Medium-scale Traveling Ionospheric Disturbances (MSTIDs) are prominent and ubiquitous features of the mid-latitude ionosphere, and are observed in Super Dual Auroral Radar Network (SuperDARN) and high-resolution Global Navigational Satellite Service (GNSS) Total Electron Content (TEC) data. The mechanisms driving these MSTIDs are an open area of research, especially during geomagnetic storms. Previous studies have demonstrated that night-side MSTIDs are associated with an electrodynamic instability mechanism like Perkins, especially during geomagnetically quiet conditions. However, day-side MSTIDs are often associated with atmospheric gravity waves. Very few studies have analyzed the mechanisms driving MSTIDs during strong geomagnetic storms at mid-latitudes. In this study, we present mid-latitude MSTIDs observed in de-trended GNSS TEC data and SuperDARN radars over the North American sector, during a geomagnetic storm (peak Kp reaching 9) on September 7-8, 2017. In SuperDARN, MSTIDs were observed in ionospheric backscatter with Line Of Sight (LOS) velocities exceeding 800 m/s. Additionally, radar LOS velocities oscillated with amplitudes reaching +/-$500 m/s as the MSTIDs passed through the fields-of-view. In detrended TEC, these MSTIDs produced perturbations reaching ~50 percent of background TEC magnitude. The MSTIDs were observed to propagate in the westward/south-westward direction with a time period of ~15 minutes. Projecting de-trended GNSS TEC data along SuperDARN beams showed that enhancements in TEC were correlated with enhancements in SuperDARN SNR and positive LOS velocities. Finally, SuperDARN LOS velocities systematically switched polarities between the crests and the troughs of the MSTIDs, indicating the presence of polarization electric fields and an electrodynamic instability process during these MSTIDs.

Impacts of model horizontal resolution on sea-surface temperature (SST) biases are studied using high-resolution (HR) and low-resolution (LR) simulations with the Community Earth System Model (CESM) where the nominal resolutions are 0.1° for ocean and sea-ice and 0.25° for atmosphere and land in HR, and 1° for all component models in LR, respectively. Results show that, except within eastern boundary upwelling systems, SST is warmer in HR than LR. Globally averaged surface ocean heat budget analysis indicates that 1°C warmer global-mean SST in HR is mainly attributable to stronger nonlocal vertical mixing and shortwave heat flux, with the former prevailing over the latter in eddy-active regions. In the tropics, nonlocal vertical mixing is slightly more important than shortwave heat flux for the warmer SST in HR. Further analysis shows that the stronger nonlocal mixing in HR can be attributed to differences in both the surface heat flux and shape function strength used in the parameterization. In addition, the shape function shows a nonlinear relationship with surface heat flux in HR and LR, modulated by the eddy-induced vertical heat transport. The stronger shortwave heat flux in HR, on the other hand, is mainly caused by fewer clouds in the tropics. Finally, investigation of ocean advection reveals that the improved western boundary currents in HR also contribute to the reduction of SST biases in eddy-active regions.

Due to the effects of climate change, the USA Southwest is expected to experience increased temperatures and decreased water availability. Extended droughts will likely have important consequences for riparian trees whose growth and habitat are strongly limited by water availability. One consequence of extended water table declines on riparian trees is the development of wood anatomical anomalies. Using techniques developed for quantitative wood anatomy (QWA) it may be possible to quantify these anomalies and reconstruct water table variability through time. We explore this possibility using tree rings from netleaf hackberry (Celtis laevigata var. reticulata) collected along the Upper Santa Cruz River, Arizona. We suggest hackberry has the potential to be used 1) as an indicator of riparian ecosystem health, and 2) to provide improved reconstructions of water availability. Understanding how hackberry responds to periods of low and high flows can provide insight into how to better manage these ecosystems into the future.

Seasonal and inter-annual variability of transport in the Strait of Belle Isle (SBI) were examined using 14 years of moored ADCP data. Tidal currents were largely along strait and homogeneous with depth. Transports were inwards on average, lowest (−1.0±0.8 dSv) from April to July, and highest (−4.1±1.1 dSv) from September to January. Monthly scale outflow towards the Labrador Shelf was more than twice as common between April and August than between September and March. Averaged seasonal transports were generally lower but within one standard deviation of previously published modelled values. The volume of winter Labrador Shelf water (LShW) entering the Gulf of St. Lawrence (GSL) was computed by transport integration and compares well with integrated volumes that meet LShW temperature-salinity criteria during an annual March survey of the GSL. Integrating over the whole year showed that on average 590±351 km3 enters the GSL after the March surveys are conducted, or 36±19% of the total LShW volume. Annual volumes of LShW calculated from transport suggest that inflow through the SBI accounts for 12–18% of the GSL winter surface mixed layer. Cross-strait current shear may have affected transport integration values, but SST data suggests this bias was limited to the summer. Corrections were empirically derived to account for cross strait shear in our transport calculation. The corrected time series suggests dominant summer transport may have been flowing towards the Labrador Shelf (0.4 ± 0.6 dSv).

Three estimates of soil moisture from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) programs are compared. The estimates are from a high-resolution atmospheric model with a land surface model, a hydrologic model and in situ observations. Both models demonstrate wetter soil moisture in dry regions and drier soil moistures in wet regions, as compared to the in situ observations. These soil moisture differences occur at most soil depths but are larger at the deeper depths below the surface (100 cm). In terms of soil moisture variance, both models generally have lower standard deviations as compared to the in situ observations, except for near the surface where the in situ and high-resolution, land surface model compare well. These NOAA soil moisture estimates are used for a variety of forecasting and societal applications, and understanding their differences provides important context for their applications and can lead to model improvements.

We inspected a distribution of events in spatial and temporal scales for two earthquake sequences of South Korea: the obtained spatiotemporal evolutions suggested a fault geometry in meter-scale without geological information and an expansion of hypocentral area without surface ruptures for the 2013 Boryeong offshore earthquake sequence and the 2016 Gyeongju earthquakes, respectively. The 2013 Boryeong offshore earthquake sequence was the consecutive occurrence of earthquakes (ML 1.3-3.8) over a two-month period in the Yellow Sea, west of the Korean Peninsula. The relocated 149 events formed a clear lineament in map view, which proceeded mainly toward NE without an obvious mainshock. The sequence, however, had a backward migration toward SW at first and produced the largest event that occurred after a pause of the sequence. We defined four event groups from the sequence using dendrogram for waveform similarity. The four event groups formed four distinct segments in spatial scale and showed its own features in temporal scale. The length of the second segment, 250 m, was comparable to the rupture length of the largest event (ML 3.8). The 2016 Gyeongju earthquake (ML 5.8), the largest instrumentally recorded event in South Korea, occurred at the southeastern part of the Korean Peninsula. We determined the expansion of the hypocentral zone from relocated 536 hypocenters during the first three months of the Gyeongju earthquake sequence. The foreshock zone covered depths of 13-15.3 km, with a length of 2 km in map view. The mainshock occurred 1 km south of the foreshock. The aftershocks, occurring within 12 hr, then widened the hypocentral area in the strike direction by ~1 km toward NNE and expanded it toward the surface. In this sequence, we observed that the strike of fault plane inferred from the hypocenter distribution was shifted slightly after the mainshock. The hypocentral area was finally stretched in the strike direction over ~1 km toward SSW by the largest aftershock (ML 4.5) that occurred 7 days after the mainshock and following events.

Tracing the field in the past at the centennial and millennial timescale (i.e., the archeomagnetic timescale) is important in improving geomagnetic field models and also for field forecast analyses. The distribution of archeomagnetic data across the globe is very inhomogeneous with almost all data coming from the northern hemisphere, particularly from Europe and Asia. Yet, the southern hemisphere is the one presenting the highest variability for the past millennia and, it is also the region comprising the South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA). The SAA is characterized by the lowest total field intensity and it is presently located in Southern Brazil. Some studies suggest that SAA is a persistent field feature in South Atlantic for periods longer than historical times, but the beginning of the influence of strong non-dipole fields at the centennial-scale evolution in South Atlantic region, could give important information about the recurrence of SAA at longer timescales. Here, we report six new high-quality archeointensity results for the Pelotas city region, in South Brazil with ages ranging from 1790 to 1943 CE. Archeointensity measurements were performed with the double heating technique, including partial termoremanent magnetization (pTRM) checks and pTRM tail-checks. Measurements were corrected from anisotropy of TRM and cooling-rate. Archeointensity results vary from 36.4±0.6 μT to 27.8±2.0 μT. The new data complement previous results obtained in South and Southeast Brazil, Argentina and Chile and provide additional evidence for the rapid decay of the field in the region. In addition, it demonstrates the gradual increase in the contribution of non-dipolar components in the geomagnetic field of South America since 1800 CE, therefore tracking the arrival of the South Atlantic Anomaly to these times.

Chapter 25 of the Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4) is an assessment of climate change and variability, climate-related risks, impacts and adaptation in the U.S. Southwest. The chapter builds on assessments of climate change in the Southwest from the three previous U.S. National Climate Assessments. Each assessment has consistently identified drought, water resource reliability, and loss of ecosystem integrity as climate change challenges for the Southwest region. Chapter 25 further examines interconnections among water, ecosystems, coastal and marine systems, food, and human health and adds new key messages concerning energy and Indigenous peoples. The Southwest chapter is one of 29 chapters in Volume II of the Fourth National Climate Assessment - Impacts, Risks, and Adaptation in the United States. The National Climate Assessment fulfills the mandate of the Global Change Research Act (GCRA) of 1990 to provide the nation with a timely assessment and analysis of scientific findings of the effects of global change on multiple economic and natural resource sectors in the United States, and an analysis of observed and projected trends in global change. Chapter 25, Southwest, was written by a team of scientists and practitioners with expertise spanning areas specified in the GCRA, after extensive stakeholder engagement that involved the collection of input on key climate-related challenges, impacts, and opportunities in the Southwest region. The chapter went through multiple rounds of public and governmental review, during 2017 and 2018. This poster will focus on the findings from Chapter 25.

Abstract Gas relative permeability, krg, is a key parameter to determine gas production in unconventional reservoirs. Several theoretical approaches were proposed to study gas relative permeability in tight and ultra-tight porous rocks. Some models are based on a “bundle of capillary tubes” concept. Some others were developed based upon a combination of universal scaling laws from percolation theory and the effective-medium approximation (EMA). Although applications from the EMA have been successfully used to estimate single-phase permeability in permeable media (Ghanbarian et al., 2017; Ghanbarian and Javadpour, 2017), non-universal scaling from the EMA has never been invoked to model gas relative permeability in tight and/or ultra-tight porous rocks. In this study, it was assumed that pore-throat sizes follow the log-normal distribution. It was further assumed that gas transport in shales is mainly controlled by molecular and hydraulic flow, two mechanisms contributing in parallel. Using the EMA, effective pore-throat radii, effective conductances, and gas relative permeabilities were determined at various gas saturations. Comparison with three-dimensional pore-network simulations showed that the proposed krg model estimated gas relative permeability accurately. We also compared our model with experimental data reported in Yassin et al. (2016) including three Montney tight gas siltstone samples from the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin. Results showed that our model estimated krg reasonably well, although it slightly overestimated krg. This might be because the fitted log-normal probability density function underestimated the probability of small pore-throat sizes. References Ghanbarian, B., & Javadpour, F. (2017). Upscaling pore pressure‐dependent gas permeability in shales. Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, 122(4), 2541-2552. Ghanbarian, B., Torres-Verdin, C., Lake, L. W., & Marder, M. P. (2017). Upscaling gas permeability in tight-gas sandstones. AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts. New Orleans LA. Yassin, M. R., Dehghanpour, H., Wood, J., & Lan, Q. (2016). A theory for relative permeability of unconventional rocks with dual-wettability pore network. SPE Journal, 21(06), 1970-1980.

Magnetic flux ropes (MFRs) are believed to be one kind of fundamental structures in solar eruptions, of which the formation is being intensely studied. Here we report a rapid buildup process of an MFR during a confined X2.2 class flare that occurred on 2017 September 6 in NOAA AR 12673, three hours after which the MFR erupted as a major coronal mass ejection (CME) accompanied by an X9.3 class flare. For the X2.2 class flare, we do not find separation of the two flare ribbons and clear CME signature in the coronagraph images, suggesting it to be confined. For the X9.3 class flare, apparent separation of the two ribbons and a CME show it to be an eruptive one. We perform a time sequence of nonlinear force-free fields (NLFFFs) extrapolations covering the two flares and find that: although the flux-weighted mean twist number of the MFR was almost unchanged prior to the eruptive flare, the axial flux and magnetic helicity of the MFR were dramatically enhanced after the confined flare, as much as 86% for the former and 260% for the latter. The above three parameters were all significantly reduced after the eruptive flare. It clearly evidences the buildup and release of the MFR during the confined and eruptive flare, respectively. The buildup of the MFR may be achieved by reconnection during the confined flare. We also calculate the pre-flare distributions of the decay index above the main polarity inversion line (PIL) and do not find any significant difference. It indicates that the enhancement of the MFR flux may play a role in facilitating the subsequent successful eruption.

The ocean floor broadband seismology has been established based on several practical observations by using broadband ocean bottom seismometer (BBOBS) and its new generation system (BBOBS-NX) in Japan since 1999. The data obtained by our BBOBS and BBOBS-NX is adequate for broadband seismic analyses, especially the BBOBS-NX enables the quality of the horizontal data comparable to land sites in longer periods (10 s –). And, the BBOBS-NX with tilt measurement function, BBOBST-NX, is in practical evaluation for the mobile tilt observation that may realize a dense seafloor geodetic monitoring with low cost. The weak point of the BBOBS-NX system lies in the intrinsic limitation of the submersible in its operation. If this system can be operated alone like as the BBOBS, it should be a true breakthrough of ocean bottom seismology. We call this new autonomous BBOBS-NX as the NX-2G in short. Several problems to realize the NX-2G have been almost cleared through test observations since 2012. The function of the NX-2G system is based on 3 stage operations as shown in the image. The glass float is added to obtain enough buoyancy to extract the sensor unit from the seafloor and also to suppress the oscillating tilt of the system in descending, not to exceed the tilt allowance of the broadband seismic sensor. In Oct. 2016, the first in-situ test of the NX-2G system was performed. The landing of the NX-2G looked well and the maximum tilt in descending was about ±2.5°, that ensured the effective suppression for the oscillating tilt by the glass float. As the final step test of the NX-2G, the one-year-long observation has been started in April 2017 with the BBOBS deployed nearby, to obtain simultaneous data for the noise level evaluation. The free-fall deployment and the transition from the landing stage to the observation stage were completed, those were monitored through the acoustic communication from the ship. This NX-2G was recovered in Oct. 2018 with the ROV, KAIKO Mk-IV, to watch the transition from the observation stage to the recovery stage at the seafloor. All function of the NX-2G at the seafloor was perfect with immediate extraction of the sensor unit. Noise level comparison with the BBOBS shows about 10 dB improvement that is not enough as expected, which may lie in a small tension of the cable between the sensor unit and the recording unit. And, scenes of the landing and the first transition were selfied by the Deep-Sea CAM.

In long-established cities such as Detroit, MI, stormwater runoff from impervious surfaces (roads, roofs, etc.) is combined with sanitary waste and piped beneath the city to a wastewater treatment plant. These engineered methods of water management, termed gray infrastructure, currently dominate management practices but have drawbacks due to issues of cost, capacity, reliability, and maintenance requirements. In addition, combined sewer systems in cities like Detroit can become overwhelmed during extreme storm events, requiring the diversion of untreated sewage into local bodies of water. In a world of growing urbanization and intensifying storm events, the development of innovative approaches to stormwater management is expected to play a large role in mitigating negative environmental impacts from polluted urban runoff and flooding. The eco-friendly counterpart of gray infrastructure, known as green infrastructure (green roofs, rain gardens, bioswales, etc.), is an integrated approach to stormwater management that utilizes decentralized infiltration systems to mimic the natural processes of water filtration and deceleration. Correspondingly, our research focuses on a bioswale that was retrofitted into the center island of a previously designed parking lot in the post-industrial urban ecosystem of Detroit. The main goals of our work are to: 1) quantify potential pollutant removal, 2) quantify runoff infiltration capacity, and 3) provide qualitative insight into best management practices for future bioswale retrofits. We collected soil samples from 2 depths (30 and 45 cm) at 9 points from the bioswale for characterization (pH, organic matter, electric conductivity, and texture). We also collected and analyzed undisturbed soil cores with and without added metal contaminants common to Detroit and with a surface addition of biochar to test infiltration and determine the potential of increased contaminant sorption. The results will allow us to advance with an improved design and methodology and convey a strong argument for the expansion of bioswales and other forms of green infrastructure across the greater Detroit area, potentially leading to a more robust system of controlling stormwater that brings aesthetics, health, and a wide array of ecosystem services to a redeveloping concrete jungle.

The frontier of wildfire-related risk assessment is moving into data science territory, and with good reason. Computational statistics, built on a foundation of high resolution remote sensing data, ground data, and theory, forms the basis of powerful risk assessment tools. The need for data based risk assessment has increased in past years, in view of longer wildfire seasons in the U.S., associated with more frequent droughts, more human ignitions and accumulating fuel loads. We present an application of machine learning (ML), which makes it possible to analyze complex data without a priori definition of interactions—this is a major advantage because these interactions are not known beforehand. Specifically, we build a stochastic gradient boosting machine (GBM) toolkit to assess the change in river flow after wildfire in the contiguous United States (CONUS) over a 5-year period. The GBM accounts for nonlinear relationships and interactions between wildland fire characteristics, watershed geometry, climate variability, topography and land cover. Building the GBM is a sequential process where a loss function is minimized at each fold, along a gradient defined by pseudo-residuals. This process allows the program to progressively learn more about how the variables in the large dataset interact to result in the response (i.e., river flow). Our results show that wildfires increase annual river flow in the CONUS when more than 20% of a gaged basin is burned. Data science tools like the GBM presented here, are essential in generating practical knowledge on how wildfire impacts on ecohydrology can ultimately affect hydrological services, socio-hydrosystems and water security in fire-affected regions.

Das2 describes a collection of cooperating programs originally created to support daily review and analysis activities of the Cassini Radio and Plasma Wave Science (RPWS) investigation. The system proved useful and is now relied on for rapid access to working data sets from many planetary missions including Mars Express and Juno, as well as ground-based radio astronomy results from the Nançay Decameter Array and Long Wave Array 1. As more teams have begun using das2 tools, the need for updates to what was largely an in-house protocol have become apparent. Though Autoplot continues to be the most flexible and commonly used das2 client program, interfacing with other tools would benefit the research community. We will provide an overview of recent updates to the das2 interface definition supporting redundant servers and federated data source catalogs. We will describe a cross site deployment between Southwest Research Institute and the University of Iowa to aid collaboration among ASPERA-3 and MARSIS investigators. We will give an update on the status of new client libraries for NumPy and IDL, as well as das2 stream adapters for HAPI and VOTables. Finally, we will describe how working data sets can be published in-place by registering das2 data sources with a VESPA EPN-TAP service.

Land use sector is important in stabilizing global mean temperature rise to 2 °C or less, because land use changes are likely to affect the climate system. Changes in the extent and magnitude of local-to-regional climate by anthropogenic modifications of land use are still largely debated. In this study, we simulate and analyze the climate response to different ranges of idealized extreme land cover changes with two regional climate models (COSMO-CLM v.4.8 and WRF v.3.9.1 in EURO-CORDEX (European branch of the international Coordinated Regional climate Downscaling Experiment-CORDEX initiative) domain. Different experiments are envisioned in this study, including a control run and simulations based on idealized extensive deforestation (replacement of today forestland to bare land or herbaceous vegetation) or afforestation (conversion of today cropland to evergreen needle-leaf forest or deciduous broad-leaf forest). The simulations also include more realistic land cover changes across different land cover classes. The investigated parameters will be the changes of temperature, precipitation, and frequency of temperature extremes at both the entire EURO-CORDEX domain (regional scale) and the changed grids (local scale). Results will also be compared to observation data gathered from satellite retrievals. In the grid cell affected by land cover change, we expect to find temperature changes that are more significant than in non-affected areas. A latitudinal pattern and seasonal variability should also emerge. Of particular interest will be the understanding of the spatial patterns of the climate response to the individual types of land cover changes, their sensitivity to space and location, and the analysis of possible correlations with key vegetation and climate parameters. As biophysical effects from land cover changes shape European climate in different ways, further developments and better understanding of land-climate interactions can ultimately assist decision makers to modulate land management strategies at different scales in light of climate change mitigation and adaptation.

Long period magnetotelluric (MT) data is being collected as a component of the USArray covering the continent of North America at a quasi-regular grid. Data from 250 MT stations were acquired covering the north-western part of the United States of America (USA). Dimensionality analysis was applied using Swift skew, Bahr skew and ellipticity. Results show a 1-D/2-D character for the short periods (< 1 sec) for the shallower structures, while the longer periods (> 1 sec) shows a 3-D character for the deeper structures. Two dimensional Occam inversion was applied for a set of E-W trending profiles to map the regional electrical resistivity distribution to a depth up to crust/mantle transition zone. 2-D resistivity structures were obtained by inverting both the transverse electric (TM) and transverse magnetic (TM) modes. Results show a resistive upper crust with a decreasing resistivity for lower crust. To the west, the subudcting Gorda plate was mapped as a relatively higher resistivity body nearly equal to the Wyoming basin to the east. Thick resistive lithosphere was mapped under Wyoming to the east. The results of this research shows the distribution of the electrical resistivity with adequate details for the shallow depth, while 3D inversion is necessary for the larger depths.

The fragility of human life has been tragically demonstrated through history by numerous natural hazards (e.g. earthquakes, tsunami, drought, floods, volcanic eruptions and landslides) leading in some cases to large-scale disasters. Given that the natural processes that underpin such hazards will continue into the foreseeable future, there is widespread international agreement about the need to focus on reducing risk and increasing resilience. In line with such objectives, Indigenous knowledge (IK) in Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) is increasingly being recognised as an alternative domain of understanding and knowing, that is highly relevant to present-day societal challenges such as natural hazards and disasters. In Aotearoa-New Zealand, rapid social, political and environmental changes have led a growing chorus of Māori leaders expressing the need to have their perspectives and histories surrounding diverse natural hazards and risk heard. Some of the contributions that Māori knowledge can make to the management and mitigation of natural hazards in Aotearoa-New Zealand have already been identified, but much remains to be done before plural knowledge learning and development can take place. In this presentation we will explore some of the benefits of epistemological and empirical differences in knowledge about natural hazards, and consider how scientific and Māori complexes of knowing and being can inform one another to contribute to effective DRR and Recovery.

NASA’s future missions will focus on looking for evidence of life under extreme environments, such as cold arid planets (Mars) and icy moons (Eurpoa). There is particular interest in studying localized geo-chemical systems that host gradients with the potential for harboring evidence of past or present life. Such gradient-driven systems include, for example, layering of minerals of varying oxidation states in the Martian subsurface or in Earth’s seafloor sediments; chemical precipitates separating fluids of different pH or Eh such as in a hydrothermal vent; or radiation-induced oxidant production in planetary ices. A challenge is that these simulated precipitates are redox sensitive and evolve over a relatively short lifetime (1-4 hrs) necessitating viable in-situ, non-destructive analytical techniques. Promising techniques for such studies are electrochemical methods, which are particularly suited for characterizing interfaces and chem-ical gradients. Combined with recent advances in electrochemical instrument technologies, new methods have been developed toward integrating portable, electrochemical systems for ex-situ and/or in-situ chemical characterization. JPL has already made significant progress in developing these new technologies, particularly electro-chemical impedance spectroscopies (EIS) for in-situ characterization of geochemical materials (i.e., soils ice mineralogy, and brines) and even life detection sensoring. Currently, we are exploring further appli-cations of electrical spectroscopy techniques in developing an electrochemistry-based framework using planetary analog systems based on MRO/CRISM and Cassini/INMS observations in attempts to distin-guish abiotic vs biotic environments, and with active and inactive containing organics from electrical properties characterization. We will highlight some of our group’s successes and preliminary results of geochemical experimentation using various electrochemical techniques.