Lesley Ott

Bio: Lesley Ott is an academic researcher from Goddard Space Flight Center. The author has contributed to research in topics: Storm & Stratosphere. The author has an hindex of 20, co-authored 72 publications receiving 1545 citations. Previous affiliations of Lesley Ott include University of Maryland, College Park & University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

Production of lightning NOx and its vertical distribution calculated from three‐dimensional cloud‐scale chemical transport model simulations

Abstract: [1] A three-dimensional (3-D) cloud-scale chemical transport model that includes a parameterized source of lightning NOx on the basis of observed flash rates has been used to simulate six midlatitude and subtropical thunderstorms observed during four field projects Production per intracloud (PIC) and cloud-to-ground (PCG) flash is estimated by assuming various values of PIC and PCG for each storm and determining which production scenario yields NOx mixing ratios that compare most favorably with in-cloud aircraft observations We obtain a mean PCG value of 500 moles NO (7 kg N) per flash The results of this analysis also suggest that on average, PIC may be nearly equal to PCG, which is contrary to the common assumption that intracloud flashes are significantly less productive of NO than are cloud-to-ground flashes This study also presents vertical profiles of the mass of lightning NOx after convection based on 3-D cloud-scale model simulations The results suggest that following convection, a large percentage of lightning NOx remains in the middle and upper troposphere where it originated, while only a small percentage is found near the surface The results of this work differ from profiles calculated from 2-D cloud-scale model simulations with a simpler lightning parameterization that were peaked near the surface and in the upper troposphere (referred to as a “C-shaped” profile) The new model results (a backward C-shaped profile) suggest that chemical transport models that assume a C-shaped vertical profile of lightning NOx mass may place too much mass near the surface and too little in the middle troposphere

Lightning-generated NOX and its impact on tropospheric ozone production: A three-dimensional modeling study of a Stratosphere- Troposphere Experiment: Radiation, Aerosols and Ozone (STERAO-A) thunderstorm

Abstract: [1] A three-dimensional cloud-scale chemical transport model has been used to simulate trace gas transport, lightning NO production, and photochemical ozone production in the 12 July 1996 storm observed during the Stratosphere-Troposphere Experiment: Radiation, Aerosols and Ozone (STERAO-A) field experiment. The model is driven by meteorological fields from a nonhydrostatic cloud-resolving model (see Stenchikov et al., 2005). An assumption that both cloud-to-ground and intracloud flashes produce 460 moles NO/flash on average yielded the best comparison with the profile of NO observed in the storm anvil. Scenarios in which the NO production of an intracloud flash was 75 to 100% of the production of a cloud-to-ground flash best matched the column NOx mass computed from observations. Additional ozone production attributable to lightning NO within the storm cloud during the lifetime of the storm was very small (∼2 ppbv). However, simulations of the photochemistry over the 24 hours following the storm show that an additional 10 ppbv of ozone production can be attributed to lightning NO production in the upper troposphere. Convective transport of HOx precursors led to the generation of a HOx plume, which substantially aided the downstream ozone production. Soluble species mixing ratios in the simulated cloud were all within a factor of two of observations.

Finding the missing stratospheric Br y : a global modeling study of CHBr 3 and CH 2 Br 2

Abstract: . Recent in situ and satellite measurements suggest a contribution of ~5 pptv to stratospheric inorganic bromine from short-lived bromocarbons. We conduct a modeling study of the two most important short-lived bromocarbons, bromoform (CHBr3) and dibromomethane (CH2Br2), with the Goddard Earth Observing System Chemistry Climate Model (GEOS CCM) to account for this missing stratospheric bromine. We derive a "top-down" emission estimate of CHBr3 and CH2Br2 using airborne measurements in the Pacific and North American troposphere and lower stratosphere obtained during previous NASA aircraft campaigns. Our emission estimate suggests that to reproduce the observed concentrations in the free troposphere, a global oceanic emission of 425 Gg Br yr−1 for CHBr3 and 57 Gg Br yr−1 for CH2Br2 is needed, with 60% of emissions from open ocean and 40% from coastal regions. Although our simple emission scheme assumes no seasonal variations, the model reproduces the observed seasonal variations of the short-lived bromocarbons with high concentrations in winter and low concentrations in summer. This indicates that the seasonality of short-lived bromocarbons is largely due to seasonality in their chemical loss and transport. The inclusion of CHBr3 and CH2Br2 contributes ~5 pptv bromine throughout the stratosphere. Both the source gases and inorganic bromine produced from source gas degradation (BryVSLS) in the troposphere are transported into the stratosphere, and are equally important. Inorganic bromine accounts for half (2.5 pptv) of the bromine from the inclusion of CHBr3 and CH2Br2 near the tropical tropopause and its contribution rapidly increases to ~100% as altitude increases. More than 85% of the wet scavenging of BryVSLS occurs in large-scale precipitation below 500 hPa. Our sensitivity study with wet scavenging in convective updrafts switched off suggests that BryVSLS in the stratosphere is not sensitive to convection. Convective scavenging only accounts for ~0.2 pptv (4%) difference in inorganic bromine delivered to the stratosphere.

Cloud-scale model intercomparison of chemical constituent transport in deep convection

Abstract: Transport and scavenging of chemical constituents in deep convection is important to understanding the composition of the troposphere and therefore chemistry-climate and air quality issues. High resolution cloud chemistry models have been shown to represent convective processing of trace gases quite well. To improve the representation of sub-grid convective transport and wet deposition in large-scale models, general characteristics, such as species mass flux, from the high resolution cloud chemistry models can be used. However, it is important to understand how these models behave when simulating the same storm. The intercomparison described here examines transport of six species. CO and O 3 , which are primarily transported, show good agreement among models and compare well with observations. Models that included lightning production of NO x reasonably predict NO x mixing ratios in the anvil compared with observations, but the NO x variability is much larger than that seen for CO and O 3 . Predicted anvil mixing ratios of the soluble species, HNO 3 , H 2 O 2 , and CH 2 O, exhibit significant differences among models, attributed to different schemes in these models of cloud processing including the role of the ice phase, the impact of cloud-modified photolysis rates on the chemistry, and the representation of the species chemical reactivity. The lack of measurements of these species in the convective outflow region does not allow us to evaluate the model results with observations.

Carbon monitoring system flux estimation and attribution: impact of ACOS-GOSAT XCO2 sampling on the inference of terrestrial biospheric sources and sinks

Abstract: Using an Observing System Simulation Experiment (OSSE), we investigate the impact of JAXA Greenhouse gases Observing SATellite ‘IBUKI’ (GOSAT) sampling on the estimation of terrestrial biospheric flux with the NASA Carbon Monitoring System Flux (CMS-Flux) estimation and attribution strategy. The simulated observations in the OSSE use the actual column carbon dioxide (X CO 2 ) b2.9 retrieval sensitivity and quality control for the year 2010 processed through the Atmospheric CO 2 Observations from Space algorithm. CMS-Flux is a variational inversion system that uses the GEOS-Chem forward and adjoint model forced by a suite of observationally constrained fluxes from ocean, land and anthropogenic models. We investigate the impact of GOSAT sampling on flux estimation in two aspects: 1) random error uncertainty reduction and 2) the global and regional bias in posterior flux resulted from the spatiotemporally biased GOSAT sampling. Based on Monte Carlo calculations, we find that global average flux uncertainty reduction ranges from 25% in September to 60% in July. When aggregated to the 11 land regions designated by the phase 3 of the Atmospheric Tracer Transport Model Intercomparison Project, the annual mean uncertainty reduction ranges from 10% over North American boreal to 38% over South American temperate, which is driven by observational coverage and the magnitude of prior flux uncertainty. The uncertainty reduction over the South American tropical region is 30%, even with sparse observation coverage. We show that this reduction results from the large prior flux uncertainty and the impact of non-local observations. Given the assumed prior error statistics, the degree of freedom for signal is ~1132 for 1-yr of the 74 055 GOSAT X CO 2 observations, which indicates that GOSAT provides ~1132 independent pieces of information about surface fluxes. We quantify the impact of GOSAT’s spatiotemporally sampling on the posterior flux, and find that a 0.7 gigatons of carbon bias in the global annual posterior flux resulted from the seasonally and diurnally biased sampling when using a diagonal prior flux error covariance. Keywords: NASA CMS-Flux, GOSAT, OCO-2, variational inversion, biased sampling, Monte Carlo (Published: 9 May 2014) Citation: Tellus B 2014, 66 , 22486, http://dx.doi.org/10.3402/tellusb.v66.22486

An inventory of gaseous and primary aerosol emissions in Asia in the year 2000 : NASA global tropospheric experiment transport and chemical evolution over the pacific (TRACE-P): Measurements and analysis (TRACEP1)

Abstract: [i] An inventory of air pollutant emissions in Asia in the year 2000 is developed to support atmospheric modeling and analysis of observations taken during the TRACE-P experiment funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the ACE-Asia experiment funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Emissions are estimated for all major anthropogenic sources, including biomass burning, in 64 regions of Asia. We estimate total Asian emissions as follows: 34.3 Tg SO 2 , 26.8 Tg NO x , 9870 Tg CO 2 , 279 Tg CO, 107 Tg CH 4 , 52.2 Tg NMVOC, 2.54 Tg black carbon (BC), 10.4 Tg organic carbon (OC), and 27.5 Tg NH 3 . In addition, NMVOC are speciated into 19 subcategories according to functional groups and reactivity. Thus we are able to identify the major source regions and types for many of the significant gaseous and particle emissions that influence pollutant concentrations in the vicinity of the TRACE-P and ACE-Asia field measurements. Emissions in China dominate the signature of pollutant concentrations in this region, so special emphasis has been placed on the development of emission estimates for China. China's emissions are determined to be as follows: 20.4 Tg SO 2 , 11.4 Tg NO x , 3820 Tg CO 2 , 116 Tg CO, 38.4 Tg CH 4 , 17.4 Tg NMVOC, 1.05 Tg BC, 3.4 Tg OC, and 13.6 Tg NH 3 . Emissions are gridded at a variety of spatial resolutions from 1° × 1° to 30 s x 30 s, using the exact locations of large point sources and surrogate GIS distributions of urban and rural population, road networks, landcover, ship lanes, etc. The gridded emission estimates have been used as inputs to atmospheric simulation models and have proven to be generally robust in comparison with field observations, though there is reason to think that emissions of CO and possibly BC may be underestimated. Monthly emission estimates for China are developed for each species to aid TRACE-P and ACE-Asia data interpretation. During the observation period of March/ April, emissions are roughly at their average values (one twelfth of annual). Uncertainties in the emission estimates, measured as 95% confidence intervals, range from a low of ±16% for SO 2 to a high of ±450% for OC.

Description and evaluation of the Model for Ozone and Related chemical Tracers, version 4 (MOZART-4)

Abstract: . The Model for Ozone and Related chemical Tracers, version 4 (MOZART-4) is an offline global chemical transport model particularly suited for studies of the troposphere. The updates of the model from its previous version MOZART-2 are described, including an expansion of the chemical mechanism to include more detailed hydrocarbon chemistry and bulk aerosols. Online calculations of a number of processes, such as dry deposition, emissions of isoprene and monoterpenes and photolysis frequencies, are now included. Results from an eight-year simulation (2000–2007) are presented and evaluated. The MOZART-4 source code and standard input files are available for download from the NCAR Community Data Portal ( http://cdp.ucar.edu ).

This is How the Discussion Started

Abstract: A copy of Guangbo jiemu bao [Broadcast Program Report] was being passed from hand to hand among a group of young people eager to be the first to read the article introducing the program "What Is Revolutionary Love?" It said: "… Young friends, you are certainly very concerned about this problem'. So, we would like you to meet the young women workers Meng Xiaoyu and Meng Yamei and the older cadre Miss Feng. They are the three leading characters in the short story ‘The Place of Love.’ Through the description of the love lives of these three, the story induces us to think deeply about two questions that merit further examination.

Global patterns of land-atmosphere fluxes of carbon dioxide, latent heat, and sensible heat derived from eddy covariance, satellite, and meteorological observations

Abstract: We upscaled FLUXNET observations of carbon dioxide, water, and energy fluxes to the global scale using the machine learning technique, model tree ensembles (MTE). We trained MTE to predict site-level gross primary productivity (GPP), terrestrial ecosystem respiration (TER), net ecosystem exchange (NEE), latent energy (LE), and sensible heat (H) based on remote sensing indices, climate and meteorological data, and information on land use. We applied the trained MTEs to generate global flux fields at a 0.5 degrees x 0.5 degrees spatial resolution and a monthly temporal resolution from 1982 to 2008. Cross-validation analyses revealed good performance of MTE in predicting among-site flux variability with modeling efficiencies (MEf) between 0.64 and 0.84, except for NEE (MEf = 0.32). Performance was also good for predicting seasonal patterns (MEf between 0.84 and 0.89, except for NEE (0.64)). By comparison, predictions of monthly anomalies were not as strong (MEf between 0.29 and 0.52). Improved accounting of disturbance and lagged environmental effects, along with improved characterization of errors in the training data set, would contribute most to further reducing uncertainties. Our global estimates of LE (158 +/- 7 J x 10(18) yr(-1)), H (164 +/- 15 J x 10(18) yr(-1)), and GPP (119 +/- 6 Pg C yr(-1)) were similar to independent estimates. Our global TER estimate (96 +/- 6 Pg C yr(-1)) was likely underestimated by 5-10%. Hot spot regions of interannual variability in carbon fluxes occurred in semiarid to semihumid regions and were controlled by moisture supply. Overall, GPP was more important to interannual variability in NEE than TER. Our empirically derived fluxes may be used for calibration and evaluation of land surface process models and for exploratory and diagnostic assessments of the biosphere.