The influence of vegetation variation on Northeast Asian dust activity

In this study, we investigate the influence of vegetation variations on dust activity (dust load, dust transport in the troposphere, and dust weather frequency) over Northeast Asia during springtime. By using the Integrated Wind Erosion Modeling System, two model experiments are run over four-month periods, from February 1 to May 31, for each year from 1982 to 2006; one experiment uses the observed atmospheric conditions and vegetation (OBS), and the other uses the specified atmospheric conditions in 2006 and the observed vegetation (CTRL). Comparison of the two model experiments reveals that there are sensitive regions in southeastern Mongolia and central northern China, in which vegetation has a large potential to influence dust activity due to both the high dust emission rate and large variations in vegetation coverage. Over these sensitive regions, vegetation effectively lessens dust loads on interannual and interdecadal timescales; dust load is decreased by 2864 μg m^?2 for an increment of 0.1 in the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI). Vegetation increase in the sensitive areas also reduces two major branches of dust transports in the low troposphere; one stretches from eastern Mongolia to regions northeastward, and the other flows across the south of northeastern China to Korea. In addition to dust loads and transports, vegetation increase in the sensitive areas evidently decreases dust storm frequency and blowing dust frequency, but it exerts a weak influence on the floating dust frequency. In the sensitive regions, as NDVI increases by 0.1, dust storms, blowing dust, and floating dust decrease by 4.0 days/spring, 1.5 days/spring, and 0.2 days/spring, respectively. In summary, vegetation variations in southeastern Mongolia and central northern China have considerable impact on northeast Asian dust during springtime.     

An operational MODIS aerosol retrieval algorithm at high spatial resolution,and its application over a complex urban region

Aerosol retrieval algorithms for the MODerate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) have been developed to estimate aerosol and microphysical properties of the atmosphere, which help to address aerosol climatic issues at global scale. However, higher spatial resolution aerosol products for urban areas have not been well-researched mainly due to the difficulty of differentiating aerosols from bright surfaces in urban areas. Here, an aerosol retrieval algorithm using the MODIS 500-m resolution bands is described, to retrieve aerosol properties over Hong Kong and the Pearl River Delta region. The rationale of our technique is to first estimate the aerosol reflectances by decomposing the top-of-atmosphere reflectances from surface reflectances and Rayleigh path reflectances. For the determination of surface reflectances, a Minimum Reflectance Technique (MRT) is used, and MRT images are computed for different seasons. For conversion of aerosol reflectance to aerosol optical thickness (AOT), comprehensive Look Up Tables specific to the local region are constructed, which consider aerosol properties and sun-viewing geometry in the radiative transfer calculations. Four local aerosol types, namely coastal urban, polluted urban, dust, and heavy pollution, were derived using cluster analysis on 3 years of AERONET measurements in Hong Kong. The resulting 500 m AOT images were found to be highly correlated with ground measurements from the AERONET (r² = 0.767) and Microtops II sunphotometers (r² = 0.760) in Hong Kong. This study further demonstrates the application of the fine resolution AOT images for monitoring inter-urban and intra-urban aerosol distributions and the influence of trans-boundary flows. These applications include characterization of spatial patterns of AOT within the city, and detection of regional biomass burning sources.     

Distribution, magnitude and characterization of the toxicity of Ukrainian estuarine sediments

During the Soviet era, Ukraine was an important industrial and agricultural region of the Soviet Union. This industrial and agricultural activity resulted in contamination of Ukraine’s estuaries with legacy anthropogenic pollutants. Investigations on the toxicological effects of this estuarine contamination have been limited. For this research, we measured the toxicity of contaminated sediments from four Ukrainian estuaries to several aquatic organisms over 3 years. Sediment chemical analyses and whole sediment toxicity identification evaluations (TIEs) were also performed to determine the classes of contaminants contributing to toxicity. Toxic sediments were observed in several of the Ukrainian estuaries and chemical analyses of the sediments demonstrated anthropogenic contaminants were widely distributed. Contaminants were also detected in macrobenthic organisms collected from the sediments. Several lines of evidence, including TIEs, indicated hydrophobic organic chemicals (HOCs) were contributing substantially to observed toxicity. This information can guide environmental managers to prioritize portions of the estuaries requiring remediation.     

Hydrographic variability on a coastal shelf directly influenced by estuarine outflow

Hydrographic variability on the Alabama shelf just outside of Mobile Bay, a major source of river discharge into the Gulf of Mexico, is examined using time series of water column temperature and surface and bottom salinity from a mooring site with a depth of 20 m in conjunction with a series of across-shelf CTD surveys. The time series data show variability in a range of time scales. The density variation is affected by both salinity and temperature, with its relatively strong annual signal mostly determined by temperature and its year to year variability mostly determined by salinity. Seasonal mean structures of temperature, salinity, and density show a transition from estuarine to shelf conditions in which three regions with distinct seasonal characteristics in their horizontal and vertical gradient structures are identified. Correlation analysis with the available forcing functions demonstrates the influence of Mobile Bay on the variability at the mooring site. At low frequencies, river discharge from Mobile Bay has a varying influence on salinity, which is absent during the periods with unusually low discharge. At shorter synoptic time scales, both the estuarine response to the across-shelf wind stress and the shelf response to the along-shelf wind stress are significantly correlated with temperature/salinity variability: the former becoming important for the surface layer during winter whereas the latter for the bottom layer during both winter and summer. These forcing functions are important players in determining the estuarine-shelf exchange, which in turn is found to contribute to the shelf hydrographic structure.     

Assessment of temporal and spatial variation of coastal water quality and source identification along Macau peninsula

Cluster analysis (CA), discriminant analysis (DA) and principal component analysis (PCA) were comprehensively coupled to explore and identify the spatial and temporal variation and potential pollution sources in coastal water quality along Macau peninsula. The results show that the 12 months could be grouped into two periods, June–September and the remaining months, and the entire area divided into two clusters, one located at the western sides, and the other on the southeast and southern sides of the Macau peninsula. Through backward stepwise DA, pH, Cl⁻, TSS, Color and TP, Chloride, Color, NH₄ ⁺, DO, COD were discriminant variables of spatial and temporal variation, with 84.82 and 76.54% correct assignments, respectively. Fecal pollution, organic pollution and soil weathering are among the major sources for coastal water quality deterioration along Macau peninsula. This study illustrates that application of multivariate statistical techniques was beneficial to gain knowledge for further optimizing the monitoring network and controlling coastal water quality along Macau peninsula.     

Evaluation of the compression index of soils using an artificial neural network

The compression index is a one of the important soil parameters that is essential to geotechnical designs. As the determination of the compression index from consolidation tests is relatively time-consuming, empirical formulas based on soil parameters can be useful. Over the decades, a number of empirical formulas have been proposed to relate the compressibility to other soil parameters, such as the natural water content, liquid limit, plasticity index, specific gravity, and others. Each of the existing empirical formulas yields good results for a particular test set, but cannot accurately or reliably predict the compression index from various test sets. In this study, an alternative approach, an artificial neural network (ANN) model, is proposed to estimate the compression index with numerous consolidation test sets. The compression index was modeled as a function of seven variables including the natural water content, liquid limit, plastic index, specific gravity, and soil types. Nine hundred and forty-seven consolidation tests for soils sampled at 67 construction sites in the Republic of Korea were used for the training and testing of the ANN model. The predicted results showed that the neural network could provide a better performance than the empirical formulas.     

Taxonomy and zoogeography of euchaetid copepods (Calanoida,Clausocalanoidea) from Korean waters,with notes on their female genital structure

Euchaetid copepods (Calanoida, Clausocalanoidea) were collected from the southeastern region of Korea and the East/Japan Sea from June 2007 to August 2008. Seven species were found and redescribed in this study: five species from the genus Euchaeta (E. concinna, E. indica, E. longicornis, E. plana and E. rimana) and two species from the genus Paraeuchaeta (P. elongata and P. russelli). Using scanning electron microscopy, we observed detailed taxonomic features with special references to their genital structure. The euchaetid copepods show speciesspecific characteristics on their genital structures, in particular on the shapes of genital operculum and genital flange. Their zoogeographies were also discussed. They can be regarded as an indicator species of the Tsushima Warm Current and East Sea Intermediate Water.     

Geographical distribution of red and green Noctiluca scintillans

The dinoflagellate Noctiluca scintillans is one of the most important and abundant red tide organisms and it is distributed world-wide. It occurs in two forms. Red Noctiluca is heterotrophic and fills the role of one of the microzooplankton grazers in the foodweb. In contrast, green Noctiluca contains a photosynthetic symbiont Pedinomonas noctilucae (a prasinophyte), but it also feeds on other plankton when the food supply is abundant. In this review, we document the global distribution of these two forms and include the first maps of their global distribution. Red Noctiluca occurs widely in the temperate to sub-tropical coastal regions of the world. It occurs over a wide temperature range of about 10°C to 25°C and at higher salinities (generally not in estuaries). It is particularly abundant in high productivity areas such as upwelling or eutrophic areas where diatoms dominate since they are its preferred food source. Green Noctiluca is much more restricted to a temperature range of 25°C-30°C and mainly occurs in tropical waters of Southeast Asia, Bay of Bengal (east coast of India), in the eastern, western and northern Arabian Sea, the Red Sea, and recently it has become very abundant in the Gulf of Oman. Red and green Noctiluca do overlap in their distribution in the eastern, northern and western Arabian Sea with a seasonal shift from green Noctiluca in the cooler winter convective mixing, higher productivity season, to red Noctiluca in the more oligotrophic warmer summer season.     

On Northern Hemisphere Wave Patterns Associated with Winter Rainfall Events in China

During extended winter(November–April),43% of the intraseasonal rainfall variability in China is explained by three spatial patterns of temporally coherent rainfall.These patterns were identified with empirical orthogonal teleconnection(EOT) analysis of observed 1982–2007 pentad rainfall anomalies and connected to midlatitude disturbances.However,examination of individual strong EOT events shows that there is substantial inter-event variability in their dynamical evolution,which implies that precursor patterns found in regressions cannot serve as useful predictors.To understand the physical nature and origins of the extratropical precursors,the EOT technique is applied to six simulations of the Met Office Unified Model at horizontal resolutions of 200–40 km,with and without air–sea coupling.All simulations reproduce the observed precursor patterns in regressions,indicating robust underlying dynamical processes.Further investigation into the dynamics associated with observed patterns shows that Rossby wave dynamics can explain the large inter-event variability.The results suggest that the apparently slowly evolving or quasi-stationary waves in regression analysis are a statistical amalgamation of more rapidly propagating waves with a variety of origins and properties.