Homotopy scattering series for seismic forward modelling with variable density and velocity

We have derived a convergent scattering series solution for the frequency-domain wave equation in acoustic media with variable density and velocity. The convergent scattering series solution is based on the homotopy analysis of a vectorial integral equation of the Lippmann–Schwinger type. By using the Green's function and partial integration, we have derived the vectorial integral equation of the Lippmann–Schwinger type that involves the pressure gradient field as well as the pressure field from the wave equation. The vectorial Lippmann–Schwinger equation can in principle be solved via matrix inversion, but the computational cost of matrix inversion scales like $N^3$, where $N$ is the number of grid blocks. The computational cost can be significantly reduced if one solves the vectorial Lippmann–Schwinger equation iteratively. A simple iterative solution is the Born series, but it is only convergent when the scattering potential is sufficiently small. In this study, we have used the so-called homotopy analysis method to derive an iterative solution for the vectorial Lippmann–Schwinger equation which can be made convergent even in strongly scattering media. The computational cost of our convergent scattering series scales as $N^2$. Our algorithm, which is based on the homotopy analysis method, involves a convergence control operator that we select using hierarchical matrices. We use a three-layer model and a resampled version of the SEG/EAGE salt model to show the performance of the developed convergent scattering series.     

Gaseous and Particulate Oxidized and Reduced Nitrogen Species in the Atmospheric Boundary Layer in Scandinavia in Spring

Observations of the concentration of several nitrogen containing compounds at five rural Scandinavian sites during March–June 1993 are reported. Total nitrate (NO ₃ ^- + HNO₃) and total ammonium (NH ₄ ⁺ + NH₃) were measured by denuder and filter pack. In general the methods agree well. At all sites the particulate fraction dominated, with the largest fraction of NO ₃ ^- and the lowest of NH ₄ ⁺ at the sites which were closest to the emission sources. The fraction of NO ₃ ^- of total nitrate increased with increasing NO₂ concentrations, indicating that the nighttime conversion of NO₂ to NO ₃ ^- is an important route of formation for NO ₃ ^- . A positive correlation was found between HNO₃ and O₃ in June at all sites, while no correlation was found early in the spring. Model calculations were made with a lagrangian boundary layer photooxidant model for the whole period, and compared to the measured concentrations. The calculated ratio between mean observed and modelled daily maximum concentrations of ozone over the measurement period were within +/–10% at all sites. The models ability to describe the daily ozone maximum concentration was satisfactory with an average deviation of 19–22% from the observed concentrations. HNO₃ was underestimated by over 50% at all sites except the one closest to the emission sources. The correlation between modelled and observed concentrations was generally best for the sites with shortest transport distance from the sources of emission.     

Carbonyls and nonmethane hydrocarbons at rural European sites from the mediterranean to the arctic

Results of regular measurements during 1992–1995 of hydrocarbons and carbonyl compounds for a number of rural European monitoring sites are presented. The measurements are part of the EMEP programme for VOC measurements in Europe. In addition, several years of regular measurements are included from the Norwegian stations Birkenes at the south coast, and Zeppelin Mountain on Spitsbergen in the Arctic. The sampling frequency has been about twice per week throughout the years, implying that a substantial amount of measurement data are available. Almost all the chemical analyses have been performed by one laboratory, the EMEP Chemical Co-ordinating Centre located at NILU, which avoids problems of intercomparison and intercalibration among different laboratories. For the measured concentrations both seasonal and geographical variations are shown and discussed. The diurnal cycles of the hydrocarbon concentrations were studied in detail at one site, where the grab samples by EMEP where compared with a parallel continuous sampler, operated by EMPA, Switzerland. Hydrocarbons linked to natural gas and fuel evaporation become well mixed into the Arctic in the winter, whereas combustion products show a latitudinal gradient. The sum of oxygenated species constitutes about 5–15% of the sum of C₂–C₅ hydrocarbons in winter. In summer they are almost equal in magnitude, consistent with an increasing oxidation of hydrocarbons.     

Potential impact of albedo incorporation in boreal forest sector climate change policy effectiveness

Forests have an important role to play in climate change mitigation through carbon sequestration and wood supply. However, the lower albedo of mature forests compared to bare land implies that focusing only on GHG accounting may lead to biased estimates of forestry's total climatic impacts. An economic model with a high degree of detail of the Norwegian forestry and forest industries is used to simulate GHG fluxes and albedo impacts for the next decades. Albedo is incorporated in a carbon tax/subsidy scheme in the Norwegian forest sector using a partial, spatial equilibrium model. While a price of EU€100/tCO₂e that targets GHG fluxes only results in reduced harvests, the same price including albedo leads to harvest levels that are five times higher in the first five years, with 39% of the national productive forest land base being cleared. The results suggest that policies that only consider GHG fluxes and ignore changes in albedo will not lead to an optimal use of the forest sector for climate change mitigation.

Policy relevance

Bare land reflects a larger share of incoming solar energy than dense forest and thus has higher albedo. Earlier research has suggested that changes in albedo caused by management of boreal forest may be as important as carbon fluxes for the forest's overall global warming impacts. The presented analysis is the first attempt to link albedo to national-scale forest climate policies. A policy with subsidies to forest owners that generate carbon sequestration and taxes levied on carbon emissions leads to a reduced forest harvest. However, including albedo in the policy alongside carbon fluxes yields very different results, causing initial harvest levels to increase substantially. The inclusion of albedo impacts will make harvests more beneficial for climate change mitigation as compared to a carbon-only policy. Hence, it is likely that carbon policies that ignore albedo will not lead to optimal forest management for climate change mitigation.     

Performance of a damage‐protected beam–column subassembly utilizing external HF2V energy dissipation devices

Ductile‐jointed connections, which generally require some form of supplementary energy dissipation to alleviate displacement response, typically employ mild steel energy dissipation devices. These devices run the risk of low‐cycle fatigue, are effective only for peak cycles that exceed prior displacements, are prone to buckling, and may require replacement following an earthquake. This study presents an experimental investigation employing an alternative to mild steel: a high force‐to‐volume (HF2V) class of damper‐based energy dissipation devices. Tests are performed on a near full‐scale beam–column joint subassembly utilizing externally mounted compact HF2V devices. Two configurations are considered: an exterior joint with two seismic beams and one gravity beam framing into a central column, and a corner joint with only one seismic beam and one gravity beam framing into a column. Quasi‐static tests are performed to column drifts up to 4%. The experiments validate the efficacy of the HF2V device concept, demonstrating good hysteretic energy dissipation, and minimal residual device force, allowing ready re‐centring of the joint. The devices dissipate energy consistently on every cycle without the deterioration observed in the yielding steel bar type of devices. The effectiveness of the HF2V devices on structural hysteretic behavior is noted to be sensitive to the relative stiffness of the anchoring elements, indicating that better efficiency would be obtained in an embedded design. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Local habitat drivers of macrobenthos in the northern,central and southern KwaZulu-Natal Bight,South Africa

The relatively wide KwaZulu-Natal Bight between St Lucia and Durban on the north-east shelf of South Africa is characterised by several circulation features driven by the Agulhas Current, wind and coastal inputs. A large multidisciplinary programme investigated the sources and relative influences of nutrients on the shelf. Within this, and to address a critical knowledge gap, this study describes macrobenthic (<1 mm) composition and frequency from 16 stations, assigned amongst four oceanographic focus areas. The areas were predetermined across the disciplines to represent upwelling, outwelling and a semi-persistent eddy, with nutrients and primary productivity being measured at each. Environmental variables such as sediment distribution, sediment TOC and bottom water physico-chemistry were determined at a significantly larger spatial scale. Our study postulated that oceanographic focus areas support significantly different macrobenthic assemblages, and that composition and relative distribution is due to measurable habitat attributes at each. Macrofauna were relatively abundant and particularly rich at >1 000 taxa. Annelida, Arthropoda, Mollusca, Echinodermata, Sipuncula and Cnidaria (>50 taxa each) were the dominant macrobenthic groups in the bight. Annelida were dominated by the polychaete families Spionidae, Terrebelidae and Cirratullidae, which were generally associated with outwelling and a mud depocentre off the Thukela River. Two unique and distinctive assemblages were found, one in the Thukela Mouth focus area and another on the midshelf between Thukela and Durban. The latter is influenced by poorly sorted, coarse sand and with probable influences from the Durban Eddy. There assemblages were abundant, rich and specific to this habitat. Correlation, PERMANOVA and CAP analyses showed assemblage fidelity to the focus areas. Medium sand, fine sand, mud and the variance of overall sediment type were the habitat drivers underlying macrofaunal abundance distributions.     

Clay slides in the Målselv valley, northern Norway: Characteristics, occurrence, and triggering mechanisms

The distribution of a large number of clay slides in the Målselv valley, northern Norway, is analysed and put into context with the stratigraphic organization of the valley-fill sediments. About 32% of the landslides larger than 10⁴ m³ occur close to the valley margins, where mud is either exposed or at shallow depth. About 57% of the landslides occur mid-valley, where relatively thin (< 15 m) coarse-grained deltaic sediments overlay fine-grained marine and glaciomarine sediments, and about 11% of the landslides occur in front of ice-contact deposits. The slide-prone areas are all characterized by the occurrence of heterogeneous sediments (interbedded clay, silt and sand), in addition to the presence of steep slopes eroded by rivers. The heterogeneous nature of the sediments probably enhanced groundwater drainage and leaching of salts from the clay, increasing sensitivity. Thus, the distribution and organization of the valley-fill sediments and groundwater drainage probably controlled the position of the slide scars and sliding planes. Since deglaciation of the valley (11,500 BP–present), isostatic rebound has enhanced fluvial incision and the creation of steep slopes due to a fall in relative sea level of up to 80 m.Arcuate-shaped, ‘bottleneck’ landslide scars ranging from c. 10⁴ to 10⁷ m³ in size is the dominant morphological signature of the slides, typical for quick clay slides or earth flows involving fluid mud. Their most common triggering mechanism is probably erosion at the toe slopes by the river Målselv or its tributaries. River erosion close to the valley margin, where glaciomarine and marine sediments are present, seems to give the most severe slides. The overall valley-fill organization controls the distribution of clay slides, which may apply to other fjord valleys having similar sediment distribution.     

European VOC Emission Estimates Evaluated by Measurements and Model Calculations

Observations and model calculations of the concentration of hydrocarbonsat five Scandinavian rural sites during March–June 1993are reported.Decreasing concentrations from March to June are observedat all sites. The highest concentrations of hydrocarbons were found in air massescoming in from the southwest to southeast, indicating that long rangetransport fromcontinental Europe and the U.K. is important in pollution episodes. An episode of elevated concentrations of hydrocarbons observed at three of the sites in the middle of Marchis described and discussed in relation to the synoptic situation and thepresenceof other chemical compounds (NO₂, PAN, total nitrate andozone).A Lagrangian numerical model is used to calculate the concentrations of theindividual hydrocarbons at the fivesites and comparison with observations is made.The calculated concentrations for nonmethane hydrocarbons with quite longchemicallifetimes agree well with the observations.For the sum of observed and calculated hydrocarbons the correlationcoefficientsare in the range of 0.65–0.88 for the five sitesand the ratio between calculated and measured concentrations was0.72–0.97, indicating thatthe European VOC emission inventory is quite well estimated.     

Tropospheric Ozone at High Latitudes in Clean and Polluted Air Masses, a Climatological Study

Several years of continuous measurements of surfaceozone at Norwegian monitoring sites are studied in aclimatological way. The monitoring sites are at rurallocations extending from 58°N, a few hundredkilometers from the European continent and into theArctic at 79°N. The ozone observations are sorted intoclasses of integrated NO_x emissions along 96 h backtrajectories. The average seasonal cycles of ozone areestimated for each class separately. The differencesindicate the change from the background air due toanthropogenic emissions. The average seasonal cycle ofozone in the cleanest air masses showed a maximum inspring and a minimum during summer and autumn at allsites, but the spring maximum was more pronounced atthe southernmost locations. Polluted air masses showedan ozone deficit during winter and a surplus duringsummer. The deviation from the background was clearlylinked to the integrated NO_x emission along thetrajectories. In summer the calculations indicate thatthe number of ozone molecules formed per NO_x moleculedrops with increasing emissions. The average seasonalcycle of ozone at Birkenes for different transportsectors indicate that the most pronounced ozoneformation takes place in air masses from E-Europe/Russia.     

Fast estimation of prestack common reflection surface parameters

We present a method for fast estimation of finite offset common reflection surface parameters. Firstly, the derivatives with respect to offset are derived from the velocity guide. Secondly, we apply structure tensors to extract the derivatives with respect to midpoint from stacked common offset sections. Finally, the mixed derivative is estimated using a one-parametric semblance search. The proposed method is compared to the global five-parametric semblance search and the pragmatic sequential two-parametric semblance search on one synthetic and one real data set. The experiments show that the proposed method is more robust against noise than the pragmatic search and have comparable robustness with the global search. The proposed method smoothes parameter estimates in a local window, and the window size is set to give the best trade-off between detail and robustness. Since the proposed method is dependent on a velocity guide, the quality of the other parameter estimates may be influenced by any inaccuracies in the guide. The main advantage of the proposed method is the computational efficiency. When compared with a gridded implementation of the semblance search, the proposed method is 10 and 400 times faster than the pragmatic and global search. Alternative search strategies significantly reduce the computational cost of the global search. However, since more than 99% of the computational cost of the proposed method comes from the semblance search to estimate the mixed derivative, it is expected that such techniques also reduce the computational cost for the proposed method.