Interpretation of Mauna Loa atmospheric transmission relative to aerosols,using photometric precipitable water amouts

Precipitable water measurements made coincident in time and space with direct broadband solar irradiance measurements are used in conjunction with an atmospheric transmission model to derive a parameter whose major dependence is on total aerosol extinction. Irradiance measurements are used to calculate an atmospheric transmission factor (ATF) that is independent of the instrument calibration and the extraterrestrial solar constant. The dependency of the ATF on precipitable water is determined using LOWTRAN5, an atmospheric transmission model with high spectral resolution. Precipitable water measurements are then used to adjust the measured ATF to correspond to an ATF value obtained for a constant precipitable water amount. The remaining variability in the adjusted ATF is due mostly to aerosol extinction. The technique is applied to a 6-year period (1978–1983) for clear-sky mornings at Mauna Loa, Hawaii (MLO). MLO ATF aerosol residuals are compared with independently measured monochromatic aerosol optical depth. Results show that the ATF aerosol residual is nearly equal to the 500 nm aerosol optical depth prior to the eruption of E1 Chichon, at which time a nonlinear time-dependent relationship between the two quantities is evident. ATF aerosol residuals reflect the spectrally integrated aerosol influence on transmission and, therefore, could indicate better than monochromatic optical depth the radiation balance perturbations due to aerosols. The 6-year precipitable water record for MLO, determined from a dual-channel sunphotometer, has a mean value of 0.3 cm. An annual cycle in precipitable water is evident, as is a 4-month 5-standard-deviation drought from December 1982 through March 1983.     

Energetics of radiation damage in natural zircon (ZrSiO4)

Transposed temperature drop calorimetry at 1000 °C was performed on natural zircons (ZrSiO₄) from Sri Lanka that were partially to completely metamict due to α-decay event damage (0.06 to 11.7×10¹⁵ α-decay events/mg). The enthalpy of annealing at room temperature (ΔH_anneal) varies sigmoidally as a function of radiation dose. ΔH_anneal reaches a saturation plateau at radiation doses greater than 5×10¹⁵ α-decay events/mg. The annealing of several samples to a crystalline structure with broadened diffraction peaks does not significantly affect the enthalpy of annealing. The large magnitude of the enthalpy of annealing plateau, ?59±3 kJ/mol, suggests that the damage to the structure is pervasive on the scale of Angstroms, consistent with the loss of mid-range order characteristic of a glass. The energetics are consistent with, but do not require, chemical heterogeneity caused by micro-domains of amorphous SiO₂-rich and ZrO₂-rich regions in the metamict state.     

Multiscale analysis of vegetation surface fluxes: from seconds to years

The variability in land surface heat (H), water vapor (LE), and CO₂ (or net ecosystem exchange, NEE) fluxes was investigated at scales ranging from fractions of seconds to years using eddy-covariance flux measurements above a pine forest. Because these fluxes significantly vary at all these time scales and because large gaps in the record are unavoidable in such experiments, standard Fourier expansion methods for computing the spectral and cospectral statistical properties were not possible. Instead, orthonormal wavelet transformations are proposed and used. The are ideal at resolving process variability with respect to both scale and time and are able to isolate and remove the effects of missing data (or gaps) from spectral and cospectral calculations. Using the spectra, we demonstrated unique aspects in three appropriate ranges of time scales: turbulent time scales (fractions of seconds to minutes), meteorological time scales (hour to weeks), and seasonal to interannual time scales corresponding to climate and vegetation dynamics. We have shown that: (1) existing turbulence theories describe the short time scales well, (2) coupled physiological and transport models (e.g. CANVEG) reproduce the wavelet spectral characteristics of all three land surface fluxes for meteorological time scales, and (3) seasonal dynamics in vegetation physiology and structure inject strong correlations between land surface fluxes and forcing variables at monthly to seasonal time scales. The broad implications of this study center on the possibility of developing low-dimensional models of land surface water, energy, and carbon exchange. If the bulk of the flux variability is dominated by a narrow band or bands of modes, and these modes “resonate” with key state and forcing variables, then low-dimensional models may relate these forcing and state variables to NEE and LE.     

Modes of synoptic development within the Polar Basin

The patterns of advective development are classified for twelve synoptic sequences in the Polar Basin during the June through October interval of 1979. The intent is to develop models of the advective contribution to synoptic evolution.Fifteen categories are derived from 94 cases. Five are significant classes in that they represent at least 6 members each. While there is a predominance of patterns which are interpreted as weakening or occuluded, there are significant examples of intensification and frontogenesis within the Basin. One case is over the central Arctic Ocean. In other classes, there is development as a result of radiative or diabatic influences despite the frontolyic nature of the advective patterns.This is the first attempt to classify synoptic systems on the basis of a dynamic index, in contrast to pressure patterns. This approach provides new insight into the processes responsible for the evolution of the systems.List of symbols C_p specific heat of dry air - g acceleration due to gravity - H diabatic heating rate - p pressure - R gas constant - V_g geostrophic wind velocity - W vertical velocity - static stability - f _o Criolis parameter - geopotential height - approximate vertical velocity — omega - p density of air     

The remarkable occurrence of large rainfall-induced debris flows at two different locations on July 12, 2008, Southern Sierra Nevada, CA, USA

On July 12, 2008, two convective cells about 155 km apart produced a brief period of intense rainfall triggering large debris flows in the southern Sierra Nevada. The northernmost cell was centered over Oak Creek Canyon, an east-flowing drainage, and its tributaries near Independence, CA, USA. About 5:00 p.m., debris flows passed down the South Fork and North Fork of Oak Creek to merge into a large single feature whose passage affected the historic Mt. Whitney Fish hatchery and blocked California State Highway 395. At about the same time, the southernmost cell was largely centered over Erskine Creek, a main tributary of the west-flowing Kern River. Debris flows issued from several branches to coalesce into a large debris flow that passed along Erskine Creek, through the town of Lake Isabella, CA, USA and into the Kern River. It was observed reaching Lake Isabella about 6:30 p.m. Both debris flows caused significant disruption and damage to local communities.     

Saturn's icy satellites: Thermal and structural models

Thermal histories of the small icy Saturnian satellites Mimas, Tethys, Dione, Rhea, and Iapetus are constructed by assuming that they formed as homogeneous ice-silicate mixtures. The models include effects of radiogenic and accretional heating, conductive and subsolidus convective heat transfer, and lithospheric growth. Accretional heating is unlikely to have melted the water ice in the interiors of these bodies and solid state creep of the predominately ice material precludes melting by radiogenic heating. Mimas is so small that its thermal evolution is essentially purely conductive; at present it is a cold, nearly isothermal body. Any subsolidus convection or thermal activity in Mimas would have been confined to a brief period in its early history and would have been due to a warm formation. The four largest satellites are big enough and contain sufficient heat-producing silicates that solid state convection beneath a rigid lithosphere is inevitable independent of initial conditions. Dione and Rhea have convective interiors for most of their thermal histories, while Tethys and Iapetus have mainly conductive thermal histories with early periods of convective 0activity. The thermal histories of the five satellites for the last 4 by are independent of initial conditions; at present they have cold, conductive interiors. The model thermal histories are qualitatively consistent with the appearances of these satellites: Mimas has an ancient heavily cratered surface, Tethys and probably Iapetus have both heavily cratered and more lightly cratered areas, and Dione and Rhea have extensively modified surfaces. Because of their similar sizes and densities, Mimas and Enceladus are expected to have similar surfaces and thermal histories, but instead Enceladus has the most modified surface of all the small icy Saturnian satellites. Our results suggest a heat source for Enceladus, in addition to radiogenic and accretional heating; tidal dissipation is a possibility. Because the water ice in these bodies does not melt, resurfacing must be accomplished by the melting of a low-melting-temperature minor component such as ammonia hydrate.     

Latent and sensible heat flux predictions from a uniform pine forest using surface renewal and flux variance methods

A surface renewal model that links organized eddy motion to the latent and sensible heat fluxes is tested with eddy correlation measurements carried out in a 13m tall uniform Loblolly pine plantation in Duke Forest, Durham, North Carolina. The surface renewal model is based on the occurance of ramp-like patterns in the scalar concentration measurements. To extract such ramp-like patterns from Eulerian scalar concentration measurements, a newly proposed time-frequency filtering scheme is developed and tested. The time-domain filtering is carried out using compactly-supported orthonormal wavelets in conjunction with the Universal Wavelet Thresholding approach of Donoho and Johnstone, while the frequency filtering is carried out by a band-pass sine filter centered around the ramp-occurrence frequency as proposed by other studies. The method was separately tested for heat and water vapour with good agreement between eddy correlation flux measurements and model predictions. The usefulness of the flux-variance method to predict sensible and latent heat fluxes is also considered. Our measurements suggest that the simple flux-variance method reproduces the measured heat and momentum fluxes despite the fact that the variances were measured within the roughness sublayer and not in the surface layer. Central to the predictions of water vapour fluxes using the flux-variance approach is the similarity between heat and water vapour transport by the turbulent air flow. This assumption is also investigated for this uniform forest terrain.     

The significance of surface temperature patterns on the energy balance of a small lake in the Canadian Shield

Abstract

Temperature patterns of a small lake in the Canadian Shield are examined by means of thermal imagery. The effect of the different surface temperatures on the daytime energy balance is examined for two points over the lake at the time the thermal imagery was taken. For 14 June 1979, two distinct energy balance regimes are noted. At the lake centre, where the deeper water registers a relatively cool thermal signature, a boundary‐layer inversion is observed. The downward sensible heat flux augments the net radiation, and the latent heat flux is 105% of the radiant input. Along the lake margins, the shallows register warm thermal signatures and a lapse profile is observed. The sensible heat flux is an energy sink and the latent heat flux is diminished to 88% of the net radiation. This difference indicates that a single point estimate may introduce a bias if it is assumed to be representative of the lake average for the purposes of studying lake evaporation.

The calculation of the latent heat flux and evaporation is very sensitive to the value of the surface temperature. When the spatial patterns of surface temperature are considered in an estimate of the lake evaporation, the spatially integrated value differs by —6% from the estimate based upon a single point observation at the lake centre for a mid‐day in June and by +10% from the estimate based upon observations collected over the warm shallows.