Development and testing of numerical methods for two-way nested air pollution modelling

A new 3-D model REGINA (REGIonal high resolutioN Air pollution model) is under development at the National Environmental Research Institute (NERI). The model is based on pieces from several models developed over the last decades at NERI. The aim of the work is to develop a nested model which can operate with very high resolution in both space and time. To fulfill this aim the choice and implementation of accurate numerical methods is crucial. The model will be applied for studying air pollution phenomena (both monitoring, forecasting and scenarios) over Denmark. The present paper is focussed on the modification, implementation and testing of a numerical method for treating the horizontal advection in the model as well as the implementation of two-way nesting techniques. The horizontal transport in the model is solved using an accurate space derivative algorithm. This method is traditionally implemented with periodic boundary conditions, however, this is not an option for nested modelling. A new method for calculating non-periodic boundary conditions has been developed in order to overcome this problem. Extensive testing of the numerical solution of the advection and the coupling of the solution of advection and chemistry in the model using Molenkamp–Crowley rotation tests have been carried out. The results show that the model with the current implementation of numerical methods is suitable for calculating air pollution levels with high resolution.     

Spatial and temporal variability of pore‐water pressures in residual soil slopes in a tropical climate

It is critical to understand and quantify the temporal and spatial variability in hillslope hydrological data in order to advance hillslope hydrological studies, evaluate distributed parameter hydrological models, analyse variability in hydrological response of slopes and design efficient field data sampling networks. The spatial and temporal variability of field‐measured pore‐water pressures in three residual soil slopes in Singapore was investigated using geostatistical methods. Parameters of the semivariograms, namely the range, sill and nugget effect, revealed interesting insights into the spatial structure of the temporal situation of pore‐water pressures in the slopes. While informative, mean estimates have been shown to be inadequate for modelling purposes, indicator semivariograms together with mean prediction by kriging provide a better form of model input. Results also indicate that significant temporal and spatial variability in pore‐water pressures exists in the slope profile and thereby induces variability in hydrological response of the slope. Spatial and temporal variability in pore‐water pressure decreases with increasing soil depth. The variability decreases during wet conditions as the slope approaches near saturation and the variability increases with high matric suction development following rainfall periods. Variability in pore‐water pressures is greatest at shallow depths and near the slope crest and is strongly influenced by the combined action of microclimate, vegetation and soil properties. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Contrasting rifted margin styles south of Greenland: implications for mantle plume dynamics

We present new and reprocessed seismic reflection data from the area where the southeast and southwest Greenland margins intersected to form a triple junction south of Greenland in the early Tertiary. During breakup at 56 Ma, thick igneous crust was accreted along the entire 1300-km-long southeast Greenland margin from the Greenland Iceland Ridge to, and possibly 100 km beyond, the triple junction into the Labrador Sea. However, highly extended and thin crust 250 km to the west of the triple junction suggests that magmatically starved crustal formation occurred on the southwest Greenland margin at the same time. Thus, a transition from a volcanic to a non-volcanic margin over only 100–200 km is observed. Magmatism related to the impact of the Iceland plume below the North Atlantic around 61 Ma is known from central-west and southeast Greenland. The new seismic data also suggest the presence of a small volcanic plateau of similar age close to the triple junction. The extent of initial plume-related volcanism inferred from these observations is explained by a model of lateral flow of plume material that is guided by relief at the base of the lithosphere. Plume mantle is channelled to great distances provided that significant melting does not take place. Melting causes cooling and dehydration of the plume mantle. The associated viscosity increase acts against lateral flow and restricts plume material to its point of entry into an actively spreading rift. We further suggest that thick Archaean lithosphere blocked direct flow of plume material into the magma-starved southwest Greenland margin while the plume was free to flow into the central west and east Greenland margins. The model is consistent with a plume layer that is only moderately hotter, 100–200°C, than ambient mantle temperature, and has a thickness comparable to lithospheric thickness variations, 50–100 km. Lithospheric architecture, the timing of continental rifting and viscosity changes due to melting of the plume material are therefore critical parameters for understanding the distribution of magmatism.     

A rifted inside corner massif on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge at 5°S

The structure of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge at 5°S was investigated during a recent cruise with the FS Meteor. A major dextral transform fault (hereafter the 5°S FZ) offsets the ridge left-laterally by 80 km. Just south of the transform and to the west of the median valley, the inside corner (IC – the region bounded by the ridge and the active transform) is marked by a major massif, characterized by a corrugated upper surface. Fossil IC massifs can also be identified further to the west. Unusually, a massif almost as high as the IC massif also characterizes the outside corner (OC) south of the inactive fracture zone and to the east of the median valley. This OC massif has axis-parallel dimensions identical to the IC massif and both are bounded on their sides closest to the spreading axis by abrupt, steep slopes. An axial volcanic ridge is well developed in the median valley both south of the IC/OC massifs and in an abandoned rift valley to the east of the OC massif, but is absent along the new ridge-axis segment between the IC and OC massifs. Wide-angle seismic data show that between the massifs, the crust of the median valley thins markedly towards the FZ. These observations are consistent with the formation of the OC massif by the rifting of an IC core complex and the development of a new spreading centre between the IC and OC massifs. The split IC massif presents an opportunity to study the internal structure of the footwall of a detachment fault, from the corrugated fault surface to deeper beneath the fault, without recourse to drilling. Preliminary dredging recovered gabbros from the scarp slope of the rifted IC massif, and serpentinites and gabbros from the intersection of this scarp with the corrugated surface. This is compatible with a concentration of serpentinites along the detachment surface, even where the massif internally is largely plutonic in nature.     

A theoretical analysis of the observed variability of the geomagnetic dipole field

We present a detailed analysis of the Sint-800 virtual axial dipole moment (VADM) data in terms of an Ω mean field model of the geodynamo that features a non-steady generation of poloidal from toroidal magnetic field. The result is a variable excitation of the dipole mode and the overtones, and there are occasional dipole reversals. The model permits a theoretical evaluation of the statistical properties of the dipole mode. We show that the model correctly predicts the distribution of the VADM and the autocorrelation function inferred from the Sint-800 data. The autocorrelation technique allows us to determine the turbulent diffusion time τ_d=R²/β of the geodynamo. We find that τ_d is about 10–15 kyr. The model is able to reproduce the observed secular variation of the dipole mode, and the mean time between successive dipole reversals. On the other hand, the duration of a reversal is a factor 2 too long. This could be due to imperfections in the model or to unknown systematics in the Sint-800 data. The use of mean field theory is shown to be selfconsistent.     

Probing mid-mantle heterogeneity using PKP coda waves

We investigate the utility of PKP coda waves for studying weak scattering from small-scale heterogeneity in the mid-mantle. Coda waves are potentially a useful probe of heterogeneity in the mid-mantle because they are not preferentially scattered near the CMB, as PKP precursors are, but are sensitive to scattering at all depths. PKP coda waves have not been used for this purpose historically because of interference with other late-arriving energy due to near-surface resonance and scattering. Any study of deep mantle scattering using coda waves requires the removal of near-surface effects from the data. We have analyzed 3624 recordings of PKP precursors and coda made by stations in the Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology (IRIS) Global Seismographic Network (GSN). To study the range and time dependence of the scattered waves, we binned and stacked envelopes of the recordings. We have considered precursors that arrive within a 20 s window before PKP and coda waves in a 60 s window after PKP. The PKP scattered waves increase in amplitude rapidly with range as predicted by scattering theory. At ranges below 125°, we predict and observe essentially no scattered energy preceding PKP. Coda amplitudes at these ranges are independent of range and provide an estimate of energy due to near-surface effects that we can expect at all ranges. We use the average coda amplitude at ranges from 120 to 125° to correct coda amplitudes at other ranges. PKP coda waves show a strong dependence on time and range and are clearly influenced by scattering in the lower mantle. PKP coda waves, however, do not provide a tighter constraint on the vertical distribution of mantle heterogeneity than is provided by precursors. This is due, in part, to relatively large scatter in coda amplitudes as revealed by a resampling analysis. Modeling using Rayleigh–Born scattering theory and an exponential autocorrelation function shows that PKP coda amplitudes are not highly sensitive to the vertical distribution of heterogeneity in the mantle. To illustrate this we consider single-scattering in two extreme models of mantle heterogeneity. One allows heterogeneity just at the CMB; the other includes heterogeneity throughout the mantle. The amplitudes of precursors are tightly constrained by our stack and support our earlier conclusion that small-scale heterogeneity is uniformly distributed throughout the lower mantle. The best-fit model includes 8 km scale length heterogeneity with an rms velocity contrast throughout the mantle of 1%.     

Identification of Mining Blasts at Mid- to Far-regional Distances Using Low Frequency Seismic Signals

—?This paper reports results from two recent monitoring experiments in Wyoming. Broadband seismic recordings of kiloton class delay-fired cast blasts and instantaneous calibration shots in the Black Thunder coal mine were made at four azimuths at ranges from 1° to 2°. The primary focus of this experiment was to observe and to explain low-frequency signals that can be seen at all azimuths and should routinely propagate above noise to mid-regional distances where most events will be recorded by International Monitoring System (IMS) stations.¶The recordings clearly demonstrate that large millisecond delay-fired cast blasts routinely produce seismic signals that have significant spectral modulations below 10?Hz. These modulations are independent of time, the azimuth from the source and the orientation of the sensor. Low-frequency modulations below 5?Hz are seen beyond 9°. The modulations are not due to resonance as they are not produced by the calibration shots. Linear elastic modeling of the blasts that is guided by mine-blast reports fails to reproduce the fine detail of these modulations but clearly indicates that the enhanced “spectral roughness” is due to long interrow delays and source finiteness. The mismatch between the data and the synthetics is likely due to source processes, such as nonlinear interactions between shots, that are poorly understood and to other effects, such as variations of shot time and yield from planned values, that are known to be omnipresent but cannot be described accurately. A variant of the Automated Time-Frequency Discriminant (Hedlin, 1998b), which uses low-frequency spectral modulations, effectively separates these events from the calibration shots.¶The experiment also provided evidence that kiloton class cast blasts consistently yield energetic 2–10 second surface waves. The surface waves are strongly dependent on azimuth but are seen beyond 9°. Physical modeling of these events indicates that the surface waves are due mainly to the extended source duration and to a lesser extent to the slap-down of spalled material. The directionality is largely a path effect. A discriminant that is based on the partitioning of energy between surface and body waves routinely separates these events from the calibration shots.¶The Powder River Basin has essentially no natural seismic activity. How these mining events compare to earthquake observations remains to be determined.     

Common-Reflection-Surface Stack for Converted Waves

The finite-offset (FO) common-reflection-surface (CRS) stack has been shown to be able to handle not only P-P or S-S but also arbitrarily converted reflections. It can provide different stack sections such as common-offset (CO), common-midpoint (CMP) and common-shot (CS) sections with significantly increased signal-to-noise ratio from the multi-coverage pre-stack seismic data in a data-driven way. It is our purpose in this paper to demonstrate the performance of the FO CRS stack on data involving converted waves in inhomogeneous layered media. In order to do this we apply the FO CRS stack for common-offset to a synthetic seismic data set involving P-P as well as P-S converted primary reflections. We show that the FO CRS stack yields convincing improvement of the image quality in the presence of noisy data and successfully extracts kinematic wavefield attributes useful for further analyses. The extracted emergence angle information is used to achieve a complete separation of the wavefield into its P-P and P-S wave components, given the FO CRS stacked horizontal and vertical component sections.     

Explaining success and failure in international river management

When and why are international efforts to solve transboundary river management problems successful? When and why do such efforts fail, and what does success or failure mean? With more than 260 international river basins covering 45% of the Earth's land surface, and with freshwater being humanity's most valuable natural resource, these questions are hardly trivial. Natural scientists and engineers have provided some answers, but they remain far from complete without major input from the social sciences. While technical know-how and innovation are also crucial to successful international river management, success in this context hinges primarily on political processes in which institutional arrangements are designed and implemented. This review essay maintains that social scientists have made considerable progress in this field since 1977, when a landmark book by David Le Marquand on the politics of international river management was published. This progress includes the development of theoretically better informed explanatory models and their evaluation against an increasing amount of empirical information. It provides a solid foundation for proceeding to a larger-scale research effort that involves the analysis of a larger set of empirical cases on the basis of a single explanatory model.     

Mantle Convection Modeling with Viscoelastic/Brittle Lithosphere: Numerical Methodology and Plate Tectonic Modeling

--The earth's tectonic plates are strong, viscoelastic shells which make up the outermost part of a thermally convecting, predominantly viscous layer. Brittle failure of the lithosphere occurs when stresses are high. In order to build a realistic simulation of the planet's evolution, the complete viscoelastic/brittle convection system needs to be considered. A particle-in-cell finite element method is demonstrated which can simulate very large deformation viscoelasticity with a strain-dependent yield stress. This is applied to a plate-deformation problem. Numerical accuracy is demonstrated relative to analytic benchmarks, and the characteristics of the method are discussed.