Advances in search and rescue at sea

A topical collection on “Advances in Search and Rescue at Sea” has appeared in recent issues of Ocean Dynamics following the latest in a series of workshops on “Technologies for Search and Rescue and other Emergency Marine Operations” (2004, 2006, 2008, and 2011), hosted by IFREMER in Brest, France. Here, we give a brief overview of the history of search and rescue at sea before we summarize the main results of the papers that have appeared in the topical collection.     

The leeway of shipping containers at different immersion levels

The leeway of 20-ft containers in typical distress conditions is established through field experiments in a Norwegian fjord and in open-ocean conditions off the coast of France with a wind speed ranging from calm to 14 m s⁻¹. The experimental setup is described in detail, and certain recommendations were given for experiments on objects of this size. The results are compared with the leeway of a scaled-down container before the full set of measured leeway characteristics are compared with a semianalytical model of immersed containers. Our results are broadly consistent with the semianalytical model, but the model is found to be sensitive to choice of drag coefficient and makes no estimate of the crosswind leeway of containers. We extend the results from the semianalytical immersion model by extrapolating the observed leeway divergence and estimates of the experimental uncertainty to various realistic immersion levels. The sensitivity of these leeway estimates at different immersion levels are tested using a stochastic trajectory model. Search areas are found to be sensitive to the exact immersion levels, the choice of drag coefficient, and somewhat less sensitive to the inclusion of leeway divergence. We further compare the search areas, thus, found with a range of trajectories estimated using the semianalytical model with only perturbations to the immersion level. We find that the search areas calculated without estimates of crosswind leeway and its uncertainty will grossly underestimate the rate of expansion of the search areas. We recommend that stochastic trajectory models of container drift should account for these uncertainties by generating search areas for different immersion levels and with the uncertainties in crosswind and downwind leeway reported from our field experiments.     

Inversion of inline and broadside marine controlled‐source electromagnetic data with constraints derived from seismic data

We present a structural smoothing regularization scheme in the context of inversion of marine controlled‐source electromagnetic data. The regularizing hypothesis is that the electrical parameters have a structure similar to that of the elastic parameters observed from seismic data. The regularization is split into three steps. First, we ensure that our inversion grid conforms with the geometry derived from seismic. Second, we use a seismic stratigraphic attribute to define a spatially varying regularization strength. Third, we use an indexing strategy on the inversion grid to define smoothing along the seismic geometry. Enforcing such regularization in the inversion will encourage an inversion result that is more intuitive for the interpreter to deal with. However, the interpreter should also be aware of the bias introduced by using seismic data for regularization. We illustrate the method using one synthetic example and one field data example. The results show how the regularization works and that it clearly enforces the structure derived from seismic data. From the field data example we find that the inversion result improves when the structural smoothing regularization is employed. Including the broadside data improves the inversion results even more, due to a better balancing between the sensitivities for the horizontal and vertical resistivities.     

Sensitivity of simulated wintertime Arctic atmosphere to vertical resolution in the ARPEGE/IFS model

The current state-of-the-art general circulation models, including several of those used by the IPCC, show considerable biases in the simulated present day high-latitude climate compared to observations and reanalysis data. These biases are most pronounced during the winter season. We here employ ideal vertical profiles of temperature and wind from turbulence-resolving simulations to perform a priori studies of the first-order eddy-viscosity closure scheme employed in the ARPEGE/IFS model. This reveals that the coarse vertical resolution (31 layers) of the model cannot be expected to realistically resolve the Arctic stable boundary layer. The curvature of the Arctic inversion and thus also the vertical turbulent-exchange processes cannot be reproduced by the coarse vertical mesh employed. To investigate how turbulent vertical exchange processes in the Arctic boundary layer are represented by the model parameterization, a simulation with high vertical resolution (90 layers in total) in the lower troposphere is performed. Results from the model simulations are validated against data from the ERA-40 reanalysis. The dependence of the surface air temperature on surface winds, surface energy fluxes, free atmosphere stability and boundary layer height is investigated. The coarse-resolution run reveals considerable biases in these parameters, and in their physical relations to surface air temperature. In the simulation with fine vertical resolution, these biases are clearly reduced. The physical relation between governing parameters for the vertical turbulent-exchange processes improves in comparison with ERA-40 data.     

An EC 14026 pulsator in a reflection binary

During our campaign of acquiring follow-up photometric data to resolve short period pulsating sdB (EC14026 or V361 Hya) stars, we obtained data on the known pulsator KUV 04421+1416 and discovered that it is also in a reflection-effect binary. Here we present preliminary results of the pulsation analysis and provide some constraints on the companion, which is most likely an MV star. This makes KUV 04421+1416 only the second known system with an EC14026-type pulsator in a reflection-effect binary.     

EXOTIME: searching for planets around pulsating subdwarf B stars

In 2007, a companion with planetary mass was found around the pulsating subdwarf B star V391 Pegasi with the timing method, indicating that a previously undiscovered population of substellar companions to apparently single subdwarf B stars might exist. Following this serendipitous discovery, the EXOTIME (http://www.na.astro.it/~silvotti/exotime/) monitoring program has been set up to follow the pulsations of a number of selected rapidly pulsating subdwarf B stars on time scales of several years with two immediate observational goals:

1. determine $\dot{P}$ of the pulsational periods P
2. search for signatures of substellar companions in O–C residuals due to periodic light travel time variations, which would be tracking the central star’s companion-induced wobble around the centre of mass

These sets of data should therefore, at the same time, on the one hand be useful to provide extra constraints for classical asteroseismological exercises from the $\dot{P}$ (comparison with “local” evolutionary models), and on the other hand allow one to investigate the preceding evolution of a target in terms of possible “binary” evolution by extending the otherwise unsuccessful search for companions to potentially very low masses. While timing pulsations may be an observationally expensive method to search for companions, it samples a different range of orbital parameters, inaccessible through orbital photometric effects or the radial velocity method: the latter favours massive close-in companions, whereas the timing method becomes increasingly more sensitive toward wider separations. In this paper we report on the status of the on-going observations and coherence analysis for two of the currently five targets, revealing very well-behaved pulsational characteristics in HS?0444+0458, while showing HS?0702+6043 to be more complex than previously thought.     

Morphological activity of a diverted glacier stream in Western Norway

In connection with the construction of a tunnel collecting water beneath a glacier (Bondhusbreen/Folgefonni) in SW Norway the amount of sediments transported by meltwater has been investigated. According to the values obtained the volume of the sedimentation chamber which has to take a one-years-amount of sediment was fixed at 5000 m³. In 1978 there has been a sedimentation of 3000 m³ of coarse material. The results obtained are not only of practical value, but also of scientific interest.     

Coastal and near-shore changes correlated with die-back in eel-grass (Zostera Marina,L.)

The die-back of eel-grass (Zostera marina, L.) is found to have played an important role with regard to near-shore sedimentation and coastal changes.In a natural harbour at Kyholm, Denmark a hiatus is found between silty sediments that date from about 4000 BC and overlying modern sandy sediments. It is suggested that this is a consequence of the die-back of eel-grass in the nineteen-thirties, resulting in mobilisation and disturbance of nearshore sediments and the shoreward movement of mobilised sandy material into the harbour. The coastal morphology of Kyholm was relatively stable from 1802 to 1933, but between 1933 and 1978 there have been two periods of drastic progradation correlated with die-back of eel-grass.     

Existence of the frequentistic estimate for power-law regression with a location parameter, with applications for making discharge rating curves

Practical application of the power-law regression model with an unknown location parameter can be plagued by non-finite least squares parameter estimates. This presents a serious problem in hydrology, since stream flow data is mainly obtained using an estimated stage–discharge power-law rating curve. This study provides a set of sufficient requirements for the data to ensure the existence of finite least squares parameter estimates for a power-law regression with an unknown location parameter. It is shown that in practice, these requirements act as necessary for having a finite least squares solution, in most cases. Furthermore, it is proved that there is a finite probability for the model to produce data having non-finite least squares parameter estimates. The implications of this result are discussed in the context of asymptotic predictions, inference and experimental design. A Bayesian approach to the actual regression problem is recommended.