Representativeness of wind measurements on a mesoscale grid with station separations of 312 m to 10 km

A field experiment was carried out in which wind speed and direction were measured over flat terrain at a height of 10 m using 13 identical instruments spaced logarithmically along two perpendicular 10 km lines. Station separations ranged from 312 m to 10 km. One-minute data from 11 sampling periods of duration 6 to 10 h were studied. p ]The statistics showed little dependence on whether the line of instruments was oriented along the wind or across the wind. The correlation coefficients between wind fluctuations at two stations separated by distance x were found to vary exponentially with x, with an integral distance scale on the order of 1 km. The integral time scale derived from the variation of the single station variances with averaging time was found to equal several minutes. At a station separation of 10 km, the correlation coefficients between the wind components at the two sites were calculated to be 0.24, 0.37, and 0.47 for averaging times of 1, 10, and 60 min, respectively. These values for the correlation coefficients correspond to root-mean-square differences in wind speed at the two stations of about 1.3, 1.0, and 0.7 m/s, respectively.Exponential formulas based on dimensional analysis are suggested for fitting these observations. It is found that the observations of spatial correlations are best fit if two independent integral distance scales are used — a boundary-layer distance scale of about 300 m that best applies to small station separations and a mesoscale distance scale of about 10 km that applies to larger station separations.     

Statistical simulations of the future 50-year statistics of cold-tongue El Niño and warm-pool El Niño

Recent extensive studies have suggested that the occurrence of warm-pool El Niño has increased since the late 1970s and will increase in future climate. Occurrence frequencies of cold-tongue and warm-pool El Niño have been investigated in the observational record (1980–2006) and in the future 50 years (2007–2056) based on 100 synthetic SST datasets with estimates of statistical confidence. In the observational record, 80% of the warm-pool El Niño occurred since 1980 over a period of 27 years; only 20% of the warm-pool El Niño occurred prior to 1980 over a period of 110 years. The 100 synthetic datasets, on average, produce 142 months of cold-tongue El Niño in 2007–2056 as opposed to an average 107 months in the same length of the observational data; this is a 20.7% increase in the occurrence of cold-tongue El Niño compared with the observational period. Warm-pool El Niño occurred for 112 months in 2007–2056 as opposed to an average occurrence of 42 months in the observational record; this is 2.5 times the occurrence frequency in the 1980–2006 period in the synthetic datasets. As a result, occurrence frequencies of cold-tongue and warm-pool El Niño in the period of 2007–2056 become quite comparable to each other in the synthetic datasets. It is expected in the next 50 years that warm-pool El Niño will be nearly as frequent as cold-tongue El Niño.     

Water balance estimation under the challenge of data scarcity in a hyperarid to Mediterranean region

Water budget analyses are important for the evaluation of the water resources in semiarid and arid regions. The lack of observed data is the major obstacle for hydrological modelling in arid regions. The aim of this study is the analysis and calculation of the natural water resources of the Western Dead Sea subsurface catchment, one which is highly sensitive to rainfall resulting in highly variable temporal and spatial groundwater recharge. We focus on the subsurface catchment and subsequently apply the findings to a large‐scale groundwater flow model to estimate the groundwater discharge to the Dead Sea. We apply a semidistributed hydrological model (J2000g), originally developed for the Mediterranean, to the hyperarid region of the Western Dead Sea catchment, where runoff data and meteorological records are sparsely available. The challenge is to simulate the water budget, where the localized nature of extreme rainstorms together with sparse runoff data results in few observed runoff and recharge events. To overcome the scarcity of climate input data, we enhance the database with mean monthly rainfall data. The rainfall data of 2 satellites are shown to be unsuitable to fill the missing rainfall data due to underrepresentation of the steep hydrological gradient and temporal resolution. Hydrological models need to be calibrated against measured values; hence, the absence of adequate data can be problematic. Therefore, our calibration approach is based on a nested strategy of diverse observations. We calculate a direct surface runoff of the Western Dead Sea surface area (1,801 km²) of 3.4 mm/a and an average recharge (36.7 mm/a) for the 3,816 km² subsurface drainage basin of the Cretaceous aquifer system.     

Scattering of obliquely incident water waves by partially reflecting non-transmitting breakwaters

In the present paper, analytic solutions are derived for scattering of water waves obliquely incident to a partially reflecting semi-infinite breakwater or breakwater gap. In order to examine the correctness of the derived solutions, they are compared with the solutions derived by McIver (1999) and Bowen and McIver (2002) for a semi-infinite breakwater and a breakwater gap, respectively, in the case of perfect reflection. The derived analytic solutions are used to investigate the effect of reflection coefficient of the breakwater and wave incident angle upon the tranquility at harbor entrance. The tranquility is deteriorated by the reflected waves as the reflection coefficient increases and as waves are incident more obliquely.     

Speleothem evidence for late Holocene climate variability and floods in Southern Greece

We present stable isotope data (δ¹⁸O, δ¹³C) from a detrital rich stalagmite from Kapsia Cave, the Peloponnese, Greece. The cave is rich in archeological remains and there are reasons to believe that flooding of the cave has directly affected humans using the cave. Using a combination of U–Th and ¹⁴C dating to constrain a site-specific correction factor for (²³²Th/²³⁸U) detrital molar ratio, a linear age model was constructed. The age model shows that the stalagmite grew during the period from ca. 950 BC to ca. AD 830. The stable oxygen record from Kapsia indicates cyclical changes of close to 500 yr in precipitation amount, with rapid shifts towards wetter conditions followed by slowly developing aridity. Superimposed on this signal, wetter conditions are inferred around 850, 700, 500 and 400–100 BC, and around AD 160–300 and AD 770; and driest conditions are inferred to have occurred around 450 BC, AD 100–150 and AD 650. Detrital horizons in the stalagmite indicate that three major floods took place in the cave at 500 BC, 70 BC and AD 450. The stable carbon isotope record reflects changes in biological activity being a result of both climate and human activities.     

The role of geological heterogeneity and variability in water infiltration on non-aqueous phase liquid migration

This study investigates the influence of two factors—geological heterogeneity and variability in water infiltration—on non-aqueous phase liquid (NAPL) migration in the unsaturated zone. NAPL migration under three-phase flow conditions resulting from a ground surface spill is modeled for multiple heterogeneous realizations of a porous medium with various water infiltration scenarios. Increased water infiltration before the spill has two counteracting effects: NAPL relative permeability (k _rn) increases with increasing water saturation (S _w) for a given NAPL saturation, while higher S _w in the soil near the NAPL source zone leads to less NAPL mass infiltration. It is found that the former effect is overwhelmed by the latter effect, the net effect being that with longer infiltration durations before the spill, both the infiltrated NAPL mass and the depth of the front migration decrease. Simulation results also show strong effect of the medium heterogeneity. Results suggest that total infiltrated mass, front depth and plume spread increase with an increasing standard deviation of log-permeability. Also variability in modeling results among realizations is largely impacted by the log-permeability standard deviation. Spatial correlation in permeability also strongly influences NAPL infiltration. An increase in the isotropic correlation length from 0.75 to 1.5 m leads to a decrease in total infiltrated mass, plume migration depth as well as vertical spread. Lateral spread in this case is not shown to be affected by the correlation length.     

The petrogenetic association of carbonatite and alkaline magmatism: constraints from the Masfut-Rawda Ridge, Northern Oman Mountains

Summary ?A new occurrence of carbonatites associated with intrusive ijolite and syenite has been discovered within the Hawasina Complex underlying the Semail Ophiolite Complex at the southern part of the Rawda-Masfut ridge, Northern Oman Mountains. The carbonatites occur as dikes and sills with lengths of several hundreds of meters and range in composition from calciocarbonatites to ferruginous calciocarbonatites. The carbonatites intruded the ijolite and the associated radiolarian cherts of the Early Cretaceous Sid’r Formation. The close spatial association of carbonatite, ijolite, syenite and radiolarian cherts along with geological, petrographical and geochemical data indicates that these rocks are of intra-oceanic origin. Petrological and field relationships between the carbonatite and associated alkaline silicate intrusives from the Masfut area are consistent with the carbonatites being generated as derivative magmas through liquid immiscibility. They appear to represent magmas related to the volcanism associated with regional crustal extension that preceded the genesis of the Semail Ophiolite. Received April 19, 2001; revised version accepted February 18, 2002