kSZ from patchy reionization: The view from the simulations

We present the first calculation of the kinetic Sunyaev–Zel’dovich (kSZ) effect due to the inhomogeneus reionization of the universe based on detailed large-scale radiative transfer simulations of reionization. The resulting sky power spectra peak at ℓ = 2000–8000 with maximum values of [ℓ(ℓ + 1)C_ℓ/(2π)]_max  4–7 × 10 ⁻¹³. The scale roughly corresponds to the typical ionized bubble sizes observed in our simulations, of 5–20 Mpc. The kSZ anisotropy signal from reionization dominates the primary CMB signal above ℓ = 3000. At large-scales the patchy kSZ signal depends only on the source efficiencies. It is higher when sources are more efficient at producing ionizing photons, since such sources produce larger ionized regions, on average, than less efficient sources. The introduction of sub-grid gas clumping in the radiative transfer simulations produce significantly more power at small-scales, but has little effect at large-scales. The patchy reionization kSZ signal is dominated by the post-reionization signal from fully-ionized gas, but the two contributions are of similar order at scales ℓ  3000 − 10⁴, indicating that the kSZ anisotropies from reionization are an important component of the total kSZ signal at these scales.     

利用FY-3星载微波资料对热带气旋云系和暖核特征的分析

介绍了中国FY-3系列卫星搭载的微波遥感仪器性能特点,以“1109”超强台风“梅花”为研究个例.通过微波湿度计单通道微波图像和微波成像仪双极化通道散点图,分析了台风云系中云雨粒子对遥感通道辐射的吸收和散射效应,揭示了台风在微波图像上表现形式的内在物理原因.利用微波向量辐射传输模式的模拟表明:微波温度计各氧气吸收通道对热带气旋系统水汽和水凝物含量变化的敏感性不大.因此,可利用权重函数峰值位于对流层中上层的通道3,探测出台风暖核辐射信息.根据两者相匹配的5个较理想时次数据,选取距“梅花”中心400 km范围为研究区域,并提出用于修正扫描点分辨率不均匀所带来取样偏差的方法,分别计算出订正临边效应后的暖核强度,发现它同表征台风强度的中心海平面气压变化趋势相一致.     

不同时次地基微波辐射计反演产品评估

利用北京大型活动期间探空和微波辐射计资料,采用统计方法进行评价分析,目的是了解该型微波辐射计的性能。结果表明:①总体平均:对温度,有降水时误差变化范围大,无降水时相对比较小,比较平稳;无降水时比有降水时更接近于探空观测结果。对相对湿度,误差的变化与温度比较相似,但从相对误差的变化来看,有降水时比无降水时小。无降水时反演的相对湿度与探空的比较一致。②不同时次:对温度,无降水时统计量随高度的变化规律性比较明显,趋势一致;有降水时的规律相对较差。无降水时,20:00误差比较小,比较接近探空;14:00误差比较大。有降水时,各时次误差比无降水时大,反演的20:00温度变化曲线与探空最接近。对相对湿度,无降水时统计量随高度的变化规律性比较明显,趋势较一致;有降水时的规律性相对比较差。总体来看,降水对微波辐射计影响较大,反演的20:00的资料误差小一些,5000m高度上下误差变化比较大,与云层有关。     

土壤有机物质对土壤介电常数的影响

土壤介电常数是开展微波土壤水分和冻融状态的监测的基础,也是植被和积雪的下垫面边界条件,然而目前已有的介电常数研究都没有对高有机质含量的土壤开展系统观测。本文将土壤中的自然有机物质分为腐殖质和植物性残留物两类。采用控制变量实验方法,通过测量5种不同有机质含量的东北黑土和加入不同比例毛白杨碎屑的扁都口草甸土,研究了腐殖质和植物性残留物的对土壤介电常数的影响。结果表明,腐殖质会降低干燥土壤的容重,从而发挥间接作用,使介电常数降低;而对于相同容重下观测的潮湿土壤,腐殖质含量较多的土壤介电常数更大。与Dobson模型的比较显示,在29℃室温下,腐殖质对25%重量含水量潮湿土壤实部的影响在±2左右,虚部能达到1。与腐殖质相比,植物性残留物对风干土壤和潮湿土壤的影响都十分明显。植物性残留物能有效地疏松土壤并代入植物组分的介电特征。当重量含水量为30%时,含毛白杨含量为20%的混合土壤比纯扁都口土壤在实部平均减小3—7左右,虚部减小 1—3左右。因此,根据实验观测以及和模型的比较,土壤中的有机物质会改变土壤介电性质,对微波遥感造成影响。     

风云三号卫星微波成像仪在轨性能稳定性分析

利用地球冷目标观测亮温的稳定性和遥感数据统计直方图方法,是评价微波成像仪等类似微波成像辐射计在轨性能稳定性的有效方法。在此基础上,本文用2011年2月—7月风云三号02星微波成像仪在轨观测的亮温数据,对微波成像仪在轨运行的性能稳定性进行了分析。结果表明:风云三号02星微波成像仪在轨性能稳定,所有通道最低亮温参考值波动范围不超过1.8K。     

山区地形效应对微波辐射特征与土壤水分反演的影响—以青藏高原地区为例

采用星载微波辐射计AMSR-E的低频C波段(6.925GHz),改进了山区微波辐射传输方程,以中国青藏高原地区为例,研究山区可能产生的多种地形效应对微波辐射特征以及土壤水分反演的影响。结果表明,地形效应使得垂直极化亮温最多衰减达到16K,水平极化的亮温最大增强了18K,土壤水分在地形的影响下将被高估超过最大允许误差4%。最后,利用地形效应模拟模型计算的山区地表有效发射率,为山区土壤水分的反演提出了可行的地形校正方法。     

由地基微波辐射计测量得到的北京地区水汽特性的初步分析

首先对比分析了三种测量水汽技术(地基微波辐射计、探空、GPS)之间的差异, 得到地基微波辐射计与探空的差值为0.281cm, GPS与探空的差值为0.728 cm, 地基微波辐射计与GPS的差值为0.322 cm。接着就地基12通道微波辐射计测量得到的水汽总量 (简称PWV), 分析了北京地区水汽在四个季节中的日变化特征。秋季日变化差为0.162 cm, 冬季日变化差为0.130 cm, 春季日变化差为0.229 cm, 夏季日变化差为0.276 cm。另外, 北京地区四个季节中水汽最大值/最小值出现频率最高的时间段呈现一定的特征。即四个季节中在北京时间00:00到00:59和23:00到23:59这两个时间段中, 水汽出现最大值/最小值的概率较其他时间段都高, 其中冬季在北京时间10:00到10:59之间出现最小值的概率最高。水汽总量PWV每小时变化率在四个季节中都存在这样的现象: 出现正的水汽总量PWV每小时变化率的百分比与出现负的水汽总量PWV每小时变化率的百分比相当, 几乎都为50%。最后就水汽与温度相关性做了分析, 分别得到四个季节中各个小时水汽与温度的相关系数, 结果显示各个小时水汽与温度的相关性在四个季节中, 除了夏季从北京时间09:00到22:00为负相关外, 其他时间段内都为正相关。而且各个小时水汽与温度的相关系数都按照秋、春、 冬、夏的顺序递减。     

利用AMSU-B和GOES-9卫星资料对热带气旋“蒲公英”的分析

利用NOAA-16/AMSU-B三水汽通道微波亮温差和GOES-9红外亮温阈值对热带气旋深厚对流云进行检测,同时利用GOES-9可见光、红外、水汽多光谱通道特征对热带气旋云系进行识别,通过一次台风“蒲公英”个例,对热带气旋在微波和光学遥感图像上的深厚对流云进行分析。结果表明,微波和光学遥感资料均能对热带气旋深厚对流云进行有效识别,检测结果基本一致,但识别出的对流云,微波范围较小,光学遥感范围较大,这可能是由于光学遥感仅能获得云顶信息,将对流云顶部覆盖的卷云错判造成的;即使采用较低亮温阈值,光学遥感也很难将这部分卷云完全分离,而微波对云更具穿透性,在深厚对流云的识别方面具有独特优势;三水汽通道间微波亮温差反映了深厚对流云的发展强度,可间接揭示热带气旋的发展情况。     

Signals from the epoch of cosmological recombination – Karl Schwarzschild Award Lecture 2008

The physical ingredients to describe the epoch of cosmological recombination are amazingly simple and well‐understood. This fact allows us to take into account a very large variety of physical processes, still finding potentially measurable consequences for the energy spectrum and temperature anisotropies of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). In this contribution we provide a short historical overview in connection with the cosmological recombination epoch and its connection to the CMB. Also we highlight some of the detailed physics that were studied over the past few years in the context of the cosmological recombination of hydrogen and helium. The impact of these considerations is two‐fold: (i) The associated release of photons during this epoch leads to interesting and unique deviations of the CosmicMicrowave Background (CMB) energy spectrum from a perfect blackbody, which, in particular at decimeter wavelength and the Wien part of the CMB spectrum, may become observable in the near future. Despite the fact that the abundance of helium is rather small, it still contributes a sizeable amount of photons to the full recombination spectrum, leading to additional distinct spectral features. Observing the spectral distortions from the epochs of hydrogen and helium recombination, in principle would provide an additional way to determine some of the key parameters of the Universe (e.g. the specific entropy, the CMB monopole temperature and the pre‐stellar abundance of helium). Also it permits us to confront our detailed understanding of the recombination process with direct observational evidence. In this contribution we illustrate how the theoretical spectral template of the cosmological recombination spectrum may be utilized for this purpose. We also show that because hydrogen and helium recombine at very different epochs it is possible to address questions related to the thermal history of our Universe. In particular the cosmological recombination radiation may allow us to distinguish between Compton y ‐distortions that were created by energy release before or after the recombination of the Universe finished. (ii) With the advent of high precision CMB data, e.g. as will be available using the PLANCK Surveyor or CMBPOL, a very accurate theoretical understanding of the ionization history of the Universe becomes necessary for the interpretation of the CMB temperature and polarization anisotropies. Here we show that the uncertainty in the ionization history due to several processes, which until now were not taken in to account in the standard recombination code RECFAST, reaches the percent level. In particular He II → He I recombination occurs significantly faster because of the presence of a tiny fraction of neutral hydrogen at z ∼ 2400. Also recently it was demonstrated that in the case of H I Lyman α photons the timedependence of the emission process and the asymmetry between the emission and absorption profile cannot be ignored. However, it is indeed surprising how inert the cosmological recombination history is even at percent‐level accuracy. Observing the cosmological recombination spectrum should in principle allow us to directly check this conclusion, which until now is purely theoretical. Also it may allow to reconstruct the ionization history using observational data (© 2009 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)