Observations of ionospheric electron content at medium latitude geomagnetically conjugate stations

Electron content data recorded at Cold Bay, Alaska and Invercargill, New Zealand have been used to study the geomagnetic conjugate effects. The correlation on day-to-day variations at these two stations is found to be negative at extreme magnetic quiet and it then increases to positive values with magnetic activities. When disturbed magnetically, the correlation is + 0.73. Evidence is presented to show that, on the first day following the sudden commencement, the afternoon rise and the subsequent pre-sunset fall in electron content is controlled geomagnetically.     

Knowledge discovery for geographical cellular automata

Recently, cellular automata (CA) has been increas-ingly applied to the simulation of geographical phe-nomena, especially urban simulation[1,2]. The re-searches of using CA have been carried out in China with many publications nationally and internation-ally[3―7]. CA can be applied to the simulation of many geographical phenomena, such as diffusion of wild-fire[8], population fluctuation of animals[9], evolution of urban systems and land use[1,2], the formation of idealized urban forms[3,6],…     

A sheet-current approach to coronal-interplanetary modeling

The most pertinent effect of the currents in the coronal-interplanetary space is their alteration of the magnetic topology to form configurations of open field lines. The important currents seem to be those in the neighborhoods of the interfaces between closed and open field lines or between oppositely directed open field lines in the coronal helmet-streamer structures. Thus, the coronal-interplanetary space may be regarded as being partitioned by current-sheets into several piecewise current-free regions. These current sheets overlie the photospheric neutral lines, where the vertical component of the magnetic field reverses its polarity on the solar surface. But, their locations and strengths are determined by force balance between the magnetic field and the gas pressure in the coronal-interplanetary space. Since the pressure depends on the flow velocity of the solar wind and the solar wind channels along magnetic flux tubes, there is a strong magnetohydrodynamic coupling between the magnetic field and the solar wind. The sheetcurrent approach presented in this paper seems to be a reasonable way to account for this complicated interaction.The National Center for Atmospheric Research is sponsored by the National Science Foundation.     

Favorable connections between seasonal footprinting mechanism and El Niño

Previous studies suggested that the wintertime SST in the North Pacific that are generated by the concurrent North Pacific Oscillation (NPO) are able to force El Niño during subsequent winter via the so-called ‘seasonal footprinting mechanism’ (SFM). We examine how the NPO effectively generates the El Niño via the SFM in the observations and models. The occurrence ratio for El Niño under conditions of NPO forcing during the previous winters is about 41 % for the period of 61 years (1949–2009), indicating that the atmospheric forcing from the mid-latitudes through the SFM does not always trigger an El Niño. We observed certain favorable conditions under which the SFM may effectively induce El Niño. We directly compared these observations with two cases: when the wintertime NPO leads to El Niño during the following winter through the SFM, and when the wintertime NPO is not followed by El Niño. Our analysis demonstrates that the spatial structures of the NPO, associated wind speed and net heat flux in the northeast Pacific, differ between the two cases. Such differences determine the existence of a footprint SST in the northeastern Pacific during the late spring and summer, which plays a key role in initiating the El Niño via the projection of westerly wind stress anomalies onto the equatorial Pacific during the same seasons. By conducting linear baroclinic model experiments, it is found that the positions of La Niña SST forcing during the previous winter are able to modify the spatial structures of the NPO, which produces favorable conditions for the El Niño during subsequent winter via the SFM.     

Comparison of approaches for predicting solute transport: sandbox experiments

The main purpose of this paper was to compare three approaches for predicting solute transport. The approaches include: (1) an effective parameter/macrodispersion approach (Gelhar and Axness 1983); (2) a heterogeneous approach using ordinary kriging based on core samples; and (3) a heterogeneous approach based on hydraulic tomography. We conducted our comparison in a heterogeneous sandbox aquifer. The aquifer was first characterized by taking 48 core samples to obtain local-scale hydraulic conductivity (K). The spatial statistics of these K values were then used to calculate the effective parameters. These K values and their statistics were also used for kriging to obtain a heterogeneous K field. In parallel, we performed a hydraulic tomography survey using hydraulic tests conducted in a dipole fashion with the drawdown data analyzed using the sequential successive linear estimator code (Yeh and Liu 2000) to obtain a K distribution (or K tomogram). The effective parameters and the heterogeneous K fields from kriging and hydraulic tomography were used in forward simulations of a dipole conservative tracer test. The simulated and observed breakthrough curves and their temporal moments were compared. Results show an improvement in predictions of drawdown behavior and tracer transport when the K tomogram from hydraulic tomography was used. This suggests that the high-resolution prediction of solute transport is possible without collecting a large number of small-scale samples to estimate flow and transport properties that are costly to obtain at the field scale.     

Factors Affecting the Wintering Habitat of Major Fishery Resources in Southwestern Korean Waters

We investigated the temperature and salinity effects on the major fish species in the wintering grounds based on trawl surveys and oceanographic observations in the southwestern waters of Korea during March-early April in 2002-2003. The influence area of warm Kuroshio water was limited to the southwestern area of Korea in 2003 with a range of 7.7-16.3°C, 32.54-34.70 of salinity, wider than that of 2002. The number of fish species and density of major fish species in 2003 were higher than in 2002. Geographical estimation showed high proportions of species number and catches in the areas around Jeju Islands, southwestern waters and the southeastern coast of Korea. Five species; silver pomfret (Pampus echinogaster), hairtail (Trichiurus lepturus), anchovy (Engraulis japonicus), small yellow croaker (Larimichthys polyactis) and yellow goosefish (Lophius litulon) were most abundant, composing above 60% of the total catch in 2002 and 2003. More than 50% of catch in the major fish species were mostly distributed in the range of 9.5-11.0°C of temperature and 33.1-33.9 of salinity. Non-parametric estimation for the major species showed the 1st mode around 10°C and the 2nd mode at 8-9°C in 2002 and 11-14°C in 2003. A m o n g major fish species, hairtail was principally composed of juveniles, and larger individuals were caught in southeastern waters. These results are considered to be helpful for the areabased fishery management strategy for the wintering grounds of the Yellow Sea and coastal waters of Korea.     

等结构矿物的光性异向指数

在研究透明矿物光学异向性时,人们总是用三个主折射率 N_g、N_m、N_p 和重折射率N_g-N_p 来表示。本文作者在一系列的论文中使用了折射度指示体和光性异向指数的新概念。用光性异向指数(Optical anisotropy index 即 OAl 值)研究矿物光学异向性与晶体结构关系时,远远比折射率和重折射率的概念更有意义得多。     

Integration of principal components analysis and cellular automata for spatial decisionmaking and urban simulation

This paper discusses the issues about the correlation of spatial variables during spatial decisionmaking using multicriteria evaluation (MCE) and cellular automata (CA). The correlation of spatial variables can cause the malfunction of MCE. In urban simulation, spatial factors often exhibit a high degree of correlation which is considered as an undesirable property for MCE. This study uses principal components analysis (PCA) to remove data redundancy among a large set of spatial variables and determine ‘ideal points’ for land development. PCA is integrated with cellular automata and geographical information systems (GIS) for the simulation of idealized urban forms for planning purposes.     

Tectonic implications of Mesozoic magmatism to initiation of Cenozoic basin development within the passive South China Sea margin

International Journal of Earth Sciences - The South China Sea (SCS) is one of the classical example of a non-volcanic passive margin situated within three tectonic plates of the Eurasian,...