Impact of Doppler weather radar data on thunderstorm simulation during STORM pilot phase—2009

This study assesses the impact of Doppler weather radar (DWR) data (reflectivity and radial wind) assimilation on the simulation of severe thunderstorms (STS) events over the Indian monsoon region. Two different events that occurred during the Severe Thunderstorms Observations and Regional Modeling (STORM) pilot phase in 2009 were simulated. Numerical experiments—3DV (assimilation of DWR observations) and CNTL (without data assimilation)—were conducted using the three-dimensional variational data assimilation technique with the Advanced Research Weather Research and Forecasting model (WRF-ARW). The results show that consistent with prior studies the 3DV experiment, initialized by assimilation of DWR observations, performed better than the CNTL experiment over the Indian region. The enhanced performance was a result of improved representation and simulation of wind and moisture fields in the boundary layer at the initial time in the model. Assimilating DWR data caused higher moisture incursion and increased instability, which led to stronger convective activity in the simulations. Overall, the dynamic and thermodynamic features of the two thunderstorms were consistently better simulated after ingesting DWR data, as compared to the CNTL simulation. In the 3DV experiment, higher instability was observed in the analyses of thermodynamic indices and equivalent potential temperature (θ _e) fields. Maximum convergence during the mature stage was also noted, consistent with maximum vertical velocities in the assimilation experiment (3DV). In addition, simulated hydrometeor (water vapor mixing ratio, cloud water mixing ratio, and rain water mixing ratio) structures improved with the 3DV experiment, compared to that of CNTL. From the higher equitable threat scores, it is evident that the assimilation of DWR data enhanced the skill in rainfall prediction associated with the STS over the Indian monsoon region. These results add to the body of evidence now which provide consistent and notable improvements in the mesoscale model results over the Indian monsoon region after assimilating DWR fields.     

The X-ray intensity-hardness ratio relation in LMXRB

It is sometimes suggested that the change from the horizontal to the normal branch in the X-ray intensity-hardness ratio diagram of low mass X-ray binaries, is due to a change from a thin to a thick disk. It is shown here that wind from the hot thick disk depletes the amount of matter reaching the neutron star, thus causing the observed reduction of X-ray intensity as hardness ratio decreases in the normal branch.     

Hα emission from late type be stars

We show here that the Hα flux from late type Be stars can be explained as emission from an HII region formed in the gas envelope around the Be star, by the UV flux emitted by a helium star binary companion. We also discuss the observability of the helium star companions.     

Soil characterization based on land cover heterogeneity over a tropical landscape: an integrated approach using earth observation data-sets

Soil is a vital part of the natural environment and is always responding to changes in environmental factors, along with the influences of anthropogenic factors and land use changes. The long-term change in soil properties will result in change in soil health and fertility, and hence the soil productivity. Hence, the main aim of this paper focuses on the analysis of land use/land cover (LULC) change pattern in spatial and temporal perspective and to present its impact on soil properties in the Merawu catchment over the period of 18?years. Post classification change detection was performed to quantify the decadal changes in historical LULC over the periods of 1991, 2001 and 2009. The pixel to pixel comparison method was used to detect the LULC of the area. The key LULC types were selected for investigation of soil properties. Soil samples were analysed in situ to measure the physicochemical soil properties. The results of this study show remarkable changes in LULC in the period of 18?years. The effect of land cover change on soil properties, soil compaction and soil strength was found to be significant at a level of <0.05.     

Thermal convection instability of liquid metals in magneto-hydrodynamics

The problem of thermal convection instability of a horizontal layer of magnetized fluid has been studied to occur crystal growing under the effect of horizontal temperature gradient. In the study, the problem has been reduced to an eigen-value problem for a stream function. The dispersion relations for low viscosity fluid and high viscosity fluid respectively have been discussed analytically and some numerical results have been obtained. It is shown that the critical Rayleigh number and other its related constants for low viscosity fluid (i.e., mercury) are much differ than the high viscosity fluid (i.e., glycerol).     

Nonlinear electrostatic drift Kelvin-Helmholtz instability

Nonlinear analysis of electrostatic drift Kelvin-Helmholtz instability is performed. It is shown that the analysis leads to the propagation of the weakly nonlinear dispersive waves and the nonlinear behaviour is governed by the nonlinear Burger's equation.     

Equivalent width of interstellar molecular lines

We have made an analysis of the observed equivalent widths of the lines of Lyman and Werner bands by Smith. The H₂ column densities of 3×10¹⁹ to 10²⁰ and the excitation temperature of 80 to 150 K satisfy the observations. This temperature refers to the kinetic temperature. We have also discussed the importance of getting the excitation temperature from lines of H₂ and other heteronuclear diatomic molecules for the same star and from different regions of space.     

A cocoon model for thermal X-ray sources and ‘Oscillars’

A gas cocoon surrounding a neutron star can be heated to a high temperature by the low frequency radiation emitted by the neutron star whose rotation axis is inclined to its magnetic axis. This heated gas can emit X-rays and may be identified with thermal X-ray sources. If the neutron star emission shows periodicities larger than the cooling time of the gas, these will be reflected in the emission of X-ray; the recently observed X-ray sources which show oscillations and quasiperiodicities (Oscillars) may be such sources.     

Unsteady flow of a non-Newtonian visco-elastic fluid between two coaxial circular cylinders

In this paper, the flow of a visco-elastic liquid between two coaxial circular cylinders has been studied when inner cylinder is moving from rest for a certain period with linearly growing speed and then stops suddenly. The Laplace transform technique has been employed to solve the basic differential equations. The expression for the velocity field is obtained.