The Perseverance rover, Mars 2020 mission, landed on the surface of the Jezero Crater, on February, 18th 2021. This Martian crater is suspected to have hosted a paleolake as evidenced by the numerous detections of aqueously-altered phases and thus is a promising candidate for the search for past Martian life. The SuperCam instrument, elaborated by a consortium of American and European laboratories, plays a leading role in this investigation thanks to its highly versatile payload providing rapid, synergistic, fine-scale mineralogy, chemistry, and color imaging. After its landing, the first measurements of Martian targets with the infrared spectrometer of SuperCam (IRS) showed new instrumental behaviors that had to be characterized and calibrated to derive unbiased science data. The IRS radiometric response has thus been calibrated using periodic observations of the Aluwhite SuperCam Calibration Target (SCCT). Parasitic effects were understood and mitigated, and the instrumental dark and noise are characterized and modeled. The reflectance calibrated data products, provided periodically on the NASA Planetary Data System, are corrected from the main instrumental features.

We examine the midlatitude jet stream responses to projected Antarctic and Arctic sea-ice loss and global ocean warming in coordinated multi-model experiments from the Polar Amplification Model Intercomparison Project. Antarctic and Arctic sea-ice loss cause an equatorward shift of the winter jet stream in the southern and northern hemisphere, respectively, on average across the models. Models with stronger eddy feedback simulate farther equatorward jet shifts in response to both Antarctic and Arctic sea-ice loss. The models simulate too weak eddy feedback compared to the real world, particularly in the northern hemisphere, resulting in an underestimation of the boreal jet response to Arctic sea-ice loss. More precise estimates of the jet shifts are obtained by using the observed eddy feedback as a constraint and suggest that the equatorward jet shifts in response to Antarctic and Arctic sea-ice loss exceed in magnitude the opposing poleward shifts due to ocean warming.

This study using Laharz_py program, was performed schematic prediction on the impact area of lahar hazards at the Mt. Halla volcano, Jeju island volcanic field, Korea. In order to comprehensively address the impact of lahar for the Mt. Halla, two distinct parameters, H/L ratio and lahar volume, were selected to influence variable for Laharz_py simulation. It was carried out on the basis of numerical simulation by estimating a possible lahar volumes of 30,000, 50,000, 70,000, 100,000, 300,000, 500,000 m3 according to H/L ratios (0.20, 0.22 and 0.25) was applied. Based on the numerical simulations, the area of the proximal hazard zone boundary is gradually decreased with increasing H/L ratio. The number of streams which affected by lahar tended to decrease with increasing H/L ratio. In the case of H/L ratio 0.20, three streams (Gwangryeong stream, Dogeun stream, Han stream) in the Jeju-si area and six streams (Gungsan stream, Hogeun stream, Seohong stream, Donghong stream, Bomok stream, Yeong stream-Hyodon stream) in the Seogwipo-si area are affected. In the case of H/L ratio 0.22, two streams (Gwangryeong stream and Han stream) in the Jeju-si area and five streams (Gungsan stream, Seohong stream, Donghong stream, Bomok stream, Yeong stream-Hyodon stream) in the Seogwipo-si area are affected. And in the case of H/L ratio 0.25, two streams (Gwangryeong stream and Han stream) in the Jeju-si area and one stream (Yeong stream-Hyodon stream) in the Seogwipo-si area are affected. The results of this study will be used as basic data to create a risk map for the direct damage that can be caused due to volcanic hazards arising from Mt. Halla. This work was funded by the Korea Meteorological Administration Research and Development Program under Grant KMI2018-02710 and supported by a grant ‘Development of Advanced Volcanic Disaster Response System considering Potential Volcanic Risk around Korea’ [MPSS-NH-2015-81] from National Emergency Management Agency of Korea, And This work was supported by Meteorological/Earthquake See-At Technology Development Research Grant KMI2018-02710.

Wildfires affect 40% of the earth’s terrestrial biome, but much of our knowledge of wildfire activity is limited to the satellite era. Improved understanding of past fires is necessary to better understand how wildfires might change with future climate change, to understand ecosystem resilience, and to improve data-model comparisons. Environmental proxy archives can extend our knowledge of past fire activity. Speleothems, naturally occurring cave formations, are widely used in palaeoenvironmental research as they are absolutely dateable, occur on every ice-free continent, and include multiple proxies. Recently, speleothems have been shown to record past fire events (McDonough et al., 2022). Here we present a review of this emerging application in speleothem palaeoenvironmental science. We give a concise overview of fire regimes and traditional palaeofire proxies, describe past attempts to use stalagmites to investigate palaeofire, and describe the physical basis though which speleothems can record past fires. We then describe the ideal speleothem sample for palaeofire research and offer a summary of applicable laboratory and statistical methods. Finally, we present four case studies which detail [1] the geochemistry of ash leachates, [2] how sulphur may be a proxy for post fire ecological recovery, [3] how a catastrophic palaeofire was linked to changes in climate and land management, and [4] demonstrate that deep caves can record past fire events. We conclude the paper by suggesting that speleothem δ18O research may need to consider the impact of fire on δ18O values, and outline future research directions.

Urban-rural nature-based solutions (NBS) have co-benefits for water availability, water quality, and flood management. Searching for optimal integrated urban-rural NBS planning to maximise these co-benefits is important for catchment scale water management. This study develops an integrated urban-rural NBS planning optimisation framework. In this framework, the CatchWat-SD model is developed to simulate a multi-catchment integrated water cycle in the Norfolk region, UK. Three rural (runoff attenuation features, regenerative farming, floodplain) and two urban (urban green space, constructed wastewater wetlands) NBS interventions are integrated into the model at a range of implementation scales. A many-objective optimization problem with seven water management objectives to account for flow, quality and cost indicators is formulated, and the NSGAII algorithm is adopted to search for optimal NBS portfolios. Results show that rural NBS have more significant impacts across the catchment, which increase with the scale of implementation. Integrated urban-rural NBS planning can improve water availability, water quality, and flood management simultaneously, though trade-offs exist between different objectives. Runoff attenuation features and floodplains provide the greatest benefits for water availability. While regenerative farming is most effective for water quality and flood management, though it decreases water availability by up to 15% because it retains more water in the soil. Phosphorus levls are best reduced by expansion of urban green space to decrease loading on combined sewer systems, though this trades off against water availability, flood, nitrogen and suspended solids. The proposed framework enables spatial prioritisation of NBS, which may ultimately guide multi-stakeholder decision-making.

A document by Alexander Thomas Bradley. Click on the document to view its contents.

The Nankai Trough is a locus of slow slips, low frequency, and large-magnitude classical earthquakes. It is assumed that high pore pressure contributes substantially to earthquake dynamics. Hence, a full understanding of the hydraulic regime of the Nankai accretionary prism is needed to understand this diversity of behavior.We contribute to understanding the full hydraulic regime within the Nankai accretionary prism by innovatively integrating the drilling and logging data of the NanTroSEIZE project. We focus on the toe of the Nankai accretionary prism by studying data from hole C0024A drilled during IODP expedition 358. This drilled hole intersected the Nankai décollement at 813 mbsf, about 3 km from the trench. Pore pressure was first estimated using Eaton’s method on both drilling and sonic velocity data. Both results show that pore pressure follows hydrostatics until the top of the hemipelagites, with local pore pressure rising up to 38% above hydrostatic especially crossing the décollement. Downhole Annular Pressure was also monitored during drilling, and a careful reanalysis of its variation shows the occurrence and the locus of fluid flow between the formation and the borehole. Primarily, there are two identified fluid flow anomalies intervals: (1) at the shallow depths <100 mbsf with loose coarse sediments, which could be related to erosional unloading, landslide, slope instability. (2) Below the décollement (<813 mbsf) at the two asymmetric damage zones. The damage zones at the footwalls of the major faults are predominantly permeable with significant porosity and permeability values with orders of magnitude between ∼10−16 to 10−17 m2 as quantitatively estimated using the Hvorslev equation for a fully penetrating well in a confined aquifer. Our results show that the formation fluids are getting significantly over-pressurized only a few hundred meters from the toe of the décollement. The décollement is already impermeable across the fault, and the fluid flow is channelized along the damage zones. The impermeable décollement acts as a hydraulic barrier inhibiting fluid flow upward, keeping high pore pressure at the footwall and increasing the structural weakness of the lithologies. It’s therefore probable that high pressure is also expected further down in the locus of tremors and slow slip events.

A time-domain Boussinesq model was applied to modeling wave interference and its effects on nearshore circulation in San Francisco Bar and the adjacent Ocean Beach, CA. The model predicted the wave interference phenomena caused by the ebb shoal, with interference scales consistent with the Radar observation. Model results reveal that small-scale fingering structures in the wave height distribution result from wave interference and are persistent with nodal lines unchanged with time. Nearshore circulation predicted by the model shows small-scale flow structures tied with the wave modulation patterns. However, the small-scale modulation in the wave field seems not to generate alongshore variation in wave setup at similar scales. Therefore, in a large-scale view, the alongshore currents predicted by the Boussinesq model still keep the general features shown in a wave-averaged model, such as the flow divergence caused by the pressure gradient force associated with the alongshore variation of wave setup. The time-domain Boussinesq model predicted the spatial variability of wave-induced processes. The alongshore-varying wave breakers caused by wave interference are the source of the vorticity generation, inducing energetic vortex eddies nearshore.

A new dynamic model of snow surface temperature known as force-restore model (FRM) is formulated for one-dimensional heat transfer taking into account of the absorption of solar radiation within snowpack. The FRM formula explicitly includes net solar radiation at snow surface and its time derivative compared to the classical FRM of soil surface temperature. When snow surface heat flux is parameterized in terms of snow surface temperature and radiation fluxes, the FRM only uses surface radiation fluxes as the model input. The proposed FRM not only simulates snow surface temperature but also latent (sublimation), sensible and (conductive) snow surface heat flux. The proposed FRM has been validated using in-situ observations for seasonal and perennial snow in the Arctic and Antarctica.

In this work we explore the impact that changes in local climate and river hydrology have on the morphodynamics of a river delta, particularly focusing on the evolution of the delta generating at the lake inlet. We investigated the case of the delta in the lower reach of the Omo River in Ethiopia, which flows into Lake Turkana, Kenya. The lake is the fourth largest lake and the largest desert lake in the world. This case study is of particular interest because within the last decades three dams have been built within the Omo basin. To quantify changes in land use and river morphology and relate these to river hydrology we collect a historical dataset by combining information from different satellite sources. We observed that the amount of bare sediments progressively diminished and the biomass became more dense compared to the existence of sparse biomass in the past. We argue that this is due to the new river hydrology and sediment load imposed by the dam, which increased sediment erosion by deepening the channel. The dam also increased the low flow and reduced peak during flood season reducing the natural oscillations of the water table and the possibility to plant was removed during floods. We also indicate that the new hydrology and reduced sediments have changed, respectively, the downstream (e.g. lake level), and upstream (e.g. mouth bar deposition) boundary conditions controlling the evolution of the delta structure. As a result, the delta morphology became less dynamic and less complex.

With population surge, industrialization and urbanization; use of surfactants has increased manifold. After their use in households and industries, surfactants either end up in sewerage systems or are directly discharged into surface waters. They can hence be found dispersed in water phase or adsorbed onto aquatic sediments and sewage sludge. Due to limited metabolic pathways, most of the common surfactants are not degradable in anaerobic conditions that generally prevail in sewage ingressed water bodies so sludge accumulated in these water bodies after the anaerobic digestion process is rich in surfactants (Ying, 2006, Environ. Int.). Sediment is a complex mixture of organic (bacteria, proteins, humic and fulvic acids, humin, etc.) and inorganic (silica, minerals, metal oxides and hydroxides, aluminosilicates) components. Absorptivity of surfactant depends on the sorbent composition and type of surfactant (Ishiguro & Koopal, 2016, Adv. Colloid Interface Sci.). A crucial question related to surfactant absorption is its reversibility- as to whether the surfactant can desorb. The knowledge of this can be beneficial in understanding the environmental fate of surfactants. The presence of surfactants in water bodies can form foams. Generally, foaming in surface water is a result of a mixture of surfactants from various sources (Schilling & Zessner, 2011, Water Res.). However, contribution of sediment as a source of surfactant in a foaming water body has not been studied adequately. Also, existence of surfactants in water, beyond certain concentrations not only induces unpleasant taste and odor, but also causes undesirable changes in the ecosystem. Thus, it becomes imperative to study the ratio of the surfactant associated with water, to the extent of surfactant associated the sorbent such as sediment/sludge to understand the environmental risk associated with surfactant. This study aims to understand a foaming urban lake which foams only after heavy rainfalls. This study tests the hypothesis that surfactants accumulate in the lake sediment in significant proportions and desorbs upon dilution occurring due to addition of rainwater into the lake. This when churned by heavy runoff causes large quantities of stable foam. This study aims at analyzing the role of lake sediment in foaming of a lake.

Arctic amplification is known to accelerate the hydrological cycle in high-latitude landmass, which eventually leads to increased river discharge into the Arctic Ocean. However, the majority of climate models in Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 5 (CMIP5) tend to underestimate Arctic river discharge. This study elucidates the role of additional Arctic river discharge for the phytoplankton responses in the present and future climate simulations. In the present climate simulation, the additional freshwater input showed a decrease in the phytoplankton in spring due to the increasing sea ice, and in summer, it showed an increase in phytoplankton due to the surplus nitrate leftover from spring and induced vertical mixing. Similar processes occurred in future climate simulations. However, in those simulations, the major response region of phytoplankton to additional freshwater input was altered from the Eurasian Basin to the Canadian Basin and the East-Siberian Sea. This is because the current marginal ice zone in the Barents-Kara Sea, where phytoplankton mainly responds, moves toward the East-Siberian-Chukchi Sea. We suggest that Arctic river discharge is potentially an important contributing factor for Arctic ecosystems in both present and future climate that controls sea ice and nutrient distribution.

The proposed Interstellar Probe mission (ISP) will have unprecedented capabilities to detect and characterize interstellar dust flowing into the heliosphere from the surrounding interstellar medium (ISM). Knowledge of that dust has the potential to substantially advance our understanding of interstellar dust in general and the local ISM in particular. However, the flux of dust that can be observed varies due to the evolving heliosphere and the interaction of the charged grains with the heliospheric magnetic field. We will present the results of calculations of the dust density relative to that in the pristine ISM as a function of time and position for a possible trajectory of ISP. We will show how different polarities of the solar wind magnetic field affect the observed flux and how these depend on distance from the Sun.

Although natural disturbances such as wildfire, extreme weather events, and insect outbreaks play a key role in structuring ecosystems and watersheds worldwide, climate change has intensified many disturbance regimes, which can have compounding negative effects on ecosystem processes and services. Recent studies have highlighted the need to understand whether wildfire increases or decreases after large-scale beetle outbreaks. However, observational studies have produced mixed results. To address this, we applied a coupled ecohydrological-fire regime-beetle effects model (RHESSys-WMFire-Beetle) in a semiarid watershed in the western US. We found that surface fire probability and fire size decreased in the red phase (0-5 years post-outbreak), increased in the gray phase (6-15 years post-outbreak), and depended on mortality level in the old phase (one to several decades post-outbreak). In the gray and old phases, surface fire size and probability did not respond to low levels of beetle-caused mortality (<=20%), increased during medium levels of mortality (>20% and <=50%), and remained elevated but did not change with mortality (during the gray phase) or decreased (during the old phase) when mortality was high (>50%). Wildfire responses also depended on fire regime. In fuel-limited locations, fire typically increased with increasing fuel loads, whereas in fuel-abundant (flammability-limited) systems, fire sometimes decreased due to decreases in fuel aridity. This modeling framework can improve our understanding of the mechanisms driving wildfire responses and aid managers in predicting when and where fire hazards will increase.

Researchers and end users using climate data face a challenge when they analyze the data they need. Data volumes are increasing very rapidly, and the ability to download all needed data is often no longer possible. Most of the climate analysis tools for research and application needs must use very large datasets, often distributed among several data centres and into a large quantity of files. This is especially true when they are stored in a federated architecture like the ESGF. One of these tools is icclim (https://github.com/cerfacs-globc/icclim ), a flexible python software package to calculate climate indices and indicators. This tool adhere as much as possible to metadata conventions such as CF, implementing also provenance information. It also aims at providing increasing support for all FAIR aspects. It is designed with performance and optimisation in mind, because the goal is to provide on-demand calculations for users. It provides the implementation of most of the international standard climate indices such as ECAD, ETCCDI, ET-SCI, including the correct methodology for calculating percentile indices using the bootstrapping method. It has been validated against R.Climdex as well (https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/climdex.pcic/index.html ). The new 5.x version of icclim is now based on functions from the xclim python library, which was inspired by earlier versions of icclim, but using xarray and dask for data access and processing. icclim is also a candidate as the software to calculate climate indices for the C3S toolbox (https://cds.climate.copernicus.eu/cdsapp#!/toolbox ). An example of a complex analysis tool used in climate research and adaptation studies is a tool to follow storm tracks. In the context of climate change, it is important to know if storm tracks will change in the future, in both their frequency and intensity. Storms can cause significant societal impacts, hence it is important to assess future patterns. These tools are integrated in the IS-ENES C4I 2.0 platform (https://climate4impact.eu/ ), using a Jupyter notebook collection in a SWIRRL environment (Software for Interactive Reproducible Research Labs https://gitlab.com/KNMI-OSS/swirrl ). Having access to this type of complex analysis tool is very useful, and integrating them with front-ends like C4I enable the use of those tools by a larger number of researchers and end users. This project (IS-ENES3) has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement N°824084.

Recent improvements in GNSS capabilities of various Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices, including smartphones, have allowed for better PNT performance, as well as for new potential applications in geosciences. In particular, multi-constellation and multi-frequency receivers found in recent generations of smartphones bring great potential for GNSS science exploitation. However, access to IoT data for scientific purposes is currently limited, facing different data processing challenges. The project CAMALIOT: Application of Machine Learning Technology for GNSS IoT Data Fusion addresses these issues in order to increase the usability of GNSS IoT data for scientific purposes. It encompasses the whole pipeline from raw GNSS IoT data collection and development of methods for efficient and automatic processing, to the final suitability demonstration for determination and prediction of atmospheric parameters. In this way, the project will extend the capabilities of the GNSS Science Support Centre (GSSC) of ESA, which offers GNSS data and processing services for various domains. In order to collect raw GNSS IoT data, an Android app has been developed that will be the basis of a crowdsourcing campaign. The data ingestion, processing, and analysis are designed to be highly automated, robust, and scalable. Machine learning is used for several tasks in the processing scheme, including anomaly detection as well as data fusion and prediction. The GNSS IoT data is combined with geodetic GNSS data and external models and datasets related to the atmosphere and space weather to realize global grids of tropospheric parameters (zenith wet delays, gradients, precipitable water vapor) and ionospheric vertical total electron content. This work is funded by the NAVISP Element 1 program of ESA.

Small Island Nations are at considerable risk of climate change impacts from sea-level rise to coral acidification to increasing cyclone intensity; understanding how they will change in the coming century is vital for climate mitigation and resiliency. Atoll morphometrics are calculated for 3,795 motu and 593 reef flats on 154 atolls. The total land (motu) area is 1,836.55 km2 with a total reef flat area of 7,387.43 km2. A consistent methodology to classify, segment, and calculate morphometrics is used. Composites are created for 4 years (2015- 2018), and are classified into motu, reef flat, open water/lagoon via unsupervised classification. Morphometrics are computed for each motu and reef flat of the atoll in python, creating a database of atolls and their associated morphometrics. Consistency in processing removes spatial and user bias, enabling a better understanding of geographic patterns of atolls. We identify trends in atoll, motu, and reef flat formations. The average atoll reef flat width is 850 ± 817 m and the average motu width is 263 ± 210 m. Distinct differences in the distribution of motu can be seen on a regional scale in French Polynesia, while globally, wider reef flats with larger motu are found closest to the equator. Globally there is a consistent reef flat width in front of large motu (> 10 km length) of 188 ±156 m. Our atoll morphometric database creates a baseline of current atoll characteristics that can be expanded upon in the future and used for evaluating temporal changes to atoll islands.

Using advanced meteor radar network observations along with ERA5 data, we report observational evidence of polar to tropical mesospheric teleconnections during the 2018 major sudden stratosphere warming (SSW) event in the northern hemisphere. A peak SSW on February 14, 2018, characterized by a ~ 45 K rise in polar stratosphere temperature and a zonal wind reversal of ~ (–25) m/s at 60°N and 10 hPa, is observed. In the tropical lower mesosphere, a maximum zonal wind reversal (–24 m/s) compared with that identified in the extra-tropical regions was observed. Moreover, a time delay in the wind reversal between the tropical/polar stations and the mid-latitudes was detected. The wind reversal in the mesosphere is due to the propagation of dominant intra-seasonal oscillations (ISOs) of 30–60-days and the presence and superposition of 8-day period planetary waves (PWs). The ISOs phase propagation is observed from the high- to low-latitudes (60°N to 20°N) in contrast to 8-day PWs phase propagation, indicating the change in the meridional propagation of winds during SSW. However, the superposition of dominant ISOs and weak 8-day PWs could be responsible for the delay of the wind reversal in the tropical mesosphere. Therefore, this study has strong implications for understanding the reversed (polar to tropical) mesospheric meridional circulation during SSW.