Observation and study on the whole process of cloud-to-ground lightning using narrowband radio interferometer

A narrowband radio interferometer has been developed and used to locate the entire sources of VHF radiations from a negative cloud-to-ground (CG) lightning discharge which contains 19 strokes. This system uses five antennas to form an array consisting of short- and long-baselines along two or- thogonal directions. The system error which comes from frequency conversion is reduced by phase detection through direct high frequency amplifying. An interactive graphic analysis procedure is used to remove the fringe ambiguities which exist inherently in interferometry and to determine the direction of lightning radiation sources in two dimensions (azimuth and elevation) as a function of time at a time resolution of microsecond orders. With the developed system, the whole progression process in time and space of a lightning flash can be reconstructed. In this paper, combining the synchronous data of electric filed change and VHF radiation, the whole processes of an example negative CG flash have been studied in detail. It is found that the preliminary breakdown event of the CG flash started from negative charge region and exhibited firstly a downward pregression and then an upward propagation. There were very intense and continuous radiations during stepped leaders which became much stronger when the first return stroke began. In contrast, there were less and only discrete radiations during dart leaders. Stepped leader and dart leader may transform to each other depending on the state of the ionization of the path. The progression speed of initial stepped leaders was about 105 ms?1, while that was about 4.1×106 and 6.0×106 ms?1 for dart leaders and dart-stepped leaders, respectively. M events produced hook-shaped field changes accompanied by active burst of radiations at their begin- nings. Followed these active radiation processes, M events appeared to contact finally into conducting main discharge channels. The mean progression speed of M events was about 7×107 ms?1, greater than that of the dart leaders and dart-step leaders. K events and attempted leaders were essentially the same as dart leaders except that they could not reach the ground and initiate return strokes.     

A cascade approach to continuous rainfall data generation at point locations

High-resolution temporal rainfall data sequences serve as inputs for a range of applications in planning, design and management of small (especially urban) water resources systems, including continuous flow simulation and evaluation of alternate policies for environmental impact assessment. However, such data are often not available, since their measurements are costly and time-consuming. One alternative to obtain high-resolution data is to try to derive them from available low-resolution information through a disaggregation procedure. This study evaluates a random cascade approach for generation of high-resolution rainfall data at a point location. The approach is based on the concept of scaling in rainfall, or, relating the properties associated with the rainfall process at one temporal scale to a finer-resolution scale. The procedure involves two steps: (1) identification of the presence of scaling behavior in the rainfall process; and (2) generation of synthetic data possessing same/similar scaling properties of the observed rainfall data. The scaling identification is made using a statistical moment scaling function, and the log–Poisson distribution is assumed to generate the synthetic rainfall data. The effectiveness of the approach is tested on the rainfall data observed at the Sydney Observatory Hill, Sydney, Australia. Rainfall data corresponding to four different successively doubled resolutions (daily, 12, 6, and 3 h) are studied, and disaggregation of data is attempted only between these successively doubled resolutions. The results indicate the presence of multi-scaling behavior in the rainfall data. The synthetic data generated using the log–Poisson distribution are found to exhibit scaling behaviors that match very well with that for the observed data. However, the results also indicate that fitting the scaling function alone does not necessarily mean reproducing the broader attributes that characterize the data. This observation clearly points out the extreme caution needed in the application of the existing methods for identification of scaling in rainfall, especially since such methods are also prevalent in studies of the emerging satellite observations and thus in the broader spectrum of hydrologic modeling.     

文山州降雨侵蚀力时空分布规律浅析

降雨是导致土壤侵蚀的主要动力因素,降雨侵蚀力反映降雨引起土壤侵蚀的潜在能力。利用文山州内21个雨量代表站月降雨资料,估算文山州降雨侵蚀力,对该地区降雨侵蚀力的年内分布、年际变化特征和空间分布变化规律进行分析。结果表明：文山州降雨侵蚀力空间分布基本与降雨一致,山区为高值区,坝区为低值区;降雨侵蚀力主要集中在汛期（5～10月）,各月的差异大于降雨量的差异;文山州降雨侵蚀力长期变化为略减小趋势但不显著,年际变化较年降雨量年际变化显著。     

Estimation of precipitation condensation latent heat in rainy season over Qinghai-Tibet Plateau

The basic data for this research comprise the outgoing long-wave radiation(OLR) data observed by the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration(NOAA) series satellites from June 1974 through December 2005 over the area of 75°-105°E and 25°-40°N(totaling 91 grid zones when the horizontal resolution is 2.5° longitude by 2.5° latitude) and the monthly rainfall data recorded,from 1961 through 2005,by 93 conventional meteorological stations on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.Based on the research of the relation between rainfall and OLR and climate regionalization,a mathematic model was established for each region and grid zone,which is applied to estimate the monthly rainfall and then to estimate the monthly latent heat resulting from the condensation of precipitation year by year from 1961 through 2005.The results indicated that the multi-year average precipitation is 401.5 mm and the condensation latent heat is 18.55×1020 J in the eastern part of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau;the increasing rate of condensation latent heat is 0.218×1020J/10a in the recent 45 years;that is to say,it will increase 1.2 percent in each decade.Furthermore,the total condensation latent heat and its variation rate in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau are slightly larger than in the east to the plateau.     

Seasonal variation in dust events and the causes of the variation in the Tarim Basin, China

We analyzed dust event occurrence and its seasonal distribution at 16 sites in the Tarim Basin,China.Although the overall frequency of dust events was the highest in spring in this region,its variation in other seasons could be classified into three patterns:(1) frequency of dust events in autumn > that in summer > that in winter(at the Kashi and Kuche sites);(2) frequency in summer > that in winter > that in autumn(at the Ruoqiang site);and(3) frequency in summer > that in autumn > that in winter(at all other areas of the Tarim Basin).The frequency of dust events and their seasonal variations in the Tarim Basin were mainly controlled by wind speed and locally available dust sources;the former was the key control when dust sources did not differ significantly.The seasonal variation in evaporation had a smaller,but still significant effect on the frequency of dust events.     

Inversion of focal mechanism and events identification using an improved relative amplitude method

The relative amplitude method(RAM) is more suitable for source inversion of low magnitude earthquakes because it avoids the modeling of short-period waveforms.We introduced an improved relative amplitude method(IRAM) which is more robust in practical cases.The IRAM uses a certain function to quantify the fitness between the observed and the predicted relative amplitudes among direct P wave,surface reflected pP and sP waves for a given focal mechanism.Using the IRAM,we got the fault-plane solutions of two ea...     

A non-parametric automatic blending methodology to estimate rainfall fields from rain gauge and radar data

Quantitative estimation of rainfall fields has been a crucial objective from early studies of the hydrological applications of weather radar. Previous studies have suggested that flow estimations are improved when radar and rain gauge data are combined to estimate input rainfall fields. This paper reports new research carried out in this field. Classical approaches for the selection and fitting of a theoretical correlogram (or semivariogram) model (needed to apply geostatistical estimators) are avoided in this study. Instead, a non-parametric technique based on FFT is used to obtain two-dimensional positive-definite correlograms directly from radar observations, dealing with both the natural anisotropy and the temporal variation of the spatial structure of the rainfall in the estimated fields. Because these correlation maps can be automatically obtained at each time step of a given rainfall event, this technique might easily be used in operational (real-time) applications. This paper describes the development of the non-parametric estimator exploiting the advantages of FFT for the automatic computation of correlograms and provides examples of its application on a case study using six rainfall events. This methodology is applied to three different alternatives to incorporate the radar information (as a secondary variable), and a comparison of performances is provided. In particular, their ability to reproduce in estimated rainfall fields (i) the rain gauge observations (in a cross-validation analysis) and (ii) the spatial patterns of radar fields are analyzed. Results seem to indicate that the methodology of kriging with external drift [KED], in combination with the technique of automatically computing 2-D spatial correlograms, provides merged rainfall fields with good agreement with rain gauges and with the most accurate approach to the spatial tendencies observed in the radar rainfall fields, when compared with other alternatives analyzed.     

Spatial rainfall model using a pattern classifier for estimating missing daily rainfall data

Missing data in daily rainfall records are very common in water engineering practice. However, they must be replaced by proper estimates to be reliably used in hydrologic models. Presented herein is an effort to develop a new spatial daily rainfall model that is specifically intended to fill in gaps in a daily rainfall dataset. The proposed model is different from a convectional daily rainfall generation scheme in that it takes advantage of concurrent measurements at the nearby sites to increase the accuracy of estimation. The model is based on a two-step approach to handle the occurrence and the amount of daily rainfalls separately. This study tested four neural network classifiers for a rainfall occurrence processor, and two regression techniques for a rainfall amount processor. The test results revealed that a probabilistic neural network approach is preferred for determining the occurrence of daily rainfalls, and a stepwise regression with a log-transformation is recommended for estimating daily rainfall amounts.     

库水位升降联合降雨作用下库岸边坡中的浸润线研究

库岸边坡中的地下水对其稳定性有重大影响,目前还没有统一的公式用来计算岸坡中的浸润线。为此,建立隔水底板呈缓倾角的均质岸坡模型,采用稳定渗流情况下的浸润线作为非稳定渗流的初始值,推导出库水位升降联合降雨作用下该模型中浸润线的近似解析解。利用Geo-Slope中的SEEP/W程序,对浸润线的近似解析解进行验证分析,结果表明,在不同库水位升降和降雨的组合条件下,由近似解析解确定的浸润线与数值模拟结果基本一致。对库水位升降联合降雨作用下赵树岭滑坡中的浸润线进行研究,利用实测浸润线验证了近似解析解的正确性,并预测了赵树岭滑坡在快速蓄水、快速蓄水＋暴雨、快速泄水及快速泄水＋暴雨4种工况下（库水位波动范围为145～175 m）浸润线的变化情况。最后,从解析解的适用条件出发剖析了近似解析解误差产生的原因,为应用浸润线解析解解决实际问题提供依据。     

An integrated model for predicting rainfall-induced landslides

This study proposes a novel method that combines a deterministic slope stability model and a statistical model for predicting rainfall-induced landslides. The method first uses the deterministic model to derive the rainfall rate critical to induce slope failure for each land unit. Then it calculates the difference between the critical rainfall threshold and estimated rainfall intensity. Using the difference and estimated rainfall duration as explanatory variables, the method derives a logit (integrated) model to compute landslide occurrence probabilities. To demonstrate the effectiveness of this method, the study used radar rainfall estimates and landslides associated with a typhoon (tropical cyclone) to develop the integrated model and the same types of data associated with another typhoon to validate the model. The model had a modified success rate of 84.0% for predicting landslides and stable areas, and model validation yielded a modified success rate of 87.4%. Both rates were better than those from the critical rainfall model. The main advantage of the integrated model lies in its use of rainfall variables that are not included in calculating the critical rainfall. Also, as a probabilistic model, the integrated model is better suited for decision-making in watershed management. This study has advanced the method for predicting rainfall-triggered landslides.