Sub‐meter acoustic surveying

Abstract

During May 1985, a comprehensive GPS and acoustic navigation data set was collected off the Monterey, California coast. Three types of GPS units, a LORAN‐C, and a Miniranger operated concurrently with an OCEANO acoustic system to resolve state‐of‐the‐art accuracies for at‐sea geodetic positioning. This report details the acoustic system which displayed baseline errors of only ±0.25 m over distances to 2600 m. Unfiltered point‐to‐point acoustic navigation errors had a standard deviation of ± 1.25 m, which included ship motion errors in addition to surveying errors. Ninety percent of the stations had navigation standard deviations below ±0.75 m The experiment showed that sub‐meter acoustic surveying is the state‐of‐the‐art.     

Foreword

This special issue is based on the research reports presented at the 2012 Super Dual Auroral Radar Network (SuperDARN) workshop held at Polar Research Institute of China,Shanghai,China,during May 27-June 1,2012. SuperDARN is an international collaboration involving scientists and engineers from more than 10 countries.So far,SuperDARN has more than 30 high frequency coherent radars covering the middle latitudes to very high latitudes in both hemispheres,and has become the most powerful tool for monitoring large scale ionospheric convection.The backscatter targets of SuperDARN radars are ionospheric plasma irregularities aligned along the geomagnetic field.The Doppler velocity of the irregularities can be used to infer the strength and direction of the ionospheric electric field.These measurements,obtained continuously,provide valuable information about the electrodynamics of the coupled magnetosphere-ionosphere system over extended spatial scales and with high time resolution.     

A comprehensive evaluation of tourism climate suitability in Qinghai Province, China

Qinghai Province is an important component of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in China. Scientific evaluation of the suitability of Qinghai’s climate for tourism can contribute to overcoming obstacles posed by climate on sustainable tourism development in Qinghai Province, including disparities between the low and high seasons, high altitude health concerns, and weather events. A tourism climate suitability evaluation model of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is constructed (Tourism Climate Suitability Index, or TCSI), and tourism climate suitability is comprehensively evaluated for Qinghai Province from climate data from 1960 to 2009. Results show that: (I) There is clear distributional characteristics of spatial-temporal variability of TCSI values in Qinghai Province. (II) Tourism climate suitability in Qinghai Province has significant seasonal and regional differences. The year is divided into a very suitable period (July and August), suitable tourism periods (from April and October), less suitable periods (From Nov to Mar). June to August is the most suitable tourism period in Qinghai. Qinghai Province is divided into five levels of tourism climate suitability: most suitable regions, very suitable regions, suitable regions, less suitable regions, and unsuitable region. (III) The key factor which influences regional differences in tourism climatic suitability is atmospheric oxygen. And the key factors which chiefly influence seasonal differences of tourism climate suitability are temperature and humidity, the wind chill factor, and barrier weather.     

Energetic Charged Particles Above Thunderclouds

The French government has committed to launch the satellite TARANIS to study transient coupling processes between the Earth’s atmosphere and near-Earth space. The prime objective of TARANIS is to detect energetic charged particles and hard radiation emanating from thunderclouds. The British Nobel prize winner C.T.R. Wilson predicted lightning discharges from the top of thunderclouds into space almost a century ago. However, new experiments have only recently confirmed energetic discharge processes which transfer energy from the top of thunderclouds into the upper atmosphere and near-Earth space; they are now denoted as transient luminous events, terrestrial gamma-ray flashes and relativistic electron beams. This meeting report builds on the current state of scientific knowledge on the physics of plasmas in the laboratory and naturally occurring plasmas in the Earth’s atmosphere to propose areas of future research. The report specifically reflects presentations delivered by the members of a novel Franco-British collaboration during a meeting at the French Embassy in London held in November 2011. The scientific subjects of the report tackle ionization processes leading to electrical discharge processes, observations of transient luminous events, electromagnetic emissions, energetic charged particles and their impact on the Earth’s atmosphere. The importance of future research in this area for science and society, and towards spacecraft protection, is emphasized.     

Waves and tides responsible for the intermittent closure of the entrance of a small, sheltered tidal wetland at San Francisco, CA

Crissy Field Marsh (CFM; http://www.nps.gov/prsf/planyourvisit/crissy-field-marsh-and-beach.htm) is a small, restored tidal wetland located in the entrance to San Francisco Bay just east of the Golden Gate. The marsh is small but otherwise fairly typical of many such restored wetlands worldwide. The marsh is hydraulically connected to the bay and the adjacent Pacific Ocean by a narrow sandy channel. The channel often migrates and sometimes closes completely, which effectively blocks the tidal connection to the ocean and disrupts the hydraulics and ecology of the marsh. Field measurements of waves and tides have been examined in order to evaluate the conditions responsible for the intermittent closure of the marsh entrance. The most important factor found to bring about the entrance channel closure is the occurrence of large ocean waves. However, there were also a few closure events during times with relatively small offshore waves. Examination of the deep-water directional wave spectra during these times indicates the presence of a small secondary peak corresponding to long period swell from the southern hemisphere, indicating that CFM and San Francisco Bay in general may be more susceptible to long period ocean swell emanating from the south or southwest than the more common ocean waves coming from the northwest. The tidal records during closure events show no strong relationship between closures and tides, other than that closures tend to occur during multi-day periods with successively increasing high tides. It can be inferred from these findings that the most important process to the intermittent closure of the entrance to CFM is littoral sediment transport driven by the influence of ocean swell waves breaking along the CFM shoreline at oblique angles. During periods of large, oblique waves the littoral transport of sand likely overwhelms the scour potential of the tidal flow in the entrance channel.     

Transport of mecoprop from agricultural soils to an adjacent salt marsh

Salt marshes are important ecological areas and play a significant role in coastal flood defence schemes. In many areas of the UK they are adjacent to agricultural areas utilised for the growth of cereal crops, for which mecoprop is used as a selective herbicide in the control of broad-leaf weeds. This study measured concentrations of mecoprop in soils, drainage ditch waters and sediments and salt marsh sediments over a period of 138 days following spring application. Soil concentrations of up to 1827 microg/g were recorded after application, which demonstrated a half life for mecoprop of from 9 to 12 days, with first order kinetics. However, a major rainfall event 9 days after application resulted in significant transport of herbicide to the salt marsh via subsurface field drains, drainage ditches and discharge sluice. Mecoprop concentrations of up to 386 microg/l observed in water samples were above UK guidelines.     

2004年2月11日Cluster卫星和CUTLASS雷达同时观测的磁通量传输事件

本文分析了2004年2月11日11:00～11:40 UT期间Cluster卫星簇的磁通门磁力计FGM）、等离子体电子及电流试验仪（PEACE）和CUTLASS 芬兰雷达对多个磁通量传输事件(FTEs)的同时观测. 在此期间,Cluster卫星簇位于北半球外极隙区附近,并于11:18 UT左右穿出磁层顶进入磁鞘,四颗卫星同时观测到了多个FTEs, 其出现具有准周期性,周期约为130 s. 利用Cluster四颗卫星的多点同时观测数据,采用最小方向微分法和时空微分方法,我们推断这些FTEs是尺度大小约为(0.87～1.81)R_E的准二维结构,其运动方向为东北方向,与Cooling模型预测方向基本一致. CUTLASS芬兰雷达在相应的电离层区域观测到了明显的“极向运动雷达极光”结构,这些结构与Cluster卫星簇观测的FTEs有着很好的对应关系,它们是FTEs的雷达观测特征.     

Isotope hydrology of a tropical coffee agroforestry watershed: Seasonal and event‐based analyses

Stable isotope variations are extremely useful for flow partitioning within the hydrologic cycle but remain poorly understood throughout the tropics, particularly in watersheds with rapidly infiltrating soils, such as Andisols in Central America. This study examines the fluctuations of stable isotope ratios (δ¹⁸O and δ²H) in the hydrologic components of a tropical coffee agroforestry watershed (~1 km²) with Andisol soils in Costa Rica. Samples were collected in precipitation, groundwater, springs, and stream water over 2 years. The local meteoric water line for the study site was δ²H = 8.5 δ¹⁸O + 18.02 (r² = 0.97, n = 198). The isotope ratios in precipitation exhibited an enriched trend during the dry season and a notable depletion at the beginning of the wet season. The δ¹⁸O compositions in groundwater (average = ?6.4‰, σ = 0.7) and stream water (average = ?6.7‰, σ = 0.6) were relatively stable over time, and both components exhibited more enriched values in 2013, which was the drier year. No strong correlation was observed between the isotope ratios and the precipitation amount at the event or daily time‐step, but a correlation was observed on a monthly scale. Stream water and base flow hydrograph separations based on isotope end‐member estimations showed that pre‐event water originating from base flow was prevalent. However, isotope data indicate that event water originating from springs appears to have been the primary driver of initial rises in stream flow and peak flows. These results indicate that isotope sampling improves the understanding of water balance components, even in a tropical humid location, where significant variations in rainfall challenge current modelling efforts. Further research using fine‐scale hydrometric and isotopic data would enhance understanding the processes driving spring flow generation in watersheds.     

Pi 2 pulsations and the eastward electrojet: A case study

We report the results of a case study of two Pi 2 pulsations observed near the eastward electrojet by the Scandinavian Magnetometer Array. The power of the two Pi 2 pulsations, calculated using a standard Fast Fourier Transform method, peaks near the centre of the eastward electrojet. For both events there is a strong latitudinal gradient in the power poleward of the equatorward border of the electrojet. The sense of polarisation is predominantly clockwise at the northern stations and anticlockwise at the southern stations although the reversal from clockwise to anticlockwise does not occur at a constant latitude. For the first event the polarisation reversal occurs at higher latitudes in the western half of the array; for the second the polarisation reversal occurs at higher latitudes at the edges of the array. The polarisation reversal does not appear to be related to the location of the eastward electrojet. Equivalent current vectors of the Pi 2 pulsations, obtained by rotating the band pass filtered data through 90°, exhibit clear vortex structures in both events. The vortices change sense of direction at half the period of the Pi 2 pulsation. A simple model for the ionospheric electric field in accord with the field line resonance theory reconstructs the basic features of the observed Pi 2 equivalent current system. We thus conclude that Pi 2 signatures in the region of the eastward electrojet and far away from the auroral break-up region are governed by the field line resonance mechanism.