Changes in the thermal and hydraulic regime within the active layer in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau

The change trends of air temperature,precipitation and evaporation from 1999 to 2008 shows that the climate in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau permafrost region had become warmer.The analysis of the systematic active-layer data monitoring network along the Qinghai-Tibet Highway indicated that the active-layer thickness had been increasing and the soil temperature was rising.The soil temperature was rising in winter but not at the end of spring or during the entire summer.With thickening and warming of the active layer,the liquid water content of the active layer had an obvious downward migration and liquid water content in the top horizons decreased,but in the deeper horizons it increased.     

Full-glacial paleosols in perennially frozen loess sequences, Klondike goldfields, Yukon Territory, Canada

Perennially frozen loess deposits in the Klondike goldfields include paleosols formed in full-glacial environments, correlated by Alaskan distal tephra with Marine Isotope Stages (MIS) 2 and 4. Patterns of organic and inorganic carbon and clay distribution, microstructures, and profile morphologies indicate that soil formation occurred in a base-rich environment in which organic matter accreted predominantly as root detritus. At sites approximately 20 km apart, the expression of cryoturbation and ice wedge development decreases in strength upward in loess-paleosol sequences correlated with MIS 4, suggesting increasing aridity. Configurations of cryoturbation features and ice-wedge thaw unconformities, the presence of numerous ground squirrel burrows, and an absence of peat accumulation suggest that these substrates were predominantly well-drained, with active layers of equal or greater thickness than in modern soils on similar sites in the west-central Yukon. Some characteristics of these paleosols are similar to those of modern steppe and tundra soils, consistent with plant macrofossil evidence for local ecological diversity during full-glacial conditions in eastern Beringia.     

河流水情要素遥感研究进展

河流是促进地貌形成和演化的重要因素,也是地球上最重要的淡水资源之一。河流的水体范围、水位/水深、流量、水质和冰情等水情要素在水资源动态监测和水文生态环境保护等研究中具有至关重要的作用。通过水文站观测河流可获得站点上的水情信息,但该方式在财力、物力方面均耗费巨大。同时,对于日益增长的河流水情信息需求,迫切需要一种能够快捷、准确补充河流实测数据的方法。遥感凭借全方位、多时相的对地观测能力极大地提升了河流水情信息获取的效率,已广泛应用于多尺度水情监测、无资料流域水文模拟等多个方面,取得了丰硕的研究成果。因此,有必要对近年来遥感应用于河流水情要素反演所取得的进展进行归纳、总结和展望,以期进一步促进遥感数据和方法在该领域的应用。论文以“河流水情要素遥感”为主题,系统归纳了河流水体遥感提取的常用传感器及方法、水位/水深遥感反演方法、河道流量遥感估算、河流水质及河冰遥感监测的研究进展,详细归纳了利用光学/微波遥感等不同类型的遥感手段获取河流水体范围、水位、水深的优势与不足,总结得出了河流水情要素遥感研究的数据、方法及应用方面的主要结论：① 新型遥感数据在河流水情要素监测中的应用愈加广泛,在空间分辨率、时间分辨率或光谱分辨率等方面不断突破,进一步丰富了河流水情要素研究的数据来源;② 多数中低空间分辨率光学影像依旧面临混合像元影响水体提取精度的问题,合成孔径雷达影像也存在数据处理算法开发难度大的问题,细小河流及非开阔水体的提取方法仍需探索;③ 大数据和云计算技术的发展为实现大尺度、长时序的河流水情要素高时空分辨率遥感监测提供了高效手段。     

Study on Environmental and Hydrological Effects of Thermokarst Lakes in Permafrost Regions of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau

Thermokarst lake is the most visible morphologic landscape developing during the process of permafrost degradation, and it is still an international hot topic in permafrost research. The climate warming, and the consequent degradation of the permafrost on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau aggravate thermokarst lake development. The permafrost is normally considered as an aquiclude, and the permafrost degradation, especially when the permafrost is completely thawed by a thermokarst lake, might influence regional ground water. Therefore, a research program focusing on environmental and hydrological effects of thermokarst lakes in permafrost regions of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau was started and supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China. The work proposed by the application includes: To analysis the spatial and temporal distribution rule of thermokarst lakes in the Qinghai-Tibet Engineering Corridor (QTEC) under the climate change and engineering activities, and to evaluate the ecological environment effects through remote sensing and field investigation; to reveal the main factors influencing a typical thermokarst lake and its hydrothermal condition, and to elucidate the conversion relationship between the thermokarst lake and the groundwater with hydrological and isotope tracer tests; to make an analysis of the influences of different lake stage and size on regional permafrost, hydrological conditions and ecological environment through numerical simulation and statistical modelling, considering the relationships between the thermokarst lake and the ground water level. The research results will help to accurately assess regional permafrost ecological environment evolution and trend prediction, and to reasonably understand the impact factors of the permafrost hydrological evolution and its response mechanism to the ecological environment in the river source regions of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. In this paper, the research status analysis, the main research contents, research objectives and prospects were introduced so as to provide some references for related researchers and engineers.     

Variable water‐saturated areas and streamflow generation in the small Ringelbach catchment (Vosges Mountains,France): the master recession curve as an equilibrium curve for interactions between atmosphere,surface and ground waters

In the small Ringelbach research catchment, where studies on the water cycle components in a granitic mountainous environment have been conducted since 1976, the water‐saturated areas that are hydraulically connected to the outlet play a major role in the streamflow generation, as it is here that complex interactions between atmosphere, surface and ground waters take place. During baseflow recession periods, which may last several months between two groundwater recharge events, the atmospheric inputs of water and energy on these contributing areas only explain the streamflow fluctuations observed around the master recession curve, which defines the groundwater contribution: fluctuating above it in the case of precipitation input on these areas, below it in the case of evaporation output from these areas. Streamflow may therefore largely deviate from the master recession curve in the case of long, hot, dry spells. Detailed mapping has shown that their variable extent is well related to baseflow by a loglinear curve. On the other hand, a synthetic master recession curve, well fitted by a second‐order hyperbolic function, has been obtained from numerous pure recession periods. Both based on these two curves, a simple procedure and a simple model have been used to (i) validate the hypothesis that the connected saturated areas are the only permanent variable contributing areas and (ii) simulate the daily streamflow volumes over long baseflow recession periods by a water balance of the aquifer below these areas only. The storm runoff ratio for small to moderate rainfall events is indeed corresponding to the catchment saturated fraction at that time. The volume of daily streamflow oscillations is indeed corresponding to the evaporation at the potential rate from the saturated areas only. In both cases, streamflow naturally tends towards the master recession curve after the end of any atmospheric perturbation. Introducing these findings into TOPMODEL led to significantly improved simulation results during baseflow recession periods. The master recession curve may therefore be considered as a dynamic equilibrium curve. Together with the relationship between saturated extent and baseflow, it provides the main characteristics necessary to understand and model the interactions at this complex interface and the resulting daily streamflow variations during baseflow recession periods in this type of catchment. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

基于数字高程模型的鄱阳湖淹水范围制图研究

利用13幅Landsat TM/ETM+鄱阳湖区遥感影像,提取不同水位下的淹水范围,根据淹水面积与湖内7个水文站水位相关性,确定都昌水文站水位能够最好控制鄱阳湖水面范围。为了改善中低水位条件下淹水范围的制图精度,将遥感提取的水体边界作为水位等值线,插值建立鄱阳湖基于水体边界的数字高程模型(taterline-based DEM,WL_DEM),利用WL_DEM和都昌水位实现中低水位淹水范围制图。结果表明,中低水位条件下,基于WL_DEM的淹水范围制图精度都有显著提高。     

拉萨春季一次雷暴天气过程分析

利用拉萨多普勒天气雷达、闪电定位仪、欧洲中心500hPa分析场及常规观测等资料,对2008年4月27-28日发生在拉萨的雷暴天气的环境条件和雷达回波特征进行了综合分析.结果表明:这次雷暴过程是在乌拉尔山冷空气南下,加剧了高原低涡切变辐合上升运动的发展,大气层结极不稳定的条件下产生的;雷达径向速度图和VAD风廓线均显示出非常明显的低层暖平流结构、低空急流及垂直风切变特征;γ中尺度气旋式涡旋扰动与环境垂直风切变的相互作用,导致雷暴云发展,回波顶增高,40dBz回波顶高伸展到7.0km左右;CAPE值、垂直风切变、γ中尺度气旋性扰动以及低层暖平流对拉萨雷暴天气预警、预报具有指示意义,给出了拉萨雷暴天气预报思路与着眼点.     

地质灾害综合评价指标体系和评价方法研究

利用全国地质灾害调查成果,建立地质灾害综合评价指标体系,构建综合评价模型.指标体系由2类、6个一级指标、12个二级指标、30个三级指标及100个评价因子构成.采用自下而上的评价方法,通过评价因子选取、数据修正、归一化处理、权重确定,建立评价模型.评价结果采用斜率法划分为四级,反映地质灾害发育情况、受灾情况、受威胁情况、相对受灾程度及受威胁程度等.对提高地质灾害监测预警和防灾减灾水平具有重要的意义.     

Morphology and geotechnique of active-layer detachment failures in discontinuous and continuous permafrost, northern Canada

Fifty active-layer detachment failures triggered after forest fire in the discontinuous permafrost zone (central Mackenzie Valley, 65° N.) are compared to several hundred others caused by summer meteorological triggers in continuous permafrost (Fosheim Peninsula, Ellesmere Island, 80°N). Most failures fall into compact or elongated morphological categories. The compact type occur next to stream channels and have little internal disturbance of the displaced block, whereas the elongated types can develop on any part of the slope and exhibit greater internal deformation. Frequency distributions of length-to-width and length-to-depth ratios are similar at all sites. Positive pore pressures, expected theoretically, were measured in the field at the base of the thawing layer. Effective stress analysis could predict the instability of slopes in both areas, providing cohesion across the thaw plane was set to zero and/or residual strength parameters were employed. The location of the shear planes or zones in relation to the permafrost table and the degree of post-failure secondary movements (including headwall recession and thermokarst development within the failure track) differed between the localities, reflecting dissimilarity in the environmental triggers and in the degree of ground thermal disturbance.     

Climatic and geographic patterns of river runoff formation in Northern Eurasia

Siberian rivers are of global importance as they impact on the freshwater budget of the Arctic Ocean, which affects the Thermo-Haline circulation in the North Atlantic Ocean. Siberian rivers, in particular the tributaries to the larger rivers, are under-represented in the international river-regime databases. The runoff of three Russian rivers in the Central Siberian taiga (Kureyka, Karabula and Erba) is modelled to analyse the relative influence of climate. In addition three rivers (Rhine, Maas and Odra) in Western Europe are similarly assessed as a control. The results show that the role of precipitation and autocorrelation as factors in the formation of river runoff is stronger under oceanic climate conditions, increasing from the central regions of Northern Eurasia towards the Arctic Ocean in the North and the Atlantic in the West. At the same time the influence of summer temperatures is weakened. The formation of Northern Eurasian river runoff appears to be influenced by periodically thawing top horizons of permafrost soil. Time served as an indicator for land use change after inclusion of meteorological data in the models. Maas and Erba showed a significant influence of the time factor. For the Erba the onset of agricultural land use in the catchment coincides with a drop in runoff. A similar causal relationship is suggested for the Maas. Land use can change the formation of runoff, which in turn can be used as an environmental indicator for sustainable land use.