The search for life in the universe can inspire students and members of the public alike. Three projects are described which provide an immersive experience with astrobiology. The first is teaching astrobiology to non-science majors in the virtual world Second Life. Second Life can support authentic learning and foster cross-cultural competencies. In the next iteration of the course, students will create simulations of exoplanet landscapes and architectures of exoplanetary systems. The second project is a virtual reality exhibit for education and outreach. It has models of major facilities in astronomy and space science in a virtual space. Users wear Oculus Quest headsets and use game controllers to navigate. Next additions to the VR space will be examples of exoplanet science and fully animated exoplanet systems. The third project is a new version of a multimedia performance piece called StellarScape, combining original electronic music, dance and simulations of star birth. A live dancer interacts with simulations via sensors. The next version is PlanetScape, where back-projected video is a series of realistically rendered exoplanet surfaces. The dancer undertakes a “hero’s journey,” experiencing the altered gravity and physical conditions of alien planets as they try to find their way home.

Understanding the distribution of organic material, mineral inclusions, and porosity are critical to properly model the flow of fluids through rock formations in applications ranging from hydraulic fracturing and gas extraction, CO2 sequestration, geothermal power, and aquifer management. Typically, this information is obtained on the pore scale using destructive techniques such as focused ion beam scanning electron microscopy. Neutrons and X-rays provide non-destructive, complementary probes to gain three-dimensional distributions of porosity, minerals, and organic content along with fluid interactions in fractures and pore networks on the core scale. By capturing both neutron and X-ray tomography simultaneously it is possible to capture slowly dynamic or stochastic processes with both imaging modes. To facilitate this, NIST offers a system for simultaneous neutron and X-ray tomography at the Center for Neutron Research. This instrument provides neutron and X-ray beams capable of penetrating through pressure vessels to image the specimen inside at relevant geological conditions at resolutions ranging from 15 micrometers to 100 micrometers. This talk will discuss current efforts at identifying mineral and organic content and fracture and wettability in shales relevant to gas extraction.

River systems represent important drivers of carbon loading, utilization and storage. However, underlying controls of hydrological transport and biological degradation on fluvial dissolved organic carbon (DOC) have yet to be revealed. Here, we explored spatiotemporal variability of DOC concentrations, components and sources, as well as its biodegradability in a headwater tributary of the Yangtze. We found that temporal rainfall stimulated terrestrial inputs and increased terrigenous DOC abundance. Hydrological transport was accompanied by biological generation and utilization of DOC, resulting in reduced labile components and accumulated recalcitrant components from tributaries to the main stem. Biodegradable DOC (BDOC) notably responded to temperature gradients over a 56-day laboratory incubation. Riverine DOC component, molecular weight and source highly predicted its biodegradation. Particularly, partial refractory (ultraviolet humic-like) fractions contributed to biological degradation of DOC, which was incompletely degraded from high-molecular to low-molecular weight compounds. The findings hope to supplement a new understanding of carbon fate under global change.

Defining a baseline for the frequency of off-normal occurrences at underground natural gas storage facilities is critical to maintaining safe operation and to the development of appropriate risk management plans and regulatory approaches. Currently used frequency-estimation methods are broadened to include critical factors of cause, severity, and uncertainty that contribute to risk. A Bayesian probabilistic analysis characterizes the aleatoric historical occurrence frequencies given imperfect sampling. Occurrence frequencies for the three main storage facility types in the United States (depleted oil-and-gas field storage, aquifer storage, solution-mined salt cavern storage) are generally on the order of 3 to 9 x 10–2 occurrences, of all causes (surface, well integrity, subsurface integrity) and severities (nuisance, serious, catastrophic), per facility-year. Loss of well integrity is associated with many, but not all, occurrences either within the subsurface or from there up to the surface. The probability of one serious or catastrophic leakage occurrence to the ground surface within the next 10 years, assuming constant number of facilities, is approximately 0.1–0.3% for any facility type. Storage operators and industry regulators can use occurrence frequencies, their associated probabilities and uncertainties, and forecasts for severity magnitudes to better prioritize resources, establish a baseline against which progress toward achieving a reduction target is measured, and develop more effective mitigation/monitoring/reduction programs in a risk management plan.

To understand the relationships between eclogite-facies mineral assemblages, deformation microstructures, and the seismic properties of subducting oceanic crust, eclogites from the Yuka terrane, North Qaidam ultrahigh-pressure metamorphic belt, NW China were studied. Observations of mineral textures, deformation microstructures, and petrofabrics in the eclogites indicate that garnet, omphacite, and phengite were deformed by intra-crystalline deformation (i.e., dislocation creep) during prograde metamorphism. In contrast, amphibole, which was formed by the topotactic replacement of omphacite at fluid-present conditions, is considered to have been deformed by diffusional flow (dissolution–precipitation creep) during amphibolite-facies retrogression associated with exhumation. Based on the petrofabrics in the samples, the seismic properties of the eclogites were calculated depending on eclogite-facies mineral assemblages such as garnet + omphacite (GO), garnet + omphacite + phengite (GOP), garnet + omphacite + phengite + lawsonite (GOPL), garnet + omphacite + phengite + amphibole (GOPA), and garnet + omphacite + amphibole (GOA). We found that the seismic signatures of each of the eclogite-facies mineral assemblages were different. In particular, phengite-bearing eclogites (the GOP/GOPA assemblages), depending on phengite content, produced the strongest seismic anisotropy (AVp and AVs), with a strong polarization anisotropy, that was at least three times higher than bimineralic (phengite-absent) eclogite (GO assemblage). Our results show that phengite, as a stable phase at high pressure and temperature conditions, can play an important role in the creation of trench-parallel seismic anisotropy in the eclogite-facies mineral assemblages found in subduction zones.

The Southeast Florida Regional Climate Compact is a collaboration across Broward, Miami-Dade, Monroe, and Palm Beach counties to stimulate sustainability and climate resilience across the counties. Efforts within the Regional Climate Action Plan, a product of the compact, include prevention, mitigation, and monitoring of climate change impacts to natural and cultural resources. In Palm Beach County, one such effort has been the monitoring of coastal archaeological sites vulnerable to sea level rise. The monitoring efforts include identification of coastal archaeological sites, precise mapping of site locations, excavation of the sites to determine the presence of artifacts and/or human remains, and geoarchaeological methods to assess how the site may be impacted by sea level rise. Preliminary results from sites within the region indicate that buried archaeological sites will experience sea level rise impacts earlier than expected as increased groundwater levels, in part caused by rising sea level, will expose the sites to damp and saturated conditions before the sites are over-topped by increased sea level. Increased moisture within the sediment that the sites are entrained in can lead to damage to the artifacts, especially in midden sites, which are mainly composed of faunal remains. Based on these findings, new methods determining risk level of coastal archaeological sites in South Florida are needed.

The main objective of submerged breakwaters is energy dissipation of transmitted wave in leeward. In the present study, the capability of FLOW-3D and MIKE21-BW software for modeling of these structures have been investigated. In this regard, experimental results have been considered as a criterion to analyse the results of this two software. Comparison of numerical and experimental results revealed that FLOW-3D provides better results than MIKE21. Therefore, FLOW-3D has been used to investigate the effects of submerged breakwater geometry on wave transmission. In doing so, the effect of main design parameters such as shoreward slope, leeward slope, and the ratio of the width to the height of the submerged breakwaters have been studied on transmission coefficient. The results of this study show that the effect of shoreward and seaward slopes on transmission coefficient is negligible; while they considerably contribute to the wave reflection. Finally, the correlation factor has been calculated to investigate the correlation of dimensionless parameters with wave transmission coefficient. Accordingly, the most correlated parameters to wave transmission coefficient are the depth above breakwater crest to incident wave height ratio (F/H) and relative depth of breakwater (F/d), and the least correlated parameter is the breakwater slopes. The results of this study can be used in better understanding of the influential parameters in design as well as developing computation frameworks to study the submerged structures in nearshore regions.

The advancement of seismic attributes and visualization techniques has allowed the study of seismic geomorphology from 3D reflection data. The study of deepwater deposits denes and characterizes architectural elements depending on their genesis, morphology, and position along the slope and basin floor. However, every individual basin’s geological configuration determines the dimensions, morphology, and lithological composition of its architectural elements. To understand how seismic attributes help characterize geological settings, we employ multiple datasets with variable qualities since few studies elaborate on compiling and discussing the differences between basins. We explore and compare the use of seismic attributes to highlight deepwater architectural elements in three different basins around the world: The Ceará Basin in Equatorial Brazil, The Taranaki Basin in New Zealand, and The North Carnarvon Basin in Australia, focusing on the deepwater sedimentary section in each case. Although the first two datasets are examples of siliciclastic environments and the North Carnarvon, a mixed carbonate-siliciclastic exponent, the architectural elements identified in all the datasets are similar, as well as their attribute response. The results show that the most robust attributes to characterize deepwater elements such as incised channels, channel-levee systems, and lobes are a combination of geometric, amplitude derived, frequency, and textural attributes. These seismic attributes indicate morphological, lithological, bed stacking, and help to define the stratigraphic architecture. Moreover, we found that the co-rendering of RMS (lithology-proxy), coherence (morphology indicator), and curvature attributes help to define the internal configuration for most of the deepwater architectural elements. While each basin is unique, our results and comparisons serve as a guide for seismic interpreters to use in deepwater seismic geomorphology characterization.

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

Direct radiative forcing is a major impact of atmospheric dust aerosols. Mineral dust is an important aerosol component that interacts with both incoming and outgoing radiation, modulating radiative fluxes on Earth and its atmosphere. Dust radiative impact directly depends on the particles physico-chemical characteristics (e.g. mineralogy, shape, size) which are the main source of uncertainties. Spectral signatures of dust particles in the visible/short-wave infrared (V/SWIR) and long-wave infrared (LWIR) are linked to mineral composition and variability. Obtaining the precise spectral signature and size distribution of dust particles can result in accurate derivation of refractive indices which are used as inputs to model radiative forcing. In this work, V/SWIR and LWIR reflectance spectra of heterogeneous dust samples from the United States, East Asia, and Middle East were analyzed for their mineral abundances. For this study we used global well-characterized soil samples with comparable mineral compositions to windblown dust. The soil samples cover a wide range of mineral compositions and represent both arid and semi-arid regions [J P Engelbrecht et al., 2016]. Our preliminary analysis used linear spectral mixing for both V/SWIR and LWIR reflectance spectra. This approach is the simplest method to determine mineral abundances from reflectance spectra. While this resulted in a very low RMSE for the fit between the sample and modeled spectra, modeled spectra did not match band centers and strengths for all features. We also converted reflectance spectra to continuum removed (CR) and mean optical path (MOPL) which have the potential to eliminate nonlinear effects (e.g. multiple scattering) in spectral mixing. These approaches, which modify the reflectance hull, significantly weakened or removed the calcite absorption features at 2375 nm. Because these samples are very fine grained (< 38 µm [J P Engelbrecht et al., 2016]) multiple scattering effects are expected to be important for both V/SWIR and LWIR spectral ranges and as our initial results show linear mixing is insufficient to produce reasonable mineral abundances. Our next efforts will include full radiative transfer models of the measured spectra which we will present at the meeting.

The sun is a plasma threaded variously by magnetic fields that stretch from the deep interior to the heliosphere. These fields can couple various layers together and transfer momentum between different parts of the solar interior. The sun is not a rigid body and there is no requirement from conservation of angular momentum that the overall solar rotation rate as measured at the photosphere need remain constant. At the 150-foot solar tower telescope on Mt. Wilson the Doppler shift, magnetic fields and line intensity of the solar photosphere have been measured as often as possible beginning in 1965 (1965 and 1966 were lost in a data handling mistake). The overall rotation rate is determined for each observation by fitting the observed photospheric velocities to the function ωsid(φ) =A+Bsin2(φ) +Csin4(φ) where φ is latitude, to determine what is known as the A coefficient. We are currently re-reducing all the data from the 150-foot tower system. Differential rotation is described by the B and C coefficients which we are holding constant with average values. The velocities come from Doppler shifts which with a Babcock magnetograph come mostly from the displacement of the moving sampling stage which balances the intensity in the wings of the spectral line. Line shape calibration uncertainties do not influence this shift. We find variations in the global rotation rate which are larger than the shifts known as the torsional oscillations. If the B and C coefficients are fitted to each Dopplergram the torsional oscillations become evident. Instrument changes of the exit slit system and spectrograph grating do not introduce jumps in the A coefficient. Restriction of observations to those when the sun is within 40 degrees of local noon leaves the result essentially unchanged. There may be a solar cycle influence but, the resulting pattern shown in the attached figure is more complex than that. Data from before 1983 has a scatter about 3 times larger than what is shown here with an average consistent with these results. However, the larger scatter prevents the variability from being evident.

String based sea ice mass balance array (SIMBA) buoy is a good data source to figure out the temporal variations of sea ice freeboard or thickness over the polar oceans. In particular, SIMBA buoys operated as a part of MOSAiC expedition provide relatively homogeneous measurements of snow depth and ice thickness nearby MOSAiC distributed regional network. Therefore, by using 10 SIMBA buoys from MOSAiC expedition, we assess the ability of CryoSat-2 and ICESat-2 in estimating the temporal variations of the sea ice freeboard over the freezing season. We first calculate the ice freeboard and total freeboard at each SIMBA buoy from the temperature profiles of the buoy. Then the mean, median, and lognormal mode of the CryoSat-2 ice freeboard and ICESat-2 total freeboard are calculated within 20 km buffer from the buoy. CryoSat-2 ice freeboard shows a good correspondence with the buoy ice freeboard: increase rate of ~2 cm/month, correlation coefficient (R) greater than 0.7 (P < 0.001), and RMSE of 3-4 cm. Meanwhile, ICESat-2 also shows a significant correlation: increase rate of 2-4 cm/month, R > 0.7, and RMSE of 8-12 cm. CryoSat-2 generally overestimates the ice freeboard and the lognormal estimations show the least biases. On the contrary, ICESat-2 underestimates the total freeboard and the mean estimations show the least biases. This result should be associated with various sources of uncertainties: formation of snow ice at the buoys, variations of snow/ice density, freeboard retrieval algorithms of the satellite altimeters, and spatial/temporal variations between buoy and satellite data.

Water supply reliability in the Truckee River basin stands to substantially benefit from forecast-informed reservoir operations(FIRO), especially given expected increases in rain: snow ratios and a transition to earlier runoff under warming climate that current infrastructure and operational rules were not designed for. However, in its position on the lee side of the Sierra Nevada mountains (CA/NV, USA), several unique forecast uncertainties exist that must be considered to mitigate against increased flood risk potential. Both water supply and floods are strongly linked to wintertime atmospheric rivers (AR) but despite improvements in forecasting these events at long lead times, the timing and amount of spillover precipitation onto the lee side remains a key uncertainty. In addition, storm runoff volumes in this basin are highly sensitive to rain-snow elevation, which is also difficult to forecast. Finally, antecedent snowpack and soil conditions have the potential to modulate runoff volumes but factors controlling the strength of these modulations are incompletely understood and monitored. In this study, we assess streamflow forecast skill in the Truckee River to provide a preliminary understanding of potential forecast-related challenges and opportunities for FIRO. To accomplish this, we used an archive of readily available short-range Hydrologic Ensemble Forecast System winter (Oct-Apr) streamflow forecasts for water years 2015-2020 and compared these to observed3-day flows at lead times of 0 to 15 days. We subset the data into AR days, non-AR days and top 10% flow days examined the variance explained between the ensemble median and observed 3-day flows as a function of lead time. We also examined how the observed 3-day flows rank in relation to the ensemble members for each day. We found that forecast accuracy improves considerably starting at a 7-day lead time but tends to be lower for high-flow and AR events relative to non-ARs. We also found the ensembles to have a slight bias toward underprediction and tendency toward under-dispersion (i.e. observed flows were sometimes outside the ensemble range) with this being the case for AR and high flow days for some but not all sites.

Understanding the effect of different landscapes on local temperature is important for understanding land-atmospheric interactions, and is a critical step toward an informed urban design under a changing climate. This presentation considers Lake Memphremagog, a transboundary water body between Quebec and Vermont, along with one of its adjacent wetlands as a test bed to study the impact of different water bodies on regulating the local temperature. We use the data from two identical climate stations to study hourly temperature, absolute and relative humidity as well as incoming and outgoing radiation components along with vapour pressure deficit at the lake and wetland. We benchmark the temperature measurements in these two sites with the data gauged in an Environment and Climate Change Canada’s weather station located between the two sites. Using a systematic analysis, we account for the cooling and heating impacts of the lake and the wetland and demonstrate their underlying causes. We show that during the growing season and at the daily scale, the cooling impacts of the wetland can cancel out the heating impacts of the lake. This is not the case during day times, in which the lake acts as a sink of heat, while the wetland is the source. We show that the cooling and heating effects of the considered lake-wetland duo can be described by the daily temperature statistics (i.e. average, minimum, maximum and range) at the benchmark weather station. This provides an opportunity to create stochastic models for retrospective and prospective projections of cooling and heating impacts of this lake-wetland duo under current and future climate.

Traditional watershed modeling often overlooks the role of vegetation dynamics. While past studies indicate possible improved hydrologic predictions by increasing the physical realism of vegetation dynamics in process-based models, there has been little quantitative evidence to support similar improvements in water quality predictions. To fill this knowledge-gap, we recently applied a modified Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) to quantify the extent of improvements that the assimilation of remotely sensed Leaf Area Index (LAI) would convey to streamflow, soil moisture, and nitrate load simulations across a 16,860 km2 agricultural watershed in the midwestern United States. We modified the SWAT source code to directly insert spatially distributed and temporally continuous LAI estimates from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS). Compared to a “basic” traditional model with limited spatial information, our LAI assimilation model (i) significantly improved daily streamflow simulations during medium-to-low flow conditions, (ii) provided realistic spatial distributions of growing season soil moisture, and (iii) substantially reproduced the long-term observed variability of daily nitrate loads. Further analysis revealed that assimilation of MODIS LAI data corrected the model’s LAI overestimation tendency, which led to a proportionally increased rootzone soil moisture and decreased plant nitrogen uptake. With these new findings, our study confirms that assimilation of MODIS LAI data in watershed models can effectively improve both hydrology and water quality predictions.

Numerical climate model simulations run at high spatial and temporal resolutions generate massive quantities of data. As our computing capabilities continue to increase, storing all of the data is not sustainable, and thus is it important to develop methods for representing the full datasets by smaller compressed versions. We propose a statistical compression and decompression algorithm based on storing a set of summary statistics as well as a statistical model describing the conditional distribution of the full dataset given the summary statistics. We decompress the data by computing conditional expectations and conditional simulations from the model given the summary statistics. Conditional expectations represent our best estimate of the original data but are subject to oversmoothing in space and time. Conditional simulations introduce realistic small-scale noise so that the decompressed fields are neither too smooth nor too rough compared with the original data. Considerable attention is paid to accurately modeling the original dataset--one year of daily mean temperature data--particularly with regard to the inherent spatial nonstationarity in global fields, and to determining the statistics to be stored, so that the variation in the original data can be closely captured, while allowing for fast decompression and conditional emulation on modest computers.

The evidence of bodies of elemental sulfur (S ) beneath acid crater lakes at the summit of composite active volcanoes has been recognized several decades ago (Oppenheimer and Stevenson, 1989; Christenson and Woods, 1993). But S accumulation was already hypothesized a century ago at Kusatzu Shirane (Japan) based on the observation of sulfur spherules floating on its crater-lake (Ohashi, 1919). Since these pioneering works, other studies have focused on understanding key aspects of molten sulfur bodies, considered a feature unique of volcanic lakes. Instead, it is reasonable to assume that S bodies occur in several volcanic settings because a) several reactions may lead to S deposition from S-bearing gases, and b) crater-lakes, surface expressions of hydrothermal systems, are transient features. The scrubbing of several magmatic gases, some of which critical for volcano monitoring, has been attributed to ground/surface waters (Symonds et al. 2001). Nevertheless, gas scrubbing could reflect viscosity variations of impure S within hydrothermal systems. Industrial experiments indicated that impurities (organics, H2S, ammonia, HCl, HF, HBr, HI) hinder S polymerization at T ≥ 160ºC, allowing viscosity to remain low for a long time depending on the maximum T achieved and heating rates (Bacon and Fanelli, 1943). However, a prolonged heating destroys the viscosity-modifying substances (e.g. H2Sx formed by reactions with organics, H2S) and dramatic S viscosity increases occur after a certain number of heating and cooling cycles. A prolonged boiling of S with organics was observed to release H2S, following H2Sx disruption. Some gases (e.g. SO2) do not affect S viscosity. In volcanic environments, non-reactive species (e.g. SO2, CO2) could, therefore, escape under S low viscosity regimes. Also, halogens absence in gas emissions could be caused by their participation in reactions within S-layers causing its viscosity to remain low. More data are needed to validate the hypothesis stated above. References Bacon RF, Fanelli R, J Am Chem Soc 65, 639-648 (1943). Christenson, BW, Wood CP, Bull Volcan 55, 547-565 (1993). Ohashi R, J. Akita Min. Coll 1, 1-10 (1919) Oppenheimer C, Stevenson D, Nature 342, 790-793 (1989) Symonds RB, Gerlach TM, Reed MH, J. Volc Geot Res 108, 303-341 (2001)

Earth and environmental models are relied upon to investigate system responses that cannot otherwise be examined. In simulating physical processes, models have adjustable parameters which may, or may not, have a physical meaning. Determining the values to assign to these model parameters is an enduring challenge for earth and environmental modellers. Selecting different error metrics by which the models results are compared to observations will lead to different sets of calibrated model parameters, and thus different model results. Furthermore, models may exhibit ‘equifinal’ behaviour, where multiple combinations of model parameters lead to equally acceptable model performance against observations. These decisions in model calibration introduce uncertainty that must be considered when model results are used to inform environmental decision-making. This presentation focusses on the uncertainties that derive from the calibration of a four parameter lumped catchment hydrological model (GR4J). The GR models contain an inbuilt automatic calibration algorithm that can satisfactorily calibrate against four error metrics in only a few seconds. However, a single, deterministic model result does not provide information on parameter uncertainty. Furthermore, a modeller interested in extreme events, such as droughts, may wish to calibrate against more low flows specific error metrics. In a comprehensive assessment, the GR4J model has been run with 500,000 Latin Hypercube Sampled parameter sets across 303 catchments in the United Kingdom. These parameter sets have been assessed against six error metrics, including two drought specific metrics. This presentation compares the two approaches, and demonstrates that the inbuilt automatic calibration can outperform the Latin Hypercube experiment approach in single metric assessed performance. However, it is also shown that there are many merits of the more comprehensive assessment, which allows for probabilistic model results, multi-objective optimisation, and better tailoring to calibrate the model for specific applications such as drought event characterisation. Modellers and decision-makers may be constrained in their choice of calibration method, so it is important that they recognise the strengths and limitations of their chosen approach.