Interception losses of rainfall from Cashew trees

The rainfall interception losses from Cashew trees were quantified, based on the records of 105 selected storms within the range 25.0 mm, occurring in a humid tropical region at Kottamparamba, India.

The storage capacity of the Cashew trees was worked out as 0.8 mm and the throughfall coefficient as 0.391. The trees under observation were 15–20 years of age with a leaf area index of 1.0–1.25.

About 31% of the storm rainfall for storms 25.0 mm was intercepted by the Cashew trees and lost to the atmosphere.

The measured interception losses from the trees were compared with the estimated interception losses using the analytical model of Gash (1979). The predicted interception losses from the Cashew trees were within ± 10% for storms with total rainfall 10.0 mm and within ± 22% for storms with a rainfall of 10.1–25.0 mm.     

Remanent magnetism of dykes and continental drift

Summary The possibility of utilising the results of remaeent magnetism of sub-surface bodies, as obtained from the magnetic surveys, for the study of continental drift is presented. As an example, the quartz-magnetite bands occurring at Ongole, Andhra Pradesh, India have been magnetically surveyed. A modified method for the interpretation of magnetic anomalies of infinite dykes has been presented and is used for the interpretation of field profiles. A remanent magnetic vector with an up dip of 26° lying exactly in the present magnetic meridian has been obtained, which yields the ancient latitude of India (Reference Town being Nagpur) to be 9°S of equator at an age of 1400 million years.     

Impact of anthropogenic activity and cyclonic storm on black carbon during winter at a tropical urban city,Pune

Black carbon (BC) aerosols are emitted into the atmosphere as a byproduct of different combustion processes and are reported to be a very strong absorber of solar radiation. In this paper, we present results on BC aerosols over Pune, a tropical urban city in south west India during Diwali festival in the month of November 2010. Daily mean BC showed about 5 % increase on Diwali day compared with preceding and succeeding period with concentrations reaching as high as about 21 μg/m³ in the morning on Diwali day, mainly due to the influence of extensive fireworks. However, the strong winds accompanied by occasional rainfall due to severe cyclonic storm “Jal” formed in the Bay of Bengal on the same day dampened this effect and reduced BC to about 2 μg/m³ within 6 h. There was only 5 % increase in mean BC concentration on Diwali day during 2010 as compared to the average increase of about 17 % during preceding 4 years on Diwali day, mainly due to the impact of weather conditions induced by Jal.     

Sb2 Te3 纳米结构的制备与表征

以室温热电性能优异的传统热电材料Sb₂Te₃为研究对象,利用化学气相沉积法制备Sb₂Te₃单晶纳米结构,并研究其生长机理.实验结果表明,不加催化剂时Sb₂Te₃易生长成六方纳米盘,在金催化剂条件下定向生长成纳米线.Sb₂Te₃的形貌与其晶体结构和生长机理有关.Sb₂Te₃为三角结构,Sb和     

Instruments of RT-2 experiment onboard CORONAS�CPHOTON and their test and evaluation V: onboard software, data structure, telemetry and telecommand

The onboard software and data communication in the RT-2 Experiment onboard the Coronas?CPhoton satellite is organized in a hierarchical way to effectively handle and communicate asynchronous data generated by the X-ray detectors. A flexible data handling system is organized in the X-ray detector packages themselves and the processing electronic device, namely RT-2/E, has the necessary intelligence to communicate with the three scientific payloads by issuing commands and receiving data. It has direct interfacing with the Satellite systems and issues commands to the detectors and processes the detector data before sending to the satellite systems. The onboard software is configured with several novel features like (a) device independent communication scheme, (b) loss-less data compression and (c) Digital Signal Processor. Functionality of the onboard software along with the data structure, command structure, complex processing scheme etc. are discussed in this paper.     

Mineralogy, chemistry and genesis of Nishikhal manganese ores of South Orissa, India

Manganese ores of Nishikhal occur as distinctly conformable bands in the khondalite suite of rocks belonging to the Precambrian Eastern Ghats complex of south Orissa, India. Manganese minerals recorded are cryptomelane, romanechite, pyrolusite, with minor amounts of jacobsite, hausmannite, braunite, lithiophorite, birnessite and pyrophanite. Goethite, graphite, hematite and magnetite are the other opaque minerals and quartz, orthoclase, garnet, kaolinite, apatite, collophane, fibrolite, zircon, biotite and muscovite are the gangue minerals associated with these ores. The mineral chemistry of some of the phases, as well as the modes of association of phosphorous in these ores have been established. The occurrence of well-defined bands of manganese ore; co-folding of manganese ore bands and associated metasedimentary country rocks; the min-eral assemblage of spessartite-sillimanite-braunite-jacobsite-hausmannite; the geochemical association of Mn-Ba-Co-Ni-Zn together with the Si versus Al and Na versus Mg plots of the manganese ores suggest that the Nishikhal deposit is a metamorphosed Precambrian lacustrine deposit. Continental weathering appears to be the source for manganese and iron. After deposition and probable diagenesis, the manganese-rich sediments were metamorphosed along with conformable psammitic and pelitic sediments under granulite facies conditions, and subsequently underwent supergene enrichment to produce the present deposit. Received: 14 March 1995 / Accepted: 11 April 1996     

Ionization effects from cosmic sources of x-rays in the lower atmosphere

Detectable ionization effects in the ionosphericD-region from individual, strong and steady x-ray sources such as Sco X-1 and transient x-ray sources such as Cet X-2 have been reported by us and many others previously based on the field strength and phase variations of the VLF data. As a follow up to these investigations, we have examined the integrated effects of many of the known x-ray sources discovered by UHURU, ANS, Ariel V and SAS-3 satellites, in order to understand the totality of their effects. These effects are examined in the present paper for 0° and +38° geographic latitudes corresponding to midnight conditions and for different times of the year. Such effects are compared, in turn, with those of the known steady sources responsible forD-region ionization such as Lyman-alpha and galactic cosmic radiations. The results are presented as profiles of electron production rates as a function of height. Our study leads to the conclusion that there should be detectable annual variations of the electron density which are pronounced around May-August. Further, the results of the computations on electron production rates corresponding to the spectacular x-ray nova A0620-00 are also included in the present paper.     

Tropical cyclone prediction over Bay of Bengal: a comparison of the performance of NCEP operational HWRF, NCAR ARW, and MM5 models

Much progress has been made in the area of tropical cyclone prediction using high-resolution mesoscale models based on community models developed at National Centers for Environmental Predication (NCEP) and National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). While most of these model research and development activities are focused on predicting hurricanes in the Atlantic and Eastern Pacific domains, there has been much interest in using these models for tropical cyclone prediction in the North Indian Ocean region, particularly for Bay of Bengal storms that are known historically causing severe damage to life and property. In this study, the advanced operational hurricane modeling system developed at NCEP, known as the Hurricane Weather Research and Forecast (HWRF) model, is used to simulate two recent Bay of Bengal tropical cyclones??Nargis of November 2007 and Sidr of April 2008. The advanced NCEP operational vortex initialization procedure is adapted for simulating these Bay of Bengal tropical cyclones. Two additional regional models, the NCAR Advanced Research WRF and NCAR/Penn State University Mesoscale Model version 5 (MM5) are also used in simulating these storms. Results from these experiments highlight the superior performance of HWRF model over other models in predicting the Bay of Bengal cyclones. These results also suggest the need for a sophisticated vortex initialization procedure in conjunction with a model designed exclusively for tropical cyclone prediction for operational considerations.     

Delineation of intra crustal horizon in Eastern Dharwar Craton – An aeromagnetic evidence

A correlative study of two mutually independent geophysical properties like magnetic susceptibility variations and shear wave velocity structure of the crust has been carried out in a part of the Eastern Dharwar Craton of Indian peninsular shield. Analysis of the aeromagnetic anomaly field over an area of 35,000 km² comprising the peninsular gneissic basement complex and a part of Cuddapah Basin has resulted in identification of two distinct magnetic horizons: one at a depth of 2 km and the other at a depth of 12 km. Correlation of these results with the inferences made by the inversion of Rayleigh wave phase velocity and other geophysical studies has confirmed the presence of a crustal layer at a depth of 12 km. This horizon has been inferred to be the depth to the lower boundary of the upper crust in this region.