Fault patterns on the outer wall of the Peru—Chile trench

Faults on the outer wall of the northern Peru—Chile trench, seaward of the Lima Basin, Arica Bight, and Iquique Basin, parallel the trend of Nazca plate magnetic anomalies. Where the Nazca Ridge enters the subduction zone, faulting parallels the trench, probably reflecting a lack of spreading fabric on the ridge. Seaward of the Yaquina Basin, faulting does not parallel the trench or the spreading fabric, possibly reflecting stress changes caused by N—S extension across the nearby Mendaña fracture zone. These results generally agree with a previous review of subduction-related faulting, which concluded that faults parallel the spreading fabric where it differs from the strike of the dipping slab by less than 30°.     

Zonal Wavelengths of Planetary Rossby Waves Derived from Hydrographic Transects in the Northeast Atlantic Ocean?

Using hydrographic data of three extended zonal sections, which cover the upper 1000 dbar layer along 10°, 21°, and 32°N in the North-East Atlantic between 20° and 45°W, observational evidence is presented for zonal wavelengths of resonantly excited, first mode, long, baroclinic Rossby waves. The amplitudes of associated anomalies in the mass field decrease with increasing offshore distance. The associated zonal wavelengths reach several hundred kilometres and decrease with increasing latitude. Due to the Rossby dispersion, the detected wave patterns slowly propagate westward, somewhat faster in the south than in the north. The results obtained confirm the data sets remotely sensed by satellites, as well as the outcomes of analytical and numerical models.     

Snow cover and runoff modelling in a high mountain catchment with scarce data: effects of temperature and precipitation parameters

Snowmelt is an important source of runoff in high mountain catchments. Snowmelt modelling for alpine regions remains challenging with scarce gauges. This study simulates the snowmelt in the Karuxung River catchment in the south Tibetan Plateau using an altitude zone based temperature‐index model, calibrates the snow cover area and runoff simulation during 2003–2005 and validates the model performance via snow cover area and runoff simulation in 2006. In the snowmelt and runoff modelling, temperature and precipitation are the two most important inputs. Relevant parameters, such as critical snow fall temperature, temperature lapse rate and precipitation gradient, determine the form and amount of precipitation and distribution of temperature and precipitation in hydrological modelling of the sparsely gauged catchment. Sensitivity analyses show that accurate estimation of these parameters would greatly help in improving the snowmelt simulation accuracy, better describing the snow‐hydrological behaviours and dealing with the data scarcity at higher elevations. Specifically, correlation between the critical snow fall temperature and relative humidity and seasonal patterns of both the temperature lapse rate and the precipitation gradient should be considered in the modelling studies when precipitation form is not logged and meteorological observations are only available at low elevation. More accurate simulation of runoff involving snowmelt, glacier melt and rainfall runoff will improve our understanding of hydrological processes and help assess runoff impacts from a changing climate in high mountain catchments. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Visualizing the temporal development of thermo-radiative features on ground-based thermographs

In urban microclimate research, ground-based thermography is used to gain insight into the spatial distribution of surface temperatures of various materials. Taking snapshots over a certain time span helps experts to observe the temporal thermo-radiative behavior of the monitored surface elements and therefore supports decisions on possible optimizations, e.g., improving the thermal comfort in a neighborhood. Appropriate visualization techniques facilitate decision-making and are thus crucial in the optimization process. In this study, we present a tool that eases the extraction of thermo-radiative features from multi-temporal thermographs taken from a monitored scene. Assisted by our tool, users can identify, choose, and register thermo-radiative features for each time step according to their individual research needs. The features’ temporal development is then visualized using a directed graph that encodes topological events as well as each feature’s size and summarizing statistics. To enhance this summary, a comprehensive animated sequence emphasizes the spatiotemporal behavior of the most significant thermo-radiative features. Salient developments are visually embedded and highlighted in the original infrared images, which are blended in an animation from time step to time step. Since we enable the user to interact with the data in a flexible way, noisy and low resolution image data sets can also be processed.     

Let us create flood hazard maps for developing countries

The recent flood disaster in Pakistan with the ensuing coordination chaos and lack of information has highlighted the urgent need for flood maps in developing countries. Nationwide inundation maps of extreme flood events can help with infrastructure and mitigation planning, as well as provide essential insight for aid delivery during the crisis itself. The NATO C3 Agency (NC3A) and the National University of Singapore have successfully developed a simple method to create accurate flood maps for developing countries.     

Applications of multivariate statistical analysis in remote sensing of agriculture

Rasmussen, Kjeld & Olesen, Henrik Hagen: Applications of multivariate statistical analysis in remote sensing of agriculture. Geografisk Tidsskrift 88:100–107. Copenhagen 1988.

Applications of satellite remote sensing to agriculture involve two main objectives, the identification and mapping of crops, including estimation of acreages, and monitoring of plant growth or production factors, aiming at estimation/prediction of yields.

Deterministic models of the interaction of electromagnetic radiation and plant canopies are used to relate the measured reflected or emitted radiation to crop type and agronomically relevant parameters. The great natural variation of reflectance properties of crops does, however, call for use of a statistical approach. The high dimensionality of the data-sets involved, very often more than ten, requires the use of multivariate techniques.

This paper will deal with the use of multivariate statistical techniques for both crop identification and crop monitoring based on high-resolution satellite remote sensing data, such as those produced by Landsat MSS and -TM and SPOT. Emphasis will be placed upon use of statistical methods in classification and on removal of redundancy in multi-dimensional data-sets. The relative merits of deterministic and statistical methods will be discussed as will the possibilities of incorporating spatial information into statistical methods.     

Trends in water demand and water availability for power plants—scenario analyses for the German capital Berlin

The availability of electric power is an important prerequisite for the development or maintenance of high living standards. Global change, including socio-economic change and climate change, is a challenge for those who have to deal with the long-term management of thermoelectric power plants. Power plants have lifetimes of several decades. Their water demand changes with climate parameters in the short and medium term. In the long term, the water demand will change as old units are retired and new generating units are built. The present paper analyses the effects of global change and options for adapting to water shortages for power plants in the German capital Berlin in the short and long term. The interconnection between power plants, i.e. water demand, and water resources management, i.e. water availability, is described. Using different models, scenarios of socio-economic and climate change are analysed. One finding is that by changing the cooling system of power plants from a once-through system to a closed-circuit cooling system the vulnerability of power plants can be reduced considerably. Such modified cooling systems also are much more robust with respect to the effects of climate change and declining streamflows due to human activities in the basin under study. Notwithstanding the possible adaptations analysed for power plants in Berlin, increased economic costs are expected due to declining streamflows and higher water temperatures.     

Glacial mass balance of Austre Brøggerbreen (Spitsbergen), 1971–1999, modelled with a precipitation-run-off model

An energy balance based HBV model was calibrated to the run-off from Bayelva catchment in western Spitsbergen, Svalbard. The model simulated the glacier mass balance, and the results were compared to observations at Austre Brøggerbreen for the period 1971-1997. Even though the model was optimized to observed run-off from a catchment in which the glaciers constitute 50% of the area, and not to the observation of glacier mass balance, the model was able to reconstruct the trends and values of the mass balance found through observations. On average the simulation gave a negative net balance of 696 mm. The observed average is 442 mm. The simulated winter accumulation was in average for the same period 9% lower and the summer ablation 17% higher than the observed. The years 1994-96 show deviations between simulated and observed winter accumulation up to 160%. This can probably be accounted for by extreme rainfall during the winter, leading to thick ice layers which make accurate observations difficult. The higher simulated summer ablation might indicate that the glaciers in the catchment as a whole have a larger negative mass balance than Austre Brøggerbreen. The simulations showed that the glacier mass-balance would be in equilibrium with a summer temperature 1.2°C lower than the average over the last decades or with a 100% increase in the winter (snow) precipitation. These are higher values than former estimates. A combined change of temperature and precipitation showed a synergic effect and thereby less extreme values.     

Dust deposition near an eroding source field

Deposition of suspended dust near eroding source fields can have detrimental effects on vegetation, as well as on soil and water quality. This study was undertaken to quantify dust deposition within 200 m of a source field during wind erosion events. Erosion was measured with BSNE samplers on a small field of Amarillo fine sandy loam at field at Big Spring, TX. Suspension‐sized dust discharge averaged 33 ± 5 per cent of the total sediment discharge and ranged from 18·0 to 147·4 kg m^?1 during eight selected storm events. Within 200 m of the source field boundary, dust collected in deposition samplers placed above a vegetated surface averaged 34 per cent of initial dust discharge. Predicted deposition, according to a line source model, was 43 per cent. Actual deposition was likely near that predicted, because of lateral diffusion of the dust and some under‐sampling by the disk samplers. Thus, the line source model seems useful in estimating both the pattern and quantity of deposition. About 30 per cent of the suspended dust was deposited within the initial 50 m of vegetated surface, but only about 12–15 per cent was deposited in the initial 10 m. Published in 2006 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.