The APE-THESEO Tropical Campaign: An Overview

The APE-THESEO campaign was held from 15 February to 15 March 1999 from the Seychelles in the western Indian Ocean. APE-THESEO stands for Airborne Platform for Earth observation — (contribution to) the Third European Stratospheric Experiment on Ozone. The campaign aimed to study processes controlling the low water content of the stratosphere, including the mechanisms of cloud formation in the tropical tropopause region, and transport processes, studied using measurements of long-lived trace gases and ozone.Two aircraft were used: the high-altitude research aircraft, M-55 Geophysica, which can fly up to 21 km, and the Falcon of the Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt, a tropospheric aircraft. Seven flights were performed, including the first simultaneous in situ and remote sensing of sub-visible cirrus clouds, the first interception of sub-visible cirrus using in-flight guidance from a path-finding aircraft, and guided descent of a high-altitude research aircraft into the anvil cloud at the top of a tropical cyclone. In this paper we describe the payload used, the objectives for each flight, and the meteorological conditions encountered. First results show that a new type of cloud, which we have dubbed ultra-thin tropical tropopause cloud (UTTC), has been observed frequently, and observed to cover areas of 10⁵ km². The frequent coincidence of the tropopause and hygropause implies that the western Indian Ocean played an important role in the dehydration of the lower tropical stratosphere during the season of the mission. UTTCs, sub-visible cirrus, and visible cirrus, have all been implicated in the observed dehydration. Tracer measurements indicate little mixing of stratospheric air into the upper tropical troposphere.     

Surges of the Pamir Glaciers in the First 20 Years of the 21st Century

Doklady Earth Sciences - The activation of surging glaciers in the Pamirs over the past 20 years has been studied. Glacier surges occurred in the basins of the Surkhob, Muksu, Sauksai, Seldara...     

On the subsoil radon and neutron flux variations in the conditions of the Moscow syneclise on the eve of the earthquake in the Sea of Okhotsk on May 24, 2013

By monitoring the variations in the subsoil radon concentration in one of the geodynamically active zones of the Moscow syneclise, the effects are detected of changes in the stress-strain state of the Earth’s crust which predetermined the development of the processes that caused the deep-focus earthquake in the Sea of Okhotsk on May 24, 2013. The joint analysis of subsoil radon variations and neutrino flow variations measured in the same structural–geodynamical conditions support the previous data on the global character of the processes contributing to the preparation of strong and catastrophic earthquakes.     

Effect of global factors on karst formation in Nizhegorodsky oblast

In studies of the dynamics of the activation of karst and suffosion processes in the karst-hazardous districts of Nizhegorodsky oblast, temporal-spectral and correlation analyses are carried out on multiyear time series data on the number of sinkholes in the town of Dzerzhinsk, fluctuations in the water level in the Oka River, fluctuations in solar activity, and variations in the speed of the Earth’s rotation. It is shown that the dynamics of the karst and suffosion processes is related to variations in the regional fluid dynamics, which are controlled, in turn, by fluctuations in solar activity and in the speed of the Earth’s rotation.