3D seismic study of a ductile shear zone from laboratory and petrofabric data (Saint Barthélémy Massif, Northern Pyrenees, France)

In order to constrain interpretations of seismic reflection records more effectively, the seismic properties of a middle crustal section exposed in the Saint Barthélémy Massif have been determined. The massif, transected by a 200 m thick shear zone has been systematically sampled for density measurements and modal analysis has been performed in order to define the spatial variations of physical properties. Seismic velocities ( V _p, V _S, shear wave birefringence), have been measured on five representative samples to 600 MPa and 600°C simultaneously in the three structural directions (X, Y and Z). For two samples, the experimental data have been compared with calculated values, based on petrofabric analyses. The Lattice Preferred Orientation (LPO) is determined using universal stage, electron channelling microscopy and neutron diffraction goniometry. Using the experimental and calculated velocity data, we establish a lateral homogeneous anisotropic model.     

Stochastic Hill's equations for the study of errant rocket burns in orbit

The problem of errant rocket burns in low Earth orbit is of growing interest, especially in the area of safety analysis of nuclear powered spacecraft. The development of stochastic Hill's equations provides a rigorous mathematical tool for the study of such errant rocket maneuvers. These equations are analyzed within the context of a theory of linear dynamical systems driven by a random white noise. It is established that the trajectories of an errant rocket are realizations of a Gauss-Markov process, whose mean vector is given by the solution of a deterministic rocket problem. The time-dependent covariance matrix of the process is derived in an explicit form.     

NEW APPROACH TO ESTIMATING SOLAR RADIATION FROM SATELLITE IMAGERY*

A significantly less expensive but comparatively accurate means of estimating solar radiation from satellite imagery is demonstrated. Opaque cloud cover is visually extracted from nondigitized, photographic forms of GOES satellite imagery and solar radiation is estimated using this information as input into a relatively simple solar model. Daily root mean square, mean absolute and mean bias errors were 13.2, 8.6 and 1.1 percent, respectively. Maps of the spatial distribution of solar radiation for Arizona are included.     

Is the Universe flat?

The evidence for unseen mass (which is briefly reviewed) suggests that the cosmological density parameter Ω is at least 0.1–0.2. An Einstein-de-Sitter ‘flat’ universe with Ω = 1 — which is appealing for theoretical reasons — can only be reconciled with the data if the galaxies are more ‘clumped’ than the overall mass distribution, and are poor tracers of the unseen mass even on scales of several Mpc. Possible forms for the unseen mass are discussed; and feedback processes are outlined whereby galaxy formation can be suppressed in underdense regions.     

Bridging Political Expectations and Scientific Limitations in Climate Risk Management – On the Uncertain Effects of International Carbon Sink Policies<Superscript>*</Superscript>

Despite great advances in carbon cycle research during the past decade the climatic impact of terrestrial ecosystems is still highly uncertain. Although contemporary studies suggest that the terrestrial biosphere has acted as a net sink to atmospheric carbon during the past two decades, the future role of terrestrial carbon pools is most difficult to foresee. When land use change and forestry activities were included into the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, the requirements for scientific precision increased significantly. At the same time the political expectations of carbon sequestration as climate mitigation strategy added uncertainties of a social kind to the study of land-atmosphere carbon exchange that have been difficult to address by conventional scientific methods. In this paper I explore how the failure to take into account the effects of direct human activity in scientific projections of future terrestrial carbon storage has resulted in a simplified appreciation of the risks embedded in a global carbon sequestration scheme. I argue that the social limits to scientific analysis must be addressed in order to accommodate these risks in future climate governance and to enable continued scientific authority in the international climate regime.     

Ice-Core Study of the Link between Sea-Salt Aerosol,Sea-Ice Cover and Climate in the Antarctic Peninsula Area

Three ice cores and a set of snow pit samples collected on James Ross Island, Antarctic Peninsula, in 1979, 1981 and 1991 have been analyzed for water stable isotope content D or ¹⁸O (isotopic temperature) and major chemical species. A reliable and detailed chronological scale has been established first for the upper 24.5 m of water equivalent (1990–1943) where various data sets can be compared, then extended down to 59.5 m of water equivalent (1847) with the aid of seasonal variations and the sulphate peak reflecting the 1883 Krakatoa volcanic eruption. At James Ross Island, sea-salt aerosol is generally produced by ice-free marine surfaces during the summer months, although some winter sea-salt events have been observed. For the upper part of the core (1990–1943), correlations (positive or negative) were calculated between isotopic temperature, chloride content (a sea-salt indicator), sea-ice extent, regional atmospheric temperature changes and atmospheric circulation. The D and chloride content correlation was then extended back to 1847, making it possible to estimate decadal sea-ice cover fluctuations over the study period. Our findings suggest that ice-core records from James Ross Island reflect the recent warming and sea-ice decrease trends observed in the Antarctic Peninsula area from the mid-1940s.     

Position and velocity reliability testing in degraded GPS signal environments

Reliability testing, namely receiver autonomous integrity monitoring (RAIM), consists of statistical testing of least-squares residuals of observations, e.g., on an epoch-by-epoch basis aiming towards reliable navigation fault detection and exclusion (FDE). In this paper, classic RAIM and FDE methods are extended with testing of range-rate residuals to find inconsistent velocity solutions in order to contribute to the reliability of the system with special focus on degraded signal environments. Reliability enhancement efforts discussed include a Backward-FDE scheme based on statistical outlier detection and an iteratively reweighted robust estimation technique, a modified Danish method. In addition, measurement weighting assigned to code and Doppler observations is assessed in the paper in order to allow fitting a priori variance models to the estimation processes. The schemes discussed are also suitable in terms of computational convenience for a combined GPS/Galileo system. The objective of this paper is to assess position and velocity reliability testing and enhancement in urban and indoor conditions and to analyze the navigation accuracy conditions with high sensitivity GPS (HSGPS) tests. The results show the necessity of weighted estimation and FDE for reliability enhancement in degraded signal-environment navigation.     

An analysis of carrier phase differential kinematic GPS positioning using DynaPos

A series of activities have been carried out at the University of New Brunswick in an effort to evaluate advances in long-range marine kinematic differential positioning. These activities involved processing and analysis of GPS carrier phase kinematic data sets. Some of the data was collected by UNB and some was provided by The XYZs of GPS Inc. Data were collected using Trimble 5700 and Ashtech Z-12 receivers. The data sets were processed using the software DynaPos provided by the The XYZs of GPS Inc. The best results obtained in our analysis indicate an agreement of 5 cm RMS for the horizontal component and 12 cm RMS for the vertical component between two ionospheric-delay free solutions, in baselines varying from 40 to 100 km.     

On the reliability of the VCV Matrix: A case study based on GAMIT and Bernese GPS Software

Commonly, the variance-covariance (VCV) matrix derived from GPS processing software underestimates the magnitude of the error, mainly due to the fact that physical correlations are normally neglected. The GAMIT and Bernese software packages serve the scientific community as important tools for GPS measurement processing and analyzing, especially in precise applications. Therefore, the reliability of the VCV matrices derived by the GAMIT and Bernese packages is of great importance. Formal accuracies derived from both software need to be scaled by applying a scaling factor (SF) that multiplies the software-derived formal errors. However, to the best of our knowledge, no standard approach approved by the GPS community exists. In this report, an analysis is carried out in order to test the reliability and the validity of the VCV matrices in both software, and to provide SFs needed to calculate the realistic accuracies reflecting the actual error levels. The method applied in this study allows deriving SFs for formal accuracies obtained from GAMIT and Bernese. The results attained from the time series of eight days for eight baselines (lengths of 20–415 km) indicate that the overall SF for GAMIT is more than 10 times smaller than for Bernese (1.9 and 23.0, respectively). Although no distance-dependent SF was detected in either case, the session-duration dependence was detected for the Bernese software, while no clear session-duration dependence was observed for the GAMIT. Furthermore, no receiver/antenna dependence could be deduced from the results of this analysis.     

SDINS/GPS in-flight alignment using GPS carrier phase rate

The alignments of the strapdown inertial navigation system (SDINS) utilizing GPS carrier phase rate measurements is introduced. In this paper, a measurement model of GPS carrier phase rate under two antenna configurations is derived in order to be used for the SDINS alignment process. For in-flight alignment, the performance of the proposed SDINS/GPS integration method is analyzed using the covariance analysis and the overall performance is briefly confirmed by the navigation result of a van test. Furthermore, we find that during in-flight alignment the proposed SDINS/GPS integrated system using GPS carrier phase rate measurements can be implemented in real time because the integer ambiguity problem resulting from carrier phase measurements is avoided.