Analysis of NASA’s DSN Venus Express radio occultation data for year 2014

The Venus Express Radio Science Experiment (VeRa) was part of the scientific payload of the Venus Express (VEX) spacecraft and was targeted at the investigation of Venus’ atmosphere, surface, and gravity field as well as the interplanetary medium. This paper describes the methods and the required calibrations applied to VEX-VeRa raw radio occultation data used to retrieve vertical profiles of Venus’ ionosphere and neutral atmosphere. In this work we perform an independent analysis of a set of 25 VEX, single-frequency (X-band), occultations carried out in 2014, recorded in open-loop at the NASA Deep Space Network. Our temperature, pressure and electron density vertical profiles are in agreement with previous studies available in the literature. Furthermore, our analysis shows that Venus’ ionosphere is more influenced by the day/night condition than the latitude variations, while the neutral atmosphere experiences the opposite. Our scientific interpretation of these results is based on two major responsible effects: Venus’ high thermal inertia and the zonal winds. Their presence within Venus’ neutral atmosphere determine why in these regions a latitude dependence is predominant on the day/night condition. On the contrary, at higher altitudes the two aforementioned effects are less important or null, and Venus’ ionosphere shows higher electron density peaks in the probed day-time occultations, regardless of the latitude.     

Multi-scale nature of non-blade-order propagating flow disturbances in axial compressors

Non-blade-order flow disturbances, also referred to as pre-stall disturbances or tip flow unsteadiness, are closely related with compressor instabilities. The present work provides a comprehensive investigation on multi-scale nature of non-blade-order disturbances and the underlying flow physics in axial compressors. By applying full-annulus Unsteady Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (URANS) simulations, along with space–time correlation and spatial Fourier decomposition, to the disturbed pressure, the propagating feature of the non-blade-order disturbances is obtained. Further, a bridge between non-blade-order disturbances and the evolution of unsteady vortex has been set up. The results show that non-blade-order disturbances, featured as short-length-scale (35 modes across annulus), first appear as the occurrence of tip leakage vortex fluctuation, while the compressor still operates far from stall. Leading-edge radial vortex appears at near stall condition, and its movement induces a circumferential propagating disturbance overlaying on the one induced by oscillating tip leakage vortex. The interaction of the short-scale disturbances with a low-amplitude long-scale (of circumference) disturbance is observed, which results in disturbances with multiple scales of consecutive spatial modes, along with multiple frequency peaks in spectra. The compressor falls into stall as the circumferential nonuniform scattering of the leading-edge vortexes occurs. The densely- and sparsely-scattered leading-edge radial vortexes induce a high-amplitude long-scale (of circumference) disturbance, i.e. stall disturbance.     

Investigation of the planar midlatitude ionospheric trend under different levels of solar activity

A better understanding of the ionosphere through accurate mathematical models is no doubt a crucial element. This study focuses on the challenging problem of building a model representing the complex structure of the midlatitude ionosphere. Previous studies have shown that a regional planar model is suitable in representing the total electron content (TEC) trend in the midlatitude ionosphere in both hemispheres. In this study, the planar trend model for 12 non-overlapping northern hemisphere regions in three groups of geographically near 4 regions is further investigated under different levels of solar activity; low, moderate and high. To that end, the coefficients of the model are estimated in the least squares sense using total electron content values from global ionospheric maps (GIMs) for the years 2009, 2012 and 2014. Subsequently, these coefficients are used to reconstruct estimated TEC maps which are then compared with actual GIM-TEC by investigating their difference in normalized $L_2$ norm squared sense. The regional planar trend model provides a particularly successful representation in the years 2012 and 2014 for which the solar activity level is the dominant factor determining the TEC trend. Under low solar activity conditions of 2009, other factors such as ocean currents, temperature variations and meteorological phenomena are suspected to have a considerable effect in some regions depending on their geographic location and on seasonal trends in those regions. As an example, studies show that under the influence of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and Siberian High (SH), a significant cooling trend between 2004 and 2018 in autumn is observed in Eurasia, which, in conjunction with the low solar activity levels, may be related to the deviations from the actual GIM-TEC in 2009 in these regions. As solar radiation increases, however, such bottom-side forcings are masked in 2012 and 2014 and these deviations are no longer observed.