PolarGlobe: A web-wide virtual globe system for visualizing multidimensional,time-varying,big climate data

The increasing research interest in global climate change and the rise of the public awareness have generated a significant demand for new tools to support effective visualization of big climate data in a cyber environment such that anyone from any location with an Internet connection and a web browser can easily view and comprehend the data. In response to the demand, this paper introduces a new web-based platform for visualizing multidimensional, time-varying climate data on a virtual globe. The web-based platform is built upon a virtual globe system Cesium, which is open-source, highly extendable and capable of being easily integrated into a web environment. The emerging WebGL technique is adapted to support interactive rendering of 3D graphics with hardware graphics acceleration. To address the challenges of transmitting and visualizing voluminous, complex climate data over the Internet to support real-time visualization, we develop a stream encoding and transmission strategy based on video-compression techniques. This strategy allows dynamic provision of scientific data in different precisions to balance the needs for scientific analysis and visualization cost. Approaches to represent, encode and decode processed data are also introduced in detail to show the operational workflow. Finally, we conduct several experiments to demonstrate the performance of the proposed strategy under different network conditions. A prototype, PolarGlobe, has been developed to visualize climate data in the Arctic regions from multiple angles.     

海水声速剖面基函数的重构性能分析

海水声速剖面通常使用经验正交函数（Empirical Orthogonal Function,EOF）进行稀疏表示,然而基函数会受到数据完备性和数据测量时间的制约,其代表性误差会导致声速剖面重构精度受限。为了提高声速剖面的重构精度,本文利用模糊C均值聚类对BOA_Argo历史数据集进行聚类分析,探讨不同聚类空间的训练集数据对实测声速剖面重构精度的影响。研究表明,声速剖面具有明显的时空聚集特性,聚类后的历史声速剖面集生成的基函数和平均声速剖面具有最优的重构性能。本文研究结果有助于为历史声速剖面训练集的选取提供实际指导意义,进而提高声速剖面重构精度乃至反演精度。     

The Upper Middle Rhine Valley as a risk area

The Upper Middle Rhine Valley, granted the status of a World Heritage site, is well known for its unique inner narrow valley of Quaternary age with its historical legacy of numerous medieval castles and old towns. Less known is that this has always been a risk area of floods and gravitative mass movements. Up to the recent past, mainly ice floods caused enormous damage. The inhabitants of the valley were well aware that they lived in a risk area, but they had learned to handle the flood hazard. With the demise of ice floods over the last 40 years, due to climate change and because of the additional heating of the river water by power plants, the awareness of flood hazards has been much diminished, in contrast to that of potential damage by rockfalls and landslides which were also much feared in the past, though at the local level only. Still in the people’s memory is the Kaub catastrophe of March 10, 1876, when 28 persons were killed by a landslide. Nowadays, even minor rockfalls are a major threat, as they will affect the much-used traffic lines on both banks of the river, in particular the railroads. Therefore, since 2002, on behalf of German Rail (Deutsche Bahn, DB), all problematic slopes have been protected by costly steel-ring nets, although they are an aesthetic problem by UNESCO standards. The feeling of absolute safety created among the public is only subjective, though, as planners are well aware of. Moreover, the impact of modern climate change on slope stability is nearly unknown. Therefore, it is still necessary to develop a risk map for the narrow valley, with emphasis on gravitational hazards.     

Temporal and spatial dynamical simulation of groundwater characteristics in Minqin Oasis

Application scope of geostatistics has been gradually extended from original geologic field to soil science and ecological field, etc. and its successful application results have been widely demonstrated. But little information is reported as to the direct use of geostatistical method to work out the distribu- tion map of groundwater characteristics. In this paper the semivariogram of geostatistics, in combina- tion with GIS, was used to quantitatively study the spatial variation characteristics of groundwater table depth and mineralization degree and their relation to the landuse changes. F test of the used spherical model reached a very significant level, and the theoretical model can well reflect the spatial structural characteristics of groundwater table depth and mineralization degree and achieve an ideal result. This shows that the application of the method in the dynamical simulation of groundwater is feasible. And this paper also provides useful reference for the application of geostatistics in the study of the dy- namical variations of groundwater resources in the oasis.     

RG-1测汞仪软件介绍

RG1测汞仪操作软件使用VC++5.0工具研制,在Windows95下运行。通过AD/DA接口实现对RG1的控制和对基准电压的自动跟踪校正。完全的可视化操作。具有4种可选的标准曲线拟合方法以用于不同浓度样品的峰值和积分值测量,并直接给出汞浓度及各种统计数据     

A Long-Term Decrease of the Mid-Size Segmentation Lengths Observed in the He <Emphasis Type="SmallCaps">ii</Emphasis> (30.4 nm) Solar EUV Emission

Power spectra of segmentation-cell length (a dominant length scale of EUV emission in the transition region) from full-disk He?ii extreme ultraviolet (EUV) images observed by the Extreme ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (EIT) onboard the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) and the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) onboard the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) during periods of quiet-Sun conditions for a time interval from 1996 to 2015 were analyzed. The spatial power as a function of the spatial frequency from about 0.04 to 0.27 (EIT) or up to 0.48 (AIA) Mm^?1 depends on the distribution of the observed segmentation-cell dimensions – a structure of the solar EUV network. The temporal variations of the spatial power reported by Didkovsky and Gurman (Solar Phys. 289, 153, 2014) were suggested as decreases at the mid-spatial frequencies for the compared spectra when the power curves at the highest spatial frequencies of 0.5 pix^?1 were adjusted to match each other. This approach has been extended in this work to compare spectral ratios at high spatial frequencies expressed in the solar spatial frequency units of Mm^?1. A model of EIT and AIA spatial responses allowed us to directly compare spatial spectral ratios at high spatial frequencies for five years of joint operation of EIT and AIA, from 2010 to 2015. Based on this approach, we represent these ratio changes as a long-term network transformation that may be interpreted as a continuous dissipation of mid-size network structures to the smaller-size structures in the transition region. In contrast to expected cycling of the segmentation-cell dimension structures and associated spatial power in the spectra with the solar cycle, the spectra demonstrate a significant and steady change of the EUV network. The temporal trend across these structural spectra is not critically sensitive to any long-term instrumental changes, e.g. degradation of sensitivity, but to the change of the segmentation-cell dimensions of the EUV network structure.     

Climatic and geographic factors affect ecosystem multifunctionality through biodiversity in the Tibetan alpine grasslands

Ecosystem multifunctionality(EMF), the simultaneous provision of multiple ecosystem functions, is often affected by biodiversity and environmental factors. We know little about how the interactions between biodiversity and environmental factors affect EMF. In this case study, a structural equation model was used to clarify climatic and geographic pathways that affect EMF by varying biodiversity in the Tibetan alpine grasslands. In addition to services related to carbon, nitrogen, and water cycling, forage supply, which is related to plantproductivity and palatability, was included in the EMF index. The results showed that 72% of the variation in EMF could be explained by biodiversity and other environmental factors. The ratio of palatable richness to all species richness explained 8.3% of the EMF variation. We found that air temperature, elevation, and latitude all affected EMF, but in different ways. Air temperature and elevation impacted the aboveground parts of the ecosystem, which included plant height, aboveground biomass, richness of palatable species, and ratio of palatable richness to all species richness. Latitude affected EMF by varying both aboveground and belowground parts of the ecosystem, which included palatable speciesrichness and belowground biomass. Our results indicated that there are still uncertainties in the biodiversity–EMF relationships related to the variable components of EMF, and climatic and geographic factors. Clarification of pathways that affect EMF using structural equation modeling techniques could elucidate the mechanisms by which environmental changes affect EMF.     

Resolving the landfill siting impasse: modelling technocratic and indigenous perspectives using GIS multicriteria approach

Increase in waste generation calls for an effective waste management as this has become a necessity for environmental sustainability. Several methods are adopted in managing waste, which include waste reduction, reuse, thermal treatment, recycling and landfilling. The landfill method is recognised as the most used of all the waste management methods in developing countries such as Ghana. However, the selection of a suitable landfill site is very difficult and tedious. This is because it involves a consideration of many factors such as environmental, topographic, economic, socio-cultural and civil engineering. This research sought to identify a suitable landfill site by applying GIS multicriteria and weighted overlay approach in the Bongo District of Northern Ghana. The analysis relied on criteria and weights provided by the technocrats and the indigenes in the district as a way of demonstrating how landfill siting impasse can be resolved by incorporating the various stakeholders. The results obtained provided clear areas for landfill sites in the study area from the technocratic and the indigenous perspectives. However, the technocratic perspective failed to include an important cultural criterion, sacred groves, as a factor. The indigenous perspective also compromised on the factor related to nearness to residential areas, and is equally not sufficient on its own. The optimal landfill sites, which meets the expectations of both the technocrats and indigenes, was identified. This perspective has produced technically favourable and socio-culturally acceptable landfill site. However, it is recommended an environmental impact assessment (EIA) be conducted to identify the full environmental and social cost of the site. It is concluded that in landfill site selection much attention be given to cultural factors in the same way as the technical factors.     

岩体中泥化夹层的流变试验及其长期强度的确定

文中首先介绍两种室内试验设备--单剪流变仪和剪应力松弛仪（松弛流变仪）及其试验方法,然后根根岩体中泥化夹层的试验成果,证实陈宗基教授提出的最高屈服值f3--强度的临界值即长期强度值,工程设计要重视它。     

Elasticity soltion of rupture model of shallow earthquake

Based on the theory of elastic mechanics, and using the typical rupture model of shallow earthquake, the authors considered the shallow earthquake as a plane mechanical problem, which was constructed the corresponding mechanical model. By the stress components' formulas of the semi-infinite model acted by the finite even shearing force, the main stress is deduced. It is clear that the sector on the right of the center section is squeezed zone, where the maximum principal stress points at the "source of stress", and that on the left is tensile zone, where the minimum principal stress points to the "source of stress".