Analysis of Difference Between Direct and Geodetic Mass Balance Measurements at South Cascade Glacier, Washington

Net mass balance has been measured since 1958 at South Cascade Glacier using the 'direct method,' e.g. area averages of snow gain and firn and ice loss at stakes. Analysis of cartographic vertical photography has allowed measurement of mass balance using the 'geodetic method' in 1970, 1975, 1977, 1979–80, and 1985–97. Water equivalent change as measured by these nearly independent methods should give similar results. During 1970–97, the direct method shows a cumulative balance of about −15 m, and the geodetic method shows a cumulative balance of about −22 m. The deviation between the two methods is fairly consistent, suggesting no gross errors in either, but rather a cumulative systematic error. It is suspected that the cumulative error is in the direct method because the geodetic method is based on a non-changing reference, the bedrock control, whereas the direct method is measured with reference to only the previous year's summer surface. Possible sources of mass loss that are missing from the direct method are basal melt, internal melt, and ablation on crevasse walls. Possible systematic measurement errors include under-estimation of the density of lost material, sinking stakes, or poorly represented areas.     

Assessment of three temperature reconstruction methods in the virtual reality of a climate simulation

The performance of statistical climate reconstruction methods in the pre-instrumental period is uncertain, as they are calibrated in a short instrumental period but applied to much longer reconstructions time spans. Here, the virtual reality created by a climate simulation of the past millennium with the model ECHO-G is used as a test bed of three methods to reconstruct the annual Northern Hemisphere temperature. The methods are Composite plus Scaling, the inverse regression method of Mann et al. (Nature 392:779–787, 1998) and a direct principal-components regression method. The testing methodology is based on the construction of pseudo-proxies derived from the climate model output, the application of each of these methods to pseudo-proxy timeseries, and the comparison of their result with the simulated mean temperature. Different structures of the noise have been used to construct pseudo-proxies, ranging from the simulated grid-point precipitation. Also, one sparse and one denser pseudo-proxy network, co-located with two real networks, have been considered. All three methods underestimate the simulated variations of the Northern Hemisphere temperature, but the Composite plus Scaling method clearly displays a better performance and is robust against the different noise models and network size. The most relevant factor determining the skill of the reconstruction appears to be the network size, whereas the different noise models tend to yield similar results.     

Biogeographic characterization of Mediterranean and Black Seas faunal provinces using GIS procedures

To identify Mediterranean and Black Seas areas where similar marine faunal provinces occur, geographical distribution maps of 536 species of actual or potential interest to fisheries have been digitized, using GIS software, and three different ecological areas have been delimited by depth, separated by the 200 and 1000 m isobaths. Information on the species ranges was taken mainly from the maps and the texts of the FAO Species Identification Sheets covering the region, and complemented by other sources when necessary. All the distribution maps have then been overlaid by a grid of points at regular intervals every half degree of latitude and longitude. This allowed creation of a matrix of presence or absence of the species at each point from which species richness maps have been generated. The species richness in the Mediterranean proper shows the same negative gradient eastwards that has been observed for nutrients, while the low number of species in the Black Sea could be linked to the fragility and recent fast degradation of this ecosystem. Through the calculation of 65 dissimilarity indices from 50 contiguous points along the coastline and the species richness maps, the region has been divided into nine faunal provinces. These faunal provinces have then been compared with the ten Mediterranean and Black Seas divisions used by the GFCM for statistical purposes, revealing few differences between the two classifications. The definition of faunal provinces in a region when deciding upon Natural Management Areas, and the appropriate GIS approach to be followed, are discussed.     

A Novel Approach of Using Selected Unconventional Geodesic Methods of Estimation on VTS Areas

Abstract

The Vessel Traffic Service (VTS) systems belong to the fundamental tools used in ensuring a high level of safety across sea basins with heavy traffic, where the presence of navigational hazards poses a great risk of collision or a ship running aground. In order to determine the mutual location of ships, VTS systems obtain information from different facilities, such as coastal radar stations, AIS, and vision systems. Fixing a ship’s position is always accompanied by a degree of error, but the degree of error depends on the specific position fixing system used. In order to increase the accuracy of position fixing in VTS systems, the authors propose the use of contemporary geodetic methods. The article presents the theoretical fundamentals of two unconventional geodesic methods of estimation: M estimation and M_split(q)estimation and the authors’ own proposal of their application in VTS systems. The article concludes with a test verifying theoretical assumptions, performed with the use of a computer application allowing position fixing with the use of selected robust adjustment methods. Furthermore, an example is presented of M_split(q)estimation as used for the acquisition of low-signal radar echoes, which in VTS systems are not automatically identified for tracking. The level of the echo signal makes it difficult for a VTS controller to separate these objects from typical radar noise and interference.     

鱼类摄食生态研究的理论及方法

综合分析了鱼类摄食生态研究的理论，方法及其应用中的诸多问题：胃含物分析法，营养生境及食物重叠，食物链与食物网，营养结构与营养级，摄食器官的形态特征与摄食行为的关系，食物选择以及生理生太因子对鱼类摄食的影响；提出了食物排序的概念、优势度指数Ｄ及其判定公式，并以此比较客观地建立了摄食生态相似的鱼类群落主次食物的划分标准。     

信息化测绘条件下的地铁施工监测方法探讨

地铁施工监测是保障地铁安全施工的重要手段,同时也为由地铁施工引起的地表环境影响评价提供重要的数据支撑.文中在现代地铁施工技术背景下,以信息化测绘技术为支撑,对地铁施工监测的新内涵进行探讨,对地铁施工监测过程中的信息管理与反馈机制、主要方法进行系统论述与总结,并以某地铁站施工监测为例,对相关技术与方法进行检验,证明技术与方法的可行性和实用性.     

Lattice dynamical system modelling of molecular clouds

Because a comprehensive microscopic treatment of interstellar molecular clouds is out of reach, an alternative approach is proposed in which most of the crucial ingredients of the problem are considered, but at some 'minimal' level of modelling. This leads to the elaboration of a lattice dynamical system , i.e. a time-dependent, spatially extended, deterministic system of macroscopic cells coupled through radiative transfer. Each cell is characterized by a small set of variables and supports a caricatural chemistry possessing the essential dynamical features of more realistic reaction schemes.   This approach naturally precludes quantitative results, but allows heretofore unavailable insights into some of the basic mechanisms at play. We focus on the response of the transfer process and the chemistry to a frozen 'turbulent' velocity field. It is shown that the system settles generically into a state where the effective coupling between cells is neither local nor global, and for which no single length-scale exists.   The spectral lines reconstructed from the spatiotemporal evolution of our model may, depending on the velocity field, exhibit profiles ranging from Gaussian to bimodal with strong realization effects. In the bimodal case, the model intrinsically displays an energy cascade transport mechanism to the cells that cool most efficiently: the feedback of chemistry on radiative transfer cannot be neglected.   Finally, extensions of this work are discussed and future developments are outlined.     

Galaxy formation and evolution – I. The Padua tree-sph code (pd-sph)

In this paper we report on pd-sph , the new tree-sph code developed in Padua. The main features of the code are described and the results of a new and independent series of 1D and 3D tests are shown. The paper is mainly dedicated to the presentation of the code and to the critical discussion of its performance. In particular, great attention is devoted to the convergency analysis. The code is highly adaptive in space and time by means of individual smoothing lengths and individual time-steps. At present it contains both dark and baryonic matter, this latter in the form of gas and stars, cooling, thermal conduction, star formation, feedback from Type I and II supernovae, stellar winds, and ultraviolet flux from massive stars, and finally chemical enrichment. New cooling rates that depend on the metal abundance of the interstellar medium are employed, and the differences with respect to the standard ones are outlined. Finally, we show the simulation of the dynamical and chemical evolution of a disc-like galaxy with and without feedback. The code is suitably designed to study in a global fashion the problem of formation and evolution of elliptical galaxies, and in particular to feed a spectrophotometric code from which the integrated spectra, magnitudes and colours (together with their spatial gradients) can be derived.