We present a 700 km airborne electromagnetic survey of late-spring fast ice and sub-ice platelet layer (SIPL) thickness distributions, from McMurdo Sound to Cape Adare, providing a first-time inventory of thickness close to its annual maximum. The overall modal consolidated ice (including snow) thickness was 1.9 m, less than its mean of 2.6±1.0 m. Our survey was partitioned into level and rough ice, and SIPL thickness was estimated under level ice. Although results show a prevalence of level ice, with a mode of 2.0 m and mean of 2.0±0.6 m, rough ice covered 41% of the transect by length, 50% by volume, with a mode of 3.3 m and mean of 3.2±1.2 m. The thickest 10% of rough ice was almost 6 m on average, and a 2 km segment in Moubray Bay had a thickness greater than 8 m, demonstrating the overwhelming influence of deformation against coastal features. The fast ice was thus significantly thicker than adjacent pack ice. The presence of a significant SIPL was observed in Silverfish Bay, offshore Hells Gate Ice Shelf, New Harbour, and Granite Harbour where the SIPL transect volume was a significant fraction (0.30) of the consolidated ice volume. The thickest 10% of SIPLs had an average thickness of nearly 3 m, and near Hells Gate Ice Shelf the SIPL was almost 10 m thick, implying vigorous heat loss to the ocean (~ 90Wm-2). We conclude that polynya-induced deformation and interaction with continental ice influence fast ice thickness in the western Ross Sea.

• Nanoindentation experiments on a high-angle grain boundary (60 • misorientation) in a pure forsterite bicrystal reveal that the interface acts as a source of dislocations. • Nanoindentation experiments on a high-angle grain boundary (60 • misorientation) in a pure forsterite bicrystal reveal that the interface acts as an obstacle to incoming dislocations, leading to pileups of dislocations. • Nanoindentation experiments on a subgrain boundary (13 • misorientation) in a pure forsterite bicrystal do not detect the impact of the interface on dislocations.

Albeit slow and not without its challenges, lead (Pb) emissions and sources in the United States (U.S.) have decreased immensely over the past several decades. Despite the prevalence of childhood Pb poisoning throughout the 20th century, most U.S. children born in the last two decades are significantly better off than their predecessors in regards to Pb exposure. However, this is not equal across demographic groups and challenges remain. Modern atmospheric emissions of Pb in the U.S. are nearly negligible since the banning of leaded gasoline in vehicles and regulatory controls on Pb smelting plants and refineries. This is evident in the rapid decrease of atmospheric Pb concentrations across the U.S over the last four decades. One of the most significant remaining contributors to air Pb is aviation gasoline (avgas), which is minor compared to former Pb emissions. However, continual exposure risks to Pb exist in older homes and urban centers, where leaded paint and/or historically contaminated soils+dusts can still harm children. Thus, while effective in eliminating nearly all primary sources of Pb in the environment, the slow rate of U.S. Pb regulation has led to legacy, secondary sources of Pb in the environment. More proactive planning, communication, and research of commonly used emerging contaminants of concern that can persist in the environment long after their initial use (i.e., PFAS) should be prioritized so that the same mistakes are not made again.

1. This study combines two approaches to explore the utility of Monod growth kinetics to predict competition outcomes between freshwater cyanobacteria and chlorophytes at low iron Fe. Fe threshold concentrations (FeT) below which growth ceases, and growth affinities (slope of Fe concentration vs growth rate near FeT) were estimated for three large-bodied cyanobacteria (two N-fixers and Microcystis) and two chlorophytes in batch cultures. 2. Mean FeT for N-replete cyanobacteria, N-deplete (when N-fixing) cyanobacteria and chlorophytes were 0.076, 0.736 and 0.245 nmol L-1 , respectively. Mean affinities were 0.937, 0.597 and 0.412 L nmol-1 d-1 , respectively. Assuming that the mean affinities are representative of their groups, affinities predict that N-replete cyanobacteria are more efficient at acquiring Fe than chlorophytes and should dominate when Fe is low but greater than their FeT. 3. A second study evaluated the competitive abilities of a pico-cyanobacterium and a third chlorophyte in dual species, serial dilution culture. The pico-cyanobacterium was dominant at 50 nmol L-1 total Fe (which limited both taxa) and 500 nmol L-1 total Fe. At 0.5 nmol L-1 total Fe, a stressful concentration below FeT during most of the incubation, growth rates and cell densities were extremely low but neither had washed out after several months. 4. These results show that Monod kinetics can successfully predict competition outcomes in laboratory settings at low Fe. While important, Monod kinetics are only one mechanism governing competition between cyanobacteria and eukaryotes in natural systems. Observed deviations from Monod predictions can be partially explained with known mechanisms.

Simulating magma propagation pathways requires both a well-calibrated model for the stress state of the volcano and models for dike advance within such a stress field. With the purpose of establishing a framework for calculating computationally efficient and flexible shallow magma propagation scenarios, we develop three-dimensional models for the stress state of volcanoes with complex topographies and edifice histories as well as a new simplified three-dimensional model of dike propagation using the stress state of the volcano as input. Next, we combine all these models to calculate shallow dike propagation scenarios for complex caldera settings. The resulting synthetic magma pathways and eruptive vent locations broadly reproduce the variability observed in natural calderas.

A document by Qianqiu Longyang. Click on the document to view its contents.

Mesoscale eddies are abundant in the global oceans and known to affect marine biogeochemistry. Understanding their cumulative impact on the air-sea carbon dioxide (CO2)  flux is likely important for quantifying the ocean carbon sink. Here, observations and Lagrangian tracking are used to estimate the air-sea CO2 flux of 67 long lived (i.e. > 1 year) mesoscale eddies in the South Atlantic Ocean over a 16 year period. We find that anticyclonic eddies originating from the Agulhas retroflection and cyclonic eddies originating from the Benguela upwelling act as net CO2 sinks over their lifetimes. In combination, the eddies significantly enhanced the CO2 sink into the South Atlantic Ocean by 0.08 ± 0.01%. Although this modification appears small, long lived eddies account for just ~0.4% of global ocean eddies and eddy activity is increasing; therefore, explicitly resolving eddy processes within all models used to assess the ocean carbon sink would appear critical.

Mountain landscapes have dynamic climates that, together with tectonic processes, influence their topographic evolution. While spatio-temporal changes in rainfall are ubiquitous in these settings, their influence on river incision is understudied. Here, we investigate how changes in rainfall pattern should affect both the steady state form and transient evolution of river profiles at the catchment scale using the stream power model. We find that spatially varied rainfall can complicate steady state relationships between mean rainfall, channel steepness and fluvial relief, depending on where rainfall is concentrated in catchments. As a result, transient profile adjustments to climate changes may proceed contrary to typical expectations, which can ultimately affect the apparent sensitivity of landscapes and erosion rates to climate. Additionally, changes in rainfall pattern cause inherently multi-stage transient responses that differ from responses to uniform changes in rainfall. These results have important implications for detecting transient responses to changes in rainfall pattern (and more broadly climate), and for interpreting of landscape morphometrics above and below knickpoints. Further, we find that disparate responses by rivers that experience different rainfall conditions, particularly trunk and tributary rivers, are an important factor in understanding catchment-wide responses, and accounting for such disparities may be important for detecting and quantifying landscape sensitivity to variations in climate. Lastly, we show how explicitly accounting for rainfall patterns in channel steepness indices, and thus variations in erosional efficiency, has potential to help address challenges related to spatially variable rainfall patterns and advance understanding of landscape sensitivity to climate in mountain settings

Evaluating historical simulations from global climate models (GCMs) remains an important exercise for better understanding future projections of climate change and variability in rapidly warming regions, such as the Arctic. As an alternative approach for comparing climate models and observations, we set up a machine learning classification task using a shallow artificial neural network (ANN). Specifically, we train an ANN on maps of annual mean near-surface temperature in the Arctic from a multi-model large ensemble archive in order to classify which GCM produced each temperature map. After training our ANN on data from the large ensembles, we input annual mean maps of Arctic temperature from observational reanalysis and sort the prediction output according to increasing values of the ANN’s confidence for each GCM class. To attempt to understand how the ANN is classifying each temperature map with a GCM, we leverage a feature attribution method from explainable artificial intelligence. By comparing composites from the attribution method for every GCM classification, we find that the ANN is learning regional temperature patterns in the Arctic that are unique to each GCM relative to the multi-model mean ensemble. In agreement with recent studies, we show that ANNs can be useful tools for extracting regional climate signals in GCMs and observations.

The ice stream geometry and large ice surface velocities at the onset region of the Northeast Greenland Ice Stream (NEGIS) are not yet well reproduced by ice sheet models. The quantification of basal sliding and a parametrisation of basal conditions remains a major gap. In this study, we assess the basal conditions of the onset region of the NEGIS in a systematic analysis of airborne ultra-wideband radar data. We evaluate basal roughness and basal return echoes in the context of the current ice stream geometry and ice surface velocity. We observe a change from a smooth to a rougher bed where the ice stream widens, and a distinct roughness anisotropy, indicating a preferred orientation of subglacial structures. In the upstream region, the excess ice mass flux through the shear margins is evacuated by ice flow acceleration and along-flow stretching of the ice. At the downstream part, the generally rougher bed topography correlates with a decrease in flow acceleration and lateral variations in ice surface velocity. Together with basal water routing pathways, this hints to two different zones in this part of the NEGIS: the upstream region collecting water, with a reduced basal traction and downstream, where the ice stream is slowing down and is widening on a rougher bed, with a distribution of basal water towards the shear margins. Our findings support the hypothesis that the NEGIS is strongly interconnected to the subglacial water system in its onset region, but also to the subglacial substrate and morphology.

The tsunami-generated magnetic field is a magnetic field that show up with the moving of tsunami. In the previous studies, researchers claimed that the tsunami-generated magnetic field arrives earlier than the tsunami sea level change based on analytical solutions and numerical simulations. In this paper, we used the world's first simultaneous data of sea level change and magnetic field in the 2009 Samoa and 2010 Chile tsunamis to study the relation between these two physical quantities. We found that the vertical component of tsunami magnetic field arrives earlier than the sea level change. Moreover, the horizontal component of tsunami magnetic field arrives even earlier than the vertical component. The tsunami magnetic field was also revealed that it can be used to estimate the tsunami wave height very accurately. We investigated the observed tsunami magnetic field by our 3-D time-domain simulation. However, the currently existing tsunami source models were unable to reproduce the observation in our research area. We confirmed that a better source model can improve the simulation. It follows that our high precision tsunami wave height data converted from the magnetic field should be used to construct a better tsunami source model.

Long-period (T > 10 s) shear-wave reverberations between the surface and reflecting boundaries below seismic stations are useful for studying the mantle transition zone (MTZ) but finite-frequency effects may complicate the interpretation of waveform stacks. Using waveform data from the USArray and spectral-element method synthetics for 3-D seismic models, we illustrate that a common-reflection point (CRP) modeling of layering in the upper mantle must be based on 3-D reference structures and accurate calculations of reverberation traveltimes. Our CRP mapping of recorded waveforms places the 410-km and 660-km phase boundaries about 15 km deeper beneath the western US than beneath the central-eastern US if it is based on the 1-D PREM model. The apparent east-to-west deepening of the MTZ disappears in the CRP image if we account for shear-wave velocity variations in the mantle. We also find that ray theory overpredicts the traveltime delays of the reverberations if 3-D velocity variations in the mantle are prescribed by global models S40RTS, SEMUCB-WM1, and TX2015. Undulations of the 410-km and 660-km are underestimated in the analysis when their wavelengths are smaller than the Fresnel zones of the wave reverberations in the MTZ.

Clinopyroxene and orthopyroxene are the two major repositories of rare earth elements (REE) in spinel peridotites. Most geochemical studies of REE in mantle samples focus on clinopyroxene. Recent advances in in situ trace element analysis has made it possible to measure REE abundance in orthopyroxene. The purpose of this study is to determine what additional information one can learn about mantle processes from REE abundances in orthopyroxene coexisting with clinopyroxene in residual spinel peridotites. To address this question, we select a group of spinel peridotite xenoliths (9 samples) and a group of abyssal peridotites (12 samples) that are considered residues of mantle melting and that have major element and REE compositions in the two pyroxenes reported in the literature. We use a disequilibrium double-porosity melting model and the Markov chain Monte Carlo method to invert melting parameters from REE abundance in the bulk sample. We then use a subsolidus reequilibration model to calculate REE redistribution between cpx and opx at the extent of melting inferred from the bulk REE data and at the closure temperature of REE in the two pyroxenes. We compare the calculated results with those observed in clinopyroxene and orthopyroxene in the selected peridotitic samples. Results from our two-step melting followed by subsolidus reequilibration modeling show that it is more reliable to deduce melting parameters from REE abundance in the bulk peridotite than in clinopyroxene. We do not recommend the use of REE in clinopyroxene alone to infer the degree of melting experienced by the mantle xenolith, as HREE in clinopyroxene in the xenolith are reset by subsolidus reequilibration. In general, LREE in orthopyroxene and HREE in clinopyroxene are more susceptible to subsolidus redistribution. The extent of redistribution depends on the modes of clinopyroxene and orthopyroxene in the sample and thermal history experienced by the peridotite. By modeling subsolidus redistribution of REE between orthopyroxene and clinopyroxene after melting, we show that it is possible to discriminate mineral mode of the starting mantle and cooling rate experienced by the peridotitic sample. We conclude that endmembers of the depleted MORB mantle and the primitive mantle are not homogeneous in mineral mode. A modally heterogeneous peridotitic starting mantle provides a simple explanation for the large variations of mineral mode observed in mantle xenoliths and abyssal peridotites. Finally, by using different starting mantle compositions in our simulations, we show that composition of the primitive mantle is more suitable for modeling REE depletion in cratonic mantle xenoliths than the composition of the depleted MORB mantle.

Leveraging aerosol data from multiple airborne and surface-based field campaigns encompassing diverse environmental conditions, we calculate statistics of the oxalate-sulfate mass ratio (median: 0.0217; 95% confidence interval: 0.0154 – 0.0296; R = 0.76; N = 2948). Ground-based measurements of the oxalate-sulfate ratio fall within our 95% confidence interval, suggesting the range is robust within the mixed layer for the submicrometer particle size range. We demonstrate that dust and biomass burning emissions can separately bias this ratio towards higher values by at least one order of magnitude. In the absence of these confounding factors, the 95% confidence interval of the ratio may be used to estimate the relative extent of aqueous processing by comparing inferred oxalate concentrations between air masses, with the assumption that sulfate primarily originates from aqueous processing.

Seismic interferometry is a powerful tool to monitor the seismic velocity change associated with volcanic eruptions. For the monitoring, changes in seismic velocity with environmental origins (such as precipitation) are problematic. In order to model the environmental effects, we propose a new technique based on a state-space model. An extended Kalman filter estimates seismic velocity changes as state variables, with a first-order approximation of the stretching method. We apply this technique to three-component seismic records in order to detect the seismic velocity change associated with the Shinmoe-dake eruptions in 2011 and 2018. First, ambient noise cross-correlations were calculated from May 2010 to April 2018. We also modeled seismic velocity changes resulting from precipitation and the 2016 Kumamoto earthquake, with exponential type responses. Most of the results show no significant changes associated with the eruptions, although gradual inflation of the magma reservoir preceded the 2011 eruption by one year. The observed low sensitivity to static stress changes suggests that the fraction of geofluid and crack density at about 1 km depth is small, and the crack shapes could be circular. Only one station pair west of the crater shows the significant drop associated with the eruption in 2011. The gradual drop of seismic velocity up to 0.05% preceded the eruption by one month. When the gradual drop began, volcanic tremors were activated at about 2 km depth. These observations suggest that the drop could be caused by damage accumulation due to vertical magma migration beneath the summit.

Compositional heterogeneities within Europa’s ice shell likely impact the dynamics and habitability of the ice and subsurface ocean, but the total inventory and distribution of impurities within the shell is unknown. In sea ice on Earth, the thermochemical environment at the ice-ocean interface governs impurity entrainment into the ice. Here, we simulate Europa’s ice-ocean interface and bound the impurity load (1.053-14.72 g/kg (parts per thousand weight percent, or ppt) bulk ice shell salinity) and bulk salinity profile of the ice shell. We derive constitutive equations that predict ice composition as a function of the ice shell thermal gradient and ocean composition. We show that evolving solidification rates of the ocean and hydrologic features within the shell produce compositional variations (ice bulk salinities of 5-50% of the ocean salinity) that can affect the material properties of the ice. As the shell thickens, less salt is entrained at the ice-ocean interface, which implies Europa’s ice shell is compositionally homogeneous below ~ 1 km. Conversely, the solidification of water filled fractures or lenses introduces substantial compositional variations within the ice shell, creating gradients in mechanical and thermal properties within the ice shell that could help initiate and sustain geological activity. Our results suggest that ocean materials entrained within Europa’s ice shell affect the formation of geologic terrain and that these structures could be confirmed by planned spacecraft observations.

Models and observations suggest that particle flux attenuation is lower across the mesopelagic zone of anoxic environments compared to oxic environments. Flux attenuation is controlled by microbial metabolism as well as aggregation and disaggregation by zooplankton, all of which also shape the relative abundance of differently sized particles. Observing and modeling particle spectra can provide information about the contributions of these processes. We measured particle size spectrum profiles at one station in the oligotrophic Eastern Tropical North Pacific Oxygen Deficient Zone (ETNP ODZ) using an underwater vision profiler (UVP), a high-resolution camera that counts and sizes particles. Measurements were taken at different times of day, over the course of a week. Comparing these data to particle flux measurements from sediment traps collected over the same time-period allowed us to constrain the particle size to flux relationship, and to generate highly resolved depth and time estimates of particle flux rates. We found that particle flux attenuated very little throughout the anoxic water column, and at some time-points appeared to increase. Comparing our observations to model predictions suggested that particles of all sizes remineralize more slowly in the ODZ than in oxic waters, and that large particles disaggregate into smaller particles, primarily between the base of the photic zone and 500 m. Acoustic measurements of multiple size classes of organisms suggested that many organisms migrated, during the day, to the region with high particle disaggregation. Our data suggest that diel-migrating organisms both actively transport biomass and disaggregate particles in the ODZ core.

Model simulations of past climates are increasingly found to compare well with proxy data at a global scale, but regional discrepancies remain. A persistent issue in modeling past greenhouse climates has been the temperature difference between equatorial and (sub-)polar regions, which is typically much larger in simulations than proxy data suggest. Particularly in the Eocene, multiple temperature proxies suggest extreme warmth in the southwest Pacific Ocean, where model simulations consistently suggest temperate conditions. Here we present new global ocean model simulations at 0.1° horizontal resolution for the middle-late Eocene. The eddies in the high-resolution model affect poleward heat transport and local time-mean flow in critical regions compared to the non-eddying flow in the standard low-resolution simulations. As a result, the high-resolution simulations produce higher surface temperatures near Antarctica and lower surface temperatures near the equator compared to the low-resolution simulations, leading to better correspondence with proxy reconstructions. Crucially, the high-resolution simulations are also much more consistent with biogeographic patterns in endemic-Antarctic and low-latitude-derived plankton, and thus resolve the long-standing discrepancy of warm subpolar ocean temperatures and isolating polar gyre circulation. The results imply that strongly eddying model simulations are required to reconcile discrepancies between regional proxy data and models, and demonstrate the importance of accurate regional paleobathymetry for proxy-model comparisons.