Statistical analysis of tropical disturbances over the South China Sea during 1997�C2006

Tropical disturbances over the South China Sea (SCS) during the period of 1997-2006 are analyzed using the Tropical Storm and Hurricane WX products. A total of 158 tropical disturbances were formed over the SCS from 1997 to 2006, with 54 de-veloping tropical disturbances which developed into tropical depressions and 104 non-developing tropical disturbances which never developed into tropical depressions. The development rate of tropical disturbances into tropical depressions was 34.18% in these ten years. During the period of this study, total annual numbers of tropical disturbances and developing tropical disturbances over the SCS had significant decreasing trends; however, the development rate of tropical disturbances had an insignificant increasing trend.     

木星“大红斑”的旋转浅水实验模拟研究

在具有自由表面的旋转轨物面浅水实验系统上进行了可重复的系列模拟实验，在旋转随动坐标系中拍摄的照片和功率谱分析表明，确有大尺度持续存在的涡旋、漂移与演化产生，在一定条件下，呈现出一个自持的、长寿命的、沿与整体旋转方向相反方向漂移的反气旋孤立波涡旋（Rossby孤立波涡旋），这就是木星“大红斑”的实验室模型，实验结果证实，流体动力学不稳定主要来自于剪切和Coriolis力效应，由于远离平衡态的耗散系统的自组织，涌现出大尺度长寿命相干涡旋结构，受多次实验的启发，从流体动力学基本方程出发，在一定的实验条件下提出一个半经验模型，近似求出了Rossby孤立波涡旋解。     

“21·7”河南特大暴雨降水特征及极端性分析

利用国家气象信息中心提供的2 373个国家气象观测站（以下简称国家站）和区域气象观测站（以下简称区域站）小时降水量资料,从累计降水量、降水强度和时间演变等角度,分析了“21·7”（2021年7月17—22日）河南特大暴雨的极端性特征。结果表明:此次暴雨过程具有持续时间长、累计降水量大、突发性强、暴雨落区集中等特点。6天累计降水量平均达到219.05 mm·站^-1,有155个站超过600 mm。全省5.43万km²累计过程降水量大于250 mm,超过“75·8”过程（1975年8月）的3.45万km²。强降水主要出现在3个时段（18日15时至19日04时、19日09时至21日08时、21日09时至22日14时）,最大降水时段发生在19—21日,落区集中在太行山东南侧、伏牛山东北侧的豫中北地区。有1514个站出现至少1个时次的短时强降水(≥20 mm·h^-1),大值中心分别位于郑州、新乡和鹤壁等地,部分区域短时强降水贡献率超过70%。强降水中心在20日中午至21日夜间由河南中部向河南北部移动,强度由强变...     

Human damage assessments of coastal flooding for Hong Kong and the Pearl River Delta due to climate change-related sea level rise in the twenty-first century

Natural Hazards - The adverse impact of climate change-associated extreme weather events is becoming more significant globally, particularly the flood impact on coastal and low-lying areas such as...     

Rapid tidal marsh development in anthropogenic backwaters

Tidal marsh restoration and creation is growing in popularity due to the many and diverse sets of services these important ecosystems provide. However, it is unclear what conditions within constructed settings will lead to the successful establishment of tidal marsh. Here we provide documentation for widespread and rapid development of tidal freshwater wetlands for a major urban estuary as an unintended result of early industrial development. Anthropogenic backwater areas established behind railroad berms, jetties, and dredge spoil islands resulted in the rapid accumulation of clastic material and the subsequent initiation of emergent marshes. In one case, historical aerial photos document this transition occurring in less than 18 years, offering a timeframe for marsh development. Accretion rates for anthropogenic tidal marshes and mudflats average 0.8–1.1 and 0.6–0.7 cm year⁻¹, respectively, equivalent to two to three times the rate of relative sea level rise as well as the observed accretion rate at a 6000+ year-old reference marsh in the study area. Paired historical and geospatial analysis revealed that more than half of all the tidal wetlands on the Hudson River were likely triggered by anthropogenic development since the onset of the industrial era, including two-thirds of the emergent cattail marsh. These inadvertently constructed tidal wetlands currently trap roughly 6% of the Hudson River's sediment load. Results indicate that when sediment is readily available, freshwater tidal wetlands can develop relatively rapidly in sheltered settings. The study sites serve as useful examples to help guide future tidal marsh creation and restoration efforts.     

Investigation of the 20 August 2005 fatal landslide at Fu Yung Shan Tsuen, Hong Kong

On 20 August 2005, a landslide with a volume of about 400  m³ occurred at Fu Yung Shan Tsuen, Tsuen Wan in Hong Kong during a severe rainstorm with a return period of about 100  years on a hillside that has been disturbed locally by past human activities. The incident resulted in one fatality and permanent evacuation of residents of four squatter structures in the vicinity. A forensic investigation into the landslide was carried out to review the mechanism and probable causes of the landslide. The key contributory factors in the landslide were diagnosed. The investigation concluded that the landslide was probably caused by the loss of soil suction and transient build-up of groundwater pressure in the near-surface soil materials following prolonged and intense rainfall. The paper presents the methodology adopted for the landslide study, findings of the investigation and the lessons learnt from this fatal landslide.     

Study of nuclear decays during a solar eclipse: Thule Greenland 2008

A new prediction technique based on logarithmic values is proposed to predict the maximum amplitude (R _m) of a solar cycle from the preceding minimum aa geomagnetic index (aa _min). The correlation between lnR _m and lnaa _min (r=0.92) is slightly stronger than that between R _m and aa _min (r=0.90). From this method, cycle 24 is predicted to have a peak size of R _m(24)=81.7(1±13.2%). If the suggested error in aa (3 nT) before 1957 is corrected, the correlation coefficient between R _m and aa _min (r=0.94) will be slightly higher, and the peak of cycle 24 is predicted much lower, R _m(24)=52.5±13.1. Therefore, the prediction of R _m based on the relationship between R _m and aa _min depends greatly on the accurate measurement of aa.     

Semi-automatic shallow landslide detection by the integration of airborne imagery and laser scanning data

Landslide mapping is essential for effective watershed management. In Taiwan, a typhoon or earthquake event can trigger hundreds, even thousands, of shallow landslides in mountainous watersheds. Thus, improving the efficiency of landslide mapping by means of remote sensing techniques is an important issue. This study proposes a new method that uses concurrent aerial laser scanning (ALS) data and color ortho-imagery as input data: the topographic indices of slope, surface roughness, and object height model can be derived from the ALS data and the Green–Red Vegetation Index from the ortho-images. The method first uses these topographic and spectral indices in a global, semi-automatic algorithm to separate landslide from non-landslide pixels. It then offers a region growing tool and a 3D Eraser/Painter to edit detected landslides locally. These global and local operations are designed with a user interface, which is intuitive and user-friendly. Results from four test sites in a mountainous watershed prove that the method is easy, accurate, and suitable for landslide mapping in Taiwan.     

Automating adjoint wave-equation travel-time tomography using scientific workflow

Recent advances in commodity high-performance computing technology have dramatically reduced the computational cost for solving the seismic wave equation in complex earth structure models. As a consequence, wave-equation-based seismic tomography techniques are being actively developed and gradually adopted in routine subsurface seismic imaging practices. Wave-equation travel-time tomography is a seismic tomography technique that inverts cross-correlation travel-time misfits using full-wave Fréchet kernels computed by solving the wave equation. This technique can be implemented very efficiently using the adjoint method, in which the misfits are back-propagated from the receivers (i.e., seismometers) to produce the adjoint wave-field and the interaction between the adjoint wave-field and the forward wave-field from the seismic source gives the gradient of the objective function. Once the gradient is available, a gradient-based optimization algorithm can then be adopted to produce an optimal earth structure model that minimizes the objective function. This methodology is conceptually straightforward, but its implementation in practical situations is highly complex, error-prone and computationally demanding. In this study, we demonstrate the feasibility of automating wave-equation travel-time tomography based on the adjoint method using Kepler, an open-source software package for designing, managing and executing scientific workflows. The workflow technology allows us to abstract away much of the complexity involved in the implementation in a manner that is both robust and scalable. Our automated adjoint wave-equation travel-time tomography package has been successfully applied on a real active-source seismic dataset.