Role of ocean–atmosphere interaction on northward propagation of Indian summer monsoon intra-seasonal oscillations (MISO)

Atmospheric dynamical mechanisms have been prevalently used to explain the characteristics of the summer monsoon intraseasonal oscillation (MISO), which dictates the wet and dry spells of the monsoon rainfall. Recent studies show that ocean–atmosphere coupling has a vital role in simulating the observed amplitude and relationship between precipitation and sea surface temperature (SST) at the intraseasonal scale. However it is not clear whether this role is simply ‘passive’ response to the atmospheric forcing alone, or ‘active’ in modulating the northward propagation of MISO, and also whether the extent to which it modulates is considerably noteworthy. Using coupled NCEP–Climate Forecast System (CFSv2) model and its atmospheric component the Global Forecast System (GFS), we investigate the relative role of the atmospheric dynamics and the ocean–atmosphere coupling in the initiation, maintenance, and northward propagation of MISO. Three numerical simulations are performed including (1) CFSv2 coupled with high frequency interactive SST, the GFS forced with both (2) observed monthly SST (interpolated to daily) and (3) daily SST obtained from the CFSv2 simulations. Both CFSv2 and GFS simulate MISO of slightly higher period (~60 days) than observations (~45 days) and have reasonable seasonal rainfall over India. While MISO simulated by CFSv2 has realistic northward propagation, both the GFS model experiments show standing mode of MISO over India with no northward propagation of convection from the equator. The improvement in northward propagation in CFSv2, therefore, may not be due to improvement of the model physics in the atmospheric component alone. Our analysis indicates that even with the presence of conducive vertical wind shear, the absence of meridional humidity gradient and moistening of the atmosphere column north of convection hinders the northward movement of convection in GFS. This moistening mechanism works only in the presence of an ‘active’ ocean. In CFSv2, the lead-lag relationship between the atmospheric fluxes, SST and convection are maintained, while such lead-lag is unrealistic in the uncoupled simulations. This leads to the conclusion that high frequent and interactive ocean–atmosphere coupling is a necessary and crucial condition for reproducing the realistic northward propagation of MISO in this particular model.     

Simultaneous infrared and H-alpha measurements of Be stars

The observed infrared excess in Be stars is usually interpreted as free-free and free-bound emission from a hot gas envelope around the Be star. This hot gas should also emit H-alpha line radiation. Earlier observations had suggested that the infrared excess and Hα radiation were not consistent with models in which they arise from the same ionized region; however the observations were made at different times. We have made simultaneous observation of infrared and H-alpha line radiation. Our observations imply that either both these radiations cannot arise from the same hot gas or additional processes have to be invoked to account for the observed excess infrared radiation.     

Radio and infrared flares in CYG X-3

The observed radio and infrared flares in Cyg X-3 are explained as due to interaction of X-rays and high-energy gamma-rays with clumps of matter in a cocoon around the object. The observed repetitive period of the radio flares is explained as the beat period between the 4.8 hr periodicity and the Keplerian period of matter in the cocoon.     

GSFC optical ozonesonde results during the Gap,France, intercomparisons,June 1981

A GSFC Super Loki optical ozonesonde instrument was flown as part of the ozone sensor intercomparison balloon campaign at Gap, France, in June 1981. A primary objective was to confirm biases between external absorption techniques, such as the GSFC sonde, and in situ techniques, which include ECC, Mast-Brewer, and DASIBI sondes. Ozone distributions were obtained with the GSFC sonde on three of the four ascent-descent legs of the first flight on 19 June. Ozone densities were measured redundantly over altitudes from 22 to 32 km using filters centered at 303 and 300 nm. The three profiles obtained by averaging the data from the two channels are in close agreement with an average S.E. of 1.4%. However, small but consistent differences were found between the ozone densities measured at the two wavelengths. The average difference is 5% using Vigroux cross sections and 4% using preliminary Bass cross sections. The integral ozone amount above the first ceiling altitude of 32.85 km was determined by the Langley plot method to be 45 D.U. The total ozone derived by integrating the optical ozonesonde and ECC profiles is within 2% of the Chiran Dobson Spectrophotometer observation based on a pre-campaign calibration but is 9% greater than the amount derived using a post-campaign calibration.     

Spectral Overlap Correction Using Weighted Deconvolution for Improved Dark Object Technique for Correction of EO1-Hyperion Data

We present a critical modification to improved dark object technique for correcting hyperspectral data (EO1-Hyperion). The modification is required in improved dark object technique as the original method does not take into account overlap of spectral response functions of two adjacent bands of hyperspectral sensor. We used weighted deconvolution for correcting the original overlap affected path radiance correction propagation factors. Further, we compared the reduction in correction factors—in different conditions—because of the overlap. We calculated the path radiance for April 22 Hyperion image and compared it with other methods such as 6SV. We found noticeable difference in corrected and uncorrected path radiance propagation factors with “clear” to “very clear” atmospheric models. For the other models (“moderate”, “hazy”, “very hazy”), the difference is negligible and can be ignored and improved dark object technique can be applied without any overlap correction.     

A Spectro-radiometric Analysis of Ocean Colour Sensors and Proposal for a Miniature Hyper Spectral Imager for Future

Ocean colour sensors traditionally are of fixed spectral channel systems with specified bandwidth of about 20 nm in the visible region and about 40 nm in Near Infrared region. In these systems, it is known that a radiometric error of 1% in the measurement of top of the atmosphere signal may lead to an error of 10% in the retrieved ocean upwelling radiance. In this paper we investigated the range of wavelengths participating in signal collection (effective spectral pass band, ESPB) using relative spectral response data of various sensors flown earlier. ESPB values were computed for each spectral channel for various percentages of signal and the results showed that they are quite high compared to bandwidths specified. These values were found to vary with sensor and channel. ESPB shall be small for accurate computation of spectral radiance. As the knowledge of spectral profile of the signal in the range of ESPB helps in better estimation of spectral radiance at the intended wavelengths, a miniature high performance linear variable filter based hyperspectral sensor is proposed as an alternative. We present here the design concept and report the estimated performance of such sensor that can be realized even with commercial off the shelf components for operational implementation.     

Assessment of groundwater potential zones in coal mining impacted hard-rock terrain of India by integrating geospatial and analytic hierarchy process (AHP) approach

The study aims at delineating groundwater potential zones using geospatial technology and analytical hierarchy process (AHP) techniques in mining impacted hard rock terrain of Ramgarh and part of Hazaribagh districts, Jharkhand, India. Relevant thematic layers were prepared and assigned weight based on Saaty’s 9-point scale and normalized by eigenvector technique of AHP to identify groundwater prospect in the study area. The weighted linear combination method was applied to prepare the groundwater potential index in geographic information system. Final groundwater prospects were classified as excellent, very good, good, moderate, poor and very poor groundwater potential zones. Study thus revealed that the excellent, very good and good groundwater potential zones, respectively, cover 148.3, 373.66 and 438.86 km² of the study area, whereas the poor groundwater potential zone covers 180.05 km². Validation was done through a receiver operating characteristic curve, which indicated that AHP had good prediction accuracy (AUC = 75.45%).