巴黎能力建设委员会助力全球气候治理

在全球气候治理中,能力建设涉及减缓、适应等多个方面.相对于发达国家,发展中国家在应对气候变化能力方面存在更多挑战,也亟待支持.巴黎能力建设委员会(PCCB)是《联合国气候变化框架公约》(以下简称公约)下属能力建设议题唯一的常设机构.在《巴黎协定》的授权下, PCCB于2016年成立,致力于解决发展中国家在实施和加强应对...     

跨越断层埋地管线地震反应研究述评

本文论述了跨越断层埋地管线地震反应研究工作概况,包括理论研究和实验研究的进展,并介绍了不同情况下采用的研究方法和建立的相应的研究模型,通过对数据结果进行整理分析,得出跨越断层埋地管线地震反应规律。同时,本文还对埋地管线研究中的一些重要参数对研究结果的影响作了详尽的阐述,提出了需进一步研究的问题和今后可能的研究发展方向。     

Three-dimensional analysis of ozone and PM<Subscript>2.5</Subscript> distributions obtained by observations of tethered balloon and unmanned aerial vehicle in Shanghai,China

A lightweight unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and a tethered balloon platform were jointly used to investigate three-dimensional distributions of ozone and PM_2.5 concentrations within the lower troposphere (1000 m) at a localized coastal area in Shanghai, China. Eight tethered balloon soundings and three UAV flights were conducted on May 25, 2016. Generalized additive models (GAMs) were used to quantitatively describe the relationships between air pollutants and other obtained parameters. Field observations showed that large variations were captured both in the vertical and horizontal distributions of ozone and PM_2.5 concentrations. Significant stratified layers of ozone and PM_2.5 concentrations as well as wind directions were observed throughout the day. Estimated bulk Richardson numbers indicate that the vertical mixing of air masses within the lower troposphere were heavily suppressed throughout the day, leading to much higher concentrations of ozone and PM_2.5 in the planetary boundary layer (PBL). The NO and NO₂ concentrations in the experimental field were much lower than that in the urban area of Shanghai and demonstrated totally different vertical distribution patterns from that of ozone and PM_2.5. This indicates that aged air masses of different sources were transported to the experimental field at different heights. Results derived from the GAMs showed that the aggregate impact of the selected variables for the vertical variations can explain 94.3% of the variance in ozone and 94.5% in PM_2.5. Air temperature, relative humidity and atmospheric pressure had the strongest effects on the variations of ozone and PM_2.5. As for the horizontal variations, the GAMs can explain 56.3% of the variance in ozone and 57.6% in PM_2.5. The strongest effect on ozone was related to air temperature, while PM_2.5 was related to relative humidity. The output of GAMs also implied that fine aerosol particles were in the stage of growth in the experimental field, which is different from ozone (aged air parcels of ozone). Geographical parameters influenced the horizontal variations of ozone and PM_2.5 concentrations by changing underlying surface types. The differences of thermodynamic properties between land and sea resulted in quick changes of PBL height, air temperature and dew point over the coastal area, which was linked to the extent of vertical mixing at different locations. The results of GAMs can be used to analyze the sources and formation mechanisms of ozone and PM_2.5 pollutions at a localized area.     

Distribution of Indus born mica along Gulf of Kachchh coast: Implications in understanding current dynamics

Indus is one of the major sources of sediments to the Gulf of Kachchh. Yet only its <63 micron fraction is studied in detail with regards to the offshore current dynamics. Hence here we present our study on characteristic signature of the Indus sediment load (i.e. mica minerals) in >63 micron size fraction along the coast of Gulf of Kachchh. The spatial distribution of mica minerals along the Gulf of Kachchh coast was studied which showed in general decreasing trend as we move along the northern and southern coast of the Gulf of Kachchh but, an increase in amount near the southern mouth at Okha. The study shows that the earlier proposed tidal barrier is ineffective in restricting movement of mica across the mouth of the gulf due to its characteristic transport mechanism. Also the presence of mudflats along the gulf of Kachchh coast plays a vital role as sediment receptors in the active sediment transport processes and mica minerals prove to be a promising simple tracer in studying the Indus born sediments in the region.     

Estimating coseismic deformations from near source strong motion records: methods and case studies

Digital strong-motion accelerographs have opened up the possibility of extracting ground motion characteristics at much lower frequencies than was offered by analogue instruments. High-quality digital data obtained close to the faults have tempted several efforts to retrieve permanent ground displacements after an earthquake. Such attempts have been partly successful, and somewhat subjective, the main reason being the presence of baseline offsets in the accelerometric data. We review existing methods for such applications, discuss their limitations and propose a more objective and improved scheme to make baseline adjustments and obtain permanent displacements. The proposed technique is applied to 26 digital recordings from the 29 May 2008 Ölfus Earthquake in South Iceland and 9 recordings from the 1999 Chi-Chi, Taiwan, Earthquake, and the permanent displacements obtained are compared with published results and GPS measurements from nearby stations. Our case studies show that the proposed technique, in addition to being simple and objective, is effective in making adjustments for baseline errors in accelerometric data.     

Occurrence and characteristics of sporadic sodium layer observed by lidar at a mid-latitude location

Na lidar observations of SSL during the past 5 years at a mid-latitude location (Wuhan, China, 31°N, 114°E) are reported in this paper. From 26 SSL events detected in about 230 h of observation, an SSL occurrence rate of 1 event/9 h at our location was obtained. This result, combined with that reported by Nagasawa and Abo (Geophys. Res. Lett. 22 (1995) 263) at Tokyo, Japan, reveals that the SSL occurrence can be relatively frequent at some mid-latitude locations. The statistical analyses of main parameters for the 26 SSL events were made, and the results were compared with those previously reported. By examining the corresponding data from a nearby ionosonde, it was found that there was a fairly good correlation between SSL and Es. Of the 18 pairs of SSL and Es events checked, 15 of SSL were accompanied by Es, and 8 pairs of them were correlated within 1 h in time and within 5 km in altitude. From the analyses of observed perturbations during SSL development, the role of dynamic processes of atmosphere in the SSL formations were emphasized.     

Large-scale structure of background fields and active regions

An attempt is made to study the relations between emergence of active regions and the solar background large-scale structures on the basis of Solar Geophysical Data, including Kitt-Peak magnetograms, H filtergrams, and Ca images.The emergence of 217 active regions (a.r.s) that have appeared on the solar disk not farther than ± 60° from the central meridian is studied. The a.r.s are divided into two classes A and B according to their birth location. Class A contains a.r.s emerged far (8–10°) from the background field boundaries, and class B- those emerged near to (55°) or just at the boundaries.It was found that a.r.s of class A differ appreciably from those of class B; in particular, the dimensions and the intensity (S, I) of class B a.r.s are nearly twice as large as those of class A. For class A a.r.s some alterations of the solar large-scale structure boundaries were found in 15% of all the cases, whereas for those of class B in 60%.