Seasonal and inter-annual variability of atmosphere CO<Subscript>2</Subscript> based on NOAA Carbon Tracker analysis and satellite observations

A study on seasonal and inter-annual variability of the atmospheric CO₂ is carried out based on National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Carbon Tracker (NOAACT) re-analysis and satellite measurements of mid-troposphere CO₂ by Atmosphere Infrared Sounder on board NASA’s Aqua and lower troposphere CO₂ by Greenhouse-gas Observing Satellite. Seasonal and non-seasonal components of each time series were extracted by means of least square based harmonic analysis procedure. The data of surface CO₂ fluxes used in the NOAACT are also analyzed to examine its relationship with the atmosphere CO₂ variability at different time scales. There exists good consistency between NOAACT analysis and satellite observations in their respective seasonal harmonics and climatology. Surface layer CO₂ exhibits large climatological mean over the regions of major anthropogenic sources together with strong seasonal cycle over the humid and cold climatic terrestrial regions especially over the northern hemisphere. Existence of high coherency with the different components of the surface fluxes shows that surface layer atmosphere CO₂ seasonality is primarily contributed from the terrestrial ecosystem exchanges and secondarily by anthropogenic and oceanic exchanges. The mid-troposphere CO₂ exhibits large values associated with climatology and amplitudes of semi-annual and annual cycles over the northern extra tropics and Polar Regions along with a gradual decreasing trend from northern to southern hemisphere. Inter-annual variability of atmospheric CO₂ in the NOAACT in some extent is consistent with the satellite observations. Large scale circulation patterns, its fluctuations associated with ENSO events and large scale ecosystem disturbances have significant influence on the inter-annual variability.     

Chemical weathering and gully erosion causing land degradation in a complex river basin of Eastern India: an integrated field,analytical and artificial intelligence approach

Hot and humid subtropical plateau regions are susceptible to land degradation in the form of weathering and gully erosion. Here, we investigate chemical weathering, gully erosion and cohesiveness through field-based measurements with a view to understand the controlling factors of potential land degradation, in complex river basin of the Chotanagpur plateau region in Eastern India. The layers of controlling factors of gully erosion were developed and prioritized considering boosted regression tree (BRT), alternative decision tree (ADT), particle swarm optimization (PSO) and random forest (RF) algorithms in the R software, and the results of these methods were also validated using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves. The spectroscopic analysis was carried out of collected soil samples to measure the degree of chemical weathering and cohesiveness. Furthermore, the climatic elements like temperature and rainfall were also considered for estimating the chemical weathering. The results of the gully erosion models (i.e., BRT, ADT, PSO and RF) show remarkable accuracy with ROC values of 0.93, 0.89, 0.91 and 0.84, respectively. An advanced decision tree model was integrated with the results of degree of chemical weathering and cohesiveness in geographical information system platform. The land degradation map developed from this approach shows that 10.53% of the study area is highly affected, whereas 17.36% area is moderately affected and the rest of the 73.85% area is less affected by land degradation. Our results provide essential information for policy makers in adopting measures for minimizing and controlling the land degradation. Our novel approach is significant to assess land degradation to a large scale.

     

A comprehensive and quantitative assessment of Raunthi Gad flash flood,Rishi Ganga catchment,central Himalaya,Uttarakhand, India

Natural Hazards - Drought severity is increasing in Southern Africa which is affecting rain-fed agriculture, the main source of livelihood in most countries in this region. The study assessed the...     

A Survey of Precipitation-Induced Atmospheric Cold Pools over Oceans and Their Interactions with the Larger-Scale Environment

Pools of air cooled by partial rain evaporation span up to several hundreds of kilometers in nature and typically last less than 1 day, ultimately losing their identity to the large-scale flow. These fundamentally differ in character from the radiatively-driven dry pools defining convective aggregation. Advancement in remote sensing and in computer capabilities has promoted exploration of how precipitation-induced cold pool processes modify the convective spectrum and life cycle. This contribution surveys current understanding of such cold pools over the tropical and subtropical oceans. In shallow convection with low rain rates, the cold pools moisten, preserving the near-surface equivalent potential temperature or increasing it if the surface moisture fluxes cannot ventilate beyond the new surface layer; both conditions indicate downdraft origin air from within the boundary layer. When rain rates exceed \(\sim\) 2 mm h\(^{-1}\), convective-scale downdrafts can bring down drier air of lower equivalent potential temperature from above the boundary layer. The resulting density currents facilitate the lifting of locally thermodynamically favorable air and can impose an arc-shaped mesoscale cloud organization. This organization allows clouds capable of reaching 4–5 km within otherwise dry environments. These are more commonly observed in the northern hemisphere trade wind regime, where the flow to the intertropical convergence zone is unimpeded by the equator. Their near-surface air properties share much with those shown from cold pools sampled in the equatorial Indian Ocean. Cold pools are most effective at influencing the mesoscale organization when the atmosphere is moist in the lower free troposphere and dry above, suggesting an optimal range of water vapor paths. Outstanding questions on the relationship between cold pools, their accompanying moisture distribution and cloud cover are detailed further. Near-surface water vapor rings are documented in one model inside but near the cold pool edge; these are not consistent with observations, but do improve with smaller horizontal grid spacings.     

A cognitive framework for road detection from high-resolution satellite images

Road network extraction from high-resolution satellite (HRS) imagery is a complex task. It is an important field of research and is widely used in various cartographic applications such as updating and generating maps. The objective of this research work is to develop a novel framework, emulating human cognition, for detection of roads from HRS images. Roads network from HRS images are detected using support vector machines within the different stages of cognitive task analysis. In the first stage, basic information about the cognitive parameters which are required for image interpretation is collected. In the second stage, the rule-based method is used for knowledge representation. Lastly, during knowledge elicitation, the developed rules are used to extract roads from HRS images. The proposed method is validated using 16 HRS images of developed suburban, developed urban, emerging suburban and emerging urban region.     

Precision pulsar timing with the ORT and the GMRT and its applications in pulsar astrophysics

Radio pulsars show remarkable clock-like stability, which make them useful astronomy tools in experiments to test equation of state of neutron stars and detecting gravitational waves using pulsar timing techniques. A brief review of relevant astrophysical experiments is provided in this paper highlighting the current state-of-the-art of these experiments. A program to monitor frequently glitching pulsars with Indian radio telescopes using high cadence observations is presented, with illustrations of glitches detected in this program, including the largest ever glitch in PSR B0531+21. An Indian initiative to discover sub-\(\mu \)Hz gravitational waves, called Indian Pulsar Timing Array (InPTA), is also described briefly, where time-of-arrival uncertainties and post-fit residuals of the order of \(\mu \)s are already achievable, comparable to other international pulsar timing array experiments. While timing the glitches and their recoveries are likely to provide constraints on the structure of neutron stars, InPTA will provide upper limits on sub-\(\mu \)Hz gravitational waves apart from auxiliary pulsar science. Future directions for these experiments are outlined.     

Drainage Network Modelling for Water-Sensitive Urban Design

While drainage network models may be relatively easy to assemble as a prerequisite to site selection for infrastructure supporting suburbanisation with Water-Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD), this is unlikely to be the case if the terrain is very subdued. Both ab initio and retro-fit WSUD implementation for such terrain refers, in the first instance, to a drainage network model that includes information on the scope for optimising residential space while conforming to: (1) statutory planning rules about the provision of public open space; and (2) WSUD drainage network design such that runoff waters are retained long enough to allow at least temporary storage. It is shown in this research that a technique applied to condition a LiDAR DEM can accurately model the drainage network of a basin at the land-parcel scale. The drainage network for ab initio WSUD is best defined using multi-flow modelling, with the relative significance of stream segments indicated by their stream order derived using the Strahler method. In contrast, when applying the retro-fit WSUD, the relative significance of segments given by the Shreve stream order method was found to be more useful. The approaches described in this article are designed to support the initial site planning stage and avoid the need for immediate and expensive detailed field survey. At the same time they can be deployed to show how much scope there is for WSUD retro-fit in established housing areas up-stream of an infill development area. Thus, basin-wide appraisal is facilitated and the need for earthmoving is minimised.     

Two-Step Filament Eruption During 14 – 15 March 2015

We present here an interesting two-step filament eruption during 14?–?15 March 2015. The filament was located in NOAA AR 12297 and associated with a halo Coronal Mass Ejection (CME). We use observations from the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) and Heliospheric Magnetic Imager (HMI) instruments onboard the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), and from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph (LASCO). We also use \(\mbox{H}\upalpha\) data from the Global Oscillation Network Group (GONG) telescope and the Kanzelhoehe Solar Observatory. The filament shows a first step eruption on 14 March 2015 and it stops its rise at a projected altitude \({\approx}\,125~\mbox{Mm}\) on the solar disk. It remains at this height for \({\approx}\,12~\mbox{hrs}\). Finally it erupts on 15 March 2015 and produces a halo CME. We also find jet activity in the active region during both days, which could help the filament de-stabilization and eruption. The decay index is calculated to understand this two-step eruption. The eruption could be due to the presence of successive instability–stability–instability zones as the filament is rising.     

Potential environmental pollution hazards by coal based power plant at Jhansi (UP) India

Coal, a fossil fuel, is the largest source of energy for the generation of electricity in India. In order to study the potential environmental hazards by coal based power plants, particulate matters were collected using Stack Monitoring Kit and gaseous pollutants by Automatic Flue Gas Analyzer. The morphological and chemical properties, mineralogical composition and particle size distributions have been determined by SEM–EDX, XRD and CILAS. The data revealed the presence of particulate matters, SO₂, NOx in the range of 236–315, 162–238, 173–222 mg/Nm³ respectively. The emission of CO₂ was in the range of 43,004–60,115 Nm³/h with an average of 52,830 Nm³/h. Among the elements, Fe > Mn > Al > Zn > B > Ni > Cr > Cu were present in substantially higher proportion than Pb > Mo > Cd > Se > As > Hg. It was found that most of the elements were concentrated on fly ash surface rather than coal, bottom ash and pond ash. This variation may be attributed to the fineness of fly ash particles with large surface ratio to mass. Mineralogical studies of coal and fly ash by X-ray diffraction revealed the presence of mullite, quartz, cristobalite and maghemite. Presence of mullite and quartz found in fly ash indicate the conversion of complex minerals to mullite and quartz at high temperature. Transfer Coefficient was calculated to determine the ratio of the enrichment of trace elements in fly or bottom ash with respect to coal and pond ash.