The Arctic as a Test Case for an Assessment of Climate Impacts on National Security

Sandia staff members have collaborative ties to researchers from NOAA, the Naval Postgraduate School, NCAR, and other federally-sponsored organizations with active research interests and capabilities in Arctic regions.The Arctic region is rapidly changing in a way that will affect the rest of the world. Parts of Alaska, western Canada, and Siberia are currently warming at twice the global rate. This warming trend is accelerating permafrost deterioration, coastal erosion, snow and ice loss, and other changes that are a direct consequence of climate change. Climatologists have long understood that changes in the Arctic would be faster and more intense than elsewhere on the planet, but the degree and speed of the changes were underestimated compared to recent observations. Policy makers have not yet had time to examine the latest evidence or appreciate the nature of the consequences. Thus, the abruptness and severity of an unfolding Arctic climate crisis has not been incorporated into long- range planning. The purpose of this report is to briefly review the physical basis for global climate change and Arctic amplification, summarize the ongoing observations, discuss the potential consequences, explain the need for an objective risk assessment, develop scenarios for future change, review existing modeling capabilities and the need for better regional models, and finally to make recommendations for Sandia’s future role in preparing our leaders to deal with impacts of Arctic climate change on national security. Accurate and credible regional-scale climate models are still several years in the future, and those models are essential for estimating climate impacts around the globe. This study demonstrates how a scenario-based method may be used to give insights into climate impacts on a regional scale and possible mitigation. Because of our experience in the Arctic and widespread recognition of the Arctic’s importance in the Earth climate system we chose the Arctic as a test case for an assessment of climate impacts on national security. Sandia can make a swift and significant contribution by applying modeling and simulation tools with internal collaborations as well as with outside organizations. Because changes in the Arctic environment are happening so rapidly, a successful program will be one that can adapt very quickly to new information as it becomes available, and can provide decision makers with projections on the 1-5 year time scale over which the most disruptive, high-consequence changes are likely to occur. The greatest short-term impact would be to initiate exploratory simulations to discover new emergent and robust phenomena associated with one or more of the following changing systems: Arctic hydrological cycle, sea ice extent, ocean and atmospheric circulation, permafrost deterioration, carbon mobilization, Greenland ice sheet stability, and coastal erosion. Sandia can also contribute to new technology solutions for improved observations in the Arctic, which is currently a data-sparse region. Sensitivity analyses have the potential to identify thresholds which would enable the collaborative development of “early warning” sensor systems to seek predicted phenomena that might be precursory to major, high-consequence changes. Much of this work will require improved regional climate models and advanced computing capabilities. Socio-economic modeling tools can help define human and national security consequences. Formal uncertainty quantification must be an integral part of any results that emerge from this work.Sandia staff members have collaborative ties to researchers from NOAA, the Naval Postgraduate School, NCAR, and other federally-sponsored organizations with active research interests and capabilities in Arctic regions

Giving voice to equitable collaboration in participatory design

An AHRC funded research project titled Experimenting with the Co-experience Environment (June 2005 – June 2006) culminated in a physical environment designed in resonance with a small group of participants. The participants emerged from different disciplines coming together as a group to share their expertise and contribute their knowledge to design. They engaged in storytelling, individual and co-thinking, creating and co-creating, sharing ideas that did not require justification, proposed designs even though most were not designers …and played. The research questioned how a physical environment designed specifically for co-experiencing might contribute to new knowledge in design? Through play and by working in action together the participants demonstrated the potential of a physical co-experience environment to function as a scaffold for inter-disciplinary design thinking,saying, doing and making (Ivey & Sanders 2006). Ultimately the research questioned how this outcome might influence our approach to engaging participants in design research and experimentation

Virulence Factors of Aeromonas hydrophila: In the Wake of Reclassification

The ubiquitous “jack-of-all-trades,” Aeromonas hydrophila, is a freshwater, Gram-negative bacterial pathogen under revision in regard to its phylogenetic and functional affiliation with other aeromonads. While virulence factors are expectedly diverse across A. hydrophila strains and closely related species, our mechanistic knowledge of the vast majority of these factors is based on the molecular characterization of the strains A. hydrophila AH-3 and SSU, which were reclassified as A. piscicola AH-3 in 2009 and A. dhakensis SSU in 2013. Individually, these reclassifications raise important questions involving the applicability of previous research on A. hydrophila virulence mechanisms; however, this issue is exacerbated by a lack of genomic data on other research strains. Collectively, these changes represent a fundamental gap in the literature on A. hydrophila and confirm the necessity of biochemical, molecular, and morphological techniques in the classification of research strains that are used as a foundation for future research. This review revisits what is known about virulence in A. hydrophila and the feasibility of using comparative genomics in light of this phylogenetic revision. Conflicting data between virulence factors, secretion systems, quorum sensing, and their effect on A. hydrophila pathogenicity appears to be an artifact of inappropriate taxonomic comparisons and/or be due to the fact that these properties are strain-specific. This review audits emerging data on dominant virulence factors that are present in both A. dhakensis and A. hydrophila in order to synthesize existing data with the aim of locating where future research is needed

The Arctic as a test case for an assessment of climate impacts on national security.

The Arctic region is rapidly changing in a way that will affect the rest of the world. Parts of Alaska, western Canada, and Siberia are currently warming at twice the global rate. This warming trend is accelerating permafrost deterioration, coastal erosion, snow and ice loss, and other changes that are a direct consequence of climate change. Climatologists have long understood that changes in the Arctic would be faster and more intense than elsewhere on the planet, but the degree and speed of the changes were underestimated compared to recent observations. Policy makers have not yet had time to examine the latest evidence or appreciate the nature of the consequences. Thus, the abruptness and severity of an unfolding Arctic climate crisis has not been incorporated into long-range planning. The purpose of this report is to briefly review the physical basis for global climate change and Arctic amplification, summarize the ongoing observations, discuss the potential consequences, explain the need for an objective risk assessment, develop scenarios for future change, review existing modeling capabilities and the need for better regional models, and finally to make recommendations for Sandia's future role in preparing our leaders to deal with impacts of Arctic climate change on national security. Accurate and credible regional-scale climate models are still several years in the future, and those models are essential for estimating climate impacts around the globe. This study demonstrates how a scenario-based method may be used to give insights into climate impacts on a regional scale and possible mitigation. Because of our experience in the Arctic and widespread recognition of the Arctic's importance in the Earth climate system we chose the Arctic as a test case for an assessment of climate impacts on national security. Sandia can make a swift and significant contribution by applying modeling and simulation tools with internal collaborations as well as with outside organizations. Because changes in the Arctic environment are happening so rapidly, a successful program will be one that can adapt very quickly to new information as it becomes available, and can provide decision makers with projections on the 1-5 year time scale over which the most disruptive, high-consequence changes are likely to occur. The greatest short-term impact would be to initiate exploratory simulations to discover new emergent and robust phenomena associated with one or more of the following changing systems: Arctic hydrological cycle, sea ice extent, ocean and atmospheric circulation, permafrost deterioration, carbon mobilization, Greenland ice sheet stability, and coastal erosion. Sandia can also contribute to new technology solutions for improved observations in the Arctic, which is currently a data-sparse region. Sensitivity analyses have the potential to identify thresholds which would enable the collaborative development of 'early warning' sensor systems to seek predicted phenomena that might be precursory to major, high-consequence changes. Much of this work will require improved regional climate models and advanced computing capabilities. Socio-economic modeling tools can help define human and national security consequences. Formal uncertainty quantification must be an integral part of any results that emerge from this work

Sustained Observations of Changing Arctic Coastal and Marine Environments and Their Potential Contribution to Arctic Maritime Domain Awareness: A Case Study in Northern Alaska

Increased maritime activities and rapid environmental change pose significant hazards, both natural and technological, to Arctic maritime operators and coastal communities. Currently, U.S. and foreign research activities account for more than half of the sustained hazard-relevant observations in the U.S. maritime Arctic, but hazard assessment and emergency response are hampered by a lack of dedicated hazard monitoring installations in the Arctic. In the present study, we consider a number of different sustained environmental observations associated with research into atmosphere-ice-ocean processes, and discuss how they can help support the toolkit of emergency responders. Building on a case study at Utqiaġvik (Barrow), Alaska, we investigate potential hazards in the seasonally ice-covered coastal zone. Guided by recent incidents requiring emergency response, we analyze data from coastal radar and other observing assets, such as an ice mass balance site and oceanographic moorings, in order to outline a framework for coastal maritime hazard assessments that builds on diverse observing systems infrastructure. This approach links Arctic system science research to operational information needs in the context of the development of a Common Operational Picture (COP) for Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA) relevant for Arctic coastal and offshore regions. A COP in these regions needs to consider threats not typically part of the classic MDA framework, including sea ice or slow-onset hazards. An environmental security and MDA testbed is proposed for northern Alaska, building on research and community assets to help guide a hybrid research-operational framework that supports effective emergency response in Arctic regions.L’augmentation des activités maritimes et l’évolution rapide de l’environnement présentent des risques naturels et technologiques importants pour les opérateurs maritimes et les collectivités côtières de l’Arctique. Actuellement, les travaux de recherche, tant américains qu’étrangers, représentent plus de la moitié des observations prolongées liées aux dangers dans l’Arctique maritime américain, mais l’évaluation des risques et les interventions d’urgence sont entravées par le manque d’installations consacrées à la surveillance des dangers dans l’Arctique. Dans la présente étude, nous nous penchons sur diverses observations environnementales prolongées en matière de recherche sur les processus atmosphère-glace-océan et nous discutons de la façon dont elles peuvent contribuer aux interventions d’urgence. En nous appuyant sur une étude de cas faite à Utqiaġvik (Barrow), en Alaska, nous étudions les risques potentiels inhérents à la zone côtière couverte de glace saisonnière. Motivés par des incidents récents qui ont nécessité des interventions d’urgence, nous analysons les données provenant des radars côtiers et d’autres ressources d’observation, comme un site de bilan de masse des glaciers et des amarrages océanographiques, afin d’établir un cadre pour évaluer les risques maritimes côtiers, cadre qui s’appuie sur diverses infrastructures de systèmes d’observation. Cette approche relie la recherche scientifique sur le système arctique aux besoins d’information opérationnelle dans le contexte du développement d’une image commune de la situation opérationnelle (ICSO) pour la connaissance du domaine maritime (CDM) pertinente des zones côtières et extracôtières de l’Arctique. Une ICSO dans ces zones doit prendre en compte les menaces ne faisant généralement pas partie du cadre classique de la CDM, y compris la glace de mer ou les dangers à évolution lente. En s’appuyant sur des travaux de recherche et l’apport des collectivités, un banc d’essai en matière de sécurité environnementale et de CDM est proposé pour le nord de l’Alaska afin de guider un cadre hybride de recherche et d’opération qui favoriserait une intervention d’urgence efficace dans les régions arctiques

Wevva: Demonstrating Game Design

Fluidic games blur the line between gameplay and game design, providing playful, non-technical, easy-to-use tools for users to design their own games. We introduce Wevva, our first fluidic game for iOS, which allows users to design and share their own games based on novel mechanics, entirely on a mobile device, with no need for programming skills. The development of such software is a significant challenge in user interface design, requiring a new design approach compared to the design of more traditional creative tools, and with much scope for mixed-initiative co-creation and other assistive AI technologies. Our aim with fluidic games is to democratise game design, allowing anyone and everyone to express themselves through the artform of digital games

Mixed-Initiative Approaches to On-Device Mobile Game Design

Playing casual games is a wildly popular activity on smartphones. However, designing casual games is done by a smaller group of people, usually on desktop com-puters, using professional development tools. Our goal is to bring these activities closer together, in terms of who does them and how they do them. Our Gamika Technology platform is a 2D physics-based mobile game design environment. It comprises a 284- dimensional parametric design space, and poses mobile game design as the problem of navigating this space. We have built three mobile apps thus far to experiment with on-device, mixed-initiative navigation of the Gamika design space and some of its subspaces. We describe these apps here in terms of the initiatives that go into making a game with them, and how these are split between people and underlying AI software. Our overall goal is to democratise game design, so that an- yone and everyone can make casual games directly on their mobile phones or tablets

Deciphering the conserved genetic loci implicated in plant disease control through comparative genomics of Bacillus amyloliquefaciens subsp. plantarum

To understand the growth-promoting and disease-inhibiting activities of plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) strains, the genomes of 12 Bacillus subtilis group strains with PGPR activity were sequenced and analyzed. These B. subtilis strains exhibited high genomic diversity, whereas the genomes of B. amyloliquefaciens strains (a member of the B. subtilis group) are highly conserved. A pairwise BLASTp matrix revealed that gene family similarity among Bacillus genomes ranges from 32- 90%, with 2,839 genes within the core genome of B. amyloliquefaciens subsp. plantarum. Comparative genomic analyses of B. amyloliquefaciens strains identified genes that are linked with biological control and colonization of roots and/or leaves, including 73 genes uniquely associated with subsp. plantarum strains that have predicted functions related to signaling, transportation, secondary metabolite production, and carbon source utilization. Although B. amyloliquefaciens subsp. plantarum strains contain gene clusters that encode many different secondary metabolites, only polyketide biosynthetic clusters that encode difficidin and macrolactin are conserved within this subspecies. To evaluate their role in plant pathogen biocontrol, genes involved in secondary metabolite biosynthesis were deleted in B. amyloliquefaciens subsp. plantarum strain, revealing that difficidin expression is critical in reducing the severity of disease, caused by Xanthomonas axonopodis pv. vesicatoria in tomato plants. This study defines genomic features of PGPR strains and links them with biocontrol activity and with host colonization