Medium Range Prediction of Summer Monsoon Activities over India vis-a-vis Their Correspondence with the Observational Features

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Design and Development of Onsite Biofilter Unit for Effective Remediation of Contaminants from Wastewater

Agricultural biomass is proven ecofriendly and effective adsorbent for the remediation of contaminants from wastewater. Here, rice husk biochar (600 °C) prepared by a one-step pyrolysis method is used for the remediation of different contaminants in real samples. An onsite biofilter unit is fabricated with parallel trenches of different layers of coconut coir and biochar and is used as a biofiltration unit. The efficiency of the designed unit is assessed for the removal of different contaminants in pilot-scale experiments. Results show that removal efficiency varies from metal to metal and ranges from 5.52% to 90.76% using the biofilter unit. Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive X-ray analysis, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and Brunauer–Emmett–Teller analysis before and after the adsorption represent the changes in the morphology and surface functionalization of the biochar. Results indicate that the designed biofilter unit could also be used as a promising agent for the remediation of pharmaceutical and other emerging contaminants from wastewater.     

Water vapour flux divergence over the Arabian Sea during 1987 summer monsoon using satellite data

The evaporation rates over the Arabian Sea (AS) for the summer monsoon months (June to September) of 1987 have been computed using the bulk-aerodynamic formula. The satellite derived precipitation from the INSAT-1B VHRR (Very High Resolution Radiometer) sensor operating in the wavelength 10.5–12.5 m has been used for computing the precipitation over the AS. The net water vapour flux divergence (NFD) over AS has been computed as the difference between evaporation and precipitation. The estimates being -0.02 × 10¹⁰, 2.55 × 10¹⁰, 0.70 × 10¹⁰ and 0.44 × 10¹⁰ tons/day respectively for the months June, July, August and September. The NFD over AS was found to be positively and significantly correlated with the mean monsoon rainfall along the west coast of India.     

Spatially explicit surface energy budget and partitioning with remote sensing and flux measurements in a boreal region of Interior Alaska

Extrapolating energy fluxes between the ground surface and the atmospheric boundary layer from point-based measurements to spatially explicit landscape estimation is critical to understand and quantify the energy balance components and exchanges in the hydrosphere, atmosphere, and biosphere. This information is difficult to quantify and are often lacking. Using a Landsat image (acquired on 5 August 2004), the flux measurements from three eddy covariance flux towers (a 1987 burn, a 1999 burn, and an unburned control site) and a customized satellite-based surface energy balance model of Mapping Evapotranspiration at High Resolution with Internalized Calibration (METRIC), we estimated net radiation, sensible heat flux (H), latent heat flux (LE), and soil heat flux (G) for the boreal Yukon River Basin of Interior Alaska. The model requires user selection of two extreme conditions present within the image area to calibrate and anchor the sensible flux output. One is the “hot” condition which refers to a bare soil condition with specified residual evaporation rates. Another one is the “cold” condition which refers to a fully transpiring vegetation such as full-cover agricultural crops. We selected one bare field as the “hot” condition while we explored three different scenarios for the “cold” pixel because of the absence of larger expanses of agricultural fields within the image area. For this application over boreal forest, selecting agricultural fields whose evapotranspiration was assumed to be 1.05 times the alfalfa-based reference evapotranspiration as the “cold” pixel could result in large errors. Selecting an unburned flux tower site as the “cold” pixel could achieve acceptable results, but uncertainties remain about the energy balance closure of the flux towers. We found that METRIC performs reasonably well in partitioning energy fluxes in a boreal landscape.     

Variations in vapor pressure and standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index since AD 1861 over the western Himalaya in India: inference from tree ring-width records

A regional tree ring-width index chronology prepared from various tree core samples of the western Himalaya has been analyzed in relation to climate fluctuations. The correlation analysis of tree ring chronology shows significant positive correlations with regional rainfall and standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index (SPEI) and negative correlations with temperature and vapor pressure (VP) during the spring season. The correlation coefficients (CCs) of tree ring-width index chronology with rainfall, temperature, SPEI, and VP during 1901–1990 are 0.50, −0.49, 0.65, and −0.51, respectively. All CCs are significant at 0.1% level. The highly significant CCs between tree ring-width index chronology and SPEI indicate that tree growth over the western Himalaya is more sensitive to soil moisture availability than rainfall, whereas the rising VP is found to have a significant moisture stress condition to tree growth by accelerating the evapotranspiration, which is not conducive for the development of tree growth in the region. So, based on the strong association between tree ring-width index chronology and SPEI; the reconstructions of SPEI and VP are developed back to AD 1861, that show the long period of dryness during 1936–1963.     

Assessment of quality and impact of full resolution TOVS temperature profile data on the operational global data assimilation-forecast system of India

Summary TOVS temperature profile data (SATEM) at its full resolution (85 km) has now become available in India on experimental basis. An attempt is made in this study to examine the quality and impact of this on the medium range forecasts over India and neighbourhood. For this purpose, a seven day period starting from 15 March 1996 is chosen to study the impact of the data on the global analysis-forecasting system operational in India. Though one week data is utilized for the impact study, the complete data of march 1996 is used for examining quality, representativeness and consistency of the retrievals. In the operational system of the National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (NCMRWF), all types of data, including coarse resolution (500 km) global TOVS retrievals-coarse grid SATEM (CGS) data, received on GTS at hourly intervals are used in the assimilation cycle. For the present study the assimilation cycle is repeated for the above period by including high resolution data over the geographical regions covered by the New Delhi's high resolution picture transmission (HRPT) station and simultaneously removing coarse resolution SATEM data. The analysis and forecast fields thus generated are compared with the corresponding operational archives. The impact of the data is examined in terms of various objective scores and through circulation characteristics.The study reveals that the quality of high resolution SATEM (HRS) data is satisfactory and is such that it can be utilized in the global data assimilation system on real-time basis. A general improvement in the RMSE and ACC scores of the medium range forecasts is found over the data void equatorial sectors of the Indian Ocean after the incorporation of the HRS data fields in the assimilation cycle. With regard to a typical easterly wave activity of moderate intensity during the period of experimentation a marginal modulation in low level vorticity and divergence forecasts is found to be improving the precipitation magnitudes over the south peninsular India as well.With 11 Figures     

TOPEX/Poseidon and Jason-1: Absolute Calibration in Bass Strait, Australia

Updated absolute calibration results from Bass Strait, Australia, are presented for the TOPEX/Poseidon (T/P) and Jason-1 altimeter missions. Data from an oceanographic mooring array and coastal tide gauge have been used in addition to the previously described episodic GPS buoy deployments. The results represent a significant improvement in absolute bias estimates for the Bass Strait site. The extended methodology has allowed comparison between the altimeter and in situ data on a cycle-by-cycle basis over the duration of the dedicated calibration phase (formation flight period) of the Jason-1 mission. In addition, it has allowed absolute bias results to be extended to include all cycles since the T/P launch, and all Jason-1 data up to cycle 60. Updated estimates and formal 1-sigma uncertainties of the absolute bias computed throughout the formation flight period are 0 ± 14 mm for T/P and +152 + 13 mm for Jason-1 (for the GDR POE orbits). When JPL GPS orbits are used for cycles 1 to 60, the Jason-1 bias estimate is 131 mm, virtually identical to the NASA estimate from the Harvest Platform off California calculated with the GPS orbits and not significantly different to the CNES estimate from Corsica. The inference of geographically correlated errors in the GDR POE orbits (estimated to be approximately 17 mm at Bass Strait) highlights the importance of maintaining globally distributed verification sites and makes it clear that further work is required to improve our understanding of the Jason-1 instrument and algorithm behavior.     

June 19 2015 Rainfall Event Over Mumbai: Some Observational Analysis

Some of the major metropolitan centers in the world are highly susceptible to flash floods and major disruptions, owing to sudden and excessive rainfall events. The city of Mumbai, India’s financial capital, suffered one such event on 19 June, 2015. This was a second event of such nature, following the landmark event of 26 July, 2005. Such extreme rainfall events are often brought about by certain rapidly developing, local disturbances, which if actively monitored, may be provide important information that can be of great use for early warning to civic authorities and emergency planners. In this paper, we have analyzed a number of different meteorological and remotely sensed parameters, a few days before the actual event, to track the development and eventual culmination of a “perfect storm” that affected Mumbai and left the city tattered. We show how regional upper layer disturbance patterns are developed, induced by warming of sea-surface temperature (SST) and sustained by instability in the atmospheric boundary layers to quickly develop into massive cyclonic storms.     

Can the Southern annular mode influence the Korean summer monsoon rainfall?

We demonstrate that a large-scale longitudinally symmetric global phenomenon in the Southern Hemisphere sub-polar region can transmit its influence over a remote local region of the Northern Hemisphere traveling more than 100° of latitudes (from ~70°S to ~40°N). This is illustrated by examining the relationship between the Southern Annular Mode (SAM) and the Korean Monsoon Rainfall (KMR) based on the data period 1983-2013. Results reveal that the May-June SAM (MJSAM) has a significant in-phase relationship with the subsequent KMR. A positive MJSAM is favorable for the summer monsoon rainfall over the Korean peninsula. The impact is relayed through the central Pacific Ocean. When a negative phase of MJSAM occurs, it gives rise to an anomalous meridional circulation in a longitudinally locked air-sea coupled system over the central Pacific that propagates from sub-polar to equatorial latitudes and is associated with the central Pacific warming. The ascending motion over the central Pacific descends over the Korean peninsula during peak-boreal summer resulting in weakening of monsoon rainfall. The opposite features prevail during a positive phase of SAM. Thus, the extreme modes of MJSAM could possibly serve as a predictor for ensuing Korean summer monsoon rainfall.