Link between convection and meridional gradient of sea surface temperature in the Bay of Bengal

We use daily satellite estimates of sea surface temperature (SST) and rainfall during 1998–2005 to show that onset of convection over the central Bay of Bengal (88–92°E, 14–18°N) during the core summer monsoon (mid-May to September) is linked to the meridional gradient of SST in the bay. The SST gradient was computed between two boxes in the northern (88–92°E, 18–22°N) and southern (82–88°E, 4–8°N) bay; the latter is the area of the cold tongue in the bay linked to the Summer Monsoon Current. Convection over central bay followed the SST difference between the northern and southern bay (ΔT) exceeding 0.75°C in 28 cases. There was no instance of ΔT exceeding this threshold without a burst in convection. There were, however, five instances of convection occurring without this SST gradient. Long rainfall events (events lasting more than a week) were associated with an SST event (ΔT ≥ 0.75°C); rainfall events tended to be short when not associated with an SST event. The SST gradient was important for the onset of convection, but not for its persistence: convection often persisted for several days even after the SST gradient weakened. The lag between ΔT exceeding 0.75°C and the onset of convection was 0–18 days, but the lag histogram peaked at one week. In 75% of the 28 cases, convection occurred within a week of ΔT exceeding the threshold of 0.75°C. The northern bay SST, T _N , contributed more to ΔT, but it was a weaker criterion for convection than the SST gradient. A sensitivity analysis showed that the corresponding threshold for T _N was 29°C. We hypothesise that the excess heating (∼1°C above the threshold for deep convection) required in the northern bay to trigger convection is because this excess in SST is what is required to establish the critical SST gradient.     

Rainfall intensity characteristics at coastal and high altitude stations in Kerala

Rainfall intensities measured at a few stations in Kerala during 2001–2005 using a disdrometer were found to be in reasonable agreement with the total rainfall measured using a manual rain gauge. The temporal distributions of rainfall intensity at different places and during different months show that rainfall is of low intensity (< 10 mm/hr), 65% to 90% of the time. This could be an indication of the relative prevalence of stratiform and cumuliform clouds. Rainfall was of intensity < 5 mm/hr for more than 95% of the time in Kochi in July 2002, which was a month seriously deficient in rainfall, indicating that the deficiency was probably due to the relative absence of cumuliform clouds. Cumulative distribution graphs are also plotted and fitted with the Weibull distribution. The fit parameters do not appear to have any consistent pattern. The higher intensities also contributed significantly to total rainfall most of the time, except in Munnar (a hill station). In this analysis also, the rainfall in Kochi in July 2002 was found to have less presence of high intensities. This supports the hypothesis that the rainfall deficiency was probably caused by the absence of conditions that favoured the formation of cumuliform clouds.     

夏季乌拉尔地区环流持续异常及其背景流特征

在 Dole持续异常界定方法的基础上提出了一种适用于全球分析的界定方法 ,并利用NCEP/NCAR 1 980～ 1 998年 6月 1日～ 8月 31日逐日再分析资料 ,分析了全球大气环流持续异常的分布 ,重点研究了乌拉尔地区反复出现的、维持较长时间的强环流异常的背景流及其演变特征 ,得到以下结论 :1 )文中提出的界定方法能较好地识别全球地区持续异常分布 ;2 )乌拉尔地区环流正、负持续异常形成时 ,背景环流的发展不具有对称性 ,负异常并不是正异常的简单相反过程。正异常的发展与位于西南方的正距平扰动向东北移动、及与位于中西伯里亚的正距平扰动西移有关 ,这些扰动具有相当正压结构的 ,而负异常则主要是局地发展而形成的 ;3)正压过程对乌拉尔持续异常的形成起着主要作用 ,明显不同于北太平洋环流持续异常的发展 ;4)乌拉尔正、负持续异常期间的背景流不仅在北半球中高纬有明显差异 ,而且在南、北半球其它地区也有明显差异 ,热带的差异在低频环流上表现得更为清楚 ;5)在异常发生前 ,中纬度急流已发生了有利于异常建立的改变。     

厄尔尼诺与亚洲季风对港澳地区降雨影响

分析研究了香港1853～1997年（145年）、澳门1901～1997年（97年）的月和年降雨量的一些特征。主要结论是：（1）香港、澳门年降雨量存在准2～6年的周期振荡，澳门年降雨量有很强的长期趋势，香港年降雨量无明显趋势；（2）香港、澳门年内雨量的峰值出现在西南季风期（6月和8月），而谷值在东北季风期（12月）；（3）EI Nino事件年，香港、澳门年降雨量距平百分率多为正，降雨偏多。在La Nila事件年，香港、澳门年降雨量距平百分率多为负，降雨偏少。     

Quantitative measurements on the paleo-weathering intensity of the loess-soil sequences and implication on paleomonsoon

The loess-soil sequences in northern China provide a near continuous record of Quaternary paleoclimate. The pedogenetic intensity of the sequences is closely linked with the variations of the East Asian summer monsoon. In this study, 2181 samples from the Changwu and Xifeng loess sections are analyzed and two high-resolution paleo-weathering timeseries of the last 1.2 Ma are generated, using the ratio of CBD extractable free Fe₂O₃ (FeD) versus the total iron (FeT). This new index is compared with micromorphological features, low-frequency magnetic susceptibility, frequency-dependent magnetic susceptibility, and the Rb/Sr ratio^[5,6]. The results suggest that the FeD/FeT ratio is able to better reflect the degree of soil development. Since the chemical weathering of loess in the Loess Plateau region mainly depends upon the summer precipitation and temperature under modern climate condition, which are closely associated with strength of summer monsoon, and the chemical weathering intensity of loess primarily reflects the variations of the summer monsoon circulation.     

River flow mass exponents with fractal channel networks and rainfall

An important problem in hydrologic science is understanding how river flow is influenced by rainfall properties and drainage basin characteristics. In this paper we consider one approach, the use of mass exponents, in examining the relation of river flow to rainfall and the channel network, which provides the primary conduit for transport of water to the outlet in a large basin. Mass exponents, which characterize the power-law behavior of moments as a function of scale, are ideally suited for defining scaling behavior of processes that exhibit a high degree of variability or intermittency. The main result in this paper is an expression relating the mass exponent of flow resulting from an instantaneous burst of rainfall to the mass exponents of spatial rainfall and that of the network width function. Spatial rainfall is modeled as a random multiplicative cascade and the channel network as a recursive replacement tree; these fractal models reproduce certain types of self-similar behavior seen in actual rainfall and networks. It is shown that under these modeling assumptions the scaling behavior of flow mirrors that of rainfall if rainfall is highly variable in space, and on the other hand flow mirrors the structure of the network if rainfall is not so highly variable.     

Frequency–volume relation and prediction of rainfall-induced landslides

Rainfall-induced landslides constitute a major public concern in Hong Kong. This paper investigates two aspects of critical importance to landslide hazard and risk assessment and management: magnitude–cumulative frequency relationship for landslides, and relationship between rainfall and the occurrence of landslides. The results indicated that landslides with a failure volume of not less than 4 m³ have a cumulative frequency–size distribution with a power-law dependence on volume of failure. Analysis of rainfall/landslides showed that the 12-hour rolling rainfall is most important in predicting the number of landslides. Failure volume dependency in the relationships between rainfall and the number of landslides is also presented. However, with an increase in failure volume of landslides, the most important rainfall variable may vary from rainfall of short duration (12-h rolling rainfall) to that of relatively long duration (24-h rolling rainfall).     

降雨对地电阻率干扰的分析

在一些地电阻率观测台站受本身台址条件的限制，观测深度较浅，因此，观测值受到降雨等气象因素的影响。本文选取昌黎台ＥＷ向１９８３－１９９４年观测资料月均值，用褶积滤波和多元回归方法对ρｓ进行了降雨校正，将将之作为一个灰箱系统，将资料外推至１９９５４上，然后与原始观测值作残差分析，取得了一定效果。     

亚热带马尾松人工林的降雨截留作用

本文通过分别实测降雨过程中林外降雨、林内降雨及树干截流的变化,分析了不同降雨量、降雨持续时间、前期降雨等因素的影响,讨论了马尾松人工林地内雨量分布的变化特点,并提出了计算模式。统计分析结果表明,林内雨和树干流只有当降雨分别到达1.6mm和4.32mm的情况下才出现,其总量分别占林外降雨的75％和4.3％,并以面源和点源的形式输入流域。此外,还阐述了降雨过程中林地内营养元素的输入及循环过程的特点。