The full length of Parker Ice Tongue on the Victoria Land Coast, Antarctica, calved in March 2020. Calving of this magnitude (18 km) is not previously seen for this location. The mean growth rate (189 m yr-1) indicates that it is now at a historic minimum for at least the last 165 years. The 2020 calving occurred during a complete breakout of the land-fast sea ice. Here we link seasonal changes in ice velocity to the land-fast sea ice extent. With Summer/winter increase/decrease in velocity correlates with decrease/increase in land-fast sea ice extent (-0.62 with R-squared of -0.39). Although Parker Ice Tongue was relatively small compared to other ice tongues in the region, its sensitive behaviour highlights the vulnerability of ice tongues to a changing ocean environment, and poses questions about the future stability of larger floating ice masses if land-fast sea ice extent decreases more broadly in the future.

Course Based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs) are an effective method of teaching students not only content, but also critical thinking, scientific practice, and other skills beneficial to their education and success. They lower the barrier to participation in undergraduate research, thereby increasing access to entry. Thus, CUREs are especially valuable to under-performing students as they are an effective means of bridging the achievement gap. Due to the value and effectiveness of CUREs in student development, Lynn University has implemented a means by which students are exposed to CUREs and skills necessary to complete a CURE throughout the Environmental Studies major curriculum. This presentation will give a description of the curriculum and how CUREs and CURE-required skills are taught throughout the curriculum culminating in a fully independent capstone research project.

In the frame of the Europlanet-RI-2020 program, the VESPA (Virtual European Solar and Planetary Access) team has developed a metadata dictionary dedicated to data discovery in solar system sciences. The dictionary is called EPNcore and includes metadata for data coverage (temporal, spatial, spectral…), data content (target, measured parameter…), data origin (instrument, publisher…) and data access (format, URL…). In order to interoperate with the NASA/PDS4, the main archive information model in planetary sciences, it is first necessary to implement the EPNcore dictionary into the PDS4 information model. This is done with setting up a Local Data Dictionary (LDD). The second step deals with the mapping between terms already defined in the PDS4 information model and the EPNcore dictionary. We present the EPNcore LDD and a first version of the term mapping, as well as a prototype interface to query PDS4 from the VESPA portal. The Europlanet H2020 Research Infrastructure project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 654208.

Laboratory reanalysis of paleomagnetic samples from two sets of superposed ~ 4.5 m.y. old lava flows (N=64) collected on Kauai (Hawaii) in the 1960s, when combined with more recently published results from two additional flow sequences (N=59) on the island, yields a mean paleomagnetic pole that differs significantly from the spin axis. The new laboratory work was motivated by the fact the 60% of the published flow mean directions on the old collection derived from measurements of natural remanent magnetization without any demagnetization treatment. In our reanalysis, we subjected all specimens to stepwise alternating field (AF) demagnetization (13 steps; 90 mT peak AF) and modern line-fit analysis. As has been found in many restudies of this sort on young, well-behaved basaltic lavas, modern demagnetization technique produced little change in the flow-mean directions (an average change of just over 2° in this case.) To minimize the bias introduced when rapidly erupted flow sequences sample a single geomagnetic field direction, we thinned the combined data by grouping superposed flows with similar paleomagnetic directions. The procedure requires choosing a minimum angle between directions that will be considered independent samples of the ancient geomagnetic field. Previous studies have commonly used a 6° threshold. We found, however, that much larger values (10° to 16°) were needed to eliminate significant serial correlation (measured in several ways) in the thinned directional sequence. Our conclusion is that the 123 lava flows in this study provide only 33 independent estimate of the ancient field direction. The mean normal polarity paleomagnetic pole resulting from the analysis (Lon=076.8, Lat=82.2, N=13) is almost perfectly antiparallel (179°) to the mean reverse polarity pole (Lon=258.4, Lat=-83.2, N=20). The grand mean of 33 normal and reverse polarity data is Lon=077.3 Lat=82.8 k=31.8 α95=4.5°. The VGP dispersion (without correction for within-site dispersion, of order 0.5° for these very well-behaved paleomagnetic recorders) is 14.3° about the mean pole and 15.9° about the spin axis, comparable to that found in other analyses of Hawaiian paleomagnetic data.

The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is one of the most essential mechanisms influencing our climate system. By comparing constant depth (z-AMOC) and density (ρ-AMOC) frameworks under pre-industrial, historical and abrupt 4xCO2 scenarios we analyze how the circulation mean state and variability differ amongst them. Water mass transformations are also assessed as a matter of analyzing surface-induced and interior-mixing-induced transformations. As expected, both location and strength of AMOC maxima are deeply affected by the framework choice, with the AMOC reaching a maximum transport of 21 Sv at around 35°N under constant depth coordinates, as opposed to ∼25 Sv at 55°N when diagnosed from density surfaces for both pre-industrial and historical climate. When quadrupling the CO2, both frameworks exhibit an abrupt AMOC weakening followed by a steady recovery to maximum values of 10-15 Sv. The z-AMOC maxima timeseries correlates more with those at 26°N (r ∼0.7) than with the ρ-AMOC maxima (r ∼-0.3), due to the flatter isopycnals in the z framework even in the subpolar North Atlantic, where isopycnals are, in fact, steeper. Based on this discrepancy, we argue that the density framework is more coherent to the physics of this circulation by directly incorporating water mass transformations and their density structure. We suggest that more analysis across timescales and under different conditions must be performed with density surface outputs being provided by as many models as possible, to enable a more comprehensive analysis of these two frameworks and their applications.

North Atlantic sea-surface temperatures (SSTs) exhibit variability on seasonal to decadal timescales, providing a potential source of predictability for the atmospheric circulation and regional climate on these timescales. Recent work has shown that initialized climate models have skill in predicting the decadal evolution of North Atlantic SSTs [1], but this will only help to predict regional climate in the surrounding continents if models can correctly simulate the atmospheric response to these SST anomalies. There is growing evidence that models systematically underestimate the atmospheric response to extratropical SST anomalies [2], and that this may be rectified by increasing the atmospheric resolution to resolve mesoscale processes over ocean frontal zones [3]. Here, we investigate the large-scale atmospheric circulation response to idealized Gulf Stream SST anomalies in two configurations of the Community Atmospheric Model (CAM6), one with 1-degree resolution globally and one with regional grid refinement of 1/8-degree over the North Atlantic. The variable resolution configuration, which resolves mesoscale atmospheric processes, shows a large negative response of the wintertime North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) to a strengthening of the SST gradient across the Gulf Stream (a 2-standard-deviation NAO anomaly for SST anomalies that vary between ±2°C). The response is substantially weaker and has a different spatial structure in the lower resolution simulations. The large-scale atmospheric circulation response in the variable resolution simulations results from mesoscale processes that enhance convection over the Gulf Stream and lead to latent-heating and divergence anomalies in the upper troposphere. These results suggest that the atmospheric circulation response to extratropical SST anomalies may be fundamentally different at higher resolution. Regional refinement in key regions offers a potential pathway towards improving simulation of the atmospheric response to extratropical SST anomalies and thus improving multi-year regional climate predictions. [1] Yeager, S.G., et al., 2018, https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-17-0098.1. [2] Simpson, I.R., et al., 2018, https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-18-0168.1. [3] Czaja, A., et al., 2019, https://doi.org/10.1007/s40641-019-00148-5.

How do formal and informal land use changes have the potential to create unique, and potentially synergistic, risks to communities? Traditionally environmental geochemists privilege certain analytical approaches to evaluate the risk in a system, but when using a participatory approach, the emphasis is instead placed on using the “just right” tools co-discovered with members of the community. In this study we partnered with the LEAD Agency, an environmental advocacy group with a long history of co-designing research agendas to address community concerns to study trace legacy metals in floodplain soils at the Tar Creek Superfund Site in Ottawa County, Oklahoma. At Tar Creek, large mine waste (chat) piles and acid mine seepage have contaminated surrounding communities with zinc, lead, and cadmium. Heavy metal contamination of floodplains at mining sites like Tar Creek involve a complex set of biogeochemical interactions that are controlled by land use patterns (e.g. reworking chat piles and downstream dams), transport pathways, and changing climate making it difficult to prioritize interventions aimed at reducing exposure. Using a participatory research approach, this study integrates (1) community initiated geochemical investigation of wind transportable Pb, (2) monitoring of nutrient loading to assess potential for eutrophication, which would increase metal transport and mobility in Tar Creek, and (3) examines the connections between social and political issues at Tar Creek and how these affect both scientific research and what remediation strategies are tenable. Our action based research aims to support our community partners in their goals:(1) to establish the Rights of Tar Creek through LEAD’s Clean Water Protection Ordinance, which would establish the right to clean water and legally recognize the rights of Tar Creek to exist, regenerate, and flourish, and (2) to expand the EPA’s definition of OU5, which would increase funding for remediation in Ottawa County.

The eWaterCycle platform(https://www.ewatercycle.org/) is a fully Open Source system designed explicitly to advance the state of Open and FAIR Hydrological modelling. Reproducibility is a key ingredient of FAIR, and one of the driving principles of eWaterCycle. While working with Hydrologists to create a fully Open and FAIR comparison study, we noticed that many ad-hoc tools and scripts are used to create input (forcing, parameters) for a hydrological model from the source datasets such as climate reanalysis and land-use data. To make this part of the modelling process better reproducible and more transparent we have created a common forcing input processing pipeline based on an existing climate model analysis tool: ESMValTool (https://www.esmvaltool.org/). Using ESMValTool the eWaterCycle platform can perform commonly required pre-processing steps such as cropping, re-gridding, and variable derivation in a standardized manner. If needed, it also allows for custom steps for a Hydrological model. Our pre-processing pipeline directly supports commonly used datasets such as ERA-5, ERA-Interim, and CMIP climate model data, and creates ready-to-run forcing data for a number of Hydrological models. Besides creating forcing data, the eWaterCycle platform allows scientists to run Hydrological models in a standardized way using Jupyter notebooks, wrapping the models inside a container environment, and interfacing to these using BMI, the Basic Model Interface (https://bmi.readthedocs.io/). The container environment (based on Docker) stores the entire software stack, including the operating system and libraries, in such a way that a model run can be reproduced using an identical software environment on any other computer. The reproducible processing of forcing and a reproducible software environment are important steps towards our goal of fully reproducible, Open, and FAIR Hydrological modelling. Ultimately, we hope to make it possible to fully reproduce a Hydrological model experiment from data pre-processing to analysis, using only a few clicks.

In West Africa, lakes and reservoirs play a vital role as they are critical resources for drinking water, livestock, irrigation and fisheries. Given the scarcity of in situ data, satellite remote sensing is an important tool for monitoring lake volume changes in this region. Several methods have been developed to do this using water height and area relationships, but few publications have compared their performance over small and medium-sized lakes. In this work we compare four methods based on recent data from the Pleiades, Sentinel-2 and -3, ICESat-2 and GEDI missions over 16 lakes in the Central Sahel, ranging in area from 0.22 km² to 21 km². All methods show consistent results and are generally in good agreement with in situ data (height RMSE and volume NRMSE mostly below 0.30m and 11% respectively). The obtained height-area relationships show very little noise (fit RMSD mostly below 0.10m), except for the Sentinel-3-based method which tends to produce higher dispersion. The precision of the estimated water height is about 0.20m for Pleiades Digital Surface Models (DSMs) and less than 0.13m for the other methods. In addition, fine shape patterns are consistently observed over small height amplitudes, highlighting the ability to monitor shallow lakes with non-linear bathymetric behavior. Inherent limitations such as DSM quality, temporal coverage of DSM and lidar data, and spatial coverage of radar altimetry data are identified. Finally, we show that the combination of lidar and radar altimetry-based methods has great potential for estimating water volume changes in this region.

We will present signal processing techniques based on shape analysis of the time-frequency signatures of chorus elements in the Van Allen Radiation Belts. Specifically, we will employ the Radon transform and the Distance Transform, which are well-known for isolating local shapes and patterns in the image processing literature, to achieve automated detection of the spectral morphology of chorus elements. In particular, we will introduce “shrink-wrapping” techniques that quantify the salient features defining the microstructure of chorus elements. We will present preliminary results based on case studies of the EMFISIS data from the Van Allen Radiation Belts mission.

Mineral hazards are a common, yet often less-recognized group of features compared to other types of natural and man-made hazards. We define “mineral hazards” in part as minerals and elements that occur naturally in elevated, potentially harmful, concentrations in rocks, soils, and certain fluids. Also included are features from human activities related to extraction of mineral and energy resources. Along with its large human population, extensive development, and diverse natural environment, California is very complex geologically, thus it contains many areas of mineral hazards that make it appropriate for such a study. Although mineral hazards have been investigated over several decades by the California Geological Survey (CGS), no systematic statewide assessment had been accomplished until recently when, at the request of the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), the CGS completed a preliminary assessment of potential mineral hazards over the entire state. This work focused on natural and man-made minerals-related features that might adversely affect construction, use, and maintenance of state and federal highways under Caltrans jurisdiction. The features evaluated include: 1) geologic units that may contain naturally-occurring asbestos (NOA), fibrous erionite, or elevated concentrations of regulated metals (Ag, Ba, Be, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Hg, Mo, Ni, Pb, Tl, V, Zn) and metalloids (As, Sb, Se); 2) faults, which can be sites of increased potential for certain types of mineralization; 3) mines and prospects, which can be sources of anomalous concentrations of metals and ore-processing chemicals; 4) oil and natural-gas seeps; 5) thermal springs and fumaroles; and 6) oil, natural-gas, and geothermal wells. The methods and products developed during the Caltrans study can be applied worldwide to many other uses besides highways where there are obligations to protect public health and safety and the environment. The products include maps that highlight types and locations of potential mineral hazards, digital data in GIS format, and accompanying reports that provide details and additional information. Although they do not indicate risk or probability, these products can be applied by users from many backgrounds as screening tools to assess potential for the presence of mineral hazards.

The volume, extent and age of Arctic sea ice is in decline, yet winter sea ice production appears to have been increasing, despite Arctic warming being most intense during winter months. Several negative feedback processes help to restore Arctic sea ice volume during the winter, though previous work suggests that these mechanisms will be overwhelmed by warming in the future, leading to a fall in ice production. Here, we analyse winter ice production in the Kara and Laptev seas–sometimes referred to as Arctic “ice factories”, for their outsized role in supplying the Arctic Ocean with young sea ice. Using the Community Earth System Model’s Large Ensemble (CESM-LE), we develop a simple linear model that can explain both the forced rise and forced fall of ice production, in terms of consistent physics. We apply our linear model to observation-based estimates of the same climate variables; our reconstruction of ice production suggests that–just as in CESM-LE–we are currently passing the peak of ice production in the Kara and Laptev seas.

There is no consensus on the physical mechanisms controlling the scale at which convective activity organizes near the Equator, where the Coriolis parameter is small. High resolution cloud-permitting simulations of non-rotating convection show the emergence of a dominant length scale, which has been referred to as convective self-aggregation. Furthermore, simulations in an elongated domain of size 12228km x 192km with a 3km horizontal resolution equilibrate to a wave-like pattern in the elongated direction, where the cluster size becomes independent of the domain size. These recent findings suggest that the size of convective aggregation may be regulated by physical mechanisms, rather than artifacts of the model configuration, and thus within the reach of physical understanding. We introduce a diagnostic framework relating the evolution of the length scale of convective aggregation to the net radiative heating, the surface enthalpy flux, and horizontal energy transport. We evaluate these length scale tendencies of convective aggregation in twenty high-resolution cloud-permitting simulations of radiative-convective equilibrium. While both radiative fluxes contribute to convective aggregation, the net longwave radiative flux operates at large scales (1000-5000 km) and stretches the size of moist and dry regions, while the net shortwave flux operates at smaller scales (500-2000 km) and shrinks it. The surface flux length scale tendency is dominated by convective gustiness, which acts to aggregate convective activity at smaller scales (500-3000 km). We further investigate the scale-by-scale radiative tendencies in a suite of nine mechanism denial experiments, in which different aspects of cloud radiation are homogenized or removed across the horizontal domain, and find that liquid and ice cloud radiation can individually aggregate convection. However, only ice cloud radiation can drive the convective cluster to scales exceeding 5000 km, because of the high optical thickness of ice, and the increase in coherence between water vapor and deep convection with horizontal scale. The framework presented here focuses on the length scale tendencies rather than a static aggregated state, which is a step towards diagnosing clustering feedbacks in the real world. Overall, our work underscores the need to observe and simulate surface fluxes, radiative and advective fluxes across the 1km-1000km range of scales to better understand the characteristics of turbulent moist convection.

Simple models of fluid and solid mechanics predict that the depressurization of a shallow reservoir that occurs during large effusive eruptions produces exponential trends in time series of both pressure drop and extruded volume. These models are attractive due to their simplicity and because they can explain geodetic and extruded volume data recorded at several volcanoes like at St. Helens and Cordón Caulle, regardless of their magma compositions. However, several lava and dome-forming eruptions like at Redoubt, Hekla and Santiaguito volcanoes do not show clear ground deformation coeval to lava and dome effusion despite the extrusion of at least 0.1 km3 DRE of magma. This apparent paradox can be explained by a variety of factors including deep magma sources and highly compressible magmas that leave no geodetic footprint. Here we explore the role of magma buoyancy with a reanalysis of ALOS-1, TerraSAR-X and RADARSAT-2 InSAR ground deformation and Pleiades DEM data of the VEI 5 Plinian and dome forming rhyolitic eruption of Chaitén volcano in 2008-2009. We show that almost all of the recorded ground deformation occurred during the first three weeks of the eruption, which implies that the extrusion of a rhyolitic dome (~0.8 km3 DRE) did not result in significant depressurization of a magma reservoir, despite the clear exponential trends in the extrusion data. Instead, we show that the exponential trend in the time series of extruded volume can be explained by magma ascending due its buoyancy instead of its overpressure. These results imply that ground deformation alone is not always indicative of the temporal evolution of an eruption and urges for the acquisition of denser time series of DEM data to calculate time-lapse extrusion rates.

This study develops a physics-informed neural network (PINN) model to efficiently generate high-fidelity local circulation patterns in Taiwan while preserving an accurate representation of the physical relationship between generated local turbulence and upstream synoptic flow regimes. Large ensemble semi-realistic simulations were conducted using a high-resolution (2 km) TaiwanVVM model, in which the critical characteristics of the various synoptic flow regimes are carefully selected to concentrate on the effects of local circulation variations. A variational autoencoder (VAE) was constructed to capture essential representations of local circulation scenarios associated with the lee vortices by training on the ensemble dataset. The VAE’s latent space effectively encapsulated synoptic flow regimes as controlling factors, aligning with the physical understanding of Taiwan’s local circulation. The critical transition of flow regimes under the southeasterly synoptic flow regimes is also well represented in the VAE’s latent space, indicating that the VAE can learn the nonlinear characteristics of the multiscale interaction of the lee vortex. We further construct a reduced-order model for local circulation predictions under diverse synoptic conditions. This physics-informed VAE ensures the accurate prediction of the nonlinear characteristics of multiscale interactions between synoptic flows and the turbulence induced by topography, thereby accelerating the assessment of the local circulation responses under various climate change scenarios.

New Zealand atmospheric river (AR) lifecycles are analyzed to examine the synoptic conditions that produce extreme precipitation and regular flooding. An AR lifecycle tracking algorithm, novel to the region, is utilized to identify the genesis location of New Zealand ARs: the location where moisture fluxes enhance and become distinct synoptic features capable of producing impactful weather conditions. Genesis locations of ARs that later impact New Zealand cover a broad region extending from the Southern Indian Ocean (90°E) into the South Pacific (170°W) with the highest genesis frequency being in the Tasman Sea. The most impactful ARs, associated with heavy precipitation, tend to originate from distinct regions based on landfall location. Impactful North Island ARs tend to originate from subtropical regions to the northwest of New Zealand, while impactful South Island ARs are associated with genesis over southeast Australia. The synoptic conditions of impactful AR genesis are identified with North Island ARs typically associated with a cyclone in the central Tasman Sea along with a distant, persistent low pressure off the coast of West Antarctica. South Island AR genesis typically occurs in conjunction with moist conditions over Australia associated with a zonal synoptic-scale wavetrain. The Madden–Julian oscillation (MJO) is examined as a potential source of variability that modulates New Zealand AR lifecycles. It appears that the MJO modulates AR characteristics, especially during Phase 5, typically bringing more frequent, slow moving ARs with greater moisture fluxes to the North Island of New Zealand.

Unlike actual rainfall, the spatial extent of rainfall maps is often determined by administrative and political boundaries. Similarly, data from commercial microwave links (CMLs) is usually acquired on national basis and exchange among countries is limited. Up to now, this has prohibited the generation of transboundary CML-based rainfall maps despite the great extension of networks across the world. We present CML based rainfall maps for the first time, using independent CML data sets from Germany and the Czech Republic. For homogenization we apply three increasingly effective algorithms of filtering and time series interpolation. We show that straightforward algorithms used for homogenisation strongly reduce anomalies in the results. Furthermore, we find that after the homogenization and joint processing, CML-based rainfall maps can be generated which seamlessly visualize a rainfall event traversing the German-Czech border. This displays the potential for large scale (e.g. continental) CML-based rainfall estimation.

To improve surface mass balance (SMB) estimates for the Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS), we develop a spatially and temporally high resolution polar regional climate model combining the Japan Meteorological Agency Non-Hydrostatic atmospheric Model and the Snow Metamorphism and Albedo Process model (NHM–SMAP). At present, the horizontal resolution of the model is set to be 5 km with the temporal interval of 1-hour. The model forced by the Japanese 55year Reanalysis (JRA-55) has been evaluated in the GrIS during the 2011–2014 mass balance years using in-situ surface meteorological and stake measurement data [1]. Results show that the model reproduced the measured features of the GrIS climate, diurnal variations, and even a meso-scale strong wind event. In particular, it reproduces the GrIS surface melt area extent well. Recently, near real-time calculations with the model are conducted operationally. Here we introduce the concept and framework of the model, then present performance of the model from various aspects. In addition, some new results from the operational near-real time calculations will be shown and discussed. Reference [1] Niwano et al. (2018) NHM-SMAP: Spatially and temporally high resolution non-hydrostatic atmospheric model coupled with detailed snow process model for Greenland Ice Sheet. The Cryosphere, 12, 635-655, doi:10.5194/tc-12-635-2018.