Atmospheric Surface-Layer Processes During the Total Solar Eclipse Of 11 August 1999

The central path of the total solar eclipse (TSE) of 11 August 1999 mostly passedthrough a region of active monsoon in India, with the eclipse ending around localsunset. Measurements in the surface layer (SL) were carried out close to the eclipseaxis at Akola (20°42' N, 77°2' E) in central India. The globalradiation flux reaching the surface vanishes around totality at 1803:24 (LT), followedby a small recovery before again dipping to zero at sunset. The temperatures in the SL, and subsoil at 50-mm depth, show a local minimum with a lag of about 10 min after the second contact, whereas the lag appears to vanish when the temperature series is detrended. The SL exhibits near-neutral, though generally stable, conditions from about 1500 hr itself due to heavy cloud cover followed by the eclipse-induced cooling of the surface. The wind component across the eclipse axis vanishes at totality, the wind vector aligning with the azimuth of the traversing moon shadow. The deceleration of the mean flow can be due to the combined effect of the colder surface and downward heat flux, where the locally altered horizontal temperature gradients may cause, as in this instance, the cessation of the cross flow.The oscillations in temperature and wind that show significant peaks, around 90–100 min as well as the semi-period of the eclipse near 60 min, persist for several hours past the eclipse event. A fresh analysis of the published data on the TSE of 7 March 1970 shows spectral peaks in the temperature nearly coincident with those already reported from the surface pressure records. The oscillations in the SL fields during the two TSE events are very similar implying that the source mechanism is also likely to be the same in both the cases.     

Simulation of the east asian summer monsoon using a variable resolution atmospheric GCM

The East Asia summer monsoon (EASM) is simulated with a variable resolution global atmospheric general circulation model (GCM) developed at the Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique, France. The version used has a local zoom centered on China. This study validates the model's capability in reproducing the fundamental features of the EASM. The monsoon behaviors over East Asia revealed by the ECMWF reanalysis data are also addressed systematically, providing as observational evidence. The mean state of the EASM is generally portrayed well in the model, including the large-scale monsoon airflows, the monsoonal meridional circulation, the cross-equatorial low-level jets, the monsoon trough in the South China Sea, the surface cold high in Australia, and the upper-level northeasterly return flow. While the performance of simulating large-scale monsoonal climate is encouraging, the model's main deficiency lies in the rainfall. The marked rainbelt observed along the Yangtze River Valley is missed in the simulation. This is due to the weakly reproduced monsoonal components in essence and is directly related to the weak western Pacific subtropical high, which leads to a fragile subtropical southwest monsoon on its western flank and results in a weaker convergence of the southwest monsoon flow with the midlatitude westerlies. The excessively westward extension of the high, together with the distorted Indian low, also makes the contribution of the tropical southwest monsoon to the moisture convergence over the Yangtze River Valley too weak in the model. The insufficient plateau heating and the resulting weak land-sea thermal contrast are responsible for the weakly reproduced monsoon. It is the deficiency of the model in handling the low-level cloud cover over the plateau rather than the horizontal resolution and the associated depiction of plateau topography that results in the insufficient plateau heating. Comparison with the simulation employing regular coarser mesh model reveals that the local zoom technique improves, in a general manner, the EASM simulation.     

Particle size dependent response of aerosol counters

During an international workshop at the Institute for Experimental Physics of the University of Vienna, Austria, which was coordinated within the Committee on Nucleation and Atmospheric Aerosols (IAMAS-IUGG), 10 instruments for aerosol number concentration measurement were studied, covering a wide range of methods based on various different measuring principles. In order to investigate the detection limits of the instruments considered with respect to particle size, simultaneous number concentration measurements were performed for monodispersed aerosols with particle sizes ranging from 1.5 to 50 nm diameter and various compositions.The instruments considered show quite different response characteristics, apparently related to the different vapors used in the various counters to enlarge the particles to an optically detectable size. A strong dependence of the 50% cutoff diameter on the particle composition in correlation with the type of vapor used in the specific instrument was found. An enhanced detection efficiency for ultrafine hygroscopic sodium chloride aerosols was observed with water operated systems, an analogous trend was found for n-butanol operated systems with nonhygroscopic silver and tungsten oxide particles.     

A mathematical hysteretic model for elastomeric isolation bearings

An analytical model for high damping elastomeric isolation bearings is presented in this paper. The model is used to describe mathematically the damping force and restoring force of the rubber material and bearing. Ten parameters to be identified from cyclic loading tests are included in the model. The sensitivity of the ten parameters in affecting the model is examined. These ten parameters are functions of a number of influence factors on the elastomer such as the rubber compound, Mullins effect, scragging effect, frequency, temperature and axial load. In this study, however, only the Mullins effect, scragging effect, frequency and temperature are investigated. Both material tests and shaking table tests were performed to validate the proposed model. Based on the comparison between the experimental and the analytical results, it is found that the proposed analytical model is capable of predicting the shear force–displacement hysteresis very accurately for both rubber material and bearing under cyclic loading reversals. The seismic response time histories of the bearing can also be captured, using the proposed analytical model, with a practically acceptable precision. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A response‐based decoupling criterion for multiply‐supported secondary systems

It is often infeasible to carry out coupled analyses of multiply‐supported secondary systems for earthquake excitations. ‘Approximate’ decoupled analyses are then resorted to, unless the response errors due to those are significantly high. This study proposes a decoupling criterion to identify such cases where these errors are likely to be larger than an acceptable level. The proposed criterion is based on the errors in the primary system response due to decoupling and has been obtained by assuming (i) the input excitation to be an ideal white noise process, (ii) cross‐modal correlation to be negligible, and (iii) the combined system to be classically damped. It uses the modal properties of the undamped combined system, and therefore, a perturbation approach has been formulated to determine the combined system properties in case of light to moderately heavy secondary systems. A numerical study has been carried out to illustrate the accuracy achieved with the proposed perturbation formulation. The proposed decoupling criterion has been validated with the help of two example primary‐secondary systems and four example excitation processes. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Spatial structure of the old open cluster NGC 2420

The spatial structure of the intermediate and outer regions of the old open cluster NGC 2420 is analyzed using data from the catalog of Paparó. The differential and integrated distributions of the projected [ΔF(r) and F(r)] and spatial [Δf(r) and f(r)] stellar densities are obtained for various subsystems of cluster stars using Kholopov’s star-count method. Analysis of these curves shows that: (1) the cluster has at least three distinct spatial zones with different stellar-density gradients, (2) the each cluster subsystem has a layered structure, and (3) the spatial structure of the cluster changes systematically in the transition to subsystems containing fainter main-sequence stars. Empirical relations describing the structure of the cluster are also derived. Similar structural features can also be found in other globular and open clusters.