Study of the flood control scheduling scheme for the Three Gorges Reservoir in a catastrophic flood

The Three Gorges Project is the world's largest water conservancy project. According to the design standards for the 1,000‐year flood, flood diversion areas in the Jingjiang reach of the Yangtze River must be utilized to ensure the safety of the Jingjiang area and the city of Wuhan. However, once these areas are used, the economic and life loss in these areas may be very great. Therefore, it is vital to reduce this loss by developing a scheme that reduces the use of the flood diversion areas through flood regulation by the Three Gorges Reservoir (TGR), under the premise of ensuring the safety of the Three Gorges Dam. For a 1,000‐year flood on the basis of a highly destructive flood in 1954, this paper evaluates scheduling schemes in which flood diversion areas are or are not used. The schemes are simulated based on 2.5‐m resolution reservoir topography and an optimized model of dynamic capacity flood regulation. The simulation results show the following. (a) In accord with the normal flood‐control regulation discharge, the maximum water level above the dam should be not more than 175 m, which ensures the safety of the dam and reservoir area. However, it is necessary to utilize the flood diversion areas within the Jingjiang area, and flood discharge can reach 2.81 billion m³. (b) In the case of relying on the TGR to impound floodwaters independently rather than using the flood diversion areas, the maximum water level above the dam reaches 177.35 m, which is less than the flood check level of 180.4 m to ensure the safety of the Three Gorges Dam. The average increase of the TGR water level in the Chongqing area is not more than 0.11 m, which indicates no significant effect on the upstream reservoir area. Comparing the various scheduling schemes, when the flood diversion areas are not used, it is believed that the TGR can execute safe flood control for a 1,000‐year flood, thereby greatly reducing flood damage.     

长江上游洪涝暴雨环流形势中期演变趋势分析

本文通过对1980年以来长江上游10次洪涝过程的500hpa环流形势分析,并用车比雪夫多项式对500hpa高度场进行展开,研究了各类洪涝过程的中期演变特征,发现代表不同洪涝过程环流形势变化的不同的车氏系数值都有明显的特征变化,结合欧洲中心中期数值预告96小时500hpa高度场的车氏系数分析,可为洪涝暴雨的中期预报提供一种新的思路。     

Precipitation patterns in flood season over China associated with the El Niño/Southern Osciliation

The precipitation patterns in flood season over China associated with the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) are investigated, especially in the eastern China, using the rather long period rainfall data in this century. The results show that there were remarkable differences between the precipitation patterns in flood seasons of ENSO warm phase (El Niño year) and cold phase (La Niña year), as well as between the patterns in El Niño years and their following years. The most parts of China received below normal rainfall in flood season of the onset years of El Niño events, but the coastal area of Southeast China received above normal amounts. Comparatively, the most parts of China received above normal rainfall in flood season of the following years of El Niño events, but the eastern part of the reaches among the Huanghe (Yellow) River, the Huaihe River and the Haihe River, and the Northeast China received less. During ENSO cold phase, the reaches of the Changjiang (Yangtze) River and the North China received more amounts than normal rainfall in flood season of the onset years of La Niña events, and the other regions of China received less. In the following years of La Niña events, the coastal area of the Southeast China, the most part of the Northeast China and the regions between the Huanghe River and the Huaihe River received more precipitation during flood seasons, but the other parts received below normal precipitation.     

Mezen Bay—a key area for understanding Weichselian glaciations in northern Russia

Sediment successions in coastal cliffs around Mezen Bay, southeastern White Sea, record an unusually detailed history of former glaciations, interstadial marine and fluvial events from the Weichselian. A regional glaciation model for the Weichselian is based on new data from the Mezen Bay area and previously published data from adjacent areas. Following the Mikulinian (Eemian) interglacial a shelf‐centred glaciation in the Kara Sea is reflected in proglacial conditions at 100–90 ka. A local ice‐cap over the Timan ridge existed between 75 and 65 ka. Renewed glaciation in the Kara Sea spread southwestwards around 60 ka only, interrupted by a marine inundation, before it advanced to its maximum position at about 55–50 ka. After a prolonged ice‐free period, the Scandinavian ice‐sheet invaded the area from the west and terminated east of Mezen Bay about 17 ka. The previously published evidence of a large ice‐dammed lake in the central Arkhangelsk region, Lake Komi, finds no support in this study. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Evidence for a mid‐Pleistocene shift of ice‐drift pattern in the Nordic seas

Sediment proxy records from a continuous, 1.5 million year long deep‐sea sediment core from a site in the western Norwegian Sea were used to obtain new insights into the nature of palaeoceanographic change in the northern North Atlantic (Nordic seas) during the climatic shift of the Mid‐Pleistocene Revolution (MPR). Red‐green sediment colour and magnetic susceptibility records both reveal significant differences in their mean values when comparing the intervals older than 700 000 yr (700 ka) with those from the past 500 kyr. The timing and duration of these changes indicates that the MPR in the Nordic seas is characterised by a gradual transition lasting about 200 kyr. Together with further sedimentological evidence this suggests that the mid‐Pleistocene climate shift was accompanied by a general change in ice‐drift pattern. It is further proposed that prior to the onset of the major late Pleistocene glaciations in the Northern Hemisphere a significant proportion of the ice in the eastern Nordic seas originated from a southern provenance, whereas later it dominantly came from the surrounding landmasses. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Investigating the mechanisms leading to the deglaciation of past continental northern hemisphere ice sheets with the CLIMBER–GREMLINS coupled model

A coupling procedure between a climate model of intermediate complexity (CLIMBER-2.3) and a 3-dimensional thermo-mechanical ice-sheet model (GREMLINS) has been elaborated. The resulting coupled model describes the evolution of atmosphere, ocean, biosphere, cryosphere and their mutual interactions. It is used to perform several simulations of the Last Deglaciation period to identify the physical mechanisms at the origin of the deglaciation process. Our baseline experiment, forced by insolation and atmospheric CO₂, produces almost complete deglaciation of past northern hemisphere continental ice sheets, although ice remains over the Cordilleran region at the end of the simulation and also in Alaska and Eastern Siberia. Results clearly demonstrate that, in this study, the melting of the North American ice sheet is critically dependent on the deglaciation of Fennoscandia through processes involving switches of the thermohaline circulation from a glacial mode to a modern one and associated warming of the northern hemisphere. A set of sensitivity experiments has been carried out to test the relative importance of both forcing factors and internal processes in the deglaciation mechanism. It appears that the deglaciation is primarily driven by insolation. However, the atmospheric CO₂ modulates the timing of the melting of the Fennoscandian ice sheet, and results relative to Laurentide illustrate the existence of threshold CO₂ values, that can be translated in terms of critical temperature, below which the deglaciation is impeded. Finally, we show that the beginning of the deglaciation process of the Laurentide ice sheet may be influenced by the time at which the shift of the thermohaline circulation from one mode to the other occurs.     

Rift-related Jurassic basaltic phreatomagmatic volcanism in the central Transantarctic Mountains: precursory stage to flood-basalt effusion

 The Middle Jurassic Kirkpatrick flood basalts and comagmatic Ferrar intrusions in the Transantarctic Mountains represent a major pulse of tholeiitic magmatism related to early stages in the breakup of Gondwana. A record of the volcano-tectonic events leading to formation of this continental flood-basalt province is provided by strata underlying and only slightly predating the Kirkpatrick lavas. In the central Transantarctic Mountains, the lavas rest on widespread (≥7500 km²) tholeiitic pyroclastic deposits of the Prebble Formation. The Prebble Formation is dominated by lahar deposits and is an unusual example of a regionally developed basaltic lahar field. Related, partly fault-controlled pyroclastic intrusions cut underlying strata, and vents are represented by the preserved flanks of two small tephra cones associated with a volcanic neck. Lahar and air-fall deposits typically contain 50–60% accidental lithic fragments and sand grains derived from underlying Triassic – Lower Jurassic strata in the upper part of the Beacon Supergroup. Juvenile basaltic ash and fine lapilli consist of nonvesicular to scoriaceous tachylite, sideromelane, and palagonite, and have characteristics indicating derivation from hydrovolcanic eruptions. The abundance of accidental debris from underlying Beacon strata points to explosive phreatomagmatic interaction of basaltic magma with wet sediment and groundwater, which appears to have occurred in particular where rising magma intersected upper Beacon sand aquifers. Composite clasts in the lahar deposits exhibit complex peperitic textures formed during fine-scale intermixing of basaltic magma with wet sand and record steps in subsurface fuel-coolant interactions leading to explosive eruption. The widespread, sustained phreatomagmatic activity is inferred to have occurred in a groundwater-rich topographic basin linked to an evolving Jurassic rift zone in the Transantarctic Mountains. Coeval basaltic phreatomagmatic deposits of the Mawson and Exposure Hill Formations, which underlie exposures of the Kirkpatrick Basalt up to 1500 km to the north along strike in Victoria Land, appear to represent other parts of a regional, extension-related Middle Jurassic phreatomagmatic province which developed immediately prior to rapid outpouring of the flood basalts. This is consistent with models which assign an important role to lithospheric stretching in the generation of flood-basalt provinces. Received: 28 August 1995 / Accepted: 18 April 1996     

Late Quaternary submarine bedforms and ice‐sheet flow in Gerlache Strait and on the adjacent continental shelf,Antarctic Peninsula

Geophysical data from Gerlache Strait, Croker Passage, Bismarck Strait and the adjacent continental shelf reveal streamlined subglacial bedforms that were produced at the bed of the Antarctic Peninsula Ice Sheet (APIS) during the last glaciation. The spatial arrangement and orientation of these bedforms record the former drainage pattern and flow dynamics of an APIS outlet up‐flow, and feeding into, a palaeo‐ice stream in the Western Bransfield Basin. Evidence suggests that together, they represent a single ice‐flow system that drained the APIS during the last glaciation. The ice‐sheet outlet flowed north/northeastwards through Gerlache Strait and Croker Passage and converged with a second, more easterly ice‐flow tributary on the middle shelf to form the main palaeo‐ice stream. The dominance of drumlins with low elongation ratios suggests that ice‐sheet outlet draining through Gerlache Strait was comparatively slower than the main palaeo‐ice stream in the Western Bransfield Basin, although the low elongation ratios may also partly reflect the lack of sediment. Progressive elongation of drumlins further down‐flow indicates that the ice sheet accelerated through Croker Passage and the western tributary trough, and fed into the main zone of streaming flow in the Western Bransfield Basin. Topography would have exerted a strong control on the development of the palaeo‐ice stream system but subglacial geology may also have been significant given the transition from crystalline bedrock to sedimentary strata on the inner–mid‐shelf. In the broader context, the APIS was drained by a number of major fast‐flowing outlets through cross‐shelf troughs to the outer continental shelf during the last glaciation. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Palaeotemperature reconstructions of the European permafrost zone during marine oxygen isotope Stage 3 compared with climate model results

A palaeotemperature reconstruction based on periglacial phenomena in Europe north of approximately 51 °N, is compared with high‐resolution regional climate model simulations of the marine oxygen isotope Stage 3 (Stage 3) palaeoclimate. The experiments represent Stage 3 warm (interstadial), Stage 3 cold (stadial) and Last Glacial Maximum climatic conditions. The palaeotemperature reconstruction deviates considerably for the Stage 3 cold climate experiments, with mismatches up to 11 °C for the mean annual air temperature and up to 15 °C for the winter temperature. However, in this reconstruction various factors linking climate and permafrost have not been taken into account. In particular a relatively thin snow cover and high climatic variability of the glacial climate could have influenced temperature limits for ice‐wedge growth. Based on modelling the 0 °C mean annual ground temperature proves to be an appropriate upper temperature limit. Using this limit, mismatches with the Stage 3 cold climate experiments have been reduced but still remain. We therefore assume that the Stage 3 ice wedges were generated during short (decadal time‐scale) intervals of extreme cold climate, below the mean temperatures indicated by the Stage 3 cold climate model simulations. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Estimation of snow water equivalent using microwave radiometry over Arctic first‐year sea ice

The magnitude and spatial distribution of snow on sea ice are both integral components of the ocean–sea‐ice–atmosphere system. Although there exists a number of algorithms to estimate the snow water equivalent (SWE) on terrestrial surfaces, to date there is no precise method to estimate SWE on sea ice. Physical snow properties and in situ microwave radiometry at 19, 37 and 85 GHz, V and H polarization were collected for a 10‐day period over 20 first‐year sea ice sites. We present and compare the in situ physical, electrical and microwave emission properties of snow over smooth Arctic first‐year sea ice for 19 of the 20 sites sampled. Physical processes creating the observed vertical patterns in the physical and electrical properties are discussed. An algorithm is then developed from the relationship between the SWE and the brightness temperature measured at 37 GHz (55°) H polarization and the air temperature. The multiple regression between these variables is able to account for over 90% of the variability in the measured SWE. This algorithm is validated with a small in situ data set collected during the 1999 field experiment. We then compare our data against the NASA snow thickness algorithm, designed as part of the NASA Earth Enterprise Program. The results indicated a lack of agreement between the NASA algorithm and the algorithm developed here. This lack of agreement is attributed to differences in scale between the Special Sensor Microwave/Imager and surface radiometers and to differences in the Antarctic versus Arctic snow physical and electrical properties. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.