Search for GRB related prompt optical emission and other fast varying objects with “Pi of the Sky” detector

Experiment “Pi of the Sky” is designed to search for prompt optical emission from GRB sources. 32 CCD cameras covering 2 steradians will monitor the sky continuously. The data will be analysed on-line in search for optical flashes. The prototype with 2 cameras operated at Las Campanas (Chile) since 2004 has recognised several outbursts of flaring stars and has given limits for a few GRB.     

Assimilation of Hourly Surface Observations with the Canadian High-Resolution Ensemble Kalman Filter

An hourly-cycling ensemble Kalman filter (EnKF) working at 2.5?km horizontal grid spacing is implemented over southern Ontario (Canada) to assimilate Meteorological Terminal Aviation Routine Weather Reports (METARs) in addition to the observations assimilated operationally at the Canadian Meteorological Centre. This high-resolution EnKF (HREnKF) system employs ensemble land analyses and perturbed roughness length to prevent an ensemble spread that is too small near the surface. The HREnKF then performs continuously for a four-day period, from which twelve-hour ensemble forecasts are launched every six hours. The impact on analyses and short-term forecasts of assimilating METAR data is given special attention.

It is shown that using ensemble land surface analyses increases near-surface ensemble spreads for temperature and specific humidity. Perturbing roughness length enlarges the spread for surface wind. Given sufficient ensemble spread, the four-day case study shows that the near-surface model state is brought closer to surface observations during the cycling process. The impact of assimilating surface data can also be seen at higher levels by using aircraft reports for verification. The ensemble forecast verification suggests that METAR data assimilation improves ensemble forecasts of air temperature and dewpoint near the surface up to a lead time of six hours or even longer. However, only minor improvement is found in surface wind forecasts.     

The use of principle component analyses in characterising trace and major elemental distribution in a 55 kyr peat deposit in tropical Australia: Implications to paleoclimate

The Lynch’s Crater peat deposit in NE-Australia is a sensitive environmental archive located in the tropical Southern Hemisphere. This unique deposit illustrates that local and regional changes had a profound effect on the local Australian ecosystem over the past 55 kyr. To obtain a proxy of past climate changes, trace and major element geochemistry analyses were applied to a 13 m peat core from the crater. Principle component analysis (PCA) was used to identify the main factors that control elemental distribution in the peat and to add interpretative strength to the geochemical behavior of selected major and trace elements. For example, Sc, Al, Cu, and Pb were found to be related to increased erosion of the basin soils, and from this, several periods of significant flux from atmospheric input and/or terrigenous run-off were identified. Geochemically mobile elements during rock weathering and pedogenesis, such as Mg, Ca, and Sr helped to identify the peat ombrotrophic-minerotrophic boundary at ∼1.5 m depth and offered important information about fluxes of these nutrients to the mire and their dynamics within the deposit. Arsenic and V comparisons between the peat record (high concentrations in some peat sections) and in local basin rocks (very low concentrations), suggested the presence of a long range, atmospheric dust source early in the formation of the mire. The Lynch’s Crater peat record presents a continuous record of environmental change in tropical Australia and contributes new understanding to geochemical processes in peatlands.     

A low-resolution spectrophotometer for measuring the integrated colour of galaxies

The spectrophotometer presented here combines the advantage of aperture photometry with spectrophotometry to obtain colours of extended objects over the range of 3500–6000 Å. The spectrophotometric resolution matches the resolution of intermediate-band interference filters of about 140 Å FWHM.Paper presented at the 11th European Regional Astronomical Meetings of the IAU on New Windows to the Universe, held 3–8 July, 1989, Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain.     

Geochemistry of rare earth elements in a marine influenced coal and its organic solvent extracts from the Antaibao mining district, Shanxi, China

Twenty-six samples including roof, bottom and coal plies of a marine influenced coal bed were collected from the Antaibao mining district, Shanxi, China. The rare earth elements (REEs) were determined in solids and organic solvent extracts. The distribution pattern showed three distinct patterns: shale-like, LREE-rich and HREE-rich. This is attributed to the variable microenvironment of peat-forming swamp, the degree of marine influences and different REE sources. REEs in the coal are mainly controlled by detrital minerals but also affected by seawater. The chondrite-normalized REE patterns of the organic solvent extracts are distinctly different from those of corresponding original coal samples, which show a negative Eu anomaly, a depletion of middle REEs and an enrichment of HREEs. The LREEs in coal extracts are likely adsorbed by hydrogen-containing functional groups, and HREEs are likely bonded to carbon atoms.     

Scavenging of particulate matter in coastal waters

The uptake of a suite of 19 metals from coastal seawaters upon both glass and Teflon surfaces reflected primarily the sorption of particulate matter derived from crustal rock weathering. Uptake for all elements was greater in the light than in the dark. Based upon these and earlier results, a new definition of scavenging for environmental systems is proposed.     

No large-angle correlations on the non-Galactic microwave sky

We investigate the angular two-point correlation function of temperature in the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe ( WMAP) maps. Updating and extending earlier results, we confirm the lack of correlations outside the Galaxy on angular scales greater than about 60° at a level that would occur in 0.025 per cent of realizations of the concordance model. This represents a dramatic increase in significance from the original observations by the Cosmic Background Explorer Differential Microwave Radiometer ( COBE-DMR) and a marked increase in significance from the first-year WMAP maps. Given the rest of the reported angular power spectrum   C _ℓ  , the lack of large-angle correlations that one infers outside the plane of the Galaxy requires covariance among the   C _ℓ  up to  ℓ= 5  . Alternately, it requires both the unusually small (5 per cent of realizations) full-sky large-angle correlations and an unusual coincidence of alignment of the Galaxy with the pattern of cosmological fluctuations (less than 2 per cent of those 5 per cent). We argue that unless there is some undiscovered systematic error in their collection or reduction, the data point towards a violation of statistical isotropy. The near-vanishing of the large-angle correlations in the cut-sky maps, together with their disagreement with results inferred from full-sky maps, remains open problems, and are very difficult to understand within the concordance model.