Early Holocene water budget of the Nakuru-Elmenteita basin, Central Kenya Rift

The Nakuru-Elmenteita basin in the Central Kenya Rift, contains two shallow, alkaline lakes, Lake Nakuru (1770 m above sea level) and Lake Elmenteita (1786 m). Ancient shorelines and lake sediments at 1940 m suggest that these two lakes formed a single large and deep lake as a result of a wetter climate during the early Holocene. Here, we used a hydrological model to compare the precipitation–evaporation balance during the early Holocene to today. Assuming that the Nakuru-Elmenteita basin was hydrologically closed, as it is today, the most likely climate scenario includes a 45% increase in mean-annual precipitation, a 0.5°C decrease in air temperature, and an increase of 9% in cloud coverage from the modern values. Compared to the modeling results from other East African lake basins, this dramatic increase in precipitation seems to be unrealistic. Therefore, we propose a significant flow of water from the early Holocene Lake Naivasha in the south towards the Nakuru-Elmenteita basin to compensate the extremely negative hydrological budget of this basin. Since we did not find any field evidence for a surface connection, as often proposed during the last 70 years, the hydrological deficit of the Nakuru-Elmenteita basin could have also been compensated by a subsurface water exchange.     

气候变化下基于物种与植物耦联机制的小白额雁(Anser erythropus)潜在生境及适宜性研究--以长江流域中下游为例

气候变化和人类活动通过改变物种生境而影响物种多样性。小白额雁是长江流域中下游的一种具有较高生态价值的食草型濒危候鸟,受气候变化和人类活动威胁。本文以小白额雁为代表性物种,定量分析了气候变化对长江流域中下游候鸟潜在生境及适宜性空间分布格局的影响。采用Maxent模型模拟了当前情景和全球环流模型(GCMs)气候场景下小白额雁潜在生境及其适宜性分布。研究结果表明,小白额雁分布特征与其栖息地周边植物分布呈显著相关关系;运用Maxent模型模拟小白额雁六种主要食源植物的分布特征,并将其结果作为环境变量,将显著改善小白额雁潜在生境及其适宜性模型的模拟性能;在两种典型浓度情景(RCP 2.6和RCP8.5)下,2070年小白额雁潜在生境适宜性面积将下降。为应对气候变化对小白额雁的影响,应采取更加合理的管理措施和保护政策,包括调整保护区的大小、形状和用途。     

The inclusion of differentially assessed lands in urban growth model calibration: a comparison of two approaches using SLEUTH

This research sought to understand the role that differentially assessed lands (lands in the United States given tax breaks in return for their guarantee to remain in agriculture) play in influencing urban growth. Our method was to calibrate the SLEUTH urban growth model under two different conditions. The first used an excluded layer that ignored such lands, effectively rendering them available for development. The second treated those lands as totally excluded from development. Our hypothesis was that excluding those lands would yield better metrics of fit with past data. Our results validate our hypothesis since two different metrics that evaluate goodness of fit both yielded higher values when differentially assessed lands are treated as excluded. This suggests that, at least in our study area, differential assessment, which protects farm and ranch lands for tenuous periods of time, has indeed allowed farmland to resist urban development. Including differentially assessed lands also yielded very different calibrated coefficients of growth as the model tried to account for the same growth patterns over two very different excluded areas. Excluded layer design can greatly affect model behavior. Since differentially assessed lands are quite common through the United States and are often ignored in urban growth modeling, the findings of this research can assist other urban growth modelers in designing excluded layers that result in more accurate model calibration and thus forecasting.     

Fault type analysis along the San Andreas Fault zone: A numerical approach

Finite Element (FE) modeling under plane stress condition is used to analyze the fault type variation with depth along and around the San Andreas Fault (SAF) zone. In this simulation elastic rheology was used and was thought justifiable as the variation in depth from 0.5 km to 20 km was considered. Series of calculations were performed with the variation in domain properties. Three types of models were created based on simple geological map of California, namely, 1) single domain model considering whole California as one homogeneous domain, 2) three domains model including the North American plate, Pacific plate, and SAF zone as separate domains, and 3) Four domains model including the three above plus the Garlock Fault zone. Mohr-Coulomb failure criterion and Byerlee's law were used for the calculation of failure state. All the models were driven by displacement boundary condition imposing the fixed North American plate and Pacific plate motion along N34°W vector up to the northern terminus of SAF and N50°E vector motion for the subducting the Gorda and Juan de Fuca plates. Our simulated results revealed that as the depth increased, the fault types were generally normal, and at shallow depth greater strike slip and some thrust faults were formed. It is concluded that SAF may be terminated as normal fault at depth although the surface expression is clearly strike slip.     

Characterizing landscape spatial heterogeneity in multisensor images with variogram models

Most evaluation of the consistency of multisensor images have focused on Normalized Difference Vegetation Index （NDVI） products for natural landscapes, often neglecting less vegetated urban landscapes. This gap has been filled through quantifying and evaluating spatial heterogeneity of urban and natural landscapes from QuickBird, Satellite pour l＇observation de la Terre （SPOT）, Ad- vanced Spacebome Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer （ASTER） and Landsat Thematic Mapper （TM） images with variogram analysis. Instead of a logarithmic relationship with pixel size observed in the corresponding aggregated images, the spatial variability decayed and the spatial structures decomposed more slowly and complexly with spatial resolution for real multisensor im- ages. As the spatial resolution increased, the proportion of spatial variability of the smaller spatial structure decreased quickly and only a larger spatial structure was observed at very coarse scales. Compared with visible band, greater spatial variability was observed in near infrared band for both densely and less densely vegetated landscapes. The influence of image size on spatial heterogeneity was highly dependent on whether the empirical sernivariogram reached its sill within the original image size. When the empirical semivariogram did not reach its sill at the original observation scale, spatial variability and mean characteristic length scale would increase with image size; otherwise they might decrease. This study could provide new insights into the knowledge of spatial heterogeneity in real multisen- sor images with consideration of their nominal spatial resolution, image size and spectral bands.     

“数字海底”系统建模中的关键技术研究

基于“数字海底”系统的理论基础研究和在海底科学应用中的具体实践,提出了“数字海底”的涵义、系统组成和体系结构,对空间数据管理技术、基于XML的WebGIS空间数据表达技术、复杂海底三维建模技术、多源信息的一体化集成显示技术、虚拟现实技术等“数字海底”系统建模中的关键技术进行了探讨,为从事海底资源研究和开发的人员提供各个层次的参考或帮助.     

The impact of the M2 internal tide on data-assimilative model estimates of the surface tide

We use a synthetic data experiment to assess the accuracy of ocean tides estimated from satellite altimetry data, with emphasis on the impact of the phase-locked internal tide, which has a surface expression of several centimeters near its sites of genesis. Previous tidal estimates have regarded this signal as a random measurement error; however, it is deterministic and not scale-separated from the barotropic (surface) tide around complex bathymetric features. The synthetic data experiments show that the internal tide has a negligible impact on the barotropic tidal fields inferred under these circumstances, and the barotropic dissipation (a quadratic functional of the tidal fields) is in good agreement with the energetics of the three-dimensional regional primitive equations model which is the source of the synthetic data.     

Wind-induced drift of objects at sea: The leeway field method

A method for conducting leeway field experiments to establish the drift properties of small objects (0.1-25 m) is described. The objective is to define a standardized and unambiguous procedure for condensing the drift properties down to a set of coefficients that may be incorporated into existing stochastic trajectory forecast models for drifting objects of concern to search and rescue operations and other activities involving vessels lost at sea such as containers with hazardous material.An operational definition of the slip or wind and wave-induced motion of a drifting object relative to the ambient current is proposed. This definition taken together with a strict adherence to a 10 m wind speed allows us to refer unambiguously to the leeway of a drifting object. We recommend that all objects if possible be studied using what we term the direct method, where the object’s leeway is studied directly using an attached current meter.We establish a minimum set of parameters that should be estimated for a drifting object for it to be included in the operational forecast models used for prediction of search areas for drifting objects.We divide drifting objects into four categories, depending on their size. For the smaller objects (less than 0.5 m), an indirect method of measuring the object’s motion relative to the ambient current must be used. For larger objects, direct measurement of the motion through the near-surface water masses is strongly recommended. Larger objects are categorized according to the ability to attach current meters and wind monitoring systems to them.The leeway field method proposed here is illustrated with results from field work where three objects were studied in their distress configuration; a 1:3.3 sized model of a 40-foot Shipping container, a World War II mine and a 220 l (55-gallon) oil drum.