Exploring landscape and geologic controls on spatial patterning of streambank groundwater discharge in a mixed land use watershed

Preferential groundwater discharge features along stream corridors are ecologically important at local and stream network scales, yet we lack quantification of the multiscale controls on the spatial patterning of groundwater discharge. Here we identify physical attributes that best explain variation in the presence and lateral extent of preferential groundwater discharges along two 5th order streams, the Housatonic and Farmington Rivers, and 32 1st to 4th order reaches across the Farmington River network. We mapped locations of preferential groundwater discharge exposed along streambanks using handheld thermal infrared cameras paired with high-resolution topographic and land use land cover datasets, surficial soil characteristic maps, and depth-to-bedrock geophysical measurements. The unconfined Housatonic River, MA, USA (12 km) had fewer discharge locations and less lateral extent (41 discharge locations with 38 m of active discharge/km of river) compared to the partially confined Farmington River, CT, USA (26 km; 169 discharge locations with 129 m of active discharge/km of river). Using a moving window analysis, we found along both rivers that discharge was more likely to occur where bank slopes were steeper, floodplain extent was narrower, and degree of confinement was higher. Along the Farmington River, groundwater discharge was more likely to occur where saturated hydraulic conductivity was higher and depth-to-bedrock was shallower. Among the 32 stream reaches surveyed (33.2 km of total stream length) within the Farmington River watershed, preferential discharge was observed in all but two stream reaches, varied from 0 to 25% of lateral extent along stream banks (mean = 6%), and was more likely to occur where stream reach slopes were steep, saturated hydraulic conductivity was high, and watershed urbanization was low. Our results show that, though both surface (e.g., topographic, land use land cover) and subsurface (e.g., soil characteristics, bedrock depth) factors control the prevalence of streambank preferential groundwater discharge, the dominant controls vary across valley settings and stream sizes.     

Structural health monitoring of bridges in the State of Connecticut

A joint effort between the Connecticut Department of Transportation and the University of Connecticut has been underway for more than 20 years to utilize various structural monitoring approaches to assess different bridges in Connecticut. This has been done to determine the performance of existing bridges, refine techniques needed to evaluate different bridge components, and develop approaches that can be used to provide a continuous status of a bridge＇s structural integrity. This paper briefly introduces the background of these studies, with emphasis on recent research and the development of structural health monitoring concepts. This paper presents the results from three different bridge types： a post-tensioned curved concrete box girder bridge, a curved steel box-girder bridge, and a steel multi-girder bridge. The structural health monitoring approaches to be discussed have been successfully tested using field data collected during multi-year monitoring periods, and are based on vibrations, rotations and strains. The goal has been to develop cost-effective strategies to provide critical information needed to manage the State of Connecticut＇s bridge infrastructure.     

Evaluation of summer temperature and precipitation predictions from NCEP CFSv2 retrospective forecast over China

National Centers for Environmental Prediction recently upgraded its operational seasonal forecast system to the fully coupled climate modeling system referred to as CFSv2. CFSv2 has been used to make seasonal climate forecast retrospectively between 1982 and 2009 before it became operational. In this study, we evaluate the model’s ability to predict the summer temperature and precipitation over China using the 120 9-month reforecast runs initialized between January 1 and May 26 during each year of the reforecast period. These 120 reforecast runs are evaluated as an ensemble forecast using both deterministic and probabilistic metrics. The overall forecast skill for summer temperature is high while that for summer precipitation is much lower. The ensemble mean reforecasts have reduced spatial variability of the climatology. For temperature, the reforecast bias is lead time-dependent, i.e., reforecast JJA temperature become warmer when lead time is shorter. The lead time dependent bias suggests that the initial condition of temperature is somehow biased towards a warmer condition. CFSv2 is able to predict the summer temperature anomaly in China, although there is an obvious upward trend in both the observation and the reforecast. Forecasts of summer precipitation with dynamical models like CFSv2 at the seasonal time scale and a catchment scale still remain challenge, so it is necessary to improve the model physics and parameterizations for better prediction of Asian monsoon rainfall. The probabilistic skills of temperature and precipitation are quite limited. Only the spatially averaged quantities such as averaged summer temperature over the Northeast China of CFSv2 show higher forecast skill, of which is able to discriminate between event and non-event for three categorical forecasts. The potential forecast skill shows that the above and below normal events can be better forecasted than normal events. Although the shorter the forecast lead time is, the higher deterministic prediction skill appears, the probabilistic prediction skill does not increase with decreased lead time. The ensemble size does not play a significant role in affecting the overall probabilistic forecast skill although adding more members improves the probabilistic forecast skill slightly.     

An assessment of the potential impact of climate change on rice farmers and markets in Bangladesh

Bangladesh, the sixth largest rice producer in the world, has been identified as high risk from the effects of climate change. Many of the adverse impacts of climate change such as land inundation and changes in weather patterns and CO₂ levels will impact the agricultural sector. This study develops a partial-equilibrium multi-regional farm household model of Bangladesh rice and non-rice agricultural markets to quantify the impacts of climate change on consumption, production, prices, and farmers’ welfare. The model is calibrated to the Bangladesh rice market using Household Income and Expenditure Survey data. The model is simulated to analyze the impact of land reduction and productivity decline resulting from climate change. The results show that the decline in production in the coastal and northern regions offsets the production increase in the central and eastern regions, and the simulation predicts that total rice production for Bangladesh falls by about 2%. As total rice consumption falls and imports rise, the net effect leads to a rise in the rice price by 5.71% and a decline in farmers’ welfare. Sensitivity analysis shows that more- (less-) effective abatement technology could play a key role in mitigating (exacerbating) the price and welfare effects. The model predicts that many farmers in regions directly impacted by climate change could leave farming in search of off-farm work. Thus, the government can ease this transition by promoting urban development to provide more job options and technical training for farmers.     

Intraseasonal variability in the far-east pacific: investigation of the role of air�Csea coupling in a regional coupled model

Intraseasonal variability in the eastern Pacific warm pool in summer is studied, using a regional ocean?Catmosphere model, a linear baroclinic model (LBM), and satellite observations. The atmospheric component of the model is forced by lateral boundary conditions from reanalysis data. The aim is to quantify the importance to atmospheric deep convection of local air?Csea coupling. In particular, the effect of sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies on surface heat fluxes is examined. Intraseasonal (20?C90?day) east Pacific warm-pool zonal wind and outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) variability in the regional coupled model are correlated at 0.8 and 0.6 with observations, respectively, significant at the 99% confidence level. The strength of the intraseasonal variability in the coupled model, as measured by the variance of outgoing longwave radiation, is close in magnitude to that observed, but with a maximum located about 10° further west. East Pacific warm pool intraseasonal convection and winds agree in phase with those from observations, suggesting that remote forcing at the boundaries associated with the Madden?CJulian oscillation determines the phase of intraseasonal convection in the east Pacific warm pool. When the ocean model component is replaced by weekly reanalysis SST in an atmosphere-only experiment, there is a slight improvement in the location of the highest OLR variance. Further sensitivity experiments with the regional atmosphere-only model in which intraseasonal SST variability is removed indicate that convective variability has only a weak dependence on the SST variability, but a stronger dependence on the climatological mean SST distribution. A scaling analysis confirms that wind speed anomalies give a much larger contribution to the intraseasonal evaporation signal than SST anomalies, in both model and observations. A LBM is used to show that local feedbacks would serve to amplify intraseasonal convection and the large-scale circulation. Further, Hovm?ller diagrams reveal that whereas a significant dynamic intraseasonal signal enters the model domain from the west, the strong deep convection mostly arises within the domain. Taken together, the regional and linear model results suggest that in this region remote forcing and local convection?Ccirculation feedbacks are both important to the intraseasonal variability, but ocean?Catmosphere coupling has only a small effect. Possible mechanisms of remote forcing are discussed.     

西太平洋富钴结壳生长与富集特征

通过对西太平洋麦哲伦海山区富钴结壳的大尺度细致研究 ,笔者较为深入地探讨了该区结壳的生长与富集特征。研究表明 ,该区结壳自古近纪开始生长 ,生长速率变化范围为 1.5～ 12 .3mm/Ma,速率相差近一个数量级 ,平均生长速率为 3.81m m/Ma;生长过程中成矿元素的地球化学行为呈现明显差异 ;环境发生“骤变”的 O/M界面 ,可能是结壳生长过程中其构造和色泽发生“突变”的一个重要年代 ;成矿元素成分的时序演化主要受控于海水化学和各种不同地质作用的综合影响 ,成矿与非成矿地质作用在生长过程中呈现为互为消长的特征。研究发现 ,该区结壳和太平洋深海粘土元素的分配系数间存在着显著的线性相关关系 ,相关系数为 0 .89,显示它们有相近的元素富集机理。此外 ,笔者还从元素的滞留时间、阳离子的电子键能及其在海水中的水解行为与结壳富集特征间的关系进行了探讨。     

Reconstruction of the surface-layer vertical structure from measurements of wind,temperature and humidity at two levels

We present a comparison between several methods used to reconstruct fluxes and vertical profiles of wind, temperature and humidity from measurements at two levels in the atmospheric surface layer for different practical applications. An analytical method and an iterative method are tested by evaluating the quality of estimations of surface fluxes from detailed field measurements obtained during a campaign on the site of Lannemezan in the south-west of France. The iterative method yields better results, but the analytical one can give results of the same level of accuracy provided that specific constants in its formulation are modified. Then these techniques are applied to wind and temperature reconstruction for an experiment dedicated to wind power estimates over flat terrain. If turbulent fluxes are not needed, a simple power law appears to be sufficient, as the method based on Monin–Obukhov theory does not improve the accuracy of the vertical profile reconstruction.     

Mechanisms of tropical Pacific interannual-to-decadal variability in the ARPEGE/ORCA global coupled model

Spatial and temporal structures of interannual-to-decadal variability in the tropical Pacific Ocean are investigated using results from a global atmosphere–ocean coupled general circulation model. The model produces quite realistic mean state characteristics, despite a sea surface temperature cold bias and a thermocline that is shallower than observations in the western Pacific. The periodicity and spatial patterns of the modelled El Niño Southern Oscillations (ENSO) compare well with those observed over the last 100 years, although the quasi-biennial timescale is dominant. Lag-regression analysis between the mean zonal wind stress and the 20°C isotherm depth suggests that the recently proposed recharge-oscillator paradigm is operating in the model. Decadal thermocline variability is characterized by enhanced variance over the western tropical South Pacific (~7°S). The associated subsurface temperature variability is primarily due to adiabatic displacements of the thermocline as a whole, arising from Ekman pumping anomalies located in the central Pacific, south of the equator. Related wind anomalies appear to be caused by SST anomalies in the eastern equatorial Pacific. This quasi-decadal variability has a timescale between 8 years and 20 years. The relationship between this decadal tropical mode and the low-frequency modulation of ENSO variance is also discussed. Results question the commonly accepted hypothesis that the low-frequency modulation of ENSO is due to decadal changes of the mean state characteristics.     

Petrology of spinel harzburgite xenoliths from the Kishb Plateau,Saudi Arabia

Two spinel harzburgite xenoliths from a Pleistocene alkali basalt unit erupted at the northwestern corner of the Tertiary Kishb Plateau (Saudi Arabia) are characterized by an incipient transition from protogranular to porphyroclastic texture. Vermicular and interstitial spinels are closely associated with neoblasts of olivine, enstatite, and diopside. Sparse exsolution lamellae of high-Ca pyroxene occur in all the enstatite porphyroblasts. Olivine neoblasts are, in many cases, in contact with one another, with the triple grain junctions rarely approaching 120°. Chemical zoning is undetectable by microprobe in spinel and olivine, whereas zoning of Al in enstatite and diopside indicates that chemical equilibrium was not attained. Clear, palegreen glasses occur as veinlets about 10 microns or less in width along grain boundaries and cracks. Consistent counting rates for Na in these glasses were obtained only at 5 kV with a sample current of about 6 namps and counting time of less than 7 s. These glasses are chemically homogeneous and are characterized by relatively high contents of SiO₂ (55.8–58.7 wt%), Na₂O (6.4–7.6 wt%), and Al₂O₃ (20.0–21.6 wt%), with inferred volatile contents of less than 1 wt%. The glass is suggested to be of upper mantle origin rather than having developed from the host basalt or by decompressional melting upon ascent.Geothermometry and geobarometry indicate that the lithospheric upper mantle beneath the Arabian Shield had been locally heated to higher than 1,050° C during Miocene/ Pliocene, resulting in some degree of partial melting. Spinel was formed by reaction between aluminous pyroxenes and olivine during subsequent cooling, and intercrystalline Mg-Fe exchange reached a steady state at about 800° C. The geotherm beneath the Arabian Shield since Miocene is estimated to be somewhat lower than that representing the present oceanic upper mantle. The thermal history established is consistent with the tectonic history of the Red Sea area and indicates a two-stage magmatism in the Arabian Shield since Miocene.