Effects of onshore and offshore topography on sea breeze circulation: An observational study at eastern Attica,Greece

Field measurements of wind, air temperature and humidity were taken at the eastern part of the Attika district in June 1991, to examine the topographic influences exerted on the local sea breezes. These influences are due either to the elongated Evia island, faced by the northern half of Attica coastline some tens of kilometers offshore, or to the coast-parallel range of Hymettos mountain, rising steeply 12 km onshore. The instrumentation consisted mainly of three tethered meteorological balloons released at characteristic sires (i.e., the coast, a location between shoreline and mountain foot and the mountain top) and three autographic ground-based anemometers operating at selected locations. Data from the ground-based and upper air stations of the Hellenic National Meteorological Service, as well as the diurnal weather maps were also obtained and analyzed. Observations were made under different synoptic wind and the latter was found to determine remarkably the significance of the topographic effects. A preliminary two-dimensional numerical approach was also made concerning the sea breeze capability to reach the Hymettos mountain top in the case of a weak opposing geostrophic flow.     

Semi-analytical solutions of a contaminant transport equation with nonlinear sorption in 1D

A new method to determine semi-analytical solutions of one-dimensional contaminant transport problem with nonlinear sorption is described. This method is based on operator splitting approach where the convective transport is solved exactly and the diffusive transport by finite volume method. The exact solutions for all sorption isotherms of Freundlich and Langmuir type are presented for the case of piecewise constant initial profile and zero diffusion. Very precise numerical results for transport with small diffusion can be obtained even for larger time steps (e.g., when the Courant-Friedrichs-Lewy (CFL) condition failed).     

A comparative error analysis of manual versus automated methods of data acquisition for algebraic strain estimation

This paper presents a statistical analysis of the algebraic strain estimation algorithm of Shimamoto and Ikeda [Shimamoto, T., Ikeda, Y., 1976. A simple algebraic method for strain estimation from deformed eillipsoidal objects: 1. Basic theory. Tectonophysics 36, 315–337]. It is argued that the error in their strain estimation procedure can be quantified using an expected discrepancy measure. An analysis of this measure demonstrates that the error is inversely proportional to the number of clasts used. The paper also examines the role of measurement error, in particular that incurred under (i) a moment based and (ii) manual data acquisition methods. Detailed analysis of these two acquisition methods shows that in both cases, the effect of measurement error on the expected discrepancy is small relative to the effect of the sample size (number of objects). Given their relative speed advantage, this result favours the use of automated measurement methods even if they incur more measurement error on individual objects. Validation of these results is carried out by means of a simulation study, as well as by reference to studies appearing in previous literature. The results are also applied to obtain an upper bound on the error of strain estimation for various studies published in the literature on strain analysis.     

西北地区泥石流沟形态因素的非线性分析——以兰州市为例

以兰州市区96条主要的泥石流沟为例,利用分形理论的统计自相似性对泥石流沟数的累计分布随沟谷形态要素沟道比降、汇水面积和沟道长度的变化进行了分析;并与不同流域形态要素的分维进行了比较,探讨了分维不同的原因。兰州市区泥石流沟三个形态要素均具有统计意义上的自相似性,其中以汇水面积显示出分维最小(0.46),沟道长度次之(0.71),沟道比降最大(1.09)。分维的大小描述了作为系统的沟谷及其泥石流的形成的空间结构,即分形结构,同时也反映了不同形态要素对系统所起作用的差异,分维越小,所起作用越显著。其结果对西北干旱半干旱地区石流灾害的进一步研究与防治提供了新的思路。