Trend analysis of evapotranspiration over India: Observed from long-term satellite measurements

Owing to the lack of consistent spatial time series data on actual evapotranspiration (ET), very few studies have been conducted on the long-term trend and variability in ET at a national scale over the Indian subcontinent. The present study uses biome specific ET data derived from NOAA satellite’s advanced very high resolution radiometer to investigate the trends and variability in ET over India from 1983 to 2006. Trend analysis using the non-parametric Mann–Kendall test showed that the domain average ET decreased during the period at a rate of \(0.22\,\hbox {mm year}^{-1}\). A strong decreasing trend (\(m = -1.75\, \hbox {mm year}^{-1}\), \(F = 17.41\), \(P\) 0.01) was observed in forest regions. Seasonal analyses indicated a decreasing trend during southwest summer monsoon (\(m= -0.320\, \hbox {mm season}^{-1}\,\hbox {year}^{-1})\) and post-monsoon period (\(m= -0.188\, \hbox {mm season}^{-1 }\,\hbox {year}^{-1})\). In contrast, an increasing trend was observed during northeast winter monsoon (\(m = 0.156 \,\hbox {mm season}^{-1 }\,\hbox {year}^{-1})\) and pre-monsoon (\(m = 0.068\, \hbox {mm season}^{-1 }\,\hbox {year}^{-1})\) periods. Despite an overall net decline in the country, a considerable increase ( \(4 \,\hbox {mm year}^{-1}\)) was observed over arid and semi-arid regions. Grid level correlation with various climatic parameters exhibited a strong positive correlation (\(r \!>\!0.5\)) of ET with soil moisture and precipitation over semi-arid and arid regions, whereas a negative correlation (\(r\) \(-0.5\)) occurred with temperature and insolation in dry regions of western India. The results of this analysis are useful for understanding regional ET dynamics and its relationship with various climatic parameters over India. Future studies on the effects of ET changes on the hydrological cycle, carbon cycle, and energy partitioning are needed to account for the feedbacks to the climate.     

Landscape analysis for pedo-geomorphological characterization in part of basaltic terrain,central India using remote sensing and GIS

In the present study, an attempt has been made to analyse IRS-ID LISS-III satellite data in conjunction with field observations for geomorphological mapping and pedo-geomorphological characterisation in Mohgaon area of Nagpur district, Maharashtra. Analysis of satellite data reveals distint geomorphological units viz., plateau top, isolated mounds, linear ridges, escarpments, plateau spurs, subdued plateau, rolling plains, pediments, narrow valleys and main valley floor. Soil profiles, studied on different identified landforms, showed variation in site and morphological charactaristics. Moderate soil erosion occurs on plateau top, isolated mouds, plateau spurs, rollinmg plains and pediments. Severe erosion was identified on escarpments and subdued plateau and narrow valleys suffer very slight erosional hazards. Moderately well drained soils were found on rolling plains, pediments, narrow valleys and main valley floor. Well drained soils were noticed on plateau top and plateau spurs. Very shallow soils were found on the plateau top and isolated mounds. Shallow soils are found in linear ridges, escarpments, plateau spurs and rolling plains. Moderately deep and deep soils are found on subdued plateau, pediments and main valley floor. The landform-soil relatioinship reveals that the soils on the plateau top and isolated mounds are very shallow, well drained, clay textured. The soils on the narrow valleys and main valley floor are deep, moderatly well drained, and clayey in texture. It also indicates that landform-soil processes are governed by physiographic position, drainage, slope and erosion conditions of the area. The present study reveals that the analysis of remotely sensed data in conjunction with field observations in GIS will be of immense help in geomorphology mapping, analysis of landform-soil relationships and generation of their geo-spatial database.     

Simulation of a Himalayan cloudburst event

Intense rainfall often leads to floods and landslides in the Himalayan region even with rainfall amounts that are considered comparatively moderate over the plains; for example, ‘cloudbursts’, which are devastating convective phenomena producing sudden high-intensity rainfall (∼10 cm per hour) over a small area. Early prediction and warning of such severe local weather systems is crucial to mitigate societal impact arising from the accompanying flash floods. We examine a cloudburst event in the Himalayan region at Shillagarh village in the early hours of 16 July 2003. The storm lasted for less than half an hour, followed by flash floods that affected hundreds of people. We examine the fidelity of MM5 configured with multiple-nested domains (81, 27, 9 and 3 km grid-resolution) for predicting a cloudburst event with attention to horizontal resolution and the cloud microphysics parameterization. The MM5 model predicts the rainfall amount 24 hours in advance. However, the location of the cloudburst is displaced by tens of kilometers     

Tri-Stereo Image Matching using Watershed Segmentation on Disparity Space Image

Local stereo matching algorithms use winner-take-all approach to get the disparity. Many times they end up at an erroneous result. To solve this, in the present work, a novel stereo image matching technique has been developed that identifies the most likely local minimum from the several possible local minima that corresponds to true disparity. The technique uses properties of the physical continuity of the land surface by the watershed lines applied to the disparity space volume. This helps to minimize the search for the most probable local minima as the correct solution for the matching. The matching is further improved by combining the watershed lines of disparity space volume of two stereo pairs from the tri-stereo. In the present study, experiments have been carried out using the standard Middlebury stereo datasets and remotely sensed tri-stereo images. Based on this approach, the experiments are successfully carried out using the test dataset. The experimental results are compared with the results from the currently contemporary techniques of dynamic programming and semi-global matching which resulted in 2–10% improvement in density of matched points for different datasets.     

Measurements of surface ozone at semi-arid site Anantapur (14.62°N, 77.65°E, 331 m asl) in India

In the present study, an attempt has been made to examine the governing photochemical processes of surface ozone (O₃) formation in rural site. For this purpose, measurements of surface ozone and selected meteorological parameters have been made at Anantapur (14.62°N, 77.65°E, 331 m asl), a semi-arid zone in India from January 2002 to December 2003. The annual average diurnal variation of O₃ shows maximum concentration 46 ppbv at noon and minimum 25 ppbv in the morning with 1σ standard deviation. The average seasonal variation of ozone mixing ratios are observed to be maximum (about 60 ppbv) during summer and minimum (about 22 ppbv) in the monsoon period. The monthly daytime and nighttime average surface ozone concentration shows a maximum (55 ± 7 ppbv; 37 ± 7.3 ppbv) in March and minimum (28 ± 3.4 ppbv; 22 ± 2.3 ppbv) in August during the study period. The monthly average high (low) O₃ 48.9 ± 7.7 ppbv (26.2 ± 3.5 ppbv) observed at noon in March (August) is due to the possible increase in precursor gas concentration by anthropogenic activity and the influence of meteorological parameters. The rate of increase of surface ozone is high (1.52 ppbv/h) in March and lower (0.40 ppbv/h) in July. The average rate of increase of O₃ from midnight to midday is 1 ppbv/h. Surface temperature is highest (43–44°C) during March and April months leading to higher photochemical production. On the other hand, relative humidity, which is higher during the rainy season, shows negative correlation with temperature and ozone mixing ratio. It can be seen that among the two parameters are measured, correlation of surface ozone with wind speed is better (R ²=0.84) in compare with relative humidity (R ²=0.66).     

Large-Eddy Simulation-Based Retrieval of Dissipation from Coherent Doppler Lidar Data

Accurate estimation of dissipation rate is important in understanding and analyzing turbulent flows found in environment and engineering processes. Many previous studies have focused on measuring the local dissipation rate at a single point or averaged dissipation rate over a suitable area. Since coherent Doppler lidar is capable of providing multi-point measurements covering a large spatial extent, it is well-suited for examining the distribution of dissipation in the atmosphere. In this paper, an approach is presented that is based on retrieving the dissipation rate from coherent Doppler lidar data using large-eddy simulation. Two Coherent Doppler lidars performed range height indicator (RHI) scans of a vertical/cross-barrier plane during the Terrain-induced Rotor Experiment (T-REX). Two-dimensional velocity vectors were retrieved using a least squares method. The velocity vectors retrieved from co-planar RHI scans are used to estimate subgrid scale (SGS) quantities through a known SGS parameterization. For the T-REX datasets analyzed, the dissipation rate was found to increase in the presence of rotors, subrotors, and, as expected, in regions of high wind shear. Owing to the presence of sharper gradients in subrotors, their dissipation rate is generally larger than that of rotors.     

Analytical expressions for the hydraulic design of continuous permeable reactive barriers

Various analytical expressions describing the hydraulic behavior of a continuous permeable reactive barrier (PRB) are developed based upon a two-dimensional approximation of the local groundwater flow system. The fully penetrating PRB is represented as an arbitrarily oriented elliptical “analytic element” with a hydraulic conductivity different from that of the aquifer. The validity of this elliptical geometry approximation as a surrogate for rectangular PRB performance is evaluated and put into context. Closed-form expressions for solute travel time distributions along the extent of the barrier and PRB capture zone geometry are evaluated for general barrier dimension (length and width), hydraulic conductivity, and orientation with respect to regional flow. These expressions are used as the foundation of a simple PRB design process, and provide some interesting insights into the hydraulic behavior of continuous permeable reactive barriers.     

Study of Stratus-Lowering Marine-Fog Events Observed During C-FOG

Boundary-Layer Meteorology - Two stratus-lowering marine fog events observed on 28 September and 4 October 2018 during the Coastal Fog (C-Fog) field campaign that took place offshore of eastern...     

Correction to: Atmospheric Turbulence Measurements at a Coastal Zone with and without Fog

Boundary-Layer Meteorology -     

Optical design of visible emission line coronagraph on Indian space solar mission Aditya-L1

The ground based observations of the coronal emission lines using a coronagraph are affected by the short duration of clear sky and varying sky transparency. These conditions do not permit to study small amplitude variations in the coronal emission reliably necessary to investigate the process or processes involved in heating the coronal plasma and dynamics of solar corona. The proposed Visible Emission Line Coronagraph (VELC) over comes these limitations and will provide continuous observation 24 h a day needed for detailed studies of solar corona and drivers for space weather predictions. VELC payload onboard India’s Aditya-L1 space mission is an internally occulted solar coronagraph for studying the temperature, velocity, density and heating of solar corona. To achieve the proposed science goals, an instrument which is capable of carrying out simultaneous imaging, spectroscopy and spectro-polarimetric observations of the solar corona close to the solar limb is required. VELC is designed with salient features of (a) Imaging solar corona at 500 nm with an angular resolution of 5 arcsec over a FOV of 1.05Ro to 3Ro (Ro:Solar radius) (b) Simultaneous multi-slit spectroscopy at 530.3 nm [Fe XIV],789.2 nm [Fe XI] and 1074.7 nm [Fe XIII] with spectral dispersion of 28mÅ, 31mÅ and 202mÅ per pixel respectively, over a FOV of 1.05Ro to 1.5Ro. (c) Multi-slit dual beam spectro-polarimetry at 1074.7 nm. All the components of instrument have been optimized in view of the scientific objectives and requirements of space payloads. In this paper we present the details of optical configuration and the expected performance of the payload.