Seasonal change in body length of important small copepods and relationship with environmental factors in Jiaozhou Bay,China

Differences among species in prosome length and in species’ response to environmental factors do exist. Therefore, it is useful to examine prosome length for different copepod species in variable environments. Seasonal variations in prosome length of four small copepods and their copepodite stages in the Jiaozhou Bay were compared and the relative influence of temperature, salinity, and chlorophyll concentration were examined. Two peaks were found in the mean prosome length of Paracalanus parvus (in early winter and May). For Acartia bifilosa, the maximum values of all copepodites occurred mainly from February to April, and decreased to the bottom in July. Prosome length of Acartia pacifica peaked when it first appeared in June, then reached to the minimum in July. Parvocalanus crassirostris only appeared from late summer to autumn and the mean prosome length showed no clear changes. Correlations of adult prosome length with environmental factors were evaluated. For the four species, temperature was negatively correlated to prosome length except for P. crassirostris. But the different species varied markedly in their responds to temperature. A. bifilosa showed a more definite trend of size variation with temperature than P. parvus and A. pacifica. Correlations of prosome length with salinity were significantly positive for almost all the small copepods. The relationship between chlorophyll concentration and prosome length was complicated for these copepods, but for P. parvus, chlorophyll concentration was also an important affecting factor. Furthermore, investigation needs to be done on food quality for some copepod. These results are essential to estimate the biomass and the production, and to understand these small copepods’ population dynamics in this human-affected bay.     

Global sea level change and thermal contribution

The global long-term sea level trend is obtained from the analysis of tide gauge data and TOPEX/Poseidon data. The linear trend of global mean sea level is highly non-umiform spatially, with an average rate of 2.2 mm year-1 in T/P sea-level rise from October 1992 to September 2002. Sea level change duc to temperature vanation (the thermosteric sea level) is discussed. The results are compared with TOPEX/Poseidon altimeter data in the same temporal span at different spatial scales. It is indicated that the ther-mal effect accounts for 86% and 73% of the observed seasonal variability in the northern and southern hemispheres, respectively. The TOPEX/Poseidon observed sea level lags behind the TSI, by 2 months in the zonal band of 40°-60° in both the northern and southern hemispheres. Systematic differences of about 1-2cm between TOPEX/Poseidon observations and thermosteric sea level data are obtained. The potential causes for these differences include water exchange among the atmosphere, land, and oceans, and some pos-sible deviations in thermosteric contribution estimates and geophysical corrections to the TOPEX/Poseidon data.     

海沟影响下深水海洋管线成环行为研究

在深水海洋管线的安装过程中,制造工艺的偏差和外部环境的影响易导致管线上不均匀的扭矩分布,在张力的共同作用下,管线在其触地区可能出现“成环”现象,受到严重损伤,而海洋管线的触地区也是海沟集中形成的区域。为了研究海沟对海洋管线成环行为的影响,基于OrcaFlex软件和构建海沟模型的经验公式,建立了深水悬链线立管和海沟的三维数值模型。就海沟轮廓、位置和土壤属性对立管成环行为的影响展开参数分析,并研究了不同工况下成环的临界载荷。研究表明：海沟的产生和扩展、立管相对海沟的合理位置以及土壤参数中海床表面不排水抗剪强度和吸力因子的增加,可有效降低立管成环过程中的最大压缩力和最大弯矩,从而减少成环引起的损伤;临界载荷的分析则有助于对成环的临界条件进行预测,避免成环现象的发生。     

宁河断裂伪随机震源地震勘探

宁河断裂位于天津市宁河区北部,断裂走向近东西,倾向南,全长约26 km,调查发现宁河断裂浅部存在一系列隐伏断裂带.第四系内部地层上更新统、中更新统、下更新统及第四系和第三系地质界面存在明显波阻抗差异,具备开展伪随机震源地震勘探的条件.经现场地震波速测试,第四系松散沉积地层地震纵波波速1300~1500 m/s,基岩波速超过2000 m/s.伪随机震源组合、实时噪声压制、F-K滤波3项关键技术,成功解决了高干扰环境下地震勘探难题.宁河断裂由5条正断层组成,断裂带近东西向平行展布.钻探揭示宁河断裂上断点已经断至上更新统内部,距地表66.9 m.     

Consistent seasonal snow cover depth and duration variability over the Western Himalayas (WH)

Precipitation in solid form, i.e., snow, during winter season over the Western Himalayas (WH) leads to the build-up of seasonal snow cover. Seasonal snow cover build-up (snow cover depth and duration) largely depends on atmospheric variables such as temperature, precipitation, radiation, wind, etc. Integrated (combined) influence of atmospheric variables on seasonal snow cover gets reflected in terms of spatial and temporal variability in seasonal snow cover build-up pattern. Hence spatial and temporal variability of seasonal snow cover build-up can serve as a good indicator of climate change in high altitude mountainous regions like the WH. Consistent seasonal snow cover depth and duration, delay days and early melt days of consistent seasonal snow cover at 11 stations spread across different mountain ranges over the WH were analyzed. Mean, maximum and percentiles (25th, 50th, 75th, 90th and 95th) of consistent seasonal snow cover depth and duration show decline over the WH in the recent past 2–3 decades. Consistent seasonal snow cover is found to melt early and snow cover build-up pattern is found to show changes over the WH. Decline in consistent seasonal snow cover depth, duration and changing snow cover build-up pattern over the WH in recent decades indicate that WH has undergone considerable climate change and winter weather patterns are changing in the WH.     

Characteristics of the Asian–Pacific Oscillation in Boreal Summer Simulated by BCC_CSM with Different Horizontal Resolutions

The summer Asian–Pacific Oscillation(APO) is a major teleconnection pattern that reflects the zonal thermal contrast between East Asia and the North Pacific in the upper troposphere. The performance of Beijing Climate Center Climate System Models(BCC CSMs) with different horizontal resolutions, i.e., BCC CSM1.1 and BCC CSM1.1(m), in reproducing APO interannual variability, APO-related precipitation anomalies, and associated atmospheric circulation anomalies, is evaluated.The results show that BCC CSM1.1(m) can successfully capture the interannual variability of the summer APO index. It is also more capable in reproducing the APO's spatial pattern, compared to BCC CSM1.1, due to its higher horizontal resolution. Associated with a positive APO index, the northward-shifted and intensified South Asian high, strengthened extratropical westerly jet, and tropical easterly jet in the upper troposphere, as well as the southwesterly monsoonal flow over North Africa and the Indian Ocean in the lower troposphere, are realistically represented by BCC CSM1.1(m), leading to an improvement in reproducing the increased precipitation over tropical North Africa, South Asia, and East Asia, as well as the decreased precipitation over subtropical North Africa, Japan, and North America. In contrast, these features are less consistent with observations when simulated by BCC CSM1.1. Regression analysis further indicates that surface temperature anomalies over the North Pacific and the southern and western flanks of the Tibetan Plateau are reasonably reproduced by BCC CSM1.1(m), which contributes to the substantial improvement in the simulation of the characteristics of summer APO compared to that of BCC CSM1.1.     

An algorithm to retrieve precipitation with synthetic aperture radar

This paper presents a new type of rainfall retrieval algorithm, called the model-oriented statistical and Volterra integration. It is a combination of the model-oriented statistical (MOS) and Volterra integral equation (VIE) approaches. The steps involved in this new algorithm can be briefly illustrated as follows. Firstly, information such as the start point and width of the rain is obtained through pre-analysis of the data received by synthetic aperture radar (SAR). Secondly, the VIE retrieval algorithm is employed over a short distance to obtain information on the shape of the rain. Finally, the rain rate can be calculated by using the MOS retrieval algorithm. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm is effective and simple, and can lead to time savings of nearly 50% compared with MOS. An example of application of SAR data is also discussed, involving the retrieval of precipitation information over the South China Sea.