research work.

Collaborative Project. Mode and Intermediate Waters in Earth System Models

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Sarmiento, Jorge L. [Princeton Univ., NJ (United States); Dufour, Carolina [Princeton Univ., NJ (United States); Rodgers, Keith B. [Princeton Univ., NJ (United States)

2015-12-16

The focus of this grant was on diagnosing the physical mechanisms controlling upper ocean water mass formation and carbon distribution in Earth System Models (ESMs), with the goal of improving the physics that controls their formation.

Historical and idealized climate model experiments: an intercomparison of Earth system models of intermediate complexity

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Eby, M.; Weaver, A. J.; Alexander, K.

2013-01-01

Both historical and idealized climate model experiments are performed with a variety of Earth system models of intermediate complexity (EMICs) as part of a community contribution to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment Report. Historical simulations start at 850 CE...... and continue through to 2005. The standard simulations include changes in forcing from solar luminosity, Earth's orbital configuration, CO2, additional greenhouse gases, land use, and sulphate and volcanic aerosols. In spite of very different modelled pre-industrial global surface air temperatures, overall 20...

Dynamics of global vegetation biomass simulated by the integrated Earth System Model

Science.gov (United States)

Mao, J.; Shi, X.; Di Vittorio, A. V.; Thornton, P. E.; Piao, S.; Yang, X.; Truesdale, J. E.; Bond-Lamberty, B. P.; Chini, L. P.; Thomson, A. M.; Hurtt, G. C.; Collins, W.; Edmonds, J.

2014-12-01

The global vegetation biomass stores huge amounts of carbon and is thus important to the global carbon budget (Pan et al., 2010). For the past few decades, different observation-based estimates and modeling of biomass in the above- and below-ground vegetation compartments have been comprehensively conducted (Saatchi et al., 2011; Baccini et al., 2012). However, uncertainties still exist, in particular for the simulation of biomass magnitude, tendency, and the response of biomass to climatic conditions and natural and human disturbances. The recently successful coupling of the integrated Earth System Model (iESM) (Di Vittorio et al., 2014; Bond-Lamberty et al., 2014), which links the Global Change Assessment Model (GCAM), Global Land-use Model (GLM), and Community Earth System Model (CESM), offers a great opportunity to understand the biomass-related dynamics in a fully-coupled natural and human modeling system. In this study, we focus on the systematic analysis and evaluation of the iESM simulated historical (1850-2005) and future (2006-2100) biomass changes and the response of the biomass dynamics to various impact factors, in particular the human-induced Land Use/Land Cover Change (LULCC). By analyzing the iESM simulations with and without the interactive LULCC feedbacks, we further study how and where the climate feedbacks affect socioeconomic decisions and LULCC, such as to alter vegetation carbon storage. References Pan Y et. al: A large and persistent carbon sink in the World's forests. Science 2011, 333:988-993. Saatchi SS et al: Benchmark map of forest carbon stocks in tropical regions across three continents. Proc Natl Acad Sci 2011, 108:9899-9904. Baccini A et al: Estimated carbon dioxide emissions from tropical deforestation improved by carbon-density maps. Nature Clim Change 2012, 2:182-185. Di Vittorio AV et al: From land use to land cover: restoring the afforestation signal in a coupled integrated assessment-earth system model and the implications for

Student Learning of Complex Earth Systems: Conceptual Frameworks of Earth Systems and Instructional Design

Science.gov (United States)

Scherer, Hannah H.; Holder, Lauren; Herbert, Bruce

2017-01-01

Engaging students in authentic problem solving concerning environmental issues in near-surface complex Earth systems involves both developing student conceptualization of Earth as a system and applying that scientific knowledge using techniques that model those used by professionals. In this first paper of a two-part series, we review the state of…

Models meet data: Challenges and opportunities in implementing land management in Earth system models.

Science.gov (United States)

Pongratz, Julia; Dolman, Han; Don, Axel; Erb, Karl-Heinz; Fuchs, Richard; Herold, Martin; Jones, Chris; Kuemmerle, Tobias; Luyssaert, Sebastiaan; Meyfroidt, Patrick; Naudts, Kim

2018-04-01

As the applications of Earth system models (ESMs) move from general climate projections toward questions of mitigation and adaptation, the inclusion of land management practices in these models becomes crucial. We carried out a survey among modeling groups to show an evolution from models able only to deal with land-cover change to more sophisticated approaches that allow also for the partial integration of land management changes. For the longer term a comprehensive land management representation can be anticipated for all major models. To guide the prioritization of implementation, we evaluate ten land management practices-forestry harvest, tree species selection, grazing and mowing harvest, crop harvest, crop species selection, irrigation, wetland drainage, fertilization, tillage, and fire-for (1) their importance on the Earth system, (2) the possibility of implementing them in state-of-the-art ESMs, and (3) availability of required input data. Matching these criteria, we identify "low-hanging fruits" for the inclusion in ESMs, such as basic implementations of crop and forestry harvest and fertilization. We also identify research requirements for specific communities to address the remaining land management practices. Data availability severely hampers modeling the most extensive land management practice, grazing and mowing harvest, and is a limiting factor for a comprehensive implementation of most other practices. Inadequate process understanding hampers even a basic assessment of crop species selection and tillage effects. The need for multiple advanced model structures will be the challenge for a comprehensive implementation of most practices but considerable synergy can be gained using the same structures for different practices. A continuous and closer collaboration of the modeling, Earth observation, and land system science communities is thus required to achieve the inclusion of land management in ESMs. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

A radiometric model of an earth radiation budget radiometer optical system with diffuse-specular surfaces

Science.gov (United States)

Luther, M. R.

1981-01-01

The Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) is to fly on NASA's Earth Radiation Budget Satellite (ERBS) and on NOAA F and NOAA G. Large spatial scale earth energy budget data will be derived primarily from measurements made by the ERBE nonscanning instrument (ERBE-NS). A description is given of a mathematical model capable of simulating the radiometric response of any of the ERBE-NS earth viewing channels. The model uses a Monte Carlo method to accurately account for directional distributions of emission and reflection from optical surfaces which are neither strictly diffuse nor strictly specular. The model computes radiation exchange factors among optical system components, and determines the distribution in the optical system of energy from an outside source. Attention is also given to an approach for implementing the model and results obtained from the implementation.

Toward an in-situ analytics and diagnostics framework for earth system models

Science.gov (United States)

Anantharaj, Valentine; Wolf, Matthew; Rasch, Philip; Klasky, Scott; Williams, Dean; Jacob, Rob; Ma, Po-Lun; Kuo, Kwo-Sen

2017-04-01

The development roadmaps for many earth system models (ESM) aim for a globally cloud-resolving model targeting the pre-exascale and exascale systems of the future. The ESMs will also incorporate more complex physics, chemistry and biology - thereby vastly increasing the fidelity of the information content simulated by the model. We will then be faced with an unprecedented volume of simulation output that would need to be processed and analyzed concurrently in order to derive the valuable scientific results. We are already at this threshold with our current generation of ESMs at higher resolution simulations. Currently, the nominal I/O throughput in the Community Earth System Model (CESM) via Parallel IO (PIO) library is around 100 MB/s. If we look at the high frequency I/O requirements, it would require an additional 1 GB / simulated hour, translating to roughly 4 mins wallclock / simulated-day => 24.33 wallclock hours / simulated-model-year => 1,752,000 core-hours of charge per simulated-model-year on the Titan supercomputer at the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility. There is also a pending need for 3X more volume of simulation output . Meanwhile, many ESMs use instrument simulators to run forward models to compare model simulations against satellite and ground-based instruments, such as radars and radiometers. The CFMIP Observation Simulator Package (COSP) is used in CESM as well as the Accelerated Climate Model for Energy (ACME), one of the ESMs specifically targeting current and emerging leadership-class computing platforms These simulators can be computationally expensive, accounting for as much as 30% of the computational cost. Hence the data are often written to output files that are then used for offline calculations. Again, the I/O bottleneck becomes a limitation. Detection and attribution studies also use large volume of data for pattern recognition and feature extraction to analyze weather and climate phenomenon such as tropical cyclones

An improved Rosetta pedotransfer function and evaluation in earth system models

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Y.; Schaap, M. G.

2017-12-01

Soil hydraulic parameters are often difficult and expensive to measure, leading to the pedotransfer functions (PTFs) an alternative to predict those parameters. Rosetta (Schaap et al., 2001, denoted as Rosetta1) are widely used PTFs, which is based on artificial neural network (ANN) analysis coupled with the bootstrap re-sampling method, allowing the estimation of van Genuchten water retention parameters (van Genuchten, 1980, abbreviated here as VG), saturated hydraulic conductivity (Ks), as well as their uncertainties. We present an improved hierarchical pedotransfer functions (Rosetta3) that unify the VG water retention and Ks submodels into one, thus allowing the estimation of uni-variate and bi-variate probability distributions of estimated parameters. Results show that the estimation bias of moisture content was reduced significantly. Rosetta1 and Posetta3 were implemented in the python programming language, and the source code are available online. Based on different soil water retention equations, there are diverse PTFs used in different disciplines of earth system modelings. PTFs based on Campbell [1974] or Clapp and Hornberger [1978] are frequently used in land surface models and general circulation models, while van Genuchten [1980] based PTFs are more widely used in hydrology and soil sciences. We use an independent global scale soil database to evaluate the performance of diverse PTFs used in different disciplines of earth system modelings. PTFs are evaluated based on different soil characteristics and environmental characteristics, such as soil textural data, soil organic carbon, soil pH, as well as precipitation and soil temperature. This analysis provides more quantitative estimation error information for PTF predictions in different disciplines of earth system modelings.

On the Tidal Evolution of the Earth-Moon System: A Cosmological Model

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Arbab A. I.

2009-01-01

Full Text Available We have presented a cosmological model for the tidal evolution of the Earth-Moon system. We have found that the expansion of the universe has immense consequences on our local systems. The model can be compared with the present observational data. The close approach problem inflicting the known tidal theory is averted in this model. We have also shown that the astronomical and geological changes of our local systems are of the order of Hubble constant.

Mode and Intermediate Waters in Earth System Models

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Gnanadesikan, Anand [Johns Hopkins Univ., Baltimore, MD (United States); Sarmiento, Jorge L. [Princeton Univ., NJ (United States)

2015-12-22

This report describes work done as part of a joint Princeton-Johns Hopkins project to look at the impact of mode and intermediate waters in Earth System Models. The Johns Hopkins portion of this work focussed on the role of lateral mixing in ventilating such waters, with important implications for hypoxia, the uptake of anthropogenic carbon, the dynamics of El Nino and carbon pumps. The Johns Hopkins group also collaborated with the Princeton Group to help develop a watermass diagnostics framework.

Climate Science: How Earth System Models are Reshaping the Science Policy Interface.

Science.gov (United States)

Ruane, Alex

2015-01-01

This talk is oriented at a general audience including the largest French utility company, and will describe the basics of climate change before moving into emissions scenarios and agricultural impacts that we can test with our earth system models and impacts models.

Towards representing human behavior and decision making in Earth system models. An overview of techniques and approaches

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Müller-Hansen, Finn; Schlüter, Maja; Maes, Michael; Donges, Jonathan F.; Kolb, Jakob J.; Thonicke, Kirsten; Heitzig, Jobst

2017-01-01

Today, humans have a critical impact on the Earth system and vice versa, which can generate complex feedback processes between social and ecological dynamics. Integrating human behavior into formal Earth system models (ESMs), however, requires crucial modeling assumptions about actors and their

Earth system modelling on system-level heterogeneous architectures: EMAC (version 2.42) on the Dynamical Exascale Entry Platform (DEEP)

Science.gov (United States)

Christou, Michalis; Christoudias, Theodoros; Morillo, Julián; Alvarez, Damian; Merx, Hendrik

2016-09-01

We examine an alternative approach to heterogeneous cluster-computing in the many-core era for Earth system models, using the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts Hamburg (ECHAM)/Modular Earth Submodel System (MESSy) Atmospheric Chemistry (EMAC) model as a pilot application on the Dynamical Exascale Entry Platform (DEEP). A set of autonomous coprocessors interconnected together, called Booster, complements a conventional HPC Cluster and increases its computing performance, offering extra flexibility to expose multiple levels of parallelism and achieve better scalability. The EMAC model atmospheric chemistry code (Module Efficiently Calculating the Chemistry of the Atmosphere (MECCA)) was taskified with an offload mechanism implemented using OmpSs directives. The model was ported to the MareNostrum 3 supercomputer to allow testing with Intel Xeon Phi accelerators on a production-size machine. The changes proposed in this paper are expected to contribute to the eventual adoption of Cluster-Booster division and Many Integrated Core (MIC) accelerated architectures in presently available implementations of Earth system models, towards exploiting the potential of a fully Exascale-capable platform.

Freva - Freie Univ Evaluation System Framework for Scientific Infrastructures in Earth System Modeling

Science.gov (United States)

Kadow, Christopher; Illing, Sebastian; Kunst, Oliver; Schartner, Thomas; Kirchner, Ingo; Rust, Henning W.; Cubasch, Ulrich; Ulbrich, Uwe

2016-04-01

The Freie Univ Evaluation System Framework (Freva - freva.met.fu-berlin.de) is a software infrastructure for standardized data and tool solutions in Earth system science. Freva runs on high performance computers to handle customizable evaluation systems of research projects, institutes or universities. It combines different software technologies into one common hybrid infrastructure, including all features present in the shell and web environment. The database interface satisfies the international standards provided by the Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF). Freva indexes different data projects into one common search environment by storing the meta data information of the self-describing model, reanalysis and observational data sets in a database. This implemented meta data system with its advanced but easy-to-handle search tool supports users, developers and their plugins to retrieve the required information. A generic application programming interface (API) allows scientific developers to connect their analysis tools with the evaluation system independently of the programming language used. Users of the evaluation techniques benefit from the common interface of the evaluation system without any need to understand the different scripting languages. Facilitation of the provision and usage of tools and climate data automatically increases the number of scientists working with the data sets and identifying discrepancies. The integrated web-shell (shellinabox) adds a degree of freedom in the choice of the working environment and can be used as a gate to the research projects HPC. Plugins are able to integrate their e.g. post-processed results into the database of the user. This allows e.g. post-processing plugins to feed statistical analysis plugins, which fosters an active exchange between plugin developers of a research project. Additionally, the history and configuration sub-system stores every analysis performed with the evaluation system in a database

Freva - Freie Univ Evaluation System Framework for Scientific HPC Infrastructures in Earth System Modeling

Science.gov (United States)

Kadow, C.; Illing, S.; Schartner, T.; Grieger, J.; Kirchner, I.; Rust, H.; Cubasch, U.; Ulbrich, U.

2017-12-01

The Freie Univ Evaluation System Framework (Freva - freva.met.fu-berlin.de) is a software infrastructure for standardized data and tool solutions in Earth system science (e.g. www-miklip.dkrz.de, cmip-eval.dkrz.de). Freva runs on high performance computers to handle customizable evaluation systems of research projects, institutes or universities. It combines different software technologies into one common hybrid infrastructure, including all features present in the shell and web environment. The database interface satisfies the international standards provided by the Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF). Freva indexes different data projects into one common search environment by storing the meta data information of the self-describing model, reanalysis and observational data sets in a database. This implemented meta data system with its advanced but easy-to-handle search tool supports users, developers and their plugins to retrieve the required information. A generic application programming interface (API) allows scientific developers to connect their analysis tools with the evaluation system independently of the programming language used. Users of the evaluation techniques benefit from the common interface of the evaluation system without any need to understand the different scripting languages. The integrated web-shell (shellinabox) adds a degree of freedom in the choice of the working environment and can be used as a gate to the research projects HPC. Plugins are able to integrate their e.g. post-processed results into the database of the user. This allows e.g. post-processing plugins to feed statistical analysis plugins, which fosters an active exchange between plugin developers of a research project. Additionally, the history and configuration sub-system stores every analysis performed with the evaluation system in a database. Configurations and results of the tools can be shared among scientists via shell or web system. Furthermore, if configurations match

Harnessing Big Data to Represent 30-meter Spatial Heterogeneity in Earth System Models

Science.gov (United States)

Chaney, N.; Shevliakova, E.; Malyshev, S.; Van Huijgevoort, M.; Milly, C.; Sulman, B. N.

2016-12-01

Terrestrial land surface processes play a critical role in the Earth system; they have a profound impact on the global climate, food and energy production, freshwater resources, and biodiversity. One of the most fascinating yet challenging aspects of characterizing terrestrial ecosystems is their field-scale (˜30 m) spatial heterogeneity. It has been observed repeatedly that the water, energy, and biogeochemical cycles at multiple temporal and spatial scales have deep ties to an ecosystem's spatial structure. Current Earth system models largely disregard this important relationship leading to an inadequate representation of ecosystem dynamics. In this presentation, we will show how existing global environmental datasets can be harnessed to explicitly represent field-scale spatial heterogeneity in Earth system models. For each macroscale grid cell, these environmental data are clustered according to their field-scale soil and topographic attributes to define unique sub-grid tiles. The state-of-the-art Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) land model is then used to simulate these tiles and their spatial interactions via the exchange of water, energy, and nutrients along explicit topographic gradients. Using historical simulations over the contiguous United States, we will show how a robust representation of field-scale spatial heterogeneity impacts modeled ecosystem dynamics including the water, energy, and biogeochemical cycles as well as vegetation composition and distribution.

A New Discrete Element Sea-Ice Model for Earth System Modeling

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Turner, Adrian Keith [Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)

2017-03-10

Sea ice forms a frozen crust of sea water oating in high-latitude oceans. It is a critical component of the Earth system because its formation helps to drive the global thermohaline circulation, and its seasonal waxing and waning in the high north and Southern Ocean signi cantly affects planetary albedo. Usually 4{6% of Earth's marine surface is covered by sea ice at any one time, which limits the exchange of heat, momentum, and mass between the atmosphere and ocean in the polar realms. Snow accumulates on sea ice and inhibits its vertical growth, increases its albedo, and contributes to pooled water in melt ponds that darken the Arctic ice surface in the spring. Ice extent and volume are subject to strong seasonal, inter-annual and hemispheric variations, and climatic trends, which Earth System Models (ESMs) are challenged to simulate accurately (Stroeve et al., 2012; Stocker et al., 2013). This is because there are strong coupled feedbacks across the atmosphere-ice-ocean boundary layers, including the ice-albedo feedback, whereby a reduced ice cover leads to increased upper ocean heating, further enhancing sea-ice melt and reducing incident solar radiation re ected back into the atmosphere (Perovich et al., 2008). A reduction in perennial Arctic sea-ice during the satellite era has been implicated in mid-latitude weather changes, including over North America (Overland et al., 2015). Meanwhile, most ESMs have been unable to simulate observed inter-annual variability and trends in Antarctic sea-ice extent during the same period (Gagne et al., 2014).

Four-dimensional model assimilation of data: a strategy for the earth system sciences

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Panel on Model-Assimilated Data Sets for Atmospheric and Oceanic Research, National Research Council

1991-01-01

... of model assimilation technology and new applications, and identifies the pressing national need in the 1990s - to manage and utilize effectively the overwhelming volume of earth system data already...

Steering operational synergies in terrestrial observation networks: opportunity for advancing Earth system dynamics modelling

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

R. Baatz

2018-05-01

Full Text Available Advancing our understanding of Earth system dynamics (ESD depends on the development of models and other analytical tools that apply physical, biological, and chemical data. This ambition to increase understanding and develop models of ESD based on site observations was the stimulus for creating the networks of Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER, Critical Zone Observatories (CZOs, and others. We organized a survey, the results of which identified pressing gaps in data availability from these networks, in particular for the future development and evaluation of models that represent ESD processes, and provide insights for improvement in both data collection and model integration. From this survey overview of data applications in the context of LTER and CZO research, we identified three challenges: (1 widen application of terrestrial observation network data in Earth system modelling, (2 develop integrated Earth system models that incorporate process representation and data of multiple disciplines, and (3 identify complementarity in measured variables and spatial extent, and promoting synergies in the existing observational networks. These challenges lead to perspectives and recommendations for an improved dialogue between the observation networks and the ESD modelling community, including co-location of sites in the existing networks and further formalizing these recommendations among these communities. Developing these synergies will enable cross-site and cross-network comparison and synthesis studies, which will help produce insights around organizing principles, classifications, and general rules of coupling processes with environmental conditions.

Steering operational synergies in terrestrial observation networks: opportunity for advancing Earth system dynamics modelling

Science.gov (United States)

Baatz, Roland; Sullivan, Pamela L.; Li, Li; Weintraub, Samantha R.; Loescher, Henry W.; Mirtl, Michael; Groffman, Peter M.; Wall, Diana H.; Young, Michael; White, Tim; Wen, Hang; Zacharias, Steffen; Kühn, Ingolf; Tang, Jianwu; Gaillardet, Jérôme; Braud, Isabelle; Flores, Alejandro N.; Kumar, Praveen; Lin, Henry; Ghezzehei, Teamrat; Jones, Julia; Gholz, Henry L.; Vereecken, Harry; Van Looy, Kris

2018-05-01

Advancing our understanding of Earth system dynamics (ESD) depends on the development of models and other analytical tools that apply physical, biological, and chemical data. This ambition to increase understanding and develop models of ESD based on site observations was the stimulus for creating the networks of Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER), Critical Zone Observatories (CZOs), and others. We organized a survey, the results of which identified pressing gaps in data availability from these networks, in particular for the future development and evaluation of models that represent ESD processes, and provide insights for improvement in both data collection and model integration. From this survey overview of data applications in the context of LTER and CZO research, we identified three challenges: (1) widen application of terrestrial observation network data in Earth system modelling, (2) develop integrated Earth system models that incorporate process representation and data of multiple disciplines, and (3) identify complementarity in measured variables and spatial extent, and promoting synergies in the existing observational networks. These challenges lead to perspectives and recommendations for an improved dialogue between the observation networks and the ESD modelling community, including co-location of sites in the existing networks and further formalizing these recommendations among these communities. Developing these synergies will enable cross-site and cross-network comparison and synthesis studies, which will help produce insights around organizing principles, classifications, and general rules of coupling processes with environmental conditions.

PanEurasian Experiment (PEEX): Modelling Platform for Earth System Observations and Forecasting

Science.gov (United States)

Baklanov, Alexander; Mahura, Alexander; Penenko, Vladimir; Zilitinkevich, Sergej; Kulmala, Markku

2014-05-01

As the part of the PEEX initiative, for the purpose of supporting the PEEX observational system and answering on the PEEX scientific questions, a hierarchy/ framework of modern multi-scale models for different elements of the Earth System integrated with the observation system is needed. One of the acute topics in the international debate on land-atmosphere interactions in relation to global change is the Earth System Modeling (ESM). The question is whether the ESM components actually represent how the Earth is functioning. The ESMs consist of equations describing the processes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere, terrestrial and marine biosphere. ESMs are the best tools for analyzing the effect of different environmental changes on future climate or for studying the role of whole processes in the Earth System. These types of analysis and prediction of the future change are especially important in the Arctic latitudes, where climate change is proceeding fastest and where near-surface warming has been about twice the global average during the recent decades. The processes, and hence parameterization, in ESMs are still based on insufficient knowledge of physical, chemical and biological mechanisms involved in the climate system and the resolution of known processes is insufficient. Global scale modeling of land-atmosphere-ocean interactions using ESMs provides a way to explore the influence of spatial and temporal variation in the activities of land system and on climate. There is a lack, however, ways to forward a necessary process understanding effectively to ESMs and to link all this to the decision-making process. Arctic-boreal geographical domain plays significant role in terms of green-house gases and anthropogenic emissions and as an aerosol source area in the Earth System. The PEEX Modelling Platform (PEEX-MP) is characterized by: • An ensemble approach with the integration of modelling results from different models/ countries etc.; • A hierarchy of

8 years of experience in international, interdisciplinary and structured doctoral training in Earth system modelling

Science.gov (United States)

Weitz, Antje; Stevens, Bjorn; Marotzke, Jochem

2010-05-01

The mission of the International Max Planck Research School on Earth System Modelling (IMPRS-ESM) is to provide a high quality, modern and structured graduate education to students pursuing a doctoral degree in Earth system modelling. In so doing, the IMPRS-ESM also strives to advance the emerging discipline (or cross-discipline) of Earth system modelling; to provide a framework for attracting the most talented and creative young women and men from around the world to pursue their doctoral education in Germany; to provide advanced as well as specialized academic training and scientific guidance to doctoral students; to encourage academic networking and publication of research results; to better integrate doctoral research at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology (MPI-M) with education and research at the University of Hamburg and other cooperating institutions. Core elements are rigorous selection of doctoral students, effective academic supervision, advanced academic training opportunities and interdisciplinary communication as well as administrative support. IMPRS-ESM graduates have been recognized with a variety of awards. 85% of our alumni continue a career in research. In this presentation we review the challenges for an interdisciplinary PhD program in Earth system sciences and the types of routines we have implemented to surmount them as well as key elements that we believe contribute to the success of our doctoral program.

The computational future for climate and Earth system models: on the path to petaflop and beyond.

Science.gov (United States)

Washington, Warren M; Buja, Lawrence; Craig, Anthony

2009-03-13

The development of the climate and Earth system models has had a long history, starting with the building of individual atmospheric, ocean, sea ice, land vegetation, biogeochemical, glacial and ecological model components. The early researchers were much aware of the long-term goal of building the Earth system models that would go beyond what is usually included in the climate models by adding interactive biogeochemical interactions. In the early days, the progress was limited by computer capability, as well as by our knowledge of the physical and chemical processes. Over the last few decades, there has been much improved knowledge, better observations for validation and more powerful supercomputer systems that are increasingly meeting the new challenges of comprehensive models. Some of the climate model history will be presented, along with some of the successes and difficulties encountered with present-day supercomputer systems.

Global Analysis, Interpretation and Modelling: An Earth Systems Modelling Program

Science.gov (United States)

Moore, Berrien, III; Sahagian, Dork

1997-01-01

The Goal of the GAIM is: To advance the study of the coupled dynamics of the Earth system using as tools both data and models; to develop a strategy for the rapid development, evaluation, and application of comprehensive prognostic models of the Global Biogeochemical Subsystem which could eventually be linked with models of the Physical-Climate Subsystem; to propose, promote, and facilitate experiments with existing models or by linking subcomponent models, especially those associated with IGBP Core Projects and with WCRP efforts. Such experiments would be focused upon resolving interface issues and questions associated with developing an understanding of the prognostic behavior of key processes; to clarify key scientific issues facing the development of Global Biogeochemical Models and the coupling of these models to General Circulation Models; to assist the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) process by conducting timely studies that focus upon elucidating important unresolved scientific issues associated with the changing biogeochemical cycles of the planet and upon the role of the biosphere in the physical-climate subsystem, particularly its role in the global hydrological cycle; and to advise the SC-IGBP on progress in developing comprehensive Global Biogeochemical Models and to maintain scientific liaison with the WCRP Steering Group on Global Climate Modelling.

A Scalable and Extensible Earth System Model for Climate Change Science

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Gent, Peter; Lamarque, Jean-Francois; Conley, Andrew; Vertenstein, Mariana; Craig, Anthony

2013-02-13

The objective of this award was to build a scalable and extensible Earth System Model that can be used to study climate change science. That objective has been achieved with the public release of the Community Earth System Model, version 1 (CESM1). In particular, the development of the CESM1 atmospheric chemistry component was substantially funded by this award, as was the development of the significantly improved coupler component. The CESM1 allows new climate change science in areas such as future air quality in very large cities, the effects of recovery of the southern hemisphere ozone hole, and effects of runoff from ice melt in the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. Results from a whole series of future climate projections using the CESM1 are also freely available via the web from the CMIP5 archive at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Many research papers using these results have now been published, and will form part of the 5th Assessment Report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which is to be published late in 2013.

Development of hybrid 3-D hydrological modeling for the NCAR Community Earth System Model (CESM)

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Zeng, Xubin [Univ. of Arizona, Tucson, AZ (United States); Troch, Peter [Univ. of Arizona, Tucson, AZ (United States); Pelletier, Jon [Univ. of Arizona, Tucson, AZ (United States); Niu, Guo-Yue [Univ. of Arizona, Tucson, AZ (United States); Gochis, David [NCAR Research Applications Lab., Boulder, CO (United States)

2015-11-15

This is the Final Report of our four-year (3-year plus one-year no cost extension) collaborative project between the University of Arizona (UA) and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). The overall objective of our project is to develop and evaluate the first hybrid 3-D hydrological model with a horizontal grid spacing of 1 km for the NCAR Community Earth System Model (CESM).

Journal of Earth System Science | Indian Academy of Sciences

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Keywords. Earth system model; Greenland; Antarctica; ice sheet; climate dynamics; surface mass balance. Abstract. Elaboration of a modern Earth system model (ESM) requires incorporation of ice sheet dynamics. Coupling of an ice sheet model (ICM) to an AOGCM is complicated by essential differences in spatial and ...

One model to fit all? The pursuit of integrated earth system models in GAIM and AIMES

OpenAIRE

Uhrqvist, Ola

2015-01-01

Images of Earth from space popularized the view of our planet as a single, fragile entity against the vastness and darkness of space. In the 1980s, the International Geosphere-Biosphere Program (IGBP) was set up to produce a predictive understanding of this fragile entity as the ‘Earth System.’ In order to do so, the program sought to create a common research framework for the different disciplines involved. It suggested that integrated numerical models could provide such a framework. The pap...

Fire in the Earth System: Bridging data and modeling research

Science.gov (United States)

Hantson, Srijn; Kloster, Silvia; Coughlan, Michael; Daniau, Anne-Laure; Vanniere, Boris; Bruecher, Tim; Kehrwald, Natalie; Magi, Brian I.

2016-01-01

Significant changes in wildfire occurrence, extent, and severity in areas such as western North America and Indonesia in 2015 have made the issue of fire increasingly salient in both the public and scientific spheres. Biomass combustion rapidly transforms land cover, smoke pours into the atmosphere, radiative heat from fires initiates dramatic pyrocumulus clouds, and the repeated ecological and atmospheric effects of fire can even impact regional and global climate. Furthermore, fires have a significant impact on human health, livelihoods, and social and economic systems.Modeling and databased methods to understand fire have rapidly coevolved over the past decade. Satellite and ground-based data about present-day fire are widely available for applications in research and fire management. Fire modeling has developed in part because of the evolution in vegetation and Earth system modeling efforts, but parameterizations and validation are largely focused on the present day because of the availability of satellite data. Charcoal deposits in sediment cores have emerged as a powerful method to evaluate trends in biomass burning extending back to the Last Glacial Maximum and beyond, and these records provide a context for present-day fire. The Global Charcoal Database version 3 compiled about 700 charcoal records and more than 1,000 records are expected for the future version 4. Together, these advances offer a pathway to explore how the strengths of fire data and fire modeling could address the weaknesses in the overall understanding of human-climate–fire linkages.A community of researchers studying fire in the Earth system with individual expertise that included paleoecology, paleoclimatology, modern ecology, archaeology, climate, and Earth system modeling, statistics, geography, biogeochemistry, and atmospheric science met at an intensive workshop in Massachusetts to explore new research directions and initiate new collaborations. Research themes, which emerged from

Introducing Multisensor Satellite Radiance-Based Evaluation for Regional Earth System Modeling

Science.gov (United States)

Matsui, T.; Santanello, J.; Shi, J. J.; Tao, W.-K.; Wu, D.; Peters-Lidard, C.; Kemp, E.; Chin, M.; Starr, D.; Sekiguchi, M.;

Student Learning of Complex Earth Systems: A Model to Guide Development of Student Expertise in Problem-Solving

Science.gov (United States)

Holder, Lauren N.; Scherer, Hannah H.; Herbert, Bruce E.

2017-01-01

Engaging students in problem-solving concerning environmental issues in near-surface complex Earth systems involves developing student conceptualization of the Earth as a system and applying that scientific knowledge to the problems using practices that model those used by professionals. In this article, we review geoscience education research…

Evaluating Land-Atmosphere Moisture Feedbacks in Earth System Models With Spaceborne Observations

Science.gov (United States)

Levine, P. A.; Randerson, J. T.; Lawrence, D. M.; Swenson, S. C.

2016-12-01

We have developed a set of metrics for measuring the feedback loop between the land surface moisture state and the atmosphere globally on an interannual time scale. These metrics consider both the forcing of terrestrial water storage (TWS) on subsequent atmospheric conditions as well as the response of TWS to antecedent atmospheric conditions. We designed our metrics to take advantage of more than one decade's worth of satellite observations of TWS from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) along with atmospheric variables from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS), the Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP), and Clouds and the Earths Radiant Energy System (CERES). Metrics derived from spaceborne observations were used to evaluate the strength of the feedback loop in the Community Earth System Model (CESM) Large Ensemble (LENS) and in several models that contributed simulations to Phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5). We found that both forcing and response limbs of the feedback loop were generally stronger in tropical and temperate regions in CMIP5 models and even more so in LENS compared to satellite observations. Our analysis suggests that models may overestimate the strength of the feedbacks between the land surface and the atmosphere, which is consistent with previous studies conducted across different spatial and temporal scales.

Observation and integrated Earth-system science: A roadmap for 2016-2025

Science.gov (United States)

Simmons, Adrian; Fellous, Jean-Louis; Ramaswamy, Venkatachalam; Trenberth, Kevin; Asrar, Ghassem; Balmaseda, Magdalena; Burrows, John P.; Ciais, Philippe; Drinkwater, Mark; Friedlingstein, Pierre; Gobron, Nadine; Guilyardi, Eric; Halpern, David; Heimann, Martin; Johannessen, Johnny; Levelt, Pieternel F.; Lopez-Baeza, Ernesto; Penner, Joyce; Scholes, Robert; Shepherd, Ted

2016-05-01

This report is the response to a request by the Committee on Space Research of the International Council for Science to prepare a roadmap on observation and integrated Earth-system science for the coming ten years. Its focus is on the combined use of observations and modelling to address the functioning, predictability and projected evolution of interacting components of the Earth system on timescales out to a century or so. It discusses how observations support integrated Earth-system science and its applications, and identifies planned enhancements to the contributing observing systems and other requirements for observations and their processing. All types of observation are considered, but emphasis is placed on those made from space. The origins and development of the integrated view of the Earth system are outlined, noting the interactions between the main components that lead to requirements for integrated science and modelling, and for the observations that guide and support them. What constitutes an Earth-system model is discussed. Summaries are given of key cycles within the Earth system. The nature of Earth observation and the arrangements for international coordination essential for effective operation of global observing systems are introduced. Instances are given of present types of observation, what is already on the roadmap for 2016-2025 and some of the issues to be faced. Observations that are organised on a systematic basis and observations that are made for process understanding and model development, or other research or demonstration purposes, are covered. Specific accounts are given for many of the variables of the Earth system. The current status and prospects for Earth-system modelling are summarized. The evolution towards applying Earth-system models for environmental monitoring and prediction as well as for climate simulation and projection is outlined. General aspects of the improvement of models, whether through refining the

Design strategies for human & earth systems modeling to meet emerging multi-scale decision support needs

Science.gov (United States)

Spak, S.; Pooley, M.

2012-12-01

The next generation of coupled human and earth systems models promises immense potential and grand challenges as they transition toward new roles as core tools for defining and living within planetary boundaries. New frontiers in community model development include not only computational, organizational, and geophysical process questions, but also the twin objectives of more meaningfully integrating the human dimension and extending applicability to informing policy decisions on a range of new and interconnected issues. We approach these challenges by posing key policy questions that require more comprehensive coupled human and geophysical models, identify necessary model and organizational processes and outputs, and work backwards to determine design criteria in response to these needs. We find that modular community earth system model design must: * seamlessly scale in space (global to urban) and time (nowcasting to paleo-studies) and fully coupled on all component systems * automatically differentiate to provide complete coupled forward and adjoint models for sensitivity studies, optimization applications, and 4DVAR assimilation across Earth and human observing systems * incorporate diagnostic tools to quantify uncertainty in couplings, and in how human activity affects them * integrate accessible community development and application with JIT-compilation, cloud computing, game-oriented interfaces, and crowd-sourced problem-solving We outline accessible near-term objectives toward these goals, and describe attempts to incorporate these design objectives in recent pilot activities using atmosphere-land-ocean-biosphere-human models (WRF-Chem, IBIS, UrbanSim) at urban and regional scales for policy applications in climate, energy, and air quality.

Topology of sustainable management in dynamical Earth system models with desirable states

Science.gov (United States)

Heitzig, J.; Kittel, T.

2015-03-01

To keep the Earth system in a desirable region of its state space, such as the recently suggested "tolerable environment and development window", "planetary boundaries", or "safe (and just) operating space", one not only needs to understand the quantitative internal dynamics of the system and the available options for influencing it (management), but also the structure of the system's state space with regard to certain qualitative differences. Important questions are: which state space regions can be reached from which others with or without leaving the desirable region? Which regions are in a variety of senses "safe" to stay in when management options might break away, and which qualitative decision problems may occur as a consequence of this topological structure? In this article, as a complement to the existing literature on optimal control which is more focussed on quantitative optimization and is much applied in both the engineering and the integrated assessment literature, we develop a mathematical theory of the qualitative topology of the state space of a dynamical system with management options and desirable states. We suggest a certain terminology for the various resulting regions of the state space and perform a detailed formal classification of the possible states with respect to the possibility of avoiding or leaving the undesired region. Our results indicate that before performing some form of quantitative optimization, the sustainable management of the Earth system may require decisions of a more discrete type that come in the form of several dilemmata, e.g., choosing between eventual safety and uninterrupted desirability, or between uninterrupted safety and increasing flexibility. We illustrate the concepts and dilemmata with conceptual models from classical mechanics, climate science, ecology, economics, and coevolutionary Earth system modelling and discuss their potential relevance for the climate and sustainability debate.

Fostering Team Awareness in Earth System Modeling Communities

Science.gov (United States)

Easterbrook, S. M.; Lawson, A.; Strong, S.

2009-12-01

Existing Global Climate Models are typically managed and controlled at a single site, with varied levels of participation by scientists outside the core lab. As these models evolve to encompass a wider set of earth systems, this central control of the modeling effort becomes a bottleneck. But such models cannot evolve to become fully distributed open source projects unless they address the imbalance in the availability of communication channels: scientists at the core site have access to regular face-to-face communication with one another, while those at remote sites have access to only a subset of these conversations - e.g. formally scheduled teleconferences and user meetings. Because of this imbalance, critical decision making can be hidden from many participants, their code contributions can interact in unanticipated ways, and the community loses awareness of who knows what. We have documented some of these problems in a field study at one climate modeling centre, and started to develop tools to overcome these problems. We report on one such tool, TracSNAP, which analyzes the social network of the scientists contributing code to the model by extracting the data in an existing project code repository. The tool presents the results of this analysis to modelers and model users in a number of ways: recommendation for who has expertise on particular code modules, suggestions for code sections that are related to files being worked on, and visualizations of team communication patterns. The tool is currently available as a plugin for the Trac bug tracking system.

Developing an Earth system Inverse model for the Earth's energy and water budgets.

Science.gov (United States)

Haines, K.; Thomas, C.; Liu, C.; Allan, R. P.; Carneiro, D. M.

2017-12-01

The CONCEPT-Heat project aims at developing a consistent energy budget for the Earth system in order to better understand and quantify global change. We advocate a variational "Earth system inverse" solution as the best methodology to bring the necessary expertise from different disciplines together. L'Ecuyer et al (2015) and Rodell et al (2015) first used a variational approach to adjust multiple satellite data products for air-sea-land vertical fluxes of heat and freshwater, achieving closed budgets on a regional and global scale. However their treatment of horizontal energy and water redistribution and its uncertainties was limited. Following the recent work of Liu et al (2015, 2017) which used atmospheric reanalysis convergences to derive a new total surface heat flux product from top of atmosphere fluxes, we have revisited the variational budget approach introducing a more extensive analysis of the role of horizontal transports of heat and freshwater, using multiple atmospheric and ocean reanalysis products. We find considerable improvements in fluxes in regions such as the North Atlantic and Arctic, for example requiring higher atmospheric heat and water convergences over the Arctic than given by ERA-Interim, thereby allowing lower and more realistic oceanic transports. We explore using the variational uncertainty analysis to produce lower resolution corrections to higher resolution flux products and test these against in situ flux data. We also explore the covariance errors implied between component fluxes that are imposed by the regional budget constraints. Finally we propose this as a valuable methodology for developing consistent observational constraints on the energy and water budgets in climate models. We take a first look at the same regional budget quantities in CMIP5 models and consider the implications of the differences for the processes and biases active in the models. Many further avenues of investigation are possible focused on better valuing

Model Based Reasoning by Introductory Students When Analyzing Earth Systems and Societal Challenges

Science.gov (United States)

Holder, L. N.; Herbert, B. E.

2014-12-01

Understanding how students use their conceptual models to reason about societal challenges involving societal issues such as natural hazard risk assessment, environmental policy and management, and energy resources can improve instructional activity design that directly impacts student motivation and literacy. To address this question, we created four laboratory exercises for an introductory physical geology course at Texas A&M University that engages students in authentic scientific practices by using real world problems and issues that affect societies based on the theory of situated cognition. Our case-study design allows us to investigate the various ways that students utilize model based reasoning to identify and propose solutions to societally relevant issues. In each of the four interventions, approximately 60 students in three sections of introductory physical geology were expected to represent and evaluate scientific data, make evidence-based claims about the data trends, use those claims to express conceptual models, and use their models to analyze societal challenges. Throughout each step of the laboratory exercise students were asked to justify their claims, models, and data representations using evidence and through the use of argumentation with peers. Cognitive apprenticeship was the foundation for instruction used to scaffold students so that in the first exercise they are given a partially completed model and in the last exercise students are asked to generate a conceptual model on their own. Student artifacts, including representation of earth systems, representation of scientific data, verbal and written explanations of models and scientific arguments, and written solutions to specific societal issues or environmental problems surrounding earth systems, were analyzed through the use of a rubric that modeled authentic expertise and students were sorted into three categories. Written artifacts were examined to identify student argumentation and

Graphics Processing Units (GPU) and the Goddard Earth Observing System atmospheric model (GEOS-5): Implementation and Potential Applications

Science.gov (United States)

Putnam, William M.

2011-01-01

Earth system models like the Goddard Earth Observing System model (GEOS-5) have been pushing the limits of large clusters of multi-core microprocessors, producing breath-taking fidelity in resolving cloud systems at a global scale. GPU computing presents an opportunity for improving the efficiency of these leading edge models. A GPU implementation of GEOS-5 will facilitate the use of cloud-system resolving resolutions in data assimilation and weather prediction, at resolutions near 3.5 km, improving our ability to extract detailed information from high-resolution satellite observations and ultimately produce better weather and climate predictions

Development of a system emulating the global carbon cycle in Earth system models

Science.gov (United States)

Tachiiri, K.; Hargreaves, J. C.; Annan, J. D.; Oka, A.; Abe-Ouchi, A.; Kawamiya, M.

2010-08-01

Recent studies have indicated that the uncertainty in the global carbon cycle may have a significant impact on the climate. Since state of the art models are too computationally expensive for it to be possible to explore their parametric uncertainty in anything approaching a comprehensive fashion, we have developed a simplified system for investigating this problem. By combining the strong points of general circulation models (GCMs), which contain detailed and complex processes, and Earth system models of intermediate complexity (EMICs), which are quick and capable of large ensembles, we have developed a loosely coupled model (LCM) which can represent the outputs of a GCM-based Earth system model, using much smaller computational resources. We address the problem of relatively poor representation of precipitation within our EMIC, which prevents us from directly coupling it to a vegetation model, by coupling it to a precomputed transient simulation using a full GCM. The LCM consists of three components: an EMIC (MIROC-lite) which consists of a 2-D energy balance atmosphere coupled to a low resolution 3-D GCM ocean (COCO) including an ocean carbon cycle (an NPZD-type marine ecosystem model); a state of the art vegetation model (Sim-CYCLE); and a database of daily temperature, precipitation, and other necessary climatic fields to drive Sim-CYCLE from a precomputed transient simulation from a state of the art AOGCM. The transient warming of the climate system is calculated from MIROC-lite, with the global temperature anomaly used to select the most appropriate annual climatic field from the pre-computed AOGCM simulation which, in this case, is a 1% pa increasing CO2 concentration scenario. By adjusting the effective climate sensitivity (equivalent to the equilibrium climate sensitivity for an energy balance model) of MIROC-lite, the transient warming of the LCM could be adjusted to closely follow the low sensitivity (with an equilibrium climate sensitivity of 4.0 K

Development of a system emulating the global carbon cycle in Earth system models

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

K. Tachiiri

2010-08-01

Full Text Available Recent studies have indicated that the uncertainty in the global carbon cycle may have a significant impact on the climate. Since state of the art models are too computationally expensive for it to be possible to explore their parametric uncertainty in anything approaching a comprehensive fashion, we have developed a simplified system for investigating this problem. By combining the strong points of general circulation models (GCMs, which contain detailed and complex processes, and Earth system models of intermediate complexity (EMICs, which are quick and capable of large ensembles, we have developed a loosely coupled model (LCM which can represent the outputs of a GCM-based Earth system model, using much smaller computational resources. We address the problem of relatively poor representation of precipitation within our EMIC, which prevents us from directly coupling it to a vegetation model, by coupling it to a precomputed transient simulation using a full GCM. The LCM consists of three components: an EMIC (MIROC-lite which consists of a 2-D energy balance atmosphere coupled to a low resolution 3-D GCM ocean (COCO including an ocean carbon cycle (an NPZD-type marine ecosystem model; a state of the art vegetation model (Sim-CYCLE; and a database of daily temperature, precipitation, and other necessary climatic fields to drive Sim-CYCLE from a precomputed transient simulation from a state of the art AOGCM. The transient warming of the climate system is calculated from MIROC-lite, with the global temperature anomaly used to select the most appropriate annual climatic field from the pre-computed AOGCM simulation which, in this case, is a 1% pa increasing CO₂ concentration scenario.

By adjusting the effective climate sensitivity (equivalent to the equilibrium climate sensitivity for an energy balance model of MIROC-lite, the transient warming of the LCM could be adjusted to closely follow the low sensitivity (with an equilibrium

Smarter Earth Science Data System

Science.gov (United States)

Huang, Thomas

2013-01-01

The explosive growth in Earth observational data in the recent decade demands a better method of interoperability across heterogeneous systems. The Earth science data system community has mastered the art in storing large volume of observational data, but it is still unclear how this traditional method scale over time as we are entering the age of Big Data. Indexed search solutions such as Apache Solr (Smiley and Pugh, 2011) provides fast, scalable search via keyword or phases without any reasoning or inference. The modern search solutions such as Googles Knowledge Graph (Singhal, 2012) and Microsoft Bing, all utilize semantic reasoning to improve its accuracy in searches. The Earth science user community is demanding for an intelligent solution to help them finding the right data for their researches. The Ontological System for Context Artifacts and Resources (OSCAR) (Huang et al., 2012), was created in response to the DARPA Adaptive Vehicle Make (AVM) programs need for an intelligent context models management system to empower its terrain simulation subsystem. The core component of OSCAR is the Environmental Context Ontology (ECO) is built using the Semantic Web for Earth and Environmental Terminology (SWEET) (Raskin and Pan, 2005). This paper presents the current data archival methodology within a NASA Earth science data centers and discuss using semantic web to improve the way we capture and serve data to our users.

Teleconnections in complex human-Earth system models

Science.gov (United States)

Calvin, K. V.; Edmonds, J.

2017-12-01

Human systems and physical Earth systems are closely coupled and interact in complex ways that are sometimes surprising. This presentation discusses a few examples of system interactions. We consider the coupled energy-water-land-economy systems. We show how reductions in fossil fuel emissions are inversely coupled to land rents, food prices and deforestation. We discuss how water shortages in one part of the world is propagated to other distant parts of the world. We discuss the sensitivity of international trade patterns to energy and land systems technology and markets, and the potentially unanticipated results that can emerge.

The computational challenges of Earth-system science.

Science.gov (United States)

O'Neill, Alan; Steenman-Clark, Lois

2002-06-15

The Earth system--comprising atmosphere, ocean, land, cryosphere and biosphere--is an immensely complex system, involving processes and interactions on a wide range of space- and time-scales. To understand and predict the evolution of the Earth system is one of the greatest challenges of modern science, with success likely to bring enormous societal benefits. High-performance computing, along with the wealth of new observational data, is revolutionizing our ability to simulate the Earth system with computer models that link the different components of the system together. There are, however, considerable scientific and technical challenges to be overcome. This paper will consider four of them: complexity, spatial resolution, inherent uncertainty and time-scales. Meeting these challenges requires a significant increase in the power of high-performance computers. The benefits of being able to make reliable predictions about the evolution of the Earth system should, on their own, amply repay this investment.

Nutrient cycle benchmarks for earth system land model

Science.gov (United States)

Zhu, Q.; Riley, W. J.; Tang, J.; Zhao, L.

2017-12-01

Projecting future biosphere-climate feedbacks using Earth system models (ESMs) relies heavily on robust modeling of land surface carbon dynamics. More importantly, soil nutrient (particularly, nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P)) dynamics strongly modulate carbon dynamics, such as plant sequestration of atmospheric CO2. Prevailing ESM land models all consider nitrogen as a potentially limiting nutrient, and several consider phosphorus. However, including nutrient cycle processes in ESM land models potentially introduces large uncertainties that could be identified and addressed by improved observational constraints. We describe the development of two nutrient cycle benchmarks for ESM land models: (1) nutrient partitioning between plants and soil microbes inferred from 15N and 33P tracers studies and (2) nutrient limitation effects on carbon cycle informed by long-term fertilization experiments. We used these benchmarks to evaluate critical hypotheses regarding nutrient cycling and their representation in ESMs. We found that a mechanistic representation of plant-microbe nutrient competition based on relevant functional traits best reproduced observed plant-microbe nutrient partitioning. We also found that for multiple-nutrient models (i.e., N and P), application of Liebig's law of the minimum is often inaccurate. Rather, the Multiple Nutrient Limitation (MNL) concept better reproduces observed carbon-nutrient interactions.

Scientific Visualization & Modeling for Earth Systems Science Education

Science.gov (United States)

Chaudhury, S. Raj; Rodriguez, Waldo J.

2003-01-01

Providing research experiences for undergraduate students in Earth Systems Science (ESS) poses several challenges at smaller academic institutions that might lack dedicated resources for this area of study. This paper describes the development of an innovative model that involves students with majors in diverse scientific disciplines in authentic ESS research. In studying global climate change, experts typically use scientific visualization techniques applied to remote sensing data collected by satellites. In particular, many problems related to environmental phenomena can be quantitatively addressed by investigations based on datasets related to the scientific endeavours such as the Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE). Working with data products stored at NASA's Distributed Active Archive Centers, visualization software specifically designed for students and an advanced, immersive Virtual Reality (VR) environment, students engage in guided research projects during a structured 6-week summer program. Over the 5-year span, this program has afforded the opportunity for students majoring in biology, chemistry, mathematics, computer science, physics, engineering and science education to work collaboratively in teams on research projects that emphasize the use of scientific visualization in studying the environment. Recently, a hands-on component has been added through science student partnerships with school-teachers in data collection and reporting for the GLOBE Program (GLobal Observations to Benefit the Environment).

An Inquiry-Based Approach to Teaching the Spherical Earth Model to Preservice Teachers Using the Global Positioning System

Science.gov (United States)

Song, Youngjin; Schwenz, Richard

2013-01-01

This article describes an inquiry-based lesson to deepen preservice teachers' understanding of the spherical Earth model using the Global Positioning System. The lesson was designed with four learning goals: (1) to increase preservice teachers' conceptual knowledge of the spherical Earth model; (2) to develop preservice teachers'…

Modelling Holocene carbon accumulation and methane emissions of boreal wetlands – an Earth system model approach

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

R. J. Schuldt

2013-03-01

Full Text Available Since the Last Glacial Maximum, boreal wetlands have accumulated substantial amounts of peat, estimated at 180–621 Pg of carbon. Wetlands have significantly affected the atmospheric greenhouse gas composition in the past and will play a significant role in future changes of atmospheric CO2 and CH4 concentrations. In order to investigate those changes with an Earth system model, biogeochemical processes in boreal wetlands need to be accounted for. Thus, a model of peat accumulation and decay was developed and included in the land surface model JSBACH of the Max Planck Institute Earth System Model (MPI-ESM. Here we present the evaluation of model results from 6000 yr BP to the pre-industrial period. Over this period of time, 240 Pg of peat carbon accumulated in the model in the areas north of 40° N. Simulated peat accumulation rates agree well with those reported for boreal wetlands. The model simulates CH4 emissions of 49.3 Tg CH4 yr−1 for 6000 yr BP and 51.5 Tg CH4 yr−1 for pre-industrial times. This is within the range of estimates in the literature, which range from 32 to 112 Tg CH4 yr−1 for boreal wetlands. The modelled methane emission for the West Siberian Lowlands and Hudson Bay Lowlands agree well with observations. The rising trend of methane emissions over the last 6000 yr is in agreement with measurements of Antarctic and Greenland ice cores.

The cloud-phase feedback in the Super-parameterized Community Earth System Model

Science.gov (United States)

Burt, M. A.; Randall, D. A.

2016-12-01

Recent comparisons of observations and climate model simulations by I. Tan and colleagues have suggested that the Wegener-Bergeron-Findeisen (WBF) process tends to be too active in climate models, making too much cloud ice, and resulting in an exaggerated negative cloud-phase feedback on climate change. We explore the WBF process and its effect on shortwave cloud forcing in present-day and future climate simulations with the Community Earth System Model, and its super-parameterized counterpart. Results show that SP-CESM has much less cloud ice and a weaker cloud-phase feedback than CESM.

Towards a community Earth System Model

Science.gov (United States)

Blackmon, M.

2003-04-01

The Community Climate System Model, version 2 (CCSM2), was released in June 2002. CCSM2 has several new components and features, which I will discuss briefly. I will also show a few results from a multi-century equilibrium run with this model, emphasizing the improvements over the earlier simulation using the original CSM. A few flaws and inadequacies in CCSM2 have been identified. I will also discuss briefly work underway to improve the model and present results, if available. CCSM2, with improvements, will be the basis for the development of a Community Earth System Model (CESM). The highest priority for expansion of the model involves incorporation of biogeosciences into the coupled model system, with emphasis given to the carbon, nitrogen and iron cycles. The overall goal of the biogeosciences project within CESM is to understand the regulation of planetary energetics, planetary ecology, and planetary metabolism through exchanges of energy, momentum, and materials among atmosphere, land, and ocean, and the response of the climate system through these processes to changes in land cover and land use. In particular, this research addresses how biogeochemical coupling of carbon, nitrogen, and iron cycles affects climate and how human perturbations of these cycles alter climate. To accomplish these goals, the Community Land Model, the land component of CCSM2, is being developed to include river routing, carbon and nitrogen cycles, emissions of mineral aerosols and biogenic volatile organic compounds, dry deposition of various gases, and vegetation dynamics. The carbon and nitrogen cycles are being implemented using parameterizations developed as part of a state-of-the-art ecosystem biogeochemistry model. The primary goal of this research is to provide an accurate net flux of CO2 between the land and the atmosphere so that CESM can be used to study the dynamics of the coupled climate-carbon system. Emissions of biogenic volatile organic compounds are also based on a

Sustainability Indicators for Coupled Human-Earth Systems

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Motesharrei, S.; Rivas, J. R.; Kalnay, E.

2014-12-01

Over the last two centuries, the Human System went from having a small impact on the Earth System (including the Climate System) to becoming dominant, because both population and per capita consumption have grown extremely fast, especially since about 1950. We therefore argue that Human System Models must be included into Earth System Models through bidirectional couplings with feedbacks. In particular, population should be modeled endogenously, rather than exogenously as done currently in most Integrated Assessment Models. The growth of the Human System threatens to overwhelm the Carrying Capacity of the Earth System, and may be leading to catastrophic climate change and collapse. We propose a set of Ecological and Economic "Sustainability Indicators" that can employ large data-sets for developing and assessing effective mitigation and adaptation policies. Using the Human and Nature Dynamical Model (HANDY) and Coupled Human-Climate-Water Model (COWA), we carry out experiments with this set of Sustainability Indicators and show that they are applicable to various coupled systems including Population, Climate, Water, Energy, Agriculture, and Economy. Impact of nonrenewable resources and fossil fuels could also be understood using these indicators. We demonstrate interconnections of Ecological and Economic Indicators. Coupled systems often include feedbacks and can thus display counterintuitive dynamics. This makes it difficult for even experts to see coming catastrophes from just the raw data for different variables. Sustainability Indicators boil down the raw data into a set of simple numbers that cross their sustainability thresholds with a large time-lag before variables enter their catastrophic regimes. Therefore, we argue that Sustainability Indicators constitute a powerful but simple set of tools that could be directly used for making policies for sustainability.

Recent Progresses in Incorporating Human Land-Water Management into Global Land Surface Models Toward Their Integration into Earth System Models

Science.gov (United States)

Pokhrel, Yadu N.; Hanasaki, Naota; Wada, Yoshihide; Kim, Hyungjun

2016-01-01

The global water cycle has been profoundly affected by human land-water management. As the changes in the water cycle on land can affect the functioning of a wide range of biophysical and biogeochemical processes of the Earth system, it is essential to represent human land-water management in Earth system models (ESMs). During the recent past, noteworthy progress has been made in large-scale modeling of human impacts on the water cycle but sufficient advancements have not yet been made in integrating the newly developed schemes into ESMs. This study reviews the progresses made in incorporating human factors in large-scale hydrological models and their integration into ESMs. The study focuses primarily on the recent advancements and existing challenges in incorporating human impacts in global land surface models (LSMs) as a way forward to the development of ESMs with humans as integral components, but a brief review of global hydrological models (GHMs) is also provided. The study begins with the general overview of human impacts on the water cycle. Then, the algorithms currently employed to represent irrigation, reservoir operation, and groundwater pumping are discussed. Next, methodological deficiencies in current modeling approaches and existing challenges are identified. Furthermore, light is shed on the sources of uncertainties associated with model parameterizations, grid resolution, and datasets used for forcing and validation. Finally, representing human land-water management in LSMs is highlighted as an important research direction toward developing integrated models using ESM frameworks for the holistic study of human-water interactions within the Earths system.

Reversibility in an Earth System model in response to CO2 concentration changes

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Boucher, O; Halloran, P R; Burke, E J; Doutriaux-Boucher, M; Jones, C D; Lowe, J; Ringer, M A; Robertson, E; Wu, P

2012-01-01

We use the HadGEM2-ES Earth System model to examine the degree of reversibility of a wide range of components of the Earth System under idealized climate change scenarios where the atmospheric CO 2 concentration is gradually increased to four times the pre-industrial level and then reduced at a similar rate from several points along this trajectory. While some modelled quantities respond almost immediately to the atmospheric CO 2 concentrations, others exhibit a time lag relative to the change in CO 2 . Most quantities also exhibit a lag relative to the global-mean surface temperature change, which can be described as a hysteresis behaviour. The most surprising responses are from low-level clouds and ocean stratification in the Southern Ocean, which both exhibit hysteresis on timescales longer than expected. We see no evidence of critical thresholds in these simulations, although some of the hysteresis phenomena become more apparent above 2 × CO 2 or 3 × CO 2 . Our findings have implications for the parametrization of climate impacts in integrated assessment and simple climate models and for future climate studies of geoengineering scenarios. (letter)

Exploring the isopycnal mixing and helium-heat paradoxes in a suite of Earth System Models

OpenAIRE

A. Gnanadesikan; R. Abernathey; M.-A. Pradal

2014-01-01

This paper uses a suite of Earth system models which simulate the distribution of He isotopes and radiocarbon to examine two paradoxes in Earth science, each of which results from an inconsistency between theoretically motivated global energy balances and direct observations. The helium–heat paradox refers to the fact that helium emissions to the deep ocean are far lower than would be expected given the rate of geothermal heating, since both are thought to b...

Connecting Earth Systems: Developing Holistic Understanding through the Earth-System-Science Model

Science.gov (United States)

Gagnon, Valoree; Bradway, Heather

2012-01-01

For many years, Earth science concepts have been taught as thematic units with lessons in nice, neat chapter packages complete with labs and notes. But compartmentalized Earth science no longer exists, and implementing teaching methods that support student development of holistic understandings can be a time-consuming and difficult task. While…

Coupling integrated assessment and earth system models: concepts and an application to land use change

Science.gov (United States)

O'Neill, B. C.; Lawrence, P.; Ren, X.

2016-12-01

Collaboration between the integrated assessment modeling (IAM) and earth system modeling (ESM) communities is increasing, driven by a growing interest in research questions that require analysis integrating both social and natural science components. This collaboration often takes the form of integrating their respective models. There are a number of approaches available to implement this integration, ranging from one-way linkages to full two-way coupling, as well as approaches that retain a single modeling framework but improve the representation of processes from the other framework. We discuss the pros and cons of these different approaches and the conditions under which a two-way coupling of IAMs and ESMs would be favored over a one-way linkage. We propose a criterion that is necessary and sufficient to motivate two-way coupling: A human process must have an effect on an earth system process that is large enough to cause a change in the original human process that is substantial compared to other uncertainties in the problem being investigated. We then illustrate a test of this criterion for land use-climate interactions based on work using the Community Earth System Model (CESM) and land use scenarios from the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs), in which we find that the land use effect on regional climate is unlikely to meet the criterion. We then show an example of implementing a one-way linkage of land use and agriculture between an IAM, the integrated Population-Economy-Technology-Science (iPETS) model, and CESM that produces fully consistent outcomes between iPETS and the CESM land surface model. We use the linked system to model the influence of climate change on crop yields, agricultural land use, crop prices and food consumption under two alternative future climate scenarios. This application demonstrates the ability to link an IAM to a global land surface and climate model in a computationally efficient manner.

Journal of Earth System Science | Indian Academy of Sciences

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Home; Journals; Journal of Earth System Science. Rajeev Ranjan Kumar. Articles written in Journal of Earth System Science. Volume 121 Issue 5 October 2012 pp 1177-1184. Modelling near subsurface temperature with mixed type boundary condition for transient air temperature and vertical groundwater flow.

The fire-vegetation-climate system: how ecology can contribute to earth system science

CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

Archibald, S

2013-05-01

Full Text Available and future state of global vegetation. A key complexity that is currently not well captured by Earth System models is that vegetation is not always deterministically responsive to climate and soils. Feedbacks within the Earth System, top-down controls...

A new model of the Earth system nitrogen cycle: how plates and life affect the atmosphere

Science.gov (United States)

Johnson, B. W.; Goldblatt, C.

2017-12-01

Nitrogen is the main component of Earth's atmosphere. It plays a key role in the evolution of the biosphere and surface of Earth [1]. There are contrasting views, however, on how N has evolved on the surface of the Earth over time. Some modeling efforts [e.g., 2] indicate a steady-state level of N in the atmosphere over geologic time, while geochemical [e.g., 3], other proxies [e.g., 4], and more recent models [5] indicate the mass of N in the atmosphere can change dramatically over Earth history. This conundrum, and potential solutions to it, present distinct interpretations of the history of Earth, and teleconnections between the surface and interior of the planet have applications to other terrestrial bodies as well. To help investigate this conundrum, we have constructed an Earth-system N cycle box model. To our knowledge, this is the most capable model for addressing evolution of the N reservoirs of Earth through time. The model combines biologic and geologic processes, driven by a mantle cooling history, to more fully describe the N cycle through geologic history. In addition to a full biologic N cycle (fixing, nitrification, denitrification), we also dynamically solve for PO4 through time and we have a prescribed O2 history. Results indicate that the atmosphere of Earth could have experienced major changes in mass over geologic time. Importantly, the amount of N in the atmosphere today appears to be directly related to the total N budget of the silicate Earth. For example, high initial atmospheric mass, suggested as a solution to the Faint Young Sun Paradox [1], is drawn down over time. This supports work that indicates the mantle has significantly more N than the atmosphere does today [6]. Contrastingly, model runs with low total N result in a crash in atmospheric mass. In nearly all model runs the bulk silicate Earth contains the majority of the planet's N. [1] Goldblatt et al. (2009) Nat. Geosci., 2, 891-896. [2] Berner, R. (2006) Geology., 34, 413

Earth as an extrasolar planet: Earth model validation using EPOXI earth observations.

Science.gov (United States)

Robinson, Tyler D; Meadows, Victoria S; Crisp, David; Deming, Drake; A'hearn, Michael F; Charbonneau, David; Livengood, Timothy A; Seager, Sara; Barry, Richard K; Hearty, Thomas; Hewagama, Tilak; Lisse, Carey M; McFadden, Lucy A; Wellnitz, Dennis D

2011-06-01

The EPOXI Discovery Mission of Opportunity reused the Deep Impact flyby spacecraft to obtain spatially and temporally resolved visible photometric and moderate resolution near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopic observations of Earth. These remote observations provide a rigorous validation of whole-disk Earth model simulations used to better understand remotely detectable extrasolar planet characteristics. We have used these data to upgrade, correct, and validate the NASA Astrobiology Institute's Virtual Planetary Laboratory three-dimensional line-by-line, multiple-scattering spectral Earth model. This comprehensive model now includes specular reflectance from the ocean and explicitly includes atmospheric effects such as Rayleigh scattering, gas absorption, and temperature structure. We have used this model to generate spatially and temporally resolved synthetic spectra and images of Earth for the dates of EPOXI observation. Model parameters were varied to yield an optimum fit to the data. We found that a minimum spatial resolution of ∼100 pixels on the visible disk, and four categories of water clouds, which were defined by using observed cloud positions and optical thicknesses, were needed to yield acceptable fits. The validated model provides a simultaneous fit to Earth's lightcurve, absolute brightness, and spectral data, with a root-mean-square (RMS) error of typically less than 3% for the multiwavelength lightcurves and residuals of ∼10% for the absolute brightness throughout the visible and NIR spectral range. We have extended our validation into the mid-infrared by comparing the model to high spectral resolution observations of Earth from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder, obtaining a fit with residuals of ∼7% and brightness temperature errors of less than 1 K in the atmospheric window. For the purpose of understanding the observable characteristics of the distant Earth at arbitrary viewing geometry and observing cadence, our validated forward model can be

Quantitative Modeling of Earth Surface Processes

Science.gov (United States)

Pelletier, Jon D.

This textbook describes some of the most effective and straightforward quantitative techniques for modeling Earth surface processes. By emphasizing a core set of equations and solution techniques, the book presents state-of-the-art models currently employed in Earth surface process research, as well as a set of simple but practical research tools. Detailed case studies demonstrate application of the methods to a wide variety of processes including hillslope, fluvial, aeolian, glacial, tectonic, and climatic systems. Exercises at the end of each chapter begin with simple calculations and then progress to more sophisticated problems that require computer programming. All the necessary computer codes are available online at www.cambridge.org/9780521855976. Assuming some knowledge of calculus and basic programming experience, this quantitative textbook is designed for advanced geomorphology courses and as a reference book for professional researchers in Earth and planetary science looking for a quantitative approach to Earth surface processes. More details...

Terrestrial nitrogen cycling in Earth system models revisited

Science.gov (United States)

Stocker, Benjamin D; Prentice, I. Colin; Cornell, Sarah; Davies-Barnard, T; Finzi, Adrien; Franklin, Oskar; Janssens, Ivan; Larmola, Tuula; Manzoni, Stefano; Näsholm, Torgny; Raven, John; Rebel, Karin; Reed, Sasha C.; Vicca, Sara; Wiltshire, Andy; Zaehle, Sönke

2016-01-01

Understanding the degree to which nitrogen (N) availability limits land carbon (C) uptake under global environmental change represents an unresolved challenge. First-generation ‘C-only’vegetation models, lacking explicit representations of N cycling,projected a substantial and increasing land C sink under rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations. This prediction was questioned for not taking into account the potentially limiting effect of N availability, which is necessary for plant growth (Hungate et al.,2003). More recent global models include coupled C and N cycles in land ecosystems (C–N models) and are widely assumed to be more realistic. However, inclusion of more processes has not consistently improved their performance in capturing observed responses of the global C cycle (e.g. Wenzel et al., 2014). With the advent of a new generation of global models, including coupled C, N, and phosphorus (P) cycling, model complexity is sure to increase; but model reliability may not, unless greater attention is paid to the correspondence of model process representations ande mpirical evidence. It was in this context that the ‘Nitrogen Cycle Workshop’ at Dartington Hall, Devon, UK was held on 1–5 February 2016. Organized by I. Colin Prentice and Benjamin D. Stocker (Imperial College London, UK), the workshop was funded by the European Research Council,project ‘Earth system Model Bias Reduction and assessing Abrupt Climate change’ (EMBRACE). We gathered empirical ecologists and ecosystem modellers to identify key uncertainties in terrestrial C–N cycling, and to discuss processes that are missing or poorly represented in current models.

An Overview of the Future Development of Climate and Earth System Models for Scientific and Policy Use (Invited)

Science.gov (United States)

Washington, W. M.

2010-12-01

The development of climate and earth system models has been regarded primarily as the making of scientific tools to study the complex nature of the Earth’s climate. These models have a long history starting with very simple physical models based on fundamental physics in the 1960s and over time they have become much more complex with atmospheric, ocean, sea ice, land/vegetation, biogeochemical, glacial and ecological components. The policy use aspects of these models did not start in the 1960s and 1970s as decision making tools but were used to answer fundamental scientific questions such as what happens when the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration increases or is doubled. They gave insights into the various interactions and were extensively compared with observations. It was realized that models of the earlier time periods could only give first order answers to many of the fundamental policy questions. As societal concerns about climate change rose, the policy questions of anthropogenic climate change became better defined; they were mostly concerned with the climate impacts of increasing greenhouse gases, aerosols, and land cover change. In the late 1980s, the United Nations set up the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to perform assessments of the published literature. Thus, the development of climate and Earth system models became intimately linked to the need to not only improve our scientific understanding but also answering fundamental policy questions. In order to meet this challenge, the models became more complex and realistic so that they could address these policy oriented science questions such as rising sea level. The presentation will discuss the past and future development of global climate and earth system models for science and policy purposes. Also to be discussed is their interactions with economic integrated assessment models, regional and specialized models such as river transport or ecological components. As an example of one

Journal of Earth System Science | Indian Academy of Sciences

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Home; Journals; Journal of Earth System Science. Saji Mohandas. Articles written in Journal of Earth System Science. Volume 117 Issue 5 October 2008 pp 603-620. Skills of different mesoscale models over Indian region during monsoon season: Forecast errors · Someshwar Das Raghavendra Ashrit Gopal Raman ...

Journal of Earth System Science | Indian Academy of Sciences

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Home; Journals; Journal of Earth System Science. Shantamoy Guha. Articles written in Journal of Earth System Science. Volume 126 Issue 2 March 2017 pp 21. Identification of drought in Dhalai river watershed using MCDM and ANN models · Sainath Aher Sambhaji Shinde Shantamoy Guha Mrinmoy Majumder.

Journal of Earth System Science | Indian Academy of Sciences

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Home; Journals; Journal of Earth System Science. G Sasibhushana Rao. Articles written in Journal of Earth System Science. Volume 116 Issue 5 October 2007 pp 407-411. GPS satellite and receiver instrumental biases estimation using least squares method for accurate ionosphere modelling · G Sasibhushana Rao.

UNH Data Cooperative: A Cyber Infrastructure for Earth System Studies

Science.gov (United States)

Braswell, B. H.; Fekete, B. M.; Prusevich, A.; Gliden, S.; Magill, A.; Vorosmarty, C. J.

2007-12-01

Earth system scientists and managers have a continuously growing demand for a wide array of earth observations derived from various data sources including (a) modern satellite retrievals, (b) "in-situ" records, (c) various simulation outputs, and (d) assimilated data products combining model results with observational records. The sheer quantity of data, and formatting inconsistencies make it difficult for users to take full advantage of this important information resource. Thus the system could benefit from a thorough retooling of our current data processing procedures and infrastructure. Emerging technologies, like OPeNDAP and OGC map services, open standard data formats (NetCDF, HDF) data cataloging systems (NASA-Echo, Global Change Master Directory, etc.) are providing the basis for a new approach in data management and processing, where web- services are increasingly designed to serve computer-to-computer communications without human interactions and complex analysis can be carried out over distributed computer resources interconnected via cyber infrastructure. The UNH Earth System Data Collaborative is designed to utilize the aforementioned emerging web technologies to offer new means of access to earth system data. While the UNH Data Collaborative serves a wide array of data ranging from weather station data (Climate Portal) to ocean buoy records and ship tracks (Portsmouth Harbor Initiative) to land cover characteristics, etc. the underlaying data architecture shares common components for data mining and data dissemination via web-services. Perhaps the most unique element of the UNH Data Cooperative's IT infrastructure is its prototype modeling environment for regional ecosystem surveillance over the Northeast corridor, which allows the integration of complex earth system model components with the Cooperative's data services. While the complexity of the IT infrastructure to perform complex computations is continuously increasing, scientists are often forced

A Generalized Stability Analysis of the AMOC in Earth System Models: Implication for Decadal Variability and Abrupt Climate Change

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Fedorov, Alexey V. [Yale Univ., New Haven, CT (United States)

2015-01-14

The central goal of this research project was to understand the mechanisms of decadal and multi-decadal variability of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) as related to climate variability and abrupt climate change within a hierarchy of climate models ranging from realistic ocean models to comprehensive Earth system models. Generalized Stability Analysis, a method that quantifies the transient and asymptotic growth of perturbations in the system, is one of the main approaches used throughout this project. The topics we have explored range from physical mechanisms that control AMOC variability to the factors that determine AMOC predictability in the Earth system models, to the stability and variability of the AMOC in past climates.

Journal of Earth System Science | Indian Academy of Sciences

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Home; Journals; Journal of Earth System Science. Suman Sinha. Articles written in Journal of Earth System Science. Volume 125 Issue 4 June 2016 pp 725-735. Developing synergy regression models with space-borne ALOS PALSAR and Landsat TM sensors for retrieving tropical forest biomass · Suman Sinha C ...

Journal of Earth System Science | Indian Academy of Sciences

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Home; Journals; Journal of Earth System Science. Rahul Choudhury. Articles written in Journal of Earth System Science. Volume 125 Issue 7 October 2016 pp 1365-1377. Thermogravimetric and model-free kinetic studies on CO2 gasification of low-quality, high-sulphur Indian coals · Tonkeswar Das Ananya Saikia ...

Modeling Earth Albedo for Satellites in Earth Orbit

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bhanderi, Dan; Bak, Thomas

2005-01-01

Many satellite are influences by the Earthøs albedo, though very few model schemes exist.in order to predict this phenomenon. Earth albedo is often treated as noise, or ignored completely. When applying solar cells in the attitude hardware, Earth albedo can cause the attitude estimate to deviate...... with as much as 20 deg. Digital Sun sensors with Earth albedo correction in hardware exist, but are expensive. In addition, albedo estimates are necessary in thermal calculations and power budgets. We present a modeling scheme base4d on Eartht reflectance, measured by NASA's Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer......, in which the Earth Probe Satellite has recorded reflectivity data daily since mid 1996. The mean of these data can be used to calculate the Earth albedo given the positions of the satellite and the Sun. Our results show that the albedo varies highly with the solar angle to the satellite's field of view...

Modeling of the Earth's gravity field using the New Global Earth Model (NEWGEM)

Science.gov (United States)

Kim, Yeong E.; Braswell, W. Danny

1989-01-01

Traditionally, the global gravity field was described by representations based on the spherical harmonics (SH) expansion of the geopotential. The SH expansion coefficients were determined by fitting the Earth's gravity data as measured by many different methods including the use of artificial satellites. As gravity data have accumulated with increasingly better accuracies, more of the higher order SH expansion coefficients were determined. The SH representation is useful for describing the gravity field exterior to the Earth but is theoretically invalid on the Earth's surface and in the Earth's interior. A new global Earth model (NEWGEM) (KIM, 1987 and 1988a) was recently proposed to provide a unified description of the Earth's gravity field inside, on, and outside the Earth's surface using the Earth's mass density profile as deduced from seismic studies, elevation and bathymetric information, and local and global gravity data. Using NEWGEM, it is possible to determine the constraints on the mass distribution of the Earth imposed by gravity, topography, and seismic data. NEWGEM is useful in investigating a variety of geophysical phenomena. It is currently being utilized to develop a geophysical interpretation of Kaula's rule. The zeroth order NEWGEM is being used to numerically integrate spherical harmonic expansion coefficients and simultaneously determine the contribution of each layer in the model to a given coefficient. The numerically determined SH expansion coefficients are also being used to test the validity of SH expansions at the surface of the Earth by comparing the resulting SH expansion gravity model with exact calculations of the gravity at the Earth's surface.

Journal of Earth System Science | Indian Academy of Sciences

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Home; Journals; Journal of Earth System Science. J C Joshi. Articles written in Journal of Earth System Science. Volume 126 Issue 1 February 2017 pp 3. Optimisation of Hidden Markov Model using Baum–Welch algorithm for prediction of maximum and minimum temperature over Indian Himalaya · J C Joshi Tankeshwar ...

Journal of Earth System Science | Indian Academy of Sciences

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Home; Journals; Journal of Earth System Science. C K Unnikrishnan. Articles written in Journal of Earth System Science. Volume 125 Issue 4 June 2016 pp 677-689. Impact of high resolution land surface initialization in Indian summer monsoon simulation using a regional climate model · C K Unnikrishnan M Rajeevan S ...

Journal of Earth System Science | Indian Academy of Sciences

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Home; Journals; Journal of Earth System Science. Sankar Kumar Nath. Articles written in Journal of Earth System Science. Volume 117 Issue S2 November 2008 pp 649-670. Seismic hazard scenario and attenuation model of the Garhwal Himalaya using near-field synthesis from weak motion seismometry · Sankar Kumar ...

Journal of Earth System Science | Indian Academy of Sciences

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Home; Journals; Journal of Earth System Science. Ju Wei. Articles written in Journal of Earth System Science. Volume 125 Issue 5 July 2016 pp 1021-1031. Tectonic stress accumulation in Bohai–Zhangjiakou Seismotectonic Zone based on 3D visco-elastic modelling · Ju Wei Sun Weifeng Ma Xiaojing Jiang Hui.

LGM permafrost thickness and extent in the Northern Hemisphere derived from the earth system model iLOVECLIM

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Kitover, D.C.; van Balen, R.T.; Vandenberghe, J.F.; Roche, D.M.V.A.P.; Renssen, H.

2016-01-01

An estimate of permafrost extent and thickness in the northern hemisphere during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM, ~ 21 ka) has been produced using the VU University Amsterdam Permafrost Snow (VAMPERS) model, forced by iLOVECLIM, an Earth System Model of Intermediate Complexity. We present model

Simulating the Earth System Response to Negative Emissions

Science.gov (United States)

Jackson, R. B.; Milne, J.; Littleton, E. W.; Jones, C.; Canadell, J.; Peters, G. P.; van Vuuren, D.; Davis, S. J.; Jonas, M.; Smith, P.; Ciais, P.; Rogelj, J.; Torvanger, A.; Shrestha, G.

2016-12-01

The natural carbon sinks of the land and oceans absorb approximately half the anthropogenic CO2 emitted every year. The CO2 that is not absorbed accumulates in the Earth's atmosphere and traps the suns rays causing an increase in the global mean temperature. Removing this left over CO2 using negative emissions technologies (NETs) has been proposed as a strategy to lessen the accumulating CO2 and avoid dangerous climate change. Using CMIP5 Earth system model simulations this study assessed the impact on the global carbon cycle, and how the Earth system might respond, to negative emissions strategies applied to low emissions scenarios, over different times horizons from the year 2000 to 2300. The modeling results suggest that using NETs to remove atmospheric CO2 over five 50-year time horizons has varying effects at different points in time. The effects of anthropogenic and natural sources and sinks, can result in positive or negative changes in atmospheric CO2 concentration. Results show that historic emissions and the current state of the Earth System have impacts on the behavior of atmospheric CO2, as do instantaneous anthropogenic emissions. Indeed, varying background scenarios seemed to have a greater effect on atmospheric CO2 than the actual amount and timing of NETs. These results show how NETs interact with the physical climate-carbon cycle system and highlight the need for more research on earth-system dynamics as they relate to carbon sinks and sources and anthropogenic perturbations.

Journal of Earth System Science | Indian Academy of Sciences

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Home; Journals; Journal of Earth System Science. P K Sikdar. Articles written in Journal of Earth System Science. Volume 126 Issue 2 March 2017 pp 29. Numerical modelling of groundwater flow to understand the impacts of pumping on arsenic migration in the aquifer of North Bengal Plain · P K Sikdar Surajit Chakraborty.

Journal of Earth System Science | Indian Academy of Sciences

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Home; Journals; Journal of Earth System Science. A Ganju. Articles written in Journal of Earth System Science. Volume 117 Issue 5 October 2008 pp 575-587. Mountain range specific analog weather forecast model for northwest Himalaya in India · D Singh A Ganju · More Details Abstract Fulltext PDF. Mountain range ...

Journal of Earth System Science | Indian Academy of Sciences

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Home; Journals; Journal of Earth System Science. S Panigrahy. Articles written in Journal of Earth System Science. Volume 120 Issue 1 February 2011 pp 19-25. Simulation of at-sensor radiance over land for proposed thermal channels of Imager payload onboard INSAT-3D satellite using MODTRAN model · M R Pandya ...

Journal of Earth System Science | Indian Academy of Sciences

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Home; Journals; Journal of Earth System Science. M Radhakrishna. Articles written in Journal of Earth System Science. Volume 120 Issue 4 August 2011 pp 605-615. Development of the negative gravity anomaly of the 85°E Ridge, northeastern Indian Ocean – A process oriented modelling approach · K M Sreejith M ...

Journal of Earth System Science | Indian Academy of Sciences

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Home; Journals; Journal of Earth System Science. D Twinkle. Articles written in Journal of Earth System Science. Volume 125 Issue 2 March 2016 pp 329-342. Crustal structure and rift tectonics across the Cauvery–Palar basin, Eastern Continental Margin of India based on seismic and potential field modelling · D Twinkle G ...

Universities Earth System Scientists Program

Science.gov (United States)

Estes, John E.

1995-01-01

This document constitutes the final technical report for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Grant NAGW-3172. This grant was instituted to provide for the conduct of research under the Universities Space Research Association's (USRA's) Universities Earth System Scientist Program (UESSP) for the Office of Mission to Planet Earth (OMTPE) at NASA Headquarters. USRA was tasked with the following requirements in support of the Universities Earth System Scientists Programs: (1) Bring to OMTPE fundamental scientific and technical expertise not currently resident at NASA Headquarters covering the broad spectrum of Earth science disciplines; (2) Conduct basic research in order to help establish the state of the science and technological readiness, related to NASA issues and requirements, for the following, near-term, scientific uncertainties, and data/information needs in the areas of global climate change, clouds and radiative balance, sources and sinks of greenhouse gases and the processes that control them, solid earth, oceans, polar ice sheets, land-surface hydrology, ecological dynamics, biological diversity, and sustainable development; (3) Evaluate the scientific state-of-the-field in key selected areas and to assist in the definition of new research thrusts for missions, including those that would incorporate the long-term strategy of the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP). This will, in part, be accomplished by study and evaluation of the basic science needs of the community as they are used to drive the development and maintenance of a global-scale observing system, the focused research studies, and the implementation of an integrated program of modeling, prediction, and assessment; and (4) Produce specific recommendations and alternative strategies for OMTPE that can serve as a basis for interagency and national and international policy on issues related to Earth sciences.

Journal of Earth System Science | Indian Academy of Sciences

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Home; Journals; Journal of Earth System Science. K S Krishna. Articles written in Journal of Earth System Science. Volume 111 Issue 1 March 2002 pp 17-28. Formation of diapiric structure in the deformation zone, central Indian Ocean: A model from gravity and seismic reflection data · K S Krishna D Gopala Rao Yu P ...

Journal of Earth System Science | Indian Academy of Sciences

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Home; Journals; Journal of Earth System Science. Aditi Singh. Articles written in Journal of Earth System Science. Volume 127 Issue 2 March 2018 pp 26. Prediction of fog/visibility over India using NWP Model · Aditi Singh John P George Gopal Raman Iyengar · More Details Abstract Fulltext PDF. Frequent occurrence of fog ...

Journal of Earth System Science | Indian Academy of Sciences

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Home; Journals; Journal of Earth System Science. D B Shah. Articles written in Journal of Earth System Science. Volume 120 Issue 1 February 2011 pp 19-25. Simulation of at-sensor radiance over land for proposed thermal channels of Imager payload onboard INSAT-3D satellite using MODTRAN model · M R Pandya D B ...

Earth-Mars Telecommunications and Information Management System (TIMS): Antenna Visibility Determination, Network Simulation, and Management Models

Science.gov (United States)

Odubiyi, Jide; Kocur, David; Pino, Nino; Chu, Don

1996-01-01

This report presents the results of our research on Earth-Mars Telecommunications and Information Management System (TIMS) network modeling and unattended network operations. The primary focus of our research is to investigate the feasibility of the TIMS architecture, which links the Earth-based Mars Operations Control Center, Science Data Processing Facility, Mars Network Management Center, and the Deep Space Network of antennae to the relay satellites and other communication network elements based in the Mars region. The investigation was enhanced by developing Build 3 of the TIMS network modeling and simulation model. The results of several 'what-if' scenarios are reported along with reports on upgraded antenna visibility determination software and unattended network management prototype.

Climate, ecosystems, and planetary futures: The challenge to predict life in Earth system models.

Science.gov (United States)

Bonan, Gordon B; Doney, Scott C

2018-02-02

Many global change stresses on terrestrial and marine ecosystems affect not only ecosystem services that are essential to humankind, but also the trajectory of future climate by altering energy and mass exchanges with the atmosphere. Earth system models, which simulate terrestrial and marine ecosystems and biogeochemical cycles, offer a common framework for ecological research related to climate processes; analyses of vulnerability, impacts, and adaptation; and climate change mitigation. They provide an opportunity to move beyond physical descriptors of atmospheric and oceanic states to societally relevant quantities such as wildfire risk, habitat loss, water availability, and crop, fishery, and timber yields. To achieve this, the science of climate prediction must be extended to a more multifaceted Earth system prediction that includes the biosphere and its resources. Copyright © 2018, American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Journal of Earth System Science | Indian Academy of Sciences

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Home; Journals; Journal of Earth System Science. K K Osuri. Articles written in Journal of Earth System Science. Volume 125 Issue 3 April 2016 pp 475-498. Role of land state in a high resolution mesoscale model for simulating the Uttarakhand heavy rainfall event over India · P V Rajesh S Pattnaik D Rai K K Osuri U C ...

Journal of Earth System Science | Indian Academy of Sciences

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Home; Journals; Journal of Earth System Science. S D Kotal. Articles written in Journal of Earth System Science. Volume 117 Issue 2 April 2008 pp 157-168. A Statistical Cyclone Intensity Prediction (SCIP) model for the Bay of Bengal · S D Kotal S K Roy Bhowmik P K Kundu Ananda Kumar Das · More Details Abstract ...

Journal of Earth System Science | Indian Academy of Sciences

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Home; Journals; Journal of Earth System Science. B O Adebesin. Articles written in Journal of Earth System Science. Volume 123 Issue 4 June 2014 pp 751-765. Ionospheric foF2 morphology and response of F2 layer height over Jicamarca during different solar epochs and comparison with IRI-2012 model · B O Adebesin ...

Journal of Earth System Science | Indian Academy of Sciences

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Home; Journals; Journal of Earth System Science. M Mandal. Articles written in Journal of Earth System Science. Volume 112 Issue 1 March 2003 pp 79-93. Impact of horizontal resolution on prediction of tropical cyclones over Bay of Bengal using a regional weather prediction model · M Mandal U C Mohanty K V J Potty A ...

Understanding and quantifying foliar temperature acclimation for Earth System Models

Science.gov (United States)

Smith, N. G.; Dukes, J.

2015-12-01

Photosynthesis and respiration on land are the two largest carbon fluxes between the atmosphere and Earth's surface. The parameterization of these processes represent major uncertainties in the terrestrial component of the Earth System Models used to project future climate change. Research has shown that much of this uncertainty is due to the parameterization of the temperature responses of leaf photosynthesis and autotrophic respiration, which are typically based on short-term empirical responses. Here, we show that including longer-term responses to temperature, such as temperature acclimation, can help to reduce this uncertainty and improve model performance, leading to drastic changes in future land-atmosphere carbon feedbacks across multiple models. However, these acclimation formulations have many flaws, including an underrepresentation of many important global flora. In addition, these parameterizations were done using multiple studies that employed differing methodology. As such, we used a consistent methodology to quantify the short- and long-term temperature responses of maximum Rubisco carboxylation (Vcmax), maximum rate of Ribulos-1,5-bisphosphate regeneration (Jmax), and dark respiration (Rd) in multiple species representing each of the plant functional types used in global-scale land surface models. Short-term temperature responses of each process were measured in individuals acclimated for 7 days at one of 5 temperatures (15-35°C). The comparison of short-term curves in plants acclimated to different temperatures were used to evaluate long-term responses. Our analyses indicated that the instantaneous response of each parameter was highly sensitive to the temperature at which they were acclimated. However, we found that this sensitivity was larger in species whose leaves typically experience a greater range of temperatures over the course of their lifespan. These data indicate that models using previous acclimation formulations are likely incorrectly

Final Report Collaborative Project. Improving the Representation of Coastal and Estuarine Processes in Earth System Models

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bryan, Frank [National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO (United States); Dennis, John [National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO (United States); MacCready, Parker [Univ. of Washington, Seattle, WA (United States); Whitney, Michael [Univ. of Connecticut

2015-11-20

This project aimed to improve long term global climate simulations by resolving and enhancing the representation of the processes involved in the cycling of freshwater through estuaries and coastal regions. This was a collaborative multi-institution project consisting of physical oceanographers, climate model developers, and computational scientists. It specifically targeted the DOE objectives of advancing simulation and predictive capability of climate models through improvements in resolution and physical process representation. The main computational objectives were: 1. To develop computationally efficient, but physically based, parameterizations of estuary and continental shelf mixing processes for use in an Earth System Model (CESM). 2. To develop a two-way nested regional modeling framework in order to dynamically downscale the climate response of particular coastal ocean regions and to upscale the impact of the regional coastal processes to the global climate in an Earth System Model (CESM). 3. To develop computational infrastructure to enhance the efficiency of data transfer between specific sources and destinations, i.e., a point-to-point communication capability, (used in objective 1) within POP, the ocean component of CESM.

ENES the European Network for Earth System modelling and its infrastructure projects IS-ENES

Science.gov (United States)

Guglielmo, Francesca; Joussaume, Sylvie; Parinet, Marie

2016-04-01

The scientific community working on climate modelling is organized within the European Network for Earth System modelling (ENES). In the past decade, several European university departments, research centres, meteorological services, computer centres, and industrial partners engaged in the creation of ENES with the purpose of working together and cooperating towards the further development of the network, by signing a Memorandum of Understanding. As of 2015, the consortium counts 47 partners. The climate modelling community, and thus ENES, faces challenges which are both science-driven, i.e. analysing of the full complexity of the Earth System to improve our understanding and prediction of climate changes, and have multi-faceted societal implications, as a better representation of climate change on regional scales leads to improved understanding and prediction of impacts and to the development and provision of climate services. ENES, promoting and endorsing projects and initiatives, helps in developing and evaluating of state-of-the-art climate and Earth system models, facilitates model inter-comparison studies, encourages exchanges of software and model results, and fosters the use of high performance computing facilities dedicated to high-resolution multi-model experiments. ENES brings together public and private partners, integrates countries underrepresented in climate modelling studies, and reaches out to different user communities, thus enhancing European expertise and competitiveness. In this need of sophisticated models, world-class, high-performance computers, and state-of-the-art software solutions to make efficient use of models, data and hardware, a key role is played by the constitution and maintenance of a solid infrastructure, developing and providing services to the different user communities. ENES has investigated the infrastructural needs and has received funding from the EU FP7 program for the IS-ENES (InfraStructure for ENES) phase I and II

Integrated modeling of land-use change: the role of coupling, interactions and feedbacks between the human and Earth systems

Science.gov (United States)

Monier, E.; Kicklighter, D. W.; Ejaz, Q.; Winchester, N.; Paltsev, S.; Reilly, J. M.

2016-12-01

Land-use change integrates a large number of components of the human and Earth systems, including climate, energy, water, and land. These complex coupling elements, interactions and feedbacks take place on a variety of space and time scales, thus increasing the complexity of land-use change modeling frameworks. In this study, we aim to identify which coupling elements, interactions and feedbacks are important for modeling land-use change, both at the global and regional level. First, we review the existing land-use change modeling framework used to develop land-use change projections for the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) scenarios. In such framework, land-use change is simulated by Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) and mainly influenced by economic, energy, demographic and policy drivers. IAMs focus on representing the demand for agriculture and forestry goods (crops for food and bioenergy, forest products for construction and bioenergy), the interactions with other sectors of the economy and trade between various regions of the world. Then, we investigate how important various coupling elements and feedbacks with the Earth system are for projections of land-use change at the global and regional level. We focus on the following: i) the climate impacts on land productivity and greenhouse gas emissions, which requires climate change information and coupling to a terrestrial ecosystem model/crop model; ii) the climate and economic impacts on irrigation availability, which requires coupling the LUC modeling framework to a water resources management model and disaggregating rainfed and irrigated croplands; iii) the feedback of land-use change on the global and regional climate system through land-use change emissions and changes in the surface albedo and hydrology, which requires coupling to an Earth system model. Finally, we conclude our study by highlighting the current lack of clarity in how various components of the human and Earth systems are

Research priorities in land use and land-cover change for the Earth System and Integrated Assessment Modelling

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Hibbard, K.; Janetos, A.; Vuuren, van D.; Pongratz, J.; Rose, S.; Betts, R.; Herold, M.; Feddema, J.

2010-01-01

This special issue has highlighted recent and innovative methods and results that integrate observations and modelling analyses of regional to global aspect of biophysical and biogeochemical interactions of land-cover change with the climate system. Both the Earth System and the Integrated

Sensor Webs as Virtual Data Systems for Earth Science

Science.gov (United States)

Moe, K. L.; Sherwood, R.

2008-05-01

The NASA Earth Science Technology Office established a 3-year Advanced Information Systems Technology (AIST) development program in late 2006 to explore the technical challenges associated with integrating sensors, sensor networks, data assimilation and modeling components into virtual data systems called "sensor webs". The AIST sensor web program was initiated in response to a renewed emphasis on the sensor web concepts. In 2004, NASA proposed an Earth science vision for a more robust Earth observing system, coupled with remote sensing data analysis tools and advances in Earth system models. The AIST program is conducting the research and developing components to explore the technology infrastructure that will enable the visionary goals. A working statement for a NASA Earth science sensor web vision is the following: On-demand sensing of a broad array of environmental and ecological phenomena across a wide range of spatial and temporal scales, from a heterogeneous suite of sensors both in-situ and in orbit. Sensor webs will be dynamically organized to collect data, extract information from it, accept input from other sensor / forecast / tasking systems, interact with the environment based on what they detect or are tasked to perform, and communicate observations and results in real time. The focus on sensor webs is to develop the technology and prototypes to demonstrate the evolving sensor web capabilities. There are 35 AIST projects ranging from 1 to 3 years in duration addressing various aspects of sensor webs involving space sensors such as Earth Observing-1, in situ sensor networks such as the southern California earthquake network, and various modeling and forecasting systems. Some of these projects build on proof-of-concept demonstrations of sensor web capabilities like the EO-1 rapid fire response initially implemented in 2003. Other projects simulate future sensor web configurations to evaluate the effectiveness of sensor-model interactions for producing

Understanding why the volume of suboxic waters does not increase over centuries of global warming in an Earth System Model

OpenAIRE

A. Gnanadesikan; J. P. Dunne; J. John

2012-01-01

Global warming is expected to reduce oxygen solubility and vertical exchange in the ocean, changes which would be expected to result in an increase in the volume of hypoxic waters. A simulation made with a full Earth System model with dynamical atmosphere, ocean, sea ice and biogeochemical cycling (the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory's Earth System Model 2.1) shows that this holds true if the condition for hypoxia is set relatively high. However, the volume of the most hypoxic (i.e., su...

Implementation of methane cycling for deep time, global warming simulations with the DCESS Earth System Model (Version 1.2)

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Shaffer, Gary; Villanueva, Esteban Fernández; Rondanelli, Roberto

2017-01-01

Geological records reveal a number of ancient, large and rapid negative excursions of carbon-13 isotope. Such excursions can only be explained by massive injections of depleted carbon to the Earth System over a short duration. These injections may have forced strong global warming events, sometimes....... With this improved DCESS model version and paleo-reconstructions, we are now better armed to gauge the amounts, types, time scales and locations of methane injections driving specific, observed deep time, global warming events......., or from warming-induced dissociation of methane hydrate, a solid compound of methane and water found in ocean sediments. As a consequence of the ubiquity and importance of methane in major Earth events, Earth System models should include a comprehensive treatment of methane cycling but such a treatment...

Development of a hybrid 3-D hydrological model to simulate hillslopes and the regional unconfined aquifer system in Earth system models

Science.gov (United States)

Hazenberg, P.; Broxton, P. D.; Brunke, M.; Gochis, D.; Niu, G. Y.; Pelletier, J. D.; Troch, P. A. A.; Zeng, X.

2015-12-01

The terrestrial hydrological system, including surface and subsurface water, is an essential component of the Earth's climate system. Over the past few decades, land surface modelers have built one-dimensional (1D) models resolving the vertical flow of water through the soil column for use in Earth system models (ESMs). These models generally have a relatively coarse model grid size (~25-100 km) and only account for sub-grid lateral hydrological variations using simple parameterization schemes. At the same time, hydrologists have developed detailed high-resolution (~0.1-10 km grid size) three dimensional (3D) models and showed the importance of accounting for the vertical and lateral redistribution of surface and subsurface water on soil moisture, the surface energy balance and ecosystem dynamics on these smaller scales. However, computational constraints have limited the implementation of the high-resolution models for continental and global scale applications. The current work presents a hybrid-3D hydrological approach is presented, where the 1D vertical soil column model (available in many ESMs) is coupled with a high-resolution lateral flow model (h2D) to simulate subsurface flow and overland flow. H2D accounts for both local-scale hillslope and regional-scale unconfined aquifer responses (i.e. riparian zone and wetlands). This approach was shown to give comparable results as those obtained by an explicit 3D Richards model for the subsurface, but improves runtime efficiency considerably. The h3D approach is implemented for the Delaware river basin, where Noah-MP land surface model (LSM) is used to calculated vertical energy and water exchanges with the atmosphere using a 10km grid resolution. Noah-MP was coupled within the WRF-Hydro infrastructure with the lateral 1km grid resolution h2D model, for which the average depth-to-bedrock, hillslope width function and soil parameters were estimated from digital datasets. The ability of this h3D approach to simulate

Plant functional types in Earth system models: past experiences and future directions for application of dynamic vegetation models in high-latitude ecosystems

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Wullschleger, S.D.; Epstein, H.E.; Box, E.O.; Euskirchen, E.S.; Goswami, S.; Iversen, C.M.; Kattge, J.; Norby, R.J.; van Bodegom, P.M.; Xu, X.

2014-01-01

Background Earth system models describe the physical, chemical and biological processes that govern our global climate. While it is difficult to single out one component as being more important than another in these sophisticated models, terrestrial vegetation is a critical player in the

Baltic Earth - Earth System Science for the Baltic Sea Region

Science.gov (United States)

Meier, Markus; Rutgersson, Anna; Lehmann, Andreas; Reckermann, Marcus

2014-05-01

The Baltic Sea region, defined as its river catchment basin, spans different climate and population zones, from a temperate, highly populated, industrialized south with intensive agriculture to a boreal, rural north. It encompasses most of the Scandinavian Peninsula in the west; most of Finland and parts of Russia, Belarus, and the Baltic states in the east; and Poland and small parts of Germany and Denmark in the south. The region represents an old cultural landscape, and the Baltic Sea itself is among the most studied sea areas of the world. Baltic Earth is the new Earth system research network for the Baltic Sea region. It is the successor to BALTEX, which was terminated in June 2013 after 20 years and two successful phases. Baltic Earth stands for the vision to achieve an improved Earth system understanding of the Baltic Sea region. This means that the research disciplines of BALTEX continue to be relevant, i.e. atmospheric and climate sciences, hydrology, oceanography and biogeochemistry, but a more holistic view of the Earth system encompassing processes in the atmosphere, on land and in the sea as well as in the anthroposphere shall gain in importance in Baltic Earth. Specific grand research challenges have been formulated, representing interdisciplinary research questions to be tackled in the coming years. A major means will be scientific assessments of particular research topics by expert groups, similar to the BACC approach, which shall help to identify knowledge gaps and develop research strategies. Preliminary grand challenges and topics for which Working Groups have been installed include: • Salinity dynamics in the Baltic Sea • Land-Sea biogeochemical feedbacks in the Baltic Sea region • Natural hazards and extreme events in the Baltic Sea region • Understanding sea level dynamics in the Baltic Sea • Understanding regional variability of water and energy exchange • Utility of Regional Climate Models • Assessment of Scenario Simulations

Improved Analysis of Earth System Models and Observations using Simple Climate Models

Science.gov (United States)

Nadiga, B. T.; Urban, N. M.

2016-12-01

Earth system models (ESM) are the most comprehensive tools we have to study climate change and develop climate projections. However, the computational infrastructure required and the cost incurred in running such ESMs precludes direct use of such models in conjunction with a wide variety of tools that can further our understanding of climate. Here we are referring to tools that range from dynamical systems tools that give insight into underlying flow structure and topology to tools that come from various applied mathematical and statistical techniques and are central to quantifying stability, sensitivity, uncertainty and predictability to machine learning tools that are now being rapidly developed or improved. Our approach to facilitate the use of such models is to analyze output of ESM experiments (cf. CMIP) using a range of simpler models that consider integral balances of important quantities such as mass and/or energy in a Bayesian framework.We highlight the use of this approach in the context of the uptake of heat by the world oceans in the ongoing global warming. Indeed, since in excess of 90% of the anomalous radiative forcing due greenhouse gas emissions is sequestered in the world oceans, the nature of ocean heat uptake crucially determines the surface warming that is realized (cf. climate sensitivity). Nevertheless, ESMs themselves are never run long enough to directly assess climate sensitivity. So, we consider a range of models based on integral balances--balances that have to be realized in all first-principles based models of the climate system including the most detailed state-of-the art climate simulations. The models range from simple models of energy balance to those that consider dynamically important ocean processes such as the conveyor-belt circulation (Meridional Overturning Circulation, MOC), North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW) formation, Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) and eddy mixing. Results from Bayesian analysis of such models using

Modeling and Analysis Compute Environments, Utilizing Virtualization Technology in the Climate and Earth Systems Science domain

Science.gov (United States)

Michaelis, A.; Nemani, R. R.; Wang, W.; Votava, P.; Hashimoto, H.

2010-12-01

Given the increasing complexity of climate modeling and analysis tools, it is often difficult and expensive to build or recreate an exact replica of the software compute environment used in past experiments. With the recent development of new technologies for hardware virtualization, an opportunity exists to create full modeling, analysis and compute environments that are “archiveable”, transferable and may be easily shared amongst a scientific community or presented to a bureaucratic body if the need arises. By encapsulating and entire modeling and analysis environment in a virtual machine image, others may quickly gain access to the fully built system used in past experiments, potentially easing the task and reducing the costs of reproducing and verify past results produced by other researchers. Moreover, these virtual machine images may be used as a pedagogical tool for others that are interested in performing an academic exercise but don't yet possess the broad expertise required. We built two virtual machine images, one with the Community Earth System Model (CESM) and one with Weather Research Forecast Model (WRF), then ran several small experiments to assess the feasibility, performance overheads costs, reusability, and transferability. We present a list of the pros and cons as well as lessoned learned from utilizing virtualization technology in the climate and earth systems modeling domain.

On inclusion of water resource management in Earth system models - Part 1: Problem definition and representation of water demand

Science.gov (United States)

Nazemi, A.; Wheater, H. S.

2015-01-01

Human activities have caused various changes to the Earth system, and hence the interconnections between human activities and the Earth system should be recognized and reflected in models that simulate Earth system processes. One key anthropogenic activity is water resource management, which determines the dynamics of human-water interactions in time and space and controls human livelihoods and economy, including energy and food production. There are immediate needs to include water resource management in Earth system models. First, the extent of human water requirements is increasing rapidly at the global scale and it is crucial to analyze the possible imbalance between water demands and supply under various scenarios of climate change and across various temporal and spatial scales. Second, recent observations show that human-water interactions, manifested through water resource management, can substantially alter the terrestrial water cycle, affect land-atmospheric feedbacks and may further interact with climate and contribute to sea-level change. Due to the importance of water resource management in determining the future of the global water and climate cycles, the World Climate Research Program's Global Energy and Water Exchanges project (WRCP-GEWEX) has recently identified gaps in describing human-water interactions as one of the grand challenges in Earth system modeling (GEWEX, 2012). Here, we divide water resource management into two interdependent elements, related firstly to water demand and secondly to water supply and allocation. In this paper, we survey the current literature on how various components of water demand have been included in large-scale models, in particular land surface and global hydrological models. Issues of water supply and allocation are addressed in a companion paper. The available algorithms to represent the dominant demands are classified based on the demand type, mode of simulation and underlying modeling assumptions. We discuss

Implementation of methane cycling for deep-time global warming simulations with the DCESS Earth system model (version 1.2)

Science.gov (United States)

Shaffer, Gary; Fernández Villanueva, Esteban; Rondanelli, Roberto; Olaf Pepke Pedersen, Jens; Malskær Olsen, Steffen; Huber, Matthew

2017-11-01

Geological records reveal a number of ancient, large and rapid negative excursions of the carbon-13 isotope. Such excursions can only be explained by massive injections of depleted carbon to the Earth system over a short duration. These injections may have forced strong global warming events, sometimes accompanied by mass extinctions such as the Triassic-Jurassic and end-Permian extinctions 201 and 252 million years ago, respectively. In many cases, evidence points to methane as the dominant form of injected carbon, whether as thermogenic methane formed by magma intrusions through overlying carbon-rich sediment or from warming-induced dissociation of methane hydrate, a solid compound of methane and water found in ocean sediments. As a consequence of the ubiquity and importance of methane in major Earth events, Earth system models for addressing such events should include a comprehensive treatment of methane cycling but such a treatment has often been lacking. Here we implement methane cycling in the Danish Center for Earth System Science (DCESS) model, a simplified but well-tested Earth system model of intermediate complexity. We use a generic methane input function that allows variation in input type, size, timescale and ocean-atmosphere partition. To be able to treat such massive inputs more correctly, we extend the model to deal with ocean suboxic/anoxic conditions and with radiative forcing and methane lifetimes appropriate for high atmospheric methane concentrations. With this new model version, we carried out an extensive set of simulations for methane inputs of various sizes, timescales and ocean-atmosphere partitions to probe model behavior. We find that larger methane inputs over shorter timescales with more methane dissolving in the ocean lead to ever-increasing ocean anoxia with consequences for ocean life and global carbon cycling. Greater methane input directly to the atmosphere leads to more warming and, for example, greater carbon dioxide release

Implementation of methane cycling for deep-time global warming simulations with the DCESS Earth system model (version 1.2

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

G. Shaffer

2017-11-01

Full Text Available Geological records reveal a number of ancient, large and rapid negative excursions of the carbon-13 isotope. Such excursions can only be explained by massive injections of depleted carbon to the Earth system over a short duration. These injections may have forced strong global warming events, sometimes accompanied by mass extinctions such as the Triassic-Jurassic and end-Permian extinctions 201 and 252 million years ago, respectively. In many cases, evidence points to methane as the dominant form of injected carbon, whether as thermogenic methane formed by magma intrusions through overlying carbon-rich sediment or from warming-induced dissociation of methane hydrate, a solid compound of methane and water found in ocean sediments. As a consequence of the ubiquity and importance of methane in major Earth events, Earth system models for addressing such events should include a comprehensive treatment of methane cycling but such a treatment has often been lacking. Here we implement methane cycling in the Danish Center for Earth System Science (DCESS model, a simplified but well-tested Earth system model of intermediate complexity. We use a generic methane input function that allows variation in input type, size, timescale and ocean–atmosphere partition. To be able to treat such massive inputs more correctly, we extend the model to deal with ocean suboxic/anoxic conditions and with radiative forcing and methane lifetimes appropriate for high atmospheric methane concentrations. With this new model version, we carried out an extensive set of simulations for methane inputs of various sizes, timescales and ocean–atmosphere partitions to probe model behavior. We find that larger methane inputs over shorter timescales with more methane dissolving in the ocean lead to ever-increasing ocean anoxia with consequences for ocean life and global carbon cycling. Greater methane input directly to the atmosphere leads to more warming and, for example

Progress Report 2008: A Scalable and Extensible Earth System Model for Climate Change Science

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Drake, John B [ORNL; Worley, Patrick H [ORNL; Hoffman, Forrest M [ORNL; Jones, Phil [Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL)

2009-01-01

This project employs multi-disciplinary teams to accelerate development of the Community Climate System Model (CCSM), based at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). A consortium of eight Department of Energy (DOE) National Laboratories collaborate with NCAR and the NASA Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO). The laboratories are Argonne (ANL), Brookhaven (BNL) Los Alamos (LANL), Lawrence Berkeley (LBNL), Lawrence Livermore (LLNL), Oak Ridge (ORNL), Pacific Northwest (PNNL) and Sandia (SNL). The work plan focuses on scalablity for petascale computation and extensibility to a more comprehensive earth system model. Our stated goal is to support the DOE mission in climate change research by helping ... To determine the range of possible climate changes over the 21st century and beyond through simulations using a more accurate climate system model that includes the full range of human and natural climate feedbacks with increased realism and spatial resolution.

Workshop on Human Activity at Scale in Earth System Models

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Allen, Melissa R. [Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States); Aziz, H. M. Abdul [Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States); Coletti, Mark A. [Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States); Kennedy, Joseph H. [Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States); Nair, Sujithkumar S. [Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States); Omitaomu, Olufemi A. [Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)

2017-01-26

Changing human activity within a geographical location may have significant influence on the global climate, but that activity must be parameterized in such a way as to allow these high-resolution sub-grid processes to affect global climate within that modeling framework. Additionally, we must have tools that provide decision support and inform local and regional policies regarding mitigation of and adaptation to climate change. The development of next-generation earth system models, that can produce actionable results with minimum uncertainties, depends on understanding global climate change and human activity interactions at policy implementation scales. Unfortunately, at best we currently have only limited schemes for relating high-resolution sectoral emissions to real-time weather, ultimately to become part of larger regions and well-mixed atmosphere. Moreover, even our understanding of meteorological processes at these scales is imperfect. This workshop addresses these shortcomings by providing a forum for discussion of what we know about these processes, what we can model, where we have gaps in these areas and how we can rise to the challenge to fill these gaps.

NASA's Earth Science Data Systems

Science.gov (United States)

Ramapriyan, H. K.

2015-01-01

NASA's Earth Science Data Systems (ESDS) Program has evolved over the last two decades, and currently has several core and community components. Core components provide the basic operational capabilities to process, archive, manage and distribute data from NASA missions. Community components provide a path for peer-reviewed research in Earth Science Informatics to feed into the evolution of the core components. The Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) is a core component consisting of twelve Distributed Active Archive Centers (DAACs) and eight Science Investigator-led Processing Systems spread across the U.S. The presentation covers how the ESDS Program continues to evolve and benefits from as well as contributes to advances in Earth Science Informatics.

Introducing a boreal wetland model within the Earth System model framework

Science.gov (United States)

Getzieh, R. J.; Brovkin, V.; Reick, C.; Kleinen, T.; Raddatz, T.; Raivonen, M.; Sevanto, S.

2009-04-01

Wetlands of the northern high latitudes with their low temperatures and waterlogged conditions are prerequisite for peat accumulation. They store at least 25% of the global soil organic carbon and constitute currently the largest natural source of methane. These boreal and subarctic peat carbon pools are sensitive to climate change since the ratio of carbon sequestration and emission is closely dependent on hydrology and temperature. Global biogeochemistry models used for simulations of CO2 dynamics in the past and future climates usually ignore changes in the peat storages. Our approach aims at the evaluation of the boreal wetland feedback to climate through the CO2 and CH4 fluxes on decadal to millennial time scales. A generic model of organic matter accumulation and decay in boreal wetlands is under development in the MPI for Meteorology in cooperation with the University of Helsinki. Our approach is to develop a wetland model which is consistent with the physical and biogeochemical components of the land surface module JSBACH as a part of the Earth System model framework ECHAM5-MPIOM-JSBACH. As prototypes, we use modelling approach by Frolking et al. (2001) for the peat dynamics and the wetland model by Wania (2007) for vegetation cover and plant productivity. An initial distribution of wetlands follows the GLWD-3 map by Lehner and Döll (2004). First results of the modelling approach will be presented. References: Frolking, S. E., N. T. Roulet, T. R. Moore, P. J. H. Richard, M. Lavoie and S. D. Muller (2001): Modeling Northern Peatland Decomposition and Peat Accumulation, Ecosystems, 4, 479-498. Lehner, B., Döll P. (2004): Development and validation of a global database of lakes, reservoirs and wetlands. Journal of Hydrology 296 (1-4), 1-22. Wania, R. (2007): Modelling northern peatland land surface processes, vegetation dynamics and methane emissions. PhD thesis, University of Bristol, 122 pp.

Evolving Metadata in NASA Earth Science Data Systems

Science.gov (United States)

Mitchell, A.; Cechini, M. F.; Walter, J.

2011-12-01

NASA's Earth Observing System (EOS) is a coordinated series of satellites for long term global observations. NASA's Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) is a petabyte-scale archive of environmental data that supports global climate change research by providing end-to-end services from EOS instrument data collection to science data processing to full access to EOS and other earth science data. On a daily basis, the EOSDIS ingests, processes, archives and distributes over 3 terabytes of data from NASA's Earth Science missions representing over 3500 data products ranging from various types of science disciplines. EOSDIS is currently comprised of 12 discipline specific data centers that are collocated with centers of science discipline expertise. Metadata is used in all aspects of NASA's Earth Science data lifecycle from the initial measurement gathering to the accessing of data products. Missions use metadata in their science data products when describing information such as the instrument/sensor, operational plan, and geographically region. Acting as the curator of the data products, data centers employ metadata for preservation, access and manipulation of data. EOSDIS provides a centralized metadata repository called the Earth Observing System (EOS) ClearingHouse (ECHO) for data discovery and access via a service-oriented-architecture (SOA) between data centers and science data users. ECHO receives inventory metadata from data centers who generate metadata files that complies with the ECHO Metadata Model. NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS) Project established a Tiger Team to study and make recommendations regarding the adoption of the international metadata standard ISO 19115 in EOSDIS. The result was a technical report recommending an evolution of NASA data systems towards a consistent application of ISO 19115 and related standards including the creation of a NASA-specific convention for core ISO 19115 elements. Part of

PyrE, an interactive fire module within the NASA-GISS Earth System Model

Science.gov (United States)

Mezuman, K.; Bauer, S. E.; Tsigaridis, K.

2017-12-01

Fires directly affect the composition of the atmosphere and Earth's radiation balance by emitting a suite of reactive gases and particles. Having an interactive fire module in an Earth System Model allows us to study the natural and anthropogenic drivers, feedbacks, and interactions of biomass burning in different time periods. To do so we have developed PyrE, the NASA-GISS interactive fire emissions model. PyrE uses the flammability, ignition, and suppression parameterization proposed by Pechony and Shindell (2009), and is coupled to a burned area and surface recovery parameterization. The burned area calculation follows CLM's approach (Li et al., 2012), paired with an offline recovery scheme based on Ent's Terrestrial Biosphere Model (Ent TBM) carbon pool turnover time. PyrE is driven by environmental variables calculated by climate simulations, population density data, MODIS fire counts and LAI retrievals, as well as GFED4s emissions. Since the model development required extensive use of reference datasets, in addition to comparing it to GFED4s BA, we evaluate it by studying the effect of fires on atmospheric composition and climate. Our results show good agreement globally, with some regional differences. Finally, we quantify the present day fire radiative forcing. The development of PyrE allowed us for the first time to interactively simulate climate and fire activity with GISS-ModelE3

Atmospheric Constituents in GEOS-5: Components for an Earth System Model

Science.gov (United States)

Pawson, Steven; Douglass, Anne; Duncan, Bryan; Nielsen, Eric; Ott, Leslie; Strode, Sarah

2011-01-01

The GEOS-S model is being developed for weather and climate processes, including the implementation of "Earth System" components. While the stratospheric chemistry capabilities are mature, we are presently extending this to include predictions of the tropospheric composition and chemistry - this includes CO2, CH4, CO, nitrogen species, etc. (Aerosols are also implemented, but are beyond the scope of this paper.) This work will give an overview of our chemistry modules, the approaches taken to represent surface emissions and uptake of chemical species, and some studies of the sensitivity of the atmospheric circulation to changes in atmospheric composition. Results are obtained through focused experiments and multi-decadal simulations.

The Earth Observing System Terra Mission

Science.gov (United States)

Kaufman, Yoram J.; Einaudi, Franco (Technical Monitor)

2000-01-01

Langley's remarkable solar and lunar spectra collected from Mt. Whitney inspired Arrhenius to develop the first quantitative climate model in 1896. After the launch in Dec. 16 1999, NASA's Earth Observing AM Satellite (EOS-Terra) will repeat Langley's experiment, but for the entire planet, thus pioneering a wide array of calibrated spectral observations from space of the Earth System. Conceived in response to real environmental problems, EOS-Terra, in conjunction with other international satellite efforts, will fill a major gap in current efforts by providing quantitative global data sets with a resolution better than 1 km on the physical, chemical and biological elements of the earth system. Thus, like Langley's data, EOS-Terra can revolutionize climate research by inspiring a new generation of climate system models and enable us to assess the human impact on the environment. In the talk I shall review the historical perspective of the Terra mission and the key new elements of the mission. We expect to have first images that demonstrate the most innovative capability from EOS Terra 5 instruments: MODIS - 1.37 micron cirrus cloud channel; 250m daily coverage for clouds and vegetation change; 7 solar channels for land and aerosol studies; new fire channels; Chlorophyll fluorescence; MISR - first 9 multi angle views of clouds and vegetation; MOPITT - first global CO maps and C114 maps; ASTER - Thermal channels for geological studies with 15-90 m resolution.

Improving estimations of greenhouse gas transfer velocities by atmosphere-ocean couplers in Earth-System and regional models

Science.gov (United States)

Vieira, V. M. N. C. S.; Sahlée, E.; Jurus, P.; Clementi, E.; Pettersson, H.; Mateus, M.

2015-09-01

Earth-System and regional models, forecasting climate change and its impacts, simulate atmosphere-ocean gas exchanges using classical yet too simple generalizations relying on wind speed as the sole mediator while neglecting factors as sea-surface agitation, atmospheric stability, current drag with the bottom, rain and surfactants. These were proved fundamental for accurate estimates, particularly in the coastal ocean, where a significant part of the atmosphere-ocean greenhouse gas exchanges occurs. We include several of these factors in a customizable algorithm proposed for the basis of novel couplers of the atmospheric and oceanographic model components. We tested performances with measured and simulated data from the European coastal ocean, having found our algorithm to forecast greenhouse gas exchanges largely different from the forecasted by the generalization currently in use. Our algorithm allows calculus vectorization and parallel processing, improving computational speed roughly 12× in a single cpu core, an essential feature for Earth-System models applications.

Observation of the Earth system from space

CERN Document Server

Flury, Jakob; Reigber, Christoph; Rothacher, Markus; Boedecker, Gerd

2006-01-01

In the recent years, space-based observation methods have led to a subst- tially improved understanding of Earth system. Geodesy and geophysics are contributing to this development by measuring the temporal and spatial va- ations of the Earth's shape, gravity ?eld, and magnetic ?eld, as well as at- sphere density. In the frame of the GermanR&D programmeGEOTECHNO- LOGIEN,researchprojectshavebeen launchedin2002relatedto the satellite missions CHAMP, GRACE and ESA's planned mission GOCE, to comp- mentary terrestrial and airborne sensor systems and to consistent and stable high-precision global reference systems for satellite and other techniques. In the initial 3-year phase of the research programme (2002-2004), new gravity ?eld models have been computed from CHAMP and GRACE data which outperform previous models in accuracy by up to two orders of m- nitude for the long and medium wavelengths. A special highlight is the - termination of seasonal gravity variations caused by changes in continental water masses...

Journal of Earth System Science | Indian Academy of Sciences

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Home; Journals; Journal of Earth System Science; Volume 121; Issue 3 ... The failure of atmospheric general circulation models (AGCMs) forced by ... Centre for Mathematical Modelling and Computer Simulation, Bangalore 560 037, India.

Observationally-based Metrics of Ocean Carbon and Biogeochemical Variables are Essential for Evaluating Earth System Model Projections

Science.gov (United States)

Russell, J. L.; Sarmiento, J. L.

2017-12-01

The Southern Ocean is central to the climate's response to increasing levels of atmospheric greenhouse gases as it ventilates a large fraction of the global ocean volume. Global coupled climate models and earth system models, however, vary widely in their simulations of the Southern Ocean and its role in, and response to, the ongoing anthropogenic forcing. Due to its complex water-mass structure and dynamics, Southern Ocean carbon and heat uptake depend on a combination of winds, eddies, mixing, buoyancy fluxes and topography. Understanding how the ocean carries heat and carbon into its interior and how the observed wind changes are affecting this uptake is essential to accurately projecting transient climate sensitivity. Observationally-based metrics are critical for discerning processes and mechanisms, and for validating and comparing climate models. As the community shifts toward Earth system models with explicit carbon simulations, more direct observations of important biogeochemical parameters, like those obtained from the biogeochemically-sensored floats that are part of the Southern Ocean Carbon and Climate Observations and Modeling project, are essential. One goal of future observing systems should be to create observationally-based benchmarks that will lead to reducing uncertainties in climate projections, and especially uncertainties related to oceanic heat and carbon uptake.

The COSPAR roadmap on Space-based observation and Integrated Earth System Science for 2016-2025

Science.gov (United States)

Fellous, Jean-Louis

2016-07-01

The Committee on Space Research of the International Council for Science recently commissioned a study group to prepare a roadmap on observation and integrated Earth-system science for the coming ten years. Its focus is on the combined use of observations and modelling to address the functioning, predictability and projected evolution of the Earth system on timescales out to a century or so. It discusses how observations support integrated Earth-system science and its applications, and identifies planned enhancements to the contributing observing systems and other requirements for observations and their processing. The paper will provide an overview of the content of the roadmap. All types of observation are considered in the roadmap, but emphasis is placed on those made from space. The origins and development of the integrated view of the Earth system are outlined, noting the interactions between the main components that lead to requirements for integrated science and modelling, and for the observations that guide and support them. What constitutes an Earth-system model is discussed. Summaries are given of key cycles within the Earth system. The nature of Earth observation and the arrangements for international coordination essential for effective operation of global observing systems are introduced in the roadmap. Instances are given of present types of observation, what is already on the roadmap for 2016-2025 and some of the issues to be faced. The current status and prospects for Earth-system modelling are summarized. Data assimilation is discussed not only because it uses observations and models to generate datasets for monitoring the Earth system and for initiating and evaluating predictions, in particular through reanalysis, but also because of the feedback it provides on the quality of both the observations and the models employed. Finally the roadmap offers a set of concluding discussions covering general developmental needs, requirements for continuity of

Modernizing Earth and Space Science Modeling Workflows in the Big Data Era

Science.gov (United States)

Kinter, J. L.; Feigelson, E.; Walker, R. J.; Tino, C.

2017-12-01

Modeling is a major aspect of the Earth and space science research. The development of numerical models of the Earth system, planetary systems or astrophysical systems is essential to linking theory with observations. Optimal use of observations that are quite expensive to obtain and maintain typically requires data assimilation that involves numerical models. In the Earth sciences, models of the physical climate system are typically used for data assimilation, climate projection, and inter-disciplinary research, spanning applications from analysis of multi-sensor data sets to decision-making in climate-sensitive sectors with applications to ecosystems, hazards, and various biogeochemical processes. In space physics, most models are from first principles, require considerable expertise to run and are frequently modified significantly for each case study. The volume and variety of model output data from modeling Earth and space systems are rapidly increasing and have reached a scale where human interaction with data is prohibitively inefficient. A major barrier to progress is that modeling workflows isn't deemed by practitioners to be a design problem. Existing workflows have been created by a slow accretion of software, typically based on undocumented, inflexible scripts haphazardly modified by a succession of scientists and students not trained in modern software engineering methods. As a result, existing modeling workflows suffer from an inability to onboard new datasets into models; an inability to keep pace with accelerating data production rates; and irreproducibility, among other problems. These factors are creating an untenable situation for those conducting and supporting Earth system and space science. Improving modeling workflows requires investments in hardware, software and human resources. This paper describes the critical path issues that must be targeted to accelerate modeling workflows, including script modularization, parallelization, and

GFDL's ESM2 global coupled climate-carbon Earth System Models. Part I: physical formulation and baseline simulation characteristics

Science.gov (United States)

Dunne, John P.; John, Jasmin G.; Adcroft, Alistair J.; Griffies, Stephen M.; Hallberg, Robert W.; Shevalikova, Elena; Stouffer, Ronald J.; Cooke, William; Dunne, Krista A.; Harrison, Matthew J.; Krasting, John P.; Malyshev, Sergey L.; Milly, P.C.D.; Phillipps, Peter J.; Sentman, Lori A.; Samuels, Bonita L.; Spelman, Michael J.; Winton, Michael; Wittenberg, Andrew T.; Zadeh, Niki

2012-01-01

We describe the physical climate formulation and simulation characteristics of two new global coupled carbon-climate Earth System Models, ESM2M and ESM2G. These models demonstrate similar climate fidelity as the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory's previous CM2.1 climate model while incorporating explicit and consistent carbon dynamics. The two models differ exclusively in the physical ocean component; ESM2M uses Modular Ocean Model version 4.1 with vertical pressure layers while ESM2G uses Generalized Ocean Layer Dynamics with a bulk mixed layer and interior isopycnal layers. Differences in the ocean mean state include the thermocline depth being relatively deep in ESM2M and relatively shallow in ESM2G compared to observations. The crucial role of ocean dynamics on climate variability is highlighted in the El Niño-Southern Oscillation being overly strong in ESM2M and overly weak ESM2G relative to observations. Thus, while ESM2G might better represent climate changes relating to: total heat content variability given its lack of long term drift, gyre circulation and ventilation in the North Pacific, tropical Atlantic and Indian Oceans, and depth structure in the overturning and abyssal flows, ESM2M might better represent climate changes relating to: surface circulation given its superior surface temperature, salinity and height patterns, tropical Pacific circulation and variability, and Southern Ocean dynamics. Our overall assessment is that neither model is fundamentally superior to the other, and that both models achieve sufficient fidelity to allow meaningful climate and earth system modeling applications. This affords us the ability to assess the role of ocean configuration on earth system interactions in the context of two state-of-the-art coupled carbon-climate models.

Earth System Models Underestimate Soil Carbon Diagnostic Times in Dry and Cold Regions.

Science.gov (United States)

Jing, W.; Xia, J.; Zhou, X.; Huang, K.; Huang, Y.; Jian, Z.; Jiang, L.; Xu, X.; Liang, J.; Wang, Y. P.; Luo, Y.

2017-12-01

Soils contain the largest organic carbon (C) reservoir in the Earth's surface and strongly modulate the terrestrial feedback to climate change. Large uncertainty exists in current Earth system models (ESMs) in simulating soil organic C (SOC) dynamics, calling for a systematic diagnosis on their performance based on observations. Here, we built a global database of SOC diagnostic time (i.e.,turnover times; τsoil) measured at 320 sites with four different approaches. We found that the estimated τsoil was comparable among approaches of 14C dating () (median with 25 and 75 percentiles), 13C shifts due to vegetation change () and the ratio of stock over flux (), but was shortest from laboratory incubation studies (). The state-of-the-art ESMs underestimated the τsoil in most biomes, even by >10 and >5 folds in cold and dry regions, respectively. Moreover,we identified clear negative dependences of τsoil on temperature and precipitation in both of the observational and modeling results. Compared with Community Land Model (version 4), the incorporation of soil vertical profile (CLM4.5) could substantially extend the τsoil of SOC. Our findings suggest the accuracy of climate-C cycle feedback in current ESMs could be enhanced by an improved understanding of SOC dynamics under the limited hydrothermal conditions.

Orbital Noise in the Earth System and Climate Fluctuations

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Han-Shou; Smith, David E. (Technical Monitor)

2001-01-01

Frequency noise in the variations of the Earth's obliquity (tilt) can modulate the insolation signal for climate change. Including this frequency noise effect on the incoming solar radiation, we have applied an energy balance climate model to calculate the climate fluctuations for the past one million years. Model simulation results are in good agreement with the geologically observed paleoclimate data. We conclude that orbital noise in the Earth system may be the major cause of the climate fluctuation cycles.

Towards representing human behavior and decision making in Earth system models - an overview of techniques and approaches

Science.gov (United States)

Müller-Hansen, Finn; Schlüter, Maja; Mäs, Michael; Donges, Jonathan F.; Kolb, Jakob J.; Thonicke, Kirsten; Heitzig, Jobst

2017-11-01

Today, humans have a critical impact on the Earth system and vice versa, which can generate complex feedback processes between social and ecological dynamics. Integrating human behavior into formal Earth system models (ESMs), however, requires crucial modeling assumptions about actors and their goals, behavioral options, and decision rules, as well as modeling decisions regarding human social interactions and the aggregation of individuals' behavior. Here, we review existing modeling approaches and techniques from various disciplines and schools of thought dealing with human behavior at different levels of decision making. We demonstrate modelers' often vast degrees of freedom but also seek to make modelers aware of the often crucial consequences of seemingly innocent modeling assumptions. After discussing which socioeconomic units are potentially important for ESMs, we compare models of individual decision making that correspond to alternative behavioral theories and that make diverse modeling assumptions about individuals' preferences, beliefs, decision rules, and foresight. We review approaches to model social interaction, covering game theoretic frameworks, models of social influence, and network models. Finally, we discuss approaches to studying how the behavior of individuals, groups, and organizations can aggregate to complex collective phenomena, discussing agent-based, statistical, and representative-agent modeling and economic macro-dynamics. We illustrate the main ingredients of modeling techniques with examples from land-use dynamics as one of the main drivers of environmental change bridging local to global scales.

A roadmap for improving the representation of photosynthesis in Earth system models.

Science.gov (United States)

Rogers, Alistair; Medlyn, Belinda E; Dukes, Jeffrey S; Bonan, Gordon; von Caemmerer, Susanne; Dietze, Michael C; Kattge, Jens; Leakey, Andrew D B; Mercado, Lina M; Niinemets, Ülo; Prentice, I Colin; Serbin, Shawn P; Sitch, Stephen; Way, Danielle A; Zaehle, Sönke

2017-01-01

Accurate representation of photosynthesis in terrestrial biosphere models (TBMs) is essential for robust projections of global change. However, current representations vary markedly between TBMs, contributing uncertainty to projections of global carbon fluxes. Here we compared the representation of photosynthesis in seven TBMs by examining leaf and canopy level responses of photosynthetic CO 2 assimilation (A) to key environmental variables: light, temperature, CO 2 concentration, vapor pressure deficit and soil water content. We identified research areas where limited process knowledge prevents inclusion of physiological phenomena in current TBMs and research areas where data are urgently needed for model parameterization or evaluation. We provide a roadmap for new science needed to improve the representation of photosynthesis in the next generation of terrestrial biosphere and Earth system models. No claim to original US Government works New Phytologist © 2016 New Phytologist Trust.

What Makes Earth and Space Science Sexy? A Model for Developing Systemic Change in Earth and Space Systems Science Curriculum and Instruction

Science.gov (United States)

Slutskin, R. L.

2001-12-01

Earth and Space Science may be the neglected child in the family of high school sciences. In this session, we examine the strategies that Anne Arundel County Public Schools and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center used to develop a dynamic and highly engaging program which follows the vision of the National Science Education Standards, is grounded in key concepts of NASA's Earth Science Directorate, and allows students to examine and apply the current research of NASA scientists. Find out why Earth/Space Systems Science seems to have usurped biology and has made students, principals, and teachers clamor for similar instructional practices in what is traditionally thought of as the "glamorous" course.

Problem of simulating the Earth's induction effects in modeling polar magnetic substorms

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mareschal, M.

1976-01-01

A major problem encountered in trying to model the current system associated with a polar magnetic substorm from ground-based magnetic observations is the difficulty of adequately evaluating the earth's induction effects. Two methods for simulating these effects are reviewed here. Method 1 simply reduces the earth to a perfect conductor and leads to very simple field equations. Method 2 considers the earth as a ''horizontally'' layered body of finite conductivity but requires a large amount of computational time. The performances of both methods are compared when the substorm current system can be approximated by an infinitely long electrojet flowing over a flat earth. In this case it appears that for most substorm modeling problems it is sufficient to treat the earth as a perfect conductor. The depth of this perfect conductor below the earth's surface should be selected in function of the source frequency content

Spatio-Temporal Modeling of the Earth Events and Moving of Celestial Bodies

Science.gov (United States)

Bulatova, Natalia P.

2011-09-01

It is well known that periodical and cyclical movements of cosmic sources of gravitation considerably affect Earth's geospheres (atmosphere, hydrosphere, crust, etc.) by producing tides and related phenomena, as well as the state of tectonic blocks, lithosphere plates and deep crust fractures. The result of such influence may be earthquakes and other catastrophes. Nowadays, the question modeling of geophysical processes is considerably actual. Thus studies in area of Earth' sciences have been moved from practice of observation of separate phenomena to the systematic quantitative investigation in interdisciplinary areas. A system of two modules is proposed by the author each using its own system of coordinates: (1) the model of three-dimensional spherical body of the Earth with the system of coordinates (III) including the time of events that happened on the Earth and (2) a compact model of the relative motion of celestial bodies in space and time as vectors that are changing their directions. Note the data bases of the Earth sciences have been used to construct the module (1), while the module (2) has been built using astronomic parameters of celestial bodies. The module (2) is known as "Method of moving source" (MDS) [1, 2]. As a result, on the basis of systematization, joint analysis and complexity of cosmic data and databases of Earth sciences the cause-and-effect relations between events on Earth and space bodies are established.

Journal of Earth System Science | Indian Academy of Sciences

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Home; Journals; Journal of Earth System Science; Volume 125; Issue 5 ... ozone concentrations in the east of Croatia using nonparametric Neural Network Models ... to develop, for the first time, accurate ozone prediction models, onefor urban ...

Towards a paradigm shift in the modeling of soil organic carbon decomposition for earth system models

Science.gov (United States)

He, Yujie

Soils are the largest terrestrial carbon pools and contain approximately 2200 Pg of carbon. Thus, the dynamics of soil carbon plays an important role in the global carbon cycle and climate system. Earth System Models are used to project future interactions between terrestrial ecosystem carbon dynamics and climate. However, these models often predict a wide range of soil carbon responses and their formulations have lagged behind recent soil science advances, omitting key biogeochemical mechanisms. In contrast, recent mechanistically-based biogeochemical models that explicitly account for microbial biomass pools and enzyme kinetics that catalyze soil carbon decomposition produce notably different results and provide a closer match to recent observations. However, a systematic evaluation of the advantages and disadvantages of the microbial models and how they differ from empirical, first-order formulations in soil decomposition models for soil organic carbon is still needed. This dissertation consists of a series of model sensitivity and uncertainty analyses and identifies dominant decomposition processes in determining soil organic carbon dynamics. Poorly constrained processes or parameters that require more experimental data integration are also identified. This dissertation also demonstrates the critical role of microbial life-history traits (e.g. microbial dormancy) in the modeling of microbial activity in soil organic matter decomposition models. Finally, this study surveys and synthesizes a number of recently published microbial models and provides suggestions for future microbial model developments.

Increasing participation in the Earth sciences through engagement of K-12 educators in Earth system science analysis, inquiry and problem- based learning and teaching

Science.gov (United States)

Burrell, S.

2012-12-01

Given low course enrollment in geoscience courses, retention in undergraduate geoscience courses, and granting of BA and advanced degrees in the Earth sciences an effective strategy to increase participation in this field is necessary. In response, as K-12 education is a conduit to college education and the future workforce, Earth science education at the K-12 level was targeted with the development of teacher professional development around Earth system science, inquiry and problem-based learning. An NSF, NOAA and NASA funded effort through the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies led to the development of the Earth System Science Educational Alliance (ESSEA) and dissemination of interdisciplinary Earth science content modules accessible to the public and educators. These modules formed the basis for two teacher workshops, two graduate level courses for in-service teachers and two university course for undergraduate teacher candidates. Data from all three models will be presented with emphasis on the teacher workshop. Essential components of the workshop model include: teaching and modeling Earth system science analysis; teacher development of interdisciplinary, problem-based academic units for implementation in the classroom; teacher collaboration; daily workshop evaluations; classroom observations; follow-up collaborative meetings/think tanks; and the building of an on-line professional community for continued communication and exchange of best practices. Preliminary data indicate increased understanding of Earth system science, proficiency with Earth system science analysis, and renewed interest in innovative delivery of content amongst teachers. Teacher-participants reported increased student engagement in learning with the implementation of problem-based investigations in Earth science and Earth system science thinking in the classroom, however, increased enthusiasm of the teacher acted as a contributing factor. Teacher feedback on open

Non-rocket Earth-Moon transport system

Science.gov (United States)

Bolonkin, Alexander

2003-06-01

This paper proposes a new transportation system for travel between Earth and Moon. This transportation system uses mechanical energy transfer and requires only minimal energy, using an engine located on Earth. A cable directly connects a pole of the Earth through a drive station to the lunar surface_ The equation for an optimal equal stress cable for complex gravitational field of Earth-Moon has been derived that allows significantly lower cable masses. The required strength could be provided by cables constructed of carbon nanotubes or carbon whiskers. Some of the constraints on such a system are discussed.

Journal of Earth System Science | Indian Academy of Sciences

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Home; Journals; Journal of Earth System Science; Volume 117; Issue 4. Simultaneous transport of water and solutes under transient unsaturated flow conditions – A case study ... Keywords. Hydraulic conductivity; infiltration; leaching; Malaprabha; modeling; permeability; salinity; solute transport; SWIM model; water flow.

Community Earth System Model (CESM) Tutorial 2016 Final Report

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Lamarque, Jean-Francois [Univ. Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) and National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and Climate and Global Dynamics Laboratory (CGD), Boulder, CO (United States)

2017-05-09

For the 2016 tutorial, NCAR/CGD requested a total budget of $70,000 split equally between DOE and NSF. The funds were used to support student participation (travel, lodging, per diem, etc.). Lectures and practical session support was primarily provided by local participants at no additional cost (see list below). The seventh annual Community Earth System Model (CESM) tutorial (2016) for students and early career scientists was held 8 – 12 August 2016. As has been the case over the last few years, this event was extremely successful and there was greater demand than could be met. There was continued interest in support of the NSF’s EaSM Infrastructure awards, to train these awardees in the application of the CESM. Based on suggestions from previous tutorial participants, the 2016 tutorial experience again provided direct connection to Yellowstone for each individual participant (rather than pairs), and used the NCAR Mesa Library. The 2016 tutorial included lectures on simulating the climate system and practical sessions on running CESM, modifying components, and analyzing data. These were targeted to the graduate student level. In addition, specific talks (“Application” talks) were introduced this year to provide participants with some in-depth knowledge of some specific aspects of CESM.

Carbon stocks and fluxes in the high latitudes: using site-levelbreak data to evaluate Earth system models

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Chadburn, S. E.; Krinner, G.; Porada, P.

2017-01-01

from northward expansion of vegetation under climate warming. Here we evaluate the simulation of tundra carbon stocks and fluxes in three land surface schemes that each form part of major Earth system models (JSBACH, Germany; JULES, UK; ORCHIDEE, France). We use a site-level approach in which...

Climate Model Evaluation using New Datasets from the Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES)

Science.gov (United States)

Loeb, Norman G.; Wielicki, Bruce A.; Doelling, David R.

2008-01-01

There are some in the science community who believe that the response of the climate system to anthropogenic radiative forcing is unpredictable and we should therefore call off the quest . The key limitation in climate predictability is associated with cloud feedback. Narrowing the uncertainty in cloud feedback (and therefore climate sensitivity) requires optimal use of the best available observations to evaluate and improve climate model processes and constrain climate model simulations over longer time scales. The Clouds and the Earth s Radiant Energy System (CERES) is a satellite-based program that provides global cloud, aerosol and radiative flux observations for improving our understanding of cloud-aerosol-radiation feedbacks in the Earth s climate system. CERES is the successor to the Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE), which has widely been used to evaluate climate models both at short time scales (e.g., process studies) and at decadal time scales. A CERES instrument flew on the TRMM satellite and captured the dramatic 1998 El Nino, and four other CERES instruments are currently flying aboard the Terra and Aqua platforms. Plans are underway to fly the remaining copy of CERES on the upcoming NPP spacecraft (mid-2010 launch date). Every aspect of CERES represents a significant improvement over ERBE. While both CERES and ERBE measure broadband radiation, CERES calibration is a factor of 2 better than ERBE. In order to improve the characterization of clouds and aerosols within a CERES footprint, we use coincident higher-resolution imager observations (VIRS, MODIS or VIIRS) to provide a consistent cloud-aerosol-radiation dataset at climate accuracy. Improved radiative fluxes are obtained by using new CERES-derived Angular Distribution Models (ADMs) for converting measured radiances to fluxes. CERES radiative fluxes are a factor of 2 more accurate than ERBE overall, but the improvement by cloud type and at high latitudes can be as high as a factor of 5

Visualizing Three-dimensional Slab Geometries with ShowEarthModel

Science.gov (United States)

Chang, B.; Jadamec, M. A.; Fischer, K. M.; Kreylos, O.; Yikilmaz, M. B.

2017-12-01

Seismic data that characterize the morphology of modern subducted slabs on Earth suggest that a two-dimensional paradigm is no longer adequate to describe the subduction process. Here we demonstrate the effect of data exploration of three-dimensional (3D) global slab geometries with the open source program ShowEarthModel. ShowEarthModel was designed specifically to support data exploration, by focusing on interactivity and real-time response using the Vrui toolkit. Sixteen movies are presented that explore the 3D complexity of modern subduction zones on Earth. The first movie provides a guided tour through the Earth's major subduction zones, comparing the global slab geometry data sets of Gudmundsson and Sambridge (1998), Syracuse and Abers (2006), and Hayes et al. (2012). Fifteen regional movies explore the individual subduction zones and regions intersecting slabs, using the Hayes et al. (2012) slab geometry models where available and the Engdahl and Villasenor (2002) global earthquake data set. Viewing the subduction zones in this way provides an improved conceptualization of the 3D morphology within a given subduction zone as well as the 3D spatial relations between the intersecting slabs. This approach provides a powerful tool for rendering earth properties and broadening capabilities in both Earth Science research and education by allowing for whole earth visualization. The 3D characterization of global slab geometries is placed in the context of 3D slab-driven mantle flow and observations of shear wave splitting in subduction zones. These visualizations contribute to the paradigm shift from a 2D to 3D subduction framework by facilitating the conceptualization of the modern subduction system on Earth in 3D space.

Earth Systems Science: An Analytic Framework

Science.gov (United States)

Finley, Fred N.; Nam, Younkeyong; Oughton, John

2011-01-01

Earth Systems Science (ESS) is emerging rapidly as a discipline and is being used to replace the older earth science education that has been taught as unrelated disciplines--geology, meteorology, astronomy, and oceanography. ESS is complex and is based on the idea that the earth can be understood as a set of interacting natural and social systems.…

A Numerical-Analytical Approach to Modeling the Axial Rotation of the Earth

Science.gov (United States)

Markov, Yu. G.; Perepelkin, V. V.; Rykhlova, L. V.; Filippova, A. S.

2018-04-01

A model for the non-uniform axial rotation of the Earth is studied using a celestial-mechanical approach and numerical simulations. The application of an approximate model containing a small number of parameters to predict variations of the axial rotation velocity of the Earth over short time intervals is justified. This approximate model is obtained by averaging variable parameters that are subject to small variations due to non-stationarity of the perturbing factors. The model is verified and compared with predictions over a long time interval published by the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service (IERS).

Earth Conductivity Estimation from Through-the-Earth Measurements of 94 Coal Mines Using Different Electromagnetic Models.

Science.gov (United States)

Yan, Lincan; Waynert, Joseph; Sunderman, Carl

2014-10-01

Through-the-Earth (TTE) communication systems require minimal infrastructure to operate. Hence, they are assumed to be more survivable and more conventional than other underground mine communications systems. This survivability is a major advantage for TTE systems. In 2006, Congress passed the Mine Improvement and New Emergency Response Act (MINER Act), which requires all underground coal mines to install wireless communications systems. The intent behind this mandate is for trapped miners to be able to communicate with surface personnel after a major accident-hence, the interest in TTE communications. To determine the likelihood of establishing a TTE communication link, it would be ideal to be able to predict the apparent conductivity of the overburden above underground mines. In this paper, all 94 mine TTE measurement data collected by Bureau of Mines in the 1970s and early 1980s, are analyzed for the first time to determine the apparent conductivity of the overburden based on three different models: a homogenous half-space model, a thin sheet model, and an attenuation factor or Q-factor model. A statistical formula is proposed to estimate the apparent earth conductivity for a specific mine based on the TTE modeling results given the mine depth and signal frequency.

Coupled Data Assimilation for Integrated Earth System Analysis and Prediction: Goals, Challenges, and Recommendations

Science.gov (United States)

Penny, Stephen G.; Akella, Santha; Buehner, Mark; Chevallier, Matthieu; Counillon, Francois; Draper, Clara; Frolov, Sergey; Fujii, Yosuke; Karspeck, Alicia; Kumar, Arun

2017-01-01

The purpose of this report is to identify fundamental issues for coupled data assimilation (CDA), such as gaps in science and limitations in forecasting systems, in order to provide guidance to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) on how to facilitate more rapid progress internationally. Coupled Earth system modeling provides the opportunity to extend skillful atmospheric forecasts beyond the traditional two-week barrier by extracting skill from low-frequency state components such as the land, ocean, and sea ice. More generally, coupled models are needed to support seamless prediction systems that span timescales from weather, subseasonal to seasonal (S2S), multiyear, and decadal. Therefore, initialization methods are needed for coupled Earth system models, either applied to each individual component (called Weakly Coupled Data Assimilation - WCDA) or applied the coupled Earth system model as a whole (called Strongly Coupled Data Assimilation - SCDA). Using CDA, in which model forecasts and potentially the state estimation are performed jointly, each model domain benefits from observations in other domains either directly using error covariance information known at the time of the analysis (SCDA), or indirectly through flux interactions at the model boundaries (WCDA). Because the non-atmospheric domains are generally under-observed compared to the atmosphere, CDA provides a significant advantage over single-domain analyses. Next, we provide a synopsis of goals, challenges, and recommendations to advance CDA: Goals: (a) Extend predictive skill beyond the current capability of NWP (e.g. as demonstrated by improving forecast skill scores), (b) produce physically consistent initial conditions for coupled numerical prediction systems and reanalyses (including consistent fluxes at the domain interfaces), (c) make best use of existing observations by allowing observations from each domain to influence and improve the full earth system analysis, (d) develop a robust

Journal of Earth System Science | Indian Academy of Sciences

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Home; Journals; Journal of Earth System Science; Volume 123; Issue 5 .... Current products based on Ocean General Circulation Models like ECCO2 ... An assessment of wind forcing impact on a spectral wave model for the Indian Ocean .... variability over India and its subregions using a regional climate model (RegCM3).

Incorporating Prognostic Marine Nitrogen Fixers and Related Bio-Physical Feedbacks in an Earth System Model

Science.gov (United States)

Paulsen, H.; Ilyina, T.; Six, K. D.

2016-02-01

Marine nitrogen fixers play a fundamental role in the oceanic nitrogen and carbon cycles by providing a major source of `new' nitrogen to the euphotic zone that supports biological carbon export and sequestration. Furthermore, nitrogen fixers may regionally have a direct impact on ocean physics and hence the climate system as they form extensive surface mats which can increase light absorption and surface albedo and reduce the momentum input by wind. Resulting alterations in temperature and stratification may feed back on nitrogen fixers' growth itself.We incorporate nitrogen fixers as a prognostic 3D tracer in the ocean biogeochemical component (HAMOCC) of the Max Planck Institute Earth system model and assess for the first time the impact of related bio-physical feedbacks on biogeochemistry and the climate system.The model successfully reproduces recent estimates of global nitrogen fixation rates, as well as the observed distribution of nitrogen fixers, covering large parts of the tropical and subtropical oceans. First results indicate that including bio-physical feedbacks has considerable effects on the upper ocean physics in this region. Light absorption by nitrogen fixers leads locally to surface heating, subsurface cooling, and mixed layer depth shoaling in the subtropical gyres. As a result, equatorial upwelling is increased, leading to surface cooling at the equator. This signal is damped by the effect of the reduced wind stress due to the presence of cyanobacteria mats, which causes a reduction in the wind-driven circulation, and hence a reduction in equatorial upwelling. The increase in surface albedo due to nitrogen fixers has only inconsiderable effects. The response of nitrogen fixers' growth to the alterations in temperature and stratification varies regionally. Simulations with the fully coupled Earth system model are in progress to assess the implications of the biologically induced changes in upper ocean physics for the global climate system.

Change in Water Cycle- Important Issue on Climate Earth System

Science.gov (United States)

Singh, Pratik

Change in Water Cycle- Important Issue on Climate Earth System PRATIK KUMAR SINGH1 1BALDEVRAM MIRDHA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY,JAIPUR (RAJASTHAN) ,INDIA Water is everywhere on Earth and is the only known substance that can naturally exist as a gas, liquid, and solid within the relatively small range of air temperatures and pressures found at the Earth's surface.Changes in the hydrological cycle as a consequence of climate and land use drivers are expected to play a central role in governing a vast range of environmental impacts.Earth's climate will undergo changes in response to natural variability, including solar variability, and to increasing concentrations of green house gases and aerosols.Further more, agreement is widespread that these changes may profoundly affect atmospheric water vapor concentrations, clouds and precipitation patterns.As we know that ,a warmer climate, directly leading to increased evaporation, may well accelerate the hydrological cycle, resulting in an increase in the amount of moisture circulating through the atmosphere.The Changing Water Cycle programmer will develop an integrated, quantitative understanding of the changes taking place in the global water cycle, involving all components of the earth system, improving predictions for the next few decades of regional precipitation, evapotranspiration, soil moisture, hydrological storage and fluxes.The hydrological cycle involves evaporation, transpiration, condensation, precipitation, and runoff. NASA's Aqua satellite will monitor many aspects of the role of water in the Earth's systems, and will do so at spatial and temporal scales appropriate to foster a more detailed understanding of each of the processes that contribute to the hydrological cycle. These data and the analyses of them will nurture the development and refinement of hydrological process models and a corresponding improvement in regional and global climate models, with a direct anticipated benefit of more accurate weather and

A Compound Model for the Origin of Earth's Water

Science.gov (United States)

Izidoro, A.; de Souza Torres, K.; Winter, O. C.; Haghighipour, N.

2013-04-01

One of the most important subjects of debate in the formation of the solar system is the origin of Earth's water. Comets have long been considered as the most likely source of the delivery of water to Earth. However, elemental and isotopic arguments suggest a very small contribution from these objects. Other sources have also been proposed, among which local adsorption of water vapor onto dust grains in the primordial nebula and delivery through planetesimals and planetary embryos have become more prominent. However, no sole source of water provides a satisfactory explanation for Earth's water as a whole. In view of that, using numerical simulations, we have developed a compound model incorporating both the principal endogenous and exogenous theories, and investigating their implications for terrestrial planet formation and water delivery. Comets are also considered in the final analysis, as it is likely that at least some of Earth's water has cometary origin. We analyze our results comparing two different water distribution models, and complement our study using the D/H ratio, finding possible relative contributions from each source and focusing on planets formed in the habitable zone. We find that the compound model plays an important role by showing greater advantage in the amount and time of water delivery in Earth-like planets.

A COMPOUND MODEL FOR THE ORIGIN OF EARTH'S WATER

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Izidoro, A.; Winter, O. C.; De Souza Torres, K.; Haghighipour, N.

2013-01-01

One of the most important subjects of debate in the formation of the solar system is the origin of Earth's water. Comets have long been considered as the most likely source of the delivery of water to Earth. However, elemental and isotopic arguments suggest a very small contribution from these objects. Other sources have also been proposed, among which local adsorption of water vapor onto dust grains in the primordial nebula and delivery through planetesimals and planetary embryos have become more prominent. However, no sole source of water provides a satisfactory explanation for Earth's water as a whole. In view of that, using numerical simulations, we have developed a compound model incorporating both the principal endogenous and exogenous theories, and investigating their implications for terrestrial planet formation and water delivery. Comets are also considered in the final analysis, as it is likely that at least some of Earth's water has cometary origin. We analyze our results comparing two different water distribution models, and complement our study using the D/H ratio, finding possible relative contributions from each source and focusing on planets formed in the habitable zone. We find that the compound model plays an important role by showing greater advantage in the amount and time of water delivery in Earth-like planets.

State-Dependence of the Climate Sensitivity in Earth System Models of Intermediate Complexity

Science.gov (United States)

Pfister, Patrik L.; Stocker, Thomas F.

2017-10-01

Growing evidence from general circulation models (GCMs) indicates that the equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) depends on the magnitude of forcing, which is commonly referred to as state-dependence. We present a comprehensive assessment of ECS state-dependence in Earth system models of intermediate complexity (EMICs) by analyzing millennial simulations with sustained 2×CO2 and 4×CO2 forcings. We compare different extrapolation methods and show that ECS is smaller in the higher-forcing scenario in 12 out of 15 EMICs, in contrast to the opposite behavior reported from GCMs. In one such EMIC, the Bern3D-LPX model, this state-dependence is mainly due to the weakening sea ice-albedo feedback in the Southern Ocean, which depends on model configuration. Due to ocean-mixing adjustments, state-dependence is only detected hundreds of years after the abrupt forcing, highlighting the need for long model integrations. Adjustments to feedback parametrizations of EMICs may be necessary if GCM intercomparisons confirm an opposite state-dependence.

Earth System Science Project

Science.gov (United States)

Rutherford, Sandra; Coffman, Margaret

2004-01-01

For several decades, science teachers have used bottles for classroom projects designed to teach students about biology. Bottle projects do not have to just focus on biology, however. These projects can also be used to engage students in Earth science topics. This article describes the Earth System Science Project, which was adapted and developed…

From COST 271 to 296 EU actions on ionospheric monitoring and modelling for terrestrial and Earth space radio systems

Science.gov (United States)

Zolesi, B.; Cander, Lj. R.; Altadill, D.

The ionospheric community has long been aware that co-operative research on an international basis is essential to deal with temporal and spatial changes in the ionosphere that influence the performance of terrestrial and Earth-space radio systems. The EU COST (Co-operation in the field of Scientific and Technical Research) 271 Action on "Effects of the Upper Atmosphere on Terrestrial and Earth-space Communications" has had during the period of October 2000-August 2004 the following main objectives: (1) to evaluate the influence of upper atmospheric conditions on terrestrial and Earth-space communications, (2) to develop methods and techniques to improve ionospheric models over Europe for telecommunication and navigation applications and (3) to transfer the results to the appropriate radiocommunication study groups of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU-R) and other national and international organizations dealing with the modern communication systems. At the beginning of 2005 the new 296 Action in the COST Telecommunications, Information Science and Technology domain on "Mitigation of Ionospheric Effects on Radio Systems (MIERS)" was approved for the period 2005-2009. The main objectives of the MIERS are: (a) to support and enhanced the existing European facilities for historical and real-time digital ionospheric data collection and exchange; (b) to develop an integrated approach to ionospheric modelling, create the mechanism needed to ingest processed data into models, extend and develop suitable mitigation models and define the protocols needed to link models together; and (c) to strengthen the areas of expertise that already exist by stimulating closer cooperation between scientists and users, focusing the scope of all the previous COST ionospheric related studies to the mitigation of ionospheric effects on radio systems. This paper summarises briefly how the major objectives of the COST271 Action have been achieved and what are the most important

A Regional Earth System Model of the Northeast Corridor: Analyzing 21st Century Climate and Environment

Science.gov (United States)

Vorosmarty, C. J.; Duchin, F.; Melillo, J. M.; Wollheim, W. M.; Gonzalez, J.; Kicklighter, D. W.; Rosenzweig, B.; Yang, P.; Lengyel, F.; Fekete, B. M.

2012-12-01

The Northeast region (NE) exhibits many of the changes taking place across the Nation's landscapes and watersheds, yet also provides a unique lens through which to assess options for managing large-scale natural resource systems. We report here on a regional NSF-funded Earth System Modeling (EaSM) project, which has assembled an interdisciplinary research team from academia and government with expertise in physics, biogeochemistry, engineering, energy, economics, and policy engagement. The team is simultaneously studying the evolution of regional human-environment systems and seeking to improve the translation of research findings to the planning community. We hypothesize that there are regionally-significant consequences of human decisions on environmental systems of the NE, expressed through the action of both natural and engineered human systems that dictate the region's biogeophysical state, ecosystem services, energy and economic output. Our central goal is: To build a Northeast Regional Earth System Model (NE-RESM) that improves understanding and capacity to forecast the implications of planning decisions on the region's environment, ecosystem services, energy systems and economy through the 21st century. We are using scenario experiments to test our hypothesis and to make forecasts about the future. We see the proposed research as a major step forward in developing a capacity to diagnose and understand the state of large, interacting human-natural systems. Major foci include: the application of meso-scale atmospheric physics models to drive terrestrial-aquatic ecosystem models; a linked ecosystem services accounting tool; geospatial modeling of anthropogenic GHG emissions and biotic source/sinks at improved space/time resolutions; and meso-economic input-output model to evaluate the impacts of ecosystem services constraints on subregional economies. The presentation will report on recent progress across three strategic planning fronts, which are important to

Journal of Earth System Science | Indian Academy of Sciences

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Home; Journals; Journal of Earth System Science; Volume 121; Issue 4 ... Monsoon sensitivity to aerosol direct radiative forcing in the community atmosphere model .... Influences of the boundary layer evolution on surface ozone variations at a .... and its comparison with global geopotential models and GPS-levelling data.

Penetrating Shortwave Radiation and Sea Ice Algae feedbacks using the Community Earth System Model

Science.gov (United States)

Arntsen, A. E.; Perovich, D. K.; Bailey, D. A.; Holland, M. M.

2017-12-01

Transmittance of solar radiation through the sea ice cover determines energy transfer to the upper ocean in the form of heat as well as photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) available for the growth of under ice phytoplankton and bottom ice algal communities. A thinning ice cover, increased pond coverage, and earlier melt onset has increased light availability to the upper ocean in contemporary Arctic ice-covered waters. To investigate seasonal and spatial variability of solar shortwave irradiance penetrating the ice cover in the Beaufort and Chukchi Sea regions, we use the fully coupled Community Earth System Model (CESM) in conjunction with a multistream radiative transfer model constrained and initiated by in situ observations. Results inform the importance of light attenuation by ice-based algal pigments within large scale global climate models. We demonstrate the presence of bio-optical feedbacks related to a younger ice cover and examine how these relationships are impacting the trajectory of under ice blooms and the energy budget of the ice-ocean system.

Earth Without Life: A Systems Model of a Global Abiotic Nitrogen Cycle.

Science.gov (United States)

Laneuville, Matthieu; Kameya, Masafumi; Cleaves, H James

2018-03-20

Nitrogen is the major component of Earth's atmosphere and plays important roles in biochemistry. Biological systems have evolved a variety of mechanisms for fixing and recycling environmental nitrogen sources, which links them tightly with terrestrial nitrogen reservoirs. However, prior to the emergence of biology, all nitrogen cycling was abiological, and this cycling may have set the stage for the origin of life. It is of interest to understand how nitrogen cycling would proceed on terrestrial planets with comparable geodynamic activity to Earth, but on which life does not arise. We constructed a kinetic mass-flux model of nitrogen cycling in its various major chemical forms (e.g., N 2 , reduced (NH x ) and oxidized (NO x ) species) between major planetary reservoirs (the atmosphere, oceans, crust, and mantle) and included inputs from space. The total amount of nitrogen species that can be accommodated in each reservoir, and the ways in which fluxes and reservoir sizes may have changed over time in the absence of biology, are explored. Given a partition of volcanism between arc and hotspot types similar to the modern ones, our global nitrogen cycling model predicts a significant increase in oceanic nitrogen content over time, mostly as NH x , while atmospheric N 2 content could be lower than today. The transport timescales between reservoirs are fast compared to the evolution of the environment; thus atmospheric composition is tightly linked to surface and interior processes. Key Words: Nitrogen cycle-Abiotic-Planetology-Astrobiology. Astrobiology 18, xxx-xxx.

Greenland Surface Mass Balance as Simulated by the Community Earth System Model. Part II: Twenty-First-Century Changes

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Vizcaino, M.; Lipscomb, W.H.; Sacks, W.J.; van den Broeke, M.R.

2014-01-01

This study presents the first twenty-first-century projections of surface mass balance (SMB) changes for the Greenland Ice Sheet (GIS) with the Community Earth System Model (CESM), which includes a new ice sheet component. For glaciated surfaces, CESM includes a sophisticated calculation of energy

The Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF) Project

Science.gov (United States)

Carenton-Madiec, Nicolas; Denvil, Sébastien; Greenslade, Mark

2015-04-01

The Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF) Peer-to-Peer (P2P) enterprise system is a collaboration that develops, deploys and maintains software infrastructure for the management, dissemination, and analysis of model output and observational data. ESGF's primary goal is to facilitate advancements in Earth System Science. It is an interagency and international effort led by the US Department of Energy (DOE), and co-funded by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Science Foundation (NSF), Infrastructure for the European Network of Earth System Modelling (IS-ENES) and international laboratories such as the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology (MPI-M) german Climate Computing Centre (DKRZ), the Australian National University (ANU) National Computational Infrastructure (NCI), Institut Pierre-Simon Laplace (IPSL), and the British Atmospheric Data Center (BADC). Its main mission is to support current CMIP5 activities and prepare for future assesments. The ESGF architecture is based on a system of autonomous and distributed nodes, which interoperate through common acceptance of federation protocols and trust agreements. Data is stored at multiple nodes around the world, and served through local data and metadata services. Nodes exchange information about their data holdings and services, trust each other for registering users and establishing access control decisions. The net result is that a user can use a web browser, connect to any node, and seamlessly find and access data throughout the federation. This type of collaborative working organization and distributed architecture context en-lighted the need of integration and testing processes definition to ensure the quality of software releases and interoperability. This presentation will introduce the ESGF project and demonstrate the range of tools and processes that have been set up to support release management activities.

Improved model of the Earth's gravitational field: GEM-T1

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Marsh, J.G.; Lerch, F.J.; Christodoulidis, D.C.

1987-07-01

Goddard Earth Model T1 (GEM-T1), which was developed from an analysis of direct satellite tracking observations, is the first in a new series of such models. GEM-T1 is complete to degree and order 36. It was developed using consistent reference parameters and extensive earth and ocean tidal models. It was simultaneously solved for gravitational and tidal terms, earth orientation parameters, and the orbital parameters of 580 individual satellite arcs. The solution used only satellite tracking data acquired on 17 different satellites and is predominantly based upon the precise laser data taken by third generation systems. In all, 800,000 observations were used. A major improvement in field accuracy was obtained. For marine geodetic applications, long wavelength geoidal modeling is twice as good as in earlier satellite-only GEM models. Orbit determination accuracy has also been substantially advanced over a wide range of satellites that have been tested

Development of the AuScope Australian Earth Observing System

Science.gov (United States)

Rawling, T.

2017-12-01

Advances in monitoring technology and significant investment in new national research initiatives, will provide significant new opportunities for delivery of novel geoscience data streams from across the Australian continent over the next decade. The AuScope Australian Earth Observing System (AEOS) is linking field and laboratory infrastructure across Australia to form a national sensor array focusing on the Solid Earth. As such AuScope is working with these programs to deploy observational infrastructure, including MT, passive seismic, and GNSS networks across the entire Australian Continent. Where possible the observational grid will be co-located with strategic basement drilling in areas of shallow cover and tied with national reflection seismic and sampling transects. This integrated suite of distributed earth observation and imaging sensors will provide unprecedented imaging fidelity of our crust, across all length and time scales, to fundamental and applied researchers in the earth, environmental and geospatial sciences. The AEOS will the Earth Science community's Square Kilometer Array (SKA) - a distributed telescope that looks INTO the earth rather than away from it - a 10 million SKA. The AEOS is strongly aligned with other community strategic initiatives including the UNCOVER research program as well as other National Collaborative Research Infrastructure programs such as the Terrestrial Environmental Research Network (TERN) and the Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS) providing an interdisciplinary collaboration platform across the earth and environmental sciences. There is also very close alignment between AuScope and similar international programs such as EPOS, the USArray and EarthCube - potential collaborative linkages we are currently in the process of pursuing more fomally. The AuScope AEOS Infrastructure System is ultimately designed to enable the progressive construction, refinement and ongoing enrichment of a live, "FAIR" four

A new synoptic scale resolving global climate simulation using the Community Earth System Model

Science.gov (United States)

Small, R. Justin; Bacmeister, Julio; Bailey, David; Baker, Allison; Bishop, Stuart; Bryan, Frank; Caron, Julie; Dennis, John; Gent, Peter; Hsu, Hsiao-ming; Jochum, Markus; Lawrence, David; Muñoz, Ernesto; diNezio, Pedro; Scheitlin, Tim; Tomas, Robert; Tribbia, Joseph; Tseng, Yu-heng; Vertenstein, Mariana

2014-12-01

High-resolution global climate modeling holds the promise of capturing planetary-scale climate modes and small-scale (regional and sometimes extreme) features simultaneously, including their mutual interaction. This paper discusses a new state-of-the-art high-resolution Community Earth System Model (CESM) simulation that was performed with these goals in mind. The atmospheric component was at 0.25° grid spacing, and ocean component at 0.1°. One hundred years of "present-day" simulation were completed. Major results were that annual mean sea surface temperature (SST) in the equatorial Pacific and El-Niño Southern Oscillation variability were well simulated compared to standard resolution models. Tropical and southern Atlantic SST also had much reduced bias compared to previous versions of the model. In addition, the high resolution of the model enabled small-scale features of the climate system to be represented, such as air-sea interaction over ocean frontal zones, mesoscale systems generated by the Rockies, and Tropical Cyclones. Associated single component runs and standard resolution coupled runs are used to help attribute the strengths and weaknesses of the fully coupled run. The high-resolution run employed 23,404 cores, costing 250 thousand processor-hours per simulated year and made about two simulated years per day on the NCAR-Wyoming supercomputer "Yellowstone."

PMEL contributions to the collaboration: SCALING THE EARTH SYSTEM GRID TO PETASCALE DATA for the DOE SciDACs Earth System Grid Center for Enabling Technologies

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Hankin, Steve

2012-06-01

Drawing to a close after five years of funding from DOE's ASCR and BER program offices, the SciDAC-2 project called the Earth System Grid (ESG) Center for Enabling Technologies has successfully established a new capability for serving data from distributed centers. The system enables users to access, analyze, and visualize data using a globally federated collection of networks, computers and software. The ESG software now known as the Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF) has attracted a broad developer base and has been widely adopted so that it is now being utilized in serving the most comprehensive multi-model climate data sets in the world. The system is used to support international climate model intercomparison activities as well as high profile U.S. DOE, NOAA, NASA, and NSF projects. It currently provides more than 25,000 users access to more than half a petabyte of climate data (from models and from observations) and has enabled over a 1,000 scientific publications.

Using the Model Coupling Toolkit to couple earth system models

Science.gov (United States)

Warner, J.C.; Perlin, N.; Skyllingstad, E.D.

2008-01-01

Continued advances in computational resources are providing the opportunity to operate more sophisticated numerical models. Additionally, there is an increasing demand for multidisciplinary studies that include interactions between different physical processes. Therefore there is a strong desire to develop coupled modeling systems that utilize existing models and allow efficient data exchange and model control. The basic system would entail model "1" running on "M" processors and model "2" running on "N" processors, with efficient exchange of model fields at predetermined synchronization intervals. Here we demonstrate two coupled systems: the coupling of the ocean circulation model Regional Ocean Modeling System (ROMS) to the surface wave model Simulating WAves Nearshore (SWAN), and the coupling of ROMS to the atmospheric model Coupled Ocean Atmosphere Prediction System (COAMPS). Both coupled systems use the Model Coupling Toolkit (MCT) as a mechanism for operation control and inter-model distributed memory transfer of model variables. In this paper we describe requirements and other options for model coupling, explain the MCT library, ROMS, SWAN and COAMPS models, methods for grid decomposition and sparse matrix interpolation, and provide an example from each coupled system. Methods presented in this paper are clearly applicable for coupling of other types of models. ?? 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Teaching Mathematical Modelling for Earth Sciences via Case Studies

Science.gov (United States)

Yang, Xin-She

2010-05-01

Mathematical modelling is becoming crucially important for earth sciences because the modelling of complex systems such as geological, geophysical and environmental processes requires mathematical analysis, numerical methods and computer programming. However, a substantial fraction of earth science undergraduates and graduates may not have sufficient skills in mathematical modelling, which is due to either limited mathematical training or lack of appropriate mathematical textbooks for self-study. In this paper, we described a detailed case-study-based approach for teaching mathematical modelling. We illustrate how essential mathematical skills can be developed for students with limited training in secondary mathematics so that they are confident in dealing with real-world mathematical modelling at university level. We have chosen various topics such as Airy isostasy, greenhouse effect, sedimentation and Stokes' flow,free-air and Bouguer gravity, Brownian motion, rain-drop dynamics, impact cratering, heat conduction and cooling of the lithosphere as case studies; and we use these step-by-step case studies to teach exponentials, logarithms, spherical geometry, basic calculus, complex numbers, Fourier transforms, ordinary differential equations, vectors and matrix algebra, partial differential equations, geostatistics and basic numeric methods. Implications for teaching university mathematics for earth scientists for tomorrow's classroom will also be discussed. Refereces 1) D. L. Turcotte and G. Schubert, Geodynamics, 2nd Edition, Cambridge University Press, (2002). 2) X. S. Yang, Introductory Mathematics for Earth Scientists, Dunedin Academic Press, (2009).

Biospheric feedback effects in a synchronously coupled model of human and Earth systems

Science.gov (United States)

Thornton, P. E.; Calvin, K. V.; Jones, A. D.; Di Vittorio, A. V.; Bond-Lamberty, B. P.; Chini, L. P.; Shi, X.; Mao, J.; Collins, W. D.; Edmonds, J.; Hurtt, G. C.

2017-12-01

Fossil fuel combustion and land-use change are the two largest contributors to industrial-era increases in atmospheric CO2 concentration. Projections of these are thus fundamental inputs for coupled Earth system models (ESMs) used to estimate the physical and biological consequences of future climate system forcing. While historical datasets are available to inform past and current climate analyses, assessments of future climate change have relied on projections of energy and land use from energy economic models, constrained by assumptions about future policy, land-use patterns, and socio-economic development trajectories. In this work we show that the climatic impacts on land ecosystems drives significant feedbacks in energy, agriculture, land-use, and carbon cycle projections for the 21st century. We find that exposure of human appropriated land ecosystem productivity to biospheric change results in reductions of land area used for crops; increases in managed forest area and carbon stocks; decreases in global crop prices; and reduction in fossil fuel emissions for a low-mid range forcing scenario. Land ecosystem response to increased carbon dioxide concentration, increased anthropogenic nitrogen deposition, and changes in temperature and precipitation all play a role. The feedbacks between climate-induced biospheric change and human system forcings to the climate system demonstrated in this work are handled inconsistently, or excluded altogether, in the one-way asynchronous coupling of energy economic models to ESMs used to date.

Land Boundary Conditions for the Goddard Earth Observing System Model Version 5 (GEOS-5) Climate Modeling System: Recent Updates and Data File Descriptions

Science.gov (United States)

Mahanama, Sarith P.; Koster, Randal D.; Walker, Gregory K.; Takacs, Lawrence L.; Reichle, Rolf H.; De Lannoy, Gabrielle; Liu, Qing; Zhao, Bin; Suarez, Max J.

2015-01-01

The Earths land surface boundary conditions in the Goddard Earth Observing System version 5 (GEOS-5) modeling system were updated using recent high spatial and temporal resolution global data products. The updates include: (i) construction of a global 10-arcsec land-ocean lakes-ice mask; (ii) incorporation of a 10-arcsec Globcover 2009 land cover dataset; (iii) implementation of Level 12 Pfafstetter hydrologic catchments; (iv) use of hybridized SRTM global topography data; (v) construction of the HWSDv1.21-STATSGO2 merged global 30 arc second soil mineral and carbon data in conjunction with a highly-refined soil classification system; (vi) production of diffuse visible and near-infrared 8-day MODIS albedo climatologies at 30-arcsec from the period 2001-2011; and (vii) production of the GEOLAND2 and MODIS merged 8-day LAI climatology at 30-arcsec for GEOS-5. The global data sets were preprocessed and used to construct global raster data files for the software (mkCatchParam) that computes parameters on catchment-tiles for various atmospheric grids. The updates also include a few bug fixes in mkCatchParam, as well as changes (improvements in algorithms, etc.) to mkCatchParam that allow it to produce tile-space parameters efficiently for high resolution AGCM grids. The update process also includes the construction of data files describing the vegetation type fractions, soil background albedo, nitrogen deposition and mean annual 2m air temperature to be used with the future Catchment CN model and the global stream channel network to be used with the future global runoff routing model. This report provides detailed descriptions of the data production process and data file format of each updated data set.

Advancing land surface model development with satellite-based Earth observations

Science.gov (United States)

Orth, Rene; Dutra, Emanuel; Trigo, Isabel F.; Balsamo, Gianpaolo

2017-04-01

The land surface forms an essential part of the climate system. It interacts with the atmosphere through the exchange of water and energy and hence influences weather and climate, as well as their predictability. Correspondingly, the land surface model (LSM) is an essential part of any weather forecasting system. LSMs rely on partly poorly constrained parameters, due to sparse land surface observations. With the use of newly available land surface temperature observations, we show in this study that novel satellite-derived datasets help to improve LSM configuration, and hence can contribute to improved weather predictability. We use the Hydrology Tiled ECMWF Scheme of Surface Exchanges over Land (HTESSEL) and validate it comprehensively against an array of Earth observation reference datasets, including the new land surface temperature product. This reveals satisfactory model performance in terms of hydrology, but poor performance in terms of land surface temperature. This is due to inconsistencies of process representations in the model as identified from an analysis of perturbed parameter simulations. We show that HTESSEL can be more robustly calibrated with multiple instead of single reference datasets as this mitigates the impact of the structural inconsistencies. Finally, performing coupled global weather forecasts we find that a more robust calibration of HTESSEL also contributes to improved weather forecast skills. In summary, new satellite-based Earth observations are shown to enhance the multi-dataset calibration of LSMs, thereby improving the representation of insufficiently captured processes, advancing weather predictability and understanding of climate system feedbacks. Orth, R., E. Dutra, I. F. Trigo, and G. Balsamo (2016): Advancing land surface model development with satellite-based Earth observations. Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss., doi:10.5194/hess-2016-628

Electromagnetic forward modelling for realistic Earth models using unstructured tetrahedral meshes and a meshfree approach

Science.gov (United States)

Farquharson, C.; Long, J.; Lu, X.; Lelievre, P. G.

2017-12-01

Real-life geology is complex, and so, even when allowing for the diffusive, low resolution nature of geophysical electromagnetic methods, we need Earth models that can accurately represent this complexity when modelling and inverting electromagnetic data. This is particularly the case for the scales, detail and conductivity contrasts involved in mineral and hydrocarbon exploration and development, but also for the larger scale of lithospheric studies. Unstructured tetrahedral meshes provide a flexible means of discretizing a general, arbitrary Earth model. This is important when wanting to integrate a geophysical Earth model with a geological Earth model parameterized in terms of surfaces. Finite-element and finite-volume methods can be derived for computing the electric and magnetic fields in a model parameterized using an unstructured tetrahedral mesh. A number of such variants have been proposed and have proven successful. However, the efficiency and accuracy of these methods can be affected by the "quality" of the tetrahedral discretization, that is, how many of the tetrahedral cells in the mesh are long, narrow and pointy. This is particularly the case if one wants to use an iterative technique to solve the resulting linear system of equations. One approach to deal with this issue is to develop sophisticated model and mesh building and manipulation capabilities in order to ensure that any mesh built from geological information is of sufficient quality for the electromagnetic modelling. Another approach is to investigate other methods of synthesizing the electromagnetic fields. One such example is a "meshfree" approach in which the electromagnetic fields are synthesized using a mesh that is distinct from the mesh used to parameterized the Earth model. There are then two meshes, one describing the Earth model and one used for the numerical mathematics of computing the fields. This means that there are no longer any quality requirements on the model mesh, which

Earth system commitments due to delayed mitigation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pfister, Patrik L; Stocker, Thomas F

2016-01-01

As long as global CO 2 emissions continue to increase annually, long-term committed Earth system changes grow much faster than current observations. A novel metric linking this future growth to policy decisions today is the mitigation delay sensitivity (MDS), but MDS estimates for Earth system variables other than peak temperature (ΔT max ) are missing. Using an Earth System Model of Intermediate Complexity, we show that the current emission increase rate causes a ΔT max increase roughly 3–7.5 times as fast as observed warming, and a millenial steric sea level rise (SSLR) 7–25 times as fast as observed SSLR, depending on the achievable rate of emission reductions after the peak of emissions. These ranges are only slightly affected by the uncertainty range in equilibrium climate sensitivity, which is included in the above values. The extent of ocean acidification at the end of the century is also strongly dependent on the starting time and rate of emission reductions. The preservable surface ocean area with sufficient aragonite supersaturation for coral reef growth is diminished globally at an MDS of roughly 25%–80% per decade. A near-complete loss of this area becomes unavoidable if mitigation is delayed for a few years to decades. Also with respect to aragonite, 12%–18% of the Southern Ocean surface become undersaturated per decade, if emission reductions are delayed beyond 2015–2040. We conclude that the consequences of delaying global emission reductions are much better captured if the MDS of relevant Earth system variables is communicated in addition to current trends and total projected future changes. (letter)

Low degree Earth's gravity coefficients determined from different space geodetic observations and climate models

Science.gov (United States)

Wińska, Małgorzata; Nastula, Jolanta

2017-04-01

Large scale mass redistribution and its transport within the Earth system causes changes in the Earth's rotation in space, gravity field and Earth's ellipsoid shape. These changes are observed in the ΔC21, ΔS21, and ΔC20 spherical harmonics gravity coefficients, which are proportional to the mass load-induced Earth rotational excitations. In this study, linear trend, decadal, inter-annual, and seasonal variations of low degree spherical harmonics coefficients of Earth's gravity field, determined from different space geodetic techniques, Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE), satellite laser ranging (SLR), Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), Earth rotation, and climate models, are examined. In this way, the contribution of each measurement technique to interpreting the low degree surface mass density of the Earth is shown. Especially, we evaluate an usefulness of several climate models from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 5 (CMIP5) to determine the low degree Earth's gravity coefficients using GRACE satellite observations. To do that, Terrestrial Water Storage (TWS) changes from several CMIP5 climate models are determined and then these simulated data are compared with the GRACE observations. Spherical harmonics ΔC21, ΔS21, and ΔC20 changes are calculated as the sum of atmosphere and ocean mass effect (GAC values) taken from GRACE and a land surface hydrological estimate from the selected CMIP5 climate models. Low degree Stokes coefficients of the surface mass density determined from GRACE, SLR, GNSS, Earth rotation measurements and climate models are compared to each other in order to assess their consistency. The comparison is done by using different types of statistical and signal processing methods.

Description and Evaluation of IAP-AACM: A Global-regional Aerosol Chemistry Model for the Earth System Model CAS-ESM

Science.gov (United States)

Wei, Y.; Chen, X.

2017-12-01

We present a first description and evaluation of the IAP Atmospheric Aerosol Chemistry Model (IAP-AACM) which has been integrated into the earth system model CAS-ESM. In this way it is possible to research into interaction of clouds and aerosol by its two-way coupling with the IAP Atmospheric General Circulation Model (IAP-AGCM). The model has a nested global-regional grid based on the Global Environmental Atmospheric Transport Model (GEATM) and the Nested Air Quality Prediction Modeling System (NAQPMS). The AACM provides two optional gas chemistry schemes, the CBM-Z gas chemistry as well as a sulfur oxidize box designed specifically for the CAS-ESM. Now the model driven by AGCM has been applied to a 1-year simulation of tropospheric chemistry both on global and regional scales for 2014, and been evaluated against various observation datasets, including aerosol precursor gas concentration, aerosol mass and number concentrations. Furthermore, global budgets in AACM are compared with other global aerosol models. Generally, the AACM simulations are within the range of other global aerosol model predictions, and the model has a reasonable agreement with observations of gases and particles concentration both on global and regional scales.

Journal of Earth System Science | Indian Academy of Sciences

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Home; Journals; Journal of Earth System Science; Volume 118; Issue 1 ... are essential for qualitative and quantitative analysis of snow cover applications. ... This study also suggests that the suitability of topographic models can not be ...

The Transformation of Climate Models to Earth System Models and their Role in Policy Development and Decision Support

Science.gov (United States)

Washington, W. M.

2012-12-01

We have seen over the last few decades continued improvement in climate models such that they are becoming Earth system models (ESMs). Usually climate models use specified concentrations of greenhouse gases whereas ESMs allow carbon, water, biochemical and other cycles to be fully interactive between various model components. Typically ESMs have atmospheric, ocean, land/vegetation, sea ice, urbanization components and some are starting to include glacier change which can directly affect sea level change. Steve Schneider, for whom this lecture is named after, strongly encouraged the development of such models and he went further to strongly suggest that these tools be developed beyond just the climate science questions. The modeling community needs to be interacting with the social, behavioral, and economic science communities. This would allow for realistic humankind interactions with the Earth system. In 2012, the federal government with advice from the National Academies developed a new strategic plan for the U. S. Global Change Research Program entitled The National Global Change Research Plan 2012-2021. This new plan has added the social, behavioral, and economic sciences to the mix of research expertise. It should be pointed out that the Global Change Research Act of 1990 passed by Congress specified strategic goals: advance science, inform decisions, conduct assessments, and communicate and educate. In order to carry out these goals an implementation plan is being put together by the 13 federal agencies and departments. Throughout Steve's professional life, he knew that to make global change understood required this broad community of sciences to work together to answer the questions that the public and policymakers had about environmental change. This talk will not only be about the historical developments in the field but also about the future research challenges. As part of the talk I will show several unpublished video segments of Steve explaining what

The origin of the moon and the early history of the earth - a chemical model. Part 2: The earth

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

O'Neill, H.St.C.

1991-01-01

The geochemical implications for the earth of a giant impact model for the origin of the earth-moon system are discussed, using a mass balance between three components: the proto-earth, the Impactor, and a late veneer. It is argued that the proto-earth accretes from material resembling a high temperature condensate from the solar nebula. Core formation takes place under very reducing conditions, resulting in the mantle of the proto-earth being completely stripped of all elements more siderophile than Fe, and partly depleted in the barely siderophile elements V, Cr, and perhaps Si. The Impactor then collides with the proto-earth, causing vaporisation of both the Impactor and a substantial portion of the earth's mantle. Most of this material recondenses to the earth, but some forms the moon. The Impactor adds most of the complement of the siderophile elements of the present mantle in an oxidized form. The oxidation state of the mantle is set near to its present, oxidized level. Finally, the addition of a late veneer, of composition similar to that of the H-group ordinary chondrites, accounts for the complement of the highly siderophile elements of the present mantle. The model accounts at least semi-quantitatively for the siderophile element abundances of the present mantle. Implications for the composition of the earth's core are discussed; the model predicts that neither S, O, nor Si should be present in sufficient quantities to provide the required light element in the core, whose identity, therefore, remains enigmatic

Variance decomposition shows the importance of human-climate feedbacks in the Earth system

Science.gov (United States)

Calvin, K. V.; Bond-Lamberty, B. P.; Jones, A. D.; Shi, X.; Di Vittorio, A. V.; Thornton, P. E.

2017-12-01

The human and Earth systems are intricately linked: climate influences agricultural production, renewable energy potential, and water availability, for example, while anthropogenic emissions from industry and land use change alter temperature and precipitation. Such feedbacks have the potential to significantly alter future climate change. Current climate change projections contain significant uncertainties, however, and because Earth System Models do not generally include dynamic human (demography, economy, energy, water, land use) components, little is known about how climate feedbacks contribute to that uncertainty. Here we use variance decomposition of a novel coupled human-earth system model to show that the influence of human-climate feedbacks can be as large as 17% of the total variance in the near term for global mean temperature rise, and 11% in the long term for cropland area. The near-term contribution of energy and land use feedbacks to the climate on global mean temperature rise is as large as that from model internal variability, a factor typically considered in modeling studies. Conversely, the contribution of climate feedbacks to cropland extent, while non-negligible, is less than that from socioeconomics, policy, or model. Previous assessments have largely excluded these feedbacks, with the climate community focusing on uncertainty due to internal variability, scenario, and model and the integrated assessment community focusing on uncertainty due to socioeconomics, technology, policy, and model. Our results set the stage for a new generation of models and hypothesis testing to determine when and how bidirectional feedbacks between human and Earth systems should be considered in future assessments of climate change.

Global Change and the Earth System

Science.gov (United States)

Pollack, Henry N.

2004-08-01

The Earth system in recent years has come to mean the complex interactions of the atmosphere, biosphere, lithosphere and hydrosphere, through an intricate network of feedback loops. This system has operated over geologic time, driven principally by processes with long time scales. Over the lifetime of the solar system, the Sun has slowly become more radiant, and the geography of continents and oceans basins has evolved via plate tectonics. This geography has placed a first-order constraint on the circulation of ocean waters, and thus has strongly influenced regional and global climate. At shorter time scales, the Earth system has been influenced by Milankovitch orbital factors and occasional exogenous events such as bolide impacts. Under these influences the system chugged along for eons, until some few hundred thousand years ago, when one remarkable species evolved: Homo sapiens. As individuals, humans are of course insignificant in shaping the Earth system, but collectively the six billion human occupants of the planet now rival ``natural'' processes in modifying the Earth system. This profound human influence underlies the dubbing of the present epoch of geologic history as the ``Anthropocene.''

The meganism behind internally generated centennial-to-millennial scale climate variability in an earth system model of intermediate complexity

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Friedrich, T.; Timmermann, A.; Menviel, L.; Elison Timm, O.; Mouchet, A.; Roche, D.M.V.A.P.

2010-01-01

The mechanism triggering centennial-to-millennial-scale variability of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) in the earth system model of intermediate complexity LOVECLIM is investigated. It is found that for several climate boundary conditions such as low obliquity values (∼22.1 )

The Representation of Tropical Cyclones Within the Global William Putman Non-Hydrostatic Goddard Earth Observing System Model (GEOS-5) at Cloud-Permitting Resolutions

Science.gov (United States)

Putman, William M.

2010-01-01

The Goddard Earth Observing System Model (GEOS-S), an earth system model developed in the NASA Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO), has integrated the non-hydrostatic finite-volume dynamical core on the cubed-sphere grid. The extension to a non-hydrostatic dynamical framework and the quasi-uniform cubed-sphere geometry permits the efficient exploration of global weather and climate modeling at cloud permitting resolutions of 10- to 4-km on today's high performance computing platforms. We have explored a series of incremental increases in global resolution with GEOS-S from irs standard 72-level 27-km resolution (approx.5.5 million cells covering the globe from the surface to 0.1 hPa) down to 3.5-km (approx. 3.6 billion cells).

NASA's Earth Observing System Data and Information System - EOSDIS

Science.gov (United States)

Ramapriyan, Hampapuram K.

2011-01-01

This slide presentation reviews the work of NASA's Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS), a petabyte-scale archive of environmental data that supports global climate change research. The Earth Science Data Systems provide end-to-end capabilities to deliver data and information products to users in support of understanding the Earth system. The presentation contains photographs from space of recent events, (i.e., the effects of the tsunami in Japan, and the wildfires in Australia.) It also includes details of the Data Centers that provide the data to EOSDIS and Science Investigator-led Processing Systems. Information about the Land, Atmosphere Near-real-time Capability for EOS (LANCE) and some of the uses that the system has made possible are reviewed. Also included is information about how to access the data, and evolutionary plans for the future of the system.

GLOBE and the Earth SySTEM Model in Teacher Preparation

Science.gov (United States)

Jabot, M.; Moore, J.; Dorofy, P.

2017-12-01

This presentation will share the growing body of work linking ArcMap and GLOBE and the Earth SySTEM approach in the development of preservice teachers. Our work is linking the power of ArcMap with the vast database of GLOBE in a unique way that links the power of geospatial technologies in shaping the planning for and delivery of science instruction in the P-5 classroom.

Sustainability, collapse and oscillations in a simple World-Earth model

Science.gov (United States)

Nitzbon, Jan; Heitzig, Jobst; Parlitz, Ulrich

2017-07-01

The Anthropocene is characterized by close interdependencies between the natural Earth system and the global human society, posing novel challenges to model development. Here we present a conceptual model describing the long-term co-evolution of natural and socio-economic subsystems of Earth. While the climate is represented via a global carbon cycle, we use economic concepts to model socio-metabolic flows of biomass and fossil fuels between nature and society. A well-being-dependent parametrization of fertility and mortality governs human population dynamics. Our analysis focuses on assessing possible asymptotic states of the Earth system for a qualitative understanding of its complex dynamics rather than quantitative predictions. Low dimension and simple equations enable a parameter-space analysis allowing us to identify preconditions of several asymptotic states and hence fates of humanity and planet. These include a sustainable co-evolution of nature and society, a global collapse and everlasting oscillations. We consider different scenarios corresponding to different socio-cultural stages of human history. The necessity of accounting for the ‘human factor’ in Earth system models is highlighted by the finding that carbon stocks during the past centuries evolved opposing to what would ‘naturally’ be expected on a planet without humans. The intensity of biomass use and the contribution of ecosystem services to human well-being are found to be crucial determinants of the asymptotic state in a (pre-industrial) biomass-only scenario without capital accumulation. The capitalistic, fossil-based scenario reveals that trajectories with fundamentally different asymptotic states might still be almost indistinguishable during even a centuries-long transient phase. Given current human population levels, our study also supports the claim that besides reducing the global demand for energy, only the extensive use of renewable energies may pave the way into a

Earth Observing System Covariance Realism Updates

Science.gov (United States)

Ojeda Romero, Juan A.; Miguel, Fred

2017-01-01

This presentation will be given at the International Earth Science Constellation Mission Operations Working Group meetings June 13-15, 2017 to discuss the Earth Observing System Covariance Realism updates.

Design and installation of earth energy systems

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Loggia, S; Adragna, M; Coyle, S; Foley, C; Hawryn, S; Martin, A; McConnell, J [eds.

2002-07-01

This first edition of the Canadian Standards Association (CSA) Standard C448 Series, replaces CSA Standards CAN/CSA-C445-M92 entitled Design and Installation of Earth Energy Heat Pump Systems for Residential and Other Small Buildings, as well as C447-94 entitled Design and Installation of Earth Energy Heat Pump Systems for Commercial and Institutional Buildings. This standard document consists of three parts: (C448.1) Design and installation of earth energy systems for commercial and institutional buildings; (C448.2) Design and installation of earth energy systems for residential and small buildings; and, (C448.3) Design and installation of underground thermal energy storage systems for commercial and institutional buildings. In C448.1, the requirements applicable to any system falling within the scope of the C448 series were included. Alternative requirements for houses and small buildings were added in C448.2. It was noted that either standard may be implemented. The standards applicable to the intentional storage of energy in the earth for later use were presented in C448.3. This latter section includes a brief introduction on underground thermal energy storage (UTES). tabs.

Description and evaluation of the Earth System Regional Climate Model (RegCM-ES)

Science.gov (United States)

Farneti, Riccardo; Sitz, Lina; Di Sante, Fabio; Fuentes-Franco, Ramon; Coppola, Erika; Mariotti, Laura; Reale, Marco; Sannino, Gianmaria; Barreiro, Marcelo; Nogherotto, Rita; Giuliani, Graziano; Graffino, Giorgio; Solidoro, Cosimo; Giorgi, Filippo

2017-04-01

The increasing availability of satellite remote sensing data, of high temporal frequency and spatial resolution, has provided a new and enhanced view of the global ocean and atmosphere, revealing strong air-sea coupling processes throughout the ocean basins. In order to obtain an accurate representation and better understanding of the climate system, its variability and change, the inclusion of all mechanisms of interaction among the different sub-components, at high temporal and spatial resolution, becomes ever more desirable. Recently, global coupled models have been able to progressively refine their horizontal resolution to attempt to resolve smaller-scale processes. However, regional coupled ocean-atmosphere models can achieve even finer resolutions and provide additional information on the mechanisms of air-sea interactions and feedbacks. Here we describe a new, state-of-the-art, Earth System Regional Climate Model (RegCM-ES). RegCM-ES presently includes the coupling between atmosphere, ocean, land surface and sea-ice components, as well as an hydrological and ocean biogeochemistry model. The regional coupled model has been implemented and tested over some of the COordinated Regional climate Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX) domains. RegCM-ES has shown improvements in the representation of precipitation and SST fields over the tested domains, as well as realistic representations of coupled air-sea processes and interactions. The RegCM-ES model, which can be easily implemented over any regional domain of interest, is open source making it suitable for usage by the large scientific community.

Earth System Science Education Interdisciplinary Partnerships

Science.gov (United States)

Ruzek, M.; Johnson, D. R.

2002-05-01

Earth system science in the classroom is the fertile crucible linking science with societal needs for local, national and global sustainability. The interdisciplinary dimension requires fruitful cooperation among departments, schools and colleges within universities and among the universities and the nation's laboratories and agencies. Teaching and learning requires content which brings together the basic and applied sciences with mathematics and technology in addressing societal challenges of the coming decades. Over the past decade remarkable advances have emerged in information technology, from high bandwidth Internet connectivity to raw computing and visualization power. These advances which have wrought revolutionary capabilities and resources are transforming teaching and learning in the classroom. With the launching of NASA's Earth Observing System (EOS) the amount and type of geophysical data to monitor the Earth and its climate are increasing dramatically. The challenge remains, however, for skilled scientists and educators to interpret this information based upon sound scientific perspectives and utilize it in the classroom. With an increasing emphasis on the application of data gathered, and the use of the new technologies for practical benefit in the lives of ordinary citizens, there comes the even more basic need for understanding the fundamental state, dynamics, and complex interdependencies of the Earth system in mapping valid and relevant paths to sustainability. Technology and data in combination with the need to understand Earth system processes and phenomena offer opportunities for new and productive partnerships between researchers and educators to advance the fundamental science of the Earth system and in turn through discovery excite students at all levels in the classroom. This presentation will discuss interdisciplinary partnership opportunities for educators and researchers at the undergraduate and graduate levels.

Carbon isotopes in the ocean model of the Community Earth System Model (CESM1

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

A. Jahn

2015-08-01

Full Text Available Carbon isotopes in the ocean are frequently used as paleoclimate proxies and as present-day geochemical ocean tracers. In order to allow a more direct comparison of climate model results with this large and currently underutilized data set, we added a carbon isotope module to the ocean model of the Community Earth System Model (CESM, containing the cycling of the stable isotope 13C and the radioactive isotope 14C. We implemented the 14C tracer in two ways: in the "abiotic" case, the 14C tracer is only subject to air–sea gas exchange, physical transport, and radioactive decay, while in the "biotic" version, the 14C additionally follows the 13C tracer through all biogeochemical and ecological processes. Thus, the abiotic 14C tracer can be run without the ecosystem module, requiring significantly fewer computational resources. The carbon isotope module calculates the carbon isotopic fractionation during gas exchange, photosynthesis, and calcium carbonate formation, while any subsequent biological process such as remineralization as well as any external inputs are assumed to occur without fractionation. Given the uncertainty associated with the biological fractionation during photosynthesis, we implemented and tested three parameterizations of different complexity. Compared to present-day observations, the model is able to simulate the oceanic 14C bomb uptake and the 13C Suess effect reasonably well compared to observations and other model studies. At the same time, the carbon isotopes reveal biases in the physical model, for example, too sluggish ventilation of the deep Pacific Ocean.

Carbon isotopes in the ocean model of the Community Earth System Model (CESM1)

Science.gov (United States)

Jahn, A.; Lindsay, K.; Giraud, X.; Gruber, N.; Otto-Bliesner, B. L.; Liu, Z.; Brady, E. C.

2015-08-01

Carbon isotopes in the ocean are frequently used as paleoclimate proxies and as present-day geochemical ocean tracers. In order to allow a more direct comparison of climate model results with this large and currently underutilized data set, we added a carbon isotope module to the ocean model of the Community Earth System Model (CESM), containing the cycling of the stable isotope 13C and the radioactive isotope 14C. We implemented the 14C tracer in two ways: in the "abiotic" case, the 14C tracer is only subject to air-sea gas exchange, physical transport, and radioactive decay, while in the "biotic" version, the 14C additionally follows the 13C tracer through all biogeochemical and ecological processes. Thus, the abiotic 14C tracer can be run without the ecosystem module, requiring significantly fewer computational resources. The carbon isotope module calculates the carbon isotopic fractionation during gas exchange, photosynthesis, and calcium carbonate formation, while any subsequent biological process such as remineralization as well as any external inputs are assumed to occur without fractionation. Given the uncertainty associated with the biological fractionation during photosynthesis, we implemented and tested three parameterizations of different complexity. Compared to present-day observations, the model is able to simulate the oceanic 14C bomb uptake and the 13C Suess effect reasonably well compared to observations and other model studies. At the same time, the carbon isotopes reveal biases in the physical model, for example, too sluggish ventilation of the deep Pacific Ocean.

Incorporation of ice sheet models into an Earth system model: Focus on methodology of coupling

Science.gov (United States)

Rybak, Oleg; Volodin, Evgeny; Morozova, Polina; Nevecherja, Artiom

2018-03-01

Elaboration of a modern Earth system model (ESM) requires incorporation of ice sheet dynamics. Coupling of an ice sheet model (ICM) to an AOGCM is complicated by essential differences in spatial and temporal scales of cryospheric, atmospheric and oceanic components. To overcome this difficulty, we apply two different approaches for the incorporation of ice sheets into an ESM. Coupling of the Antarctic ice sheet model (AISM) to the AOGCM is accomplished via using procedures of resampling, interpolation and assigning to the AISM grid points annually averaged meanings of air surface temperature and precipitation fields generated by the AOGCM. Surface melting, which takes place mainly on the margins of the Antarctic peninsula and on ice shelves fringing the continent, is currently ignored. AISM returns anomalies of surface topography back to the AOGCM. To couple the Greenland ice sheet model (GrISM) to the AOGCM, we use a simple buffer energy- and water-balance model (EWBM-G) to account for orographically-driven precipitation and other sub-grid AOGCM-generated quantities. The output of the EWBM-G consists of surface mass balance and air surface temperature to force the GrISM, and freshwater run-off to force thermohaline circulation in the oceanic block of the AOGCM. Because of a rather complex coupling procedure of GrIS compared to AIS, the paper mostly focuses on Greenland.

Evolving NASA's Earth Science Data Systems

Science.gov (United States)

Walter, J.; Behnke, J.; Murphy, K. J.; Lowe, D. R.

2013-12-01

NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System Project (ESDIS) is charged with managing, maintaining, and evolving NASA's Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) and is responsible for processing, archiving, and distributing NASA Earth science data. The system supports a multitude of missions and serves diverse science research and other user communities. Keeping up with ever-changing information technology and figuring out how to leverage those changes across such a large system in order to continuously improve and meet the needs of a diverse user community is a significant challenge. Maintaining and evolving the system architecture and infrastructure is a continuous and multi-layered effort. It requires a balance between a "top down" management paradigm that provides a coherent system view and maintaining the managerial, technological, and functional independence of the individual system elements. This presentation will describe some of the key elements of the current system architecture, some of the strategies and processes we employ to meet these challenges, current and future challenges, and some ideas for meeting those challenges.

Reduced ENSO Variability at the LGM Revealed by an Isotope-Enabled Earth System Model

Science.gov (United States)

Zhu, Jiang; Liu, Zhengyu; Brady, Esther; Otto-Bliesner, Bette; Zhang, Jiaxu; Noone, David; Tomas, Robert; Nusbaumer, Jesse; Wong, Tony; Jahn, Alexandra;

Fire in the Earth system.

Science.gov (United States)

Bowman, David M J S; Balch, Jennifer K; Artaxo, Paulo; Bond, William J; Carlson, Jean M; Cochrane, Mark A; D'Antonio, Carla M; Defries, Ruth S; Doyle, John C; Harrison, Sandy P; Johnston, Fay H; Keeley, Jon E; Krawchuk, Meg A; Kull, Christian A; Marston, J Brad; Moritz, Max A; Prentice, I Colin; Roos, Christopher I; Scott, Andrew C; Swetnam, Thomas W; van der Werf, Guido R; Pyne, Stephen J

2009-04-24

Fire is a worldwide phenomenon that appears in the geological record soon after the appearance of terrestrial plants. Fire influences global ecosystem patterns and processes, including vegetation distribution and structure, the carbon cycle, and climate. Although humans and fire have always coexisted, our capacity to manage fire remains imperfect and may become more difficult in the future as climate change alters fire regimes. This risk is difficult to assess, however, because fires are still poorly represented in global models. Here, we discuss some of the most important issues involved in developing a better understanding of the role of fire in the Earth system.

Near-Earth Space Radiation Models

Science.gov (United States)

Xapsos, Michael A.; O'Neill, Patrick M.; O'Brien, T. Paul

2012-01-01

Review of models of the near-Earth space radiation environment is presented, including recent developments in trapped proton and electron, galactic cosmic ray and solar particle event models geared toward spacecraft electronics applications.

Software Engineering Support of the Third Round of Scientific Grand Challenge Investigations: Earth System Modeling Software Framework Survey

Science.gov (United States)

Talbot, Bryan; Zhou, Shu-Jia; Higgins, Glenn; Zukor, Dorothy (Technical Monitor)

2002-01-01

One of the most significant challenges in large-scale climate modeling, as well as in high-performance computing in other scientific fields, is that of effectively integrating many software models from multiple contributors. A software framework facilitates the integration task, both in the development and runtime stages of the simulation. Effective software frameworks reduce the programming burden for the investigators, freeing them to focus more on the science and less on the parallel communication implementation. while maintaining high performance across numerous supercomputer and workstation architectures. This document surveys numerous software frameworks for potential use in Earth science modeling. Several frameworks are evaluated in depth, including Parallel Object-Oriented Methods and Applications (POOMA), Cactus (from (he relativistic physics community), Overture, Goddard Earth Modeling System (GEMS), the National Center for Atmospheric Research Flux Coupler, and UCLA/UCB Distributed Data Broker (DDB). Frameworks evaluated in less detail include ROOT, Parallel Application Workspace (PAWS), and Advanced Large-Scale Integrated Computational Environment (ALICE). A host of other frameworks and related tools are referenced in this context. The frameworks are evaluated individually and also compared with each other.

University of Rhode Island Regional Earth Systems Center

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Rothstein, Lewis [Univ. of Rhode Island, Kingston, RI (United States); Cornillon, P. [Univ. of Rhode Island, Kingston, RI (United States)

2017-02-06

The primary objective of this program was to establish the URI Regional Earth System Center (“Center”) that would enhance overall societal wellbeing (health, financial, environmental) by utilizing the best scientific information and technology to achieve optimal policy decisions with maximum stakeholder commitment for energy development, coastal environmental management, water resources protection and human health protection, while accelerating regional economic growth. The Center was to serve to integrate existing URI institutional strengths in energy, coastal environmental management, water resources, and human wellbeing. This integrated research, educational and public/private sector outreach Center was to focus on local, state and regional resources. The centerpiece activity of the Center was in the development and implementation of integrated assessment models (IAMs) that both ‘downscaled’ global observations and interpolated/extrapolated regional observations for analyzing the complexity of interactions among humans and the natural climate system to further our understanding and, ultimately, to predict the future state of our regional earth system. The Center was to begin by first ‘downscaling’ existing global earth systems management tools for studying the causes of local, state and regional climate change and potential social and environmental consequences, with a focus on the regional resources identified above. The Center would ultimately need to address the full feedbacks inherent in the nonlinear earth systems by quantifying the “upscaled” impacts of those regional changes on the global earth system. Through an interacting suite of computer simulations that are informed by observations from the nation’s evolving climate observatories, the Center activities integrates climate science, technology, economics, and social policy into forecasts that will inform solutions to pressing issues in regional climate change science, �

The international earth observing system: a cultural debate about earth sciences from space

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Menenti, M.

1996-01-01

This paper gives an overview of the International Earth Observing System, i.e. the combined earth observation programmes of space agencies worldwide and of the relevance of advanced space-borne sensor systems to the study and understanding of interactions between land surface and atmosphere. The

Journal of Earth System Science | Indian Academy of Sciences

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Home; Journals; Journal of Earth System Science; Volume 124; Issue 8. Gravitational attraction of a vertical pyramid model of flat top-and-bottom with depth-wise parabolic density variation. Anand P Gokula Rambhatla G Sastry. Volume 124 Issue 8 December 2015 pp 1735-1744 ...

Journal of Earth System Science | Indian Academy of Sciences

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Home; Journals; Journal of Earth System Science; Volume 119; Issue 5 ... Use of objective analysis to estimate winter temperature and precipitation at ... Numerical study for production of space charge within the stratiform cloud .... Estimates of source parameters of 4.9 Kharsali earthquake using waveform modelling.

Journal of Earth System Science | Indian Academy of Sciences

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Home; Journals; Journal of Earth System Science; Volume 115; Issue 3 ... Modeling of groundwater flow for Mujib aquifer, Jordan ... a cloudburst event with attention to horizontal resolution and the cloud microphysics parameterization. ... Global surface temperature in relation to northeast monsoon rainfall over Tamil Nadu.

Journal of Earth System Science | Indian Academy of Sciences

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Home; Journals; Journal of Earth System Science; Volume 123; Issue 4 .... Hydrologic modelling of the effect of snowmelt and temperature on a ... Spatial control of groundwater contamination, using principal component analysis ..... Forthcoming Articles · Search · Editorial Board · Information for Authors · Subscription ...

Earth's Systems as Models of Ethical Behavior: The Basis for an Ethic of Sustainability

Science.gov (United States)

Lutz, T. M.

2014-12-01

The enormous advances in scientific understanding of the earth in the last 400 years led to a remarkable flourishing of humanity, but it also resulted in the disruption of critical systems on which we depend. Around the world, soil is lost faster than it forms; groundwater is withdrawn faster than it recharges; biodiversity and biocapacity are crashing; fossil fuels are 87% of our primary energy sources despite their many problems, including steadily rising emissions of CO2. Since 1600, science has honed an ethic of objectivity that insists that facts and values - scientific work and its real world outcomes - remain separate. As a result, our economy and society applaud as loudly when our graduates land jobs that further damage earth systems as when they seek to preserve them. Geoethics aims at the idea that balancing human action with the capacity of planetary systems is the primary "good." Without healthy systems, we cannot thrive. Period. Ethical systems developed to mediate human relations are inadequate to find this balance: they implicitly acknowledge a rationality that places the highest value on short-term growth and efficiency, not on living sustainably in the long run. The best paragon of sustainability is the co-evolution of life and other systems on our planet over 3.5 billion years. This presentation explores the contributions of Gregory Bateson and other scientists to understanding systems in cybernetic terms. Bateson suggested that "What we believe ourselves to be should be compatible with what we believe of the world around us." In other words, the path to a sustainable geoethics begins by re-internalizing lessons that humans alone in the biotic community seem to have forgotten. What are the "rules" by which systems sustain themselves? What do self-sustaining systems "value?" How can we help ourselves and our students learn them? I suggest that paying attention to the process of learning itself is an effective first step, and describe the use of a

Earth Observing System, Conclusions and Recommendations

Science.gov (United States)

1984-01-01

The following Earth Observing Systems (E.O.S.) recommendations were suggested: (1) a program must be initiated to ensure that present time series of Earth science data are maintained and continued. (2) A data system that provides easy, integrated, and complete access to past, present, and future data must be developed as soon as possible. (3) A long term research effort must be sustained to study and understand these time series of Earth observations. (4) The E.O.S. should be established as an information system to carry out those aspects of the above recommendations which go beyond existing and currently planned activities. (5) The scientific direction of the E.O.S. should be established and continued through an international scientific steering committee.

Cubic rare-earth compounds: variants of the three-state Potts model

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kim, D.; Levy, P.M.; Uffer, L.F.

1975-01-01

In appropriate cubic fields, rare-earth ions have sixfold degenerate ground states. When the angular momentum of the rare earth is large, the six levels are characterized by states that are directed along the cube edges. Within these states the angular momentum operators J/sub x/, J/sub y/, and J/sub z/ have particularly simple matrix representations. The projection of an isotropic pair coupling between the rare earths onto these sixfold degenerate states leads to an interaction Hamiltonian H = -I Σ/sub (ij)/ sigma/sub i/sigma/sub j/delta/sub l/sub i/sub l/sub j//, where sigma takes on the values +-1 and l the values x, y, and z. This interaction is a variant of the three-state Potts model. Magnetic and quadrupolar anisotropy field terms are added to the Hamiltonian and the symmetry properties of the phase diagram associated with this model are determined. For nonzero quadrupolar anisotropy fields, the model is shown to have the thermodynamic behavior of an Ising model. However, for zero fields a new symmetry appears and in the mean-field approximation the model has tricritical-like exponents. This simple model is able to account for the large specific-heat critical exponent α' = 1 / 2 which has been observed for holmium antimonide in zero external fields. To the extent that the mean-field approximation is an accurate guide, we predict there are many cubic rare-earth compounds which exhibit tricritical-like behavior in zero field. In addition, for pure quadrupole coupling between rare earths in the sixfold degenerate states, the interaction Hamiltonian is exactly the three-state Potts model. In the mean-field approximation this system has a first-order phase transition. However, a small quadrupolar anisotropy field is sufficient to drive the system to a wing critical point. The specific heat has a critical exponent of α = 2 / 3 or 1 depending on the path taken to approach this critical point. (auth)

Presentation, calibration and validation of the low-order, DCESS Earth System Model (Version 1

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

J. O. Pepke Pedersen

2008-11-01

Full Text Available A new, low-order Earth System Model is described, calibrated and tested against Earth system data. The model features modules for the atmosphere, ocean, ocean sediment, land biosphere and lithosphere and has been designed to simulate global change on time scales of years to millions of years. The atmosphere module considers radiation balance, meridional transport of heat and water vapor between low-mid latitude and high latitude zones, heat and gas exchange with the ocean and sea ice and snow cover. Gases considered are carbon dioxide and methane for all three carbon isotopes, nitrous oxide and oxygen. The ocean module has 100 m vertical resolution, carbonate chemistry and prescribed circulation and mixing. Ocean biogeochemical tracers are phosphate, dissolved oxygen, dissolved inorganic carbon for all three carbon isotopes and alkalinity. Biogenic production of particulate organic matter in the ocean surface layer depends on phosphate availability but with lower efficiency in the high latitude zone, as determined by model fit to ocean data. The calcite to organic carbon rain ratio depends on surface layer temperature. The semi-analytical, ocean sediment module considers calcium carbonate dissolution and oxic and anoxic organic matter remineralisation. The sediment is composed of calcite, non-calcite mineral and reactive organic matter. Sediment porosity profiles are related to sediment composition and a bioturbated layer of 0.1 m thickness is assumed. A sediment segment is ascribed to each ocean layer and segment area stems from observed ocean depth distributions. Sediment burial is calculated from sedimentation velocities at the base of the bioturbated layer. Bioturbation rates and oxic and anoxic remineralisation rates depend on organic carbon rain rates and dissolved oxygen concentrations. The land biosphere module considers leaves, wood, litter and soil. Net primary production depends on atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration and

A look at the ocean in the EC-Earth climate model

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Sterl, Andreas; Bintanja, Richard; Severijns, Camiel [Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI), P.O. Box 201, De Bilt (Netherlands); Brodeau, Laurent [Stockholm University, Department of Meteorology, Stockholm (Sweden); Gleeson, Emily; Semmler, Tido [Met Eireann, Dublin (Ireland); Koenigk, Torben; Wyser, Klaus [Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI), Norrkoeping (Sweden); Schmith, Torben; Yang, Shuting [Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI), Copenhagen (Denmark)

2012-12-15

EC-Earth is a newly developed global climate system model. Its core components are the Integrated Forecast System (IFS) of the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) as the atmosphere component and the Nucleus for European Modelling of the Ocean (NEMO) developed by Institute Pierre Simon Laplace (IPSL) as the ocean component. Both components are used with a horizontal resolution of roughly one degree. In this paper we describe the performance of NEMO in the coupled system by comparing model output with ocean observations. We concentrate on the surface ocean and mass transports. It appears that in general the model has a cold and fresh bias, but a much too warm Southern Ocean. While sea ice concentration and extent have realistic values, the ice tends to be too thick along the Siberian coast. Transports through important straits have realistic values, but generally are at the lower end of the range of observational estimates. Exceptions are very narrow straits (Gibraltar, Bering) which are too wide due to the limited resolution. Consequently the modelled transports through them are too high. The strength of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation is also at the lower end of observational estimates. The interannual variability of key variables and correlations between them are realistic in size and pattern. This is especially true for the variability of surface temperature in the tropical Pacific (El Nino). Overall the ocean component of EC-Earth performs well and helps making EC-Earth a reliable climate model. (orig.)

Quantifying Key Climate Parameter Uncertainties Using an Earth System Model with a Dynamic 3D Ocean

Science.gov (United States)

Olson, R.; Sriver, R. L.; Goes, M. P.; Urban, N.; Matthews, D.; Haran, M.; Keller, K.

2011-12-01

Climate projections hinge critically on uncertain climate model parameters such as climate sensitivity, vertical ocean diffusivity and anthropogenic sulfate aerosol forcings. Climate sensitivity is defined as the equilibrium global mean temperature response to a doubling of atmospheric CO2 concentrations. Vertical ocean diffusivity parameterizes sub-grid scale ocean vertical mixing processes. These parameters are typically estimated using Intermediate Complexity Earth System Models (EMICs) that lack a full 3D representation of the oceans, thereby neglecting the effects of mixing on ocean dynamics and meridional overturning. We improve on these studies by employing an EMIC with a dynamic 3D ocean model to estimate these parameters. We carry out historical climate simulations with the University of Victoria Earth System Climate Model (UVic ESCM) varying parameters that affect climate sensitivity, vertical ocean mixing, and effects of anthropogenic sulfate aerosols. We use a Bayesian approach whereby the likelihood of each parameter combination depends on how well the model simulates surface air temperature and upper ocean heat content. We use a Gaussian process emulator to interpolate the model output to an arbitrary parameter setting. We use Markov Chain Monte Carlo method to estimate the posterior probability distribution function (pdf) of these parameters. We explore the sensitivity of the results to prior assumptions about the parameters. In addition, we estimate the relative skill of different observations to constrain the parameters. We quantify the uncertainty in parameter estimates stemming from climate variability, model and observational errors. We explore the sensitivity of key decision-relevant climate projections to these parameters. We find that climate sensitivity and vertical ocean diffusivity estimates are consistent with previously published results. The climate sensitivity pdf is strongly affected by the prior assumptions, and by the scaling

Journal of Earth System Science | Indian Academy of Sciences

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Home; Journals; Journal of Earth System Science; Volume 123; Issue 1 .... Liquefaction-induced settlement, site effects and damage in the vicinity of Yalova ... Climatic control on extreme sediment transfer from Dokriani Glacier during monsoon, ... India that has been noticed in several global and regional climate models.

Journal of Earth System Science | Indian Academy of Sciences

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Home; Journals; Journal of Earth System Science; Volume 126; Issue 2 ... Variable influence on the equatorial troposphere associated with SSW using ERA- ... Identification of drought in Dhalai river watershed using MCDM and ANN models ..... Study of the global and regional climatic impacts of ENSO magnitude using ...

Towards Better Simulation of US Maize Yield Responses to Climate in the Community Earth System Model

Science.gov (United States)

Peng, B.; Guan, K.; Chen, M.; Lawrence, D. M.; Jin, Z.; Bernacchi, C.; Ainsworth, E. A.; DeLucia, E. H.; Lombardozzi, D. L.; Lu, Y.

2017-12-01

Global food security is undergoing continuing pressure from increased population and climate change despites the potential advancement in breeding and management technologies. Earth system models (ESMs) are essential tools to study the impacts of historical and future climate on regional and global food production, as well as to assess the effectiveness of possible adaptations and their potential feedback to climate. Here we developed an improved maize representation within the Community Earth System Model (CESM) by combining the strengths of both the Community Land Model version 4.5 (CLM4.5) and the Agricultural Production Systems sIMulator (APSIM) models. Specifically, we modified the maize planting scheme, incorporated the phenology scheme adopted from the APSIM model, added a new carbon allocation scheme into CLM4.5, and improved the estimation of canopy structure parameters including leaf area index (LAI) and canopy height. Unique features of the new model (CLM-APSIM) include more detailed phenology stages, an explicit implementation of the impacts of various abiotic environmental stresses (including nitrogen, water, temperature and heat stresses) on maize phenology and carbon allocation, as well as an explicit simulation of grain number and grain size. We conducted a regional simulation of this new model over the US Corn Belt during 1990 to 2010. The simulated maize yield as well as its responses to climate (growing season mean temperature and precipitation) are benchmarked with data from UADA NASS statistics. Our results show that the CLM-APSIM model outperforms the CLM4.5 in simulating county-level maize yield production and reproduces more realistic yield responses to climate variations than CLM4.5. However, some critical processes (such as crop failure due to frost and inundation and suboptimal growth condition due to biotic stresses) are still missing in both CLM-APSIM and CLM4.5, making the simulated yield responses to climate slightly deviate from the

EarthTutor: An Interactive Intelligent Tutoring System for Remote Sensing

Science.gov (United States)

Bell, A. M.; Parton, K.; Smith, E.

2005-12-01

Earth science classes in colleges and high schools use a variety of satellite image processing software to teach earth science and remote sensing principles. However, current tutorials for image processing software are often paper-based or lecture-based and do not take advantage of the full potential of the computer context to teach, immerse, and stimulate students. We present EarthTutor, an adaptive, interactive Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS) being built for NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) that is integrated directly with an image processing application. The system aims to foster the use of satellite imagery in classrooms and encourage inquiry-based, hands-on earth science scientific study by providing students with an engaging imagery analysis learning environment. EarthTutor's software is available as a plug-in to ImageJ, a free image processing system developed by the NIH (National Institute of Health). Since it is written in Java, it can be run on almost any platform and also as an applet from the Web. Labs developed for EarthTutor combine lesson content (such as HTML web pages) with interactive activities and questions. In each lab the student learns to measure, calibrate, color, slice, plot and otherwise process and analyze earth science imagery. During the activities, EarthTutor monitors students closely as they work, which allows it to provide immediate feedback that is customized to a particular student's needs. As the student moves through the labs, EarthTutor assesses the student, and tailors the presentation of the content to a student's demonstrated skill level. EarthTutor's adaptive approach is based on emerging Artificial Intelligence (AI) research. Bayesian networks are employed to model a student's proficiency with different earth science and image processing concepts. Agent behaviors are used to track the student's progress through activities and provide guidance when a student encounters difficulty. Through individual

Investigating the Role of Biogeochemical Processes in the Northern High Latitudes on Global Climate Feedbacks Using an Efficient Scalable Earth System Model

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Jain, Atul K. [Univ. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL (United States)

2016-09-14

The overall objectives of this DOE funded project is to combine scientific and computational challenges in climate modeling by expanding our understanding of the biogeophysical-biogeochemical processes and their interactions in the northern high latitudes (NHLs) using an earth system modeling (ESM) approach, and by adopting an adaptive parallel runtime system in an ESM to achieve efficient and scalable climate simulations through improved load balancing algorithms.

Earth System Modeling 2.0: A Blueprint for Models That Learn From Observations and Targeted High-Resolution Simulations

Science.gov (United States)

Schneider, Tapio; Lan, Shiwei; Stuart, Andrew; Teixeira, João.

2017-12-01

Climate projections continue to be marred by large uncertainties, which originate in processes that need to be parameterized, such as clouds, convection, and ecosystems. But rapid progress is now within reach. New computational tools and methods from data assimilation and machine learning make it possible to integrate global observations and local high-resolution simulations in an Earth system model (ESM) that systematically learns from both and quantifies uncertainties. Here we propose a blueprint for such an ESM. We outline how parameterization schemes can learn from global observations and targeted high-resolution simulations, for example, of clouds and convection, through matching low-order statistics between ESMs, observations, and high-resolution simulations. We illustrate learning algorithms for ESMs with a simple dynamical system that shares characteristics of the climate system; and we discuss the opportunities the proposed framework presents and the challenges that remain to realize it.

Earth Observing Data System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) Overview

Science.gov (United States)

Klene, Stephan

2016-01-01

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) acquires and distributes an abundance of Earth science data on a daily basis to a diverse user community worldwide. The NASA Big Earth Data Initiative (BEDI) is an effort to make the acquired science data more discoverable, accessible, and usable. This presentation will provide a brief introduction to the Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) project and the nature of advances that have been made by BEDI to other Federal Users.

Development of hybrid 3-D hydrological modeling for the NCAR Community Earth System Model (CESM)

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Zeng, Xubin [Univ. of Arizona, Tucson, AZ (United States); Troch, Peter [Univ. of Arizona, Tucson, AZ (United States); Pelletier, Jon [Univ. of Arizona, Tucson, AZ (United States); Niu, Guo-Yue [Univ. of Arizona, Tucson, AZ (United States); Gochis, David [NCAR Research Applications (RAL), Boulder, CO (United States)

2015-11-15

This is the Final Report of our four-year (3-year plus one-year no cost extension) collaborative project between the University of Arizona (UA) and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). The overall objective of our project is to develop and evaluate the first hybrid 3-D hydrological model with a horizontal grid spacing of 1 km for the NCAR Community Earth System Model (CESM). We have made substantial progress in model development and evaluation, computational efficiencies and software engineering, and data development and evaluation, as discussed in Sections 2-4. Section 5 presents our success in data dissemination, while Section 6 discusses the scientific impacts of our work. Section 7 discusses education and mentoring success of our project, while Section 8 lists our relevant DOE services. All peer-reviewed papers that acknowledged this project are listed in Section 9. Highlights of our achievements include: • We have finished 20 papers (most published already) on model development and evaluation, computational efficiencies and software engineering, and data development and evaluation • The global datasets developed under this project have been permanently archived and publicly available • Some of our research results have already been implemented in WRF and CLM • Patrick Broxton and Michael Brunke have received their Ph.D. • PI Zeng has served on DOE proposal review panels and DOE lab scientific focus area (SFA) review panels

Considering bioactivity in modelling continental growth and the Earth's evolution

Science.gov (United States)

Höning, D.; Spohn, T.

2013-09-01

The complexity of planetary evolution increases with the number of interacting reservoirs. On Earth, even the biosphere is speculated to interact with the interior. It has been argued (e.g., Rosing et al. 2006; Sleep et al, 2012) that the formation of continents could be a consequence of bioactivity harvesting solar energy through photosynthesis to help build the continents and that the mantle should carry a chemical biosignature. Through plate tectonics, the surface biosphere can impact deep subduction zone processes and the interior of the Earth. Subducted sediments are particularly important, because they influence the Earth's interior in several ways, and in turn are strongly influenced by the Earth's biosphere. In our model, we use the assumption that a thick sedimentary layer of low permeability on top of the subducting oceanic crust, caused by a biologically enhanced weathering rate, can suppress shallow dewatering. This in turn leads to greater vailability of water in the source region of andesitic partial melt, resulting in an enhanced rate of continental production and regassing rate into the mantle. Our model includes (i) mantle convection, (ii) continental erosion and production, and (iii) mantle water degassing at mid-ocean ridges and regassing at subduction zones. The mantle viscosity of our model depends on (i) the mantle water concentration and (ii) the mantle temperature, whose time dependency is given by radioactive decay of isotopes in the Earth's mantle. Boundary layer theory yields the speed of convection and the water outgassing rate of the Earth's mantle. Our results indicate that present day values of continental surface area and water content of the Earth's mantle represent an attractor in a phase plane spanned by both parameters. We show that the biologic enhancement of the continental erosion rate is important for the system to reach this fixed point. An abiotic Earth tends to reach an alternative stable fixed point with a smaller

Earth System Documentation (ES-DOC) Preparation for CMIP6

Science.gov (United States)

Denvil, S.; Murphy, S.; Greenslade, M. A.; Lawrence, B.; Guilyardi, E.; Pascoe, C.; Treshanksy, A.; Elkington, M.; Hibling, E.; Hassell, D.

2015-12-01

During the course of 2015 the Earth System Documentation (ES-DOC) project began its preparations for CMIP6 (Coupled Model Inter-comparison Project 6) by further extending the ES-DOC tooling ecosystem in support of Earth System Model (ESM) documentation creation, search, viewing & comparison. The ES-DOC online questionnaire, the ES-DOC desktop notebook, and the ES-DOC python toolkit will serve as multiple complementary pathways to generating CMIP6 documentation. It is envisaged that institutes will leverage these tools at different points of the CMIP6 lifecycle. Institutes will be particularly interested to know that the documentation burden will be either streamlined or completely automated.As all the tools are tightly integrated with the ES-DOC web-service, institutes can be confident that the latency between documentation creation & publishing will be reduced to a minimum. Published documents will be viewable with the online ES-DOC Viewer (accessible via citable URL's). Model inter-comparison scenarios will be supported using the ES-DOC online Comparator tool. The Comparator is being extended to:• Support comparison of both Model descriptions & Simulation runs;• Greatly streamline the effort involved in compiling official tables.The entire ES-DOC ecosystem is open source and built upon open standards such as the Common Information Model (CIM) (versions 1 and 2).

Journal of Earth System Science | Indian Academy of Sciences

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Home; Journals; Journal of Earth System Science; Volume 123; Issue 7 ... Net short wave and long wave radiative fluxes substantially varied with cloud dynamics, season, .... Impact of over-exploitation on groundwater quality: A case study from .... using large scale climate variables and downscaling models – A case study.

Journal of Earth System Science | Indian Academy of Sciences

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Articles written in Journal of Earth System Science ... Cloud Motion Wind (CMW) data of METEOSAT satellite and SSM/I surface wind data ... Skills of different mesoscale models over Indian region during monsoon season: Forecast errors ... Impact of vegetation on the simulation of seasonal monsoon rainfall over the Indian ...

Journal of Earth System Science | Indian Academy of Sciences

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Home; Journals; Journal of Earth System Science; Volume 121; Issue 2 ... Impact of continental meteorology and atmospheric circulation in the ... Rainfall and temperature scenarios for Bangladesh for the middle of 21st century using RegCM ..... Statistical models of interoccurrence times of Iranian earthquakes on the basis ...

Overview of NASA's Earth Science Data Systems

Science.gov (United States)

McDonald, Kenneth

2004-01-01

For over the last 15 years, NASA's Earth Science Enterprise (ESE) has devoted a tremendous effort to design and build the Earth Observing System (EOS) Data and Information System (EOSDIS) to acquire, process, archive and distribute the data of the EOS series of satellites and other ESE missions and field programs. The development of EOSDIS began with an early prototype to support NASA data from heritage missions and progressed through a formal development process to today's system that supports the data from multiple missions including Landsat 7, Terra, Aqua, SORCE and ICESat. The system is deployed at multiple Distributed Active Archive Centers (DAACs) and its current holdings are approximately 4.5 petabytes. The current set of unique users requesting EOS data and information products exceeds 2 million. While EOSDIS has been the centerpiece of NASA's Earth Science Data Systems, other initiatives have augmented the services of EOSDIS and have impacted its evolution and the future directions of data systems within the ESE. ESDIS had an active prototyping effort and has continued to be involved in the activities of the Earth Science Technology Office (ESTO). In response to concerns from the science community that EOSDIS was too large and monolithic, the ESE initiated the Earth Science Information Partners (ESP) Federation Experiment that funded a series of projects to develop specialized products and services to support Earth science research and applications. Last year, the enterprise made 41 awards to successful proposals to the Research, Education and Applications Solutions Network (REASON) Cooperative Agreement Notice to continue and extend the ESP activity. The ESE has also sponsored a formulation activity called the Strategy for the Evolution of ESE Data Systems (SEEDS) to develop approaches and decision support processes for the management of the collection of data system and service providers of the enterprise. Throughout the development of its earth science

The Sun/Earth System and Space Weather

Science.gov (United States)

Poland, Arthur I.; Fox, Nicola; Lucid, Shannon

2003-01-01

Solar variability and solar activity are now seen as significant drivers with respect to the Earth and human technology systems. Observations over the last 10 years have significantly advanced our understanding of causes and effects in the Sun/Earth system. On a practical level the interactions between the Sun and Earth dictate how we build our systems in space (communications satellites, GPS, etc), and some of our ground systems (power grids). This talk will be about the Sun/Earth system: how it changes with time, its magnetic interactions, flares, the solar wind, and how the Sun effects human systems. Data will be presented from some current spacecraft which show, for example, how we are able to currently give warnings to the scientific community, the Government and industry about space storms and how this data has improved our physical understanding of processes on the Sun and in the magnetosphere. The scientific advances provided by our current spacecraft has led to a new program in NASA to develop a 'Space Weather' system called 'Living With a Star'. The current plan for the 'Living With a Star' program will also be presented.

Description and verification of a U.S. Naval Research Lab's loosely coupled data assimilation system for the Navy's Earth System Model

Science.gov (United States)

Barton, N. P.; Metzger, E. J.; Smedstad, O. M.; Ruston, B. C.; Wallcraft, A. J.; Whitcomb, T.; Ridout, J. A.; Zamudio, L.; Posey, P.; Reynolds, C. A.; Richman, J. G.; Phelps, M.

2017-12-01

The Naval Research Laboratory is developing an Earth System Model (NESM) to provide global environmental information to meet Navy and Department of Defense (DoD) operations and planning needs from the upper atmosphere to under the sea. This system consists of a global atmosphere, ocean, ice, wave, and land prediction models and the individual models include: atmosphere - NAVy Global Environmental Model (NAVGEM); ocean - HYbrid Coordinate Ocean Model (HYCOM); sea ice - Community Ice CodE (CICE); WAVEWATCH III™; and land - NAVGEM Land Surface Model (LSM). Data assimilation is currently loosely coupled between the atmosphere component using a 6-hour update cycle in the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) Atmospheric Variational Data Assimilation System - Accelerated Representer (NAVDAS-AR) and the ocean/ice components using a 24-hour update cycle in the Navy Coupled Ocean Data Assimilation (NCODA) with 3 hours of incremental updating. This presentation will describe the US Navy's coupled forecast model, the loosely coupled data assimilation, and compare results against stand-alone atmosphere and ocean/ice models. In particular, we will focus on the unique aspects of this modeling system, which includes an eddy resolving ocean model and challenges associated with different update-windows and solvers for the data assimilation in the atmosphere and ocean. Results will focus on typical operational diagnostics for atmosphere, ocean, and ice analyses including 500 hPa atmospheric height anomalies, low-level winds, temperature/salinity ocean depth profiles, ocean acoustical proxies, sea ice edge, and sea ice drift. Overall, the global coupled system is performing with comparable skill to the stand-alone systems.

Uncertainty in Earth System Models: Benchmarks for Ocean Model Performance and Validation

Science.gov (United States)

Ogunro, O. O.; Elliott, S.; Collier, N.; Wingenter, O. W.; Deal, C.; Fu, W.; Hoffman, F. M.

2017-12-01

The mean ocean CO2 sink is a major component of the global carbon budget, with marine reservoirs holding about fifty times more carbon than the atmosphere. Phytoplankton play a significant role in the net carbon sink through photosynthesis and drawdown, such that about a quarter of anthropogenic CO2 emissions end up in the ocean. Biology greatly increases the efficiency of marine environments in CO2 uptake and ultimately reduces the impact of the persistent rise in atmospheric concentrations. However, a number of challenges remain in appropriate representation of marine biogeochemical processes in Earth System Models (ESM). These threaten to undermine the community effort to quantify seasonal to multidecadal variability in ocean uptake of atmospheric CO2. In a bid to improve analyses of marine contributions to climate-carbon cycle feedbacks, we have developed new analysis methods and biogeochemistry metrics as part of the International Ocean Model Benchmarking (IOMB) effort. Our intent is to meet the growing diagnostic and benchmarking needs of ocean biogeochemistry models. The resulting software package has been employed to validate DOE ocean biogeochemistry results by comparison with observational datasets. Several other international ocean models contributing results to the fifth phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) were analyzed simultaneously. Our comparisons suggest that the biogeochemical processes determining CO2 entry into the global ocean are not well represented in most ESMs. Polar regions continue to show notable biases in many critical biogeochemical and physical oceanographic variables. Some of these disparities could have first order impacts on the conversion of atmospheric CO2 to organic carbon. In addition, single forcing simulations show that the current ocean state can be partly explained by the uptake of anthropogenic emissions. Combined effects of two or more of these forcings on ocean biogeochemical cycles and ecosystems

Keeping Earth at work: Using thermodynamics to develop a holistic theory of the Earth system

Science.gov (United States)

Kleidon, Axel

2010-05-01

The Earth system is unique among terrestrial planets in that it is maintained in a state far from thermodynamic equilibrium. Practically all processes are irreversible in their nature, thereby producing entropy, and these would act to destroy this state of disequilibrium. In order to maintain disequilibrium in steady state, driving forces are required that perform the work to maintain the Earth system in a state far from equilibrium. To characterize the functioning of the Earth system and the interactions among its subsystems we need to consider all terms of the first and second law of thermodynamics. While the global energy balance is well established in climatology, the global entropy and work balances receive little, if any, attention. Here I will present first steps in developing a holistic theory of the Earth system including quantifications of the relevant terms that is based on the first and second laws of thermodynamics. This theory allows us to compare the significance of different processes in driving and maintaining disequilibrium, allows us to explore interactions by investigating the role of power transfer among processes, and specifically illustrate the significance of life in driving planetary disequilibrium. Furthermore, the global work balance demonstrates the significant impact of human activity and it provides an estimate for the availability of renewable sources of free energy within the Earth system. Hence, I conclude that a holistic thermodynamic theory of the Earth system is not just some academic exercise of marginal use, but essential for a profound understanding of the Earth system and its response to change.

On the roto-translatory internal motions of a three layer non-isobarycentric Earth model: a Lagrangian system approach

Science.gov (United States)

Escapa, Alberto; Fukushima, Toshio

2010-05-01

The internal structure of numerous celestial bodies are well approximated by means of a three layer model composed of a solid external layer, which encloses a fluid layer containing a solid body. An analysis of the inner dynamics of this model can provide some constrains on its rheological characteristics; an information that in many situations is only accessible through this indirect way. In addition, the understanding of this kind of motions, especially of those associated with a rigid displacement (a rotation or a relative translation) of the solid layers, is of primary importance to establish with enough accuracy the definition of the terrestrial reference frames. In the Earth case, most approaches to this formidable problem rely on the numerical solution of the respective elastic field equations, once they have been projected on a set of spherical harmonics functions of a given degree. Due to its intrinsic nature these numerical methods do not provide by themselves much insight into the internal dynamics, hence the interest to develop simpler dynamical models that reproduces the main characteristics of the motion and allows obtaining analytical approximate solutions of the problem. To this aim, and as a first stage, we have considered the internal dynamics of a simple Earth model made up of a spherical rigid mantle, an inviscid, homogeneous fluid outer core and a spherical rigid inner core. Initially the barycenters of all the constituents are located at the same point (isobarycentric model) and the whole system rotates with constant angular velocity around the figure axis. When this situation is perturbed both the motions of the fluid and of the solid layers depart from the reference uniform rotation. However, following Busse (1974) we have assumed that the motion of the mantle is the same as in the unperturbed state, and that the inner core dynamics only suffers a variation of oscillatory nature in the translational motion of its barycenter. As a consequence

Incorporating Geoethics in Introductory Earth System Science Courses

Science.gov (United States)

Schmitt, J.

2014-12-01

The integrative nature of Earth System Science courses provides extensive opportunities to introduce students to geoethical inquiry focused on globally significant societal issues. Geoscience education has traditionally lagged in its efforts to increase student awareness of the significance of geologic knowledge to understanding and responsibly confronting causes and possible solutions for emergent, newly emerging, and future problems of anthropogenic cause and consequence. Developing an understanding of the human impact on the earth system requires early (lower division) and for geoscience majors, repeated (upper division) curricular emphasis on the interactions of the lithosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, biosphere, and pedosphere across space and through time. Capturing the interest of university students in globally relevant earth system issues and their ethical dimensions while first learning about the earth system is an important initial step in bringing geoethical deliberation and awareness to the next generation of geoscientists. Development of a new introductory Earth System Science course replacing a traditional introductory Physical Geology course at Montana State University has involved abandonment of concept-based content organization in favor of a place-based approach incorporating examination of the complex interactions of earth system components and emergent issues and dilemmas deriving from the unique component interactions that characterize each locale. Thirteen different place-based week-long modules (using web- and classroom-based instruction) were developed to ensure cumulative broad coverage across the earth geographically and earth system components conceptually. Each place-based instructional module contains content of societal relevance requiring synthesis, critical evaluation, and reflection by students. Examples include making linkages between deforestation driven by economics and increased seismicity in Haiti, agriculture and development

Journal of Earth System Science | Indian Academy of Sciences

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Home; Journals; Journal of Earth System Science; Volume 118; Issue 5 ... Impact of vegetation on the simulation of seasonal monsoon rainfall over the Indian .... On the diurnal ranges of Sea Surface Temperature (SST) in the north Indian Ocean ... Groundwater flow modelling of Yamuna–Krishni interstream, a part of central ...

Journal of Earth System Science | Indian Academy of Sciences

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Home; Journals; Journal of Earth System Science; Volume 124; Issue 5 ... water cycles and predict the effect of climate change on terrestrial ecosystems, it is ... Application of ANN and fuzzy logic algorithms for streamflow modelling of Savitri .... Influence of nutrient input on the trophic state of a tropical brackish water lagoon.

Journal of Earth System Science | Indian Academy of Sciences

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Home; Journals; Journal of Earth System Science; Volume 125; Issue 8 ... On a model simulating lack of hydraulic connection between a man-made reservoir and the ... Depth of water in the reservoir varies as H'+h cos(ωt). ..... exchanges via riverbank filtration by hydrochemical and biological indicators, Assiut, Egypt.

Journal of Earth System Science | Indian Academy of Sciences

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Home; Journals; Journal of Earth System Science; Volume 125; Issue 1. Simulation of CO2 concentrations at Tsukuba tall tower using WRF-CO2 tracer transport model. Srabanti Ballav Prabir K Patra Yousuke Sawa Hidekazu Matsueda Ahoro Adachi Shigeru Onogi Masayuki Takigawa Utpal K De. Volume 125 Issue 1 ...

Describing Earth system simulations with the Metafor CIM

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

B. N. Lawrence

2012-11-01

Full Text Available The Metafor project has developed a common information model (CIM using the ISO19100 series formalism to describe numerical experiments carried out by the Earth system modelling community, the models they use, and the simulations that result. Here we describe the mechanism by which the CIM was developed, and its key properties. We introduce the conceptual and application versions and the controlled vocabularies developed in the context of supporting the fifth Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5. We describe how the CIM has been used in experiments to describe model coupling properties and describe the near term expected evolution of the CIM.

Biospheric feedback effects in a synchronously coupled model of human and Earth systems

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Thornton, Peter E.; Calvin, Katherine V.; Jones, Andrew D.; Di Vittorio, Alan; Bond-Lamberty, Benjamin; Chini, Louise M.; Shi, Xiaoying; Mao, Jiafu; Collins, William D.; Edmonds, James A.; Thomson, Allison M.; Truesdale, John E.; Craig, Anthony P.; Branstetter, M.; Hurtt, George C.

2017-06-12

Fossil fuel combustion and land-use change are the first and second largest contributors to industrial-era increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration, which is itself the largest driver of present-day climate change1. Projections of fossil fuel consumption and land-use change are thus fundamental inputs for coupled Earth system models (ESM) used to estimate the physical and biological consequences of future climate system forcing2,3. While empirical datasets are available to inform historical analyses4,5, assessments of future climate change have relied on projections of energy and land use based on energy economic models, constrained using historical and present-day data and forced with assumptions about future policy, land-use patterns, and socio-economic development trajectories6. Here we show that the influence of biospheric change – the integrated effect of climatic, ecological, and geochemical processes – on land ecosystems has a significant impact on energy, agriculture, and land-use projections for the 21st century. Such feedbacks have been ignored in previous ESM studies of future climate. We find that synchronous exposure of land ecosystem productivity in the economic system to biospheric change as it develops in an ESM results in a 10% reduction of land area used for crop cultivation; increased managed forest area and land carbon; a 15-20% decrease in global crop price; and a 17% reduction in fossil fuel emissions for a low-mid range forcing scenario7. These simulation results demonstrate that biospheric change can significantly alter primary human system forcings to the climate system. This synchronous two-way coupling approach removes inconsistencies in description of climate change between human and biosphere components of the coupled model, mitigating a major source of uncertainty identified in assessments of future climate projections8-10.

(Re)engineering Earth System Models to Expose Greater Concurrency for Ultrascale Computing: Practice, Experience, and Musings

Science.gov (United States)

Mills, R. T.

2014-12-01

As the high performance computing (HPC) community pushes towards the exascale horizon, the importance and prevalence of fine-grained parallelism in new computer architectures is increasing. This is perhaps most apparent in the proliferation of so-called "accelerators" such as the Intel Xeon Phi or NVIDIA GPGPUs, but the trend also holds for CPUs, where serial performance has grown slowly and effective use of hardware threads and vector units are becoming increasingly important to realizing high performance. This has significant implications for weather, climate, and Earth system modeling codes, many of which display impressive scalability across MPI ranks but take relatively little advantage of threading and vector processing. In addition to increasing parallelism, next generation codes will also need to address increasingly deep hierarchies for data movement: NUMA/cache levels, on node vs. off node, local vs. wide neighborhoods on the interconnect, and even in the I/O system. We will discuss some approaches (grounded in experiences with the Intel Xeon Phi architecture) for restructuring Earth science codes to maximize concurrency across multiple levels (vectors, threads, MPI ranks), and also discuss some novel approaches for minimizing expensive data movement/communication.

Stomata: key players in the earth system, past and present.

Science.gov (United States)

Berry, Joseph A; Beerling, David J; Franks, Peter J

2010-06-01

Stomata have played a key role in the Earth System for at least 400 million years. By enabling plants to control the rate of evaporation from their photosynthetic organs, stomata helped to set in motion non-linear processes that led to an acceleration of the hydrologic cycle over the continents and an expansion of climate zones favorable for plant life. Global scale modeling of land-atmosphere interactions provides a way to explore parallels between the influence of vegetation on climate over time, and the influence of spatial and temporal variation in the activities of vegetation in the current Earth System on climate and weather. We use the logic in models that simulate land-atmosphere interactions to illustrate the central role played by stomatal conductance in the Earth System. In the modeling context, most of the activities of plants and their manifold interactions with their genomes and with the environment are communicated to the atmosphere through a single property: the aperture or conductance of their stomata. We tend to think of the controls on vegetation responses in the real world as being distributed among factors such as seasonal patterns of growth, the changing availability of soil water, or changes in light intensity and leaf water potential over a day. However, the impact of these controls on crucial exchanges of energy and water vapor with the atmosphere are also largely mediated by stomata. The decisions 'made by' stomata emerge as an important and inadequately understood component of these models. At the present time we lack effective ways to link advances in the biology of stomata to this decision making process. While not unusual, this failure to connect between disciplines, introduces uncertainty in modeling studies being used to predict weather and climate change and ultimately to inform policy decisions. This problem is also an opportunity.

Effects of primitive photosynthesis on Earth's early climate system

Science.gov (United States)

Ozaki, Kazumi; Tajika, Eiichi; Hong, Peng K.; Nakagawa, Yusuke; Reinhard, Christopher T.

2018-01-01

The evolution of different forms of photosynthetic life has profoundly altered the activity level of the biosphere, radically reshaping the composition of Earth's oceans and atmosphere over time. However, the mechanistic impacts of a primitive photosynthetic biosphere on Earth's early atmospheric chemistry and climate are poorly understood. Here, we use a global redox balance model to explore the biogeochemical and climatological effects of different forms of primitive photosynthesis. We find that a hybrid ecosystem of H2-based and Fe2+-based anoxygenic photoautotrophs—organisms that perform photosynthesis without producing oxygen—gives rise to a strong nonlinear amplification of Earth's methane (CH4) cycle, and would thus have represented a critical component of Earth's early climate system before the advent of oxygenic photosynthesis. Using a Monte Carlo approach, we find that a hybrid photosynthetic biosphere widens the range of geochemical conditions that allow for warm climate states well beyond either of these metabolic processes acting in isolation. Our results imply that the Earth's early climate was governed by a novel and poorly explored set of regulatory feedbacks linking the anoxic biosphere and the coupled H, C and Fe cycles. We suggest that similar processes should be considered when assessing the potential for sustained habitability on Earth-like planets with reducing atmospheres.

Journal of Earth System Science | Indian Academy of Sciences

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Home; Journals; Journal of Earth System Science; Volume 118; Issue 5. Impact of vegetation on the simulation of seasonal monsoon rainfall over the Indian subcontinent using a regional model. Surya K Dutta Someshwar Das S C Kar U C Mohanty P C Joshi. Volume 118 Issue 5 October 2009 pp 413-440 ...

Impact of chlorophyll bias on the tropical Pacific mean climate in an earth system model

Science.gov (United States)

Lim, Hyung-Gyu; Park, Jong-Yeon; Kug, Jong-Seong

2017-12-01

Climate modeling groups nowadays develop earth system models (ESMs) by incorporating biogeochemical processes in their climate models. The ESMs, however, often show substantial bias in simulated marine biogeochemistry which can potentially introduce an undesirable bias in physical ocean fields through biogeophysical interactions. This study examines how and how much the chlorophyll bias in a state-of-the-art ESM affects the mean and seasonal cycle of tropical Pacific sea-surface temperature (SST). The ESM used in the present study shows a sizeable positive bias in the simulated tropical chlorophyll. We found that the correction of the chlorophyll bias can reduce the ESM's intrinsic cold SST mean bias in the equatorial Pacific. The biologically-induced cold SST bias is strongly affected by seasonally-dependent air-sea coupling strength. In addition, the correction of chlorophyll bias can improve the annual cycle of SST by up to 25%. This result suggests a possible modeling approach in understanding the two-way interactions between physical and chlorophyll biases by biogeophysical effects.

Modeling of earth fissures caused by land subsidence due to groundwater withdrawal

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

B. B. Panda

2015-11-01

Full Text Available Land subsidence and earth fissures are phenomena related to groundwater withdrawal in a sedimentary basin. If the rock basement or basin lithology is irregular, both vertical and horizontal displacements can be induced due to differential settlement and tensile stresses appearing in the soil mass. If the differential settlement is of sufficient magnitude, earth fissuring can occur within tensile zones. The magnitudes of compaction and fissure geometry are closely related to the thickness and skeletal compressibility of fine-grained sediments within the aquifer system. Land subsidence and earth fissuring were modeled by employing a two-dimensional (2-D coupled seepage and stress-strain finite element analysis. The basin bedrock geometry, lithological variation, measurements of surface displacements, and changes in hydraulic head were the critical input parameter for the subsidence modeling. Simulation results indicate that strain had exceeded the approximate threshold for fissure formation of 0.02 to 0.06 % in the area of the identified fissures. The numerical model was used to predict future subsidence and potential earth fissures for flood control structures within the metro Phoenix area.

Models of the earth's core

Science.gov (United States)

Stevenson, D. J.

1981-01-01

Combined inferences from seismology, high-pressure experiment and theory, geomagnetism, fluid dynamics, and current views of terrestrial planetary evolution lead to models of the earth's core with five basic properties. These are that core formation was contemporaneous with earth accretion; the core is not in chemical equilibrium with the mantle; the outer core is a fluid iron alloy containing significant quantities of lighter elements and is probably almost adiabatic and compositionally uniform; the more iron-rich inner solid core is a consequence of partial freezing of the outer core, and the energy release from this process sustains the earth's magnetic field; and the thermodynamic properties of the core are well constrained by the application of liquid-state theory to seismic and labroatory data.

Evaluating Regional Scale Deforestation in the University of Victoria Earth System Climate Model

Science.gov (United States)

Longobardi, P.; Montenegro, A.; Beltrami, H.; Eby, M.

2011-12-01

Forests play a key role in influencing the Earths climate and at the same time are affected by changing climates. At this point it is estimated that 15-30% of Earths natural forests have already been converted to pasture or cropland. With such large amounts of forest being converted to cropland and grassland, it is important to determine the climatic effects of these actions. To date, most modelling efforts towards understanding the climatic effects of deforestation have simulated global deforestation or have been based on experiments where trees were removed from large areas, i.e. the entire Amazon or all forests above 50 N. Here we use the University of Victoria Earth System Climate model which contains a fully coupled carbon cycle, to evaluate the response to deforestation of 10%, 25%, 50% and 100% of the forested areas in three latitude bands: high (above 50°N), mid (above ± 30°) and low (between ± 30°). All simulations were transient simulations, allowing for changes to atmospheric forcings following the A2 emissions scenario. High latitude deforestation lead to cooling (-.05 °C to -0.45 °C) and increase in soil carbon (0.5 to 3 x 1014 kg) for all fractions of deforestation. Due in part to the increase in soil carbon, there was a decrease in atmospheric CO2 in the 50% (-20 ppm) and 100% (-60 ppm) high-latitude deforestation simulations. Low-latitude deforestation initially produced warming in all scenarios (0.1 to 0.25 °C), although all were colder (-0.05 to -0.1 °C) than the control by the end of the simulation. Atmospheric CO2 increased in all simulations (40 to 80 ppm), as well as soil carbon (2 to 16 x 1013 kg). Mid-latitude deforestation also lead to initial warming (0.01 to 0.1 °C) followed by cooling (-0.01 to -0.1 °C). Mid latitude deforestation also produced an increase in soil carbon (2 to 10 x 1013 kg), and atmospheric CO2 (0 to 25ppm). In all three latitude bands forest dieback was observed. Results range from 7% to 37% for high

NASA's Earth Science Data Systems - Lessons Learned and Future Directions

Science.gov (United States)

Ramapriyan, Hampapuram K.

2010-01-01

In order to meet the increasing demand for Earth Science data, NASA has significantly improved the Earth Science Data Systems over the last two decades. This improvement is reviewed in this slide presentation. Many Earth Science disciplines have been able to access the data that is held in the Earth Observing System (EOS) Data and Information System (EOSDIS) at the Distributed Active Archive Centers (DAACs) that forms the core of the data system.

A new program in earth system science education

Science.gov (United States)

Huntress, Wesley; Kalb, Michael W.; Johnson, Donald R.

1990-01-01

A program aimed at accelerating the development of earth system science curricula at the undergraduate level and at seeding the establishment of university-based mechanisms for cooperative research and education among universities and NASA has been initiated by the Universities Space Research Association (USRA) in conjunction with NASA. Proposals were submitted by 100 U.S. research universities which were selected as candidates to participate in a three-year pilot program to develop undergraduate curricula in earth system science. Universities were then selected based upon peer review and considerations of overall scientific balance among proposed programs. The program will also aim to integrate a number of universities with evolving earth system programs, linking them with a cooperative curriculum, shared faculty, and NASA scientists in order to establish a stronger base for earth systems related education and interdisciplinary research collaboration.

WHERE TO FIND HABITABLE ''EARTHS'' IN CIRCUMBINARY SYSTEMS

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Liu Huigen; Zhang Hui; Zhou Jilin

2013-01-01

Six P-type planets have been found thus far around five binary systems, i.e., Kepler-16b, 34b, 35b, 38b, and 47b and c, which are all Neptune- or Jupiter-like planets. The stability of planets and the habitable zones are influenced by the gravitational and radiative perturbations of binary companions. In this Letter, we check the stability of an additional habitable Earth-mass planet in each system. Based on our simulations in 10 Myr, a habitable ''Earth'' is hardly stable in Kepler-16, while a stable ''Earth'' in Kepler-47 close to the boundaries of the habitable zone is possible. In contrast, Kepler-34, 35, and 38 seem to have high probabilities of being able to tolerante a stable ''Earth'' in their habitable zones. The affects of transit time variations are quite small due to the small mass of an undetected ''Earth,'' except that of Kepler-16b. With a time precision of 10 –3 day (∼88 s), an ''Earth'' in the corotational resonance with Kepler-16b can be detected in three years, while habitable ''Earths'' in the Kepler-34 and 38 systems can be detected in 10 yr. Habitable ''Earths'' in Kepler-35 and 47 are not likely to be detected in 10 yr under this precision.

EOS Reference Handbook 1999: A Guide to NASA's Earth Science Enterprise and the Earth Observing System

Science.gov (United States)

King, M. D. (Editor); Greenstone, R. (Editor)

2000-01-01

The content of this handbook includes Earth Science Enterprise; The Earth Observing System; EOS Data and Information System (EOSDIS); Data and Information Policy; Pathfinder Data Sets; Earth Science Information Partners and the Working Prototype-Federation; EOS Data Quality: Calibration and Validation; Education Programs; International Cooperation; Interagency Coordination; Mission Elements; EOS Instruments; EOS Interdisciplinary Science Investigations; and Points-of-Contact.

Age of the earth and solar system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Manhes, G.

1977-01-01

The history of chemical element formation and radiochronology is given. The study of Pb isotope composition evolution enables to estimate the age of the earth. A series of galena of known ages was measured. By means of a model, it is possible to determine the initial isotope composition of Pb on the earth and the age of the earth. On the other hand, the analysis of stony meteorites provides a Pb isotope composition higher than the earth value. A comparison of the data shows a fundamental transition at 4.55 10 9 years [fr

Seasonal-to-decadal predictions with the ensemble Kalman filter and the Norwegian Earth System Model: a twin experiment

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Francois Counillon

2014-03-01

Full Text Available Here, we firstly demonstrate the potential of an advanced flow dependent data assimilation method for performing seasonal-to-decadal prediction and secondly, reassess the use of sea surface temperature (SST for initialisation of these forecasts. We use the Norwegian Climate Prediction Model (NorCPM, which is based on the Norwegian Earth System Model (NorESM and uses the deterministic ensemble Kalman filter to assimilate observations. NorESM is a fully coupled system based on the Community Earth System Model version 1, which includes an ocean, an atmosphere, a sea ice and a land model. A numerically efficient coarse resolution version of NorESM is used. We employ a twin experiment methodology to provide an upper estimate of predictability in our model framework (i.e. without considering model bias of NorCPM that assimilates synthetic monthly SST data (EnKF-SST. The accuracy of EnKF-SST is compared to an unconstrained ensemble run (FREE and ensemble predictions made with near perfect (i.e. microscopic SST perturbation initial conditions (PERFECT. We perform 10 cycles, each consisting of a 10-yr assimilation phase, followed by a 10-yr prediction. The results indicate that EnKF-SST improves sea level, ice concentration, 2 m atmospheric temperature, precipitation and 3-D hydrography compared to FREE. Improvements for the hydrography are largest near the surface and are retained for longer periods at depth. Benefits in salinity are retained for longer periods compared to temperature. Near-surface improvements are largest in the tropics, while improvements at intermediate depths are found in regions of large-scale currents, regions of deep convection, and at the Mediterranean Sea outflow. However, the benefits are often small compared to PERFECT, in particular, at depth suggesting that more observations should be assimilated in addition to SST. The EnKF-SST system is also tested for standard ocean circulation indices and demonstrates decadal

Ocean Chlorophyll as a Precursor of ENSO: An Earth System Modeling Study

Science.gov (United States)

Park, Jong-Yeon; Dunne, John P.; Stock, Charles A.

2018-02-01

Ocean chlorophyll concentration, a proxy for phytoplankton, is strongly influenced by internal ocean dynamics such as those associated with El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Observations show that ocean chlorophyll responses to ENSO generally lead sea surface temperature (SST) responses in the equatorial Pacific. A long-term global Earth system model simulation incorporating marine biogeochemical processes also exhibits a preceding chlorophyll response. In contrast to simulated SST anomalies, which significantly lag the wind-driven subsurface heat response to ENSO, chlorophyll anomalies respond rapidly. Iron was found to be the key factor connecting the simulated surface chlorophyll anomalies to the subsurface ocean response. Westerly wind bursts decrease central Pacific chlorophyll by reducing iron supply through wind-driven thermocline deepening but increase western Pacific chlorophyll by enhancing the influx of coastal iron from the maritime continent. Our results mechanistically support the potential for chlorophyll-based indices to inform seasonal ENSO forecasts beyond previously identified SST-based indices.

An open source Bayesian Monte Carlo isotope mixing model with applications in Earth surface processes

Science.gov (United States)

Arendt, Carli A.; Aciego, Sarah M.; Hetland, Eric A.

2015-05-01

The implementation of isotopic tracers as constraints on source contributions has become increasingly relevant to understanding Earth surface processes. Interpretation of these isotopic tracers has become more accessible with the development of Bayesian Monte Carlo (BMC) mixing models, which allow uncertainty in mixing end-members and provide methodology for systems with multicomponent mixing. This study presents an open source multiple isotope BMC mixing model that is applicable to Earth surface environments with sources exhibiting distinct end-member isotopic signatures. Our model is first applied to new δ18O and δD measurements from the Athabasca Glacier, which showed expected seasonal melt evolution trends and vigorously assessed the statistical relevance of the resulting fraction estimations. To highlight the broad applicability of our model to a variety of Earth surface environments and relevant isotopic systems, we expand our model to two additional case studies: deriving melt sources from δ18O, δD, and 222Rn measurements of Greenland Ice Sheet bulk water samples and assessing nutrient sources from ɛNd and 87Sr/86Sr measurements of Hawaiian soil cores. The model produces results for the Greenland Ice Sheet and Hawaiian soil data sets that are consistent with the originally published fractional contribution estimates. The advantage of this method is that it quantifies the error induced by variability in the end-member compositions, unrealized by the models previously applied to the above case studies. Results from all three case studies demonstrate the broad applicability of this statistical BMC isotopic mixing model for estimating source contribution fractions in a variety of Earth surface systems.

The European Plate Observing System (EPOS) Services for Solid Earth Science

Science.gov (United States)

Cocco, Massimo; Atakan, Kuvvet; Pedersen, Helle; Consortium, Epos

2016-04-01

The European Plate Observing System (EPOS) aims to create a pan-European infrastructure for solid Earth science to support a safe and sustainable society. The main vision of the European Plate Observing System (EPOS) is to address the three basic challenges in Earth Sciences: (i) unravelling the Earth's deformational processes which are part of the Earth system evolution in time, (ii) understanding the geo-hazards and their implications to society, and (iii) contributing to the safe and sustainable use of geo-resources. The mission of EPOS is to monitor and understand the dynamic and complex Earth system by relying on new e-science opportunities and integrating diverse and advanced Research Infrastructures in Europe for solid Earth Science. EPOS will enable innovative multidisciplinary research for a better understanding of the Earth's physical and chemical processes that control earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, ground instability and tsunami as well as the processes driving tectonics and Earth's surface dynamics. EPOS will improve our ability to better manage the use of the subsurface of the Earth. Through integration of data, models and facilities EPOS will allow the Earth Science community to make a step change in developing new concepts and tools for key answers to scientific and socio-economic questions concerning geo-hazards and geo-resources as well as Earth sciences applications to the environment and to human welfare. EPOS has now started its Implementation Phase (EPOS-IP). One of the main challenges during the implementation phase is the integration of multidisciplinary data into a single e-infrastructure. Multidisciplinary data are organized and governed by the Thematic Core Services (TCS) and are driven by various scientific communities encompassing a wide spectrum of Earth science disciplines. These include Data, Data-products, Services and Software (DDSS), from seismology, near fault observatories, geodetic observations, volcano observations

Characterizing the Purple Earth: Modeling the globally integrated spectral variability of the Archean Earth

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sanromá, E.; Pallé, E.; López, R.; Montañés-Rodríguez, P.; Parenteau, M. N.; Kiang, N. Y.; Gutiérrez-Navarro, A. M.

2014-01-01

Ongoing searches for exoplanetary systems have revealed a wealth of planets with diverse physical properties. Planets even smaller than the Earth have already been detected and the efforts of future missions are aimed at the discovery, and perhaps characterization, of small rocky exoplanets within the habitable zone of their stars. Clearly, what we know about our planet will be our guideline for the characterization of such planets. However, the Earth has been inhabited for at least 3.8 Gyr and its appearance has changed with time. Here, we have studied the Earth during the Archean eon, 3.0 Gyr ago. At that time, one of the more widespread life forms on the planet was purple bacteria. These bacteria are photosynthetic microorganisms and can inhabit both aquatic and terrestrial environments. Here, we use a radiative transfer model to simulate the visible and near-infrared radiation reflected by our planet, taking into account several scenarios regarding the possible distribution of purple bacteria over continents and oceans. We find that purple bacteria have a reflectance spectrum that has a strong reflectivity increase, similar to the red edge of leafy plants, although shifted redward. This feature produces a detectable signal in the disk-averaged spectra of our planet, depending on cloud amount and purple bacteria concentration/distribution. We conclude that by using multi-color photometric observations, it is possible to distinguish between an Archean Earth in which purple bacteria inhabit vast extensions of the planet and a present-day Earth with continents covered by deserts, vegetation, or microbial mats.

Norfolk State University Research Experience in Earth System Science

Science.gov (United States)

Chaudhury, Raj

2002-01-01

The truly interdisciplinary nature of Earth System Science lends itself to the creation of research teams comprised of people with different scientific and technical backgrounds. In the annals of Earth System Science (ESS) education, the lack of an academic major in the discipline might be seen as a barrier to the involvement of undergraduates in the overall ESS-enterprise. This issue is further compounded at minority-serving institutions by the rarity of departments dedicated to Atmospheric Science, Oceanography or even the geosciences. At Norfolk State University, a Historically Black College, a six week, NASA-supported, summer undergraduate research program (REESS - Research Experience in Earth System Science) is creating a model that involves students with majors in diverse scientific disciplines in authentic ESS research coupled with a structured education program. The project is part of a wider effort at the University to enhance undergraduate education by identifying specific areas of student weaknesses regarding the content and process of science. A pre- and post-assessment test, which is focused on some fundamental topics in global climate change, is given to all participants as part of the evaluation of the program. Student attitudes towards the subject and the program's approach are also surveyed at the end of the research experience. In 2002, 11 undergraduates participated in REESS and were educated in the informed use of some of the vast remote sensing resources available through NASA's Earth Science Enterprise (ESE). The program ran from June 3rd through July 12, 2002. This was the final year of the project.

The use and misuse of V(c,max) in Earth System Models.

Science.gov (United States)

Rogers, Alistair

2014-02-01

Earth System Models (ESMs) aim to project global change. Central to this aim is the need to accurately model global carbon fluxes. Photosynthetic carbon dioxide assimilation by the terrestrial biosphere is the largest of these fluxes, and in many ESMs is represented by the Farquhar, von Caemmerer and Berry (FvCB) model of photosynthesis. The maximum rate of carboxylation by the enzyme Rubisco, commonly termed V c,max, is a key parameter in the FvCB model. This study investigated the derivation of the values of V c,max used to represent different plant functional types (PFTs) in ESMs. Four methods for estimating V c,max were identified; (1) an empirical or (2) mechanistic relationship was used to relate V c,max to leaf N content, (3) V c,max was estimated using an approach based on the optimization of photosynthesis and respiration or (4) calibration of a user-defined V c,max to obtain a target model output. Despite representing the same PFTs, the land model components of ESMs were parameterized with a wide range of values for V c,max (-46 to +77% of the PFT mean). In many cases, parameterization was based on limited data sets and poorly defined coefficients that were used to adjust model parameters and set PFT-specific values for V c,max. Examination of the models that linked leaf N mechanistically to V c,max identified potential changes to fixed parameters that collectively would decrease V c,max by 31% in C3 plants and 11% in C4 plants. Plant trait data bases are now available that offer an excellent opportunity for models to update PFT-specific parameters used to estimate V c,max. However, data for parameterizing some PFTs, particularly those in the Tropics and the Arctic are either highly variable or largely absent.

A construction of empiric model of dependence of cost of the dried agricultural earths is from the cost of the reclamative system

OpenAIRE

VELESIK T.A.

2011-01-01

An empiric model which represents dependence between the cost of the dried agricultural earths and cost of the reclamative systems is offered. The coefficient of correlation is expected and determination, the values of which testify that between factors there is close connection.

NASA's Earth Observing Data and Information System

Science.gov (United States)

Mitchell, A. E.; Behnke, J.; Lowe, D.; Ramapriyan, H. K.

2009-12-01

NASA’s Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) has been a central component of NASA Earth observation program for over 10 years. It is one of the largest civilian science information system in the US, performing ingest, archive and distribution of over 3 terabytes of data per day much of which is from NASA’s flagship missions Terra, Aqua and Aura. The system supports a variety of science disciplines including polar processes, land cover change, radiation budget, and most especially global climate change. The EOSDIS data centers, collocated with centers of science discipline expertise, archive and distribute standard data products produced by science investigator-led processing systems. Key to the success of EOSDIS is the concept of core versus community requirements. EOSDIS supports a core set of services to meet specific NASA needs and relies on community-developed services to meet specific user needs. EOSDIS offers a metadata registry, ECHO (Earth Observing System Clearinghouse), through which the scientific community can easily discover and exchange NASA’s Earth science data and services. Users can search, manage, and access the contents of ECHO’s registries (data and services) through user-developed and community-tailored interfaces or clients. The ECHO framework has become the primary access point for cross-Data Center search-and-order of EOSDIS and other Earth Science data holdings archived at the EOSDIS data centers. ECHO’s Warehouse Inventory Search Tool (WIST) is the primary web-based client for discovering and ordering cross-discipline data from the EOSDIS data centers. The architecture of the EOSDIS provides a platform for the publication, discovery, understanding and access to NASA’s Earth Observation resources and allows for easy integration of new datasets. The EOSDIS also has developed several methods for incorporating socioeconomic data into its data collection. Over the years, we have developed several methods for

NASA's Earth Observing Data and Information System

Science.gov (United States)

Mitchell, Andrew E.; Behnke, Jeanne; Lowe, Dawn; Ramapriyan, H. K.

2009-01-01

NASA's Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) has been a central component of NASA Earth observation program for over 10 years. It is one of the largest civilian science information system in the US, performing ingest, archive and distribution of over 3 terabytes of data per day much of which is from NASA s flagship missions Terra, Aqua and Aura. The system supports a variety of science disciplines including polar processes, land cover change, radiation budget, and most especially global climate change. The EOSDIS data centers, collocated with centers of science discipline expertise, archive and distribute standard data products produced by science investigator-led processing systems. Key to the success of EOSDIS is the concept of core versus community requirements. EOSDIS supports a core set of services to meet specific NASA needs and relies on community-developed services to meet specific user needs. EOSDIS offers a metadata registry, ECHO (Earth Observing System Clearinghouse), through which the scientific community can easily discover and exchange NASA s Earth science data and services. Users can search, manage, and access the contents of ECHO s registries (data and services) through user-developed and community-tailored interfaces or clients. The ECHO framework has become the primary access point for cross-Data Center search-and-order of EOSDIS and other Earth Science data holdings archived at the EOSDIS data centers. ECHO s Warehouse Inventory Search Tool (WIST) is the primary web-based client for discovering and ordering cross-discipline data from the EOSDIS data centers. The architecture of the EOSDIS provides a platform for the publication, discovery, understanding and access to NASA s Earth Observation resources and allows for easy integration of new datasets. The EOSDIS also has developed several methods for incorporating socioeconomic data into its data collection. Over the years, we have developed several methods for determining

Variable-Resolution Ensemble Climatology Modeling of Sierra Nevada Snowpack within the Community Earth System Model (CESM)

Science.gov (United States)

Rhoades, A.; Ullrich, P. A.; Zarzycki, C. M.; Levy, M.; Taylor, M.

2014-12-01

Snowpack is crucial for the western USA, providing around 75% of the total fresh water supply (Cayan et al., 1996) and buffering against seasonal aridity impacts on agricultural, ecosystem, and urban water demands. The resilience of the California water system is largely dependent on natural stores provided by snowpack. This resilience has shown vulnerabilities due to anthropogenic global climate change. Historically, the northern Sierras showed a net decline of 50-75% in snow water equivalent (SWE) while the southern Sierras showed a net accumulation of 30% (Mote et al., 2005). Future trends of SWE highlight that western USA SWE may decline by 40-70% (Pierce and Cayan, 2013), snowfall may decrease by 25-40% (Pierce and Cayan, 2013), and more winter storms may tend towards rain rather than snow (Bales et al., 2006). The volatility of Sierran snowpack presents a need for scientific tools to help water managers and policy makers assess current and future trends. A burgeoning tool to analyze these trends comes in the form of variable-resolution global climate modeling (VRGCM). VRGCMs serve as a bridge between regional and global models and provide added resolution in areas of need, eliminate lateral boundary forcings, provide model runtime speed up, and utilize a common dynamical core, physics scheme and sub-grid scale parameterization package. A cubed-sphere variable-resolution grid with 25 km horizontal resolution over the western USA was developed for use in the Community Atmosphere Model (CAM) within the Community Earth System Model (CESM). A 25-year three-member ensemble climatology (1980-2005) is presented and major snowpack metrics such as SWE, snow depth, snow cover, and two-meter surface temperature are assessed. The ensemble simulation is also compared to observational, reanalysis, and WRF model datasets. The variable-resolution model provides a mechanism for reaching towards non-hydrostatic scales and simulations are currently being developed with refined

Non-equilibrium thermodynamics, maximum entropy production and Earth-system evolution.

Science.gov (United States)

Kleidon, Axel

2010-01-13

The present-day atmosphere is in a unique state far from thermodynamic equilibrium. This uniqueness is for instance reflected in the high concentration of molecular oxygen and the low relative humidity in the atmosphere. Given that the concentration of atmospheric oxygen has likely increased throughout Earth-system history, we can ask whether this trend can be generalized to a trend of Earth-system evolution that is directed away from thermodynamic equilibrium, why we would expect such a trend to take place and what it would imply for Earth-system evolution as a whole. The justification for such a trend could be found in the proposed general principle of maximum entropy production (MEP), which states that non-equilibrium thermodynamic systems maintain steady states at which entropy production is maximized. Here, I justify and demonstrate this application of MEP to the Earth at the planetary scale. I first describe the non-equilibrium thermodynamic nature of Earth-system processes and distinguish processes that drive the system's state away from equilibrium from those that are directed towards equilibrium. I formulate the interactions among these processes from a thermodynamic perspective and then connect them to a holistic view of the planetary thermodynamic state of the Earth system. In conclusion, non-equilibrium thermodynamics and MEP have the potential to provide a simple and holistic theory of Earth-system functioning. This theory can be used to derive overall evolutionary trends of the Earth's past, identify the role that life plays in driving thermodynamic states far from equilibrium, identify habitability in other planetary environments and evaluate human impacts on Earth-system functioning. This journal is © 2010 The Royal Society

Journal of Earth System Science | Indian Academy of Sciences

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

The Journal of Earth System Science was earlier a part of the Proceedings of the Indian Academy of Sciences – Section A begun in 1934, and later split in 1978 into theme journals. This journal was published as Proceedings – Earth and Planetary Sciences since 1978, and in 2005 was renamed 'Journal of Earth System ...

College and University Earth System Science Education for the 21st Century (ESSE 21)

Science.gov (United States)

Johnson, D. R.; Ruzek, M.; Schweizer, D.

2002-12-01

, courses, curricula, minors or degree tracks, and programs or departments that are self-sustaining in the coming decades. Interdisciplinary college and university teams are competitively selected through a peer-reviewed Call for Participation. ESSE 21 offers an infrastructure for an interactive community of educators and researchers including under represented participants that develops interdisciplinary Earth system science content utilizing NASA resources involving global change data, models, visualizations and electronic media and networks. The Program provides for evaluation and assessment guides to help assure the pedagogical effectiveness of materials developed. The ultimate aim of ESSE 21 is to expand and accelerate the nation's realization of sound, scientific interdisciplinary educational resources for informed learning and decision-making by all from the perspective of sustainability of the Earth as a system.

Plant functional types in Earth system models: past experiences and future directions for application of dynamic vegetation models in high-latitude ecosystems.

Science.gov (United States)

Wullschleger, Stan D; Epstein, Howard E; Box, Elgene O; Euskirchen, Eugénie S; Goswami, Santonu; Iversen, Colleen M; Kattge, Jens; Norby, Richard J; van Bodegom, Peter M; Xu, Xiaofeng

2014-07-01

Earth system models describe the physical, chemical and biological processes that govern our global climate. While it is difficult to single out one component as being more important than another in these sophisticated models, terrestrial vegetation is a critical player in the biogeochemical and biophysical dynamics of the Earth system. There is much debate, however, as to how plant diversity and function should be represented in these models. Plant functional types (PFTs) have been adopted by modellers to represent broad groupings of plant species that share similar characteristics (e.g. growth form) and roles (e.g. photosynthetic pathway) in ecosystem function. In this review, the PFT concept is traced from its origin in the early 1800s to its current use in regional and global dynamic vegetation models (DVMs). Special attention is given to the representation and parameterization of PFTs and to validation and benchmarking of predicted patterns of vegetation distribution in high-latitude ecosystems. These ecosystems are sensitive to changing climate and thus provide a useful test case for model-based simulations of past, current and future distribution of vegetation. Models that incorporate the PFT concept predict many of the emerging patterns of vegetation change in tundra and boreal forests, given known processes of tree mortality, treeline migration and shrub expansion. However, representation of above- and especially below-ground traits for specific PFTs continues to be problematic. Potential solutions include developing trait databases and replacing fixed parameters for PFTs with formulations based on trait co-variance and empirical trait-environment relationships. Surprisingly, despite being important to land-atmosphere interactions of carbon, water and energy, PFTs such as moss and lichen are largely absent from DVMs. Close collaboration among those involved in modelling with the disciplines of taxonomy, biogeography, ecology and remote sensing will be

Canadian snow and sea ice: assessment of snow, sea ice, and related climate processes in Canada's Earth system model and climate-prediction system

Science.gov (United States)

Kushner, Paul J.; Mudryk, Lawrence R.; Merryfield, William; Ambadan, Jaison T.; Berg, Aaron; Bichet, Adéline; Brown, Ross; Derksen, Chris; Déry, Stephen J.; Dirkson, Arlan; Flato, Greg; Fletcher, Christopher G.; Fyfe, John C.; Gillett, Nathan; Haas, Christian; Howell, Stephen; Laliberté, Frédéric; McCusker, Kelly; Sigmond, Michael; Sospedra-Alfonso, Reinel; Tandon, Neil F.; Thackeray, Chad; Tremblay, Bruno; Zwiers, Francis W.

2018-04-01

The Canadian Sea Ice and Snow Evolution (CanSISE) Network is a climate research network focused on developing and applying state-of-the-art observational data to advance dynamical prediction, projections, and understanding of seasonal snow cover and sea ice in Canada and the circumpolar Arctic. This study presents an assessment from the CanSISE Network of the ability of the second-generation Canadian Earth System Model (CanESM2) and the Canadian Seasonal to Interannual Prediction System (CanSIPS) to simulate and predict snow and sea ice from seasonal to multi-decadal timescales, with a focus on the Canadian sector. To account for observational uncertainty, model structural uncertainty, and internal climate variability, the analysis uses multi-source observations, multiple Earth system models (ESMs) in Phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5), and large initial-condition ensembles of CanESM2 and other models. It is found that the ability of the CanESM2 simulation to capture snow-related climate parameters, such as cold-region surface temperature and precipitation, lies within the range of currently available international models. Accounting for the considerable disagreement among satellite-era observational datasets on the distribution of snow water equivalent, CanESM2 has too much springtime snow mass over Canada, reflecting a broader northern hemispheric positive bias. Biases in seasonal snow cover extent are generally less pronounced. CanESM2 also exhibits retreat of springtime snow generally greater than observational estimates, after accounting for observational uncertainty and internal variability. Sea ice is biased low in the Canadian Arctic, which makes it difficult to assess the realism of long-term sea ice trends there. The strengths and weaknesses of the modelling system need to be understood as a practical tradeoff: the Canadian models are relatively inexpensive computationally because of their moderate resolution, thus enabling their

Tidal Friction in the Earth-Moon System and Laplace Planes: Darwin Redux

Science.gov (United States)

Rubincam, David P.

2015-01-01

The dynamical evolution of the Earth-Moon system due to tidal friction is treated here. George H. Darwin used Laplace planes (also called proper planes) in his study of tidal evolution. The Laplace plane approach is adapted here to the formalisms of W.M. Kaula and P. Goldreich. Like Darwin, the approach assumes a three-body problem: Earth, Moon, and Sun, where the Moon and Sun are point-masses. The tidal potential is written in terms of the Laplace plane angles. The resulting secular equations of motion can be easily integrated numerically assuming the Moon is in a circular orbit about the Earth and the Earth is in a circular orbit about the Sun. For Earth-Moon distances greater than 10 Earth radii, the Earth's approximate tidal response can be characterized with a single parameter, which is a ratio: a Love number times the sine of a lag angle divided by another such product. For low parameter values it can be shown that Darwin's low-viscosity molten Earth, M. Ross's and G. Schubert's model of an Earth near melting, and Goldreich's equal tidal lag angles must all give similar histories. For higher parameter values, as perhaps has been the case at times with the ocean tides, the Earth's obliquity may have decreased slightly instead of increased once the Moon's orbit evolved further than 50 Earth radii from the Earth, with possible implications for climate. This is contrast to the other tidal friction models mentioned, which have the obliquity always increasing with time. As for the Moon, its orbit is presently tilted to its Laplace plane by 5.2deg. The equations do not allow the Moon to evolve out of its Laplace plane by tidal friction alone, so that if it was originally in its Laplace plane, the tilt arose with the addition of other mechanisms, such as resonance passages.

Young Earth System Scientists (YESS) Community

Science.gov (United States)

Reed, K. A.; Langendijk, G.; Bahar, F.; Huang-Lachmann, J. T.; Osman, M.; Mirsafa, M.; Sonntag, S.

2017-12-01

The Young Earth System Scientists (YESS) community is compiled of early career researchers (including students) coming from a range of scientific backgrounds, spanning both natural and social sciences. YESS unifies young researchers in an influential network to give them a collective voice and leverage within the geosciences community, while supporting career development. The YESS community has used its powerful network to provide a unified perspective on the future of Earth system science (Rauser et al. 2017), to be involved in the organization of international conferences, and to engage with existing international structures that coordinate science. Since its founding in Germany in 2010, the YESS community has grown extensively across the globe, with currently almost 1000 members from over 80 countries, and has become truly interdisciplinary. Recently, the organization has carried elections for Regional Representatives and the Executive Committee as part of its self-sustained governance structure. YESS is ready to continue pioneering crucial areas of research which provide solutions to benefit society for the long-term advancement of Earth system science.

Development of a Grid-Independent Geos-Chem Chemical Transport Model (v9-02) as an Atmospheric Chemistry Module for Earth System Models

Science.gov (United States)

Long, M. S.; Yantosca, R.; Nielsen, J. E; Keller, C. A.; Da Silva, A.; Sulprizio, M. P.; Pawson, S.; Jacob, D. J.

2015-01-01

The GEOS-Chem global chemical transport model (CTM), used by a large atmospheric chemistry research community, has been re-engineered to also serve as an atmospheric chemistry module for Earth system models (ESMs). This was done using an Earth System Modeling Framework (ESMF) interface that operates independently of the GEOSChem scientific code, permitting the exact same GEOSChem code to be used as an ESM module or as a standalone CTM. In this manner, the continual stream of updates contributed by the CTM user community is automatically passed on to the ESM module, which remains state of science and referenced to the latest version of the standard GEOS-Chem CTM. A major step in this re-engineering was to make GEOS-Chem grid independent, i.e., capable of using any geophysical grid specified at run time. GEOS-Chem data sockets were also created for communication between modules and with external ESM code. The grid-independent, ESMF-compatible GEOS-Chem is now the standard version of the GEOS-Chem CTM. It has been implemented as an atmospheric chemistry module into the NASA GEOS- 5 ESM. The coupled GEOS-5-GEOS-Chem system was tested for scalability and performance with a tropospheric oxidant-aerosol simulation (120 coupled species, 66 transported tracers) using 48-240 cores and message-passing interface (MPI) distributed-memory parallelization. Numerical experiments demonstrate that the GEOS-Chem chemistry module scales efficiently for the number of cores tested, with no degradation as the number of cores increases. Although inclusion of atmospheric chemistry in ESMs is computationally expensive, the excellent scalability of the chemistry module means that the relative cost goes down with increasing number of cores in a massively parallel environment.

Incorporating Parallel Computing into the Goddard Earth Observing System Data Assimilation System (GEOS DAS)

Science.gov (United States)

Larson, Jay W.

1998-01-01

Atmospheric data assimilation is a method of combining actual observations with model forecasts to produce a more accurate description of the earth system than the observations or forecast alone can provide. The output of data assimilation, sometimes called the analysis, are regular, gridded datasets of observed and unobserved variables. Analysis plays a key role in numerical weather prediction and is becoming increasingly important for climate research. These applications, and the need for timely validation of scientific enhancements to the data assimilation system pose computational demands that are best met by distributed parallel software. The mission of the NASA Data Assimilation Office (DAO) is to provide datasets for climate research and to support NASA satellite and aircraft missions. The system used to create these datasets is the Goddard Earth Observing System Data Assimilation System (GEOS DAS). The core components of the the GEOS DAS are: the GEOS General Circulation Model (GCM), the Physical-space Statistical Analysis System (PSAS), the Observer, the on-line Quality Control (QC) system, the Coupler (which feeds analysis increments back to the GCM), and an I/O package for processing the large amounts of data the system produces (which will be described in another presentation in this session). The discussion will center on the following issues: the computational complexity for the whole GEOS DAS, assessment of the performance of the individual elements of GEOS DAS, and parallelization strategy for some of the components of the system.

Creating an isotopically similar Earth-Moon system with correct angular momentum from a giant impact

Science.gov (United States)

Wyatt, Bryant M.; Petz, Jonathan M.; Sumpter, William J.; Turner, Ty R.; Smith, Edward L.; Fain, Baylor G.; Hutyra, Taylor J.; Cook, Scott A.; Gresham, John H.; Hibbs, Michael F.; Goderya, Shaukat N.

2018-04-01

The giant impact hypothesis is the dominant theory explaining the formation of our Moon. However, the inability to produce an isotopically similar Earth-Moon system with correct angular momentum has cast a shadow on its validity. Computer-generated impacts have been successful in producing virtual systems that possess many of the observed physical properties. However, addressing the isotopic similarities between the Earth and Moon coupled with correct angular momentum has proven to be challenging. Equilibration and evection resonance have been proposed as means of reconciling the models. In the summer of 2013, the Royal Society called a meeting solely to discuss the formation of the Moon. In this meeting, evection resonance and equilibration were both questioned as viable means of removing the deficiencies from giant impact models. The main concerns were that models were multi-staged and too complex. We present here initial impact conditions that produce an isotopically similar Earth-Moon system with correct angular momentum. This is done in a single-staged simulation. The initial parameters are straightforward and the results evolve solely from the impact. This was accomplished by colliding two roughly half-Earth-sized impactors, rotating in approximately the same plane in a high-energy, off-centered impact, where both impactors spin into the collision.

Understanding why the volume of suboxic waters does not increase over centuries of global warming in an Earth System Model

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

A. Gnanadesikan

2012-03-01

Full Text Available Global warming is expected to reduce oxygen solubility and vertical exchange in the ocean, changes which would be expected to result in an increase in the volume of hypoxic waters. A simulation made with a full Earth System model with dynamical atmosphere, ocean, sea ice and biogeochemical cycling (the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory's Earth System Model 2.1 shows that this holds true if the condition for hypoxia is set relatively high. However, the volume of the most hypoxic (i.e., suboxic waters does not increase under global warming, as these waters actually become more oxygenated. We show that the rise in dissolved oxygen in the tropical Pacific is associated with a drop in ventilation time. A term-by-term analysis within the least oxygenated waters shows an increased supply of dissolved oxygen due to lateral diffusion compensating an increase in remineralization within these highly hypoxic waters. This lateral diffusive flux is the result of an increase of ventilation along the Chilean coast, as a drying of the region under global warming opens up a region of wintertime convection in our model. The results highlight the potential sensitivity of suboxic waters to changes in subtropical ventilation as well as the importance of constraining lateral eddy transport of dissolved oxygen in such waters.

Understanding why the volume of suboxic waters does not increase over centuries of global warming in an Earth System Model

Science.gov (United States)

Gnanadesikan, A.; Dunne, J. P.; John, J.

2012-03-01

Global warming is expected to reduce oxygen solubility and vertical exchange in the ocean, changes which would be expected to result in an increase in the volume of hypoxic waters. A simulation made with a full Earth System model with dynamical atmosphere, ocean, sea ice and biogeochemical cycling (the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory's Earth System Model 2.1) shows that this holds true if the condition for hypoxia is set relatively high. However, the volume of the most hypoxic (i.e., suboxic) waters does not increase under global warming, as these waters actually become more oxygenated. We show that the rise in dissolved oxygen in the tropical Pacific is associated with a drop in ventilation time. A term-by-term analysis within the least oxygenated waters shows an increased supply of dissolved oxygen due to lateral diffusion compensating an increase in remineralization within these highly hypoxic waters. This lateral diffusive flux is the result of an increase of ventilation along the Chilean coast, as a drying of the region under global warming opens up a region of wintertime convection in our model. The results highlight the potential sensitivity of suboxic waters to changes in subtropical ventilation as well as the importance of constraining lateral eddy transport of dissolved oxygen in such waters.

The Crew Earth Observations Experiment: Earth System Science from the ISS

Science.gov (United States)

Stefanov, William L.; Evans, Cynthia A.; Robinson, Julie A.; Wilkinson, M. Justin

2007-01-01

This viewgraph presentation reviews the use of Astronaut Photography (AP) as taken from the International Space Station (ISS) in Earth System Science (ESS). Included are slides showing basic remote sensing theory, data characteristics of astronaut photography, astronaut training and operations, crew Earth observations group, targeting sites and acquisition, cataloging and database, analysis and applications for ESS, image analysis of particular interest urban areas, megafans, deltas, coral reefs. There are examples of the photographs and the analysis.

Nitrogen limitation on land: how can it occur in Earth system models?

Science.gov (United States)

Thomas, R Quinn; Brookshire, E N Jack; Gerber, Stefan

2015-05-01

The representation of the nitrogen (N) cycle in Earth system models (ESMs) is strongly motivated by the constraint N poses on the sequestration of anthropogenic carbon (C). Models typically implement a stoichiometric relationship between C and N in which external supply and assimilation by organisms are adjusted to maintain their internal stoichiometry. N limitation of primary productivity thus occurs if the N supply from uptake and fixation cannot keep up with the construction of tissues allowed by C assimilation. This basic approach, however, presents considerable challenges in how to faithfully represent N limitation. Here, we review how N limitation is currently implemented and evaluated in ESMs and highlight challenges and opportunities in their future development. At or near steady state, N limitation is governed by the magnitude of losses from the plant-unavailable pool vs. N fixation and there are considerable differences in how models treat both processes. In nonsteady-state systems, the accumulation of N in pools with slow turnover rates reduces N available for plant uptake and can be challenging to represent when initializing ESM simulations. Transactional N limitation occurs when N is incorporated into various vegetation and soil pools and becomes available to plants only after it is mineralized, the dynamics of which depends on how ESMs represent decomposition processes in soils. Other challenges for ESMs emerge when considering seasonal to interannual climatic oscillations as they create asynchronies between C and N demand, leading to transient alternations between N surplus and deficit. Proper evaluation of N dynamics in ESMs requires conceptual understanding of the main levers that trigger N limitation, and we highlight key measurements and observations that can help constrain these levers. Two of the biggest challenges are the mechanistic representation of plant controls on N availability and turnover, including N fixation and organic matter

Observed tidal braking in the earth/moon/sun system

Science.gov (United States)

Christodoulidis, D. C.; Smith, D. E.; Williamson, R. G.; Klosko, S. M.

1987-01-01

The low degree and order terms in the spherical harmonic model of the tidal potential were observed through the perturbations which are induced on near-earth satellite orbital motions. Evaluations of tracking observations from 17 satellites and a GEM-T1 geopotential model were used in the tidal recovery which was made in the presence of over 600 long-wavelength coefficients from 32 major and minor tides. Wahr's earth tidal model was used as a basis for the recovery of the ocean tidal terms. Using this tidal model, the secular change in the moon's mean motion due to tidal dissipation was found to be -25.27 + or - 0.61 arcsec/century squared. The estimation of lunar acceleration agreed with that observed from lunar laser ranging techniques (-24.9 + or - 1.0 arcsec/century squared), with the corresponding tidal braking of earth's rotation being -5.98 + or - 0.22 x 10 to the minus 22 rad/second squared. If the nontidal braking of the earth due to the observed secular change in the earth's second zonal harmonic is considered, satellite techniques yield a total value of the secular change of the earth's rotation rate of -4.69 + or - 0.36 x 10 to the minus 22 rad/second squared.

Big Data challenges and solutions in building the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS)

Science.gov (United States)

Mazzetti, Paolo; Nativi, Stefano; Santoro, Mattia; Boldrini, Enrico

2014-05-01

The Group on Earth Observation (GEO) is a voluntary partnership of governments and international organizations launched in response to calls for action by the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development and by the G8 (Group of Eight) leading industrialized countries. These high-level meetings recognized that international collaboration is essential for exploiting the growing potential of Earth observations to support decision making in an increasingly complex and environmentally stressed world. To this aim is constructing the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) on the basis of a 10-Year Implementation Plan for the period 2005 to 2015 when it will become operational. As a large-scale integrated system handling large datasets as those provided by Earth Observation, GEOSS needs to face several challenges related to big data handling and big data infrastructures management. Referring to the traditional multiple Vs characteristics of Big Data (volume, variety, velocity, veracity and visualization) it is evident how most of them can be found in data handled by GEOSS. In particular, concerning Volume, Earth Observation already generates a large amount of data which can be estimated in the range of Petabytes (1015 bytes), with Exabytes (1018) already targeted. Moreover, the challenge is related not only to the data size, but also to the large amount of datasets (not necessarily having a big size) that systems need to manage. Variety is the other main challenge since datasets coming from different sensors, processed for different use-cases are published with highly heterogeneous metadata and data models, through different service interfaces. Innovative multidisciplinary applications need to access and use those datasets in a harmonized way. Moreover Earth Observation data are growing in size and variety at an exceptionally fast rate and new technologies and applications, including crowdsourcing, will even increase data volume and variety in the next future

Effects of snow grain shape on climate simulations: sensitivity tests with the Norwegian Earth System Model

Science.gov (United States)

Räisänen, Petri; Makkonen, Risto; Kirkevåg, Alf; Debernard, Jens B.

2017-12-01

Snow consists of non-spherical grains of various shapes and sizes. Still, in radiative transfer calculations, snow grains are often treated as spherical. This also applies to the computation of snow albedo in the Snow, Ice, and Aerosol Radiation (SNICAR) model and in the Los Alamos sea ice model, version 4 (CICE4), both of which are employed in the Community Earth System Model and in the Norwegian Earth System Model (NorESM). In this study, we evaluate the effect of snow grain shape on climate simulated by NorESM in a slab ocean configuration of the model. An experiment with spherical snow grains (SPH) is compared with another (NONSPH) in which the snow shortwave single-scattering properties are based on a combination of three non-spherical snow grain shapes optimized using measurements of angular scattering by blowing snow. The key difference between these treatments is that the asymmetry parameter is smaller in the non-spherical case (0.77-0.78 in the visible region) than in the spherical case ( ≈ 0.89). Therefore, for the same effective snow grain size (or equivalently, the same specific projected area), the snow broadband albedo is higher when assuming non-spherical rather than spherical snow grains, typically by 0.02-0.03. Considering the spherical case as the baseline, this results in an instantaneous negative change in net shortwave radiation with a global-mean top-of-the-model value of ca. -0.22 W m-2. Although this global-mean radiative effect is rather modest, the impacts on the climate simulated by NorESM are substantial. The global annual-mean 2 m air temperature in NONSPH is 1.17 K lower than in SPH, with substantially larger differences at high latitudes. The climatic response is amplified by strong snow and sea ice feedbacks. It is further demonstrated that the effect of snow grain shape could be largely offset by adjusting the snow grain size. When assuming non-spherical snow grains with the parameterized grain size increased by ca. 70 %, the

Encyclopedia of earth system science

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Nierenberg, William Aaron

1992-01-01

.... The very diversity of the articles attests to the complexity of earth system science as a unique interdisciplinary venture to place humanity in a position to move wisely to protect the global habitat...

Habitability of super-Earth planets around other suns: models including Red Giant Branch evolution.

Science.gov (United States)

von Bloh, W; Cuntz, M; Schröder, K-P; Bounama, C; Franck, S

2009-01-01

The unexpected diversity of exoplanets includes a growing number of super-Earth planets, i.e., exoplanets with masses of up to several Earth masses and a similar chemical and mineralogical composition as Earth. We present a thermal evolution model for a 10 Earth-mass planet orbiting a star like the Sun. Our model is based on the integrated system approach, which describes the photosynthetic biomass production and takes into account a variety of climatological, biogeochemical, and geodynamical processes. This allows us to identify a so-called photosynthesis-sustaining habitable zone (pHZ), as determined by the limits of biological productivity on the planetary surface. Our model considers solar evolution during the main-sequence stage and along the Red Giant Branch as described by the most recent solar model. We obtain a large set of solutions consistent with the principal possibility of life. The highest likelihood of habitability is found for "water worlds." Only mass-rich water worlds are able to realize pHZ-type habitability beyond the stellar main sequence on the Red Giant Branch.

Challenges of including nitrogen effects on decomposition in earth system models

Science.gov (United States)

Hobbie, S. E.

2011-12-01

Despite the importance of litter decomposition for ecosystem fertility and carbon balance, key uncertainties remain about how this fundamental process is affected by nitrogen (N) availability. Nevertheless, resolving such uncertainties is critical for mechanistic inclusion of such processes in earth system models, towards predicting the ecosystem consequences of increased anthropogenic reactive N. Towards that end, we have conducted a series of experiments examining nitrogen effects on litter decomposition. We found that both substrate N and externally supplied N (regardless of form) accelerated the initial decomposition rate. Faster initial decomposition rates were linked to the higher activity of carbohydrate-degrading enzymes associated with externally supplied N and the greater relative abundances of Gram negative and Gram positive bacteria associated with green leaves and externally supplied organic N (assessed using phospholipid fatty acid analysis, PLFA). By contrast, later in decomposition, externally supplied N slowed decomposition, increasing the fraction of slowly decomposing litter and reducing lignin-degrading enzyme activity and relative abundances of Gram negative and Gram positive bacteria. Our results suggest that elevated atmospheric N deposition may have contrasting effects on the dynamics of different soil carbon pools, decreasing mean residence times of active fractions comprising very fresh litter, while increasing those of more slowly decomposing fractions including more processed litter. Incorporating these contrasting effects of N on decomposition processes into models is complicated by lingering uncertainties about how these effects generalize across ecosystems and substrates.

Evolution of the Earth Observing System (EOS) Data and Information System (EOSDIS)

Science.gov (United States)

Ramapriyan, Hampapuram K.; Behnke, Jeanne; Sofinowski, Edwin; Lowe, Dawn; Esfandiari, Mary Ann

2008-01-01

One of the strategic goals of the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is to "Develop a balanced overall program of science, exploration, and aeronautics consistent with the redirection of the human spaceflight program to focus on exploration". An important sub-goal of this goal is to "Study Earth from space to advance scientific understanding and meet societal needs." NASA meets this subgoal in partnership with other U.S. agencies and international organizations through its Earth science program. A major component of NASA s Earth science program is the Earth Observing System (EOS). The EOS program was started in 1990 with the primary purpose of modeling global climate change. This program consists of a set of space-borne instruments, science teams, and a data system. The instruments are designed to obtain highly accurate, frequent and global measurements of geophysical properties of land, oceans and atmosphere. The science teams are responsible for designing the instruments as well as scientific algorithms to derive information from the instrument measurements. The data system, called the EOS Data and Information System (EOSDIS), produces data products using those algorithms as well as archives and distributes such products. The first of the EOS instruments were launched in November 1997 on the Japanese satellite called the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) and the last, on the U.S. satellite Aura, were launched in July 2004. The instrument science teams have been active since the inception of the program in 1990 and have participation from Brazil, Canada, France, Japan, Netherlands, United Kingdom and U.S. The development of EOSDIS was initiated in 1990, and this data system has been serving the user community since 1994. The purpose of this chapter is to discuss the history and evolution of EOSDIS since its beginnings to the present and indicate how it continues to evolve into the future. this chapter is organized as follows. Sect

Mi-STAR Unit Challenges serve as a model for integrating earth science and systems thinking in a Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) aligned curriculum.

Science.gov (United States)

Gochis, E. E.; Tubman, S.; Matthys, T.; Bluth, G.; Oppliger, D.; Danhoff, B.; Huntoon, J. E.

2017-12-01

Michigan Science Teaching and Assessment Reform (Mi-STAR) is developing an NGSS-aligned middle school curriculum and associated teacher professional learning program in which science is taught and learned as an integrated body of knowledge that can be applied to address societal issues. With the generous support of the Herbert H. and Grace A. Dow Foundation, Mi-STAR has released several pilot-tested units through the Mi-STAR curriculum portal at mi-star.mtu.edu. Each of these units focuses on an ongoing `Unit Challenge' investigation that integrates STEM content across disciplinary boundaries, stimulates interest, and engages students in using scientific practices to address 21st century challenges. Each Mi-STAR unit is connected to a Unifying NGSS Crosscutting Concept (CCC) that allows students to recognize the concepts that are related to the phenomena or problems under investigation. In the 6th grade, students begin with an exploration of the CCC Systems and System Models. Through repeated applications across units, students refine their understanding of what a system is and how to model a complex Earth system. An example 6th grade unit entitled "Water on the Move: The Water Cycle," provides an example of how Mi-STAR approaches the use of Unifying CCCs and Unit Challenges to enhance middle school students' understanding of the interconnections of Earth system processes and human activities. Throughout the unit, students use a series of hands-on explorations and simulations to explore the hydrologic cycle and how human activity can alter Earth systems. Students develop new knowledge through repeated interactions with the Unit Challenge, which requires development of system models and construction of evidence-based arguments related to flooding problems in a local community. Students have the opportunity to make predictions about how proposed land-use management practices (e.g. development of a skate-park, rain garden, soccer field, etc.) can alter the earth-system

Virtual Earth System Laboratory (VESL): A Virtual Research Environment for The Visualization of Earth System Data and Process Simulations

Science.gov (United States)

Cheng, D. L. C.; Quinn, J. D.; Larour, E. Y.; Halkides, D. J.

2017-12-01

The Virtual Earth System Laboratory (VESL) is a Web application, under continued development at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and UC Irvine, for the visualization of Earth System data and process simulations. As with any project of its size, we have encountered both successes and challenges during the course of development. Our principal point of success is the fact that VESL users can interact seamlessly with our earth science simulations within their own Web browser. Some of the challenges we have faced include retrofitting the VESL Web application to respond to touch gestures, reducing page load time (especially as the application has grown), and accounting for the differences between the various Web browsers and computing platforms.

The Effects of Modern-Day Cropland and Pasture Management on Vegetation Fire: An Earth System Modeling Approach

Science.gov (United States)

Rabin, S. S.; Malyshev, S.; Shevliakova, E.; Pacala, S. W.

2014-12-01

Fire is a major component of the global carbon cycle, with some estimates of the associated emissions reaching 2.5 PgC/yr. This and the other impacts of biomass burning have driven efforts to improve its simulation in Earth system models. Recent global fire models usually include both bioclimatic and anthropogenic drivers of fire, with the latter (via population density and sometimes economic status) serving to increase or suppress burned area. Some models have added the representation of fire used in deforestation and cropland management, the extent and seasonal timing of which may not be accounted for by the usual approach to anthropogenic influence. Human land use can also limit fire by fragmenting landscapes, but this process is not included in most global models. Moreover, although people often use fire to manage grazing lands for livestock, these practices have not been explicitly modeled (except as performed by pre-industrial societies). This could be important for regions such as sub-Saharan Africa, where the seasonality of pasture burning tends to differ from that of other lands, potentially influencing savanna-forest dynamics. Recent efforts elucidating the effects of cropland and pasture on fire regimes at regional scales provide insight into these processes. Using this new understanding, we have developed a fire model with structurally distinct modules for burning of croplands, pasture, and primary and secondary lands, as well as fire use for deforestation. Parameters for each are rigorously constrained using remote-sensing observations of burned area. This structure allows us to disentangle agricultural practices and fragmentation effects from the endogenous processes driving fire on non-agricultural land, resulting in a better ability to simulate how fire works at large scales. This is critical for modeling the future of fire and all the parts of the Earth system that it affects, including vegetation distributions, nutrient cycling, and biosphere

Using the earth system for integrating the science curriculum

Science.gov (United States)

Mayer, Victor J.

Content and process instruction from the earth sciences has gone unrepresented in the world's science curricula, especially at the secondary level. As a result there is a serious deficiency in public understanding of the planet on which we all live. This lack includes national and international leaders in politics, business, and science. The earth system science effort now engaging the research talent of the earth sciences provides a firm foundation from the sciences for inclusion of earth systems content into the evolving integrated science curricula of this country and others. Implementing integrated science curricula, especially at the secondary level where potential leaders often have their only exposure to science, can help to address these problems. The earth system provides a conceptual theme as opposed to a disciplinary theme for organizing such integrated curricula, absent from prior efforts. The end of the cold war era is resulting in a reexamination of science and the influence it has had on our planet and society. In the future, science and the curricula that teach about science must seriously address the environmental and social problems left in the wake of over 100 years of preparation for military and economic war. The earth systems education effort provides one such approach to the modernization of science curricula. Earth science educators should assume leadership in helping to establish such curricula in this country and around the world.

NASA Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS): A U.S. Network of Data Centers Serving Earth Science Data: A Network Member of ICSU WDS

Science.gov (United States)

Behnke, Jeanne; Ramapriyan, H. K. " Rama"

2016-01-01

NASA's Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) has been in operation since August 1994, and serving a diverse user community around the world with Earth science data from satellites, aircraft, field campaigns and research investigations. The ESDIS Project, responsible for EOSDIS is a Network Member of the International Council for Sciences (ICSU) World Data System (WDS). Nine of the 12 Distributed Active Archive Centers (DAACs), which are part of EOSDIS, are Regular Members of the ICSUWDS. This poster presents the EOSDIS mission objectives, key characteristics of the DAACs that make them world class Earth science data centers, successes, challenges and best practices of EOSDIS focusing on the years 2014-2016, and illustrates some highlights of accomplishments of EOSDIS. The highlights include: high customer satisfaction, growing archive and distribution volumes, exponential growth in number of products distributed to users around the world, unified metadata model and common metadata repository, flexibility provided to uses by supporting data transformations to suit their applications, near-real-time capabilities to support various operational and research applications, and full resolution image browse capabilities to help users select data of interest. The poster also illustrates how the ESDIS Project is actively involved in several US and international data system organizations.

Modeling Earth Albedo Currents on Sun Sensors for Improved Vector Observations

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bhanderi, Dan

2006-01-01

Earth albedo influences vector measurements of the solar line of sight vector, due to the induced current on in the photo voltaics of Sun sensors. Although advanced digital Sun sensors exist, these are typically expensive and may not be suited for satellites in the nano or pico-class. Previously...... an Earth albedo model, based on reflectivity data from NASA's Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer project, has been published. In this paper the proposed model is presented, and the model is sought validated by comparing simulated data with telemetry from the Danish Ørsted satellite. A novel method...... for modeling Sun sensor output by incorporating the Earth albedo model is presented. This model utilizes the directional information of in the Earth albedo model, which is achieved by Earth surface partitioning. This allows accurate simulation of the Sun sensor output and the results are consistent with Ørsted...

Quantifying and Comparing Effects of Climate Engineering Methods on the Earth System

Science.gov (United States)

Sonntag, Sebastian; Ferrer González, Miriam; Ilyina, Tatiana; Kracher, Daniela; Nabel, Julia E. M. S.; Niemeier, Ulrike; Pongratz, Julia; Reick, Christian H.; Schmidt, Hauke

2018-02-01

To contribute to a quantitative comparison of climate engineering (CE) methods, we assess atmosphere-, ocean-, and land-based CE measures with respect to Earth system effects consistently within one comprehensive model. We use the Max Planck Institute Earth System Model (MPI-ESM) with prognostic carbon cycle to compare solar radiation management (SRM) by stratospheric sulfur injection and two carbon dioxide removal methods: afforestation and ocean alkalinization. The CE model experiments are designed to offset the effect of fossil-fuel burning on global mean surface air temperature under the RCP8.5 scenario to follow or get closer to the RCP4.5 scenario. Our results show the importance of feedbacks in the CE effects. For example, as a response to SRM the land carbon uptake is enhanced by 92 Gt by the year 2100 compared to the reference RCP8.5 scenario due to reduced soil respiration thus reducing atmospheric CO2. Furthermore, we show that normalizations allow for a better comparability of different CE methods. For example, we find that due to compensating processes such as biogeophysical effects of afforestation more carbon needs to be removed from the atmosphere by afforestation than by alkalinization to reach the same global warming reduction. Overall, we illustrate how different CE methods affect the components of the Earth system; we identify challenges arising in a CE comparison, and thereby contribute to developing a framework for a comparative assessment of CE.

The Earth System Science Education Experience: Personal Vignettes

Science.gov (United States)

Ruzek, M.; Aron, J.; Maranto, G.; Reider, D.; Wake, C.

2006-12-01

Colleges and universities across the country and around the world have embraced the Earth system approach to gain deeper understanding of the interrelationships of processes that define the home planet. The Design Guide for Undergraduate Earth System Science Education, a product of the NASA/USRA Earth System Science Education for the 21st Century Program (ESSE 21), represents a synthesis of community understanding of the content and process of teaching and learning about Earth as a system. The web-based Design Guide serves faculty from multiple disciplines who wish to adopt an ESS approach in their own courses or programs. Illustrating the nine topical sections of the Design Guide are a series of short vignettes telling the story of how ESS is being used in the classroom, how ESS has contributed to institutional change and personal professional development, how ESS is being implemented at minority serving institutions, and the impact of ESS education on student research. Most vignettes are written from a personal perspective and reflect a direct experience with Earth System Science Education. Over forty vignettes have been assembled aiming to put a face on the results of the systemic reform efforts of the past fifteen years of the ESSE programs, documenting the sometimes intangible process of education reform to be shared with those seeking examples of ESS education. The vignettes are a vital complement to the Design Guide sections, and are also available as a separate collection on the Design Guide and ESSE 21 web sites.

Hands On Earth Science.

Science.gov (United States)

Weisgarber, Sherry L.; Van Doren, Lisa; Hackathorn, Merrianne; Hannibal, Joseph T.; Hansgen, Richard

This publication is a collection of 13 hands-on activities that focus on earth science-related activities and involve students in learning about growing crystals, tectonics, fossils, rock and minerals, modeling Ohio geology, geologic time, determining true north, and constructing scale-models of the Earth-moon system. Each activity contains…

A new parameterization for surface ocean light attenuation in Earth System Models: assessing the impact of light absorption by colored detrital material

OpenAIRE

G. E. Kim; M.-A. Pradal; A. Gnanadesikan

2015-01-01

Light limitation can affect the distribution of biota and nutrients in the ocean. Light absorption by colored detrital material (CDM) was included in a fully coupled Earth System Model using a new parameterization for shortwave attenuation. Two model runs were conducted, with and without light attenuation by CDM. In a global average sense, greater light limitation associated with CDM increased surface chlorophyll, biomass and nutrients together. These changes can be attribut...

Visualization system on the earth simulator user's guide

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Muramatsu, Kazuhiro; Sai, Kazunori

2002-08-01

A visualization system on the Earth Simulator is developed. The system enables users to see a graphic representation of simulation results on a client terminal simultaneously with them being computed on the Earth Simulator. Moreover, the system makes it possible to change parameters of the calculation and its visualization in the middle of calculation. The graphical user interface (GUI) of the system is constructed on a Java applet. Consequently, the client only needs a web browser, so it is independent of operating systems. The system consists of a server function, post-processing function and client function. The server and post-processing functions work on the Earth Simulator, and the client function works on the client terminal. The server function employs a library style format so that users can easily invoke real-time visualization functions by applying their code. The post-processing function employs a library style format and moreover provides a load module. This report describes mainly the usage of the server and post-processing functions. (author)

The Role and Evolution of NASA's Earth Science Data Systems

Science.gov (United States)

Ramapriyan, H. K.

2015-01-01

One of the three strategic goals of NASA is to Advance understanding of Earth and develop technologies to improve the quality of life on our home planet (NASA strategic plan 2014). NASA's Earth Science Data System (ESDS) Program directly supports this goal. NASA has been launching satellites for civilian Earth observations for over 40 years, and collecting data from various types of instruments. Especially since 1990, with the start of the Earth Observing System (EOS) Program, which was a part of the Mission to Planet Earth, the observations have been significantly more extensive in their volumes, variety and velocity. Frequent, global observations are made in support of Earth system science. An open data policy has been in effect since 1990, with no period of exclusive access and non-discriminatory access to data, free of charge. NASA currently holds nearly 10 petabytes of Earth science data including satellite, air-borne, and ground-based measurements and derived geophysical parameter products in digital form. Millions of users around the world are using NASA data for Earth science research and applications. In 2014, over a billion data files were downloaded by users from NASAs EOS Data and Information System (EOSDIS), a system with 12 Distributed Active Archive Centers (DAACs) across the U. S. As a core component of the ESDS Program, EOSDIS has been operating since 1994, and has been evolving continuously with advances in information technology. The ESDS Program influences as well as benefits from advances in Earth Science Informatics. The presentation will provide an overview of the role and evolution of NASAs ESDS Program.

Journal of Earth System Science | Indian Academy of Sciences

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Home; Journals; Journal of Earth System Science. K Jeeva. Articles written in Journal of Earth System Science. Volume 111 Issue 1 March 2002 pp 51-62. Velocity of small-scale auroral ionospheric current systems over Indian Antarctic station Maitri · Girija Rajaram A N Hanchinal R Kalra K Unnikrishnan K Jeeva M ...

Modelling the core magnetic field of the earth

Science.gov (United States)

Harrison, C. G. A.; Carle, H. M.

1982-01-01

It is suggested that radial off-center dipoles located within the core of the earth be used instead of spherical harmonics of the magnetic potential in modeling the core magnetic field. The off-center dipoles, in addition to more realistically modeling the physical current systems within the core, are if located deep within the core more effective at removing long wavelength signals of either potential or field. Their disadvantage is that their positions and strengths are more difficult to compute, and such effects as upward and downward continuation are more difficult to manipulate. It is nevertheless agreed with Cox (1975) and Alldredge and Hurwitz (1964) that physical realism in models is more important than mathematical convenience. A radial dipole model is presented which agrees with observations of secular variation and excursions.

Journal of Earth System Science | Indian Academy of Sciences

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Home; Journals; Journal of Earth System Science. Ratheesh Ramakrishnan. Articles written in Journal of Earth System Science. Volume 121 Issue 5 October 2012 pp 1201-1213. Simulation of suspended sediment transport initialized with satellite derived suspended sediment concentrations · Ratheesh Ramakrishnan A S ...

Journal of Earth System Science | Indian Academy of Sciences

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Home; Journals; Journal of Earth System Science. Evangelin Ramani Sujatha. Articles written in Journal of Earth System Science. Volume 121 Issue 5 October 2012 pp 1337-1350. Landslide susceptibility analysis using Probabilistic Certainty Factor Approach: A case study on Tevankarai stream watershed, India.

Journal of Earth System Science | Indian Academy of Sciences

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Home; Journals; Journal of Earth System Science. Soumen Sarkar. Articles written in Journal of Earth System Science. Volume 114 Issue 3 June 2005 pp 303-323. Evidence of lacustrine sedimentation in the Upper Permian Bijori Formation, Satpura Gondwana basin: Palaeogeographic and tectonic implications.

Journal of Earth System Science | Indian Academy of Sciences

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Home; Journals; Journal of Earth System Science. C J Johny. Articles written in Journal of Earth System Science. Volume 125 Issue 3 April 2016 pp 521-538. Impact of hybrid GSI analysis using ETR ensembles · V S Prasad C J Johny · More Details Abstract Fulltext PDF. Performance of a hybrid assimilation system ...

Rotational modes of a simple Earth model

Science.gov (United States)

Seyed-Mahmoud, B.; Rochester, M. G.; Rogister, Y. J. G.

2017-12-01

We study the tilt-over mode (TOM), the spin-over mode (SOM), the free core nutation (FCN), and their relationships to each other using a simple Earth model with a homogeneous and incompressible liquid core and a rigid mantle. Analytical solutions for the periods of these modes as well as that of the Chandler wobble is found for the Earth model. We show that the FCN is the same mode as the SOM of a wobbling Earth. The reduced pressure, in terms of which the vector momentum equation is known to reduce to a scalar second order differential equation (the so called Poincaŕe equation), is used as the independent variable. Analytical solutions are then found for the displacement eigenfucntions in a meridional plane of the liquid core for the aforementioned modes. We show that the magnitude of motion in the mantle during the FCN is comparable to that in the liquid core, hence very small. The displacement eigenfunctions for these aforementioned modes as well as those for the free inner core nutation (FICN), computed numerically, are also given for a three layer Earth model which also includes a rigid but capable of wobbling inner core. We will discuss the slow convergence of the period of the FICN in terms of the characteristic surfaces of the Poincare equation.

Evaluation of geomagnetic field models using magnetometer measurements for satellite attitude determination system at low earth orbits: Case studies

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Cilden-Guler, Demet; Kaymaz, Zerefsan; Hajiyev, Chingiz

2018-01-01

In this study, different geomagnetic field models are compared in order to study the errors resulting from the representation of magnetic fields that affect the satellite attitude system. For this purpose, we used magnetometer data from two Low Earth Orbit (LEO) spacecraft and the geomagnetic models IGRF-12 (Thébault et al., 2015) and T89 (Tsyganenko, 1989) models to study the differences between the magnetic field components, strength and the angle between the predicted and observed vector magnetic fields. The comparisons were made during geomagnetically active and quiet days to see the effects of the geomagnetic storms and sub-storms on the predicted and observed magnetic fields and angles. The angles, in turn, are used to estimate the spacecraft attitude and hence, the differences between model and observations as well as between two models become important to determine and reduce the errors associated with the models under different space environment conditions. We show that the models differ from the observations even during the geomagnetically quiet times but the associated errors during the geomagnetically active times increase. We find that the T89 model gives closer predictions to the observations, especially during active times and the errors are smaller compared to the IGRF-12 model. The magnitude of the error in the angle under both environmental conditions was found to be less than 1°. For the first time, the geomagnetic models were used to address the effects of the near Earth space environment on the satellite attitude.

Integrated earth system dynamic modeling for life cycle impact assessment of ecosystem services.

Science.gov (United States)

Arbault, Damien; Rivière, Mylène; Rugani, Benedetto; Benetto, Enrico; Tiruta-Barna, Ligia

2014-02-15

Despite the increasing awareness of our dependence on Ecosystem Services (ES), Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) does not explicitly and fully assess the damages caused by human activities on ES generation. Recent improvements in LCIA focus on specific cause-effect chains, mainly related to land use changes, leading to Characterization Factors (CFs) at the midpoint assessment level. However, despite the complexity and temporal dynamics of ES, current LCIA approaches consider the environmental mechanisms underneath ES to be independent from each other and devoid of dynamic character, leading to constant CFs whose representativeness is debatable. This paper takes a step forward and is aimed at demonstrating the feasibility of using an integrated earth system dynamic modeling perspective to retrieve time- and scenario-dependent CFs that consider the complex interlinkages between natural processes delivering ES. The GUMBO (Global Unified Metamodel of the Biosphere) model is used to quantify changes in ES production in physical terms - leading to midpoint CFs - and changes in human welfare indicators, which are considered here as endpoint CFs. The interpretation of the obtained results highlights the key methodological challenges to be solved to consider this approach as a robust alternative to the mainstream rationale currently adopted in LCIA. Further research should focus on increasing the granularity of environmental interventions in the modeling tools to match current standards in LCA and on adapting the conceptual approach to a spatially-explicit integrated model. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Two planets: Earth and Mars - One salt model: The Hydrothermal SCRIW-Model

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Hovland, M. T.; Rueslaatten, H.; Johnsen, H. K.; Indreiten, T.

2011-12-01

One of the common characteristics of planets Earth and Mars is that both host water (H2O) and large accumulations of salt. Whereas Earth's surface-environment can be regarded as 'water-friendly' and 'salt hostile', the reverse can be said for the surface of Mars. This is because liquid water is stable on Earth, and the atmosphere transports humidity around the globe, whereas on planet Mars, liquid water is unstable, rendering the atmosphere dry and, therefore, 'salt-friendly'. The riddle as to how the salt accumulated in various locations on those two planets is one of long-lasting and great debate. The salt accumulations on Earth are traditionally termed 'evaporites', meaning that they formed by the evaporation of large masses of seawater. How the accumulations on Mars formed is much harder to explain, with a similar model, as surface water, representing a large ocean only existed briefly. Although water molecules and OH-groups may exist in abundance in bound form (crystal water, adsorbed water, etc.), the only place where free water is expected to be stable on Mars is within underground faults, fractures, and crevices. Here it likely occurs as brine or in the form of ice. Based on these conditions, a key to understanding the accumulation of large deposits of salt on both planets is linked to how brines behave in the subsurface when pressurized and heated beyond their supercritical point. At depths greater than about 3 km (i.e., a pressure, P>300 bars) water will no longer boil in a steam phase. Rather, it becomes supercritical and will form a supercritical water 'vapor' (SCRIW) with a specific gravity of typically 0.3 g/cm3. An important characteristic of SCRIW is its inability to dissolve the common sea salts. The salt dissolved in the brines will therefore precipitate as solid particles when brines (seawater on the Earth) move into the supercritical P&T-domain (above 400 C and 300 bars). Numerical modeling of a hydrothermal system in the Atlantis II Deep of the

Journal of Earth System Science | Indian Academy of Sciences

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Home; Journals; Journal of Earth System Science. Bhawanisingh G Desai. Articles written in Journal of Earth System Science. Volume 120 Issue 4 August 2011 pp 723-734. Discontinuity surfaces and event stratigraphy of Okha Shell Limestone Member: Implications for Holocene sea level changes, western India.

Journal of Earth System Science | Indian Academy of Sciences

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Home; Journals; Journal of Earth System Science. P Seetaramayya. Articles written in Journal of Earth System Science. Volume 112 Issue 2 June 2003 pp 283-293. Ocean-atmosphere interaction and synoptic weather conditions in association with the two contrasting phases of monsoon during BOBMEX-1999.

Journal of Earth System Science | Indian Academy of Sciences

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Home; Journals; Journal of Earth System Science. Sohini Ganguly. Articles written in Journal of Earth System Science. Volume 119 Issue 5 October 2010 pp 675-699. Evaluation of phase chemistry and petrochemical aspects of Samchampi–Samteran differentiated alkaline complex of Mikir Hills, northeastern India.

Observing Human-induced Linkages between Urbanization and Earth's Climate System

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Shepherd, J. Marshall; Jin, Menglin

2004-01-01

Urbanization is one of the extreme cases of land use change. Most of world s population has moved to urban areas. Although currently only 1.2% of the land is considered urban, the spatial coverage and density of cities are expected to rapidly increase in the near future. It is estimated that by the year 2025, 60% of the world s population will live in cities. Human activity in urban environments also alters atmospheric composition; impacts components of the water cycle; and modifies the carbon cycle and ecosystems. However, our understanding of urbanization on the total Earth-climate system is incomplete. Better understanding of how the Earth s atmosphere-ocean-land-biosphere components interact as a coupled system and the influence of the urban environment on this climate system is critical. The goal of the 2003 AGU Union session Human-induced climate variations on urban areas: From observations to modeling was to bring together scientists from interdisciplinary backgrounds to discuss the data, scientific approaches and recent results on observing and modeling components of the urban environment with the intent of sampling our current stand and discussing future direction on this topic. Herein, a summary and discussion of the observations component of the session are presented.

Earth and space science information systems

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Zygielbaum, A. (ed.) (Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91109 (United States))

1993-01-01

These proceedings represent papers presented at the Earth and Space Science Information Systems (ESSIS) Conference. The attendees included scientists and engineers across many disciplines. New trends in information organizations were reviewed. One hundred and twenty eight papers are included in this volume, out of these two have been abstracted for the Energy Science and Technology database. The topics covered in the papers range from Earth science and technology to astronomy and space, planetary science and education. (AIP)

Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) Data Products for Climate Research

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Kato, Seiji; Loeb, Norman G.; Rutan, David A.; Rose, Fred G.

2015-01-01

NASA's Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) project integrates CERES, Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), and geostationary satellite observations to provide top-of-atmosphere (TOA) irradiances derived from broadband radiance observations by CERES instruments. It also uses snow cover and sea ice extent retrieved from microwave instruments as well as thermodynamic variables from reanalysis. In addition, these variables are used for surface and atmospheric irradiance computations. The CERES project provides TOA, surface, and atmospheric irradiances in various spatial and temporal resolutions. These data sets are for climate research and evaluation of climate models. Long-term observations are required to understand how the Earth system responds to radiative forcing. A simple model is used to estimate the time to detect trends in TOA reflected shortwave and emitted longwave irradiances.

NASA's Earth Science Data Systems Standards Process Experiences

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Ullman, Richard E.; Enloe, Yonsook

2007-01-01

NASA has impaneled several internal working groups to provide recommendations to NASA management on ways to evolve and improve Earth Science Data Systems. One of these working groups is the Standards Process Group (SPC). The SPG is drawn from NASA-funded Earth Science Data Systems stakeholders, and it directs a process of community review and evaluation of proposed NASA standards. The working group's goal is to promote interoperability and interuse of NASA Earth Science data through broader use of standards that have proven implementation and operational benefit to NASA Earth science by facilitating the NASA management endorsement of proposed standards. The SPC now has two years of experience with this approach to identification of standards. We will discuss real examples of the different types of candidate standards that have been proposed to NASA's Standards Process Group such as OPeNDAP's Data Access Protocol, the Hierarchical Data Format, and Open Geospatial Consortium's Web Map Server. Each of the three types of proposals requires a different sort of criteria for understanding the broad concepts of "proven implementation" and "operational benefit" in the context of NASA Earth Science data systems. We will discuss how our Standards Process has evolved with our experiences with the three candidate standards.

Earth System Modeling and Field Experiments in the Arctic-Boreal Zone - Report from a NASA Workshop

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Sellers, Piers; Rienecker Michele; Randall, David; Frolking, Steve

2012-01-01

Early climate modeling studies predicted that the Arctic Ocean and surrounding circumpolar land masses would heat up earlier and faster than other parts of the planet as a result of greenhouse gas-induced climate change, augmented by the sea-ice albedo feedback effect. These predictions have been largely borne out by observations over the last thirty years. However, despite constant improvement, global climate models have greater difficulty in reproducing the current climate in the Arctic than elsewhere and the scatter between projections from different climate models is much larger in the Arctic than for other regions. Biogeochemical cycle (BGC) models indicate that the warming in the Arctic-Boreal Zone (ABZ) could lead to widespread thawing of the permafrost, along with massive releases of CO2 and CH4, and large-scale changes in the vegetation cover in the ABZ. However, the uncertainties associated with these BGC model predictions are even larger than those associated with the physical climate system models used to describe climate change. These deficiencies in climate and BGC models reflect, at least in part, an incomplete understanding of the Arctic climate system and can be related to inadequate observational data or analyses of existing data. A workshop was held at NASA/GSFC, May 22-24 2012, to assess the predictive capability of the models, prioritize the critical science questions; and make recommendations regarding new field experiments needed to improve model subcomponents. This presentation will summarize the findings and recommendations of the workshop, including the need for aircraft and flux tower measurements and extension of existing in-situ measurements to improve process modeling of both the physical climate and biogeochemical cycle systems. Studies should be directly linked to remote sensing investigations with a view to scaling up the improved process models to the Earth System Model scale. Data assimilation and observing system simulation

Supporting EarthScope Cyber-Infrastructure with a Modern GPS Science Data System

Science.gov (United States)

Webb, F. H.; Bock, Y.; Kedar, S.; Jamason, P.; Fang, P.; Dong, D.; Owen, S. E.; Prawirodirjo, L.; Squibb, M.

2008-12-01

Building on NASA's investment in the measurement of crustal deformation from continuous GPS, we are developing and implementing a Science Data System (SDS) that will provide mature, long-term Earth Science Data Records (ESDR's). This effort supports NASA's Earth Surface and Interiors (ESI) focus area and provide NASA's component to the EarthScope PBO. This multi-year development is sponsored by NASA's Making Earth System data records for Use in Research Environments (MEaSUREs) program. The SDS integrates the generation of ESDRs with data analysis and exploration, product generation, and modeling tools based on daily GPS data that include GPS networks in western North America and a component of NASA's Global GPS Network (GGN) for terrestrial reference frame definition. The system is expandable to multiple regional and global networks. The SDS builds upon mature data production, exploration, and analysis algorithms developed under NASA's REASoN, ACCESS, and SENH programs. This SDS provides access to positions, time series, velocity fields, and strain measurements derived from continuous GPS data obtained at tracking stations in both the Plate Boundary Observatory and other regional Western North America GPS networks, dating back to 1995. The SDS leverages the IT and Web Services developments carried out under the SCIGN/REASoN and ACCESS projects, which have streamlined access to data products for researchers and modelers, and which have created a prototype an on-the-fly interactive research environment through a modern data portal, GPS Explorer. This IT system has been designed using modern IT tools and principles in order to be extensible to any geographic location, scale, natural hazard, and combination of geophysical sensor and related data. We have built upon open GIS standards, particularly those of the OGC, and have used the principles of Web Service-based Service Oriented Architectures to provide scalability and extensibility to new services and capabilities.

NASA's Astro-Venture Engages Exceptional Students in Earth System Science Using Inquiry

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Oguinn, C.

2003-12-01

Astro-Venture is an educational, interactive, multimedia Web environment highlighting NASA careers and astrobiology research in the areas of Astronomy, Geology, Biology and Atmospheric Sciences. Students in grades 5-8 role-play NASA careers, as they search for and design a planet with the necessary characteristics for human habitation. Astro-Venture uses online multimedia activities and off-line inquiry explorations to engage students in guided inquiry aligned with the 5 E inquiry model. This model has proven to be effective with exceptional students. Students are presented with the intellectual confrontation of how to design a planet and star system that would be able to meet their biological survival needs. This provides a purpose for the online and off-line explorations used throughout the site. Students first explore "what" conditions are necessary to support human habitability by engaging in multimedia training modules, which allow them to change astronomical, atmospheric, geological and biological aspects of the Earth and our star system and to view the effects of these changes on Earth. By focusing on Earth, students draw on their prior knowledge, which helps them to connect their new knowledge to their existing schema. Cause and effect relationships of Earth provide a concrete model from which students can observe patterns and generalize abstract results to an imagined planet. From these observations, students draw conclusions about what aspects allowed Earth to remain habitable. Once students have generalized needed conditions of "what" we need for a habitable planet, they conduct further research in off-line, standards-based classroom activities that also follow the inquiry model and help students to understand "why" we need these conditions. These lessons focus on standards-based concepts such as states of matter and the structure and movement of the Earth's interior. These lessons follow the inquiry structure commonly referred to as the five E's as

Dynamics of the Sun-Earth-Moon System

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

The dynamics of the Sun-Earth-Moon system is discussed with special attention to the effects of. Sun's perturbations on the Moon's orbit around the Earth. Important secular effects are the re- gression of the nodes, the advance of the perigee and the increase in the Moon's mean longitude. We discuss the relationship of the ...

Developing Earth System Science Courses and Programs at Minority Serving Institutions

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Johnson, D. R.; Jackson, C.; Ruzek, M.

2004-12-01

In the current NASA/USRA ESSE21 Program, emphasis is placed on the development of Earth System Science courses and degree offerings in Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs). Of the 18 colleges/universities being supported by NASA through USRA, 10 colleges/universities are MSIs. While there is recognition of the need for Earth system science courses, minors and degree programs by NASA and other agencies, within MSIs, a central challenge is how to provide a vision of the future opportunities in ESS and STEM disciplines that attracts and motivates students to these studies. Students need career guidance, role models and mentoring to encourage entry into STEM in general, and Earth system science in particular. Then there is the question of how to bring interested faculty together in institutions to form a critical mass that would forego the breadth and depth of disciplinary interests to undertake the development of multi/cross and interdisciplinary courses, minors and degree programs in ESS. Within the ESSE21 Diversity Working Group, the question has been raised as to how will MSIs ever be mainstream participants in ESS without teaching and engaging in research in remote sensing, modeling of the Earth's climate system and other like endeavors. Two other related questions raised within the Working Group are what are the long-term objectives of MSI adoption of ESS and what course corrections are needed to make ESS viable at MSIs. Within these considerations there are unresolved questions concerning the need and availability of resources from NASA, other agencies and local institutions. Apart from these larger considerations, efforts are underway within the ESSE21 Program that provide for sharing of resources among participants, organization of and access to materials that already exist, online resources, course outlines and successful listings for online resources by topics for particular courses and subject areas. The Lesson Learned Working Group, as well as the program

Development of a model to compute the extension of life supporting zones for Earth-like exoplanets.

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Neubauer, David; Vrtala, Aron; Leitner, Johannes J; Firneis, Maria G; Hitzenberger, Regina

2011-12-01

A radiative convective model to calculate the width and the location of the life supporting zone (LSZ) for different, alternative solvents (i.e. other than water) is presented. This model can be applied to the atmospheres of the terrestrial planets in the solar system as well as (hypothetical, Earth-like) terrestrial exoplanets. Cloud droplet formation and growth are investigated using a cloud parcel model. Clouds can be incorporated into the radiative transfer calculations. Test runs for Earth, Mars and Titan show a good agreement of model results with observations.

Earth observing system - Concepts and implementation strategy

Science.gov (United States)

Hartle, R. E.

1986-01-01

The concepts of an Earth Observing System (EOS), an information system being developed by the EOS Science and Mission Requirements Working Group for international use and planned to begin in the 1990s, are discussed. The EOS is designed to study the factors that control the earth's hydrologic cycle, biochemical cycles, and climatologic processes by combining the measurements from remote sensing instruments, in situ measurement devices, and a data and information system. Three EOS platforms are planned to be launched into low, polar, sun-synchronous orbits during the Space Station's Initial Operating Configuration, one to be provided by ESA and two by the United States.

Journal of Earth System Science | Indian Academy of Sciences

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Home; Journals; Journal of Earth System Science. Sukanta Dey. Articles written in Journal of Earth System Science. Volume 127 Issue 2 March 2018 pp 20. An approach of understanding acid volcanics and tuffaceous volcaniclastics from field studies: A case from Tadpatri Formation, Proterozoic Cuddapah basin, Andhra ...

Journal of Earth System Science | Indian Academy of Sciences

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Home; Journals; Journal of Earth System Science. Parmanand Sharma. Articles written in Journal of Earth System Science. Volume 121 Issue 3 June 2012 pp 625-636. Chemical characterisation of meltwater draining from Gangotri Glacier, Garhwal Himalaya, India · Virendra Bahadur Singh A L Ramanathan Jose George ...

Journal of Earth System Science | Indian Academy of Sciences

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Home; Journals; Journal of Earth System Science. V S Dubey. Articles written in Journal of Earth System Science. Volume 114 Issue 5 October 2005 pp 515-522. Identification of groundwater prospective zones by using remote sensing and geoelectrical methods in Jharia and Raniganj coalfields, Dhanbad district, ...