Regional geodynamics studies of the eastern United States (e.g., Ghosh et al., 2019) have shed light on the force balance controlling intraplate, passive margin seismicity. Recent observations of crustal structure in the Southeastern United States (Chen et al., 2018; Hopper et al., 2016; Parker et al., 2016; Savage et al., 2017; Wagner et al., 2018) now allow us to examine the gravitational component of force balance in more detail. Here, we examine the role of gravitational potential energy (GPE) within the crust and upper mantle in ongoing stress, strain, and tectonism in the Southeastern United States. We first calculate GPE differences using density and crustal thickness data from Crust 1.0 (Laske et al., 2013) which are integrated over the thickness of the lithosphere on a 0.5 by 0.5 degree grid (e.g., Flesch et al., 2001). In further models we modify crustal densities using recent seismic observations (e.g., Parker et al., 2016; Wagner et al., 2018). We compare model results to earthquake epicenters and locations of inherited structures within our study area, including the Reelfoot Rift; New Madrid Seismic Zone; Illinois Basin; New York-Alabama Lineament; sutures between sections of accreted terrane; and a region of high seismic velocity beneath central West Virginia interpreted as delaminated, eclogitized crust (Biryol et al., 2016). Whereas in most locations seismicity is associated with higher magnitudes of GPE, inherited structures may explain regions in which earthquakes occur in areas with lower magnitudes of GPE.

Each year the PRSN detects ~4,000 earthquakes within and around Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and the Eastern Dominican Republic. Given the seismic hazard presented by this earthquake activity it is critical to perform systematic and continuous studies aimed at understanding and mitigating the impacts of earthquakes. The major effects to a site are due to seismic wave amplification at specific frequencies caused by local unconsolidated sediments during strong ground motions. Therefore, it is important to recognize and mitigate these. The Puerto Rico Seismic Network (PRSN) at the University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez (Recinto Universitario de Mayagüez [RUM]) and the Puerto Rico Strong Motion Program (PRSMP), in collaboration with the United States Geological Survey (USGS) are conducting a passive-source seismic experiment to investigate the potential for seismic amplification by soils in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico. The goal of this experiment is to quantify the potential soil amplification in Mayagüez, which is located in the western portion of the island. This region experienced significant damage from shaking in the 1918, 7.3 Mw earthquake offshore of western Puerto Rico, making it a prime target for a pilot study to examine soil amplification. Local soil and bedrock conditions in Mayagüez are similar to other areas of the Caribbean, so results will have implications throughout the region. For this study, eleven L-22 sensors with Reftek RT130 recorders were installed in April 2019 to collect data for a period of six months. Since this time, there have been sixty-one M3 or greater earthquakes in the region per month and six M6.5 or greater teleseisms that should provide data suitable for analysis. Data are currently being analyzed using simple spectral ratios of soil sites to bedrock sites. We will present information about the deployment, experiment goals, and preliminary results. The results of this experiment will provide data to refine future hazard mapping and ground motion models of the island.

Evidence of syntectonic magmatism associated with onset extension and unroofing of the Menderes Massif metamorphic core complex, western Turkey, is well documented. The Salihli and Turgutlu plutons, located along the Alasehir detachment in the Central Menderes Massif (CMM) and the Koyunoba and Eğrigöz Plutons located in the Northern Menderes Massif (NMM) are common targets for understanding the dynamics and timing of this Cenozoic activity. To this end, here we report new potassium feldspar 40Ar/39Ar ages from samples collected from each pluton and compare these to available zircon U-Pb and monazite Th-Pb crystallization ages. Argon age spectra were collected by incrementally heating bulk concentrates with a CO2 laser and analyzing the gas released at each step. The peraluminous granite samples from the Koyunoba (AT17) and Eğrigöz (WA12) plutons both have effectively flat spectra with average plateau ages of 20.12±0.05 Ma and 19.86±0.05 Ma, respectively. The U-Pb age of zircon from WA12 is 20.5±1.1 Ma [Catlos et al., 2012; doi: 10.2475/05.2012.03 ]; although a zircon U-Pb age from AT17 has not been reported, zircon from other Koyunoba rocks have U-Pb ages between 21.1 Ma and 23.2 Ma [1]. K-feldspar from sample EB06 (Turgutlu Granite) steadily increases in age from 10.62±0.03 Ma to a plateau age of 14.06±0.03 Ma, with similar inverse isochron (13.66±0.29 Ma) and total gas ages (13.36±0.2 Ma). Sample EB05 (Salihli Granite) increases in age from 3.27±0.10 Ma (step 3, 0.5% 39Ar released) to a maximum of 6.05±0.09 Ma (step 33, 96.6% 39Ar released). A plateau age could not be estimated for this sample, but two inverse isochron ages from different degassing steps are calculated (3.02±0.09 Ma for the initial 19 steps and 3.29±0.22 Ma, for the final steps 19-31). Regarding their crystallization histories, the oldest reported monazite Th-Pb age for EB06 is 15.5±1.2 Ma [2] and reported monazite Th-Pb ages for Salhili granite ranges from 9.6±1.6 Ma to 21.7±4.5 Ma [Catlos et al., 2010; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tecto.2009.06.001]. These 40Ar/39Ar ages suggest NMM plutons rapidly cooled whereas CMM Salihli and Turgutlu plutons not only remained at depth below the argon retention window for a prolonged period following emplacement, but each experienced unique thermal (exhumation) histories despite their geographic proximity.

In recent years, the need for improved global terrestrial and space weather specification and forecast has driven the development of new commercial satellite constellations to monitor radio occultations (RO) using Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) signals. These signals interact with irregularities in the ionosphere, causing radio wave scintillation that is known to degrade the performance of communication and navigation systems, and may also degrade the accuracy of RO tropospheric and stratospheric retrievals. This January, PlanetiQ will launch the first two of its planned 20 microsatellites commercial constellation (to be complete by 2022), focused on weather and space weather forecasting and climate. With this constellation, PlanetiQ intends to provide over 80 million global observations per day. The focus of this paper concerns a simulation study we conducted to assess possible impacts on tracking and tropospheric retreivals due to ionospheric scintillation. We constructed a 3D, time-dependent model for the strength, orientation, and spectral characteristics of the irregularities. Our methodology generates representative realizations of irregularity structure (space weather) rather than average conditions (climatology). We integrated through the model along each RO ray-path to determine the strength and location of an equivalent phase screen, which we used to generate realizations of intensity and phase scintillation at the receiver. The phase screen calculation is a generalization of our previous algorithm (Carrano et al., Radio Sci., 2011) which now admits propagation and scanning at arbitrary angles to the magnetic field. There were approximately 50,000 RO events between the 20 PlanetiQ microsatellites and the satellites of the GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, and BeiDou GNSS constellations each day. We simulated scintillation for each carrier frequency transmitted by each GNSS satellite for a total of 39 days. We discuss potential impacts of scintillation on satellite tracking and the accuracy of tropospheric retrievals as a function of season and solar activity. We compare the scintillation index (S4) along each RO raypath with a vertical propagation path through the same irregularities. These are compared with observations from the CORISS instrument onboard the C/NOFS satellite and ground based observations from the SCINDA network.

Smart Climate Hydropower Tool is an innovative web-cloud-based service that implements a set of data-driven methods for river discharge. An application for two catchments in South America is discussed (test cases), where management of hydropower plants can benefit from knowledge of incoming discharge forecasts up to 6 months in advance. SCHT has been developed inside H2020 project “CLARA - Climate forecast enabled knowledge service” and exploits several Artificial Intelligence algorithms, evolving by R&D activity to test new available ones. Although tangible results using AI have been published (i.e. Callegari, et al., 2015, De Gregorio et. al 2017) challenges remain for seasonal lead times and rainfall dominated catchments, where forecast of meteorological variables plays a critical role. In this contribution we show results of application of different AI algorithms (from supervised learning regression techniques, to artificial neural networks). Each algorithm is trained over past decades datasets of recorded data, forecast performances are then evaluated using separate test sets with reference to benchmarks (historical average of discharge values and simpler multiparametric regressions). Major operative advantages of AI with respect to mechanistic hydrological models include limited to none a priori knowledge of involved physical phenomena, high level of flexibility when managing heterogeneous sets of variables related to discharge, and quick setup time of the forecast. Major efforts are requested to identity informative input features ranging from earth observation to gauging stations data, to public meteorological forecasts (i.e Copernicus Climate Change Service-C3S). Using AI techniques many combinations of features can be tested together, to predict river discharge to the reservoirs, choosing the best performing one and tailoring the service to the catchment of interest. Once trained, each algorithm just needs to retrieve online data to perform forecasts, with limited maintenance (i.e. annual re-training to consider new available hydrological data). For demonstrational purposes we prototyped a cloud-based service, for immediate visualization, through a common browser, of both past and forecasted data, and get on fly performance metrics calculation of the forecasts.

As we approach 2020, there are more well bores that require abandonment than well bores waiting to be drilled. The USA alone has ~1.7 Million well bores with an API number indicating that they are not permanently plugged, therefore will be in need of Plugging and Abandonment (P&A) at some point in the future. Some of these well bores are located in fragile ecosystems, such as the Gulf of Mexico, where it is estimated that 9,000 idle well bores are waiting permanent plugging and abandonment. The numbers of future P&As suggest requirement for an urgent improvement of current technology as many governments are preparing standards that require assurance for zero leakage over thousands of years. This paper/talk will present knowledge gaps we identified during literature review and the data obtained during first two terms of the ongoing project , under NASEM-GRP funding. Extensive literature review points to the following issues: 1) Portland-cement based materials, with their pH ~13, are geochemically incompatible with the reservoir conditions in the GoM. 2) Weak interfaces between and contamination with drilling fluids in well bore structures present high risk for Hydrocarbon leakage, which currently cannot be mitigated successfully. Placement and accessibility of well bore in offshore environment adds to technological complexity and increases the risk of leakage. 3) Monitoring and verification is currently not available for long-term assessment offshore. Some of our preliminary data suggests the following: 1) Plugging materials are impacted by contamination form drilling fluids and other well bore materials, such as fragment of dehydrated clays, oily rock fragments. 2) Casing corrosion might lead to deterioration of primary well bore cement, which can be difficult to locate and re mediate prior to plugging. 3) Geo-mimicry is a potential path forward in designing and developing barrier materials capable of serving over thousands of years.

Increasing awareness of the links between water-energy consumption has seen a strong focus on examining and identifying areas where reductions in greenhouse gas emissions can be achieved. We are becoming increasingly aware that a truly sustainable water and energy supply in any community must incorporate a systemic approach where community, governance, culture, economics and local environmental context are considered along with improved technological outcomes. This presentation is focussed on giving a snapshot of research projects that have been undertaken in Australia to understand the water-energy nexus through the use of digital technologies such as smart water and energy meters and big data analytics. Topics that will be highlighted will include: • the application of smart metering technology to improve our understanding of peak demand patterns and subsequent network optimization, (e.g. reduce energy demand for pumping), • assessing energy consumption of water heating systems with empirical information (e.g. measured water consumption patterns) • residential rain tank pump performance at an end use level • using smart meter enabled, water end-use data to identify the key indoor and outdoor end-uses that contribute to water-related energy demand; and • the water-energy nexus in remote and Indigenous communities – using water demand management to reduce high energy off-grid water supply costs Projects will cover urban, regional and remote communities and will. The presentation will conclude some provide insights on how using a combination of socio-technical approaches can reveal both barriers and opportunities to reducing water and water-related energy demand.

The Arctic Ocean contains only a 1% of the world’s ocean water, but the rivers that flow out into it account for the 10% of the volume world’s rivers freshwater. The upper layer of fresher water facilitates the creation of sea ice and plays an important role in the position of the jet stream and storms over the northern hemisphere [ISBN, 978-82-7971-097-4]. Remote sensing measurements are of special importance in the Arctic since in situ data is very scarce there. SMOS and SMAP are currently providing sea surface salinity (SSS) measures, but only the product provided by Barcelona Expert Center (BEC) is a dedicated product for the Arctic region. The product that we present in this work is an improvement of the BEC Arctic v2.0. The new version 3.0 has as the primary objective the describing better the river discharges. The spatial grid used is WGS84/NSIDC EASE-Grid 2.0 North for the all stages of the processing chain. This procedure avoids spatial interpolation, favoring the definition of river mouths. The salinity retrieval is based on the Debiased non-bayesian method [doi:10.1016/j.rse.2017.02.023] and similarly to what is done in the processing of altimetric data, SMOS salinity is corrected using a reference calculated from the own SMOS data for each latitude, longitude, pass orientation and antenna measuring position. Arctic v3.0 differs from current method [doi:10.3390/rs10111772] in two important points: the reference is computed for brightness temperature instead of SSS and the antenna has been divided in a more homogeneous grid. Other improvements concern to data filtering and propagation of the radiometric errors to SSS. All these improvements provide level 3 maps less noisy, increasing the effective resolution of salinity gradients. Freshwater gradients are much better resolved than in previous version (Fig. 1). Comparison with JPL SMAP product is also planned as a first step to generate a combined product. This work is funded by ESA Arctic + project and also includes the assimilation of the resulting SSS product in the ocean-sea ice data assimilation system TOPAZ as the next version TOPAZ5. A preliminary study [doi:10.5194/os-2018-163] has been performed concluding that BEC product could be a good candidate to be assimilated by TOPAZ. Moreover, some preliminary tests with a pre-release v3.0 version will start shortly.

Field trips, camps, and courses are considered a critical experience in the education of future geoscientists. Traditional bedrock geologic mapping continues to play a prominent role in field courses and a robust body of research describes how students gain content, skills, habits of mind, social engagement, and identity as a geologist in field settings. However, little work has examined instructional practices that lead to meaningful learning of geologic mapping. During a semi-structured interview, we asked 67 novice to professional geologists to reflect on how and where they learned geologic mapping. When analyzed through the lens of situated learning theory (Lave and Wenger 1991), responses from these geologists shed light on best practices for mapping instruction in field settings. Our findings highlight two contrasting forms of instruction and the importance of a community of practice. In structured instruction, students and instructors worked together through a prescribed learning progression. Conversely, in ill-structured instruction participants described receiving little guidance on how to progress. Overall, our participants reflected positively on learning experiences that built upon sufficient prior knowledge, allowed for some struggle but included generous instructor support, and provided the opportunity to work collaboratively with other learners. Our participants found regular feedback to be highly beneficial. We suggest that appropriate activities and assessments that encourage both teamwork (collaboration) and independent studies should be incorporated into field instruction. Additionally, the results of our study suggest that the community of practice is a crucial contributor to learning to map and that the learning is defined as much by the professional domain shared between novices and experts as it is by the physical domain provided by the complex Earth environment. In order for a learner to be authentically involved in the actual practice of an expert, the learner must work with and learn from the community of practice.

As climate change adaptation is becoming a recognized policy issue, the needs are growing about quantitative economic evaluation of adaptation-related public investments, particularly in the context of climate finance. Irrigation, which enhances and stabilizes water supply for farming, is a potential means of climate change adaptation, but attempts of economic evaluation of its effectiveness as an adaptation measure are few in part because such assessment requires an integration of various types of simulation analyses. Against this background, we conduct a case study of a Kenyan irrigation development project (Mwea Irrigation Development Project), which is undertaken by the Kenyan government with a loan from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), to evaluate the effectiveness of the project for climate change adaptation by using a combination of simulation models. Specifically, we conduct a simple downscaling of CMIP5 climate simulation data, whose outputs are fed into a hydrological model (SHER model) and a yield forecasting model (DSSAT model). With these simulation data, together with data of socioeconomic parameters drawn from existing and original surveys, we compute economic variables such as farmers’ average income. Climate and other uncertainties are incorporated into analysis without probabilistic weights (conforming to the Robust Decision Making approach, e.g., Lempert et al., 2013) to highlight vulnerabilities for local farming. The results show that despite uncertainties of precipitation trends, increased temperatures due to climate change have a general tendency to reduce rice yields, and that irrigation development will mitigate that income impacts from the yield loss, i.e., it will likely be effective as a means for climate change adaptation.

Commonly-occurring stratification and synoptic tendencies lead to liquid clouds and warm precipitation processes in the PBL over large portions of the globe. The climate is so sensitive to these low-level clouds that they are identified in IPCC reports as major uncertainty sources for climate prediction; their representation in GCMs thus needs improvement. PBL clouds have therefore been scrutinized in numerous field campaigns over both ocean and land. The main method for measuring clouds in field campaigns is in-situ airborne probing and, though these data are invaluable, it is widely recognized that spatial and temporal sampling is innately poor. We then turn to remote sensing as a way of drastically improving spatial sampling since it delivers cloud properties over more than a line-of-flight through 3+1D space. The obvious tradeoff is, however, generally complicated connections between remotely-measured radiances and inherent cloud properties of real interest to cloud process modelers. Active remote sensing from below or above the clouds improves vastly over in-situ sampling, but its outcome remains confined to a “ribbon” of vertical profiles ordered in time (from below) or space (from above). Passive imaging has the complimentary problem of delivering a potentially wide horizontal swath of cloud properties, but integrated along the vertical. At least that is the conventional wisdom when it comes to the solar spectrum, where observed radiances from clouds are dominated by multiple scattering. Based on recent results from AirMSPI imaging at 20 km altitude, we challenge the perceived limitation of passive shortwave radiometry to deliver only column-integrated properties. We demonstrate that multi-pixel exploitation of multi-angle spectro-polarimteric imaging at solar wavelengths can be used to extract not only maps of microphysical properties but also 3D cloud structure for both PBL-topped stratiform layers and vertically-developed 3D clouds in convective regimes. A key realization is: airborne and space-based sensors offer radically different spatial and angular sampling opportunities with unique advantages in both cases. We look forward to future PBL-specific missions in space for their global reach. At the same time, there is a clear case for deploying high-altitude imagers in all future campaigns.

To close the water use budget in irrigated agricultural fields in flood plains with substantial riparian corridors, it is necessary to understand groundwater usage by dominant phreatophyte vegetation, particularly when the primary source of the water for irrigation comes from groundwater abstraction. We report here results of measurements of sap flow in phreatophyte vegetation in a riparian corridor, which is part of a watershed located along the coast in Santa Cruz County, California. The riparian corridor is within a study area of 75 to 140 meters wide in the lower portion of Scotts Creek watershed, which is bounded to the west by the Pacific Ocean. Canopy cover in the study area often approaches 100 percent, with dominant trees being red alder (Alnus rubra), arroyo willow (Salix lasiolepis), and pacific willow (Salix lasiandra var. lasiandra). Other trees include boxelder (Acer negundo), big leaf maple (Acer macrophyllum), and California bay laurel (Umbellularia californica). Common understory vegetation includes California blackberry (Rubus ursinus), stinging nettle (Urtica dioica subsp. gracilis), poison hemlock (Conium maculatum), Cape ivy (Delairea odorata), and Italian thistle (Carduus pycnocephalus). For the study reported here, only the two most dominant phreatophyte species, namely red alders and arroyo willows, were instrumented with sap flow sensors. In addition to diurnal fluctuations, sap flow data collected hitherto also shows expected seasonal variation with summer maxima and winter minima, with transition fall and spring periods. Sap flow measurements from the study area are projected across the entire riparian forest using sampled tree sapwood area and used to estimate forest evapotranspiration (ET). The ET is then used in a groundwater flow model to more accurately predict observed groundwater fluctuations and usage by riparian vegetation.

Fast solar wind streams are known to be dominated by Alfvenic turbulence, i.e. large amplitude magnetic field and quasi-incompressible velocity fluctuations with a correlation corresponding to waves propagating away from the Sun. At the same time the Ulysses spacecraft showed That microstreams, persistent long period (1/2-2 days) fluctuations in the radial velocity field, are ubiquitous in the fast wind. This contribution explores the possible causal relation between microstreams and Alfvenic turbulence. We carry out a parametric study of the stability of the microstream jets to Kelvin-Helmholtz (KH) instabilities: starting from the profiles of density, radial speed and magnetic field observed in the solar wind, we investigate both at what distance from the Sun KH instabilities may be triggered and the ensuing nonlinear dynamics.

Variation of the surface coastal current in the marginal sea off the west coast of Sumatra during the Pre-YMC and YMC periods was investigated by the R/V “Mirai” cruises (Pre-YMC [Years of the Maritime Continent]: MR15-04 and YMC: MR17-08). One of the major differences between the cruises of MR15-04 and MR17-08 was the direction of the surface coastal current. According to the LADCP observation, the southeastward current along the coast was continuously dominant under the forcing of a weak easterly winds in the MR15-04, whereas in the MR17-08, the current direction was rotated counterclockwise around 10 days under the strong westerly wind forcing after the passage of the MJO, suggesting the passage of meso-vortices. The difference was confirmed by the oceanic reanalysis of the ECCO2, and it was confirmed that the meso-vortex was slowly moved along the coast (about 300 km / 10 days). It was suggested that the presence or absence of the meso-vortex formation caused a large difference in not only the horizontal advection but also the up or down welling in the mixed layer. The meso-vortex was also accompanied by a clear maximum of the sea surface height, and a large vertical motion in the mixed layer is estimated in ECCO2. The coastal meso-vortex was gradually formed and developed under the continuous westerly wind forcing more than 10 days after the MJO passage.

Solar flare, as a typical large temporal-spatial turbulent magnetic reconnection (LTSTMR, the ratio of observed current sheets thickness to electron characteristic length, electron Larmor radius for low-β and electron inertial length for high-β, is on the order of 10E10–10E11; the ratio of observed evolution time to electron gyroperiod is on the order of 10E7–10E9) explosion in the solar atmosphere activities, involving sudden bursts of particle acceleration that from sudden release of magnetic energy in a few minutes to a few tens of minutes. The X rays and gamma rays are believed to result from the interactions of the high energy electrons energized and nuclear interaction of the high energy protons and other heavier ions, respectively. While many particle acceleration models consider turbulence acceleration as an effective way of generating energetic electrons, the precise turbulence roles during acceleration and heating of electrons still remain unclear. Here we show from 3D relativistic hybrid particle-in-cell and lattice Boltzmann method (RHPIC-LBM) simulation that interaction of helical magnetic structure that leads to efficient energization of electrons. By following the trajectories of the most energetic electrons, we found the strong Langmuir turbulence acceleration (LTA) through wave-wave, wave-particle interaction in the diffusion region of the flare, which can accelerate electrons effectively. and discuss the turbulence acceleration by strong Langmuir wave. The simulation of LTA is not only similar to the shock wave acceleration, but more efficient than that of the shock wave acceleration. The energy spectrum of hot electrons undergoing LTA can be studied the X ray and gamma ray production in flare. We anticipate our results to be a key point for understanding the relationship between particle acceleration mechanism and explosive energetic electrons observed in the solar flares during MHD Alfven turbulence translate into Kinetic Alfven turbulence progress.

A sediment core taken proximal to a large sunken ship in the north channel of the Yangtze delta suggests a dramatic change in sedimentation that is coincident with the sinking of the ship. We conducted AMS 14C and OSL dating and analysed the lithology, grain size, magnetic susceptibility and organic elemental geochemistry and combined these data with historical marine charts and historical data. A notable change in sedimentary environments implies a dramatic change to the geomorphological evolution of the environment at the location of the shipwreck. The sediments below the shipwreck layers suggest that the shipwreck occurred in a sheltered tidal channel developed at the north margin of the Tongsha Shoal of the Yangtze River mouth. The shipwreck layer containing the wood pieces of the sunken ship is composed of structureless silts and underlain by homogeneous mud separated by an erosional contact. The ship/storm layer is overlain by sandy facies reflecting a change to more open marine channel conditions. The sedimentary data implies that a large historical typhoon possibly on July 31, 1879 sunk several ships and caused significant geomorphological change to the Yangtze delta.

We present a reinterpretation of a geological section in the Tampico-Misantla oil province made with the purpose of selecting and evaluating possible sites to implement a Geological CO2 Storage (GCS) in the Jurassic sedimentary units. Specific parameters of the reservoir such as porosity, permeability, fluid content, temperature, and overburden pressure were estimated from a database of drilled oil wells, core descriptions, laboratory tests, and analogue outcrop descriptions. Previous data indicated porosity values ranging from 6% to 12%, and relatively low permeability values <0.001 mD for calcareous sand and clay-silty bearing layers. Reinterpretation of a geological section involving the main lithostratigraphic units, from Cenozoic sediments to Jurassic metamorphic rocks, was made based on geological maps, geological contacts, and seismic data. Petrophysical properties were obtained from well logs available (Neutron, DTCO, Gamma Ray, Resistivity) and compared with laboratory measurements in cores from wells and outcrops. A model of regional petrophysical facies for the reservoir and seal units was developed by using selected physical properties in relation with the regional geological context. Five petrophysical facies distributed across the study area were identified in the reservoir including calcareous sands, quartz bearing sandstone and quartz bearing conglomerates for the reservoir, and bituminous shales and limestone for the shale units covering the reservoir. Permeability and porosity values at the reservoir scale were estimated from well logs using methods available in the literature and then compared with the laboratory tests. Two porosity estimations were computed from well logs: Neutron porosity (NPHI) and Sonic Porosity (PHITS) with results ranging from 0.1 % to 16%. Estimated permeability yielded a range of 0.001 mD to 15 mD. The results suggest that the Jurassic units are a suitable reservoir since geological traps and specific depositional facies distributed in the basin have the required porosity and permeability values suggested for efficient CO2 storage.

Solar geoengineering has been suggested as a potential approach to counteract the anthropogenic global warming. Major volcanic eruptions have been used as natural analogues to large-scale deployments of stratospheric aerosol geoengineering, yet difference in climate responses to these forcings remains unclear. Among many factors characterizing the difference between the two, durations of the additional aerosol layer in the stratosphere differ substantially between volcanic eruptions and the SAI geoengineering. Sulfate aerosols from volcanic eruptions typically stay in the stratosphere for one to two years. Stratospheric aerosol geoengineering, however, if used to counteract anthropogenic warming, would need to be deployed quasi-continuously and thus the additional aerosols would stay in the stratosphere persistently. Using the NCAR CESM model, we compare the climate response to two highly idealized stratospheric aerosol forcings that have different durations: a short-term pulse representative of volcanic eruptions and a long-term sustained forcing representative of geoengineering. For the same amount of global mean cooling, the pulse case causes much larger reductions in surface temperature over land relative to the sustained case. This greater cooling over land leads to a larger decrease in the vertical motion of air over land in lower atmosphere, and reduces water vapor transport from the ocean to land. For similar amounts of global cooling, the decrease in land runoff caused by a short-term pulse aerosol forcing is about twice as large as that caused by a sustained aerosol forcing. Our results clearly demonstrate difference in the climate response to volcanic-like and geoengineering-like stratospheric aerosol forcings, and suggest that caution should be exercised when extrapolating results from volcanic eruptions to the SAI geoengineering deployments. However, observations and simulations of climate impacts from volcanic eruptions test many of the same physical mechanisms that would come into play in a stratospheric aerosol geoengineering scenario, and thus major volcanic eruptions remain as valuable analogues for solar geoengineering deployment.