Publications

This study began with a challenge from program area managers at Sandia National Laboratories to technical staff in the energy, climate, and infrastructure security areas: apply a systems-level perspective to existing science and technology program areas in order to determine technology gaps, identify new technical capabilities at Sandia that could be applied to these areas, and identify opportunities for innovation. The Arctic was selected as one of these areas for systems level analyses, and this report documents the results. In this study, an emphasis was placed on the arctic atmosphere since Sandia has been active in atmospheric research in the Arctic since 1997. This study begins with a discussion of the challenges and benefits of analyzing the Arctic as a system. It goes on to discuss current and future needs of the defense, scientific, energy, and intelligence communities for more comprehensive data products related to the Arctic; assess the current state of atmospheric measurement resources available for the Arctic; and explain how the capabilities at Sandia National Laboratories can be used to address the identified technological, data, and modeling needs of the defense, scientific, energy, and intelligence communities for Arctic support.

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The lateral footprint of a cosmic-ray soil moisture probe was determined using diffusion theory and neutron transport simulations. The footprint is radial and can be described by a single parameter, an e-folding length that is closely related to the slowing down length in air. In our work the slowing down length is defined as the crow-flight distance traveled by a neutron from nuclear emission as a fast neutron to detection at a lower energy threshold defined by the detector. Here the footprint is defined as the area encompassed by two e-fold distances, i.e. the area from which 86% of the recorded neutrons originate. The slowing down length is approximately 150 m at sea level for neutrons detected over a wide range of energies - from 10{sup 0} to 10{sup 5} eV. Both theory and simulations indicate that the slowing down length is inversely proportional to air density and linearly proportional to the height of the sensor above the ground for heights up to 100 m. Simulations suggest that the radius of influence for neutrons >1 eV is only slightly influenced by soil moisture content, and depends weakly on the energy sensitivity of the neutron detector. Good agreement between the theoretical slowing down length in air and the simulated slowing down length near the air/ground interface support the conclusion that the footprint is determined mainly by the neutron scattering properties of air.

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Direct measurements of cosmic-ray neutron intensity were recorded with a neutron scatter camera developed at SNL. The instrument used in this work is a prototype originally designed for nuclear non-proliferation work, but in this project it was used to characterize the response of ambient neutrons in the 0.5-10 MeV range to water located on or above the land surface. Ambient neutron intensity near the land surface responds strongly to the presence of water, suggesting the possibility of an indirect method for monitoring soil water content, snow water equivalent depth, or canopy intercepted water. For environmental measurements the major advantage of measuring neutrons with the scatter camera is the limited (60{sup o}) field of view that can be obtained, which allows observations to be conducted at a previously unattainable spatial scales. This work is intended to provide new measurements of directional fluxes which can be used in the design of new instruments for passively and noninvasively observing land-surface water. Through measurements and neutron transport modeling we have demonstrated that such a technique is feasible.