Signal quality analysis and quality check of BDS3 Precise Point Positioning in the Arctic Ocean

This study analyzes the signal quality and the accuracy of BeiDou 3 rd generation Satellite Navigation System(BDS3) Precise Point Positioning(PPP) in the Arctic Ocean. Assessment of signal quality of BDS3 includes signal to noise ratio(SNR), multipath(MP), dilution of precision(DOP), and code-minus-carrier combination(CC). The results show that, 5 to 13 satellites are visible at any time in the Arctic Ocean area as of September 2018, which are sufficient for positioning. In the mid-latitude ocea...     

Watershed‐scale controls on snow accumulation in a small montane watershed,southwestern Alberta,Canada

Snow accumulation in mountain headwater basins is a major water source, particularly in semi‐arid environments such as southern Alberta where water resources are stressed and snowmelt supplies more than 80% of downstream runoff. Relationships between landscape predictor variables and snow water equivalent (SWE) were quantified by combining field and LiDar measurements with classification and regression tree analysis over two winter seasons (2010 and 2011) in a small, montane watershed. 2010 was a below average snow accumulation year, while 2011 was well above normal. In both the field and regression tree data, elevation was the dominant control on snow distribution in both years, although snow distribution was driven by melt processes in 2010 and accumulation processes in 2011. The importance of solar radiation and wind exposure was represented in the regression trees in both years. The regression trees also noted the lower importance of canopy closure, slope, and aspect, which was not observed in the field data. This technique could provide an additional method of forecasting annual water supply from melting snow. However, further research is required to address the lack of data collected above treeline, to provide a full‐basin estimate of SWE. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Prediction of temperature variation within a snowpack in open areas and under different canopy covers

Snow temperature is a major component of many physical processes in a snowpack. The temperature and the change in temperature across a layer have a dominant effect on physical properties of snow grains as well as its hardness, strength, and failure resistance. In this study, temperature and snow cover thickness were measured during the snow season of 2007–2008 in 11 elevation classes and in three different sampling locations, one in an open area and two under different forest canopy covers for each class along Kartalkaya road, Bolu. Each sampling site was visited 44 times to collect data including snow depth, snow surface temperature, ground temperature, and temperature within snowpack at 20‐cm intervals. Seven different models are developed to determine snowpack temperature variations under forest canopy covers and in an open area with different leaf area index values. All models were performed using a multilayer perceptron (MP) method for the Bolu–Kartalkaya area, Turkey. MP approach constitutes a standard form of neural network modeling and can modify two‐layer linear perceptron methods using three and more layers. The ability of MP is to handle complex nonlinear interactions, which ease the natural process of modeling. This method can overcome complex computations using neuron networks, and they can easily nonlinearly link input and output variables. The predictive errors are determined on the basis of mean absolute error and mean square error criteria. The Nash–Sutcliffe sufficiency score showing compliance between observed and predicted values is also calculated. According to the mean absolute error, the mean square error, and the Nash–Sutcliffe sufficiency score criteria, the predictive errors are within reasonable error intervals, justifying the use of the developed MP models for engineering applications. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Sublimation over seasonal snowpack at the southeastern edge of a desert in central Eurasia

The Gurbantonggut Desert, China, is an ideal site for study of sublimation from the snowpack because there are sparse vegetation and simple topography, and the wind speed is not large enough to blow snow into the atmosphere from the snowpack. Daily sublimation was measured by manual snow lysimeters at 8:00, and an automatic weather station was deployed at the top of a stout longitudinal dune chain at the southeastern edge of the desert. It is shown that on a daily scale, there was an extremely significant no‐intercept linear relationship between the measured sublimation and that calculated by the bulk aerodynamic method, although the former was only 83.8% of the latter. It is also demonstrated that ?10°C and 2 m/s were the thresholds where the sublimation varied with the air temperature and the wind speed. When these two thresholds were exceeded, the sublimation accelerated. However, the air temperature and the wind speed at 2 m above the ground averaged ?17.2°C and 1.3 m/s, respectively, and the percentages of the time when the air temperature was below ?10 °C and the wind speed was below 2 m/s were 76.9% and 85.1%, respectively. As a result, the rate of sublimation was quite low most of the time, and the thin snowpack remained in a quasi‐static state until the melt stage started. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Geochemistry and extractable Fe and Al in cold‐temperature soils of northwestern Siberia

The concentrations of major, minor and trace elements in three Cryosols from northwestern Siberia were analysed to determine profiles of geochemical uniformity, element mobility and the release and build‐up of extractable Fe and Al. The scope of this study involves weathering processes over all or part of the Lateglacial to the Holocene Epoch (<10 ka) in a cold environment. Iron and Al extracts are investigated to elicit information regarding profile age and palaeoclimate. ‘Free’ iron (Fe_d) relative to total Fe increases in the Ah + Bw horizons compared with the lower horizons, where oxidation is weaker. Low total Fe reflects reworked felsic deltaic and shallow marine deposits from the Permian to the early Tertiary, thereafter emplaced by episodic flooding of glacial meltwater from the Arctic Urals and/or the Kara Sea Ice Sheet. Organically complexed Al (Al_p), uniformly low in all soils, nevertheless shows trends indicating some downward movement, a rather unique occurrence in Arctic tundra soils. As indicated by the slow increase of oxihydrites, it may not be realistic to estimate the age of a profile by its physical characteristics. However, it appears possible to determine broad age ranges from the isotopic composition of water in soils. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Timing and duration of hydrological transitions in Arctic polygonal ground from stable isotopes

Land surface models and Earth system models that include Arctic landscapes must capture the abrupt hydrological transitions that occur during the annual thaw and deepening of the active layer. In this work, stable water isotopes (δ²H and δ¹⁸O) are used to appraise hydrologically significant transitions during annual landscape thaw at the Barrow Environmental Observatory (Utqiaġvik, Alaska). These hydrologically significant periods are then linked to annual shifts in the landscape energy balance, deduced from meteorological data and described by the microclimatic periods: Winter, Pre-Melt, Melt, Post-Melt, Summer, and Freeze-Up. The tight coupling of the microclimatic periods with the hydrological transitions supports the use of microclimatic periods as a means of linking polygonal surface water hydrology to meteorological datasets, which provides a mechanism for improving the representation of polygonal surface water hydrology in process-based models. Rayleigh process reconstruction of the isotopic changes revealed that 19% of winter precipitation was lost to sublimation prior to melting and that 23% of surface water was lost to evaporation during the first 10 days post-melt. This agrees with evaporation rates reported in a separate study using an eddy covariance flux tower located nearby. An additional 17% was lost to evaporation during the next 33 days. Stable water isotopes are also used to identify the dominant sources of surface water to various hydrogeomorphological features prevalent in polygonal terrain (a lake, a low centre polygon centre, troughs within the rims of low centre polygons, flat centre polygon troughs, a high centre polygon trough, and drainages). Hydrogeomorphologies that retained significant old water or acted as snow drifts are isotopically distinct during the Melt Period and therefore are easily distinguished. Biogeochemical changes related to the annual thaw are also reported and coupled to the hydrological transitions, which provides insight into the sources and sinks of these ions to and from the landscape.     

Assessing the ‘usability’ of climate change research for decision-making: A case study of the Canadian International Polar Year

The creation of ‘usable science’ is widely promoted by many environmental change focused research programs. Few studies however, have examined the relationship between research conducted as part of such programs and the decision-making outcomes that the work is supposed to advance, and is constrained by limited methodological development on how to empirically assess the ‘usability’ of science. Herein, this paper develops a conceptual model and assessment rubric to quantitatively and systematically evaluate the usability of climate change research for informing decision-making. We focus on the process through which data is collected, analyzed and reported and examine the extent to which key principles of usable science are integrated into project design, using grant proposals as our data source. The approach is applied to analyze climate change research conducted as part of the International Polar Year in Canada, with 23 projects identified as having explicit goals to inform decision-making.While the creation of usable science was promoted by funded projects in the International Polar Year, this was not generally reflected in research design: fewer than half determined objectives with input of decision makers, decision context was not widely considered, and knowledge users were not widely reported to be engaged in assessing the quality of data or in resolving conflict in evidence. The importance of science communication was widely emphasized, although only 8/23 projects discussed tailoring specific results for end user needs. Thus while International Polar Year research has made significant advances in understanding the human dimensions of Arctic climate change, key attributes necessary for determining success in linking science to decision-making (pertinence, quality, timeliness) were not captured by many projects. Integrating these attributes into research design from the outset is essential for creating usable science, and needs to be at the forefront of future research programs which aim to advance societal outcomes. The framework for assessing usability here, while developed and tested in an Arctic climate change context, has broader applicability in the general environmental change field.     

Relationship Between Arctic Sea Ice Thickness Distribution and Climate of China

Based on the simulated ice thickness data from 1949 to 1999, monthly mean temperature data from 160 stations, and monthly mean 1°×1° precipitation data reconstructed from 749 stations in China from 1951 to 2000, the relationship between the Arctic sea ice thickness distribution and the climate of China is analyzed by using the singular value decomposition method. Climate patterns of temperature and precipitation are obtained through the rotated empirical orthogonal function analysis. The results are as follows. (1) Sea ice in Arctic Ocean has a decreasing trend as a whole, and varies with two major periods of 12-14 and 16-20 yr, respectively. (2) When sea ice is thicker in central Arctic Ocean and Beaufort-Chukchi Seas, thinner in Barents-Kara Seas and Baffin Bay-Labrador Sea, precipitation is less in southern China, Tibetan Plateau, and the north part of northeastern China than normal, and vice versa. (3) When sea ice is thinner in the whole Arctic seas, precipitation is less over the middle and lower reaches of Yellow River and north part of northeastern China, more in Tibetan Plateau and south part of northeastern China than normal, and the reverse is also true. (4) When sea ice is thinner in central Arctic Ocean, East Siberian Sea, Beaufort-Chukchi Seas, and Greenland Sea; and thicker in Baffin Bay-Labrador Sea, air temperature is higher in northeastern China, southern Tibetan Plateau, and Hainan Island than normal. (5) When sea ice is thicker in East Siberian Sea 5 months earlier, thinner in Baffin Bay-Labrador Sea 7-15 months earlier, air temperature is lower over the north of Tibetan Plateau and higher in the north part of northwestern China than normal, and a reverse correlation also exists.     

Towards improved snow water equivalent retrieval algorithms for satellite passive microwave data over the mountainous basins of western USA

Space‐borne passive microwave snow water equivalent (SWE) retrieval algorithms are attractive for continuous SWE monitoring over large mountainous areas. The performance of three SWE retrieval algorithms, which were considered relevant for operational purposes, was examined for each month over the Colorado River Basin. In addition, statistical post‐processing was tested as a means of improving the SWE estimates from each algorithm. The evaluation started with the so‐called Chang equation, which was a pioneer algorithm and is still used in practice. Successive attempts were then made to improve the algorithm's performance through the calibration of the equation's coefficient and through the inclusion of brightness temperature data from various frequency channels. The Chang equation consistently underestimated SWE with average bias between 30 mm in November and more than 300 mm in April and root mean square error (RMSE) exceeding 500 mm at many locations in April. The statistical post‐processing effectively removed the bias and reduced the RMSE by half for all the months. When the Chang equation's coefficients were calibrated at each site, biases were reduced by approximately 85%, and RMSE was reduced by 40%–50%. Finally, the multiple channel equations produced unbiased SWE estimates with RMSEs 50%–60% of those from the Chang equation. However, the statistical post‐processing did not reduce RMSE for both calibrated algorithms. The last algorithm produced the most reliable estimates for at‐site analysis, but its skill deteriorated when analyses were performed over larger areal extents; therefore, it is only recommended for SWE monitoring over smaller areas. For larger areas, the calibrated Chang equation is desirable because it only requires interpolations of a calibrated coefficient, which was spatially coherent. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

累积海冰密集度及其在认识北极海冰快速变化的作用

为定量分析北冰洋海冰密集度年际差异,提出并采用累积海冰密集度(ASIC)概念。利用SSMR/SSMI的分辨率为25 km的海冰密集度数据,分别研究了1979—2011年北极海冰在融冰期(4~9月)和结冰期(10月至翌年3月)的变化过程以及2个冰期内ASIC的区域差异。研究发现,在1979—1989年、1989—1999年和1999—2009年期间,融冰期海冰发生明显变化的范围都远远大于结冰期海冰发生明显变化的范围。1998—2010年,融冰期内发生加速融化的海区并没有都出现结冰期冰量减小的现象。在此期间融冰期ASIC减小,结冰期ASIC也减小的海域仅集中在楚克奇海、新地岛北部海域以及格陵兰岛东西海岸。融冰期ASIC减小,而结冰期ASIC无明显变化的海域包括波弗特海、东西伯利亚海、拉普捷夫海和喀拉海。这些区域与局地陆地径流侵入的海域重合。研究发现,在这些区域,融冰期ASIC减少是陆地径流增大加速海冰融化引起的。在结冰期,陆地径流加速海水结冰的作用消除融冰期海水吸收大量太阳辐射能后发生推迟结冰的现象,使得ASIC无明显变化。融冰期ASIC减小,而结冰期ASIC增大的区域只有白令海。研究结果证明累积海冰密集度能够去除海冰高频变化而只表现低频变化,能够描述海冰的年际变化特征。同时由于海冰变化与海洋中其他物理参数存在显著关系,变T的ASIC可以更加方便地描述次表层叶绿素最大值层深度的变化。