Assimilating GCOM-W1 AMSR2 and TRMM TMI Radiance Data in GEOS Analysis and Reanalysis

The Tropical Rainfall Measurement Mission (TRMM) Microwave Imager (TMI) observed the Earth in lower latitudes between 1997 - 2015. Its conical-scan radiometer has nine channels and measured microwave radiances between 10 and 89 GHz. These data provide information on atmospheric temperature, humidity, clouds, precipitation, as well as sea surface temperature. Radiance data from other microwave radiometers such as Special Sensor Microwave Imager (SSM/I) and Special Sensor Microwave Imager Sounder (SSMIS) onboard various Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) satellites are assimilated in clear-sky conditions in the Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA) and its version 2 (MERRA-2) data sets at the Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO) at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. The GMAO's Hybrid 4D-EnVar-based Atmospheric Data Assimilation System (ADAS) is enhanced with an all-sky microwave radiance data assimilation capability in the real-time GEOS-Forward Processing (FP) system. Currently, the FP system assimilates Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) microwave imager (GMI) radiance data utilizing this all-sky capability, and is being extended to use more all-sky data from other microwave radiometers. In this presentation, we will focus on impacts of all-sky TMI radiance data on GEOS analyses of atmospheric moisture, precipitation and other fields, and discuss their applications for future GEOS reanalyses

The Impact of the Assimilation of Aquarius Sea Surface Salinity Data in the GEOS Ocean Data Assimilation System

Ocean salinity and temperature differences drive thermohaline circulations. These properties also play a key role in the ocean-atmosphere coupling. With the availability of L-band space-borne observations, it becomes possible to provide global scale sea surface salinity (SSS) distribution. This study analyzes globally the along-track (Level 2) Aquarius SSS retrievals obtained using both passive and active L-band observations. Aquarius alongtrack retrieved SSS are assimilated into the ocean data assimilation component of Version 5 of the Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS-5) assimilation and forecast model. We present a methodology to correct the large biases and errors apparent in Version 2.0 of the Aquarius SSS retrieval algorithm and map the observed Aquarius SSS retrieval into the ocean models bulk salinity in the topmost layer. The impact of the assimilation of the corrected SSS on the salinity analysis is evaluated by comparisons with insitu salinity observations from Argo. The results show a significant reduction of the global biases and RMS of observations-minus-forecast differences at in-situ locations. The most striking results are found in the tropics and southern latitudes. Our results highlight the complementary role and problems that arise during the assimilation of salinity information from in-situ (Argo) and space-borne surface (SSS) observation

Combined local-density and dynamical mean field theory calculations for the compressed lanthanides Ce, Pr, and Nd

This paper reports calculations for compressed Ce (4f^1), Pr (4f^2), and Nd (4f^3) using a combination of the local-density approximation (LDA) and dynamical mean field theory (DMFT), or LDA+DMFT. The 4f moment, spectra, and the total energy among other properties are examined as functions of volume and atomic number for an assumed face-centered cubic (fcc) structure.Comment: 15 pages, 9 figure

Nanosecond Ultrasonics to Study Phase Transitions in Solid and Liquid Systems at High Pressure and Temperature

This report describes the development of a high-frequency ultrasonic measurement capability for application to the study of phase transitions at elevated pressure and temperature. We combined expertise in various aspects of static high-pressure technique with recent advances in wave propagation modeling, ultrasonic transducer development, electronic methods and broadband instrumentation to accomplish the goals of this project. The transduction and electronic systems have a demonstrated bandwidth of 400 MHz, allowing investigations of phenomena with characteristic times as short as 2.5 nS. A compact, pneumatically driven moissanite anvil cell was developed and constructed for this project. This device generates a high-pressure environment for mm dimension samples to pressures of 3 GPa. Ultrasonic measurements were conducted in the moissanite cell, an LLNL multi-anvil device and in a modified piston cylinder device. Measurements for water, and elemental tantalum, tin and cerium demonstrate the success of the methods. The {gamma}-{alpha} phase transition in cerium was clearly detected at {approx}0.7 GPa with 75 MHz longitudinal waves. These results have direct application to important problems in LLNL programs, as well as seismology and planetary science

Distributed Adaptive Attitude Synchronization of Multiple Spacecraft

This paper addresses the distributed attitude synchronization problem of multiple spacecraft with unknown inertia matrices. Two distributed adaptive controllers are proposed for the cases with and without a virtual leader to which a time-varying reference attitude is assigned. The first controller achieves attitude synchronization for a group of spacecraft with a leaderless communication topology having a directed spanning tree. The second controller guarantees that all spacecraft track the reference attitude if the virtual leader has a directed path to all other spacecraft. Simulation examples are presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the results.Comment: 13 pages, 11 figures. To appear in SCIENCE CHINA Technological Science

Saildrone: adaptively sampling the marine environment

Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2020. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 101(6), (2020): E744-E762, doi:10.1175/BAMS-D-19-0015.1.From 11 April to 11 June 2018 a new type of ocean observing platform, the Saildrone surface vehicle, collected data on a round-trip, 60-day cruise from San Francisco Bay, down the U.S. and Mexican coast to Guadalupe Island. The cruise track was selected to optimize the science team’s validation and science objectives. The validation objectives include establishing the accuracy of these new measurements. The scientific objectives include validation of satellite-derived fluxes, sea surface temperatures, and wind vectors and studies of upwelling dynamics, river plumes, air–sea interactions including frontal regions, and diurnal warming regions. On this deployment, the Saildrone carried 16 atmospheric and oceanographic sensors. Future planned cruises (with open data policies) are focused on improving our understanding of air–sea fluxes in the Arctic Ocean and around North Brazil Current rings.The Saildrone data collection mission was sponsored by the Saildrone Award, an annual data collection mission awarded by Saildrone Inc., and the Schmidt Family Foundation. The research was funded by the NASA Physical Oceanography Program Grant 80NSSC18K0837 and 80NSSC18K1441. The work by T. M. Chin, J. Vazquez-Cuerzo, and V. Tsontos was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Piero L.F. Mazzini was supported by California Sea Grant Award NA18OAR4170073. We thank CeNCOOS for providing the HF radar data in the Gulf of the Farallones. Jose Gomez-Valdes was supported by CONACYT Grant 257125, and by CICESE. Work by Joel Scott and Ivona Cetinic was supported through NASA PACE. The work by Lisan Yu was supported by NOAA Ocean Observing and Monitoring Division under Grant NA14OAR4320158

Progress and Challenges in Short to Medium Range Coupled Prediction

The availability of GODAE Oceanview-type ocean forecast systems provides the opportunity to develop high-resolution, short- to medium-range coupled prediction systems. Several groups have undertaken the first experiments based on relatively unsophisticated approaches. Progress is being driven at the institutional level targeting a range of applications that represent their respective national interests with clear overlaps and opportunities for information exchange and collaboration. These include general circulation, hurricanes, extra-tropical storms, high-latitude weather and sea-ice forecasting as well as coastal air-sea interaction. In some cases, research has moved beyond case and sensitivity studies to controlled experiments to obtain statistically significant metrics

Robust grasping under object pose uncertainty

This paper presents a decision-theoretic approach to problems that require accurate placement of a robot relative to an object of known shape, such as grasping for assembly or tool use. The decision process is applied to a robot hand with tactile sensors, to localize the object on a table and ultimately achieve a target placement by selecting among a parameterized set of grasping and information-gathering trajectories. The process is demonstrated in simulation and on a real robot. This work has been previously presented in Hsiao et al. (Workshop on Algorithmic Foundations of Robotics (WAFR), 2008; Robotics Science and Systems (RSS), 2010) and Hsiao (Relatively robust grasping, Ph.D. thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2009).National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Grant 0712012

Fluorophore Labeled Kinase Detects Ligands That Bind within the MAPK Insert of p38α Kinase

The vast majority of small molecules known to modulate kinase activity, target the highly conserved ATP-pocket. Consequently, such ligands are often less specific and in case of inhibitors, this leads to the inhibition of multiple kinases. Thus, selective modulation of kinase function remains a major hurdle. One of the next great challenges in kinase research is the identification of ligands which bind to less conserved sites and target the non-catalytic functions of protein kinases. However, approaches that allow for the unambiguous identification of molecules that bind to these less conserved sites are few in number. We have previously reported the use of fluorescent labels in kinases (FLiK) to develop direct kinase binding assays that exclusively detect ligands which stabilize inactive (DFG-out) kinase conformations. Here, we present the successful application of the FLiK approach to develop a high-throughput binding assay capable of directly monitoring ligand binding to a remote site within the MAPK insert of p38α mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK). Guided by the crystal structure of an initially identified hit molecule in complex with p38α, we developed a tight binding ligand which may serve as an ideal starting point for further investigations of the biological function of the MAPK insert in regulating the p38α signaling pathway