Western Jezero crater of Mars exposes smooth- and rough-surfaced plains that bound a steep-sided fan-shaped plateau (i.e., western Jezero delta) in the west. The two plain terrains have a gradational contact and their end-member occurrences can be defined by the absence (smooth-surfaced) and presence (rough-surfaced) of littered surficial boulders and depressions. Early researchers interpret the plain terrains as morphological expression of volcanic flow and aeolian, fluvial, or lacustrine deposition, but these hypotheses have not been tested rigorously via detailed mapping. Here we show results of HiRISE-based mapping that reveals four landform units hosted by both smooth- and rough-surfaced terrains: (1) polygonal networks of double-ridged grooves that are 2-4 m wide, up to ~1700 m long, and spaced > ~100 m, (2) reticulate networks of grooves spaced mostly < ~10 m, (3) undulating surfaces hosting variously shaped depressions, and (4) NE-trending boulder-bearing ridges (~10 m wide and 70-300 m long) locally displaying NE-pointing streamlined shapes. Our mapping shows that the NE-trending boulder ridges formed first followed sequentially by the formation of depressions, double-ridged grooves, and reticulate grooves. None of the above observations can be explained as a whole by volcanic emplacement and/or earlier proposed aeolian, fluvial, and lacustrine depositional processes. Guided by Earth analogues, we interpret the streamlined boulder ridges as subglacial flutes, depressions including most circular pits with raised rims as kettle holes and/or thermokarsts, polygonal networks of double-ridged grooves as crevasse-filled ice-pressed moraine ridges and the polygonal pattern was inherited from the fractured glacier, and reticulate grooves as desiccation cracks during the final drying of glacial deposits at the end of a martian ice age.

Formation of surficial sulfate– and halide–bearing salts by syn–eruptive ash–gas interactions is known to occur during volcanic eruptions. For reactions between aluminosilicates and the gas SO2, at high temperature regimes (T≥ 600 °C), the controlling mechanism is the outward chemical diffusion of alkalis and alkaline earth metals, predominantly Ca2+, that result in sulfate salt formation, mostly CaSO4, on glass surfaces. However, most of the experimental research has been conducted for SO2–reactions with pure crystal–free, aluminosilicate glass, to simplify the complexities of crystal–bearing systems. Here, we tested high temperature SO2–reactions using particles of a rhyolitic, crystal–bearing dome material from a 2013 eruption of Santiaguito volcano (Guatemala), by exposing 2 g of particles to 25 sccm of SO2; at 600–800 °C, for 5–60 min each time. We then compare our results with those of previous studies using pure glass particles, aiming to determine the influence of crystal fraction and type on the occurrence and efficiency of gas–ash reactions. We conducted chemical and microscopic analysis of pre– and post–treated samples and observed that diffusion of Ca2+ is reduced in crystal–bearing samples relative to crystal–free samples at the same conditions. The rate of slow–down of the diffusion process appears to be dependent on the crystal volume fraction, providing a mechanism to account for this effect a priori. SEM images also showed that surface componentry strongly affects presence of CaSO4, as salts appear to be absent on specific surface spots corresponding to crystal phases. Our results illustrate the need for ash-gas reaction studies to further consider both the effect of bulk– and surface–componentry, in order to more accurately assess syn-eruptive gas uptake by ash.

Coastal flooding associated with hurricanes and other major storm events along the U.S. Coast results from complex interactions between freshwater flows, tides, storm surge, and wave effects. We have developed a two-way coupled model consisting of the National Water Model (NWM), the Advanced Circulation Ocean Model (ADCIRC), and WAVEWATCH III (WWIII) to quantify these interactions and compute total water levels in the coastal zone after significant riverine and coastal flooding events. This coupled continental coastal model covers the US Gulf and Atlantic Coasts, extending from the US-Canada border to the US-Mexico border. The Delft3D FM, D-Flow Flexible Mesh (D-Flow FM) model simulates coastal flooding on a 2D unstructured mesh within the National Water Model (NWM)/ADCIRC/WWIII coupled system. We developed a high quality 2D unstructured mesh using a sizing function that assigns element sizes based on proximities of coastal features at given spatial locations. Data sources used to identify relevant coastal features included NWM streamlines, the National Hydrography Dataset (NHD), and United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) data, allowing integration of D-Flow FM with the NWM and optimization of the number of computational points. The system obtains freshwater inflow boundary conditions to D-Flow FM from the NWM channel network. Offshore water levels boundary conditions for D-Flow FM come from the coupled ADCIRC-WWIII model. Domain sub-setting keeps runtimes within reasonable limits, as it does execution of the detailed hydrodynamic model within a user-defined area enclosing the storm landfall site. The advantage of this approach comes from the fact that the same coupled model setup allows simulation of coastal flooding for different storm events; only the sub-setting enclosure and the atmospheric forcing require updating from case to case. Model validation, consisting of water level comparisons against observations from simulations using the coupled system for historical storm events. The model simulations satisfactorily reproduced observed spatial and temporal variations of total water levels. In conclusion, this study presents performance of the sub-setting approach in reducing runtime considerably without compromising the accuracy of the coupled modeling system solution.

The subdued topography of the Turkana Depression separates the elevated Ethiopian and Kenyan Plateaus in East Africa. Mechanisms to explain its topography are debated because constraints on upper mantle structure and dynamics are lacking. Attempts to understand the role of the mantle below Turkana in the evolution of rifting between the Main Ethiopian and Southern East African rifts and the onset of Ethiopian Flood Basalt volcanism are also hindered by limited data availability. Here, recently deployed seismic networks in Turkana and neighboring Uganda enable us to develop a new absolute P-wavespeed tomographic model (AFRP21) to image mantle structure below the Turkana depression. Additionally, we use P-to-s receiver functions to map the mantle transition zone (MTZ) discontinuity structure. In the shallow mantle, broadly distributed slow wavespeeds reside below the Main Ethiopian rift. To the south, slow wavespeeds occur in a focused zone below the East African rift, but beneath the northern Turkana depression these are cross-cut by a narrow E-W band of fast wavespeeds. At upper MTZ depths slow wavespeeds are broadly continuous below the East African rift but begin to separate into two distinct anomalies at the base of the MTZ. While receiver functions reveal a broadly thinned MTZ below Cenozoic rift-related magmatism in East Africa, the thinnest transition zone exists below the Turkana Depression. Slow wavespeeds and a thinned MTZ below the Turkana Depression indicate hot upwelling material, thus its low-lying nature is not due to the lack of underlying dynamic support. Instead, the depressed topography may be better explained by Mesozoic-Cenozoic E-W rifting associated with the imaged shallow fast wavespeed band. Furthermore, the main eruptive phase of Ethiopian Flood basalt volcanism may be associated with the African plate’s position over the anomalously thinned MTZ in Turkana at ~30Ma.

High-resolution mapping and monitoring of global inland surface water bodies are critical to address challenges in sustainable water management practices. Planet currently operates the largest constellation of Earth Observation satellites and collects images at very high spatial (0.5 m - 5 m) and temporal (near-daily) resolutions. Here, we use PlanetScope data (resampled to 3 m) to develop a holistic and fully automated pipeline running on the Google Cloud Platform for monitoring global inland surface water. We incorporate the openly-available Global Reservoir and Dam (GRanD) data set into a three-stage supervised learning approach which initiates with an unsupervised label-generation step consisting of k-means clustering and NIR-based thresholding. We then rank the labels generated from these steps and the water labels extracted from the latest ESRI 10 m land cover data based on image contours. The best (noisy) labels having the least number of contours from this unsupervised learning stage are bootstrapped to train a deep-learning based semantic segmentation model (U-Net) on a KubeFlow pipeline. We subsequently create a new refined dataset by using these model predictions as labels which are passed to a Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD)-based multi-temporal supervised label refinement stage (SGD classifier running on the same label for multiple input scenes). Finally, we iterate over the SGD based-supervised and U-Net-based label refinement steps to successively denoise the bootstrapped data until we obtain an acceptable test accuracy (F1 score > 0.9). Visual inspection of the results obtained over different climatic regions, terrains, and seasons across the globe shows that our approach works quite well. We also aggregate these predictions to detect temporal changes in surface water area. However, the model predictions exhibit high uncertainty in agricultural areas and complex terrains characterized by hill shadows and clouds. This issue could potentially be mitigated using hard-negative mining. Nevertheless, with the nearly-daily imaging capability of Planet, the high-fidelity surface water maps developed using this proposed supervised learning approach could be beneficial to the global water community for dealing with water security issues as part of the UN sustainable development goals.

Compound extremes exhibit greater adverse impacts than their univariate counterparts. Studies have reported changes in frequency and the spatial extent of extremes in India; however, investigation of compound extremes is in the infancy state. This study investigates the historical variation of compound dry and hot extremes (CDHE) and compound wet and cold extremes (CWCE) during the Indian summer monsoon period from 1951-2019 using monthly data. Results are analyzed for 10 identified homogeneous regions for India. Our results unraveled that CDHE (CWCE) frequency has increased (decreased) by 1-3 events per decade for the recent period (1977-2019) relative to the base period (1951-1976). Overall, there is increasing (decreasing) pattern of CDHE (CWCE) is high across North-central India, Western India, North-eastern India and South-eastern coastlines. Our findings help in identification of the parts of the country were affected by frequent and widespread CDHE during the recent period, which is alarming. More detailed assessments are required to disentangle the complex physical process of compound extremes to improve risk management options.

Compound dry and hot extremes (CDHE) during the Indian summer monsoon significantly affect agriculture. Due to climate change, the frequency, spatial extent and severity of CDHE have changed over several parts of the world. Understanding the variability of CDHE is critical for designing adaptation strategies to reduce the adverse impacts on agricultural systems. In particular, traditional assessments have focused on the variability of frequency and spatial extent using the quantile-based approach. However, counting the number of events excess over the threshold helps to understand the variability in frequency and spatial extent but fails to detect the changes in the severity. Further, limited studies have investigated the changes in CDHE severity over India. Hence, in the present study, the variability of CDHE severity is assessed during the summer monsoon from 1951 to 2020 over homogenous regions of India using a copula-based Standardized Compound Event Indicator. A significant increase in the severity of CDHE during the summer season was found in eight homogenous regions out of ten. The most vulnerable regions are northeast India and peninsular India, and interestingly, a significant decrease in the severity is observed for the north rain-belt Western Himalayan region. In addition, a significant increase in the spatial extent of the CDHE severe category is also found in all the homogenous regions over the past three decades. This study highlights that severe CDHE is associated with a high risk of severe agricultural drought for a large part of the country. Uni-variate assessments based on precipitation or temperature can underestimate the risks associated with CDHE if there is a strong dependence among the drivers.

Supercritical CO2 (ScCO2) invades oilwell cement under geological CO2 sequestration conditions. With the penetration of ScCO2, cement structure prone to damage when the coupled effects of capillarity and carbonation were found. Microstructural evolution of oilwell cement samples was investigated by the CT scanning and the quantitative image-based analysis and show that ScCO2 with the high humid condition would penetrate much deeper than the dry ScCO2 because of the capillarity effects. Due to the deep saline condition in the sequestration formation, the penetration of ScCO2 was retarded by the salt deposition, comparing with the ultrapure water (UP water) conditions. For further assessment of this coupled mechanism, the permeability property and contact angle changes were proposed to analyse the interface region between ScCO2, saline/UP water and oilwell cement.

Data publication with DOI assignment has become common practice. The Citation Service for Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) was requested by the scientific panel WGCM, which is part of the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) to enable references of the CMIP6 data in the upcoming Sixth IPCC Assessment Report (AR6). Expectations for data citations include aspects of data usage metrics to receive credit and reproducibility of published research findings. These two are difficult to combine, because a meaningful data usage metrics requires information on large data collections such as experiment data while reproducibility relies on individual datasets. In addition, data usage metrics rely on data users citing the data in the reference list of a scholarly publication and the publisher to provide data references in the articles’ metadata. Neither is a given. Organizations like the Coalition for Publishing Data in the Earth and Space Sciences (COPDESS) play an important role for the required ongoing community change. The Reliquaries approach together with PID Graph implementations being developed in the Data Citation Community of Practice subgroup shows promise for combining reproducability and credit expectations. The contribution will present survey results on CMIP6 participants’ expectations, discuss gaps in the current citation system and investigate, how new ideas can help to close these gaps. Reference: Stockhause, M. and Lautenschlager, M., 2017. CMIP6 Data Citation of Evolving Data. Data Science Journal, 16, p.30. DOI: http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2017-030

The Gandalf Staff is a mobile tool designed to be a flexible device supporting crewed and uncrewed operations on the lunar surface. The core of the device is a 24v battery with communications and data storage systems. Initial optional components supporting crewed Extra-Vehicular Activity (EVA) include a LiDAR and 360˚ camera. These provide 3D mapping of the traverse for documentation, and to aid future planning. The mapping also creates outreach opportunities for the public to “stand beside” the astronaut in Virtual Reality (VR). The staff provides external lighting for field site illumination in the south polar region low sun angle environment. Navigation instruments for crew position determination with Lunar Search and Rescue (LunaSAR) are also included. The staff itself can be used as a walking aid or as a splint for Incapacitated Crew Rescue (ICR). As a stand-alone device, the staff operates as a long duration untended science platform collecting environmental data and sending it to a lunar base station. The stand-alone mode requires connection to an auxiliary power source (e.g. solar array) and energy storage system (e.g. battery), so it could become an electrical recharging station. To make rapid progress in the 1st year, and also to demonstrate innovative project management techniques, NASA guided a private industry partner, T STAR, in leading Capstone Engineering student teams at Texas A&M University (TAMU) for proof-of-concept development and testing. These teams developed the power system and demonstrated successful integration of LiDAR, WiFi communications, and external lighting subsystems. Another industry team at Jacobs Technology prototyped a tripod to hold the staff upright. For the 2nd year (FY’22), NASA will again collaborate with partners to prototype enhanced power and lighting concepts. Year 2 will also add new capability for LunaSAR and geophysical science instrumentation using a heat probe. The heat probe is based upon Apollo heritage but modified to measure subsurface volatile ice regimes at the Artemis landing site. Components of the Gandalf Staff can be developed, tested, and deployed independently, or on the integrated staff, rovers, or utility trailers. The project supports crew safety, lunar sample curation, mission science, and public outreach goals of NASA.

Interpreting seismo-acoustic signals is critical for assessing and characterizing changes in volcanic vents and has implications for interpreting volcanic unrest. This is especially relevant for Stromboli volcano (Italy), an active stratovolcano with a complex plumbing system, continuous activity, and recurring paroxysms. Stromboli is known for its consistent Strombolian style of eruption, multiple active vents on its crater terrace, and for occasional structural modifications including explosive excavation and/or collapsing craters due to near-surface changes to the plumbing system. This study addresses a single localized collapse of the crater terrace, occurring in May of 2019, when one of Stromboli’s vents changed from a pronounced hornito to a pit crater, resulting in a shift in eruption style at this vent from jetting to Strombolian. The days before and after this transition were recorded with eight infrasound sensors and three seismic geophones located on the crater terrace. We investigate the seismo-acoustic timing of these signals as well as the ratio between seismic and acoustic energy to identify changes associated with eruptive signals and associated variations in location of the eruptive sources. This work highlights the effectiveness of seismo-acoustic data analysis, provides insight into Stromboli’s structural modifications, and builds a foundation for focused analysis of seismo-acoustic signals associated with Stromboli and other open-vent volcanic systems.

Current diagnostic velocity resolution limits our ability to search for exoplanets within the habitable zone. We propose a new capability (Crossfading-EDI or X-EDI) that will boost optical spectrograph stability and spectral resolution, enabling 100x-1000x more sensitivity for the exoplanet search. This technique for increasing the stability of any dispersive (grating or prism) spectrograph to unwanted wavelength drifts has been simulated on real data and shown to produce a 1000x or more stability improvement, by use of an interferometer using *pairs* of overlapping delays placed in series with the disperser, rather than singly-used delays. This combines fringe shifts having opposite phase reaction, to cancel drift. This technique, “Crossfading Externally Dispersed Interferometry” (X-EDI) builds upon an earlier singly- delayed Doppler technique (EDI) demonstrated on a variety of telescopes including the 5-meter Hale telescope at Mt. Palomar. The single-delay EDI technique already affords a significant stability enhancement to a spectrograph, and has been used by others to discover exoplanets in 2006 and 2016. We expect that improving EDI technique further by the use of crossfading pairs of delays will dramatically improve the instrumental noise floor due to spectrograph focal point drifts or detector pixel misplacement, which can limit the detection of small exoplanets over long (months or years) time scales. The X-EDI has been simulated on EDI data on a ThAr lamp line measured at the Hale telescope*. A simulated drift insult was applied. The observed reaction to the line position drift was reduced 1000x. All spectrographs suffer drift insults of various kinds, and the X-EDI technique reduces the reaction to these by moving the fine wavelength determination from the dispersive spectrograph to the interferometer, which uses the symmetry of delay pairs to eliminate drift. This technique can greatly improve spectral precision and stability for (1) Doppler radial velocimetry, and (2) direct planet imaging using adaptive optics (such as the Gemini Planet Imager) that feeds a low resolution integral field multi-object spectrograph. *David J. Erskine, J. Astr. Tele. Instrum. Sys., 7(2):025006, June 2021. Prepared by LLNL under Contract DE- AC52-07NA27344.

Plasma beta is an important parameter characterizing dynamics of various systems such as the solar wind, planetary magnetospheres, and accretion disks. Dependence of some plasma properties such as spectral break, relative proton-electron heating, and intermittency has been studied using observations as well as simulations [1,2,3]. In this study, we use particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations of turbulence to study various, yet unexplored, aspects of this beta variation. We analyze kinetic range electric fields, the variation of scale-to-scale energy transfer, and higher order statistics with respect to plasma beta. Systematic trends in the behavior of various quantities are discussed, and their implications for kinetic plasma dissipation are examined. Finally, we extend this approach to laminar reconnection, which shows turbulence like properties of magnetic spectrum and energy cascade [4,5]. References: Chen, et. al., Geophy. Res. Lett. 41.22 (2014); (https://doi.org/10.1002/2014GL062009) Franci, et. al., ApJ 833 91 (2016); (https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/833/1/91) Parashar, et. al., ApJ Lett. 864 L21 (2018);(https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/aadb8b ) Adhikari, et. al., Phys. of Plasmas 27,042305 (2020); (https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5128376) Adhikari, et. al.(2021); (arXiv:2104.12013)

Urban drainage systems are facing major challenges with rapid urbanization and climate change, especially for developing countries. Green infrastructure (GI) is a natural-based solution expected to reduce flooding and help in water pollution control. Notwithstanding multiple research have discussed the contribution of GI to climate change adaptation. The efficiency of GI to extreme events in the context of the more frequent extreme precipitation events has received limited attention in the literature. This study aims to quantify the impact of historical and future extreme rainfalls on overflow flooding, pollutant transport, and GI’s potential in flood control by taking Phnom Penh City, the capital of Cambodia, as a case study. Firstly, we predicted the history of sub-daily extreme rainfall (1986-2005) by disaggregating outputs of various regional climate models based on the Artificial Neural Network (ANN) method. Secondly, we generated the future intensity-duration-frequency (IDF) curves based on sub-daily extreme rainfall (2026-2045) and input the design rainfall time series (based on the scenarios of RCP4.5 and RCP8.5) into a hydrological model (PCSWMM) to investigate the impact of climate change on urban drainage systems, including the flooding and pollution (suspended solids). The model successfully captured the variation of overflow flooding and transport of pollutants. Thirdly, we introduced four mitigation measures of GI and simulated their effectiveness against climate change with different extreme rainfall events. The results indicate that future climate change will increase the risk of overflow flooding and more pollutants diffuse on urban surfaces. The GI is an effective method to mitigate its impact, but the performance decreases with rainfall intensity. The effect of increased rainfall is consistent for different GI. PP is most effective in relieving the pressure of extreme rainfall for total flood,  peak flow reduction, and pollutant removal. Although GR performs reasonably well in flood control, it is the least effective in pollutant control. It can be seen that more research is needed in the implementation and optimization of GI.

South Turkish Neogene basins record post-collisional exhumation/erosion of Neotethyan basins. Facies and paleocurrent data indicate general northerly derivation of siliciclastic sediments. Provenance is further indicated by integrated detrital zircon U-Pb geochronology (29 samples; 2748 grains) of 7 mapped late Oligocene-Miocene basins (from E-W): 1. Hatay, 2. K.Maraş, 3. Adana, 4. Misis, 5. Mut, 6. Manavgat and 7. Kopru. 1-4 and 6-7 represent two separate tectonically active depocenters, whereas 5 was a relatively stable platform. The early-mid Miocene of Hatay Basin contains sparse zircons with Precambrian (570-900 Ma) and Cretaceous (73-99 Ma) populations that become prominent in the mid-late Miocene. The early Miocene of K.Maraş Basin has abundant Pan-African, Grenvillian and Eocene zircons; mid-Miocene exhibits scarce Neoproterozoic-Mesoproterozoic but abundant Cretaceous-Neogene zircons. The late Oligocene-early Miocene of Adana Basin has minor Cretaceous-Neogene zircons, becoming more abundant in the early Miocene. The Miocene of Misis Basin has abundant Precambrian grains, mainly restricted to the NE. The Miocene of Mut Basin has major zircon populations of 544-710 Ma, 730-990 Ma, and two subordinate 1700-2000 Ma and 2400-2700 Ma clusters. Early Miocene (17-19 Ma) zircons occur in some samples. The Manavgat Basin samples are similar to the Mut Basin ones but with more evidence of mid-late Miocene (8-14 Ma) zircons. Lastly, the Kopru Basin (E Isparta Angle) has Pan-African (540-640 Ma) and Grenvillian (810-1000 Ma) populations, and small Paleozoic clusters. The Pan-African and Grenvillian-aged material was probably supplied directly and/or recycled from rifted Gondwanan Cadomian ‘basement’ and its Paleozoic passive margin cover, as partly exposed in south/central Anatolia. Sparse Permian-Triassic zircons relate to Neotethyan rifting. Late Cretaceous-early Cenozoic grains were derived from adjacent Late Cretaceous ophiolitic, magmatic arc and related metamorphic units. Early Miocene zircons relate to local basaltic volcanism. The variable zircon abundances hint at differential exhumation/erosion. Two regional drainage system dominated, one through the K.Maraş basin system (E) and the other through the Isparta Angle basin system (W).

Urbanization increases runoff, sediment, and nutrient loadings to freshwaters, causing flooding, harmful algal blooms, and increased costs for drinking water filtration. Most watershed models use runoff quality data from specific land uses; coupled with a variety of methods for quantifying loads, the most common being Build-up and Wash-off (BUWO) equations for which loading is a function of antecedent dry period (ADP). However, several studies have shown there is no significant correlation between urban runoff quality and ADP, suggesting predictions based solely on landuse and ADP are questionable. The objective of this study is to discover which parameters, climatological or catchment characteristics, are most significant and should be included in the BUWO relationship. Stormwater quality data was obtained from the National Stormwater Quality Database (NSQD), which is the largest and most recent database of its type in the U.S. Bayesian Network Structure Learner (BNSL) was used to assess the relationships between catchment characteristics, climatological information, and runoff quality for each land use. Given the optimal BN structure, it was determined which parameters affect water quality event mean concentrations the most, and which the least. The results demonstrated that for some constituents (i.e. particulate nitrogen, particulate phosphorous, and sediments), other factors (such as rainfall depth and duration, surface slope) exert a more important influence on urban runoff quality than ADP.

Urbanization and climate change are exacerbating stress on aging urban critical infrastructure systems, including water, energy, mobility, and telecommunication networks. Simulation tools and scenario analyses able to capture the interdependencies among these different infrastructure systems are crucial to support decision making and realize sustainable and resilient development. Yet, existing simulation tools are mostly developed within the boundaries of individual application sectors and information often remains siloed, despite the increasing data and computational opportunities offered by the digital transformation of many infrastructure sectors. In this work, we present how the ide3a project (international alliance for digital e-learning, e-mobility and e-research in academia – https://ide3a.net) addresses this research gap. ide3a is building a digital campus to support digital learning, research, and mobility in collaboration within a network of six European partner universities. Several senior and early career researchers with multidisciplinary backgrounds in water management, IT systems, mobility, energy, urban planning, sustainability, and psychology, work together to integrate state-of-the-art research on critical infrastructure and digitalization into traditional higher education curricula. As part of the ide3a portfolio of digital tools for learning and research, we present a prototype of “ConnectiCity”, an open-source simulation-based serious game that integrates multi-sectoral models to perform simulations of interconnected critical infrastructure systems and quantify cascading effects under various climate, social, and technical scenarios. Along with other ide3a activities, it is used to train early career researchers and students alike to enrich their transdisciplinary knowledge, foster critical system thinking, drive research on urban critical infrastructure dynamics, and ultimately working across disciplines to tackle contemporary urban challenges.

Modeling atmospheric chemistry across scales with the Multi-Scale Infrastructure for Chemistry and Aerosols (MUSICA) leverages a new regional refinement capability within the NCAR Community Earth System Model (CESM). This framework allows for simultaneous simulation at human-relevant and policy-relevant scales at the same time as hemispheric and global-scales. Here, we present the development of a regional refined grid over the Australian region and assess initial simulations for the 2019/2020 wildfire season. The Australian wildfire events of 2019/2020 saw large local emissions of pollution with wide-scale impacts across the southeast of the continent, where smoke and haze degraded air quality for many days for millions of people. Hemispheric transport of pollution at low and lofted altitudes also occurred, creating an atmospheric signature over New Zealand and South America, and had a direct influence on climate. These multiple-scale impacts from wildfire in the Australian region make it ideal for testing the new capability of multi-scale modeling.