Langley Research Center

About: Langley Research Center is a facility organization based out in Hampton, Virginia, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Mach number & Wind tunnel. The organization has 15945 authors who have published 37602 publications receiving 821623 citations. The organization is also known as: NASA Langley & NASA Langley Research Center.

Aerodynamic design optimization on unstructured grids with a continuous adjoint formulation

Abstract: A continuous adjoint approach for obtaining sensitivity derivatives on unstructured grids is developed and analyzed. The derivation of the costate equations is presented, and a second-order accurate discretization method is described. The relationship between the continuous formulation and a discrete formulation is explored for inviscid, as well as for viscous flow. Several limitations in a strict adherence to the continuous approach are uncovered, and an approach that circumvents these difficulties is presented. The issue of grid sensitivities, which do not arise naturally in the continuous formulation, is investigated and is observed to be of importance when dealing with geometric singularities. A method is described for modifying inviscid and viscous meshes during the design cycle to accommodate changes in the surface shape. The accuracy of the sensitivity derivatives is established by comparing with finite-difference gradients and several design examples are presented.

Confronting Models with Data: The Gewex Cloud Systems Study

Abstract: The GEWEX Cloud System Study (GCSS; GEWEX is the Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment) was organized to promote development of improved parameterizations of cloud systems for use in climate and numerical weather prediction models, with an emphasis on the climate applications. The strategy of GCSS is to use two distinct kinds of models to analyze and understand observations of the behavior of several different types of clouds systems. Cloud-system-resolving models (CSRMs) have high enough spatial and temporal resolutions to represent individual cloud elements, but cover a wide enough range of space and time scales to permit statistical analysis of simulated cloud systems. Results from CSRMs are compared with detailed observations, representing specific cases based on field experiments, and also with statistical composites obtained from satellite and meteorological analyses. Single-column models (SCMs) are the surgically extracted column physics of atmospheric general circulation models. SCMs are used to test cloud parameterizations in an un-coupled mode, by comparison with field data and statistical composites. In the original GCSS strategy, data is collected in various field programs and provided to the CSRM Community, which uses the data to "certify" the CSRMs as reliable tools for the simulation of particular cloud regimes, and then uses the CSRMs to develop parameterizations, which are provided to the GCM Community. We report here the results of a re-thinking of the scientific strategy of GCSS, which takes into account the practical issues that arise in confronting models with data. The main elements of the proposed new strategy are a more active role for the large-scale modeling community, and an explicit recognition of the importance of data integration.

Low Ozone in the Marine Boundary Layer of the Tropical Pacific Ocean

Abstract: Aircraft measurements of ozone, its key precursors, and a variety of chemical tracers were made in the troposphere of the western and central Pacific in October 1991. These data are presented and analyzed to examine the occurrence of low ozone concentrations in the remote marine boundary layer of the tropical and equatorial Pacific Ocean. The data from these flights out of Guam, covering an area extending from the equator to 20 N and from south of the Philippines to Hawaii, show average O3 concentrations as low as 8-9 ppb (ppb=10(exp-9)v/v) at altitudes of 0.3-0.5 km in the boundary layer. Individual measurements as low as 2-5 ppb were recorded. Low O3 concentrations do not always persist in space and time. High O3, generally associated with the transport of upper tropospheric air, was also encountered in the boundary layer. In practically all cases, O3 increased to values as large as 25-30 ppb within 2 km above the boundary layer top. Steady state model computations are used to suggest that these low O3 concentrations are a result of net photochemical O3 destruction in a low NO environment, sea-surface deposition, and extremely low net entrainment rates (1-2 mm per second) from the free troposphere. Day/night measurements of ethane, propane, gaseous and aerosol Cl suggest that daytime (morning) Cl atom concentrations in the vicinity of 10(exp 5) molecules per cubic centimeter may be present in the marine boundary layer. This Cl atom abundance can be rationalized only if sea salt aerosols can release free chlorine (Cl2) to the gas phase in the presence of sun light (and possibly O3). These Cl atom concentrations, however, are still insufficient and Cl (or Br) chemistry is not likely to be an important cause of the observed low O3.

Cloud susceptibility and the first aerosol indirect forcing: Sensitivity to black carbon and aerosol concentrations

Abstract: [1] Present-day global anthropogenic emissions contribute more than half of the mass in submicron particles primarily due to sulfate and carbonaceous aerosol components derived from fossil fuel combustion and biomass burning. These anthropogenic aerosols increase cloud drop number concentration and cloud albedo. Here, we use an improved version of the fully coupled climate/chemistry models to investigate cloud susceptibility and the first indirect effect of anthropogenic aerosols (the Twomey effect). We examine the correspondence between the model simulation of cloud susceptibility and that inferred from satellite measurements to test whether our simulated aerosol concentrations and aerosol/cloud interactions give a faithful representation of these features. This comparison provides an overall measure of the adequacy of cloud cover and drop concentrations. We also address the impact of black carbon absorption in clouds on the first indirect forcing and examine the sensitivity of the forcing to different representations of natural aerosols. We find that including this absorption does not change the global forcing by more than 0.07 W m � 2 , but that locally it could decrease the forcing by as much as 0.7 W m � 2 in regions where black carbon emissions are pronounced. Because of the nonlinear relationship between cloud drop number and aerosol number concentrations, the total forcing does not equal the sum of the forcing from each individual source. Our estimated total first indirect forcing is � 1.85 W m � 2 , with � 0.30 W m � 2 associated with anthropogenic sulfate, � 1.16 W m � 2 associated with carbonaceous aerosols from biomass burning, and � 0.52 W m � 2 associated with carbonaceous aerosols from fossil fuel combustion. Estimates of forcing by sulfate and total carbonaceous aerosols increase to � 0.31 and � 1.67 W m � 2 , respectively, if natural emissions of organic aerosols are only 8.4 Tg yr � 1 , but decrease to � 0.26 and � 1.27 W m � 2 if they are as large as 42 Tg yr � 1 . Even larger estimates of forcing are derived if dust and sea-salt emissions are not included. The effect of aerosol abundance on cloud life cycle may be important but is not treated in this study. INDEX TERMS: 0305 Atmospheric Composition and Structure: Aerosols and particles (0345, 4801); 0320 Atmospheric Composition and Structure: Cloud physics and chemistry; 1610 Global Change: Atmosphere (0315, 0325)

Hybrid finite-difference thermal lattice boltzmann equation

Abstract: We analyze the acoustic and thermal properties of athermal and thermal lattice Boltzmann equation (LBE) in 2D and show that the numerical instability in the thermal lattice Boltzmann equation (TLBE) is related to the algebraic coupling among different modes of the linearized evolution operator. We propose a hybrid finite-difference (FD) thermal lattice Boltzmann equation (TLBE). The hybrid FD-TLBE scheme is far superior over the existing thermal LBE schemes in terms of numerical stability. We point out that the lattice BGK equation is incompatible with the multiple relaxation time model.