Rainfall thresholds for landsliding in the Himalayas of Nepal

Landsliding of the hillslope regolith is an important source of sediment to the fluvial network in the unglaciated portions of the Himalayas of Nepal. These landslides can produce abrupt increases of up to three orders of magnitude in the fluvial sediment load in less than a day. An analysis of 3 years of daily sediment load and daily rainfall data defines a relationship between monsoonal rainfall and the triggering of landslides in the Annapurna region of Nepal. Two distinct rainfall thresholds, a seasonal accumulation and a daily total, must be overcome before landslides are initiated. To explore the geomorphological controls on these thresholds, we develop a slope stability model, driven by daily rainfall data, which accounts for changes in regolith moisture. The pattern of rainfall thresholds predicted by the model is similar to the field data, including the decrease in the daily rainfall threshold as the seasonal rainfall accumulation increases. Results from the model suggest that, for a given hillslope, regolith thickness determines the seasonal rainfall necessary for failure, whereas slope angle controls the daily rainfall required for failure.     

Competing impact of anthropogenic emissions and meteorology on the distribution of trace gases over Indian region

The spatial distribution of trace gases exhibit large spatial heterogeneity over the Indian region with an elevated pollution loading over densely populated Gangetic Plains (IGP). The contending role and importance of anthropogenic emissions and meteorology in deciding the trace gases level and distribution over Indian region, however, is poorly investigated. In this paper, we use an online regional chemistry transport model (WRF/Chem) to simulate the spatial distribution of trace gases over Indian region during one representative month of only three meteorological seasons namely winter, spring/summer and monsoon. The base simulation, using anthropogenic emissions from SEAC⁴RS inventory, is used to simulate the general meteorological conditions and the realistic spatial distribution of trace gases. A sensitivity simulation is conducted after removing the spatial heterogeneity in the anthropogenic emissions, i.e., with spatially uniform emissions to decouple the role of anthropogenic emissions and meteorology and their role in controlling the distribution of trace gases over India. The concentration levels of Ozone, CO, SO₂ and NO₂ were found to be lower over IGP when the emissions are uniform over India. A comparison of the base run with the sensitivity run highlights that meteorology plays a dominant role in controlling the spatial distribution of relatively longer-lived species like CO and secondary species like Ozone while short-lived species like NO_X and SO₂ are predominantly controlled by the spatial variability in anthropogenic emissions over the Indian region.     

Variations of trace gases over the Bay of Bengal during the summer monsoon

In situ measurements of near-surface ozone (\(\hbox {O}_{3})\), carbon monoxide (CO), and methane (\(\hbox {CH}_{4})\) were carried out over the Bay of Bengal (BoB) as a part of the Continental Tropical Convergence Zone (CTCZ) campaign during the summer monsoon season of 2009. \(\hbox {O}_{3}\), CO and \(\hbox {CH}_{4}\) mixing ratios varied in the ranges of 8–54 ppbv, 50–200 ppbv and 1.57–2.15 ppmv, respectively during 16 July–17 August 2009. The spatial distribution of mean tropospheric \(\hbox {O}_{3}\) from satellite retrievals is found to be similar to that in surface \(\hbox {O}_{3}\) observations, with higher levels over coastal and northern BoB as compared to central BoB. The comparison of in situ measurements with the Monitoring Atmospheric Composition & Climate (MACC) global reanalysis shows that MACC simulations reproduce the observations with small mean biases of 1.6 ppbv, –2.6 ppbv and 0.07 ppmv for \(\hbox {O}_{3}\), CO and \(\hbox {CH}_{4}\), respectively. The analysis of diurnal variation of \(\hbox {O}_{3}\) based on observations and the simulations from Weather Research and Forecasting coupled with Chemistry (WRF-Chem) at a stationary point over the BoB did not show a net photochemical build up during daytime. Satellite retrievals show limitations in capturing \(\hbox {CH}_{4}\) variations as measured by in situ sample analysis highlighting the need of more shipborne in situ measurements of trace gases over this region during monsoon.     

Evaluation of a probabilistic approach to simulation of alkalinity and electrical conductivity at a river bank filtration site

In river bank filtration, impurities present in the river water travel with the bank filtrate towards the pumping well. During this passage, certain types of impurities, such as turbidity, total coliform, and so forth, may get attenuated; however, it is interesting to note that some of the instant raw river water quality parameters, such as alkalinity and electrical conductivity, increase after the passage of water through the porous medium. This occurs because water, when passing through the soil pores, absorbs many of the solutes that cause an increase in alkalinity and electrical conductivity. Measurements at a river bank filtration site for a year showed that alkalinity of 116–32 mg l^?1 in river water increased to 222.4–159.9 mg l^?1 in the river bank filtered water. Likewise, the electrical conductivity increased from 280–131 μS cm^?1 to 462–409.6 μS cm^?1. This study uses a probabilistic approach for investigating the variation of alkalinity and electrical conductivity of source water that varies with the natural logarithm of the concentration of influent water. The probabilistic approach has the potential of being used in simulating the variation of alkalinity and electrical conductivity in river bank filtrate. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

基于数码相机立体像对的物体3维信息快速获取方法

研究了数码相机的内方位元素检测和镜头畸变差校正，应用近景摄影测量的原理与方法，提出了一种基于立体像对无物方控制的物体表面3维模型信息快速获取方法，试验表明，该方法获取3维信息速度快、精度较高。同时文中还比较了可变焦数码相机和固定焦距相机在获取3维信息精度方面的差异。     

Growth of pressure shocks in radiative magnetogasdynamics

Summary The growth equation for the pressure shocks as conceived by Thomas and Edstrom (1961), in a thermally and electrically conducting viscous gas has been derived. Ionisation and dissociation have not been taken into account, while the effects of radiation have been considered under the assumption that the radiative parameters are independent of magnetic field. During the course of derivation certain boundary conditions and the well known compatibility conditions established by Thomas (1957) have been used.     

Appraisal of gas-hydrate/free-gas from VP/VS ratio in the Makran accretionary prism

Existence of gas-hydrate in the marine sediments elevates both the P- and S-wave seismic velocities, whereas even a small amount of underlying free-gas decreases the P-wave velocity considerably and the S-wave velocity remains almost unaffected. Study of both P- and S-wave seismic velocities or their ratio (V_P/V_S) for the hydrate-bearing sediment provides more information than that obtained by the P- or S-wave velocity alone for the quantitative assessment of gas-hydrate. We estimate the P- and S-wave seismic velocities across a BSR (interface between gas-hydrate and free-gas bearing sediments) using the travel time inversion followed by a constrained AVA modeling of multi channel seismic (MCS) data at two locations in the Makran accretionary prism. Using this V_P/V_S ratio, we then quantify the amount of gas-hydrate and free-gas based on two rock-physics models. The result shows an estimate of 12–14.5% gas-hydrate and 4.5–5.5% free-gas of the pore volume based on first model, and 13–20% gas-hydrate and 3–3.5% free-gas of the pore volume based on the second model, respectively.     

Stable clustering of offshore downhole data using a combined k-means and Gaussian mixture modelling approach

Marine Geophysical Research -     

Shock wave propagation in non-ideal fluids

Expressions for the variation of shock strength and its propagation in non-ideal fluids are presented by using the method developed by Whitham. The effects of the presence of rotation, rotation and magnetic field on the strength and propagation velocity of shock waves have been discussed separately. Finally, the effects of the presence of gravitation on the shock strength and on propagation velocity have been studied.