Modelling the effects of land‐use change on water and salt delivery from a catchment affected by dryland salinity in south‐east Australia

A comprehensive framework for the assessment of water and salt balance for large catchments affected by dryland salinity is applied to the Boorowa River catchment (1550 km²), located in south‐eastern Australia. The framework comprised two models, each focusing on a different aspect and operating on a different scale. A quasi‐physical semi‐distributed model CATSALT was used to estimate runoff and salt fluxes from different source areas within the catchment. The effects of land use, climate, topography, soils and geology are included. A groundwater model FLOWTUBE was used to estimate the long‐term effects of land‐use change on groundwater discharge. Unlike conventional salinity studies that focus on groundwater alone, this study makes use of a new approach to explore surface and groundwater interactions with salt stores and the stream. Land‐use change scenarios based on increased perennial pasture and tree‐cover content of the vegetation, aimed at high leakage and saline discharge areas, are investigated. Likely downstream impacts of the reduction in flow and salt export are estimated. The water balance model was able to simulate both the daily observed stream flow and salt load at the catchment outlet for high and low flow conditions satisfactorily. Mean leakage rate of about 23·2 mm year^?1 under current land use for the Boorowa catchment was estimated. The corresponding mean runoff and salt export from the catchment were 89 382 ML year^?1 and 38 938 t year^?1, respectively. Investigation of various land‐use change scenarios indicates that changing annual pastures and cropping areas to perennial pastures is not likely to result in substantial improvement of water quality in the Boorowa River. A land‐use change of about 20% tree‐cover, specifically targeting high recharge and the saline discharge areas, would be needed to decrease stream salinity by 150 µS cm^?1 from its current level. Stream salinity reductions of about 20 µS cm^?1 in the main Lachlan River downstream of the confluence of the Boorowa River is predicted. The FLOWTUBE modelling within the Boorowa River catchment indicated that discharge areas under increased recharge conditions could re‐equilibrate in around 20 years for the catchment, and around 15 years for individual hillslopes. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

RHESSI Observation of Atmospheric Gamma Rays from Impact of Solar Energetic Particles on 21 April 2002

The RHESSI high-resolution spectrometer detected γ-ray lines and continuum emitted by the Earth's atmosphere during impact of solar energetic particles in the south polar region from 16:00–17:00 UT on 21 April 2002. The particle intensity at the time of the observation was a factor of 10–100 weaker than previous events when gamma-rays were detected by other instruments. This is the first high-resolution observation of atmospheric gamma-ray lines produced by solar energetic particles. De-excitation lines were resolved that, in part, come from ¹⁴N at 728, 1635, 2313, 3890, and 5106 keV, and the ¹²C spallation product at ∼ 4439 keV. Other unresolved lines were also detected. We provide best-fit line energies and widths and compare these with moderate resolution measurements by SMM of lines from an SEP event and with high-resolution measurements made by HEAO 3 of lines excited by cosmic rays. We use line ratios to estimate the spectrum of solar energetic particles that impacted the atmosphere. The 21 April spectrum was significantly harder than that measured by SMM during the 20 October 1989 shock event; it is comparable to that measured by Yohkoh on 15 July 2000. This is consistent with measurements of 10–50 MeV protons made in space at the time of the γ-ray observations.     

Further constraints on variation of the fine-structure constant from alkali-doublet QSO absorption lines

Comparison of quasar (QSO) absorption-line spectra with laboratory spectra provides a precise probe for variability of the fine-structure constant, α , over cosmological time-scales. We constrain variation in α in 21 Keck/HIRES Si  iv absorption systems using the alkali-doublet (AD) method in which changes in α are related to changes in the doublet spacing. The precision obtained with the AD method has been increased by a factor of 3:     . We also analyse potential systematic errors in this result. Finally, we compare the AD method with the many-multiplet method, which has achieved an order of magnitude greater precision, and we discuss the future of the AD method.     

Variable stars in the Bochum Galactic Disk Survey

We present a first overview of variable stars in the Bochum Galactic Disk Survey (GDS) with emphasis on eclipsing binaries (EBs). This ongoing survey is performed by a robotic twin refractor at the Universitätssternwarte Bochum located near Cerro Armazones in Chile. It comprises a mosaic of 268 fields in a stripe of Δb = ±3° along the Galactic plane observed once per month simultaneously in the Sloan r and i filters with a detection limit of r_s ∼ 16 mag and i_s ∼ 15 mag. The data from the first three years until the end of February 2014 yields a total of 41718 variable stars with variability amplitudes between 0.1–6 mag. A cross‐match with SIMBAD identified 11 465 of these variables unambiguously, while 2184 had multiple matches; most of the remaining stars could be matched with 2MASS objects. Among the SIMBAD‐listed objects with single matches, only 1982 turned out as known variables while a further 256 are suspected of variability. That leaves a total of 39480 potentially new variables. The group of known variables comprises 419 stars (21 %) that are classified as EBs while 443 (22%) are of other types; for the remaining 1120 catalogued variables (57 %) the type is unknown. Investigating variability as a function of spectral type, we find that SIMBAD provides spectral types for 2811 (25 %) of the identified stars. Spectral classes B (26 %), A (20 %), and M (25%) contain the most numerous variables, while all other classes contribute less than 10% each. More than half of the B (55 %) and A (56%) stars are designated as EBs, suggesting that hundreds of new B‐ and A‐type EBs may be contained in the GDS archive. In contrast, among the numerous M stars no EBs are known. (© 2015 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

NIGHTGLOW: an instrument to measure the Earth’s nighttime ultraviolet glow—results from the first engineering flight

We have designed and built an instrument to measure and monitor the “nightglow” of the Earth’s atmosphere in the near ultraviolet (NUV). In this paper we describe the design of this instrument, called NIGHTGLOW. NIGHTGLOW is designed to be flown from a high altitude research balloon, and circumnavigate the globe. NIGHTGLOW is a NASA, University of Utah, and New Mexico State University project. A test flight took place from Palestine, Texas on July 5, 2000, lasting about 8 h. The instrument performed well and landed safely in Stiles, Texas with little damage. The resulting measurements of the NUV nightglow are compared with previous measurements from sounding rockets and balloons.