ALBERT

Description: [1]  Unusual ionospheric variations were observed in the M9.0 Tohoku-oki earthquake on 11 March 2011. Among various kinds of features in the ionosphere, significant depletion of TEC near the epicenter was observed after the earthquake. Although previous studies have suggested that the coseismic ionospheric variations are associated with atmospheric perturbation caused by vertical displacement of the sea surface, the mechanism of the TEC depletion has not been fully understood. In this paper, a two-dimensional nonlinear nonhydrostatic compressible atmosphere–ionosphere model is employed to investigate the ionospheric variations in the vicinity of the epicenter. The simulation results reveal that an impulsive pressure pulse produced by a sudden uplift of the sea surface leads to local atmospheric expansion in the thermosphere and that the expansion of the thermosphere combined with the effect of inclined magnetic field lines in the ionosphere causes the sudden TEC depletion above the epicenter region.

Description: An improved understanding of the mechanisms that regulate wildfire risk at local to regional scales is needed for the design of effective fire and ecosystem management. We investigated the spatial distribution of burned area in Southern California during 1960–2009 using five different data-driven methods: multiple linear regression, generalized additive models (GAMs), GAMs with spatial autocorrelation, non-linear multiplicative models, and random forest models. We used each method to separately develop burned area risk maps for Southern California's two distinct wildfire regimes: Santa Ana (SA fires), which occur during high wind events mostly in autumn, and non-Santa Ana fires (non-SA fires), which occur mostly during the hot and dry Mediterranean-climate summer. The different methods explained 38–63% of the spatial variance in burned area for SA fires and 21–48% for non-SA fires. The two fire regimes had contrasting drivers, with Fosberg fire weather index, relative humidity, minimum temperature, and distance to housing most important for SA fires, and shrub cover, road density, and distance to minor and major roads most important for non-SA fires. Our modeling framework carries implications for the strategic placement of fire suppression resources, and for prevention planning in areas facing increasing human and climate pressures.

Description: Experiments for generating extremely low frequency (ELF) radio waves using modulated HF heating of the auroral ionosphere have been conducted and refined at the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) facility at Gakona, Alaska. Because this technique is dependent on strength of the naturally generated electrojet current system, the amplitude of the generated ELF changes with geophysical conditions. Past work has shown that electrojet current strength as measured by magnetometers often correlates with generated ELF amplitude, but there are periods of poor or negative correlation. We attempt to use additional diagnostics from a radar, riometer, ionosonde, and magnetometer chain to understand how ionospheric conditions affect ELF generation. We then present the results of a statistical model that shows that ELF amplitude is roughly proportional to magnetometer measurements for a fixed value of riometer absorption and that the proportionality constant decreases as riometer absorption increases. Theoretical simulations of modulated heating are conducted for a variety of ionospheric density profiles to verify that denser profiles result in smaller gains for ELF generation as a function of electrojet current at a given electric field.

Description: A dynamic model is constructed for interactive silicon, nitrogen, sulfur processing in and below Arctic sea ice, by ecosystems residing in the lower few centimeters of the distributed pack. A biogeochemically active bottom layer supporting sources/sinks for the pennate diatoms is appended to thickness categories of a global sea ice code. Nutrients transfer from the ocean mixed layer to drive algal growth, while sulfur metabolites are reinjected from the ice interface. Freeze, flux, flush and melt processes are linked to multielement geocycling for the entire high-latitude regime. Major element kinetics are optimized initially to reproduce chlorophyll observations, which extend across the seasons. Principal influences on biomass are solute exchange velocity at the solid interface, optical averaging in active ice and cell retention against ablation. The sulfur mechanism encompasses open water features such as accumulation of particulate dimethyl sulfoniopropionate, grazing and other disruptive releases, plus bacterial/enzymatic conversion to volatile dimethyl sulfide. For baseline settings, the mixed layer trace gas distribution matches sparging measurements where they are available. However, concentrations rise to well over 10 nM in remote, unsampled locations. Peak contributions are supported by ice grazing, mortality and fractional melting. The model bottom layer adds substantially to a ring maximum of reduced sulfur chemistry that may be dominant across the marginal Arctic environment. Sensitivity tests on this scenario include variation of cell sulfur composition and remineralization, routings/chemical time scales, and the physical dimension of water layers. An alternate possibility that peripheral additions are small cannot be excluded from the outcomes. It is concluded that seagoing dimethyl sulfide data are far too sparse at the present time to distinguish sulfur-ice production levels.

Description: We formulate the problem of fully coupled transient fluid flow and quasi-static poroelasticity in arbitrarily fractured, deformable porous media saturated with a single-phase compressible fluid. The fractures we consider are hydraulically highly conductive, allowing discontinuous fluid flux across them; mechanically they act as finite-thickness shear deformation zones prior to failure (i.e., non-slipping and non-propagating), leading to ‘apparent discontinuity’ in strain and stress across them. Local nonlinearity arising from pressure-dependent permeability of fractures is also included. Taking advantage of typically high aspect ratio of a fracture, we do not resolve transversal variations and instead assume uniform flow velocity and simple shear strain within each fracture, rendering the coupled problem numerically more tractable. Fractures are discretized as lower-dimensional zero-thickness elements tangentially conforming to unstructured matrix elements. A hybrid-dimensional, equal-low-order, two-field mixed finite element method is developed, which is free from stability issues for a drained coupled system. The fully implicit backward Euler scheme is employed for advancing the fully coupled solution in time, and the Newton-Raphson scheme is implemented for linearization. We show that the fully discretized system retains a canonical form of a fracture-free poromechanical problem; the effect of fractures is translated to the modification of some existing terms as well as the addition of several terms to the capacity, conductivity and stiffness matrices, therefore, allowing the development of independent subroutines for treating fractures within a standard computational framework. Our computational model provides more realistic inputs for some fracture-dominated poromechanical problems like fluid-induced seismicity.

Description: [1]  Modulated HF heating of the D-region ionosphere near the auroral electrojet can generate extremely low frequency radio (ELF, 3 Hz - 3 kHz) waves. The modulated heating process is nonlinear and generates harmonics at integer multiples of the ELF modulation frequency. Quarternary phase shift keying (QPSK), a digital modulation technique is applied to ELF waves to demonstrate transmission of digital data. Data were successfully decoded at a nearby receiver and the bit error rate computed. Square wave modulation of the HF heater results in stronger signals and hence a smaller bit error rate. Simulations of the communication system using ELF waveforms and noise signals derived from ELF observations are also conducted. These simulations show that using higher harmonics of the ELF signal to improve the signal-to-noise ratio can reduce the bit error rate, though only when these harmonics are below ~4.5 kHz because of radio atmospherics (sferics) generating strong impulsive noise at higher frequencies.

Description: Modulated High Frequency (few MHz) heating of the D-region ionosphere under the auroral electrojet is capable of generating extremely low frequency (ELF) radio waves in the few kilohertz range by affecting the conductivity of the D-region. The HF heating is nonlinear and results in the generation of harmonics at integer multiples of the ELF modulation frequency with ∼1% of the total power outside the fundamental when sinusoidal amplitude modulation is applied to the HF carrier. For the purpose of harmonic minimization, we present a modulation scheme designed to create a sinusoidal change in the Hall conductivity at a particular altitude in the ionosphere. The modulation waveform is generated by inverting a numerical HF heating model, starting from the desired conductivity time series, and obtaining the HF power envelope at the bottom of the ionosphere. The inverted envelopes (referred to as inv-sin waveforms) are highly sensitive to the assumed ionospheric density profile and simulations indicate that these waveforms have less harmonic distortion compared to sinusoidal modulation when the actual ionospheric density is similar to or less dense than the one assumed. Experimental results indicate that sinusoidal amplitude modulation may still be preferred since it is more robust to the highly variable ionospheric profile while square wave modulation is more efficient in generation of ELF waves when harmonic distortion is not important. The inv-sin waveforms are more efficient than sinusoidal modulation while still suffering from less harmonic distortion than square wave modulation suggesting a tradeoff between harmonic distortion and ELF generation efficiency.

Description: [1]  Modulated High Frequency (few MHz) heating of the D -region ionosphere under the auroral electrojet is capable of generating extremely low frequency (ELF) radio waves in the few kilohertz range by affecting the conductivity of the D -region. The HF heating is nonlinear and results in the generation of harmonics at integer multiples of the ELF modulation frequency with ∼1% of the total power outside the fundamental when sinusoidal amplitude modulation is applied to the HF carrier. For the purpose of harmonic minimization, we present a modulation scheme designed to create a sinusoidal change in the Hall conductivity at a particular altitude in the ionosphere. The modulation waveform is generated by inverting a numerical HF heating model, starting from the desired conductivity time series, and obtaining the HF power envelope at the bottom of the ionosphere. The inverted envelopes (referred to as inv-sin waveforms) are highly sensitive to the assumed ionospheric density profile and simulations indicate that these waveforms have less harmonic distortion compared to sinusoidal modulation when the actual ionospheric density is similar to or less dense than the one assumed. Experimental results indicate that sinusoidal amplitude modulation may still be preferred since it is more robust to the highly variable ionospheric profile while square wave modulation is more efficient in generation of ELF waves when harmonic distortion is not important. The inv-sin waveforms are more efficient than sinusoidal modulation while still suffering from less harmonic distortion than square wave modulation suggesting a tradeoff between harmonic distortion and ELF generation efficiency.

Description: Long-lasting (〉 20 h) EMIC Pc1-2 waves were observed by the Athabasca ( L = ∼4.6) induction magnetometer and CARISMA ( L = ∼4-6) fluxgate magnetometers on 5 April 2007. These waves showed a systematic frequency change with local time; the minimum frequency near dusk and the maximum frequency near dawn. Assuming the plasmapause as a potential source region of the waves, we estimated the plasmapause location from localized proton enhancement (LPE) events observed at NOAA-POES and METOP-2 satellites. We found that the longitudinal frequency variation of EMIC waves has a clear correlation with the estimated plasmapause location and that the waves are in the frequency band between the equatorial helium and oxygen gyrofrequencies at the estimated plasmapause. With our analysis results we suggest that the LPE events are caused by wave-particle interaction with the helium-band EMIC waves generated near the plasmapause.