Adiabatic radial pulsations of a composite stellar model

Small adiabatic radial oscillations of composite models have been investigated. The effect of central condensation ρ_c√ρ on the period of pulsation have also been examined. In has been shown that the second moment of mass concentration characterize the periods of pulsation more effectively than central condensation.     

Characteristics of Enhanced and Low Amplitude Anisotropic Wave Trains and Interplanetary Transients

The occurrence of a large number of high and low amplitude anisotropic wave train events over the years 1981–1994 has been examined along with the different solar features. The results indicate that the time of maximum of diurnal variation significantly remains in the 18-h direction for majority of the high and low amplitude wave trains. The amplitude of diurnal anisotropy remains significantly high and phase shifts towards earlier hours as compared to the quite day annual average values for majority of the HAEs. The diurnal amplitude remains significantly low and phase shifts towards earlier hours as compared to the quiet day annual average values for majority of the LAEs. The occurrence of these enhanced/low amplitude events is found to be dominant during the positive polarity of the Bz component of the interplanetary magnetic field. The amplitude of the diurnal anisotropy of these events is found to increase on the days of magnetic cloud as compared to the days prior to the event and it found to decrease during the later period of the event as the cloud passes the Earth. The high-speed solar wind streams do not play any significant role in causing these types of events. The interplanetary disturbances (magnetic clouds) are also effective in producing cosmic ray decreases.     

Assessment of Liquefaction Potential of the Sediments of Chandigarh Area

Assessment of the liquefaction potential is one of the important aspects for earthquake hazard assessment. Liquefaction in the sediments during earthquake events may cause significant ground deformation, which in turn, may lead to significant structural damages to civil or engineering structures, further leading to loss of life and property. Liquefaction in sediments occurs in specific geological and geoenvironmental conditions under the influence of a certain level of earthquake shaking.In this paper an assessment of the liquefaction potential of the sediments present in and around Chandigarh has been made. The sub-surface disposition and geotechnical properties of the sedimentary units mapped and depth wise probed by drilling 24 shallow boreholes prima facie indicates susceptibility of interlayed sequence to liquefaction. The conditioning factors and geoenvironmental conditions essential for occurrence of liquefaction have been integrated and analysed to determine potential areas for liquefaction around the Union Territory of Chandigarh with respect to different levels of ground acceleration values expected in the area due to earthquake events.     

Neotectonic Activity from Karewa Sediments,Kashmir Himalaya,India

Intermontane basin sedimentation occurred during Pliocene-Pleistocene in the Karewa Basin which formed after the continent-continent collision resulting in the formation of Himalayan orogenic belt around Eocene. These are elongated, narrow, thrust bounded basins which have formed during the late stages of orogeny. Situated at a height of 1700–1800 m above sea level, the Karewa basin received sediments because of ponding of a pre-existing river system and the tectonic movements along the Great Himalayan Ranges in the north and the Pir-Panjal ranges in the south along active faults. About 1300 m thick sediments of largely fluvio-lacustrine, glacio-fluvio-lacustrine and eolian origin are exposed having evidences of neotectonically formed structural features such as folds and faults. Folds are more prominent in the Lower Karewa formation (Hirpur Formation) while faults (mostly normal faults) are abundant in the Upper Karewas (Nagum Formation). Drainage in the area varies from dendritic to anastomosing to parallel. Anastomosing drainage suggests sudden decrease in gradient while presence of linear features such as faults and ridges is evident by parallel drainage. Study of morphometric parameters such as stream length (Lsm) and stream length ratios (RL), bifurcation ratio (Rb), drainage density (D), form factor (Rf), circularity ratio (Rc), and elongation ratio (Re) also indicate intense tectonic activity in the recent past.     

Overturned jointed non-sheared granite block emplaced on sheared non-jointed Alum shale

International Journal of Earth Sciences -     

Simulated Heat Content Variability in the Upper Layers of the Tropical Indian Ocean

Ocean General Circulation Model (OGCM) simulations from 1970–2007 are used to study the upper ocean heat content variability in the Tropical Indian Ocean (TIO). Model computed heat contents up to 50 m (denoted by HC50 m hereafter) representing upper ocean heat content and 300 m (HC300 m) representing heat content up to thermocline depth are first compared with heat contents computed from observations of two buoys in the TIO. It is found that there is good agreement between the model and observations. Fourier analysis of heat content is carried out in different regions of TIO. The amplitudes of semi-annual variability for HC50 m and HC300 m are observed to be greater than those for the annual variability in the Bay of Bengal, while in the Arabian Sea there is a mixed result. Heat content tendency is known to be governed by net surface heat flux and horizontal as well as vertical heat transports. For understanding the relative importance of these processes, a detailed analysis of these terms in the tendency equation is carried out. Rossby wave is observed in the annual mode of heat transport while equatorial jet and Kelvin waves are observed in the semi-annual mode of heart transport. Finally, the correlation between heat content and sea surface temperature (SST) and sea level anomaly (SLA), taken one at a time, is computed. It is found that the correlation improves significantly when both these quantities are together taken into account.     

Strong ground motion parameters of the 18 September 2011 Sikkim Earthquake Mw = 6.9 and its analysis: a recent seismic hazard scenario

Natural Hazards - The 18 September 2011 earthquake in Sikkim was one the most devastating earthquake in Sikkim Himalaya in India–Asia collision boundary. The source characteristic of this...     

Improvement in predictability of waves over the Indian Ocean

Accurate prediction of ocean surface waves is a challenging task with many associated difficulties. Availability of good quality wind and wave information from satellite platforms inspired the scientific community to assimilate such data in various spectral wave models for enhancing the accuracy of prediction. Over the Indian Ocean, which is the region of interest for the present study, wave heights in extreme situation can go up to 12–14 m, thereby increasing the probability of coastal hazards. This region is further governed by the southern ocean swells that propagate thousands of kilometers. These are, in general, not well captured by the spectral wave models. Therefore, assimilation of altimeter data in open ocean wave model WAM has been attempted with the aim of enhancing the quality of prediction of significant wave height. Further, simulated wave spectra have been assimilated in a coastal wave model SWAN. This assimilation has been found to significantly improve the prediction of the height of wind waves as well as swell waves. V. Bhatt and S. Surendran are former students of Meteorology and Oceanography Group, Space Applications Centre, ISRO, Ahmedabad.     

Polarized microwave forward model simulations for tropical storm <Emphasis Type="Italic">Fanoos</Emphasis>

In the present study, forward radiative transfer simulations are carried out for the tropical cyclone Fanoos that hit the coast off south India in December 2005. The in-house radiative transfer package used for this study employs the doubling and adding method to calculate radiances leaving the top of the one dimensional precipitating atmosphere. The particle drop size distribution is assumed to follow a modified gamma distribution in respect of the cloud liquid water and cloud ice water content. For precipitation, the Marshall-Palmer particle size distribution is used. All the hydrometeor particles are assumed to be spherical and Lorentz Mie theory is used to evaluate the interaction parameters like absorption, scattering coefficients and polarized scattering matrix. In order to validate the drop size distributions and interaction parameter calculations, the simulated brightness temperatures are compared with the TMI measured brightness temperatures for all the channels. For carrying out this exercise, vertical hydrometeors retrieved by TMI are used as input. The differences between simulated and measured brightness temperatures are found to be within ±10%. The maximum difference in the brightness temperatures between the present work and the Eddington model which the TRMM algorithm employs is about 4.5K. This may become significant when retrieval of precipitation is attempted by combining the forward model with a suitable retrieval strategy, under tropical conditions.     

Harmonics of low-amplitude anisotropic wave trains in cosmic rays

The purpose of this work is to investigate the first three harmonics of low-amplitude anisotropic wave trains (LAEs) of cosmic ray intensity and their association with solar and heliospheric parameters. The significant behaviour of these events is that the amplitude remains low for the first harmonic and high for the second/third harmonics, whereas direction of the anisotropy shift is towards earlier hours for the first harmonic and towards later hours for the second/third harmonic compared to annual average anisotropy. The first two harmonics are found to correlate well with the solar activity cycle during these LAEs. The amplitude and the direction of the first two harmonics do not show any significant association with the polarity change of the Bx/By component of the interplanetary magnetic field during LAEs. However, the third harmonic (amplitude and phase) shows some positive correlation with the Bx and negative correlation with the By component. The occurrence of LAEs is dominant for the positive polarity of Bx and the negative polarity of By. The occurrence of LAEs is dominant during the period of average solar wind velocity but their occurrence during high-speed solar wind streams cannot be overlooked. The frequency of occurrence of these LAEs is more during co-rotating streams.The amplitude of first and second harmonic shows deviations for different values of geomagnetic activity index Ap. However, the amplitude of second harmonic and direction of all the three harmonics do not show any significant association with the Ap-index. The Ap-index consistently remains in the range 14?Kp?31 during these events.The amplitude of first and third harmonic and the direction of first harmonic show deviations for different values of proton density. However, the amplitude of the second harmonic and the direction of the second and third harmonics do not show any significant association with proton density. The occurrence of LAEs is dominant when proton density remains ?20. The cosmic ray intensity during LAEs has good anti-correlation with interplanetary magnetic field strength (B) and its Bx component, whereas it shows a good correlation with its By component. However, it shows significant anti-correlation with sunspot number, the product (R×V) and (R×B).