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

Preliminary systems engineering evaluations for the National Ecological Observatory Network.

The National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) is an ambitious National Science Foundation sponsored project intended to accumulate and disseminate ecologically informative sensor data from sites among 20 distinct biomes found within the United States and Puerto Rico over a period of at least 30 years. These data are expected to provide valuable insights into the ecological impacts of climate change, land-use change, and invasive species in these various biomes, and thereby provide a scientific foundation for the decisions of future national, regional, and local policy makers. NEON's objectives are of substantial national and international importance, yet they must be achieved with limited resources. Sandia National Laboratories was therefore contracted to examine four areas of significant systems engineering concern; specifically, alternatives to commercial electrical utility power for remote operations, approaches to data acquisition and local data handling, protocols for secure long-distance data transmission, and processes and procedures for the introduction of new instruments and continuous improvement of the sensor network. The results of these preliminary systems engineering evaluations are presented, with a series of recommendations intended to optimize the efficiency and probability of long-term success for the NEON enterprise

The James Webb Space Telescope Mission

Twenty-six years ago a small committee report, building on earlier studies, expounded a compelling and poetic vision for the future of astronomy, calling for an infrared-optimized space telescope with an aperture of at least $4m$. With the support of their governments in the US, Europe, and Canada, 20,000 people realized that vision as the $6.5m$ James Webb Space Telescope. A generation of astronomers will celebrate their accomplishments for the life of the mission, potentially as long as 20 years, and beyond. This report and the scientific discoveries that follow are extended thank-you notes to the 20,000 team members. The telescope is working perfectly, with much better image quality than expected. In this and accompanying papers, we give a brief history, describe the observatory, outline its objectives and current observing program, and discuss the inventions and people who made it possible. We cite detailed reports on the design and the measured performance on orbit.Comment: Accepted by PASP for the special issue on The James Webb Space Telescope Overview, 29 pages, 4 figure

The Science Performance of JWST as Characterized in Commissioning

This paper characterizes the actual science performance of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), as determined from the six month commissioning period. We summarize the performance of the spacecraft, telescope, science instruments, and ground system, with an emphasis on differences from pre-launch expectations. Commissioning has made clear that JWST is fully capable of achieving the discoveries for which it was built. Moreover, almost across the board, the science performance of JWST is better than expected; in most cases, JWST will go deeper faster than expected. The telescope and instrument suite have demonstrated the sensitivity, stability, image quality, and spectral range that are necessary to transform our understanding of the cosmos through observations spanning from near-earth asteroids to the most distant galaxies.Comment: 5th version as accepted to PASP; 31 pages, 18 figures; https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1538-3873/acb29

Psychological Bias as a Driver of Financial Regulation

I propose here the psychological attraction theory of financial regulation—that regulation is the result of psychological biases on the part of political participants—voters, politicians, bureaucrats, and media commentators; and of regulatory ideologies that exploit these biases. Some key elements of the psychological attraction approach are: salience and vividness, omission bias, scapegoating and xenophobia, fairness and reciprocity norms, overconfidence, and mood effects. This approach further emphasizes emergent effects that arise from the interactions of individuals with psychological biases. For example, availability cascades and ideological replicators have powerful effects on regulatory outcomes

Elevated atmospheric CO 2 affects soil microbial diversity associated with trembling aspen

The effects of elevated atmospheric CO 2 (560 p.p.m.) and subsequent plant responses on the soil microbial community composition associated with trembling aspen was assessed through the classification of 6996 complete ribosomal DNA sequences amplified from the Rhinelander WI free-air CO 2 and O 3 enrichment (FACE) experiments microbial community metagenome. This in-depth comparative analysis provides an unprecedented, detailed and deep branching profile of population changes incurred as a response to this environmental perturbation. Total bacterial and eukaryotic abundance does not change; however, an increase in heterotrophic decomposers and ectomycorrhizal fungi is observed. Nitrate reducers of the domain bacteria and archaea, of the phylum Crenarchaea , potentially implicated in ammonium oxidation, significantly decreased with elevated CO 2 . These changes in soil biota are evidence for altered interactions between trembling aspen and the microorganisms in its surrounding soil, and support the theory that greater plant detritus production under elevated CO 2 significantly alters soil microbial community composition.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/71918/1/j.1462-2920.2007.01512.x.pd

Guideline-directed therapies for comorbidities and clinical outcomes among individuals with atrial fibrillation

BackgroundComorbidities are common in patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) and affect prognosis, yet are often undertreated. However, contemporary rates of use of guideline-directed therapies (GDT) for non-AF comorbidities and their association with outcomes are not well described.MethodsWe used the Outcomes Registry for Better Informed Treatment of AF (ORBIT-AF) to test the association between GDT for non-AF comorbidities and major adverse cardiac or neurovascular events (MACNE; cardiovascular death, myocardial infarction, stroke/thromboembolism, or new-onset heart failure), all-cause mortality, new-onset heart failure, and AF progression. Adjustment was performed using Cox proportional hazards models and logistic regression.ResultsOnly 6,782 (33%) of the 20,434 patients eligible for 1 or more GDT for non-AF comorbidities received all indicated therapies. Use of all comorbidity-specific GDT was highest for patients with hyperlipidemia (75.6%) and lowest for those with diabetes mellitus (43.1%). Use of "all eligible" GDT was associated with a nonsignificant trend toward lower rates of MACNE (HR 0.90 [0.79-1.02]) and all-cause mortality (HR 0.90 [0.80-1.01]). Use of GDT for heart failure was associated with a lower risk of all-cause mortality (HR 0.77 [0.67-0.89]), and treatment of obstructive sleep apnea was associated with a lower risk of AF progression (OR 0.75 [0.62-0.90]).ConclusionsIn AF patients, there is underuse of GDT for non-AF comorbidities. The association between GDT use and outcomes was strongest in heart failure and obstructive sleep apnea patients where use of GDT was associated with lower mortality and less AF progression