CHOSEN: A synthesis of hydrometeorological data from intensively monitored catchments and comparative analysis of hydrologic extremes

Comparative hydrology has been hampered by limited availability of geographically extensive, intercompatible monitoring data on comprehensive water balance stores and fluxes. These limitations have, for example, restricted comprehensive assessment of multiple dimensions of wetting and drying related to climate change and hampered understanding of why widespread changes in precipitation extremes are uncorrelated with changes in streamflow extremes. Here, we address this knowledge gap and underlying data gap by developing a new data synthesis product and using that product to detect trends in the frequencies and magnitudes of a comprehensive set of hydroclimatic and hydrologic extremes. CHOSEN (Comprehensive Hydrologic Observatory Sensor Network) is a database of streamflow, soil moisture, and other hydroclimatic and hydrologic variables from 30 study areas across the United States. An accompanying data pipeline provides a reproducible, semi-automated approach for assimilating data from multiple sources, performing quality assurance and control, gap-filling and writing to a standard format. Based on the analysis of extreme events in the CHOSEN dataset, we detected hotspots, characterized by unusually large proportions of monitored variables exhibiting trends, in the Pacific Northwest, New England, Florida and Alaska. Extreme streamflow wetting and drying trends exhibited regional coherence. Drying trends in the Pacific Northwest and Southeast were often associated with trends in soil moisture and precipitation (Pacific Northwest) and evapotranspiration-related variables (Southeast). In contrast, wetting trends in the upper Midwest and the Rocky Mountains showed few univariate associations with other hydroclimatic extremes, but their latitudes and elevations suggested the importance of changing snowmelt characteristics. On the whole, observed trends are incompatible with a ‘drying-in-dry, wetting-in-wet’ paradigm for climate-induced hydrologic changes over land. Our analysis underscores the need for more extensive, longer-term observational data for soil moisture, snow and evapotranspiration.     

Distribution and transport of sedimentary trace metals in the tidal portions of the Kennebec/Androscoggin River system, Maine, USA

Previous investigations suggest that contaminant transport from the large Kennebec/Androscoggin watershed is an important large-scale process in mid-coast Maine. To investigate this phenomenon, we determined the concentrations of Cd, Cr, Cu, Ni, Pb, Sn and Zn in the surface sediments of 47 stations in the tidal Kennebec/Androscoggin system. Most stations exhibited elevated metal concentrations. Highest levels were found in the main stem of the system. Distribution patterns lead to the conclusion that metals enter the system from the watershed and are transported to the nearshore Gulf of Maine. The coarse-grained, ebb tide dominated flow prevents the accumulation of contaminants in the estuary. This supports the hypothesis of Larsen and Gaudette (1995) that the Kennebec and Androscoggin watersheds are sources for contaminants observed in the nearshore Gulf of Maine.     

Attenuation of marine seismic interference noise employing a customized U-Net

Marine seismic interference noise occurs when energy from nearby marine seismic source vessels is recorded during a seismic survey. Such noise tends to be well preserved over large distances and causes coherent artefacts in the recorded data. Over the years, the industry has developed various denoising techniques for seismic interference removal, but although well performing, they are still time-consuming in use. Machine-learning-based processing represents an alternative approach, which may significantly improve the computational efficiency. In the case of conventional images, autoencoders are frequently employed for denoising purposes. However, due to the special characteristics of seismic data as well as the noise, autoencoders failed in the case of marine seismic interference noise. We, therefore, propose the use of a customized U-Net design with element-wise summation as part of the skip-connection blocks to handle the vanishing gradient problem and to ensure information fusion between high- and low-level features. To secure a realistic study, only seismic field data were employed, including 25,000 training examples. The customized U-Net was found to perform well, leaving only minor residuals, except for the case when seismic interference noise comes from the side. We further demonstrate that such noise can be treated by slightly increasing the depth of our network. Although our customized U-Net does not outperform a standard commercial algorithm in quality, it can (after proper training) read and process one single shot gather in approximately 0.02 s. This is significantly faster than any existing industry denoising algorithm. In addition, the proposed network processes shot gathers in a sequential order, which is an advantage compared with industry algorithms that typically require a multi-shot input to break the coherency of the noise.     

Barrier jets around the Southern Alps of New Zealand and their potential to enhance alpine rainfall

We use new data from the SALPEX'96 campaign to examine the evolution of orographically modified flow over and around New Zealand's Southern Alps. We consider prefrontal situations for which the larger-scale synoptic pattern generates an incoming northwesterly flow perpendicular to the mountain axis, calculate the nondimensional parameters which control the wind flow and determine how long it takes orographic modifications to become established. We place flows over the New Zealand Alps in a Rossby number/Blocking number parameter space and compare them with flows over other mountain ranges on the globe. Using model and aircraft data, we show the region of modified flow extends over 100 km upstream of the Southern Alps.We show 2D model simulations represent many aspects of the flow modification satisfactorily, although they tend to overdevelop the final state of the Barrier Jet flow. In 3D, using real data to force the boundaries, the migratory nature of the weather systems in the area would generally limit the time available for a modified steady state to develop. In addition, in situations where there is significant lateral variation of initial fields, the 2D results may only be applicable for a few hours.From the point of view of potential to influence alpine rainfall processes, for the case studied, the gradual uplift associated with the modified flow between 1 and 2 km above sea level extended far enough upstream in saturated air to enable cloud drops to grow to drizzle drops before reaching the much more substantial updrafts at the foot of the Alps. This allows vigorous prefrontal precipitation to occur over the foothills and mountains due largely to warm rain processes.     

On the role of domain size and resolution in the simulations with the HIRHAM region climate model

We investigate the simulated temperature and precipitation of the HIRHAM regional climate model using systematic variations in domain size, resolution and detailed location in a total of eight simulations. HIRHAM was forced by ERA-Interim boundary data and the simulations focused on higher resolutions in the range of 5.5–12 km. HIRHAM outputs of seasonal precipitation and temperature were assessed by calculating distributed model errors against a higher resolution data set covering Denmark and a 0.25° resolution data set covering Europe. Furthermore the simulations were statistically tested against the Danish data set using bootstrap statistics. The results from the distributed validation of precipitation showed lower errors for the winter (DJF) season compared to the spring (MAM), fall (SON) and, in particular, summer (JJA) seasons for both validation data sets. For temperature, the pattern was in the opposite direction, with the lowest errors occurring for the JJA season. These seasonal patterns between precipitation and temperature are seen in the bootstrap analysis. It also showed that using a 4,000 × 2,800 km simulation with an 11 km resolution produced the highest significance levels. Also, the temperature errors were more highly significant than precipitation. In similarly sized domains, 12 of 16 combinations of variables, observation validation data and seasons showed better results for the highest resolution domain, but generally the most significant improvements were seen when varying the domain size.     

Cross-Spectra Over the Sea from Observations and Mesoscale Modelling

Cospectra and quadrature spectra are calculated for six pairs of tall offshore measurement masts near the Horns Rev I wind farm in the Danish North Sea and the Nysted wind farm in the Baltic sea. The mast-pairs are separated from one another by horizontal distances of 2.13–12.4 km. Cospectra and quadrature spectra for the two sites are classified in terms of the angle between the mean wind direction and the line connecting each pair of masts. The frequency axes of the spectra are normalized to remove the effect of mean wind speed and separation distance. Results indicate a larger contribution to the quadrature spectrum for flow from the sea than for flow from the land, and the patterns in the spectra are clearer and better defined for Horns Rev I (which has a long uninterrupted sea-fetch from the west) than for Nysted (which is surrounded by a more complicated coastline). The analysis is replicated based on 3-month simulations using the weather research and forecasting (WRF) numerical model with a horizontal grid spacing of 2 km. For the sea-fetch directions, good agreement in spectral properties between the model and observations is found. Analytical expressions based on the properties of the cross-correlation function and an exponentially decaying coherence function are fitted to the normalized cospectra and quadrature spectra. The expressions are shown to be a good fit to the spectra calculated from the WRF simulations and to the observed spectra for directions with a long sea-fetch, which suggests that to a good approximation, the average cospectra and quadrature spectra over the sea can be written as functions of frequency, mean wind speed, separation distance and the angle between the wind direction and the orientation of the masts.     

Improving Groundwater Model Calibration with Repeat Microgravity Measurements

Groundwater-flow models depend on hydraulic head and flux observations for evaluation and calibration. A different type of observation—change in storage measured using repeat microgravity—can also be used for parameter estimation by simulating the expected change in gravity from a groundwater model and including the observation misfit in the objective function. The method is demonstrated using new software linked to MODFLOW input and output files and field data from the vicinity of the All American Canal in southeast California, USA. Over a 10-year period following lining of the previously highly permeable canal with concrete, gravity decreased by over 100 μGal (equivalent to about 2.5 m of free-standing water) at some locations as seepage decreased and the remnant groundwater mound dissipated into the aquifer or was removed by groundwater pumping. Simulated gravity from a MODFLOW model closely matched observations, and repeat microgravity data proved useful for constraining both hydraulic conductivity and specific yield estimates. Specific yield estimated using the infinite-horizontal slab approximation agreed well with model-derived values, and the departure from the linear, flat-water-table approximation was small, less than 2%, despite relatively large and dynamic water-table slope. First-order second-moment parameter uncertainty analysis shows reduction in uncertainty for all hydraulic conductivity and specific yield parameter estimates with the addition of repeat microgravity data, as compared to drawdown data alone.     

Palaeomagnetism and magnetomineralogy of a Holocene lake sediment from Vågsøy,western Norway

Stable remanent directions encountered in three oriented lake-sediment cores, covering 6 m of gyttja deposits, reveal declination swings with amplitudes of the order of ± 50°. Anomalously low inclinations, scattered around the horizontal in the upper 2 m of core, is attributed to compressional disturbances of the alignment of magnetic grains during the coring procedure. Four ¹⁴C dates obtained (1250, 1940, 4600 and 6330 y B.P.) have enabled a correlation with features ‘c’–‘g’ of the British Geomagnetic Master Curve). For the older part of the curve, features ‘h’ and ‘i’, the correlation is questionable. Magneto-mineralogical parameters and qualitative chemical analysis of individual grains by secondary X-ray emission analysis reveal the presence of pure magnetite grains. Scanning electron micrographs show a dominant proportion of concoidal slightly elongated grains (10–80 μm). A few almost-perfect octahedral magnetite crystals can be related to outcrops of augen gneisses in the vicinity confirming a detrital origin of these grains.     

The 1996 and 1998 subglacial eruptions beneath the Vatnajökull ice sheet in Iceland: contrasting geochemical and geophysical inferences on magma migration

87 Sr/⁸⁶Sr (0.70322) and δ ¹⁸O ( ∼2.9‰), whereas significantly lower and higher values, respectively, are found in samples from the Bárdarbunga volcanic system (0.70307 and 3.8‰). These results strongly indicate that the Gjálp magma originated from the Grímsv?tn magma system. The 1996 magma is of an intermediate composition, representing a basaltic icelandite formed by 50% fractional crystallization of a tholeiite magma similar in composition to that expelled by the 1998 Grímsv?tn eruption. The differentiation that produced the Gjálp magma may have taken place in a subsidiary magma chamber that last erupted in 1938 and would be located directly beneath the 1996 eruption site. This chamber was ruptured when a tectonic fracture propagated southward from Bárdarbunga central volcano, as indicated by the seismicity that preceded the eruption. Our geochemical results are therefore not in agreement with lateral magma migration feeding the 1996 Gjálp eruption. Moreover, the results clearly demonstrate that isotope ratios are excellent tracers for deciphering pathways of magma migration and permit a clear delineation of the volcanic systems beneath Vatnaj?kull ice sheet. Received: 1 April 1998 / Accepted: 17 August 1999     

An introduction to electromagnetic induction in the ocean

The governing equations for the induction of electromagnetic fields in the ocean by ionospheric and oceanic sources are presented. A uniformly conducting layered model and a nonuniformly conducting thin-sheet model are discussed with reference to the interpretation of fields observed in the ocean. A procedure for the separation of the electric field continuum into parts of ionospheric and oceanic origin is presented.