The Earth’s magnetosheath and cusps are the sources of soft X-rays. In the accompanying paper (Part 1) and this paper, we discuss the methods of finding the magnetopause position by analyzing the X-ray images. We use the software developed for the Soft X-ray Imager (SXI) on board the forthcoming Solar wind - Magnetosphere - Ionosphere Link Explorer (SMILE) mission. We show how to find the maximum SXI count rate in noisy count maps. We verify the assumption that the maximum of the X-ray emissivity integrated along the Line-of-Sight (Ix) is tangent to the magnetopause. We consider two cases using two MHD models and apply different methods of magnetospheric masking. Overall, the magnetopause is located close to the maximum Ix gradient or between the maximum Ix gradient and the maximum Ix depending on the method used. But since the angular distance between the maximum Ix gradient and the maximum Ix is relatively small (about 3{degree sign}), the maximum Ix might be used as an indicator of the outer boundary of a wide magnetopause layer usually obtained in MHD simulations.

Recent estimates of the crustal thickness of Mars show a bimodal result of either ∼20 km or ∼40 km beneath the InSight lander. We propose an approach based on random matrix theory applied to receiver functions to further constrain the subsurface structure. Assuming a spiked covariance model for our data, we first use the phase transition properties of the singular value spectrum of random matrices to detect coherent arrivals in the waveforms. Examples from terrestrial data show how the method works in different scenarios. We identify three new converted arrivals in the InSight data, including the second multiply reflected phase from a deeper third interface. We then use this information to jointly invert receiver functions with the absolute S-wave velocity information in the polarization of body waves. Results show a crustal thickness of 43±5 km beneath the lander with two mid-crustal interfaces at depths of 8.5±1.5 km and 22±3 km.

The magnetopause standoff distance characterizes global magnetospheric compression and deformation in response to changes in the solar wind dynamic pressure and interplanetary magnetic field orientation. We cannot derive this parameter from in-situ spacecraft measurements. However, time-series of the magnetopause standoff distance can be obtained in the near future using observations by soft X-ray imagers. In two companion papers, we describe methods of finding the standoff distance from X-ray images. In Part 1, we present the results of MHD simulations which we use for the calculation of the X-ray emissivity in the magnetosheath and cusps. Some MHD models predict relatively high density in the magnetosphere, larger than observed in the data. Correcting this, we develop magnetospheric masking methods to separate the magnetosphere from the magnetosheath and cusps. We simulate the X-ray emissivity in the magnetosheath for different solar wind conditions and dipole tilts.

This study investigated the synchronous responses of vegetation to extreme temperatures and/or precipitation in the middle to high latitudes of Asia using semi-monthly observations of the leaf area index (LAI) from 1982 to 2016. The extreme states of vegetation and climate were specified using standard anomalies of the annual cycle removed variables. The results show that the area with the maximum/minimum LAI increased or decreased in correspondence with global warming. The LAI reached its maximum mostly in spring and autumn, and its minimum in summer. Generally, extreme cold and/or wet conditions inhibited forest and crop growth in the area south of 60°N, particularly from October to November. In contrast, extremely hot and/or dry conditions promoted forest growth, particularly in the central and northern parts of Siberia from August to September. However, in the arid areas of Central Asia and the Mongolian Highlands which are covered mainly by sparse vegetation and grasses, low temperature extremes and/or strong precipitation promoted vegetation growth, while high temperature extremes and/or low precipitation had adverse effects on vegetation growth. The compound extreme climates of hot-and-dry and cold-and-wet were more frequent than the cold-and-dry and hot-and-wet climates. The overall positive response of vegetation was superior to that of the negative response. The results of this study suggest a continuous increase in vegetation density and coverage over the boreal region in the future if the warming trend persists. The consequent climate feedback at regional and global scales should be given more attention.

The Radiative-Convective Equilibrium (RCE) of two models exhibiting convective aggregation has been compared. The goal of the work, following the suggestion from the Radiative-Convective Equilibrium Model Intercomparison Project (RCEMIP), is to identify key parameters controlling self-aggregation in RCE for both models and discuss the processes controlled by these parameters in order to find the simulations similarities and to test their differences. The two models studied, the SAM (System for Atmospheric Modeling) and the ARPS (Advanced Regional Prediction System), have different physical and numerical formulations. This allowed us to compare the sensitivity to processes related to self-aggregation. When self-aggregation occurs, the two models present similar statistics for what concerns precipitation, warming, and drying of the atmosphere and anvil cloud area reduction (leading to an “Iris effect’), within the spread of the RCEMIP values. On the other hand, they differ both in the degree of organization and the organization feedback: SAM is strongly organized (is on the highest quartile of the RCEMIP for the Iorg Index) and the convective organization is achieved by cloud-radiative feedback; ARPS is weakly organized (on the multi-model average of the RCEMIP for the Iorg Index) and the moisture-convection feedback is leading to the convective organization. The prevalence of one mechanism over the other has been found in the interaction between the microphysics and the sub-cloud layer properties. This comparison suggests that, in order to have a robust measure of climate sensitivity, climate models should include both types of convective organization mechanisms as shown by the two models.

These are the slides used in the RBSP Online Seminar presentation (March 25, 2022), which describe ray tracing calculations to study VLF wave dynamics in the magnetosphere.

With the advent of the array-based methods, the observations of leaky modes from earthquake records and ambient noise are frequently reported. It is urgently needed to have an effective guide to the selection of certain leaky modes to put into practical inversion combined with other imaging methods. To this end the excitation of leaky modes for multi-layered models is theoretically investigated. By computing theoretical seismograms for different source mechanisms and different source depths with the discrete wavenumber method and the normal-mode summation method separately, the contribution of leaky modes to the resultant seismograms is qualitatively evaluated and the effect of the source depth for the same source mechanism is in detail examined. Further, we perform accurate computation of leaky modes for two models and categorize the leaky modes into PL and OP (organ-pipe) modes, whose distinctive properties are characterized both from the attenuation and from the eigen-displacements of these two types of modes. Also, these results could help explain very well the occurrence of certain leaky modes on the dispersion spectrum and be indicative of the reasonable choice of certain leaky modes to put them into practical inversion for P-velocity structures.

Extensive research has shown that wind has a strong influence on estuarine circulation and salt transport. However, the response to wind forcing in estuarine systems presents challenges due in part to the complexities of realistic forcing conditions, system states, and geomorphologies. To further advance the understanding of estuarine responses to wind forcing, a comprehensive analysis of stratification and mixing during a typical southeast wind event was conducted in Mobile Bay, a microtidal, wide, shallow, and river-dominated estuary in the northern Gulf of Mexico. An analysis of the vertical salinity variance and its associated budget terms shows that the system generally becomes less stratified and fully mixed across much of the system; however, there was significant spatial heterogeneity in physical processes driving the evolution of the water column stratification over the course of the event. Surprisingly, in some regions of the bay, dissipation of salinity variance was secondary to contributions from straining and advection. Furthermore, local wind stress and remote wind driven Ekman transport affected stratification responses and their relative impacts varied spatially across the estuary. Direct turbulent mixing from local wind stress and straining dominated the stratification responses away from the main tidal inlet where estuarine-shelf exchange (i.e., current velocity structure and advection of salinity) from Ekman transport controlled the vertical mixing. This detailed case study highlights the complexity of wind influences in a system like Mobile Bay, a representative typical of the northern Gulf of Mexico and other coastal region.

Several locations across the United States in non-compliance with the national standard for ground-level ozone (O3) are thought to have sizeable influences from distant extra-regional emission sources or natural stratospheric O3, which complicates design of local emission control measures. To quantify the amount of long-range transported O3 (LRT O3), its origin, and change over time, we conduct and analyze detailed sensitivity calculations characterizing the response of O3 to emissions from different source regions across the Northern Hemisphere in conjunction with multi-decadal simulations of tropospheric O3 distributions and changes. Model calculations show that the amount of O3 at any location attributable to sources outside North America varies both spatially and seasonally. On a seasonal-mean basis, during 1990-2010, LRT O3 attributable to international sources steadily increased by 0.06-0.2 ppb yr-1 at locations across the United States and arose from superposition of unequal and contrasting trends in individual source-region contributions, which help inform attribution of the trend evident in O3 measurements. Contributions of emissions from Europe steadily declined through 2010, while those from Asian emissions increased and remained dominant. Steadily rising NOx emissions from international shipping resulted in increasing contributions to LRT O3, comparable to those from Asian emissions in recent years. Central American emissions contribute a significant fraction of LRT O3 in southwestern United States. In addition to the LRT O3 attributable to emissions outside of North America, background O3 across the continental United States is comprised of a sizeable and spatially variable fraction that is of stratospheric origin (29-78%).

This article is composed of three independent commentaries about the state of ICON principles (Goldman et al. 2021) in Science and Society section and discussion on the opportunities and challenges of adopting them. Each commentary focuses on a different topic: Citizen Science; Collaboration across Sciences; and Education Policy. Scientific discoveries, rapid scientific and technological advancements, and solutions benefit society. However, many societal challenges require evolved frameworks and measures to address the 21st-century complex problems. The ICON (Integrated, Coordinated, Open, and Networked) approach to advance science in society formulates the interdisciplinary perspectives and coordinated network that provide solutions to the complex issues in our society. The three independent commentaries embody ICON processes, and further presents challenges and untapped opportunities in these broad areas that can create a better understanding of the impact of science on society.

Lower-band whistler-mode chorus waves are important to the dynamics of Earth’s radiation belts, playing a key role in accelerating seed population electrons (100’s of keV) to relativistic ($>$ 1 MeV) energies, and in scattering electrons such that they precipitate into the atmosphere. When constructing and using statistical models of lower-band whistler-mode chorus wave power, it is commonly assumed that wave power is spatially distributed with respect to magnetic L-shell. At the same time, these waves are known to drop in power at the plasmapause, a cold plasma boundary which is dynamic in time and space relative to L-shell. This study organizes wave power and propagation direction data with respect to distance from the plasmapause location to evaluate what role the location of the plasmapause may play in defining the spatial distribution of lower band whistler-mode chorus wave power. It is found that characteristics of the statistical spatial distribution of equatorial lower band whistler mode chorus are determined by L-shell, and are largely independent of plasmapause location. The primary physical importance of the plasmapause is to act as an Earthward boundary to lower band whistler mode chorus wave activity. This behavior is consistent with an equatorial lower band whistler mode chorus wave power spatial distribution that follows the L-shell organization of the particles driving wave growth.

Many subsurface fluid flows, including the storage of CO underground or the production of oil, are transient processes incorporating multiple fluid phases. The fluids are not in equilibrium meaning macroscopic properties such as fluid saturation and pressure vary in space and time. However, these flows are traditionally modelled with equilibrium (or steady-state) flow properties, under the assumption that the pore scale fluid dynamics are equivalent. In this work, we used fast synchrotron X-ray tomography with 1s time resolution to image the pore scale fluid dynamics as the macroscopic flow transitioned to steady-state. For nitrogen or decane, and brine injected simultaneously into a porous rock we observed distinct pore scale fluid dynamics during transient flow. Transient flow was found to be characterised by intermittent fluid occupancy, whereby flow pathways through the pore space were constantly rearranging. The intermittent fluid occupancy was largest and most frequent when a fluid initially invaded the rock. But as the fluids established an equilibrium the dynamics decreased to either static interfaces between the fluids or small-scale intermittent flow pathways, depending on the capillary number and viscosity ratio. If the fluids were perturbed after an equilibrium was established, by changing the flow rate, the transition to a new equilibrium was quicker than the initial transition. Our observations suggest that transient flows require separate modelling parameters. The timescales required to achieve equilibrium suggest that several metres of an invading plume front will have flow properties controlled by transient pore scale fluid dynamics.

Fostering environmental conflict resolutions in water management involves tradeoffs, conflicts, and compromise among economic and environmental objectives. Pareto optimality is often advocated for water management, but its relationship with the nature and mathematical representation of benefits, and implications of tradeoffs for Pareto optimal decisions are rarely examined. We evaluate the shape of Pareto optimal frontiers, their origins for representing benefits, and their implications for incentives of parties to cooperate or conflict over environmental water allocations. The same physical, ecological, and economic relationships that shape multi-objective performance also shape incentives or disincentives to overcome environmental conflicts. Analysis indicates that compromises among benefits can be easier when tradeoff curves are concave, and more adversarial when tradeoff curves are convex. “Knees”, or areas with maximum curvature, bulges, or breakpoints in concave Pareto frontiers, suggest particularly promising areas for compromise. Tradeoff curve convexity or concavity and interior thresholds in performance make negotiated solutions harder or easier. Managing multiple streams regionally, rather than only individually, can sometimes turn convex local tradeoffs into concave regional tradeoffs, more amenable to compromise. Broader portfolios of environmental management also can improve and shift the location and prominence of knees in Pareto frontiers. Conclusions are drawn for how societies can structure environmental water allocations and habitat restoration to improve performance, encourage cooperation, and contain conflict.

Foreshocks are among the most powerful tools to study the processes that occur before main earthquakes. However, their detection is still sparse, especially for relatively small earthquakes. We present here a detailed foreshock analysis for the 2019 Balsorano (Italy) earthquake (Mw4.4). To improve the detection before and after the mainshock, we use receivers at distances of <75 km from the targeted seismicity, through template matching. To improve the understanding of the mechanism(s) behind the earthquake initiation, we detail the evolution of the sequence associated to this earthquake, using waveform clustering and hypocenter relocation. Differences between foreshocks and aftershocks are revealed by this analysis. Moreover, distinct patterns associated to the different seismic activities are revealed. The observed behavior highlights a complex initiation process, which apparently starts on an adjacent antithetic fault. Finally, the aftershock activity comprises different clusters with distinct spatio-temporal patterns, which suggests that each cluster has distinct triggering mechanism(s).

Jupiter displays many distinct auroral structures, among which auroral dawn storms and auroral injections are often observed contemporaneously. However, it is unclear if the contemporaneous nature of the observations is a coincidence or part of an underlying physical connection. We show six clear examples from a recent Hubble Space Telescope campaign (GO-14634) that each display both auroral dawn storms and auroral injection signatures. We found that these conjugate phenomena could exist during intervals of either relatively low or high auroral activity, as evidenced by the varied levels of total auroral power. In-situ observations of the magnetosphere by Juno, show a strong magnetic reconnection event inside of 45 Jupiter Radii (RJ) on the predawn sector, followed by two dipolarization events within the following two hours, coincident with the auroral dawn storm and auroral injection event. We therefore suggest that the auroral dawn storm is the manifestation of magnetic reconnection in the dawnside magnetosphere. The dipolarization region mapped to the auroral injection, strongly suggesting that this was associated with the auroral injection. Since magnetic reconnection and dipolarization are physically connected, we therefore suggest that the often-conjugate auroral dawn storm and auroral injection events are also physically connected consequences.

This study investigates the influence of the phase of quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO) and the 11-year solar cycle on the Arctic spring ozone, using satellite observations, reanalysis data, and outputs of a chemistry climate model (CCM) during the period of 1979–2011. For this duration, we found that the composite mean of the Northern Hemisphere high-latitude total ozone in the QBO-westerly (QBO-W)/solar minimum (S) phase indicates a large negative anomaly for the climatology in February–March. An analysis of the passive ozone tracer defined at the pressure levels between 220 hPa and 12 hPa in the CCM simulation indicates that this negative anomaly is primarily caused by transport. The negative anomaly is consistent with a weakening of the residual mean downward motion in the polar lower stratosphere. The contribution of chemical processes estimated using the total ozone difference between the chemically active ozone runs and the passive tracer simulations is less than 6% of the total anomaly in February and between 10–20% in March. The lower ozone levels in the Arctic spring during the QBO-W/Syears are associated with a stronger Arctic polar vortex from late winter to early spring, which is linked to the reduced occurrence of sudden stratospheric warming in the winter during the QBO-W/Syears.

The inner core’s axial torsional libration (ATL) is a manifestation of the mantle-inner core gravitational (MICG) rotational normal mode. Its natural period is critically determined by the interior sectoral quadrupole of (of mass distribution of spherical-harmonic degree 2 and order 2) belonging to the mantle plus the core-mantle boundary. We derive the (multipole) formalism to calculate of based on two physical postulations: (i) Postulation I that equates the observed 6-year variation in Earth’s length-of-day to ATL as laid out in Chao (2017); (ii) Postulation II requiring that the shape of IC, thanks to its finite viscosity, conforms to the gravitational equi-potential surface in the long term as proposed by Buffett (1997). of being a complex value, its phase relation with ATL asserts that the major axis of the IC aligns with that of of subject to the lowest-energy state. The magnitude of of thus evaluated by Earth parameters is about 0.78 – 1.71 kg m, with the two endmember values corresponding respectively to IC’s nominal polar moment of inertia vs. the effective value under 100% tangent-cylinder coupling. The corresponding equatorial elliptical shape of the IC under Postulation II has peak-to-peak topography of 75 – 164 m. The acquired of can serve as source information for inversion on, among others, the density anomaly of the LLSVP (large low shear velocity provinces) constructs in the lower mantle.

Here, we show that the 2019 Mw7.0 Ridgecrest mainshock as well as its Mw6.5 foreshock ruptured orthogonal conjugate faults. We invert the waveforms recorded by the dense strong-motion network at relatively high frequencies (up to 1Hz for P, 0.25Hz for S) to derive multiple point source models for both events, aided by path calibrations from a Mw5.4 earthquake. We demonstrate that the mainshock started from a shallow (3 km) depth with a Mw5.2 event, and ruptured the main fault branches oriented in the NW-SE direction. At ~11 s, two Mw6.2 subevents took place on the SW-NE oriented fault branches that conjugate to the main fault to the NE and SW. The SW branch rupture partially overlapped with the foreshock rupture. We suggest the coseismic rupture on nearly orthogonal faults was enabled by high pore fluid pressure, which greatly weakened the immature fault system in a heterogeneous way.