Seasonal variation of atmospheric 210Pb and Al in the western North Pacific region

The atmospheric concentration of ²¹⁰Pb was determined for two years at six stations in the western North Pacific region. The following results were obtained and discussed by comparing them with those of Al. The atmospheric concentration of ²¹⁰Pb varied widely from week to week, but the degree of variation was about a half that of Al. Contrary to Al, the year-to-year variation of ²¹⁰Pb was not pronounced and its seasonal variation was well expressed by a sine curve. The ²¹⁰Pb concentration did not show a marked latitudinal variation and its base-line concentration was high in the surface air over the North Pacific. These suggest that atmospheric ²¹⁰Pb has a longer residence time, due to its transportation through higher altitudes and deposits much more evenly onto the Earth's surface and the ocean, as compared with Al in mineral dust which is larger in size in the source region.     

Construction of surface wind stress fields with high temporal resolution using ERS-1 scatterometer data

Wind stress fields with high temporal resolution over the North Pacific have been constructured by using ERS-1 scatterometer data. A simple objective analysis, a successive correction method, was used to construct the fields. Several necessary parameters used in the method are examined by a simulation based on the climatological data. The meridional decorrelation scale of the wind stress depends strongly on the season, while the zonal decorrelation scale is highly stable. We determined the decorrelation scale depending on the location and the time and applied to the successive correction method. The monthly mean field constructed by averaging the daily mean data is free from an aliasing error, which is a serious problem if a simple monthly averaging is applied. The daily wind stress data obtained in the present study represent small time- and spatial-scale variation and large amplitudes compared with data interpolated from simple monthly mean data. The satellite-derived data are also compared with in situ data obtained by meteorological buoys. The satellite wind speeds are lower than in situ wind speeds for every buoy. This underestimation is not due to the present objective analysis, but due to the original data, the ERS-1 Scatterometer Value-Added Product.     

Gradient field of undersea sound speed structure extracted from the GNSS-A oceanography

Marine Geophysical Research - After the twenty-first century, the Global Navigation Satellite System-Acoustic ranging (GNSS-A) technique detected geodetic events such as co- and postseismic effects...     

Anomalous deformation of the Earth's bow shock in the lunar wake: Joint measurement by Chang’E-1 and SELENE

Because the solar wind (SW) flow is usually super-sonic, a fast-mode bow shock (BS) is formed in front of the Earth's magnetosphere, and the Moon crosses the BS at both dusk and dawn flanks. On the other hand, behind of the Moon along the SW flow forms a tenuous region called lunar wake, where the flow can be sub-Alfvénic (and thus sub-sonic) because of its low-density status. Here we report, with joint measurement by Chang’E-1 and SELENE, that the Earth's BS surface is drastically deformed in the lunar wake. Despite the quasi-perpendicular shock configuration encountered at dusk flank under the Parker-spiral magnetic field, no clear shock surface can be found in the lunar wake, while instead gradual transition of the magnetic field from the upstream to downstream value was observed for a several-minute interval. This finding suggests that the ‘magnetic ramp’ is highly broadened in the wake where a fast-mode shock is no longer maintained due to the highly reduced density. On the other hand, observations at the 100 km altitude on the dayside show that the fast-mode shock is maintained even when the width of the downstream region is smaller than a typical scale length of a perpendicular shock. Our results suggest that the Moon is not so large to eliminate the BS at 100 km altitude on the dayside, while the magnetic field associated with the shock structure is drastically affected in the lunar wake.     

The design of diamond Compton telescope

We have developed radiation detectors using the new synthetic diamonds. The diamond detector has an advantage for observations of “low/medium” energy gamma rays as a Compton telescope. The primary advantage of the diamond detector can reduce the photoelectric effect in the low energy range, which is background noise for tracking of the Compton recoil electron. A concept of the Diamond Compton Telescope (DCT) consists of position sensitive layers of diamond-striped detector and calorimeter layer of CdTe detector. The key part of the DCT is diamond-striped detectors with a higher positional resolution and a wider energy range from 10 keV to 10 MeV. However, the diamond-striped detector is under development. We describe the performance of prototype diamond detector and the design of a possible DCT evaluated by Monte Carlo simulations.      

Relating food and human hair to assess mercury exposure levels in Poboya,Central Sulawesi,Indonesia

Poboya is a major small-scale gold-mining area in Central Sulawesi, Indonesia, that has been operating since 2009. About 200–500 kg of mercury is released each day as a result of gold-mining activities over a total area of 7000 ha. We examined mercury contamination by using two types of sample, namely food and human hair. Samples were obtained in Poboya and in the city of Palu, 11 km away. Samples of 22 foods were obtained from traditional markets in Poboya and Palu. Total mercury concentrations ranged from 0.003 to 0.31 µg/g in foods from Poboya and from 0.001 to 0.13 µg/g in those from Palu. The highest total mercury concentration in Poboya was found in unripe banana, which is frequently consumed by the local people. In Poboya, the weekly mercury intakes from foods were calculated at 180.3 µg/person from vegetables, 1.7 µg/person from processed foods, 51.4 µg/person from seafood, and 17.2 µg/person from meat and eggs. In Palu, the weekly mercury intakes were 2.9 µg/person from vegetables, 3.1 µg/person from processed foods, 60.8 µg/person from seafood, and 19 µg/person from meat and eggs. These findings delineated Poboya as an area polluted by mercury contamination. Intake of mercury-contaminated food influenced the results obtained in human hair. Hair concentrations of total mercury in Poboya ranged from 0.3 to 19.6 µg/g.     

利用1-HzGPS波形数据反演2011年日本北大地震震源破裂过程

利用1-Hz GPS数据反演2011年3月日本东北大地震的时空破裂过程,通过理论波形图与观测波形图的拟合,以及ABIC准则的判定,反演得到滑移分布的稳定估计.结果表明:破裂集中在震源附近,并在震中以下30 km处达到最大位错量,约72 m,在岩手和福岛靠近海岸线处有两个较小的破裂区,断层的南半段破裂很小,同时也是余震最为密集的地方.整个破裂过程由3个破裂阶段组成,发震后断层从震源向周围缓慢破裂,在50～60 s破裂延伸至地表(海沟);60～90 s在震中下方迅速发生强烈破裂,形成了最大位错区,这一阶段主要是倾向上的双边破裂;90～120 s在断层最北西处和断层南半段发生较小破裂,整个破裂过程持续大约120 s.反演得到的地震矩为3.8×1022 Nm,相应的矩震级为MW 9.0.     

The Hayabusa Spacecraft Asteroid Multi-band Imaging Camera (AMICA)

The Hayabusa Spacecraft Asteroid Multi-band Imaging Camera (AMICA) has acquired more than 1400 multispectral and high-resolution images of its target asteroid, 25143 Itokawa, since late August 2005. In this paper, we summarize the design and performance of AMICA. In addition, we describe the calibration methods, assumptions, and models, based on measurements. Major calibration steps include corrections for linearity and modeling and subtraction of bias, dark current, read-out smear, and pixel-to-pixel responsivity variations. AMICA v-band data were calibrated to radiance using in-flight stellar observations. The other band data were calibrated to reflectance by comparing them to ground-based observations to avoid the uncertainty of the solar irradiation in those bands. We found that the AMICA signal was linear with respect to the input signal to an accuracy of ?1% when the signal level was <3800 DN. We verified that the absolute radiance calibration of the AMICA v-band (0.55 μm) was accurate to 4% or less, the accuracy of the disk-integrated spectra with respect to the AMICA v-band was about 1%, and the pixel-to-pixel responsivity (flat-field) variation was 3% or less. The uncertainty in background zero level was 5 DN. From wide-band observations of star clusters, we found that the AMICA optics have an effective focal length of 120.80 ± 0.03 mm, yielding a field-of-view (FOV) of 5.83° × 5.69°. The resulting geometric distortion model was accurate to within a third of a pixel. We demonstrated an image-restoration technique using the point-spread functions of stars, and confirmed that the technique functions well in all loss-less images. An artifact not corrected by this calibration is scattered light associated with bright disks in the FOV.