Overview of Research at NPS using High Speed Networks and High Performance Computers

Presented at CENIC 0

Microwave Brightness Temperatures of Tilted Convective Systems

Aircraft and ground-based radar data from the Tropical Ocean and Global Atmosphere Coupled-Ocean Atmosphere Response Experiment (TOGA COARE) show that convective systems are not always vertical. Instead, many are tilted from vertical. Satellite passive microwave radiometers observe the atmosphere at a viewing angle. For example, the Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I) on Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) satellites and the Tropical Rainfall Measurement Mission (TRMM) Microwave Imager (TMI) on the TRMM satellite have an incident angle of about 50deg. Thus, the brightness temperature measured from one direction of tilt may be different than that viewed from the opposite direction due to the different optical depth. This paper presents the investigation of passive microwave brightness temperatures of tilted convective systems. To account for the effect of tilt, a 3-D backward Monte Carlo radiative transfer model has been applied to a simple tilted cloud model and a dynamically evolving cloud model to derive the brightness temperature. The radiative transfer results indicate that brightness temperature varies when the viewing angle changes because of the different optical depth. The tilt increases the displacements between high 19 GHz brightness temperature (Tb(sub 19)) due to liquid emission from lower level of cloud and the low 85 GHz brightness temperature (Tb(sub 85)) due to ice scattering from upper level of cloud. As the resolution degrades, the difference of brightness temperature due to the change of viewing angle decreases dramatically. The dislocation between Tb(sub 19) and Tb(sub 85), however, remains prominent

On the Derivation of Vector Radiative Transfer Equation for Polarized Radiative Transport in Graded Index Media

Light transport in graded index media follows a curved trajectory determined by the Fermat's principle. Besides the effect of variation of the refractive index on the transport of radiative intensity, the curved ray trajectory will induce geometrical effects on the transport of polarization ellipse. This paper presents a complete derivation of vector radiative transfer equation for polarized radiation transport in absorption, emission and scattering graded index media. The derivation is based on the analysis of the conserved quantities for polarized light transport along curved trajectory and a novel approach. The obtained transfer equation can be considered as a generalization of the classic vector radiative transfer equation that is only valid for uniform refractive index media. Several variant forms of the transport equation are also presented, which include the form for Stokes parameters defined with a fixed reference and the Eulerian forms in the ray coordinate and in several common orthogonal coordinate systems.Comment: This paper has been submitted to JQSR

Spectral Element Method for Vector Radiative Transfer Equation

A spectral element method (SEM) is developed to solve polarized radiative transfer in multidimensional participating medium. The angular discretization is based on the discrete-ordinates approach, and the spatial discretization is conducted by spectral element approach. Chebyshev polynomial is used to build basis function on each element. Four various test problems are taken as examples to verify the performance of the SEM. The effectiveness of the SEM is demonstrated. The h and the p convergence characteristics of the SEM are studied. The convergence rate of p-refinement follows the exponential decay trend and is superior to that of h-refinement. The accuracy and efficiency of the higher order approximation in the SEM is well demonstrated for the solution of the VRTE. The predicted angular distribution of brightness temperature and Stokes vector by the SEM agree very well with the benchmark solutions in references. Numerical results show that the SEM is accurate, flexible and effective to solve multidimensional polarized radiative transfer problems.Comment: The paper have bee published in JQSR

Field Investigations of Malformed Frogs in Minnesota 1993-97

Reports of malformed frogs were made to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) from different parts of Minnesota in 1993, 1995, 1996, and 1997 and one, nine, 190, and 172 reports were received, respectively. MPCA field crews and Drs. Hoppe and McKinnell documented malformed frog locations starting in 1993. By 1997, MPCA field crews documented malformed frogs at 62 locations in Minnesota, in 29 of 87 counties. Most malformations were in young metamorphs of Rana pipiens but they were observed also in R. clamitans, R. septentrionalis, R. sylvatica, Bufo americanus, and Hyla spp. Frequencies of malformations varied by time of year. Most malformations occurred in rear limbs, with some in front limbs, eye, jaw or skin. Frequencies of limb duplications at the Ney Pond were higher in 1995 (11.7%) than in subsequent years. Malformations were equally likely to be left- or right-sided. A study design in which malformed frog sites were paired with \u27reference\u27 sites was attempted, although some reference sites had, or developed, malformed frogs. In some sites, body weights of malformed metamorphs were significantly lower than normal ones, while in two sites both normal and abnormal metamorphs were quite reduced in size compared with frogs from reference sites. There is the possibility of a developmental delay in some of the metamorphs

Three-dimensional radiative transfer effects of clouds in the microwave spectral range.

A three-dimensional Monte Carlo transfer model for polarized radiation is developed and used to study three-dimensional (3-D) effects of raining clouds on the microwave brightness temperature. The backward method is combined with the forward method to treat polarization correctly within the cloud. In comparison with horizontally homogeneous clouds, two effects are observed: First, brightness temperatures from clouds are reduced in the 3-D case due to net leakage of radiation from the sidewalls of the cloud. Second, radiation which is emitted by the warm cloud and then reflected from the water surface increases the brightness temperatures of the cloud-free areas in the vicinity of the cloud. Both effects compete with each other, leading to either lower or higher overall brightness temperatures, depending on the geometry of the cloud, the satellite viewing angle, the coverage, and the position of the cloud within the field of view (FOV) of the satellite. At 37 GHz, for example, up to 10 K differences can occur for a cloud of 50% coverage. Finite homogeneous raining clouds matching the size of the FOV of the satellite show a similar relationship between rain rates and brightness temperatures (TB) as horizontally infinite clouds. Namely, an increase of TB with increasing rain rates at low rain rates, due to emission effects, is followed by a decrease due to temperature and scattering effects. For small horizontal cloud diameter, however, the 3-D brightness temperatures may show a second maximum due to the decrease of the leakage effect with increasing rain rates. At nadir, 3-D brightness temperatures are always lower than the 1-D values with differences up to 20 K for a cloud of 5-km vertical extent and a base of 1 × 1 km. To quantify the 3-D effects for more realistic cloud structures, we used results of a three-dimensional dynamic cloud model as input for the radiative transfer codes. The same 3-D effects are obtained, but the differences between 1-D and 3-D modeling are smaller. In general, most of the differences between the 1-D and 3-D results for off-nadir view angles are pure geometry effects, which can be accounted for in part by a modified 1-D model

High Performance Computing (HPC), brochure

The NPS High Performance Computing Center supports investigators using scientific workstations, supercomputer systems, large datasets, special purpose and experimental systems, the new generation of large scale parallel systems, visualization tools, and application and systems software. All components are well integrated and linked over a high speed network

A Rising Sun at NPS: Visualization with RenderMan on the Hamming Supercomputer [video]

In early 2009, the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) brought the 1152 core "hamming" Sun Microsystems blade system online. Concurrently, NPS procured RenderMan™ software from Pixar Animation Studios. In this presentation, Dr. Heferman and Mr. Weekley describe the hamming supercomputer, the Maya 3D modeling package with Pixar's RenderMan software - used by film studios to develop popular animated feature films such as "Ratatouille" and "Up" and in visual effects for movies like "Where the Wild Things Are" - and how NPS used them together to create realistic visualizations in a format suitable for projection on the NPS Sony 4K display and for ultra-high resolution streaming media over CENIC networks. Dr. Heferman and Mr. Weekley demonstrate how advances in Hollywood-style animation and post-production tools have benefited researchers at NPS who are working on scientific visualization and streaming media in support of the School's academic and research missions