Clustering current climate regions of Turkey by using a multivariate statistical method

In this study, the hierarchical clustering technique, called Ward method, was applied for grouping common features of air temperature series, precipitation total and relative humidity series of 244 stations in Turkey. Results of clustering exhibited the impact of physical geographical features of Turkey, such as topography, orography, land–sea distribution and the high Anatolian peninsula on the geographical variability. Based on the monthly series of nine climatological observations recorded for the period of 1970–2010, 12 and 14 clusters of climate zones are determined. However, from the comparative analyses, it is decided that 14 clusters represent the climate of Turkey more realistically. These clusters are named as (1) Dry Summer Subtropical Semihumid Coastal Aegean Region; (2) Dry-Subhumid Mid-Western Anatolia Region; (3 and 4) Dry Summer Subtropical Humid Coastal Mediterranean region [(3) West coast Mediterranean and (4) Eastern Mediterranean sub-regions]; (5) Semihumid Eastern Marmara Transition Sub-region; (6) Dry Summer Subtropical Semihumid/Semiarid Continental Mediterranean region; (7) Semihumid Cold Continental Eastern Anatolia region; (8) Dry-subhumid/Semiarid Continental Central Anatolia Region; (9 and 10) Mid-latitude Humid Temperate Coastal Black Sea Region [(9) West Coast Black Sea and (10) East Coast Black Sea sub-regions]; (11) Semihumid Western Marmara Transition Sub-region; (12) Semihumid Continental Central to Eastern Anatolia Sub-region; (13) Rainy Summer Semihumid Cold Continental Northeastern Anatolia Sub-region; and (14) Semihumid Continental Mediterranean to Eastern Anatolia Transition Sub-region. We believe that this study can be considered as a reference for the other climate-related researches of Turkey, and can be useful for the detection of Turkish climate regions, which are obtained by a long-term time course dataset having many meteorological variables.     

Variation in calcite dissolution rates:: A fundamental problem?

A comparison of published calcite dissolution rates measured far from equilibrium at a pH of ∼ 6 and above shows well over an order of magnitude in variation. Recently published AFM step velocities extend this range further still. In an effort to understand the source of this variation, and to provide additional constraint from a new analytical approach, we have measured dissolution rates by vertical scanning interferometry. In areas of the calcite cleavage surface dominated by etch pits, our measured dissolution rate is 10^−10.95 mol/cm²/s (PCO₂ 10^−3.41 atm, pH 8.82), 5 to ∼100 times slower than published rates derived from bulk powder experiments, although similar to rates derived from AFM step velocities. On cleavage surfaces free of local etch pit development, dissolution is limited by a slow, “global” rate (10^−11.68 mol/cm²/s). Although these differences confirm the importance of etch pit (defect) distribution as a controlling mechanism in calcite dissolution, they also suggest that “bulk” calcite dissolution rates observed in powder experiments may derive substantial enhancement from grain boundaries having high step and kink density. We also observed significant rate inhibition by introduction of dissolved manganese. At 2.0 μM Mn, the rate diminished to 10^−12.4 mol/cm²/s, and the well formed rhombic etch pits that characterized dissolution in pure solution were absent. These results are in good agreement with the pattern of manganese inhibition in published AFM step velocities, assuming a step density on smooth terraces of ∼9 μm⁻¹.     

Liquefaction analysis and soil improvement in Beydag dam

Beydag dam is under construction on Kucukmenderes River for irrigation purposes. Due to the scarcity of core material and liquefaction of alluvium at the dam site, the original design was changed to Roller Compacted Concete (RCC) from rockfill dam with claycore. Although the new design was safer, it nearly doubled the cost of the dam, so the owner, State Hydraulic Works of Turkey, (DSI) set out to find more economical but equally safe alternative. Since jet-grouting is a cheap ground improvement tool in Turkey, such an alternative was developed for the ground improvement against liquefaction together with concrete face rockfill dam sitting on top of improved ground. This paper presents a detailed discussion of how the new alternative was developed and evaluated: it discusses the determination of jet grouting pattern, the placement of jet grouted blocks, and the assesment of liquefaction. On one hand the soil cement strength of jetgrout columns, internal friction angle of alluvium and rockfill were important in determining the dimensions of the blocks, on the other hand the location of the blocks were highly affected by the areas where liquefaction occurred. One of the most important parameter that has a considerable influence in delineating the boundary betweeen liquefaction and non-liquefaction was the value of stress reduction coefficient (r _d), being primarily sensitive to the weight of overburden, which is calculated by the height from the face of dam to the depth where the calculation was made. This approach is justified by two-dimensional ground response analysis. Most importantly, this paper shows that there exists an alternative solution for building dams on the liquefaction prone sites without removing alluvium by using a well known jet grouting technique for improving ground at only selected places.     

High-Pressure (~2000 MPa) Kyanite- and Glaucophane-bearing Pelitic Schist and Eclogite from Cordillera de la Costa Belt, Venezuela

Cretaceous melange of the Cordillera de la Costa belt, north–centralVenezuela, there are knockers of eclogite, barroisite-bearingeclogite, and pelitic glaucophane schist. These occur in a metamorphicmelange matrix that locally consists of marble, serpentinite,amphibolite, actinolite schist, feldspathic schist and gneiss,graphitic schist, chloritoid schist, and garnet-bearing micaschist. The protoliths for these various rock types exhibita wide age range (Cambrian to Early Cretaceous?). Recently discoveredknockers of pelitic glaucophane schist contain Mg-glaucophane+ paragonite + kyanite + garnet + talc + graphite + rutile +quartz. The coexistence of kyanite and Mg-glaucophane suggestsminimum P 2000 MPa at T > 600°C. Eclogite knockers fromthe same outcrop contain garnet and clinopyroxene which yield500°C for cores, 700°C for rims, and P 1200 MPa. Theassemblage garnet–biotite–phengite–albitewithin schists of the melange matrix of this locality indicatesmetamorphic conditions of T = 450–520°C at P = 1800MPa. Because all lithologies in this outcrop record high-P conditions,this metamorphic melange formed before or during peak metamorphismin a mid-Cretaceous subduction zone. KEY WORDS: geothermobarometry; high-P pelitic schist; eclogite; Puerto Cabello; Venezuela     

Comparison of missing value imputation methods in time series: the case of Turkish meteorological data

This study aims to compare several imputation methods to complete the missing values of spatio–temporal meteorological time series. To this end, six imputation methods are assessed with respect to various criteria including accuracy, robustness, precision, and efficiency for artificially created missing data in monthly total precipitation and mean temperature series obtained from the Turkish State Meteorological Service. Of these methods, simple arithmetic average, normal ratio (NR), and NR weighted with correlations comprise the simple ones, whereas multilayer perceptron type neural network and multiple imputation strategy adopted by Monte Carlo Markov Chain based on expectation–maximization (EM-MCMC) are computationally intensive ones. In addition, we propose a modification on the EM-MCMC method. Besides using a conventional accuracy measure based on squared errors, we also suggest the correlation dimension (CD) technique of nonlinear dynamic time series analysis which takes spatio–temporal dependencies into account for evaluating imputation performances. Depending on the detailed graphical and quantitative analysis, it can be said that although computational methods, particularly EM-MCMC method, are computationally inefficient, they seem favorable for imputation of meteorological time series with respect to different missingness periods considering both measures and both series studied. To conclude, using the EM-MCMC algorithm for imputing missing values before conducting any statistical analyses of meteorological data will definitely decrease the amount of uncertainty and give more robust results. Moreover, the CD measure can be suggested for the performance evaluation of missing data imputation particularly with computational methods since it gives more precise results in meteorological time series.