广东2008年低温雨雪冰冻灾害及气象应急响应

2008年初我国南方遭受了百年一遇低温雨雪冰冻灾害,广东的受灾程度属80年一遇,造成了重大经济损失和严重社会影响.分析发现:灾害过程在近年来最严重的一次"拉尼娜"事件背景下发生的,与欧亚地区持续大气环流异常密切相关.在"北脊南槽"和西太平洋副高偏北偏强的形势下,冷暖气流在我国南方地区频繁交汇,使对流层中低层形成逆温层和局地经向环流产生异常,造成了此次持续低温雨雪冰冻过程.面对灾害引发的公共事件,广东省气象部门打破常规、准确预警,启动预案,通过媒体和"公共事件预警信息发布平台",及时传播权威的公共预警信息,为安定民心、稳定社会、减少灾害起到积极作用.灾后反思发现,山区冰灾的监测、灾害的评估、公共信息发布等的能力和规范均亟待加强.     

基于螺旋度和非地转湿Q矢量的一次东移高原低涡强降水过程分析

利用NCEP 1°×1°再分析资料以及常规观测的地面和高空资料,应用螺旋度和非地转湿Q矢量原理,对2000年7月9～15日一例东移高原低涡产生强降水过程进行了天气动力学诊断分析.结果表明:500 bPa z-螺旋度水平分布对低涡中心的移动、降水落区和强降水中心的分布具有较好指示性,强降水中心发生在500 hPa z-螺旋度梯度值最大的区域.z-螺旋度分布能较好地反映暴雨发生时大气的动力学特征,暴雨区上空,高层负涡度辐散与低层正涡度辐合相配合,是触发暴雨的动力机制.相对螺旋度更能全面地反映降水落区及降水中心分布情况,并对未来6 h后的降水落区及走向具有较好的预报性,强降水中心发生在相对螺旋度正、负中心连线梯度最大值的正值一侧.低层非地转湿Q矢量散度的辐合区与降水区相对应,辐合中心与强降水中心基本吻合,是降水落区定性诊断分析的有力工具;湿Q矢量散度的垂直分布对未来6 h降水的落区和移动预报提供了很好的参考信息.     

An interference removal technique for radio pulsar searches

Searches for radio pulsars are becoming increasingly difficult because of a rise in impulsive man-made terrestrial radio-frequency interference. Here, we present a new technique, zero dispersion measure filtering, which can significantly reduce the effects of such signals in pulsar search data. The technique has already been applied to a small portion of the data from the Parkes multi-beam pulsar survey, resulting in the discovery of four new pulsars, so illustrating its efficacy.     

Recovering the real-space correlation function from photometric redshift surveys

Measurements of clustering in large-scale imaging surveys that make use of photometric redshifts depend on the uncertainties in the redshift determination. We have used light-cone simulations to show how the deprojection method successfully recovers the real-space correlation function when applied to mock photometric redshift surveys. We study how the errors in the redshift determination affect the quality of the recovered two-point correlation function. Considering the expected errors associated with the planned photometric redshift surveys, we conclude that this method provides information on the clustering of matter useful for the estimation of cosmological parameters that depend on the large-scale distribution of galaxies.     

Using the minimum spanning tree to trace mass segregation

We present a new method to detect and quantify mass segregation in star clusters. It compares the minimum spanning tree (MST) of massive stars with that of random stars. If mass segregation is present, the MST length of the most massive stars will be shorter than that of random stars. This difference can be quantified (with an associated significance) to measure the degree of mass segregation. We test the method on simulated clusters in both 2D and 3D and show that the method works as expected.
We apply the method to the Orion Nebula Cluster (ONC) and show that the method is able to detect the mass segregation in the Trapezium with a 'mass segregation ratio (MSR)'  Λ_MSR= 8.0 ± 3.5  (where  Λ_MSR= 1  is no mass segregation) down to  16 M_⊙  , and also that the ONC is mass segregated at a lower level  (∼2.0 ± 0.5)  down to  5 M_⊙  . Below  5 M_⊙  we find no evidence for any further mass segregation in the ONC.     

The astroclimatological comparison of the Paranal Observatory and El Roque de Los Muchachos Observatory

The new extremely large telescope projects need accurate evaluation of the candidate sites. In this paper, we present the astroclimatological comparison between the Paranal Observatory, located on the coast of the Atacama Desert (Chile), and the Observatorio del Roque de Los Muchachos (ORM), located in La Palma (Canary Islands). We apply a statistical analysis using long-term data bases from Paranal and Carlsberg Automatic Meridian Circle (CAMC) weather stations. The monthly, seasonal and annual averages of the main synoptical parameters in the two sites are computed. We compare the long-term trends in order to understand the main differences between the two sites. Significant differences between the two analysed sites have been found. Temperature has increasing trends in both observatories with somewhat higher evidence at the ORM. Seasonal variations of pressure at Paranal have been highly decreasing since 1989, and we do not see the same phenomenon at the ORM. The two sites are dominated by high pressure. In cold seasons, relative humidity (RH) is lower than 60 per cent at CAMC and 15 per cent at Paranal. In warm seasons, RH is lower than 40 per cent at CAMC and 20 per cent at Paranal. The analysis of the dew point has shown better conditions at Paranal with respect to CAMC in winter, autumn and spring before 2001, while the two sites are becoming similar afterwards. Winds at the ORM are subject to pronounced local variations.     

Cosmological systematics beyond nuisance parameters: form-filling functions

In the absence of any compelling physical model, cosmological systematics are often misrepresented as statistical effects and the approach of marginalizing over extra nuisance systematic parameters is used to gauge the effect of the systematic. In this article, we argue that such an approach is risky at best since the key choice of function can have a large effect on the resultant cosmological errors.
As an alternative we present a functional form-filling technique in which an unknown, residual, systematic is treated as such. Since the underlying function is unknown, we evaluate the effect of every functional form allowed by the information available (either a hard boundary or some data). Using a simple toy model, we introduce the formalism of functional form filling. We show that parameter errors can be dramatically affected by the choice of function in the case of marginalizing over a systematic, but that in contrast the functional form-filling approach is independent of the choice of basis set.
We then apply the technique to cosmic shear shape measurement systematics and show that a shear calibration bias of  | m ( z )| ≲ 10⁻³ (1 + z )^0.7  is required for a future all-sky photometric survey to yield unbiased cosmological parameter constraints to per cent accuracy.
A module associated with the work in this paper is available through the open source icosmo code available at http://www.icosmo.org .     

Timing characteristics of the hard X-ray emission from bright X-ray pulsars based on INTEGRAL data

We review the results of a timing analysis of the observations for ten bright X-ray pulsars (with fluxes >100 mCrab in the 20–100 keV energy band) that fell within the INTEGRAL field of view from 2003 to 2007. The dependence of the pulse profile on the energy and intrinsic source luminosity has been investigated; particular attention has been paid to searching for changes in the pulse profile near the cyclotron frequency. The dependence of the pulsed fraction for X-ray pulsars on their luminosity and energy band has been studied in detail for the first time.     

COMPRESSION OF nth-ORDER DATA ARRAYS BY B-SPLINES.PART 1:THEORY

For efficient handling of very large data arrays,pretreatment by compression is mandatory.In the presentpaper B-spline methods are described as good candidates for such data array compression.Themathematical relation between the maximum entropy method for compression of data tables andthe B-spline of zeroth degree is described together with the generalization of B-spline compression tonth-order data array tables in matrix and tensor algebra.