Visualizing and quantifying the movement of vegetative drought using remote-sensing data and GIS

Remote-sensing-based drought monitoring methods provide fast and useful information for a sustainable management strategy of drought impact over a region. Common pixel-based monitoring methods are limited in the analysis of the dynamics of this impact at regional scale. For instance, these hardly allow us to quantify the movement of drought in space and time and to compare drought with rainfall deficits without losing the variability of these events within a region. This study proposed an object-based approach that allowed us to visualize and quantify the spatio-temporal movement of drought impact on vegetation, called vegetative drought, in a region. The GIS software Dynomap was used to extract and track objects. Measures of distance and angle were used for determining the speed and direction of vegetative drought and rainfall deficit objects, calculated from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA's) normalized difference vegetation index and rainfall estimates data. The methods were applied to the two rainy seasons during the drought year 1999 in East Africa. Results showed that vegetative drought objects moved into the southwestern direction at an average angle of??138.5° during the first season and??144.5° during the second season. The speed of objects varied between 38 km dekad^?1 and 185 km dekad^?1 during the first season and between 33 km dekad^?1 and 144 km dekad^?1 during the second season, reflecting the rate of spread between dekads. Vegetative drought objects close to rainfall deficit objects showed similar trajectories and sometimes regions overlapped. This indicated that the two events are related. We conclude that a spatiotemporal relationship existed between the two types of events and that this could be quantified.     

Surface circulation patterns observed by drifters in the Yellow Sea in summer of 2001, 2002 and 2003

In summer of 2001, 2002 and 2003, ten, six and seventeen satellite-tracked surface drifters with drogues centered at 15 and 4 m were deployed, respectively, in the southern Yellow Sea (YS). 23 drifters of them transmitted useful data of at least 30 days. The wind-driven component of the drift was removed from the original drift velocity of drifters. The wind data used are from NCEP (National Center for Environmental Prediction), USA.Trajectories and drift velocities of the 23 drifters depicted the upper circulation structure in the southern YS. There exists an anti-cyclonic eddy with a mean speed and radius of 0.063 m/s and 50km in the central southern YS, whose center lingered within 35.3-36.0°N / 123.5-124.0°E. Showed by 6 drifters, a basin-scale elliptic cyclonic gyre with a mean speed of 0.114 m/s, long and short radius of 250 and 200 km surrounds the anti-cyclonic eddy. In the southwestern part of the southern YS has obvious frontal eddy activities within about 100 km with a mean speed about 0.076     

Variation in Brewer–Dobson Circulation During Three Sudden Stratospheric Major Warming Events in the 2000s

As the strongest subseasonal atmospheric variability during boreal winter, three remarkable sudden stratospheric major warming(SSW) events in the 2000 s are investigated in terms of the Brewer–Dobson circulation(BDC) response. Our study shows that the changes of cross-isentropic velocity during the SSWs are not only confined to the polar region, but also extend to the whole Northern Hemisphere: enhanced descent in the polar region, as well as enhanced ascent in the tropics. When the acceleration of the deep branch of the BDC descends to the middle stratosphere, its strength rapidly decreases over a period of one to two weeks. The acceleration of the deep branch of the BDC is driven by the enhanced planetary wave activity in the mid-to-high-latitude stratosphere. Different from the rapid response of the deep branch of the BDC, tropical upwelling in the lower stratosphere accelerates up to 20%–40% compared with the climatology, 20–30 days after the onset of the SSWs,and the acceleration lasts for one to three months. The enhancement of tropical upwelling is associated with the large-scale wave-breaking in the subtropics interacting with the midlatitude and tropical Quasi-Biennial Oscillation–related mean flow.     

两个模式对平流层温度模拟的比较与分析

利用第5代欧洲中心—汉堡大气环流模式ECHAM5全球大气环流谱模式和中国气象局自主研发的GRAPES全球同化与预报模式分别对2010年1月1—6日全球平流层温度进行了模拟分析,结合相应时段的全球最终分析资料FNL,对比评估了两个模式对平流层温度的模拟效果,并对较为显著的误差现象进行了分析与探讨。结果表明:对于50 h Pa高度上的温度,ECHAM5模式模拟的温度与FNL资料的结果在研究时段内随时间的变化很小,而GRAPES模式模拟的结果在南半球随时间变化显著偏暖。进一步将ECHAM5和GRAPES模式所用的温度初始场进行对比研究表明,两者的分布形态非常形似,尤其是在南半球地区,大部分差值接近于零。将ECHAM5采用的全球臭氧廓线应用于GRAPES模式中,对比发现南半球平流层异常增温的现象仍然存在。因此,温度初始场和臭氧廓线的选取不是造成GRAPES模式模拟出现南半球平流层异常增温的主要原因,需要对GRAPES模式中其他动力及物理过程或参数选取做进一步的深入分析,以弄清其在平流层温度模拟中出现较大偏差的原因。     

Decadal Variation of the Impact of La Niña on the Winter Arctic Stratosphere

The impact of La Ni?a on the winter Arctic stratosphere has thus far been an ambiguous topic of research. Contradictory results have been reported depending on the La Ni?a events considered. This study shows that this is mainly due to the decadal variation of La Ni?a's impact on the winter Arctic stratosphere since the late 1970 s. Specifically,during the period1951–78,the tropospheric La Ni?a teleconnection exhibits a typical negative Pacific–North America pattern,which strongly inhibits the propagation of the planetary waves from the extratropical troposphere to the stratosphere,and leads to a significantly strengthened stratospheric polar vortex. In contrast,during 1979–2015,the La Ni?a teleconnection shifts eastwards,with an anomalous high concentrated in the northeastern Pacific. The destructive interference of the La Ni?a teleconnection with climatological stationary waves seen in the earlier period reduces greatly,which prevents the drastic reduction of planetary wave activities in the extratropical stratosphere. Correspondingly,the stratospheric response shows a less disturbed stratospheric polar vortex in winter.     

Personalized travel route recommendation using collaborative filtering based on GPS trajectories

Travelling is a critical component of daily life. With new technology, personalized travel route recommendations are possible and have become a new research area. A personalized travel route recommendation refers to plan an optimal travel route between two geographical locations, based on the road networks and users’ travel preferences. In this paper, we define users’ travel behaviours from their historical Global Positioning System (GPS) trajectories and propose two personalized travel route recommendation methods – collaborative travel route recommendation (CTRR) and an extended version of CTRR (CTRR+). Both methods consider users’ personal travel preferences based on their historical GPS trajectories. In this paper, we first estimate users’ travel behaviour frequencies by using collaborative filtering technique. A route with the maximum probability of a user’s travel behaviour is then generated based on the naïve Bayes model. The CTRR+ method improves the performances of CTRR by taking into account cold start users and integrating distance with the user travel behaviour probability. This paper also conducts some case studies based on a real GPS trajectory data set from Beijing, China. The experimental results show that the proposed CTRR and CTRR+ methods achieve better results for travel route recommendations compared with the shortest distance path method.     

近年平流层气溶胶模式研究综述

平流层气溶胶在全球大气的辐射与化学平衡中起着重要作用,对全球气候变化有着重要的影响。数值模拟研究是研究平流层气溶胶浓度、粒径分布及其化学组成的重要手段之一。回顾了平流层气溶胶模式的发展历程,并对现今研究中较有代表性的5种模式进行了比较,着重考察了模拟结果在OCS、SO2分布情况等方面与实测数据的相符程度。结果发现5种模式均可再现平流层气溶胶和它的主要前体气体分布的大部分特征,但同时也都存在各自的局限。最后展望了平流层气溶胶模式未来的发展方向以及需要改进的问题。     

Combining land transitions and trajectories in assessing forest cover change

One restriction of landscape studies is that land use and cover change is often regarded as irreversible. A highly dynamic landscape in southern Chile was selected to show that forest cover change involves a series of complex transitions and trajectories. Using Landsat images from 1976, 1985, 1999 and 2007 an in-depth analysis of the transition matrix was conducted to separate random and systematic transitions which were grouped into trajectories using a pixel-history approach. Main trajectories were linked to fragmentation indices and farming systems through cluster analysis. Of the 247 trajectories identified, old growth forest persistence comprised 22% of the landscape, whereas deforestation trajectories comprised 20.9% and were mostly composed of changes from old growth forest to shrubland (13.9%). Trajectories of forest degradation from old growth to secondary forest comprised 19.7% of the landscape. The periods 1976-1985 and 1999-2007 concentrated the most systematic deforestation and degradation transitions. In turn, random transitions predominated between 1985 and 1999, probably in response to economic factors that acted suddenly on the landscape during the 80’s, such as the woodchip export and aquaculture booms. A close relationship between landscape fragmentation and the proportion of systematic transitions and farming systems was found; specifically, the highest entropy indices occurred in clusters which exhibited the lowest proportion of systematic transitions and the highest proportion (>70%) of peasant agricultural systems. Understanding the complexity of forest cover change trajectories is relevant for improving the prediction of possible landscape evolutions and establishing landscape management priorities.     

Spatio-temporal pattern analysis of land use/cover change trajectories in Xihe watershed

Human-induced land use/cover change has been considered to be one of the most important parts of global environmental changes. In loess hilly and gully regions, to prevent soil loss and achieve better ecological environments, soil conservation measures have been taken during the past decades. The main objective of this study is to quantify the spatio-temporal variability of land use/cover change spatial patterns and make preliminary estimation of the role of human activity in the environmental change in Xihe watershed, Gansu Province, China. To achieve this objective, the methodology was developed in two different aspects, that is, (1) analysis of change patterns by binary image of change trajectories overlaid with different natural geographic factors, in which Relative Change Intensity (RCI) metric was established and used to make comparisons, and (2) analysis based on pattern metrics of main trajectories in the study area. Multi-source and multi-temporal Remote Sensing (RS) images (including Landsat ETM+ (30 June 2001), SPOT imagery (21 November 2003 and 5 May 2008) and CBERS02 CCD (5 June 2006)) were used due to the constraints of the availability of remotely sensed data. First, they were used to extract land use/cover types of each time node by object-oriented classification method. Classification results were then utilized in the trajectory analysis of land use/cover changes through the given four time nodes. Trajectories at every pixel were acquired to trace the history of land use/cover change for every location in the study area. Landscape metrics of trajectories were then analyzed to detect the change characteristics in time and space through the given time series. Analysis showed that most land use/cover changes were caused by human activities, most of which, under the direction of local government, had mainly led to virtuous change on the ecological environments. While, on the contrary, about one quarter of human-induced changes were vicious ones. Analysis through overlaying binary image of change trajectories with natural factors can efficiently show the spatio-temporal distribution characteristics of land use/cover change patterns. It is found that in the study area RCI of land use/cover changes is related to the distance to the river line. And there is a certain correlation between RCI and slope grades. However, no obvious correlation exists between RCI and aspect grades.     

What Causes the Springtime Tropospheric Ozone Maximum over Northeast Asia？

Scientists have long debated the relative importance of tropospheric photochemical production versus stratospheric influx as causes of the springtime tropospheric ozone maximum over northern mid-latitudes. This paper investigates whether or not stratospheric intrusion and photochemistry play a significant role in the springtime ozone maximum over Northeast Asia,where ozone measurements are sparse.We examine how tropospheric ozone seasonalities over Naha(26°N,128°E),Kagoshima(31°N,131°E),and Pohang(36°N,129°E),which are located on the same meridional line,are related to the timing and location of the jet stream.The ozone seasonality shows a gradual increase from January to the maximum ozone month,which corresponds to April at Naha,May at Kagoshima,and June at Pohang.In order to examine the occurrence of stratospheric intrusion,we analyze a correlation between jet stream activity and tropospheric ozone seasonality.From these analyses,we did not find any favorable evidence supporting the hypothesis that the springtime enhancement may result from stratospheric intrusion.According to trajectory analysis for vertical and horizontal origins of the airmass,a gradual increasing tendency in ozone amounts from January until the onset of monsoon was similar to the increasing ozone formation tendency from winter to spring over mainland China,which has been observed during the build-up of tropospheric ozone over Central Europe in the winter-spring transition period due to photochemistry.Overall,the analyses suggest that photochemistry is the most important contributor to observed ozone seasonality over Northeast Asia.