Pre-Japan-ARGO: Experimental Observation of Upper and Middle Layers South of the Kuroshio Extension Region Using Profiling Floats

We deployed two profiling floats in the region south of the Kuroshio Extension in March 2000. Temperature and salinity profiles from a depth of 1500 × 10⁴ Pa to the surface are reported every two and four weeks, respectively. The floats performed very well for first four months after deployment. Later they failed in surfacing for a few months when the sea surface temperature in the region was high. The salinity sensors seemed to suffer from some damage during their failure-in-surfacing period. Despite this trouble, the results clearly demonstrate that the profiling float is a very useful and cost-effective tool for physical oceanographic observation in the open sea. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Winter Mixed Layer and Formation of Dichothermal Water in the Bering Sea

The temperature minimum layer, called “dichothermal water”, is a characteristic feature of the North Pacific subarctic gyre. In particular, dichothermal water having a density of approximately 26.6 sigma-theta (σ_θ), which corresponds to the densest water outcropping in winter in the North Pacific, is seen in the Bering Sea. In order to clarify the water properties, and the area in which and the process by which the dichothermal water is formed, a new seasonal mean gridded climatological dataset with a fine resolution for the Bering Sea and adjacent seas has been prepared using historically accumulated hydrographic data. Although the waters of the Alaskan Stream have temperature minimum layers, their temperature inversions are very weak in climatologies and the core densities of the temperature minimum layers are much lighter than 26.6σ_θ. On the other hand, in the Bering Sea one can see the robust structure of temperature minimum layers, the core density of the dichothermal water being around 26.6σ_θ. In addition, it has been found that the properties of the dichothermal water observed in the warming season are almost the same as those in the winter mixed layer. That is, the dichothermal waters are formed in the winter mixed layer in the Bering Sea. Since these waters are found in the Kamchatka Strait, i.e., the main exit of the Bering Sea waters, it can be supposed that the dichothermal waters are exported from the Bering Sea to the Pacific Ocean by the Kamchatka Current. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

A Method Solving Kepler’s Equation for Hyperbolic Case

We developed a method to solve Keplers equation for the hyperboliccase. The solution interval is separated into three regions; F 1, F 1, F 1. For the region F is large, we transformed the variablefrom F to exp F and applied the Newton method to the transformed equation.For the region F is small, we expanded the equation with respect to F andapplied the Newton method to the approximated equations. For the middleregion, we adopted a discretization of the Newton method and used the Taylorseries expansion for the evaluation of transcendental functions (Fukushima,1997). Numerical measurements showed that, in the case of Intel Pentiumprocessor, the new method is more than 3.7 times as fast as the combinationof a fourth order correction formula (Fukushima, 1997) and Roysstarting procedure (Roy, 1988) and others.     

Expansions of elliptic motion based on elliptic function theory

New expansions of elliptic motion based on considering the eccentricitye as the modulusk of elliptic functions and introducing the new anomalyw (a sort of elliptic anomaly) defined byw=u/2K–/2,g=amu–/2 (g being the eccentric anomaly) are compared with the classic (e, M), (e, v) and (e, g) expansions in multiples of mean, true and eccentric anomalies, respectively. These (q,w) expansions turn out to be in general more compact than the classical ones. The coefficients of the (e,v) and (e,g) expansions are expressed as the hypergeometric series, which may be reduced to the hypergeometric polynomials. The coefficients of the (q,w) expansions may be presented in closed (rational function) form with respect toq, k, k=(1–k ²)^1/2,K andE, q being the Jacobi nome relatedk whileK andE are the complete elliptic integrals of the first and second kind respectively. Recurrence relations to compute these coefficients have been derived.on leave from Institute of Applied Astronomy, St.-Petersburg 197042, Russia     

Groundwater age rejuvenation caused by excessive urban pumping in Jakarta area,Indonesia

Rapid urbanization in the Jakarta area has become a severe subsurface environmental issue as it entails groundwater level decline and land subsidence caused by excessive groundwater pumping. In this study, apparent groundwater age rejuvenation in the deep aquifer under DKI Jakarta was found by comparing ¹⁴C activities between 1985 and 2008. We discussed the use of a numerical groundwater flow model to evaluate the rejuvenation process in this urbanized area. When considering the deep aquifer in the DKI Jakarta area, we can assume six direction fluxes toward the aquifer: two vertical fluxes (downward and upward flux) and four horizontal fluxes (northern, southern, western, and eastern flux). Results of model calculations show that the greatest groundwater flux among six flux directions became ‘vertical downward flux’, which means that shallower groundwater intrudes into the deep one because of excessive groundwater pumping from the mid‐1980s. This flux grows about 50% during the 2000s. This result is consistent with the detection of CFC‐12 and SF₆, which functions as an indicator of young groundwater even in the deep groundwater. The rejuvenation ratio ‘R’ was determined using ¹⁴C activity in the groundwater; R increases with the CFC‐12 concentration and both show good correlation. Furthermore, we estimated the ‘vertical downward flux’ at each well's screen depth using model estimation. Results show that this flux is greater in the urban groundwater depression area and especially at shallower parts of the deep aquifer, and that it affects the magnitude of the shallow groundwater intrusion. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Large-scale landslides in Toyama Prefecture,central Japan,and their probable relationship with earthquakes

Large-scale landslides along the Kubusu and Besso rivers in Toyama Prefecture are developed in the Miocene Iwaine Formation, which is composed of andesitic lava, tuff, and tuff breccia. In the middle member of this formation, the tuff is easily altered to montmorillonite-bearing rock, and subsequently plays an important role in the development of landslides events, which tend to be large-scale events, as the massive lava of the upper member forms a cap rock over the tuff. The Kiritani and Koinami basins, which are flat intermontane basins located along the Kubusu and Besso rivers, respectively, are interpreted as landslide-dammed lakes, later filled with sediment. Accelerator mass spectrometry ¹⁴C ages show that the landslides forming each dam occurred simultaneously, at approximately 2500 BP. These ages were measured from wood fragments embedded in the landslide material of Kiritani, and from an in situ stump drowned during the impoundment of Koinami. If the trigger of these landslides was an earthquake, it is most likely to have been the penultimate event along the Atotsugawa fault zone.     

Determination of regional net radiation and soil heat flux over a heterogeneous landscape of the Tibetan Plateau

This paper explores the potential for documenting regional fields of surface energy fluxes over the Tibetan plateau using published algorithms and previously calibrated empirical formulae with data from NOAA‐14 AVHRR and atmospheric data collected during the GAME‐Tibet field experiment. Comparison with observations at three field sites suggests errors in the resulting estimates are less than 10% in the clear sky conditions necessary for application of this approach. Because of the need for clear skies, it was only possible to calculate the desired regional fields for one satellite scene during the 5 month study period. Maps of surface energy fluxes, and frequency analyses of these maps, are presented for this scene. The need for an alternative, more consistently applicable, satellite‐based method to map surface energy fields is highlighted. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Reference systems

A reference system is a relation connecting observables and their mathematical represententions. The principle of general relativity assures that any sort of coordinate system can be used to describe physical phenomena. Thus, any reference system is only a convention, There is no absolutely true reference system. Instead, people seek for a best reference system, whose meaning may differ thus need to clarify, Taking an example from Earth rotation, we discuss how to find such a best reference system. The definition of the best system will change as scientific understandings deepen and computational environments develop. Therefore, we can not stop improving reference systems. However, when replacing an existing widely-spread system, one must take great care to minimize the inconvenience caused by its transition, especially the inconvenience which users might endure. The Standards Of Fundamental Astronomy (SOFA) project being conducted by the IAU WG on Astronomical Standards has the opportunity to ease this troublesome task. The World Wide Web (WWW) will be a main device to realize the project, namely to provide working standards including reference systems to the world.     

Origin of near-surface high-salinity water observed in the Kuroshio Extension region

Hydrographic data in the Kuroshio Extension (KE) region from 2008 to 2010 show large year-to-year variability in near-surface salinity, including a very large anomalous event in February 2010. During this event, the deep winter mixed layer in the southern KE region had higher salinity than had existed during the previous summer in September 2009. Our analysis shows that advection from the Philippine Sea along the western branch of the North Pacific subtropical gyre, taking approximately 9 months, resulted in this large salinity anomaly in February 2010 and contributes to the interannual salinity variability in the southern KE region.