Clupeid fish hosts a Peniculus sp.(Pennellidae,Siphonostomatoida, Copepoda)—First report on new host and season dependent prevalence

Pennellid copepod Peniculus fistula fistula(Nordmann, 1832)(Synonym: Peniculus fistula Nordmann, 1832,Aphia ID: 745880), a worldwide distributed species, has been recovered from at least 19 teleost families. The present paper reports for the first time from the Malabar coast(South India), not only the existence of a new host family, Clupeidae, hosting this parasitic copepod species(P. fistula fistula) but also their season dependent hosting. A total of 123 marine fish species, belonging to 77 genera and 38 families surveyed along the Malabar coast, only the clupeid, Anadontostoma chacunda(Hamilton, 1822) was shown to be infected by this copepod species; all the recovered(copepod) parasites were invariably found attached at the mid portion of the caudal fin lobes and lying parallel to the host body, indicating the strict site-specific parasitisation. There is a discrete seasonality in the prevalence(P0.05) as the sign of infection was noticed during the period from September to May with relatively high prevalence during winter months(November–January). During the monsoon months(June–August), the host fish was found completely free from Peniculus infection. Interestingly, all the 229 recovered specimens(P. fistula fistula) were gravid females having paired uniserrate egg sacs with the length more than its own body length.     

On the stability of a coupled ocean atmosphere system in the presence of wave-CISK

The stability of a simple coupled ocean-atmosphere system similar to the one studied by Hirst with general ocean thermodynamics is investigated in which the atmospheric heating is determined by sea surface temperature anomalies as well as the convergence feedback (low level moisture convergence by the waves themselves). It is shown that the unstable coupled mode found by Hirst (UH mode) is profoundly modified by the convergence feedback. The feedback increases the unstable range of the UH mode and can increase its growth rate several folds. The maximally growing UH mode can become westward propagating for certain strength of convergence feedback. If the convergence feedback strength exceeds a critical value, several new unstable intraseasonal modes are also introduced. These modes are basically ‘advective’ modes. For relatively weak strengths of the convergence feedback the growth rates of these modes are smaller than that of the UH mode. As the atmosphere approaches ‘moist neutral’ state, the growth rates of these modes could become comparable or even larger than that of the UH mode. It is argued that these results explain why the El Nino and Southern Oscillation (ENSO) signal is clear in the eastern Pacific but not so in the western Pacific and they may also explain some of the differences between individual ENSO events. Our results also explain the aperiodic behaviour of some coupled numerical models. Importance of this process in explaining the observed aperiodicity of the ENSO phenomenon is indicated.     

Generation of Vegetation Fraction and Surface Albedo Products Over India from Ocean Colour Monitor (OCM) Data Onboard Oceansat-2

The use of Local Area Coverage (LAC) data from Ocean Color Monitor (OCM) sensor of Oceansat-2 with its high radiometric resolution (12 bits/pixel) and 2-day repeat cycle for rapid monitoring of vegetation growth and estimating surface albedo for the Indian region is demonstrated in this study. For the vegetation monitoring, normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and vegetation fraction (VF) products were estimated by maximum value composite approach fortnightly and were resampled to 1 km. The surface albedo products were realized by converting narrow-band eight-band spectral reflectance OCM data to a) visible (300–700 nm) and b) broad band (300–3,000 nm) data. For validation, the derived products were compared with respective MODIS global products and found to be in good agreement.     

Upper layer circulation,hydrography, and biological response of the Andaman waters during winter monsoon based on in situ and satellite observations

Upper layer circulation, hydrography, and biological response of Andaman waters during winter monsoon are assessed based on the observations carried out onboard FORV Sagar Sampada during January 2009 and November–December 2011. Cool and dry air carried by the moderate winds (6 m/s) from north and northeast indicates the influence of northeast monsoon (NEM) in the area during the observation time. The characteristics of physical parameters and the water mass indicate that the southeastern side is dominated by the less saline water from South China Sea intruded through the Malacca Strait, whereas the northeast is influenced by the freshwater from Ayeyarwady-Salween river system. The western side of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands exhibits similar properties of Bay of Bengal (BoB) water as evidenced in the T-S relation. Circulation pattern is uniform for the upper 88 m and is found to be more geostrophic rather than wind driven. Magnitude of the current velocity varies between 100 and 900 mm/s in November–December 2011 with strong current (900 mm/s) near Katchal and Nancowry islands and 100 and 1000 mm/s in January 2009 recording strong current (1000 mm/s) near the Little Nicobar Island. The Andaman waters are observed as less productive during the season based on the satellite-derived surface chl-a (0.1–0.4 mg/m³) and column-integrated primary productivity (PP) (100–275 mgC/m²/d).     

Throat aurora observed by DMSP/SSUSI in a global view

Throat aurora was defined based on the ground observations near local noon and has been suggested to be the ground signature of an indentation on the subsolar magnetopause. A global view of the auroral oval with throat aurora will be critical for inferring global processes at the magnetopause, but it has never been achieved. Using imaging spectrograph observations from Defense Meteorological Satellite Program satellites, for the first time, here we show typical throat auroras in a global view and reveal some important observational facts as follows.(1) The throat auroras can be as long as ～8 degrees in latitudinal direction,which is hardly to be fully seen in the ground-based camera.(2) The plasma flows and field aligned currents associated with throat aurora show consistences with previous radar observations, which have been suggested to be the observational evidence of magnetopause reconnection.(3) Most importantly, we confirmed that the electron and ion precipitations associated with throat aurora are always spatially separated, i.e., electrons in the east and ions in the west. The observational results not only establish a new picture of the aurora oval near local noon, but also provide important support to a conceptual model of throat aurora.     

Appraisal of a new 1D weighted joint inversion of ground based and helicopter‐borne electromagnetic data

In order to couple spatial data from frequency‐domain helicopter‐borne electromagnetics with electromagnetic measurements from ground geophysics (transient electromagnetics and radiomagnetotellurics), a common 1D weighted joint inversion algorithm for helicopter‐borne electromagnetics, transient electromagnetics and radiomagnetotellurics data has been developed. The depth of investigation of helicopter‐borne electromagnetics data is rather limited compared to time‐domain electromagnetics sounding methods on the ground. In order to improve the accuracy of model parameters of shallow depth as well as of greater depth, the helicopter‐borne electromagnetics, transient electromagnetics, and radiomagnetotellurics measurements can be combined by using a joint inversion methodology. The 1D joint inversion algorithm is tested for synthetic data of helicopter‐borne electromagnetics, transient electromagnetics and radiomagnetotellurics. The proposed concept of the joint inversion takes advantage of each method, thus providing the capability to resolve near surface (radiomagnetotellurics) and deeper electrical conductivity structures (transient electromagnetics) in combination with valuable spatial information (helicopter‐borne electromagnetics). Furthermore, the joint inversion has been applied on the field data (helicopter‐borne electromagnetics and transient electromagnetics) measured in the Cuxhaven area, Germany. In order to avoid the lessening of the resolution capacities of one data type, and thus balancing the use of inherent and ideally complementary information content, a parameter reweighting scheme that is based on the exploration depth ranges of the specific methods is proposed. A comparison of the conventional joint inversion algorithm, proposed by Jupp and Vozoff ( 1975 ), and of the newly developed algorithm is presented. The new algorithm employs the weighting on different model parameters differently. It is inferred from the synthetic and field data examples that the weighted joint inversion is more successful in explaining the subsurface than the classical joint inversion approach. In addition to this, the data fittings in weighted joint inversion are also improved.     

Rice-acreage estimation for Orrisa using remotely sensed data

Rice is one of the most important foodgrains grown in India. Attempts have been made to estimate kharif rice acreage of Orissa state since 1986 using digital remote sensing data from Landsat MSS/TM and/or IRS-1A. Accuracies of the estimates obtained have been evaluated against BES (Bureau of Economics and Statistics) estimate. This paper describes the methodology adopted for rice acreage estimation of Orissa state, the results obtained for three years, i.e. 1986–87, 1988–89 and 1989–90, and their accuracy.