Genesis of certain bauxite profiles from India

An attempt is made to reveal a geochemical compatibility with paleoenvironment to understand the genesis of bauxite deposits that are derived from two different parent rocks. For this purpose two in situ bauxite profiles, one developed over basalt and another over sandstone, have been taken. Gibbsite is the major mineral in all these bauxites with minor occurrences of goethite, hematite, anatase, kaolinite, etc. From the study it is evident that the paleoenvironment and geochemical processes are vital factors that could lead to the formation of bauxites. The significance of this is fully discussed.     

On the formation of Jupiter

Arguments are presented to show that Jupiter could not have been formed as a star of mass 0.001M and that the observed excess energy is not due to gravitational contraction from an extended, gaseous state.     

Assessment of freely available CartoDEM V1 and V1.1R1 with respect to high resolution aerial photogrammetric DEM in high mountains

The accuracy of DEMs shows wide variations from one terrain to another and it needs to be determined. This study evaluates NRSC (National Remote Sensing Centre, Hyderabad, India) CartoDEM V1 and V1.1R1 with respect to resampled ADS80 DEM for parts of the Himalayas. Both the test DEMs were properly registered with reference to resampled ADS80 DEM and then individually subtracted to get the difference DEMs. Visual and statistical analyses were performed to assess the quality of the tested DEMs in terms of visible terrain and vertical accuracy. For calculating the accuracies in different terrain classes, slope and aspect maps were generated from the ADS80 DEM. Properly registered Landsat5 TM data were used for the development of the land cover map with four classes. The overall vertical accuracy measured for CartoDEM V1 was 269.9 m (LE90), while CartoDEM V1.1R1 showed huge improvement in the accuracy with 68.5 m (LE90).     

Vertical structure of tropical mesoscale convective systems: observations using VHF radar and cloud resolving model simulations

This study examines the time–height variation and structure of a tropical mesoscale convective system (TMCS). Convection experiments using VHF (53 MHz) radar aimed at improving the understanding of the vertical structure of TMCS occurred over Gadanki (13.5°N, 79.2°E), India during 21–22 June 2000 has been selected for the study. The time–height variations of reflectivity and vertical velocity exhibits four distinct patterns and have been used to classify four subjectively identified types of echoes; viz., formative, mature, transition zone and stratiform regions associated with TMCS. Average vertical velocity profiles were distinctive for each region. The mean vertical motion is upward at all levels in the troposphere during the formative phase. The vertical motion in the mature region is downward in the lower troposphere and upward in the middle and upper troposphere. The maximum upward motion is found in the middle troposphere and secondary maxima near the tropopause level. The transition zone is characterized by strong downdraft in the lower troposphere with local pockets of updrafts in the middle and upper troposphere. The magnitude of the mean vertical motion is considerably reduced in the stratiform region and is downward in the lower troposphere and upward in the upper troposphere. Time–height variation of reflectivity has been analyzed separately for each region. The observed diminished echo zone and tropopause break/weakening during the mature phase and two enhanced reflectivity zone in the stratiform region is also observed. A Cloud System Resolving Model (CSRM) simulation of the same event has been carried out. The CSRM simulations were able to capture the structure of the storm and are consistent with the observations. The model output in conjunction with observations has been used to validate the hypothesis.     

On anomalously high sub-surface dissolved oxygen in the Indian sector of the Southern Ocean

The Southern Ocean (SO) plays a critical role in global ocean productivity and carbon cycling. Bio-Argo floats deployed in the Indian sector of the Southern Ocean provides new insights into the biogeochemical processes. Here we report significantly higher dissolved oxygen(DO) (~?310 μmol/kg) in summer of 2014–2015 for one float (F1) and winter of 2014 in other float (F2) at sub-surface layer in the subantarctic region of the SO. The summer DO peak in F1 was 10% higher than those during the summer of succeeding year, while the winter DO peak in F2 was 20% higher than those during the winter of succeeding year. Temperature and dynamic height structure show that cyclonic eddies play an important role in the observed increase in the dissolved oxygen: the high DO is a manifestation of the co-occurrence of a cold core eddy which transported the cold oxygen rich water from deep to the surface during winter, while, during summer, the high chlorophyll below the mixed layer depth (MLD) also contributed to the elevated DO. Low apparent oxygen utilisation suggests that the observed high oxygen concentration was due to high production rates over the consumption.

     

Surface wave dynamics off Mumbai coast,north-eastern Arabian Sea

Ocean Dynamics - Directional wave data collected in the coastal area at 10-m water depth for a period of 1 year is used to describe the surface wave dynamics off Mumbai coast. Partitioning...     

Modelling of land use land cover change using earth observation data-sets of Tons River Basin,Madhya Pradesh,India

Abstract

An integrated Markov Chain and Cellular Automata modelling (CA MARKOV), multicriteria evaluation techniques have been applied to produce transition probability. The unsupervised method was employed to classify the satellite images of year 1985, 1995, 2005 and 2015 to meet the magnitude of LULC change. Results showing the spatial pattern of the sub-basin is largely influenced by the biophysical and socio-economic drivers leading to growth of agricultural lands and built-up area in the basin. Simulated plausible future LULC changes for 2025 which is based on a CA MARKOV that integrates Markovian transition probabilities computed from satellite-derived LULC maps and a CA contiguity spatial filter (5 × 5). Further, the fragmentation analysis was performed to check the fragmentation scenario in the year 2025. The result for year 2025 with reasonably good accuracy will be useful to the planners, policy- and decision-makers.     

Optimal pumping from skimming wells from the Yamuna River flood plain in north India

This report examines the problem involving the pumping of groundwater from a group of 90 existing wells along the banks of the Yamuna River, northwest of Delhi (India), underlain with geologically occurring saline water. It is known that unregulated pumping will lead to upconing of saline water and therefore it is necessary to determine optimal rates and associated well locations (from an existing group of candidate wells that supply drinking water to the city of Delhi) that will minimize the total salinity. The nonlinear, non-convex problem is solved by embedding the calibrated groundwater model within a simulation-optimisation (S/O) framework. Optimisation is accomplished by using simulated annealing (SA), a search algorithm. The computational burden is primarily managed by replacing the numerical model with a surrogate simulator-artificial neural network (ANN). The model is applied to the real system to determine the optimal pumping schedule. The results of the operational model suggest that the skimming wells must be operated from optimal locations such that they are staggered in space and time to obtain the least saline water.     

CFSv2 ensemble prediction of the wintertime Arctic Oscillation

Lagged ensembles from the operational Climate Forecast System version 2 (CFSv2) seasonal hindcast dataset are used to assess skill in forecasting interannual variability of the December–February Arctic Oscillation (AO). We find that a small but statistically significant portion of the interannual variance (>20 %) of the wintertime AO can be predicted at leads up to 2 months using lagged ensemble averages. As far as we are aware, this is the first study to demonstrate that an operational model has discernible skill in predicting AO variability on seasonal timescales. We find that the CFS forecast skill is slightly higher when a weighted ensemble is used that rewards forecast runs with the most accurate representations of October Eurasian snow cover extent (SCE), hinting that a stratospheric pathway linking October Eurasian SCE with the AO may be responsible for the model skill. However, further analysis reveals that the CFS is unable to capture many important aspects of this stratospheric mechanism. Model deficiencies identified include: (1) the CFS significantly underestimates the observed variance in October Eurasian SCE, (2) the CFS fails to translate surface pressure anomalies associated with SCE anomalies into vertically propagating waves, and (3) stratospheric AO patterns in the CFS fail to propagate downward through the tropopause to the surface. Thus, alternate boundary forcings are likely contributing to model skill. Improving model deficiencies identified in this study may lead to even more skillful predictions of wintertime AO variability in future versions of the CFS.