Toward cyberinfrastructure to facilitate collaboration and reproducibility for marine integrated ecosystem assessments

There is a growing need for cyberinfrastructure to support science-based decision making in management of natural resources. In particular, our motivation was to aid the development of cyberinfrastructure for Integrated Ecosystem Assessments (IEAs) for marine ecosystems. The IEA process involves analysis of natural and socio-economic information based on diverse and disparate sources of data, requiring collaboration among scientists of many disciplines and communication with other stakeholders. Here we describe our bottom-up approach to developing cyberinfrastructure through a collaborative process engaging a small group of domain and computer scientists and software engineers. We report on a use case evaluated for an Ecosystem Status Report, a multi-disciplinary report inclusive of Earth, life, and social sciences, for the Northeast U.S. Continental Shelf Large Marine Ecosystem. Ultimately, we focused on sharing workflows as a component of the cyberinfrastructure to facilitate collaboration and reproducibility. We developed and deployed a software environment to generate a portion of the Report, retaining traceability of derived datasets including indicators of climate forcing, physical pressures, and ecosystem states. Our solution for sharing workflows and delivering reproducible documents includes IPython (now Jupyter) Notebooks. We describe technical and social challenges that we encountered in the use case and the importance of training to aid the adoption of best practices and new technologies by domain scientists. We consider the larger challenges for developing end-to-end cyberinfrastructure that engages other participants and stakeholders in the IEA process.     

关于陆地水循环演变及其在全球变化中的作用研究设想

围绕中国在全球变化及应对领域多学科交叉研究能力提升和维护国家利益两大重大实践需求,本研究将以全球变化背景下大气-陆面-水文过程演变为主线,融合气象与气候学、水文及水资源学、系统工程学等多学科理论与技术,采用高密度原型观测、多尺度机理实验、数值模拟与仿真、地理信息技术等多方法相结合的途径,发挥云平台的存储、计算和管理等功能与优势,按照“机理识别-规律揭示-形势诊断”的总体思路开展陆地水循环演变及其在全球变化中的作用研究,将发布过去60年全球陆地广义水资源及水循环通量与干旱事件、1级至4级河流径流性水资源与洪涝事件的成果数据;将为中国参与全球气候谈判、国际气候治理和“一带一路”等国家战略的实施提供直接支撑,潜在的经济社会效益显著。     

Multi-agent distributed data mining approach for classifying meteorology data: case study on Iran’s synoptic weather stations

Today’s organizations, industries and research centers are geographically distributed in different sites. To achieve true knowledge of business, mining massive amounts of data is necessary. In earth-related sciences such as meteorology, the date obtained from the various types of sensors is huge because of the high-frequency rate of data acquisition process and also the geographical distribution of weather stations. Therefore, the data mining and knowledge discovery process of this big and distributed data is a challenging work. In this paper, we propose a new distributed data mining approach called multi-agent hierarchical data mining to classify meteorology data, which has been collected from different sites widely distributed around the country (Iran). Our method utilizes a modified version of REPTree algorithm, which has been optimized to work in multi-agent system. To evaluate the proposed approach, it is implemented on 20 million of meteorology data record. Experimental results show that multi-agent hierarchical data mining approach can achieve significant performance improvement over centralized and parallel methods for knowledge discovery in large amounts of data.     

石笋记录年际、年代际极端天气/气候事件研究进展

近年来随着极端天气/气候事件的频发,应对极端天气/气候事件的要求极其紧迫。目前气象资料对极端天气/气候事件的研究相对较短,由此作者提出利用石笋记录重建历史年际、年代际极端天气/气候事件的构想。通过对目前已有的石笋极端天气/气候事件研究实例分析总结,认为洞穴石笋沉积速率相对较快,石笋中标志性结构构造特征的存在,有利于石笋记录到极端天气/气候事件。同时就目前的研究现状,作者提出建立准确年代标尺、选择生长速率相对较快和存在标志性结构构造特征、能记录到极端气候的石笋,以及提高采样分辨率和与其他记录相互验证等作为石笋极端气候研究的工作要求,同时就文石笋研究极端天气/气候事件提出文石笋可能更加容易记录到极端天气/气候事件的个人新认识。      

石笋记录年际、年代际极端天气/气候事件研究进展

近年来随着极端天气/气候事件的频发,应对极端天气/气候事件的要求极其紧迫。目前气象资料对极端天气/气候事件的研究相对较短,由此作者提出利用石笋记录重建历史年际、年代际极端天气/气候事件的构想。通过对目前已有的石笋极端天气/气候事件研究实例分析总结,认为洞穴石笋沉积速率相对较快,石笋中标志性结构构造特征的存在,有利于石笋记录到极端天气/气候事件。同时就目前的研究现状,作者提出建立准确年代标尺、选择生长速率相对较快和存在标志性结构构造特征、能记录到极端气候的石笋,以及提高采样分辨率和与其他记录相互验证等作为石笋极端气候研究的工作要求,同时就文石笋研究极端天气/气候事件提出文石笋可能更加容易记录到极端天气/气候事件的个人新认识。     

Progress in Researches on Ensemble Forecasting of Extreme Weather Based on Numerical Models

Under the background of climate change, extreme weather events (e.g., heavy rainfall, heat wave, and cold damage) in China have been occurring more frequently with an increasing trend of induced meteorological disasters. Therefore, it is of great importance to carry out research on forecasting of extreme weather. This paper systematically reviewed the primary methodology of extreme weather forecast, current status in development of ensemble weather forecasting based on numerical models and their applications to forecast of extreme weather, as well as progress in approaches for correcting ensemble probabilistic forecast. Nowadays, the forecasting of extreme weather has been generally dominated by methodology using dynamical models. That is to say, the dynamical forecasting methods based on ensemble probabilistic forecast information have become prevailing in current operational extreme weather forecast worldwide. It can be clearly found that the current major directions of research and development in this field are the application of ensemble forecasts based on numerical models to forecasting of extreme weather, and its improvement through bias correction of ensemble probabilistic forecast. Based on a relatively comprehensive review in this paper, some suggestions with respect to development of extreme weather forecast in future were further given in terms of the issues of how to propose effective approaches on improving level of identification and forecasting of extreme events.     

Research Status and Prospect of the Interaction Between Tibetan Plateau Shear Line and Tibetan Plateau Vortex

The Tibetan Plateau Shear Line (TPSL) is usually accompanied by the Tibetan Plateau Vortex (TPV) and this phenomenon is one of the assembled weather systems over the Tibetan Plateau (TP) and its surrounding areas. This assembled system plays a very important role in the high impact weather process in the TP and East China. We reviewed the research history and progress of TPVs and TPSLs, and mainly discussed the relationship and interaction mechanism of them. According to the latest research achievement of TPSLs and its relationship with TPVs, the development and application trends of related theory and methods, we proposed several notable new research directions in the field of this study. It is not clear for the relationship and the physical mechanism of the interaction between TPSLs and TPVs as well as some high impact weather initiated by them currently. Therefore, this research work is really quite important for theoretical development of weather dynamics of the TP, and is expected to provide a theoretical guide for severe weather analysis and forecast over the TP and its neighborhood.     

中国西北地区干旱气象灾害监测预警与减灾技术研究进展及其展望

干旱灾害是制约中国西北地区社会经济发展、农业生产和生态文明建设的重要自然灾害,而且随着气候变暖西北地区极端干旱事件发生频率和强度均呈增加趋势,影响不断加重。"中国西北干旱气象灾害监测预警及减灾技术研究"成果是在数十个国家级科研项目的支持下,经过过去20年的理论研究和应用技术开发所取得的一系列创新性成果。该成果对西北干旱形成机理及重大干旱事件发生、发展的规律取得了新认识,尤其是发现了形成西北干旱环流模态的4种主要物理途径;研制了西北干旱预测的新指标、干旱监测的新指数及监测农田蒸散的新设备,明显提高了干旱监测准确性和针对性;提出了山地云物理气象学新理论,研发了水源涵养型国家重点生态功能区——祁连山空中云水资源开发利用技术;发现了干旱半干旱区陆面水分输送和循环的新规律,揭示了绿洲自我维持的物理机制;认识了干旱气候变化对农业生态系统影响的新特征,建立了旱作农业对干旱灾害的响应关系;开发了旱区覆膜保墒、集雨补灌、垄沟栽培、适宜播期等应对气候变化的减灾技术,为西北实施种植制度、农业布局及结构调整和农业气候资源高效利用提供了科学方案。该成果的完成提升了中国干旱防灾减灾技术水平,培养了中国干旱气象科技队伍,推进了西北地区干旱气象业务服务能力,对西北地区社会经济发展、农业现代化和生态文明建设等方面起到了重要的促进作用。在此基础上,展望了西北地区干旱气象科学研究中迫切需要、有可能突破的主要领域。     

陆面过程与天气研究

陆面作为大气运动的下边界,通过动量、热量及物质交换与大气发生复杂的相互作用。陆面过程被认为是影响天气气候的关键过程之一。关于陆面过程对气候的影响已经开展了大量较为深入的研究,相比之下,针对陆面过程对天气的影响研究并没有受到足够的重视。近年来,陆面过程与天气研究也开始受到了越来越多的关注。本文从陆面基本要素、下垫面构成、陆面诱发的局地环流3个方面,回顾了土壤湿度、地形、土地利用、山谷-平原环流等要素和过程对强对流、暴雨、台风、高温热浪等天气事件影响研究的相关进展,以期为今后的研究提供参考。需要指出,尽管此方面的研究已取得了一定进展,但关于陆面过程对天气,尤其是极端(高影响)天气的影响及机制还有待深入研究,进而从陆面过程的角度来理解重要天气形成、发生和发展的机理,从而为数值模式发展和天气预报业务提供更有力的科学支撑。     

The use and performance of mesoscale models over the Indian region for two high-impact events

High-impact mesoscale weather events, occurring in different parts of India in all seasons, lead to major weather- and climate-related disasters. Several research groups and operational weather forecasting centres in India have adopted mesoscale models for research and operational usage. This paper reviews the work done by different groups with respect to two specific events, (1) unprecedented locally heavy rainfall near Mumbai (Santa Cruz) on 26 and 27 July 2005 and (2) the Orissa super-cyclone of 29 and 30 October 1999 from its incipient stage on 24 and 25 October 1999. Considerable variability in the prediction of the intensity and location of mesoscale heavy rainfall, as well as in the intensity and path of the super-cyclone, are found. In order to reduce uncertainty in dynamical prediction, it is necessary that the model dynamics, physics, resolution, boundary conditions and availability of data on land–ocean surface processes are tuned separately to the specific event types, such as heavy monsoon rainfall, tropical cyclone genesis and movement and severe local thunderstorms, as the processes controlling such types of events may require suitable treatments for their proper simulations through appropriate dynamics, physics and resolution.     

Transport system management under extreme weather risks: views to project appraisal,asset value protection and risk-aware system management

Until recently, research on potential economic impacts of climate change and extreme weather events on transport infrastructure was scarce, but currently this area is rapidly expanding. Indeed, there is a growing international interest, including the European area, regarding the impacts of extreme weather and climate change on the management of various transportation modes. This paper reviews briefly the present status regarding the knowledge of financial aspects of extreme weather impacts on transportation, using recent research findings from Europe, and proposes some new views in cost-benefit analysis, project appraisal and asset value protection for the management of transport systems under extreme weather risks. Quite often, risk management is understood as a response to truly extreme impacts, but this constitutes a misunderstanding. Some values are more extreme than others, and in the context of extreme weather, some weather phenomena are more extreme in their intensity and resulting impacts. An analysis of the level of costs and risks to societies, as a result of extreme weather, reveals that the risks in different European Union member states deviate substantially from each other. Also, the preparedness of different societies to deal with extreme weather events is quite variable. Extreme weather and climate change costs and risks represent a new type of item, which has to be dealt with in project appraisal. Although a fully established procedure does not exist, some fundamental ideas of cost-benefit analysis under extreme weather scenarios are presented in this paper, considering accident costs, time costs and infrastructure-related costs (comprising physical damages to infrastructures and increased maintenance costs). Cost-benefit analysis is usually associated with capital investments, but the original idea of cost-benefit analysis is not restricted to investment appraisal. Therefore, activities such as enhanced maintenance, minor upgrades, adoption of new designs, improved information services and others may be subject to cost-benefit analysis. Extreme weather and climate change costs and risks represent a new type of item, which apparently has to be dealt with also in project appraisal. A fully established procedure does not exist, although some basic principles have been introduced in analytical format. There is a lack of models to estimate extreme weather impacts and consequences and how to adapt to those costs. Optimising the efforts in maintenance and new design standards is even further away, but constitutes an overwhelming task. In this respect, new approaches and ways of thinking in preserving asset’s residual value, return periods, sustainability and equity and formal methods supplementing cost-benefit analysis are put forward. The paper concludes with a call for the need for more integrated management of transport systems. In particular, it is recognised that the different stages of transport system planning pose their own challenges when assessing the costs and benefits of policy measures, strategies and operational decisions.     

北方岩溶区水文地质环境地质调查进展——以北京西山岩溶区为例

该文是在地质调查项目“北方岩溶水文地质环境地质调查示范”成果基础上归纳编写的。工作区选择北京西山玉泉山泉域、黑龙关泉域和鱼谷洞泉域。调查中采用了地面调查、遥感解译、地球物理勘探、水文地质钻探、示踪试验、水均衡站观测、水化学以及δD、δ¹⁸O、C、δ³⁴S、Sr同位素方法手段,获取了大量第一手资料,通过对包括前人资料的综合研究,取得以下主要进展: ①查明了该区岩溶水文地质条件和环境问题,将工作区划分为2个含水岩组、3个岩溶水系统和5个子系统; ②通过对黑龙关泉域均衡观测,获得了寒武—奥陶系和蓟县系碳酸盐岩裸露区降水入渗系数,并采用最新资料评价了天然资源量和可开采资源量; ③针对突出的岩溶水环境问题(含潜在问题),从政策、技术和工程3方面提出了岩溶水保护和环境问题治理的建议。     

Zircon Hf-O-Li isotopes of granitoids from the Central Asian Orogenic Belt: Implications for supercontinent evolution

Deep lithospheric processes associated with the formation of major orogens, including the removal of lower crust and underlying mantle through delamination associated with orogen building are poorly constrained. With a view to evaluate the potential link between deep geodynamic processes and magmatic events, we performed in situ zircon Hf-O-Li isotopic analyses of granitoids from the Eastern and Western Junggar, Altai and Beishan orogens, within the Central Asian Orogenic Belt (CAOB). The ε_Hf(t) and δ¹⁸O values of magmatic zircons crystallized during 443 Ma and 252 Ma indicate diverse and heterogeneous magma sources. The corresponding δ⁷Li peaks at ~440 Ma and ~250 Ma, suggesting two distinct high-temperature magmatic events. Based on a comparison with global data, we argue that large-scale delamination formed through Gondwana and Pangaea supercontinent assembly, may have occurred at Ordovician to Silurian boundary (OSB) and Permian to Triassic boundary (PTB), which we term as super-delamination. The subsequent widespread magmatism and volcanism might have made significant impact on the Earth surface ecosystems, ultimately leading to the OSB and PTB mass extinction events. We propose super-delamination as a potential mechanism to explain the link between Earth's internal and external processes, thus providing novel insights into the trigger for mass extinction events.     

Online weather data analysis and visualization tools for applications in ecoinformatics

As large quantities of physical data are always collected for Ecoinformatics research, it is difficult for them to be cleaned, shared, visualized, and analyzed by research collaborators. To resolve this difficulty, this study presents online weather data analysis and visualization cyber-infrastructures consisting of (1) online weather data analysis and visualization tools and (2) near real-time online weather data portal. Firstly, these online tools at www.twibl.org/weather provide data sharing in three web pages: information on instruments and site; data access protected by simple password security; data analysis and visualization services so-called “Ecoinfows”. Secondly, the near real-time online weather data portal for visualizing and forecasting weather data from cloud storage of many automatic weather stations is online at www.twibl.org/aaportal. To overcome speed and accessibility problems, we developed these tools with many technologies - i.e. cloud computing, online computing XML (webMathematica), and binary access data conversion.     

全球早白垩世大规模岩浆活动、铁矿床形成及与气候变化的可能耦合关系

地球系统科学是当今地球科学的研究前缘,早白垩时期全球气候经历了巨大的变化,前人为此做了大量的研究工作,但就铁矿形成与环境变化方面的研究还鲜见人提及。本文针对早白垩世大规模岩浆活动、铁矿成因、温室气体的释放及对气候变化的可能耦合关系做探索性的研究工作。本文主要通过大数据统计、整理分析、制图对比等科学手段,论证早白垩世各重要地质事件之间的耦合关系。发现早白垩世的大规模岩浆活动和铁矿爆发巅峰期、陆相红层的出现有着非常吻合的时间一致性。推测早白垩世时期大规模岩浆活动以及铁矿床的形成释放大量CO_2温室气体。大气中CO_2温室气体含量急剧增加导致大气环境温度升高,Fe~(2+)变成Fe~(3+)导致了大陆红层的形成;大气中CO_2温室气体含量急剧增加也导致了大气中氧气含量变低,致使后生生物为了适应这种极端环境气候个体趋向于小型化。因此,铁矿床爆发式成矿作用间接地导致了当时气候环境变化和生物演化方向。在当今面临的全球变暖的大环境下,我们更要加深了解和我们当代很相似的晚中生代时期,以便更加主动的应对以后的气候环境变化和生物发展。     

非线性科学的气象应用研究

根据非根性科学的混沌理论、分形理论和孤立子理论，从科学交叉的角度对目前气象科学中关于非线性问题的研究进展进行综合评述，内容包括大尺度环流突变与多平衡态，非线性波动及波流相互作用、孤立波与阻塞高压海气相互作用、中小尺度天气、大气运动的混沌性及可预报性、时间序列资料的处理及应用、非线性科学与气象科学的关系等。     

《中国21世纪议程气象行动计划》简介

阐述了《中国21世纪议程气象行动计划》制定的背景及其对国家可持续发展的重要意义,在此基础上,扼要地介绍了《中国21世纪议程气象行动计划》的主要内容,包括气象可持续发展的战略与对策、防灾减灾、保护气候和大气环境、气候资源开发利用、人工影响天气、科技与教育、政策法规、社会参与和国际合作等。     

贵州省汛期地质灾害气象预报预警的探索与实践

从气象因素和全省地质灾害隐患入手逐步深化研究降水和地质环境与地质灾害发生的关系,由浅入深,在尝试和探索中开展地质灾害的预报预警研究,提出了基于GIS的地质灾害气象预警方法.并通过对2004年的地质灾害实例验证预报和2005年4-7月预报预警取得了很好的效果.本文提出的气象预警方法合理可行、简便实用,特别适用于开展省级地质灾害气象预警业务中应用.     

Integration of statistical and heuristic approaches for landslide risk analysis: a case of volcanic mountains in West Java Province,Indonesia

Owing to fragile geo-morphology, extreme climatic conditions, and densely populated settlements and rapid development activities, West Java Province is the most landslide hazardous area in Indonesia. So, a landslide risk map for this province bears a great importance such as for land-use planning. It is however widely accepted that landslide risk analysis is often difficult because of the difficulties involved in landslide hazard assessment and estimation of consequences of future landslide events. For instance, lack of multi-temporal inventory map or records of triggering events is often a major problem in landslide hazard mapping. In this study, we propose a simple technique for converting a landslide susceptibility map into a landslide hazard map, which we have employed for landslide risk analysis in one ideally hazardous part of volcanic mountains in West Java Province. The susceptibility analysis was carried out through correlation between past landslides and eight spatial parameters related to instability, i.e. slope, aspect, relative relief, distance to river, geological units, soil type, land use and distance to road. The obtained susceptibility map was validated using cross-time technique, and was collaborated with the frequency-area statistics to respond to ‘when landslide will occur’ and ‘how large it will be’. As for the judgment of the consequences of future landslides, expert opinion was used considering available literature and characteristic of the study area. We have only considered economic loss in terms of physical damage of buildings, roads and agricultural lands for the landslide risk analysis. From this study, we understand the following: (1) the hazard map obtained from conversion of the susceptibility map gives spatial probability and the area of an expected landslide will be greater than 500m² in the next 2 years, (2) the landslide risk map shows that 24% of the total area is in high risk; 30% in moderate risk; 45% in low risk and no risk covers only 1% of the total area, and (3) the loss will be high in agricultural lands, while it will be low in the road structures and buildings.     

Geochemical mapping in China

China's National Geochemical Mapping Project (Regional Geochemistry-National Reconnaissance, RGNR project) was initiated in 1979. From 1978 to 1982, cooperative research projects were carried out for the preparation and distribution of standard reference samples and for the development of field sampling techniques, multi-element analytical methodology and a unified data quality monitoring procedure. Large pilot surveys were also commenced in several provinces. After five years of technical preparation, the project came into its full implementation. More than 5 million km² of Chinese land surface has been covered by this project. During 1993–1995, another national geochemical project, under the name of ‘Environmental geochemical monitoring network and dynamic geochemical maps in China’ as a pilot survey to choose the suitable sampling medium for the global geochemical mapping application, was carried out in China. The remarkable achievements of China's geochemical mapping projects are widely recognized. Nearly 66% of new discoveries of economic mineralization by MGMR were attributed to the RGNR project. New concepts and new methodologies have emerged through these projects. They also made a great contribution to the international activity toward standardization of geochemical mapping methodology and the possible realization of wide-spaced global geochemical mapping.