Snowdrift effect on snow deposition: Insights from a comparison of a snow pit profile and meteorological observations in east Antarctica

A high-frequency and precise ultrasonic sounder was used to monitor precipitated/deposited and drift snow events over a 3-year period(17 January 2005 to 4 January 2008) at the Eagle automatic weather station site,inland Antarctica.Ion species and oxygen isotope ratios were also generated from a snow pit below the sensor.These accumulation and snowdrift events were used to examine the synchronism with seasonal variations of δ~(18)O and ion species,providing an opportunity to assess the snowdrift effect in typical Antarctic inland conditions.There were up to 1-year differences for this 3-year-long snow pit between the traditional dating method and ultrasonic records.This difference implies that in areas with low accumulation or high wind,the snowdrift effect can induce abnormal disturbances on snow deposition.The snowdrift effect should be seriously taken into account for high-resolution dating of ice cores and estimation of surface mass balance,especially when the morphology of most Antarctic inland areas is similar to that of the Eagle site.     

Frequency-dependent rupture process,stress change,and seismogenic mechanism of the 25 April 2015 Nepal Gorkha <Emphasis Type="Italic">M</Emphasis><Subscript>w</Subscript> 7.8 earthquake

On 25 April 2015, an M _w 7.8 earthquake occurred on the Main Himalaya Thrust fault with a dip angle of ~ 7° about 77 km northwest of Kathmandu, Nepal. This Nepal Gorkha event is the largest one on the Himalayan thrust belt since 1950. Here we use the compressive sensing method in the frequency domain to track the seismic radiation and rupture process of this event using teleseismic P waves recorded by array stations in North America. We also compute the distribution of static shear stress changes on the fault plane from a coseismic slip model. Our results indicate a dominant east-southeastward unilateral rupture process from the epicenter with an average rupture speed of ~3 km s^?1. Coseismic radiation of this earthquake shows clear frequency-dependent features. The lower frequency (0.05–0.3 Hz) radiation mainly originates from large coseismic slip regions with negative coseismic shear stress changes. In comparison, higher frequency (0.3–0.6 Hz) radiation appears to be from the down-dip part around the margin of large slip areas, which has been loaded and presents positive coseismic shear stress changes. We propose an asperity model to interpret this Nepal earthquake sequence and compare the frequency-dependent coseismic radiation with that in subduction zones. Such frequency-dependent radiation indicates the depth-varying frictional properties on the plate interface of the Nepal section in the main Himalaya thrust system, similar to previous findings in oceanic subduction zones. Our findings provide further evidence of the spatial correlation between changes of static stress status on the fault plane and the observed frequency-dependent coseismic radiation during large earthquakes. Our results show that the frequency-dependent coseismic radiation is not only found for megathrust earthquakes in the oceanic subduction environment, but also holds true for thrust events in the continental collision zone.     

复杂地表条件下高斯波束叠前深度偏移(英文)

在复杂地表条件的区域,地震数据的采集和处理是一项极大的挑战。虽然可以通过静校正来消除起伏地表的影响,然而当地表高程以及近地表速度剧烈变化时,简单的垂直时移对地震波场造成的畸变会严重降低偏移成像的质量。基于射线的偏移方法可以直接在起伏地表面进行波场的延拓成像,是解决上述问题的有效手段。本文针对复杂地表条件下的高斯波束叠前深度偏移进行研究,对倾斜叠加公式进行修改,使之包含地表高程以及速度的信息,通过直接在复杂地表面进行平面波的合成,得到了一种具有更高成像精度的改进方法。首先简单介绍常规高斯波束偏移的基本原理和计算流程,并以此为基础,给出复杂地表条件下高斯波束偏移原有的实现方法以及本文的改进方法,最后通过模型和实际资料的试算验证本文方法的有效性。     

C#和FORTRAN混合编程在地震速度分析中的应用

本文针对交互式速度分析模块的开发技术进行讨论,融入选择性相关法速度分析理论,增加了对转换波进行速度分析的功能,并充分利用C#提供的强大的图形界面开发平台和FORTRAN语言在科学计算方面的优势,通过混合编程,将两者有机地结合起来,形成了一套精巧和便于移植的交互式地震速度分析软件.软件借助优化算法和速度分析的交互性提高了速度分析的效率和精度,并通过模型分析,将该软件用于浅层及井(巷)隧(道)探测的地质环境中.     

基于星载GPS的HY-2卫星高精度精密定轨模拟研究(英文)

HY-2卫星是我国第一颗测高卫星,其径向定轨精度要求厘米量级,搭载了星载GPS接收机。目前HY-2还处于测试阶段,没有公布观测数据。为了确定基于星载GPS的HY-2精密定轨流程及其定轨精度,本文模拟了HY-2卫星星载GPS观测数据,结果表明HY-2星载GPS天线每个历元至少观测7颗GPS卫星。给出了基于星载GPS的精密定轨流程,分别采用简化动力学方法和动态几何法进行了精密定轨实验。对于相位1mm和3mm随机误差的相位观测数据,简化动力学法和动态几何法定轨都能够实现厘米量级的径向精密定轨,几何法定轨精度略低于简化动力定轨。地球重力场模型是影响HY-2卫星精密定轨的重要因素,本文对不同阶次的重力场模型EIGEN2、EGM96、TEG4和GEMT3进行了简化动力学定轨实验,高于50阶次的重力场模型都能够实现厘米级径向精密定轨,主要原因在于大量的高精度星载GPS观测数据和重力场模型精度的提高。     

Assessing environmental risks through fuzzy parameterized probabilistic analysis

A fuzzy parameterized probabilistic analysis (FPPA) method was developed in this study to assess risks associated with environmental pollution-control problems. FPPA integrated environmental transport modeling, fuzzy transformation, probabilistic risk assessment, fuzzy risk quantification into a general risk assessment framework, and was capable of handling uncertainties expressed as fuzzy-parameterized stochastic distributions. The proposed method was applied to two environmental pollution problems, with one being about the point-source pollution in a river system with uncertain water quality parameters and the other being concerned with groundwater contaminant plume from waste landfill site with poorly known contaminant physical properties. The study results indicated that the complex uncertain features had significant impacts on modeling and risk-assessment outputs; the degree of impacts of modeling parameters were highly dependent on the level of imprecision of these parameters. The results also implied that FPPA was capable of addressing vagueness or imprecision associated with probabilistic risk evaluation, and help generate risk outputs that could be elucidated under different possibilistic levels. The proposed method could be used by environmental managers to evaluate trade-offs involving risks and costs, as well as identify management solutions that sufficiently hedge against dual uncertainties.     

利用前兆事件对云南地区地震进行中短期预测研究

对某些类型的主震事件, 进行中短期预测也许是可能的. 利用Varnes, Bufe和Varnes提出的破裂时间法模拟前兆地震能量加速释放模型,通过实际观测资料与理论公式的拟合, 可以建立主地震事件的中短期预测技术, 用以确定表示主震的地点、时间和震级大小. 本文使用的是云南区域台网的地震目录资料,覆盖的时间段为1965~2002年. 统计分析表明,在此37年时间内,等于或大于2.5级地震资料是相当完整的. 本文对云南地区的30次主震事件进行了模拟,其中25次主震事件由前兆序列模拟得到的预测时间和震级与实际值相当接近,主震震级预测精度约0.57个震级单位,假定已知前兆序列中最后一次事件,则预测主震发生时间误差约0.64年.对另外的5次主震事件,由于没有足够的前兆事件来充分确定前兆能量加速曲线或是存在对能量加速释放曲线的干扰事件,而不能进行破裂时间法模拟.本文的研究结果还表明,由于云南是破坏性地震和中小地震活跃的地区,因此,主地震与前兆事件最佳搜索半径不存在明显的线性关系.主震矩与系数k,m之间存在强烈的相关性,利用主震地震矩与系数的关系和限制指数m的取值范围,可进一步缩小预测时间和预测震级的最佳拟合区范围,提高了模拟主震事件的预测精度. 本文采用破裂时间法对30次主震事件进行拟合,80％以上获得了较好的结果. 显示出该方法在预测已知主震事件序列的能力方面大有希望,因此,利用前兆事件对未来主震事件进行中短期预测的前景是令人鼓舞的.     

2001年昆仑山口西MS8.1地震地表同震位移分布特征

沿长约 4 2 6km的 2 0 0 1年昆仑山口西MS8 1地震地表破裂带共获得 2 91个点的地表同震水平左旋位移数据 ,并在其中 1 1 1个点获得了垂直位移数据。该地震总体以左旋水平位移为主 ,兼具一定的垂直位移。最大地表左旋水平位移值可达 6 4m ,平均水平位移约为 2 7m ,绝大多数测点的垂直位移均 <1m。地表水平位移沿主破裂带走向位移梯度变化于 1 0 - 1～ 1 0 - 4之间 ,这一起伏变化可能起因于野外测量误差、沿主破裂带岩性或松散沉积物厚度的变化、地表破裂带几何结构的不均匀性、地表破裂走向的变化、不同破裂段在昆仑山口西 8 1级地震之前的地震中滑动量的起伏变化 ,以及大量非脆性变形、次级破裂的存在等。水平位移沿主破裂带的长波长 (数十公里至数百公里 )起伏变化较有规律 ,在布喀达坂峰以东表现为分别以 5个水平位移峰值为中心而有规律地起伏变化。这5个位移峰值分别对应于不同的次级地震地表破裂段。各破裂段水平位移峰值均向阶区或拐点逐渐衰减 ,不同地表破裂段位移峰值向两侧衰减的速率是不同的 ,这种位移梯度的不对称分布可能指示了地震破裂的扩展方向。上述位移分布特征真实地反映了地表可见脆     

Agricultural effluent control under uncertainty: An inexact double-sided fuzzy chance-constrained model

An inexact double-sided fuzzy chance-constrained programming (IDFCCP) method was developed in this study and applied to an agricultural effluent control management problem. IDFCCP was formulated through incorporating interval linear programming (ILP) into a double-sided fuzzy chance-constrained programming (DFCCP) framework, and could be used to deal with uncertainties expressed as not only possibility distributions associated with both left- and right-hand-side components of constraints but also discrete intervals in the objective function. The study results indicated that IDFCCP allowed violation of system constraints at specified confidence levels, where each confidence level consisted of two reliability scenarios. This could lead to model solutions with high system benefits under acceptable risk magnitudes. Furthermore, the introduction of ILP allowed uncertain information presented as discrete intervals to be communicated into the optimization process, such that a variety of decision alternatives can be generated by adjusting the decision-variable values within their intervals. The proposed model could help decision makers establish various production patterns with cost-effective water quality management schemes under complex uncertainties, and gain in-depth insights into the trade-offs between system economy and reliability.     

Possible climate change/variability and human impacts,vulnerability of drought-prone regions,water resources and capacity building for Africa

ABSTRACT

This review article discusses the climate, water resources and historical droughts of Africa, drought indices, vulnerability, impact of global warming and land use for drought-prone regions in West, southern and the Greater Horn of Africa, which have suffered recurrent severe droughts in the past. Recent studies detected warming and drying trends in Africa since the mid 20th century. Based on the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5), both northern and southern Africa are projected to experience drying, such as decreasing precipitation, runoff and soil moisture in the 21st century and could become more vulnerable to the impact of droughts. The daily maximum temperature is projected to increase by up to 8°C (RCP8.5 of CMIP5), precipitation indices such as total wet day precipitation (PRCPTOT) and heavy precipitation days (R10 mm) could decrease, while warm spell duration (WSDI) and consecutive dry days (CDD) could increase. Uncertainties of the above long-term projections, teleconnections to climate anomalies such as ENSO and the Madden-Julian Oscillation, which could also affect the water resources of Africa, and capacity building in terms of physical infrastructure and non-structural solutions are also discussed. Given that traditional climate and hydrological data observed in Africa are generally limited, satellite data should also be exploited to fill the data gap for Africa in the future.

Editor D. Koutsoyiannis; Associate editor N. Ilich