News

Arctic sea ice has experienced a drastic decline in recent winters, although local temperatures remain well below freezing during the cold season. It is unclear to what extent atmospheric processes such as atmospheric rivers

atmospheric river

Long, narrow regions in the atmosphere – like rivers in the sky – that transport most of the water vapor outside of the tropics.

Source: NOAA Source

(ARs), and intense corridors of moisture transport, contribute to this sea ice decline. Observations reveal that ARs are reaching the European Arctic more frequently.

Cybersecurity issues represent one of the fastest-growing threats to businesses, communities, and the government. Often, smaller communities have limited resources to effectively monitor cybersecurity issues—and that is where the Public Infrastructure Security Cyber Education System (PISCES) can help.

Microbes

microbe

Microbes are tiny living things that are found all around us and are too small to be seen by the naked eye. They live in water, soil, and in the air.

Source: NIH Source

drive key processes of life on Earth. They affect global elemental cycles—the movement of carbon, nitrogen,

nitrogen

Nitrogen, represented by the symbol N and atomic number 7, is a colorless, odorless, and tasteless gas that constitutes approximately 78% of Earth's atmosphere. It is vital for all life forms, as it is a fundamental part of amino acids, proteins, and DNA.

Source: Source

and other elements. They also promote plant growth and affect the development of diseases. These roles are essential in every ecosystem.

ecosystem

A natural community of plants, animals, and other living organisms and the physical environment in which they live and interact.

Source: A student's guide to Global Climate Change Source

Research constantly expands the database of microbial DNA sequences but does not provide all the biological information about proteins.

The JGI welcomes three new members to their User Executive Committee (UEC) – Jack Gilbert, Ashley Shade, and Jason Stajich! They join six other JGI users already serving on the UEC – go here to view the full roster of members. Each of the researchers had their own reasons for wishing to serve on the UEC.

Switchgrass is a native, shrubby grass that can grow year-over-year on marginal soil

marginal soil

Soils that are rocky, sandy, or shallow with a limited reservoir of nutrients and water and are unsuited for food crops.

Source: NSF News: Marginal Lands Are Prime Fuel Source for Alternative Energy Source

and with few resources. Despite the low maintenance, it can produce an impressive amount of biomass

biomass

Material that comes from living things, including trees, crops, grasses, and animals and animal waste. Some kinds of biomass, such as wood and biofuels, can be burned to produce energy.

Source: EPA Global Climate Change Source

which could then be converted into sustainable biofuels.

biofuel

Liquid fuels that are produced from renewable biological sources, including plants and algae. Biofuels offer an alternative to some of the challenges of solar, wind, and other alternative energy sources.

Source: Energy.Gov Source

For its importance to the DOE mission, switchgrass is among the JGI Flagship Plants.

Propagating atmospheric vortices in the South Asian and Australian monsoon

monsoon

The seasonal reversal in atmospheric low-level circulations, particularly the surface winds and associated precipitation, resulting in a pattern of wet summers and dry winters.

Source: National Weather Service Source

regions produce a large fraction of seasonal mean rainfall in these regions. The more intense instances of these systems are known as monsoon depressions and are responsible for the majority of extreme precipitation events. However, the exact mechanism through which these disturbances intensify remains a topic of active research.

Water scarcity poses a significant global challenge. This study compares the performance of a large-scale hydrologic model with a basin-scale water systems model in terms of capturing water scarcity. Large-scale models capture the overall effect of water operations but may underestimate small-scale variability in water scarcity vulnerabilities.

To model riverine processes in Earth system models,

earth system model (ESM)

A model that simulates how chemistry, biology, and physical forces work together. These models are similar to, but much more comprehensive than, global climate models.

Source: U.S. Department of Energy Source

researchers use conceptual river networks that represent real-world river networks. Conceptual river network development methods must consider the different types of geometric meshes that Earth system models use to represent the land. Existing river network representation methods do not support unstructured meshes.

Increasing either temperature or nutrients can hurt ecosystems by destabilizing food webs, which are all of the interconnected food chains that make communities behave the way they do. When temperature and nutrients increase together, however, ecosystems sometimes behave in unexpected ways. Scientists studied a laboratory microbial food web that consisted of bacterial prey and protist predators.

Congratulations to the 2022 Highly Cited Researchers from the JGI recognized for their “significant influence in their chosen field or fields through the publication of multiple highly cited papers during the last decade” by Clarivate Analytics. This year’s list features 6,900 researchers working in 21 fields.

In a nearly three-decades-long career, University of California, San Diego (UCSD) professor of climate sciences Lynn Russell has studied all manner of aerosols.

aerosols

Small particles or droplets, such as wildfire smoke, volcanic gases, or salty sea spray, that float in the air. They are emitted by both natural events and human activities.

Source: NASA Global Climate Change Source

Russell, who teaches at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, a UCSD department, has investigated sea-spray aerosols, which send salts or bits of organic matter into the air by wave action.

In January 2023, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy launched the Year of Open Science to advance national open science policies across the federal government. During the year, ARM and ASR are publishing a series of stories on work to advance open and equitable research. The following is based on a feature story published by Argonne National Laboratory.