Use of Rhodamine water tracer in the marshland upwelling system

Rhodamine water tracer (RWT) was used to characterize the migration of waste water within the saline subsurface of a marshland upwelling system (MUS), which is an alternative on-site waste water treatment system for coastal areas. Field tracer studies were performed to investigate the fresh waste water plume movement within the saline ground water. Pore velocities were calculated using first detection times and ranged from 0.68 to 10.7 x 10(-4) cm/sec for the loamy sandy soil matrix present at the site. Use of RWT in the field also allowed determination of main and preferential flowpaths. One- and two-dimensional laboratory experiments were performed using silica sand to investigate the interactions of the organically rich waste water with RWT within the zone surrounding the point of injection (one-dimensional) and the impact of background salinity on plume movement (two-dimensional). The results from these studies were used to help explain the field data. One-dimensional breakthrough curves revealed retardation factors for the RWT in the waste water mixture of 1.73 to 1.90. These results were similar to other researchers, indicating little interaction between the waste water and RWT. Variations in pore water salinity (5, 15, 25, and 35 ppt) were found to have a significant effect on pore water velocities of the fresh water plume (two-dimensional), indicating the need to incorporate background salinities into the design process for MUS.     

Effects of trace metal and exposure to air on serotonin and dopamine levels in tissues of the mussel Perna perna

We evaluated levels of serotonin (5HT) and dopamine (DOPA) in muscle and digestive glands of the mussel, Perna perna, collected at different times of day; exposed to air for 24 h, followed by re-submersion; and after exposure to different metals. Mussels collected at different periods of day showed little oscillation in 5HT and DOPA levels. Mussels exposed to metals showed significant changes in 5HT and DOPA levels in digestive gland and muscle, as did mussels exposed to air. Our data suggest that analyses of 5HT and DOPA in tissues of mussels could serve as a tool to evaluate the presence and effects of heavy metal contamination in mussels. Care in data interpretation is required, however, since other environmental factors such as exposure of mussels to air (i.e. at low tides) can also cause changes in DOPA and 5HT levels. Additional research is necessary to separate such natural environmental effects from effects of contaminants.     

SEISMIC VIBRATOR MODELLING1

The wavefield in, and at the surface of, a homogeneous, isotropic, perfectly elastic half-space, excited by a traction distribution at the surface of the medium is investigated. The emitted wavefield is a spatial convolution of the surface tractions and the spatial impulse response. The properties of the wavefield in the far-field of the medium are derived and it is shown that the far-field particle velocity is essentially equal to a weighted sum of the time derivative of the integrated surface tractions, that is, of the components of the ‘ground force’. The theory is valid for an arbitrary geometry and orientation of the surface tractions, and is independent of the boundary conditions at the surface of the medium. The surface tractions are related to a source that consists of a mass distribution with an arbitrary force distribution imposed upon it. A boundary condition is introduced that accounts for the mass load and the forces applied to it but neglects vibrations within the mass. The boundary condition follows from the equation of motion of the surface mass load. The theory is applied to the Vibroseis configuration, using a P-wave vibrator model with a uniformly distributed force imposed on top of the baseplate, and assuming that horizontal surface traction components are absent. The distribution of displacement and stress directly underneath the baseplate of a single vibrator and an array of vibrators is investigated. Three different boundary conditions are used: (1) assuming uniform pressure, (2) assuming uniform displacement, (3) using the equation of motion of the baseplate as a boundary condition. The calculations of the distribution of stress and displacement over the plate for different elastic media and several frequencies of operation show that only the results obtained with the mixed boundary condition agree with measurements made in the field. The accuracy of three different phase-feedback signals is compared using synthetic data. Baseplate velocity phase-feedback leads to huge deviations in the determination of the far-field wavelet; reaction mass acceleration phase-feedback looks stable but neglects the differentiating earth filter; and phase-feedback to a weighted sum of baseplate and reaction mass accelerations becomes unstable with increasing frequency. The instability can be overcome using measurements over the whole baseplate. The model can be extended to a lossy layered earth.     

Studying an interaction between tropical cyclones and jet streams using the numerical simulation data

Discussed are the results of studying an evolution of tropical cyclones (TCs) in the Pacific Ocean using the data of computation of ETA and WRF NMM mesoscale numerical atmospheric models. Computed are the trajectories of TCs and the fields of meteorological variables in the typhoons, of the wind speed and kinetic energy in the subtropical jet stream during the development of Parma, Melor, and Lupit typhoons. Carried out are the analysis and comparison of computed fields of pressure, wind, kinetic energy, and trajectories of TCs obtained using these models and their comparison with the actual fields. It is demonstrated that both models computed rather well the complex trajectories and the fields of wind and kinetic energy varying in the course of the interaction. Proposed is an explanation of processes taking place during the interaction between the vortices and the subtropical jet stream and the polar front.     

North Atlantic atmospheric circulation and surface wind in the Northeast of the Iberian Peninsula: uncertainty and long term downscaled variability

The variability and predictability of the surface wind field at the regional scale is explored over a complex terrain region in the northeastern Iberian Peninsula by means of a downscaling technique based on Canonical Correlation Analysis. More than a decade of observations (1992–2005) allows for calibrating and validating a statistical method that elicits the main associations between the large scale atmospheric circulation over the North Atlantic and Mediterranean areas and the regional wind field. In an initial step the downscaling model is designed by selecting parameter values from practise. To a large extent, the variability of the wind at monthly timescales is found to be governed by the large scale circulation modulated by the particular orographic features of the area. The sensitivity of the downscaling methodology to the selection of the model parameter values is explored, in a second step, by performing a systematic sampling of the parameters space, avoiding a heuristic selection. This provides a metric for the uncertainty associated with the various possible model configurations. The uncertainties associated with the model configuration are considerably dependent on the spatial variability of the wind. While the sampling of the parameters space in the model set up moderately impact estimations during the calibration period, the regional wind variability is very sensitive to the parameters selection at longer timescales. This fact illustrates that downscaling exercises based on a single configuration of parameters should be interpreted with extreme caution. The downscaling model is used to extend the estimations several centuries to the past using long datasets of sea level pressure, thereby illustrating the large temporal variability of the regional wind field from interannual to multicentennial timescales. The analysis does not evidence long term trends throughout the twentieth century, however anomalous episodes of high/low wind speeds are identified.     

Impacts of absorbing aerosols on South Asian rainfall

Anthropogenic aerosols in the lower troposphere increase the absorption and scattering of solar radiation by air and clouds, causing a warmer atmosphere and a cooler surface. It is suspected that these effects contribute to slow down the hydrological cycle. We conducted a series of numerical experiments using a limited area atmospheric model to understand the impacts of aerosol radiative forcing on the rainfall process. Experiments with different radiative conditions under an idealized setting revealed that increasing atmospheric forcing and decreasing surface forcing of radiation causes reductions in rainfall. There was no relationship of top of the atmosphere forcing to the rainfall yield. The model was then used to simulate a domain covering southern part of Sri Lanka, over for the period from November 2002 to July 2003. For a given radiative forcing, instances with lower rainfall yields showed larger fractional reductions in rainfall. The trends in seasonal rainfall observed over the site in past 30 years in a different study confirms this finding. We conclude that the negative impact of increase of anthropogenic aerosols on rainfall would be more severe on regions and seasons with lower rainfall yields. The consequences of this problem on the industries that critically depend on well-distributed rainfall like non-irrigated agriculture and on the general livelihood of societies in low-rain areas can be serious.     

An Operational Forecasting Model for the Variation of Mean Maximum Mixing Heights Across the Coastal Zone

Variation exists in the maximum mixing height (MMH) across the coastal zone because of major differences in heat capacity between land and sea. By assuming that synoptic and microscale effects are all small as compared to the contribution from mesoscale temperature differences, a model is proposed to explain this variation. The model states that the variation of the MMH across the coastal zone is due primarily and is linearly proportional to the difference in maximum temperature between land and sea. Since the MMH is one of the most important parameters in the computation of distribution and concentration of aerosols, water vapor, and pollutants, a simple equation is also provided for the operational forecasting of the MMH or the mixing height over the sea. All inputs into the equation are routinely available. The model has been verified by available data and a relevant field experiment.     

Four-dimensional data assimilation method based on SVD: Theoretical aspect

Summary A new method of four-dimensional data assimilation based on Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) is proposed. In it, a set of atmospheric states is obtained by integrating a numerical weather prediction model and simulated observations are taken and calculated from the model variables. Then the SVD technique is used to create the base vectors from this coupled data set. Finally, the analysis is obtained by projecting actual observation data into a space spanned by the base vectors. Using this approach, the four-dimensional data assimilation becomes a simple linear inverse problem the linearization of the nonlinear forward model is avoided, and the developments of the adjoint and background error covariance matrix are no longer needed. Since the SVD technique is used here, the method is simply called 4DSVD.     

Nonlinear interactions of spherical Rossby modes

Weakly nonlinear triad interactions between spherical Rossby harmonics are studied. Each of the harmonics has the form AP_n^m(sin θ)exp[i(mλ − σt)], where A is an amplitude and P_n^m is the associated Legendre function. Equations for the amplitudes are derived and resonance conditions are analysed. The resonance conditions differ substantially from the usual resonance conditions on a β-plane and include a Diophantine equation and a few inequalities for the integer wavenumbers n and m of the interacting modes. Particular analytical series of solutions to the resonance conditions are constructed, which show that modes with arbitrary large wavenumbers can participate in the interactions. A numerical study of the resonance conditions reveals that no more than 21% of the Rossby harmonics can participate in the triad interactions and that chains of the interacting triads soon break. Thus precise interactions (for which the resonance conditions hold exactly) do not result in any significant redistribution of energy over the spectrum. On the other hand, approximate interactions (for which the resonance conditions hold approximately) generate an intensive energy redistribution among short Rossby modes with typical scales much smaller than the Earth's radius. Thus the energy cascade is concentrated mainly in the short-wave part of the spectrum and is very weak in the large-scale domain. The efficiency of the triad interaction of Rossby modes with scales much smaller than the Earth's radius depends strongly on the existence of the so-called interaction latitude at which the local wave-vectors and frequencies of the interacting modes satisfy resonance conditions for plane Rossby waves on the β-plane approximating the neighbourhood of the latitude. If the interaction latitude exists, the interaction is intensive; in the opposite case, it is weak.