The Paleo－Environmental Significance of Sr and Ca Contained in Acid－Soluble Fraction of Plateau Loess Deposits in Xining Basin

The Xining Basin,located on northeastern Qinghai-Xizang Plateau,is adjacent to the Qaidam Bsim and Gobi-desert.Therefore,thick,integrated deposits of loess or paleo-sol sequence were well developed.As is well known,there is much paleo-environmental information recorded in loess and plaeo-sol.So if we deal with paleo-environmental index from different an gles ,especially from loess geochemistry,some important and detailed paleo-environmental evolutional information will be acquired.Based on this,the authors determined the contents of Sr and Ca contained in acid-soluble fraction from the bottom to the top of the Panzishan section.This section was obtained through making a well about 17 m in depth,including S1 paleo-sol that was developed during the last interglacial period.According to the results,it is found that variations in contents of Sr and Ca are well correlated with conversion of loess and paleo-sol.In loess deposits,the contents of Sr and Ca are higher than those in paleo-sol deposits.It is known that loess was deposited under cold-dry climate conditions and paleo-sol was developed during warm-humid climate episodes.It is concluded that due to their mobile behaviors,under cold-dry climate conditions,Sr and Ca are stagnant during weak weathering,but under warm-humid climate conditions,Sr and Ca are easily leached and transported in aqueous solution.Therefore,they can be utilized as indicatiors of climate changes.Moreover,variations in contents of Sr and Ca are more sensitive than susceptibility.The mobile behaviors of Sr and Ca contained in acid-soluble fraction can serve as a new quantitative index to evaluate paleo-environmental changes on the plateau.     

The influence of the Three Gorges Reservoir regulation on a typical tributary heat budget

Reservoir regulation and local climate both affect the heat budget of tributary bay. It is difficult for traditional methods to identify the influence of different factors on heat budget quantitatively. In this paper, for analysis of the control mechanisms of the heat budget of a large reservoir tributary, the water temperature distribution, and heat budget processes of the Meixi River, a typical tributary to the Three Gorges Reservoir was measured, and a new method was used to calculate the heat content composition of the tributary bay and identify the key factor of the heat balance. The result shows significant variation in the spatial and temporal distributions of water temperatures in the Meixi River, ranging from 12.4 to 28.9 °C on the surface and 12.0 to 24.4 °C at the bottom. The total heat exchange across the air–water interface that ranges from 0.1 to 6% of the budget is not the primary control factor of the annual tributary heat budget. Rather, the change in water depth produced by regulation of the Three Gorges Reservoir is the primary control factor of the tributary heat budget in the whole year, which ranges from 72 to 99% of the budget. The water temperature difference between the main stream and tributary is the not key factor of the heat budget, which ranges from 0.1 to 28% of the heat budget.     

Discrimination of Spectrally-Close Crops Using Ground-Based Hyperspectral Data

Hyperspectral remote sensing, because of its large number of narrow bands, has shown possibility of discriminating the crops. Current study was carried out to select the optimum bands for discrimination among pulses, cole crops and ornamental plants using the ground-based Hyperspectral data in Patha village, Lalitpur district, Uttar Pradesh state and Kolkata, West Bengal state. The field observations of reflectance were taken using a 512-channel spectroradiometer with a range of 325–1075 nm. The stepwise discriminant analysis was carried out and separability measures, such as Wilks’ lambda and F-Value were used as criteria for identifying the narrow bands. The analysis showed that, the best four bands for pulse crop discrimination lie mostly in NIR and early MIR regions i.e. 750, 800, 940 and 960 nm. Within cole crops discrimination is primarily determined by the green, red and NIR bands of 550, 690, 740, 770 and 980 nm. The separability study showed the bands 420,470,480,570,730,740, 940, 950, 970, 1030 nm are useful for discriminating flowers.     

Global ionosphere map constructed by using total electron content from ground-based GNSS receiver and FORMOSAT-3/COSMIC GPS occultation experiment

Effects of rapidly changing ionospheric weather are critical in high accuracy positioning, navigation, and communication applications. A system used to construct the global total electron content (TEC) distribution for monitoring the ionospheric weather in near-real time is needed in the modern society. Here we build the TEC map named Taiwan Ionosphere Group for Education and Research (TIGER) Global Ionospheric Map (GIM) from observations of ground-based GNSS receivers and space-based FORMOSAT-3/COSMIC (F3/C) GPS radio occultation observations using the spherical harmonic expansion and Kalman filter update formula. The TIGER GIM (TGIM) will be published in near-real time of 4-h delay with a spatial resolution of 2.5° in latitude and 5° in longitude and a high temporal resolution of every 5 min. The F3/C TEC results in an improvement on the GIM of about 15.5%, especially over the ocean areas. The TGIM highly correlates with the GIMs published by other international organizations. Therefore, the routinely published TGIM in near-real time is not only for communication, positioning, and navigation applications but also for monitoring and scientific study of ionospheric weathers, such as magnetic storms and seismo-ionospheric anomalies.     

A method for generating uniform size-segregated pyrite particle fractions

Background  

Standardized sample preparation techniques allow comparison of pyrite dissolution experiments under diverse conditions. Our objective was to assess dry and wet sieving preparation methodologies, and to develop a reproducible technique that yields uniformly size-distributed material within a limited size range of interest.     

Experimental study on the vertical deformation of aquifer soils under conditions of withdrawing and recharging of groundwater in Tongchuan region,China

Land subsidence due to aquifer-system compaction accompanying groundwater extraction is a global hazard. Rising urban construction and groundwater demand necessitate increased awareness and better understanding of the geological problem. Motivated by the lack of laboratory-scale studies on this issue, an experimental investigation on the newly developed Tongchuan region, China, is presented. The study addresses the deformation behaviors of three soil samples, with the lithology of silty clay, silt, and fine sand, under the conditions of groundwater withdrawal and recharge using the GDS Consolidation Testing System. Results indicate that all three samples were characterized by elastic–plastic deformation under the conditions of withdrawing and recharging. The vertical deformation of the silty clay in the aquitard above the first confined aquifer was larger than those of the other two samples, and its deformation is a gradual and long process; thus, considerable attention should be paid to deformation in this aquitard due to the apparent creep effect and tiny rebound deformation. However, the settlement of the fine sand in the second confined aquifer cannot be ignored due to the great thickness of the aquifer. For the same soil, as the pore-water pressure declined, the unit rate of vertical deformation decreased gradually, whereas the creep effect of deformation in the later declining stage of pore-water pressure was more apparent than that in the former declining stage. These observations are highly important to the local government, which is developing measures to prevent and control subsidence.     

Investigating a Hierarchy of Eulerian Closure Models for Scalar Transfer Inside Forested Canopies

Modelling the transfer of heat, water vapour, and CO₂ between the biosphere and the atmosphere is made difficult by the complex two-way interaction between leaves and their immediate microclimate. When simulating scalar sources and sinks inside canopies on seasonal, inter-annual, or forest development time scales, the so-called well-mixed assumption (WMA) of mean concentration (i.e. vertically constant inside the canopy but dynamically evolving in time) is often employed. The WMA eliminates the need to model how vegetation alters its immediate microclimate, which necessitates formulations that utilize turbulent transport theories. Here, two inter-related questions pertinent to the WMA for modelling scalar sources, sinks, and fluxes at seasonal to inter-annual time scales are explored: (1) if the WMA is to be replaced so as to resolve this two-way interaction, how detailed must the turbulent transport model be? And (2) what are the added predictive skills gained by resolving the two-way interaction vis-à-vis other uncertainties such as seasonal variations in physiological parameters. These two questions are addressed by simulating multi-year mean scalar concentration and eddy-covariance scalar flux measurements collected in a Loblolly pine (P. taeda L.) plantation near Durham, North Carolina, U.S.A. using turbulent transport models ranging from K-theory (or first-order closure) to third-order closure schemes. The multi-layer model calculations with these closure schemes were contrasted with model calculations employing the WMA. These comparisons suggested that (i) among the three scalars, sensible heat flux predictions are most biased with respect to eddy-covariance measurements when using the WMA, (ii) first-order closure schemes are sufficient to reproduce the seasonal to inter-annual variations in scalar fluxes provided the canonical length scale of turbulence is properly specified, (iii) second-order closure models best agree with measured mean scalar concentration (and temperature) profiles inside the canopy as well as scalar fluxes above the canopy, (iv) there are no clear gains in predictive skills when using third-order closure schemes over their second-order closure counterparts. At inter-annual time scales, biases in modelled scalar fluxes incurred by using the WMA exceed those incurred when correcting for the seasonal amplitude in the maximum carboxylation capacity (V _{cmax, 25}) provided its mean value is unbiased. The role of local thermal stratification inside the canopy and possible computational simplifications in decoupling scalar transfer from the generation of the flow statistics are also discussed.

“The tree, tilting its leaves to capture bullets of light; inhaling, exhaling; its many thousand stomata breathing, creating the air”. Ruth Stone, 2002, In the Next Galaxy

     

Twisted Flux Tube Emergence Evidenced in Longitudinal Magnetograms: Magnetic Tongues

Bipolar active regions (ARs) are thought to be formed by twisted flux tubes, as the presence of such twist is theoretically required for a cohesive rise through the whole convective zone. We use longitudinal magnetograms to demonstrate that a clear signature of a global magnetic twist is present, particularly, during the emergence phase when the AR is forming in a much weaker pre-existing magnetic field environment. The twist is characterised by the presence of elongated polarities, called “magnetic tongues”, which originate from the azimuthal magnetic field component. The tongues first extend in size before retracting when the maximum magnetic flux is reached. This implies an apparent rotation of the magnetic bipole. Using a simple half-torus model of an emerging twisted flux tube having a uniform twist profile, we derive how the direction of the polarity inversion line and the elongation of the tongues depend on the global twist in the flux rope. Using a sample of 40 ARs, we verify that the helicity sign, determined from the magnetic polarity distribution pattern, is consistent with the sign derived from the photospheric helicity flux computed from magnetogram time series, as well as from other proxies such as sheared coronal loops, sigmoids, flare ribbons and/or the associated magnetic cloud observed in situ at 1 AU. The evolution of the tongues observed in emerging ARs is also closely similar to the evolution found in recent MHD numerical simulations. We also found that the elongation of the tongue formed by the leading magnetic polarity is significantly larger than that of the following polarity. This newly discovered asymmetry is consistent with an asymmetric Ω-loop emergence, trailing the solar rotation, which was proposed earlier to explain other asymmetries in bipolar ARs.     

New methods for calculating bare soil land surface temperature over mountainous terrain

Land surface temperature(LST) causes the phase change of water, links to the partitioning of surface water and energy budget, and becomes an important parameter to hydrology, meteorology, ecohydrology, and other researches in the high mountain cold regions. Unlike air temperature, which has common altitudinal lapse rates in the mountainous regions, the influence of terrain leads to complicated estimation for soil LST. This study presents two methods that use air temperature and solar position,to estimate bare LST with high temporal resolution over horizontal sites and mountainous terrain with a random slope azimuth. The data from three horizontal meteorological stations and fourteen LST observation fields with different aspects and slopes were used to test the proposed LST methods. The calculated and measured LST were compared in a range of statistical analysis, and the analysis showed that the average RMSE(root mean square error),MAD(mean absolute deviation), and R~2(correlation coefficient) for three horizontal sites were 5.09℃,3.66℃, 0.92, and 5.03℃, 3.52℃, 0.85 for the fourteen complex terrain sites. The proposed methods showed acceptable accuracy, provide a simple way to estimate LST, and will be helpful for simulating the water and energy cycles in alpine mountainous terrain.     

Groundwater flow system in Bengal Delta,Bangladesh revealed by environmental isotopes

A total number of 328 groundwater samples are analysed to evaluate the groundwater flow systems in Bengal Delta aquifers, Bangladesh using environmental isotope (²H, ¹⁸O, ¹³C, ³H, and ¹⁴C) techniques. A well-defined Local Meteoric Water Line (LMWL) δ²H = 7.7 δ¹⁸O + 10.7 ‰ is constructed applying linear correlation analyses to the monthly weighted rainfall isotopic compositions (δ¹⁸O and δ²H). The δ¹⁸O and δ²H concentrations of all groundwater samples in the study area are plotted more or less over the LMWL, which provides compelling evidence that all groundwaters are derived from rainfall and floodwater with a minor localized evaporation effects for the shallow groundwaters. Tritium concentration is observed in 40 samples out of 41 with values varying between 0.3 and 5.0 TU, which represents an evidence of young water recharge to the shallow and intermediate aquifers. A decreasing trend of ¹⁴C activity is associated with the heavier δ¹³C values, which indicates the presence of geochemical reactions affecting the ¹⁴C concentration along the groundwater flow system. Both vertical and lateral decrease of ¹⁴C activity toward down gradient show the presence of regional groundwater flow commencing from the unconfined aquifers, which discharges along the coastal regions. Finally, shallow, intermediate, and deep groundwater flow dynamics has revealed in the Bengal Delta aquifers, Bangladesh.