Wind Speed Forecasting from 1 to 30 Minutes

Summary The long lifetime and high intensity of vortex trails generated by landing large-capacity aircraft may cause a risk to subsequently landing planes. A wake vortex warning system can help to avoid such hazards by forecasting the time intervals permitting safe operation on the landing strip. This information provides the basis for an appropriate landing schedule based on reduced succession distances. An essential element of the warning system is the prediction of wind across the landing strip and this is commonly determined by a method based on the principle of persistence. This study shows that autoregressive (AR) modelling can improve the accuracy of crosswind forecasts. To this end, the measurements are analysed in order to estimate model parameters. Unlike the more simplistic previously used method, AR forecasting, as part of the vortex trail warning system, allows longer intervals for safe operation and can avoid forecast discontinuities (leaps) which are inherent problems of all forecasts in which boundary layer processes have to be considered. Received June 10, 1997 Revised October 6, 1997     

Reconstruction of the Late Holocene climate and environmental history from North Bolgoda Lake,Sri Lanka,using lipid biomarkers and pollen records

The catastrophic impact and unpredictability of the Indian Ocean Monsoon (IOM) over South Asia are evident from devastating floods, mudslides and droughts in one of the most densely populated regions of the globe. However, our understanding as to how the IOM has varied in the past, as well as its impact on local environments, remains limited. This is particularly the case for Sri Lanka, where erosional landscapes have limited the availability of well-stratified, high-resolution terrestrial archives. Here, we present novel data from an undisturbed sediment core retrieved from the coastal Bolgoda Lake. This includes the presentation of a revised Late Holocene age model as well as an innovative combination of pollen, source-specific biomarkers, and compound-specific stable carbon isotopes of n-alkanes to reconstruct the shifts in precipitation, salinity and vegetation cover. Our record documents variable climate between 3000 years and the present, with arid conditions c. 2334 and 2067 cal a bp. This extreme dry period was preceded and followed by more wet conditions. The high-resolution palaeoenvironmental reconstruction fills a major gap in our knowledge on the ramifications of IOM shifts across South Asia and provides insights during a time of major redistribution of dense human settlements across Sri Lanka.     

Seasonal controls on DOC dynamics in nested upland catchments in NE Scotland

Spatial and temporal variability of hydrological responses affecting surface water dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentrations are important for determining upscaling patterns of DOC export within larger catchments. Annual and intra‐annual variations in DOC concentrations and fluxes were assessed over 2 years at 12 sites (3·40–1837 km²) within the River Dee basin in NE Scotland. Mean annual DOC fluxes, primarily correlated with catchment soil coverage, ranged from 3·41 to 9·48 g m^?2 yr^?1. Periods of seasonal (summer–autumn and winter–spring) DOC concentrations (production) were delineated and related to discharge. Although antecedent temperature mainly determined the timing of switchover between periods of high DOC in the summer‐autumn and low DOC in winter‐spring, inter‐annual variability of export within the same season was largely dependent on its associated water flux. DOC fluxes ranged from 1·39 to 4·80 g m^?2 season^?1 during summer–autumn and 1·43 to 4·15 g m^?2 season^?1 in winter–spring.Relationships between DOC areal fluxes and catchment scale indicated that mainstem fluxes reflect the averaging of highly heterogeneous inputs from contrasting headwater catchments, leading to convergent DOC fluxes at catchment sizes of ca 100 km². However, during summer–autumn periods, in contrast to winter–spring, longitudinal mainstem DOC fluxes continue to decrease, most likely because of increasing biological processes. This highlights the importance of considering seasonal as well as annual changes in DOC fluxes with catchment scale. This study increases our understanding of the temporal variability of DOC upscaling patterns reflecting cumulative changes across different catchment scales and aids modelling of carbon budgets at different stages of riverine systems. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On trend detection

A main obstacle to trend detection in time series occurs when they are autocorrelated. By reducing the effective sample size of a series, autocorrelation leads to decreased trend significance. Numerous recipes attempt to mitigate the effect of autocorrelation, either by adjusting for the reduced effective sample size or by removing the autocorrelated components of a series. This short note deals with the latter, also called prewhitening (PW). It is known that removal of autocorrelation also removes part of the trend, which may affect the signal‐to‐noise ratio. Two popular methods have dealt with this problem, the trend‐free prewhitening (TFPW) and the iterative prewhitening. Although it is generally accepted that both methods reduce the adverse effects of PW on the trend magnitude, corresponding effects on statistical significance have not been clearly stated for TFPW. Using a Monte Carlo approach, it is demonstrated that both methods entail quite different Type‐I error rates. The iterative prewhitening produces rates that are generally close to the nominal significance level. The TFPW, however, shows very high Type‐I error rates with increasing autocorrelation. The corresponding rate of false trend detections is unacceptable for applications, so that published trends based on TFPW need to be reassessed.     

Deep-sea sediments in the eastern equatorial Atlantic off the African coast and meteorological flow patterns over the Sahel

Deep-sea mineral dust deposits are a powerful tool allowing to deduct atmospheric flow patterns. Here deep-sea sediments from the eastern tropical Atlantic were used to derive climatic conditions over the African continent where in summer the dust is lifted in the transition zone of the Sahara and the Sahel. The meteorological process causing this aeolian dust injection are the squall lines, the rain bearing disturbances of the Sahel. They produce a high surface wind velocity area in their northern vicinity. The deep-sea deposits of sediments and their spatial patterns allowed to conclude that the dust raising mechanism connected with the squall lines were similar for present day conditions and for the time of the last glacial maximum. The Saharan trades and the African monsoon had about the same extension in either time slice coupled with an identical travel belt of the squall lines. However, the intensity and the frequency of the squall lines were lower in glacial times.

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Zusammenfassung Tiefseesedimente liefern interessante und wertvolle Aufschlüsse über atmosphärische Strömungsbedingungen. Hier werden die Sedimente aus dem Gebiet des östlichen tropischen Nordatlantiks verwendet, um klimatische Angaben über die Strömungsverhältnisse über dem afrikanischen Kontinent zu gewinnen, da die Quelle des Staubes auf dem Kontinent im Übergangsbereich zwischen der Sahara und dem Sahel zu suchen ist. Die meteorologische Ursache des systematischen Staubeintrages in die Atmosphäre sind die regenbringenden sommerlichen Störungen des Sahel («>squall lines»<), die in ihrem nördlichen Randbereich ein Gebiet hoher Windgeschwindigkeit am Boden aufweisen, so daß es hier regelmäßig zu Staubaufwirbelungen kommt. Mit Hilfe der räumlichen und zeitlichen Verteilung der Tiefseesedimente konnte schon früher gezeigt werden, daß während der Periode des letzten Hochglazials die Lage der Grenzzone zwischen Passat und afrikanischem Monsun sich im Vergleich zur Gegenwart nicht verändert hat. Hier wird nun zusätzlich deutlich, daß sowohl die Intensität als auch die Frequenz der «>squall lines»< zum Höhepunkt der Vereisung geringer was als heute.

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Résumé Les sédiments amenés par le vent dans les mers profondes fournissent de précieuses indications sur la distribution des courants atmosphériques. Dans cette note, les sédiments de la partie orientale de l'Atlantique tropical sont examinés en vue de déduire les conditions climatiques régnant sur le continent africain, où la source de la poussière est située entre le Sahara et le Sahel. En effet, l'origine météorologique des apports éoliens sont les pertubations pluvieuses (lignes de grains) qui sont accompagnées sur leur bordure nord de vents de grande vitesse au sol. La distribution des sédiments sur le fond océanique a déjà permis de conclure que le mécanisme de transport était, lors de la dernière glaciation (18.000 ans), semblable à ce qu'il est aujourd'hui. Toutefois, l'intensité et la frequence des perturbations étaient plus faibles qu'aujourd'hui.

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. , , , . ("squall lines"), , , . , . , , squall lines .

     

Geochemical Fingerprinting of Coltan Ores by Machine Learning on Uneven Datasets

Two modern machine learning techniques, Linear Programming Boosting (LPBoost) and Support Vector Machines (SVMs), are introduced and applied to a geochemical dataset of niobium–tantalum (“coltan”) ores from Central Africa to demonstrate how such information may be used to distinguish ore provenance, i.e., place of origin. The compositional data used include uni- and multivariate outliers and elemental distributions are not described by parametric frequency distribution functions. The “soft margin” techniques of LPBoost and SVMs can be applied to such data. Optimization of their learning parameters results in an average accuracy of up to c. 92%, if spot measurements are assessed to estimate the provenance of ore samples originating from two geographically defined source areas. A parameterized performance measure, together with common methods for its optimization, was evaluated to account for the presence of uneven datasets. Optimization of the classification function threshold improves the performance, as class importance is shifted towards one of those classes. For this dataset, the average performance of the SVMs is significantly better compared to that of LPBoost.     

Schwefel- und Sauerstoff-Isotopenanalysen von Sulfaten des Kupferschiefers

Zusammenfassung Zur Bestimmung der O¹⁸-Werte von Sulfaten wird BaSO₄ mit Kohlenstoff reduziert und das gewonnene CO₂ massenspektrometrisch gemessen. Das sehr einfache Reduktionsverfahren erlaubt eine Meßgenauigkeit von 0,4 relativ zur SMOW-Skala.Eine kombinierte Schwefel- und Sauerstoffisotopenanalyse von Gips bzw. Anhydrit sollte Einzelheiten über Entstehung und Herkunft dieser Sulfate erkennen lassen. Am Beispiel eines Kupferschieferprofiles wird gezeigt, daß durch eine derartige Analyse primäre Restsulfate von sekundär zu Sulfaten aufoxidierten Sulfiden unterschieden werden können. Die sekundären Sulfate sind durch relativ leichten Sauerstoff (O¹⁸=+4)gekennzeichnet und an S³⁴ verarmt (S³⁴–23), was auf den Zusammenhang mit den durch bakterielle Reduktion gebildeten Kupferschiefersulfiden schließen läßt (Einzelheiten vgl. Marowsky, 1969). Die primären Restsulfate sind dagegen an O¹⁸ und S³⁴ angereichert. Die von Lloyd (1968) gefundene Korrelation zwischen der Anreicherung von schwerem Schwefel und schwerem Sauerstoff in dem verbleibenden Sulfat bei bakterieller Sulfatreduktion konnte bestätigt werden.

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Sulfur and oxygen isotope studies of sulfates from the Permian Kupferschiefer

The oxygen isotopic composition of sulfates has been determined in CO₂ by mass spectrometry after reduction of BaSO₄ with carbon. The experimental procedure with a precision of 0.4 in the scale relative to SMOW is described in some detail. It is a problem to distinguish between primary and secondary gypsum or anhydrite in argillaceous sediments. A combined analysis of sulfur and oxygen of the sulfates mentioned is applied for getting evidence on the origin of these sulfates. Samples of a Permian Kupferschiefer profile show that primary residual sulfates from closed systems can be distinguished from secondary sulfates formed from oxidized sulfides. These secondary sulfates are characterized by relatively light oxygen (O¹⁸+4 relative to SMOW) and sulfur (S³⁴-23), which is due to their origin from sulfides of bacterially reduced sulfates. The primary residual sulfates are enriched in O¹⁸ and S³⁴. The correlation of heavy sulfur with heavy oxygen during bacterial reduction of sulfates (Lloyd, 1968) could be confirmed.

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Die massenspektrometrischen Messungen wurden von der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft durch die Einrichtung des Zentrallabors für Geochemie der Isotope an der Universität Göttingen ermöglicht. Herrn Prof. Dr. K. H. Wedepohl und den Mitarbeitern des Zentrallabors danke ich für wertvolle Ratschläge und Diskussionsbereitschaft.     

Stable isotopes of water reveal differences in plant – soil water relationships across northern environments

We compared stable isotopes of water in plant stem (xylem) water and soil collected over a complete growing season from five well-known long-term study sites in northern/cold regions. These spanned a decreasing temperature gradient from Bruntland Burn (Scotland), Dorset (Canadian Shield), Dry Creek (USA), Krycklan (Sweden), to Wolf Creek (northern Canada). Xylem water was isotopically depleted compared to soil waters, most notably for deuterium. The degree to which potential soil water sources could explain the isotopic composition of xylem water was assessed quantitatively using overlapping polygons to enclose respective data sets when plotted in dual isotope space. At most sites isotopes in xylem water from angiosperms showed a strong overlap with soil water; this was not the case for gymnosperms. In most cases, xylem water composition on a given sampling day could be better explained if soil water composition was considered over longer antecedent periods spanning many months. Xylem water at most sites was usually most dissimilar to soil water in drier summer months, although sites differed in the sequence of change. Open questions remain on why a significant proportion of isotopically depleted water in plant xylem cannot be explained by soil water sources, particularly for gymnosperms. It is recommended that future research focuses on the potential for fractionation to affect water uptake at the soil-root interface, both through effects of exchange between the vapour and liquid phases of soil water and the effects of mycorrhizal interactions. Additionally, in cold regions, evaporation and diffusion of xylem water in winter may be an important process.