bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Optimising water vapour retrievals by exploiting sensitivity within the far-infrared: A study in support of the ESA FORUM mission.
Authors: Panditharatne Sanjeevani , Brindley Helen , Cox Caroline , Siddans Richard
Published: February 2023

Theoretical models suggest that ∼55% of the outgoing longwave radiation from Earth is within the far-infrared region, 100-666 cm−1. Nevertheless, the top-of-atmosphere radiation spectrum in this region has never been measured, something that will change with ESA’s Far-infrared Outgoing Radiation Understanding and Monitoring (FORUM) mission, launching in 2027. Studies have indicated that absorption within this region is dominated by tropospheric water vapour, significantly impacting Earth’s radiation budget. Quantifying these concentrations plays a vital role in estimating its radiative effects and associated feedbacks.The Infrared and Microwave Sounding (IMS) retrieval scheme developed at RAL Space is an optimal estimation scheme currently using channels within the mid- and near-infrared as well as the microwave region to obtain simultaneous retrievals of the vertical atmospheric profile and cloud properties. Current retrievals using this scheme have been performed on observations from Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI), Microwave Humidity Sounder (MHS) and the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU) onboard the MetOp satellites. Temperature and water vapour retrievals using this framework have been validated against radiosonde data with biases within 1 K and 10% of the reference respectively.This work seeks to extend IMS into the far-infrared and exploit the known sensitivity of upwelling radiation within this region to improve current retrievals of water vapour. This would enhance our understanding of the spatial and temporal variations of water vapour within the atmosphere, and its role in Earth's radiation budget. Unique clear-sky airborne measurements will be used to analyse channel sensitivity within this region and maximise the information content for the retrieval. This retrieval capability would be the first of its kind to be thoroughly validated in this way and would be available for use on FORUM observations.
The SHIELD’21 deep seismic experiment, Ukraine
Authors: Janik Tomasz , Starostenko Vitaly , Czuba Wojciech , Środa Piotr , Murovskaya Anna , Yegorova Tamara , Verpakhovska Alexandra , Kolomiyets Katerina , Lysynchuk Dmytro , Wójcik Dariusz , Omelchenko Victor , Amashukeli Tanya , Legostaeva Olga , Gryn Dmytro , Chulkov Serhii
Published: February 2023

Carried out in 2021, the wide-angle reflection and refraction (WARR) SHIELD’21 profile crosses, from SW to NE, the main tectonic structures of Ukraine. It targeted the structure of the Earth’s crust and upper mantle of the southwestern margin of the East European Craton with overlying Neogene Carpathian Foredeep and Vendian-Paleozoic Volyn-Podolian Monocline, Archaean and Paleoproterozoic segments of Ukrainian Shield and Late Paleozoic Dnipro-Donetsk Basin. The ~650 km long SHIELD’21 profile is an extension of previously realized RomUkrSeis profile carried out in 2014 and running from the Apuseni Mountains to the southwestern Ukrainian Shield (Starostenko et al., 2020). The WARR study along the SHIELD’21 profile using TEXAN and DATA-CUBE short-period seismic stations provided high-quality seismic records. The field work was performed during the summer of 2021, included the deployment of autonomous seismic stations and drilling-explosive works. A total of 264 seismic receivers were involved, (160 DATA-CUBE and 104 TEXAN stations). The average spacing between observation points is about 2.65 km. The sampling interval for all stations was 0.01 s. Seismic energy was generated at 10 shot points (SP) with total charge in all wells 5775 kg. The distance between the SPs was about 50 km.The main recorded seismic waves are the refractions of P- and S- waves in sediments, basement, crust and uppermost mantle, and reflections from crustal boundaries, Moho interface and boundaries in the uppermost mantle. The correlation picking of their arrival times will allow to build a velocity model not only for P-, but also for S-waves and Vp/Vs ratio.The main objective of the SHIELD’21 project is to get new seismic data that increase our knowledge on the lithosphere structure and geodynamics of the study region. Starostenko, V., Janik, T., Mocanu, V., Stephenson, R., Yegorova, T., Amashukeli, T., Czuba, W., Środa, P., Murovskaya, A., Kolomiyets, K., Lysynchuk, D., Okoń, J., Dragut, A., Omelchenko, V., Legostaieva, O., Gryn, D., Mechie, J., & Tolkunov, A. (2020). RomUkrSeis: Seismic model of the crust and upper mantle across the Eastern Carpathians — From the Apuseni Mountains to the Ukrainian Shield. Tectonophysics, 794, 228620. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tec to.2020.22862
Performance of water indices using large-scale sentinel-2 data in Google Earth Engine Computing
Authors: Abebe Mathias Tesfaye , Breuer Lutz
Published: February 2023

Evaluating the performance of water indices and quantifying the spatial distribution of water-related ecosystems are important for monitoring surface water resources of our study area since there is a limited study available to compute water indices using high-resolution and multi-temporal sentinel-2 data on a large scale. In addition, a comparative performance analysis of water indices methods using the aforementioned dataset on a country scale, showing their strengths and weaknesses, was missing too. To address these problems, this paper evaluated the performance of water indices for surface water extraction in Ethiopia. For this purpose, high spatial and multi-temporal resolution large-scale sentinel-2 data were employed and processed using the Google Earth Engine cloud computing system. In this study, seven indices, namely water index (WI) and automatic water extraction index (AWEI) with shadow and no shadow, normalized difference water index (NDWI), modified normalized difference water index (MNDWI), sentinel water index (SWI), and land surface water index (LSWI) were evaluated with overall accuracy, producer’s accuracy, user’s accuracy, and Kappa coefficient. The result revealed that the WI and AWEIshadow were the most accurate to extract the surface water compared to other indices in qualitative and quantitative evaluation of accuracy indicators obtained with a kappa coefficient of 0.96 and 0.95, respectively, and with overall accuracy for both in 0.98. In addition, the AWEIshadow index was also relatively better at suppressing shadow and urban areas. The accuracy difference between LSWI and other indices was significant which performed the worst with overall accuracy and kappa coefficients of 0.82 and 0.31, respectively. Using best-performing indices of WI and AWEIshadow, 82650 and 86530 square km of surface water fractions were extracted, respectively. Therefore, our result confirmed that WI and AWEIshadow indices generated better water extraction outputs using a high spatial and multi-temporal resolution of sentinel-2 data under a wide range of environmental conditions and water body types on the country scale.
A Novel Method for Quantifying Terrestrial SOA-Markers in Antarctic Ice
Authors: Bushrod Emilia , Thomas Elizabeth , Giorio Chiara
Published: February 2023

Terrestrially emitted biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOCs) can be oxidised within the troposphere and become components in secondary organic aerosol (SOA). SOA can be transported and deposited at glacial regions. Due to Antarctica’s geography being removed from the terrestrial sources of BVOCs, it was unclear if SOA-markers of such BVOCs could become incorporated in Antarctic ice, at a detectable concentration. Terrestrial SOA-markers have never before been found to be present in Antarctic ice cores, until this study. The implementation of liquid chromatography coupled with triple quadrupole mass spectrometry has allowed for the development of a novel method that can detect targeted organic compounds at concentrations as low as 1.5ppt. Using this method, 2-methylerythritol, a SOA-marker of isoprene, has been detected in Jurassic, an ice core drilled in Antarctica. Though difficult to quantify due to the low concentration, this is the first time that such a compound has been found in Antarctic ice.
Socio-cultural aspects foster resilience and religious unity in the Sundarbans
Authors: Basu Debamitra
Published: February 2023

The residents of Sundarbans remain spirited in restoring their socio-economic conditions in a sustainable way facing the odds of climate change. Irrespective of religion, be it Hindu or Muslim, the residents, especially the forest goers, worship goddess Bonbibi, who is revered as the forest's guardian spirit. According to the myth, Bonbibi saves every individual from tigers, snakes, and crocodile attacks. The name "Bonbibi" is unique for any Bengali deity because the term "bibi" is frequently used by Muslim women as their surname. Such a location-based religious framing focuses on an original viewpoint that emphasizes ecological resilience as well as sustainable activities. Forest workers abstain from fish catching during specific breeding seasons and they do not obtain honey from the small flowering trees. The worship of the goddess Bonbibi promotes the benefits of protecting forests. It has been noted that Bonbibi, the personification of strong traits rather than spirituality, is worshipped for security rather than salvation. The people, especially the fishermen, Bauli (woodcutters), and Mouli (honey gatherers) pray, sing hymns, recite poetry, and seek the blessing of Goddess Bonbibi before entering the dense forest. The most astonishing thing about this is that Muslims still pray to Bonbibi like Hindus do, despite not believing in idol worship! Even after their husbands' deaths, the 'tiger widows' have unwavering faith in Bonbibi. In the Sundarbans, where death is largely unpredictable, it is clear how fear and vulnerability outweigh the differing perspectives of different religious communities and thus embody the humane principle of unity in diversity. In this way, the cultural ideals about the goddess Bonbibi are a fundamental component of the Sundarbans and may help address contemporary issues and reconstruct a resilient society. Since isolated set of scientific environmental protection policies would be insufficient to solve the issues raised by the vulnerable ecology, conservation guidelines protecting this largest coastal mangrove forest should acknowledge these location-based customary conventions.
Identifying soil signatures from soil moisture time series via a changepoint-based approach
Authors: Gong Mengyi , Killick Rebecca , Nemeth Christopher , Quinton John , Davis Jessica
Published: February 2023

Healthy soil plays a critical role in sustaining biodiversity, maintaining food production, and mitigating climate change through carbon capture. Soil moisture is an important measure of soil health that scientists model via soil drydown curves. The typical modelling process requires manually separating the soil moisture time series into segments representing the drying process and fitting exponential decay models to these segments to obtain an estimation of the key parameters. With the advancement of sensor technology, scientists can now obtain higher frequency measurements over longer periods in a larger number of locations. To enable automatic data processing and to obtain a dynamic view of the soil moisture drydown, a changepoint-based approach is developed to automatically identify structural changes in soil moisture time series.Specifically, timings of the sudden rises in soil moisture over a long time series are captured and the parameters characterising the drying processes following the sudden rises are estimated simultaneously. An algorithm based on the penalised exact linear time (PELT) method was developed to identify the changepoints and estimate the model parameters. This method can be considered as a complement to the conventional soil moisture modelling. It requires little data pre-processing and can be applied to a soil moisture time series directly. Since each drying segment has its unique parameters, the method also has the potential of capturing any temporal variations in the drying process, thus providing a more comprehensive summary of the data.The method was applied to the hourly soil moisture time series of nine field sites from the NEON data portal (https://data.neonscience.org/). Distributions and summary statistics of key model parameters, such as the exponential decay rate and the asymptotic soil moisture level, are produced for each field site. Investigating and comparing these quantities from different field sites enables the identification of soil signatures which can reflect the hydrological properties of the soil. Visualising the model parameters as a time series reveals the subtle temporal pattern of the drying process in some field sites. 
Using banded iron formations to understand habitable conditions on the early Earth
Authors: Nichols Claire , Weiss Benjamin , Eyster Athena , Martin Craig , Maloof Adam , Kelly Nigel , Zawaski Mike , Mojzsis Stephen , Watson Bruce , Cherniak Daniele
Published: February 2023

Earth is the only known inhabited world in our solar system. Criteria essential for planetary habitability include surface liquid water, a stable atmosphere, and a magnetic field. While the rock record suggests Earth has fulfilled these criteria for at least 4 billion years (Ga), both its environment and life have evolved over time. The Great Oxygenation Event (GOE), which occurred ~2.5 Ga ago, drastically altered the chemistry of the oceans and atmosphere. Decoding environmental and magnetic signals recorded in rocks prior to the GOE is essential for understanding the conditions under which life first emerged.An ideal target for investigating surface conditions prior to the GOE are banded iron formations (BIFs), which precipitated directly from ancient oceans. However, BIFs have been significantly altered since their formation, and it is unclear whether a record of their depositional environment remains.  The present day mineralogy is dominated by magnetite, but it remains to be established how this relates to the precipitates deposited on the seafloor. Additionally, in spite of magnetite's ideal magnetic properties, BIFs are avoided for paleomagnetic analysis because the timing of magnetization is uncertain. It is vital to constrain the magnetic field record leading up to the GOE because it may have influenced atmospheric hydrogen loss, contributing to rapid surface oxidation.We present paleomagnetic field tests from the Isua Supracrustal Belt that suggest a record of Earth’s 3.7-billion-year (Ga) old (Eoarchean) magnetic field is preserved in the banded iron formation in the northernmost northeast region of the belt. Our results are supported by radiometric Pb-Pb dating of magnetite from the same banded iron formation.  We show that the Pb-magnetite system has a closure temperature below 400 °C for the magnetite grain size range observed in the banded iron formation, suggesting the rocks have not been significantly heated since magnetization was acquired. This temperature range is well below the Curie temperature of magnetite (580 °C), suggesting Eoarchean magnetization has not been thermally overprinted by subsequent metamorphism.  Passed paleomagnetic field tests suggest the rocks have also avoided chemical overprints. We recover an ancient magnetic field strength, supporting previous studies that argue Earth’s magnetic field has been active throughout most of its history although variations in its strength remain poorly constrained.
MicrobeX-Science Center to feature soil and its microbes
Authors: Insam Heribert , Strutzmann Carolin , Ascher-Jenull Judith
Published: February 2023

The upcoming MicrobeX-Science Center in Zirl, close to Innsbruck (Tyrol, Austria), is focused on microorganisms governing our daily life. The storyline is crossing atmospheric microbiology related to climate change, food microbiology and environmental biotechnology like biomethanisation and wastewater treatment. A most central role, however, will have soil microbiology that is related to the effects of microorganisms on climate, in particular soil greenhouse gas production and uptake, plant-growth promoting rhizobacteria related to environmentally sound alternative agriculture, and also to microbially produced volatiles like geosmin, the scent of soil. Soil biodiversity will also be addressed, in relation to deadwood (until its microbial decomposition into the very first humus form, the so-called lignoform), soil-dwelling myxobacteria and erosion-preventing mycorrhizae. The talk will show how soil microorganisms will be embedded in a storyline that aims at promoting the public interest in microbiology, and microbes in geo- and in particular in soil sciences, with the challenging purpose of generally raising awareness about the central role of (soil) microbes in the past, presence and future.
The deepest geoid low on Earth and its possible relation to the instability of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet
Authors: Steinberger Bernhard
Published: February 2023

Although the geoid is usually displayed with respect to the reference ellipsoid, the difference between geoid and the Earth's hydrostatic equilibrium figure is geodynamically more meaningful, and has its deepest low in the Ross Sea area. Nearby in West Antarctica, there is also a residual topography high. This region is characterized by thin lithosphere, and a mantle plume has been suggested beneath. Hence upper mantle viscosity could be regionally reduced, allowing for faster rebound than elsewhere upon melting of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) which is one of the tipping elements of the global climate system. To study the possible causes of the geoid low / topography high combination, we compute the effects of density anomalies with the shape of a cylindrical disk of a given radius and depth range. With a density anomaly of -1% we find that a geoid low of the right size and magnitude can be explained with a disk radius of about 10° of arc and the base of the disk in the lower transition zone or even lower mantle; with a shallower base the amplitude is under-predicted. On the other hand, if in this case the top of the disk is shallower than ~150 km, dynamic topography amplitude is over-predicted. The fact that the residual topography high (more sensitive to density anomalies at shallower depth) is laterally displaced relative to the geoid low (more sensitive to greater depths) could indicate a plume or upwelling that is tilted due to large-scale flow. Alternatively, there may be two separate disks somewhat laterally displaced, one just below the lithosphere and mainly causing a dynamic topography high and one below the transition zone causing the geoid low.In order to test the feasibility of such density models, we perform computations of a plume that enters at the base of a box corresponding to a 3300 km x 3300 km region in the upper mantle, as well as some whole-mantle plume models, with the Aspect mantle convection code. However, these plume models have typically a narrow conduit (much narrower than ~10° of arc) and the plume tends to only become wider as it spreads beneath the lithosphere, i.e.\ at depths typically shallower than about 300 km, hence it would tend to rather under-predict the amplitude of the geoid compared to dynamic topography. We discuss how to possibly overcome the discrepancy between what is required to explain geoid and dynamic topography, and the outcome of numerical forward models.
Probabilistic Rainy Season Onset Prediction over the Greater Horn of Africa based on Long-Range Multi-Model Ensemble Forecasts
Authors: Scheuerer Michael , Bahaga Titike , Segele Zewdu , Thorarinsdottir Thordis
Published: February 2023

Most of the socioeconomic activities in the Greater Horn of Africa (GHA) region are rain dependent, and economic sectors such as agriculture, hydroelectric power generation, and health would greatly benefit from reliable information about onset, cessation, intensity, and frequency of rainfall. In a seasonal climate forecast at lead times on the order of weeks or months, uncertainty about these variables is significant, making a case for probabilistic forecasting where uncertainties are communicated along with the forecast.We present results of an evaluation of the skill of probabilistic rainy season onset forecasts over GHA, which were derived from bias-corrected, long-range, multi-model ensemble precipitation forecasts. A careful analysis of the contribution of the different forecast systems to the overall multi-model skill shows that the improvement over the best performing individual model can largely be explained by the increased ensemble size. An alternative way of increasing ensemble size by blending a single model ensemble with climatology is explored and demonstrated to yield better probabilistic forecasts than the multi-model ensemble. Both reliability and skill of the probabilistic forecasts are better for OND onset than for MAM and JJAS; for the two latter, forecasts are found to be late biased and have only minimal skill relative to climatology. While the overall level of skill is limited in our setup where predictions are made at a horizontal resolution of 0.25 degrees, we find that especially OND forecast skill increases substantially under a metric that evaluates the forecasts at coarser spatial scales.
Exploration and recognition of active basement thrust sheet and crustal-scale duplex in the central Lesser Caucasus orogen using seismic reflection profile, Georgia
Authors: Alania Victor , Beridze Tamar , Enukidze Onise , Gusmeo Thomas , Merkviladze Demur , Shikhashvili Tamar , Tevzadze Niko
Published: February 2023

The Lesser Caucasus (LC) double-wedge orogen accommodates the crustal shortening due to far-ﬁeld eﬀects of the collision between the Arabian and Eurasian plates. Subsequent convergence of Arabia and Eurasian plates during the late Alpine time caused extensive intracontinental deformation in the LC. Herein we introduce the active deformation structural style of the Georgian part of the LC orogen based on seismic reflection profile, several oil-well, and surface geology data. Seismic reflection data reveals the presence of a Khrami basement thrust sheet, fault-related folds, triangle zone, and duplexes. The rocks involved in the deformation range from Paleozoic basement rocks to Pliocene-Quaternary basaltic lava flows.Pliocene-Quaternary lava flows are involved in compressional deformation and are related to an out-of-thrust sequence of the Khrami basement thrust sheet. Based on the interpreted seismic reflection profile, the crustal-scale duplex was recognized under the basement thrust sheet which propagates northward along the Early Jurassic shale layers.The structural architecture and tectonic evolution will be brieﬂy presented and discussed in the new regional balanced and reconstructed cross-section across the axial zone and retro-wedge of the LC and published fission-track data (Gusmeo et al., 2021, 2022), as well as detailed examples of active tectonics, and seismicity (e.g., Tsereteli et al., 2016).ReferenceGusmeo, T., et al. (2022). Tectono-thermal evolution of central Transcaucasia: Thermal modelling, seismic interpretation, and low-temperature thermochronology of the eastern Adjara-Trialeti and western Kura sedimentary basins (Georgia). J. As. Earth Sci. 238, 105355.Gusmeo, T., et al. (2021). Structural inversion of back-arc basins-The Neogene Adjara-Trialeti fold-and-thrust belt (SW Georgia) as a far-field effect of the Arabia-Eurasia collision. Tectonophysics 803, 228702.Tsereteli, N. et al. (2016). Active tectonics of central-western Caucasus, Georgia. Tectonophysics 691, 328-344.   
Surface topography, mineralogical survey, and Pb isotopic compositions of vehicle wheel weights: Major heavy metal contaminants of roadways
Authors: Foley Nora , Aysuo Robert
Published: February 2023

Wheel weights used for balancing tires are among the top five anthropogenic lead (Pb) sources contaminating the surface environment in modern society. In the present study we characterized size, shape, and stages of degradation of wheel weights from the U.S.A. to understand abrasion, dissolution, and transfer of metallic Pb. In a previous study of wheel weights [Ayuso and Foley 2020, Jour. Geochem Explor.], we identified partially abraded and chemically corroded textures with coatings of reconstituted Pb particles, including litharge (PbO) and/or plattnerite (PbO2), in a matrix of clays, feldspars, silica, and iron-oxides. New examples of finely comminuted Pb-rich particles (by Field Emission-Scanning Electron Microscopy) include platy sheaths, rods, and tabular crystals up to about 30 µm in length, slender needles less than ~0.5 µm in width, and submicrometer-sized flakes, chips, and masses of indeterminate form.  Abraded Pb oxide particles are mostly <1 µm-size consisting of acicular needles and hair-like crystals; the size and particle shapes can have significant adverse health impacts if ingested, inhaled, or imbedded in the human body. Pb isotope analysis (by Thermal Ionization Mass Spectrometry and High Resolution Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry) provides a way to identify the main lead exposure pathways. Lead isotopic ratios for wheel weights (bulk and acid-leachates) in plots of 206Pb/207Pb (~1.130-1.230) vs. 208Pb/207Pb (~2.410-2.470) are analytically indistinguishable. The 208Pb/207Pb and 206Pb/207Pb data implicate a lead source from Mississippi Valley-type deposits (U.S.A.) and a less radiogenic endmember which may link to an international lead source, such as ore deposits of China. Degradation of wheel weight particles will influence the Pb isotopic composition of local surface and groundwater regardless of whether the contribution is from solid particles derived from grain erosion or from dissolved forms of Pb. Geochemical modelling supports the argument that pH is a primary factor in lead corrosion; however, the range of sizes (<63 µm) and morphologies (needles, hairs) identify an additional health concern associated with intake of weathered products of Pb components found in water and soils. The legacy of past and current uses of Pb metal in manufactured products will continue to be of global concern because these industrial products remain readily available through both primary and secondary global markets.
Direct Evapotranspiration Measurements for the Immediate Societal benefits
Authors: Fratini Gerardo , Miller Bill , Gerot Katie , McCoy Johnathan , Walbridge Ryan , Frodyma Alex , Fuhrman Isaac , Parr Andrew , Trutna Derek , Xu Liukang , Burba George
Published: February 2023

Growing food demand and declining water availability are among key global concerns in the modern society. These two opposing trends manifest uniquely at different scales, from the farm field to the global food distribution, and require innovative composite solutions in terms of policy, education, science and technology.To solve the complex interactions of financial, social, and scientific issues, solutions to water use for crops require resource management based upon socioeconomic and scientific understanding. These important goals are achieved through a number of crucial regulatory, social and technical means. The latter include water inventories, water loss and water use measurements, as well as development of the techniques for water use reduction, optimization and prediction, and require direct measurements of water transport in real time, with high temporal resolution.Cutting-edge technologies to assess water use at leaf to ecosystem scales have been actively developed in the academia for the past 40 years. One example of such technologies is a next-generation fully-automated evapotranspiration station network, to effectively and efficiently handle the “big data” on water use coming from a grid of measurement stations providing high spatial and temporal coverage of water usage on multiple scales, ranging from a single watershed to a region, state, or a continent.In this presentation, we will focus on the main features and specifications of the very latest technology and the explanation of the latest scientific assessment methods available for direct, field-scale, unattended, and automated measurements of evapotranspiration. 
Soil Parameters Prediction from Hyperspectral Images via Multitask Learning
Authors: Zhao Xiangyu , Xiong Zhitong , Zhu Xiaoxiang
Published: February 2023

Soil parameters are relevant and valuable for various applications such as agriculture production, scientific research, and policy making. Since acquiring such physical or chemical information could be cost-consuming by traditional methods, remote sensing and data analysis have become exciting research fields for soil parameter prediction tasks.   Many papers show that minerals and chemical materials correlate with the corresponding spectral reflectance. Based on this characteristic, there are many works using different data analysis methods such as machine learning and deep learning to predict soil properties, especially from multi- and hyper-spectral images. However, limited by the small data size, many models suffer from the overfitting problem and could not extrapolate to unseen data. Moreover, the currently existing methods only generate predictions with no consideration of the correlation among different target parameters. In this work, we propose and implement a deep learning based multitask method to predict multiple chemical properties simultaneously from hyperspectral images. To initialize the model, we use the pre-trained weights from ImageNet. To make better use of the correlation among different parameters, our model consists of shared layers and task-specific branches where each customized branch generates the prediction for one target property. Our method is implemented on the dataset from the Hyperview challenge organized by KP Labs and ESA. In this dataset, 1732 hyperspectral patches are available now and each patch has 4 soil parameters including K, P205, Mg, and pH. After comprehensive experiments, our method achieves the highest score of 0.87, which shows superior performance in this regression task.
Retrieving global cloud top phase patterns: The reliability of spaceborne retrievals
Authors: Villanueva Diego
Published: February 2023

Clouds between -42°C and 0°C may be in a phase of pure-liquid, pure-ice, or a mixture of both. The cloud’s phase affects its radiative effect. However, the cloud phase variability is poorly understood, resulting in a high uncertainty in the climate warming projected by models. Passive retrievals from space have the potential for resolving the temporal variability of cloud phase globally and could help to better understand the drivers of cloud glaciation. In our study, we show that daily passive retrievals of cloud phase are highly unreliable, but the monthly phase frequency for thick stratiform clouds offers a reliable constrain for cloud phase variability.We find that for both the daily cloud phase and the monthly phase frequency, the agreement among different retrieval algorithms increase for thick stratiform clouds. Moreover, for these clouds, the hemispheric and seasonal contrast of cloud phase agrees better with previous estimations from active retrievals. Using thick stratiform clouds observed from space during 35 years, we offer for the first time an estimation of the seasonal cloud phase contrast resolved globally. This estimation will help increase our understanding of the yet poorly-known drivers of cloud glaciation. Moreover, we offer a previously missing benchmark for climate models to constrain the physical processes behind cloud glaciation in order to reduce the associated uncertainty in climate projections.
Infrasonic observations of a rare earthgrazing fireball
Authors: Silber Elizabeth , Ronac Giannone Miro , Bowman Daniel
Published: February 2023

The Earth’s atmosphere is continuously bombarded by extraterrestrial objects (generally referred to as meteoroids) of various sizes and velocities (11.2–72.5 km/s). Such high kinetic energy interactions with exponentially increasing higher density atmosphere result in a visual phenomenon known as a meteor. Optically very bright events, or fireballs, are typically produced by objects larger than about 10 cm in diameter. A rare class of fireballs are earthgrazers which enter the atmosphere at an extremely shallow angle. Depending on their size and velocity, some earthgrazers return to space after a relatively short hypersonic flight through the upper regions of the atmosphere. Due to a variety of factors, including the lack of dedicated observational resources, there are only a handful of documented observations of earthgrazing fireballs in the last 50 years. Nevertheless, this category of extraterrestrial objects is of significant interest to the scientific community for a range of practical reasons, such as the analogous relationship with artificial platforms capable of reaching the boundary of the outer atmosphere. In general, typical fireballs are capable of generating shockwaves that can decay to very low frequency acoustic waves, also known as infrasound. Theoretically, the resulting shockwaves and subsequent infrasound from earthgrazers should have distinct signatures. In principle, fireballs can serve as natural laboratories for testing regional and global infrasound monitoring capabilities and provide an important leverage towards improving high-altitude source detection, characterization and geolocation efforts. Infrasound signatures from earthgrazers should further enhance our understanding of infrasonic signals generated in the upper atmopshere. We report infrasound detection of a rare earthgrazing fireball that was observed by casual witnesses and all-sky cameras across Europe on 22 September 2020. It entered at 03:53:40 UTC over northern Europe, and its luminous path extended from Germany to the UK. Despite the high-altitude trajectory (~100 km), the earthgrazer generated a pressure wave that reached the ground at low frequencies detectable by infrasonic instruments. Three infrasound stations of the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI) network detected the signal. The airwave swept one of the arrays at a particularly high trace velocity (>1 km/s), indicative of a near-vertical arrival angle from a high-altitude cylindrical line source. SNL is managed and operated by NTESS under DOE NNSA contract DE-NA000352.
A synthesis of regenerative agriculture on soil carbon sequestration in Southeast Asian croplands
Authors: Tan Stanley , Kuebbing Sara
Published: February 2023

Policymakers and businesses in Southeast Asia are increasingly interested in using carbon markets to encourage adoption of regenerative agriculture practices by farmers. These practices are thought to mitigate climate change by reducing soil carbon loss and enhancing soil carbon sequestration. However, there is uncertainty in the ability of regenerative agriculture practices to increase soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks of croplands. We reviewed 92 empirical studies that investigated the effects of 17 regenerative farming practices across 11 broad categories of crops on SOC stock or content in Southeast Asia. Our synthesis found supporting evidence for the use of organic amendments like biochar, compost, and manure, as well as cover cropping, crop rotation, and conservation tillage to increase SOC. However, studies for practices like addition of compost and manure reported increases in greenhouse gas emissions like methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O), demonstrating that increases in SOC may be offset by increases in greenhouse gas emissions. Only a few studies measured both the changes in SOC stocks and greenhouse gas emissions and none of the studies completed full greenhouse gas inventories. Estimating the net impact of SOC gains and increase of greenhouse gas emissions will be necessary to understand the overall effect of practices like compost, manure and crop residue incorporation on net atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations. If these practices are implemented for soil carbon projects, practitioners should anticipate increase in greenhouse gas emissions from soils and implement additional practices, such as alternate wetting and drying, to optimize the climate change mitigation effects of regenerative agriculture. We encourage future research on practices with relatively low numbers of studies and variations in experimental designs and conditions, such as agroforestry and changes in crop residue management. Given the interest in scaling up regenerative agriculture through voluntary carbon markets to boost SOC stocks in croplands, policymakers and businesses can support research in this area by making field-collected data from their projects accessible to researchers to further the study of the impact of these practices across different abiotic conditions and soil management patterns. This would alleviate the paucity and improve the quality of empirical data on regenerative agricultural practices in Southeast Asian croplands, facilitate practice-specific meta-analyses, and ideally begin to optimize climate change mitigation effects of regenerative agriculture.
A MATLAB/GNU Octave toolbox for computation of velocity and strain rate field from GNSS coordinate time series
Authors: Teza Giordano , Pesci Arianna , Meschis Marco
Published: February 2023

A MATLAB toolbox, also compatible with GNU Octave, was developed in order to allow a user not necessarily expert in programming to calculate the strain rate field of an area by means of a procedure with a high level of automation starting from coordinate time series. The results can be used to investigate the crustal tectonic deformations of the studied area. These steps are implemented:time series download from a data repository, e.g. the Nevada Geodetic Laboratory (NGL), or another similar database (the download function can be easily edited to allow the use of input time series having different format);
calculation of the station velocities by means of the Maximum Likelihood Estimation (MLE) method, including modeling of offsets, outliers, noise and periodic components. The MLE modeling is carried out by using the external package Hector (Bos et al., 2013. J. Geod., 87, 351-360), automatically called by means of a specifically developed MATLAB function;
estimation of Common Mode Error and, if necessary, its removal from time series of some stations and recalculation of the corresponding velocities.
calculation of the strain rate field on a regular grid with the modified least squares method, in which a scale factor can be introduced to define the locality of the deformation analysis. Besides the strain rate field, the toolbox provides the corresponding uncertainty estimation and geometric evaluation of the significance of the results;
visualization of the results for their interpretation for scientific purposes, including the map of principal strain and the contour plots of change in area (or dilatation), engineering shear normalized to the change in area, second invariant of the strain, prevailing eigenvalue, corresponding uncertainties and geometric significance.
The toolbox, which is available free of charge to any interested user, is characterized by considerable flexibility, and can be easily adapted to different data sources.The toolbox was recently used in order to refine the rates of active crustal deformation in the upper plate of subduction zones in the specific case of the E-dipping West Crati fault (Calabria) and to evaluate the convergence rate in the Main Thrust Fault (also called Sicilian Basal Thrust) north to Hyblean Plateau (South-Eastern Sicily). 
The future of NASA Earth Science in the commercial cloud: Challenges and opportunities
Authors: Shiklomanov Alexey , Maskey Manil , Angel Yoseline , Barciauskas Aimee , Brodrick Philip , Freitag Brian , Sølvsteen Jonas
Published: February 2023

NASA produces a large volume and variety of data products that are used every day to support research, decision making, and education. The widespread use of NASA’s Earth Science data is enabled by NASA’s Earth Science Data System (ESDS) program, which oversees the archiving and distribution of these data and invests in the development of new data systems and tools. However, NASA’s current approach to Earth Science data distribution — based on distributed institutional archives with individual on-premises high-performance computing capabilities — faces some significant challenges, including massive increases in data volume from upcoming missions, a greater need for transdisciplinary science that synthesizes many different kinds of observations, and a push to make science more open, inclusive, and accessible. To address these challenges, NASA is aggressively migrating its Earth Science data and related tools and services into the commercial cloud. Migration of data into the commercial cloud can significantly improve NASA’s existing data system capabilities by (1) providing more flexible options for storage and compute (including rapid, as-needed access to state-of-the-art capabilities); (2) by centralizing and standardizing data access, which gives all of NASA’s institutional data centers access to all of each other’s datasets; and (3) by facilitating “analysis-in-place”, whereby users can bring their own computational workflows and tools to the data rather than having to maintain their own copies of NASA datasets. However, migration to the commercial cloud also poses some significant challenges, including (1) managing costs under a “pay-as-you-go” model; (2) incompatibility with existing tools and data formats with object-based storage and network access; (3) vendor lock-in; (4) challenges with data access for workflows that mix on-premise and cloud computing; and (5) standardization for highly diverse data as is present in NASA’s data archive. I conclude with two examples of recent NASA activities showcasing capabilities enabled by the commercial cloud: An interactive analysis and development platform for analyzing airborne imaging spectroscopy data, and a new collection of tools and services for data discovery, analysis, publication, and data-driven storytelling (Visualization, Exploration, and Data Analysis, VEDA).
On the Understanding of the transmission route tied to Reported Influenza/Influenza-Like Illness Activity
Authors: DeFelice, PhD Tom
Published: February 2023

Some studies suggest atmospheric particulate matter with diameters 2.5 micron and smaller (PM2.5) may possibly play a role in the transmission of influenza and influenza-like illness (ILI) symptoms.  Those studies were predominantly conducted under moderately to highly polluted outdoor atmospheres.  We conducted our study to extend the understanding to include a less polluted atmospheric environment.  A relationship between PM2.5 and ILI activity extended to include lightly to moderately polluted atmospheres could imply a comparatively more complicated transmission mechanism.  We obtained concurrent PM2.5 mass concentration data, meteorological data and reported Influenza and influenza-like illness (ILI) activity for the light to moderately polluted atmospheres over the Tucson, AZ region. We found no relation between PM2.5 mass concentration and ILI activity. There was an expected relation between ILI, activity, temperature, and relative humidity.  There was a possible relation between PM2.5 mass concentration anomalies and ILI activity. These results might be due to the small dataset size and to the technological limitations of the PM measurements. Further study is recommended since it would improve the understanding of ILI transmission and thereby improve ILI activity/outbreak forecasts and transmission model accuracies.
High resolution imagery of Europa’s Surface by Juno’s Stellar Reference Unit
Authors: Becker Heidi , Florence Meghan , Lunine Jonathan , Schenk Paul , Hansen Candice , Brennan Martin , Bolton Scott , Alexander James
Published: February 2023

On 29 September 2022 Juno’s low-light Stellar Reference Unit (SRU) captured a high-resolution image (256-340 m/pixel) of a 3x104 km2 region of Europa’s surface between ~0-6°N and 43.5-51°W. The broadband visible image (450-1100 nm), with the highest resolution ever for that region, was collected at a sub-spacecraft altitude of 412 km during Juno’s close flyby of the icy Jovian moon while the surface was illuminated only by Jupiter-shine (incidence angle: 48-51 degrees). Prior coverage of the area by Galileo was under high-sun conditions at 1 km resolution, leading to characterization of the region as mostly ridged plain and undifferentiated linea. The SRU image reveals a much richer and complex picture; an intricate network of cross-cutting ridges and lineated bands interrupted by an intriguing 37 km (east-west) by 67 km (north-south) chaos feature that appears to be the result of a unique, local geologic process. Low-albedo deposits flank ridges near the chaos feature and bear similarity to features previously linked to hypothesized subsurface activity [Quick & Hedman, Icarus, 2020]. We will present updates to the geologic mapping of Europa enabled by the SRU image, our study of the chaos feature’s morphology, and puzzles awaiting future high-resolution imagery from Europa Clipper or JUICE.  The JPL authors’ copyright for this abstract is held by the California Institute of Technology. Government Sponsorship acknowledged.
Australian Summer Monsoon Bursts: A Moist Static Energy Budget Perspective
Authors: Mohanty Sarthak , Jakob Christian , Singh Martin
Published: February 2023

The Australian monsoon's wet season is associated with sequences of wet and dry conditions known as bursts and breaks, which usually have timescales of a week or two. There are several hypotheses for the physical processes involved in monsoon bursts, ranging from the effects of the Madden-Julian Oscillation to extratropical influences.We analyse rainfall bursts in Northern Australia using a moist static energy (MSE) budget framework. First, we separate the bursts into pre-monsoon, monsoon, and post-monsoon based on simple monsoon onset and retreat criteria. We then apply ERA5 data to calculate the MSE budget for each burst and construct composite bursts for each of the three types.We find that the horizontal advection of MSE over the tropical northern Australian convergence zone is the most critical term in the budget for the day-to-day precipitation variation. An analysis of the MSE-related gross moist stability (GMS) reveals that the GMS framework is able to predict periods of convective growth and decay before and after monsoon bursts, with the exception of the pre-monsoon bursts which do not follow the characteristic evolution of tropical convective systems. We hypothesise that this is because pre-monsoon bursts have a stronger extratropical influence. We find that the growth phase of convection in monsoon and post-monsoon bursts is associated with a notable reduction of the advection of dry air into the monsoon region. We show that this is likely the result of a rearrangement of the circulation ahead of the burst.  