Estimation of Aerosol Radiation Effects under Background and Smoke-haze Atmospheric Conditions over Siberia from Empirical Data

The results of numerical simulation of downward solar radiation fluxes for background and smoke-contaminated atmospheric conditions are discussed. Vertical profiles of aerosol characteristics are obtained from the empirical model based on the data of aircraft sounding of profiles of angular scattering coefficients and content of absorbing particles in the lower troposphere. The background model was created using the results of measurements obtained under cloudless and mostly cloudless atmospheric conditions in 1999–2011. Optical parameters of smoke aerosol are determined from the data of aircraft measurements in the period of long-term wildfires in Siberia in the summer 2012. It is demonstrated that deficiency in diurnal values of total solar radiation at the surface level caused by the formation of the optically dense smoke layer as compared to background conditions, is more than 13 MJ/m².     

Forest fragmentation in Massachusetts,USA: a town-level assessment using Morphological spatial pattern analysis and affinity propagation

Forest fragmentation has been studied extensively with respect to biodiversity loss, disruption of ecosystem services, and edge effects although the relationship between forest fragmentation and human activities is still not well understood. We classified the pattern of forests in Massachusetts using fragmentation indicators to address these objectives: 1) characterize the spatial pattern of forest fragmentation in Massachusetts towns using Morphological Spatial Pattern Analysis (MSPA); and (2) identify regional trends using archetypal towns in relation to town history, geography and socioeconomic characteristics. Six fragmentation indicators were calculated using MSPA for each town to represent patterns and processes of fragmentation. We then used these indicators and the proportion of forested land to group towns across Massachusetts with similar patterns of fragmentation. Six representative towns typify different types of forest fragmentation, and illustrate the commonalities and differences between different fragmentation types. The objective selection of representative towns suggests that they might be used as the target of future studies, both in retrospective studies that seek to explain current patterns and in analyses that predict future fragmentation trends.