Ocean current estimation using a Multi-Model Ensemble Kalman Filter during the Grand Lagrangian Deployment experiment (GLAD)

In the summer and fall of 2012, during the GLAD experiment in the Gulf of Mexico, the Consortium for Advanced Research on Transport of Hydrocarbon in the Environment (CARTHE) used several ocean models to assist the deployment of more than 300 surface drifters. The Navy Coastal Ocean Model (NCOM) at 1 km and 3 km resolutions, the US Navy operational NCOM at 3 km resolution (AMSEAS), and two versions of the Hybrid Coordinates Ocean Model (HYCOM) set at 4 km were running daily and delivering 72-h range forecasts. They all assimilated remote sensing and local profile data but they were not assimilating the drifter’s observations. This work presents a non-intrusive methodology named Multi-Model Ensemble Kalman Filter that allows assimilating the local drifter data into such a set of models, to produce improved ocean currents forecasts. The filter is to be used when several modeling systems or ensembles are available and/or observations are not entirely handled by the operational data assimilation process. It allows using generic in situ measurements over short time windows to improve the predictability of local ocean dynamics and associated high-resolution parameters of interest for which a forward model exists (e.g. oil spill plumes). Results can be used for operational applications or to derive enhanced background fields for other data assimilation systems, thus providing an expedite method to non-intrusively assimilate local observations of variables with complex operators. Results for the GLAD experiment show the method can improve water velocity predictions along the observed drifter trajectories, hence enhancing the skills of the models to predict individual trajectories.     

Evaluation of NLDAS‐2 evapotranspiration against tower flux site observations

The North American Land Data Assimilation System project phase 2 (NLDAS‐2) has run four land surface models for a 30‐year (1979–2008) retrospective period. Land surface evapotranspiration (ET) is one of the most important model outputs from NLDAS‐2 for investigating land–atmosphere interaction or to monitor agricultural drought. Here, we evaluate hourly ET using in situ observations over the Southern Great Plains (Atmospheric Radiation Measurement/Cloud and Radiation Testbed network) for 1 January 1997–30 September 1999 and daily ET u‐sing in situ observations at the AmeriFlux network over the conterminous USA for an 8‐year period (2000–2007). The NLDAS‐2 models compare well against observations, with the National Centers for Environmental Prediction's Noah land surface model performing best, followed, in order, by the Variable Infiltration Capacity, Sacramento Soil Moisture Accounting, and Mosaic models. Daily evaluation across the AmeriFlux network shows that for all models, performance depends on season and vegetation type; they do better in spring and fall than in winter or summer and better for deciduous broadleaf forest and grasslands than for croplands or evergreen needleleaf forest. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Inference and uncertainty of snow depth spatial distribution at the kilometre scale in the Colorado Rocky Mountains: the effects of sample size,random sampling,predictor quality,and validation procedures

Historically, observing snow depth over large areas has been difficult. When snow depth observations are sparse, regression models can be used to infer the snow depth over a given area. Data sparsity has also left many important questions about such inference unexamined. Improved inference, or estimation, of snow depth and its spatial distribution from a given set of observations can benefit a wide range of applications from water resource management, to ecological studies, to validation of satellite estimates of snow pack. The development of Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) technology has provided non‐sparse snow depth measurements, which we use in this study, to address fundamental questions about snow depth inference using both sparse and non‐sparse observations. For example, when are more data needed and when are data redundant? Results apply to both traditional and manual snow depth measurements and to LiDAR observations. Through sampling experiments on high‐resolution LiDAR snow depth observations at six separate 1.17‐km² sites in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, we provide novel perspectives on a variety of issues affecting the regression estimation of snow depth from sparse observations. We measure the effects of observation count, random selection of observations, quality of predictor variables, and cross‐validation procedures using three skill metrics: percent error in total snow volume, root mean squared error (RMSE), and R². Extremes of predictor quality are used to understand the range of its effect; how do predictors downloaded from internet perform against more accurate predictors measured by LiDAR? Whereas cross validation remains the only option for validating inference from sparse observations, in our experiments, the full set of LiDAR‐measured snow depths can be considered the ‘true’ spatial distribution and used to understand cross‐validation bias at the spatial scale of inference. We model at the 30‐m resolution of readily available predictors, which is a popular spatial resolution in the literature. Three regression models are also compared, and we briefly examine how sampling design affects model skill. Results quantify the primary dependence of each skill metric on observation count that ranges over three orders of magnitude, doubling at each step from 25 up to 3200. Whereas uncertainty (resulting from random selection of observations) in percent error of true total snow volume is typically well constrained by 100–200 observations, there is considerable uncertainty in the inferred spatial distribution (R²) even at medium observation counts (200–800). We show that percent error in total snow volume is not sensitive to predictor quality, although RMSE and R² (measures of spatial distribution) often depend critically on it. Inaccuracies of downloaded predictors (most often the vegetation predictors) can easily require a quadrupling of observation count to match RMSE and R² scores obtained by LiDAR‐measured predictors. Under cross validation, the RMSE and R² skill measures are consistently biased towards poorer results than their true validations. This is primarily a result of greater variance at the spatial scales of point observations used for cross validation than at the 30‐m resolution of the model. The magnitude of this bias depends on individual site characteristics, observation count (for our experimental design), and sampling design. Sampling designs that maximize independent information maximize cross‐validation bias but also maximize true R². The bagging tree model is found to generally outperform the other regression models in the study on several criteria. Finally, we discuss and recommend use of LiDAR in conjunction with regression modelling to advance understanding of snow depth spatial distribution at spatial scales of thousands of square kilometres. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

无人机信号传输中断解决方案研究

在福建地区从事无人机低空数码航空摄影测量项目时,我们发现数传电台信号中断是无人机飞行的一个重大安全隐患。如不能实时掌握无人机飞行动态,出现异常状况时不能第一时间处理,极有可能出现安全事故,造成重大损失。本文通过具体案例说明,提出无人机信号传输中断的解决方案。     

GPS精密卫星钟差估计研究

随着精密单点定位技术的发展,对于精确的卫星坐标以及卫星钟差改正精度的要求越来越高,精密卫星星历以及精密卫星钟差的求解成为制约精密单点定位技术发展的瓶颈。本文基于修复周跳的载波相位观测值与相位平滑伪距观测值,采用无电离层延迟星间单差精密卫星钟差估计模型,在先估计出整周模糊度后,进行了精密卫星钟差的估计,并采用与IGS事后精密钟差作二次差的方法进行精度分析,这对于提高精密单点定位精度具有一定的意义。     

北斗系统周跳探测与修复方法探究

北斗卫星导航系统是中国自行研制的继美国GPS和俄罗斯GLONASS之后第3个成熟的卫星导航系统。进行GNSS相位数据处理的过程中,由于某种原因,载波相位观测值突然出现整周数的跳变的现象称为周跳。周跳现象的发生将会严重影响后续的数据处理,因此,有必要在解算前完成周跳探测与修复工作。本文就北斗系统周跳探测与修复课题进行了较为全面的探究,先后介绍了高次差法、多普勒法、伪距载波相位组合法、电离层残差法、三频数据组合探测法等一系列周跳探测与修复方法,可分别应用于不同频段接收机、不同观测环境、不同数据处理模式。     

遥感与地球系统科学

地球作为一个高度复杂的非线性系统,各圈层(大气、海洋、陆地、生物、冰雪圈、固体地球)尤其是人类活动等任何组成成份的变化,都会引起地球系统的变化。人类可持续发展面临的巨大科学挑战之一是认识人类赖以生存的、复杂变化的地球系统,认识地球系统如何变化及主要驱动因素,认识地球系统未来变化趋势及如何提高对全球变化的适应能力。卫星独特的全球覆盖和日尺度的观测改变了地球科学的研究方法,它强调所能探测到的多时空尺度上的物理动力过程,在全球范围应对气候变化、能源和环境挑战具有重要作用,揭开了地球系统多学科交叉的新纪元。以地球系统的视野,抓住驱动地球系统的关键循环过程(如能量、水、生物化学循环),是当前地球系统科学的发展趋势。地球系统科学(全球变化)研究需要长期稳定、准确性较高的卫星观测数据,以水循环为例,卫星遥感具备获取全球范围水循环关键参数能力,但是系统性综合观测能力不足,整体精确性受到综合化的可靠空间数据集的限制。目前中国正在积极研制发展新型水循环卫星WCOM(Water Cycle Observation Misssion),并寄希望以此为核心传感器发起全球分布式水循环观测星座系统,进一步提高中国在国际水循环观测与地球系统科学研究方面的话语权与领先能力。     

NUMERICAL PREDICTION OF AN EXTREME RAINSTORM OVER THE PEARL RIVER DELTA REGION ON 7 MAY 2017 BASED ON WRF-ENKF

An ensemble Kalman filter based on the Weather Research and Forecasting Model (WRF-EnKF) is used to explore the effectiveness of the assimilation of surface observation data in an extreme local rainstorm over the Pearl River Delta region on 7 May 2017. Before the occurrence of rainstorm, the signals of weather forecasts in this case are too weak to be predicted by numerical weather model, but the surface temperature over the urban area are high. The results of this study show that the wind field, temperature, and water vapor are obviously adjusted by assimilating surface data of 10-m wind, 2-m temperature, and 2-m water vapor mixing ratio at 2300 BST 6 May, especially below the height of 2 km. The southerly wind over the Pearl River Delta region is enhanced, and the convergence of wind over the northern Guangzhou city is also enhanced. Additionally, temperature, water vapor mixing ratio and pseudoequivalent potential temperature are obviously increased over the urban region, providing favorable conditions for the occurrence of heavy precipitation. After assimilation, the predictions of 12-h rainfall amount, temperature, and relative humidity are significantly improved, and the rainfall intensity and distribution in this case can be successfully reproduced. Moreover, sensitivity tests suggest that the assimilation of 2-m temperature is the key to predict this extreme rainfall and just assimilating data of surface wind or water vapor is not workable, implying that urban heat island effect may be an important factor in this extreme rainstorm.     

基于不同邻近标签数选择的LANDMARC定位算法研究

对于基于射频识别的LANDMARC室内定位算法而言,该系统采用"k近邻"算法,通过选取k个与待测标签相邻且符合特定条件的参考标签,最后根据这些标签的位置结合权值估算出待测标签的坐标信息.但是在实际的操作过程中,最近邻参考标签数的选取无指导原则,具有一定的盲目性.针对这一问题,通过选取与待定位参考点最近邻的参考节点作为未知点,通过搜索法获得最优的邻近标签数k,在随后的未知节点的定位过程中,选取k个邻近标签进行定位.经过多次实验,最终得出结论,使用改进后的LANDMARC算法的性能要优于原来经典的LANDMARC算法,精确度提升了10%左右,同时避免了k值选取的盲目性.     

Comparison of products from ERA-40, NCEP-2, and CRU with station data for summer precipitation over China

Summer precipitation products from the 45-Year European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecast (ECMWF) Reanalysis (ERA-40), and NCEP-Department of Energy (DOE) Atmospheric Model Intercomparison Project (AMIP-II) Reanalysis (NCEP-2), and Climatic Research Unit (CRU) TS 2.1 dataset are compared with the corresponding observations over China in order to understand the quality and utility of the reanalysis datasets for the period 1979–2001. The results reveal that although the magnitude and location of the rainfall belts differ among the reanalysis, CRU, and station data over South and West China, the spatial distributions show good agreement over most areas of China. In comparison with the observations in most areas of China, CRU best matches the observed summer precipitation, while ERA-40 reports less precipitation and NCEP-2 reports more precipitation than the observations. With regard to the amplitude of the interannual variations, CRU is better than either of the reanalyses in representing the corresponding observations. The amplitude in NCEP-2 is stronger but that of ERA-40 is weaker than the observations in most study domains. NCEP-2 has a more obvious interannual variability than ERA-40 or CRU in most areas of East China. Through an Empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis, the main features of the rainfall belts produced by CRU agree better with the observations than with those produced by the reanalyses in the Yangtze-Huaihe River valley. In East of China, particularly in the Yangtze-Huaihe River valley, CRU can reveal the quasi-biennial oscillation of summer precipitation represented by the observations, but the signal of ERA-40 is comparatively weak and not very obvious, whereas that of NCEP-2 is also weak before 1990 but very strong after 1990. The results also suggest that the magnitude of the precipitation difference between ERA-40 and the observations is smaller than that between NCEP-2 and the observations, but the variations represented by NCEP-2 are more reasonable than those given by ERA-40 in most areas of East China to some extent.