Tethys – A Python Package for Spatial and Temporal Downscaling of Global Water Withdrawals

DOE PAGES

Li, Xinya; Vernon, Chris R.; Hejazi, Mohamad I.; ...

2018-02-09

Downscaling of water withdrawals from regional/national to local scale is a fundamental step and also a common problem when integrating large scale economic and integrated assessment models with high-resolution detailed sectoral models. Tethys, an open-access software written in Python, is developed with statistical downscaling algorithms, to spatially and temporally downscale water withdrawal data to a finer scale. The spatial resolution will be downscaled from region/basin scale to grid (0.5 geographic degree) scale and the temporal resolution will be downscaled from year to month. Tethys is used to produce monthly global gridded water withdrawal products based on estimates from the Globalmore » Change Assessment Model (GCAM).« less

Single Image Super-Resolution Using Global Regression Based on Multiple Local Linear Mappings.

PubMed

Choi, Jae-Seok; Kim, Munchurl

2017-03-01

Super-resolution (SR) has become more vital, because of its capability to generate high-quality ultra-high definition (UHD) high-resolution (HR) images from low-resolution (LR) input images. Conventional SR methods entail high computational complexity, which makes them difficult to be implemented for up-scaling of full-high-definition input images into UHD-resolution images. Nevertheless, our previous super-interpolation (SI) method showed a good compromise between Peak-Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR) performances and computational complexity. However, since SI only utilizes simple linear mappings, it may fail to precisely reconstruct HR patches with complex texture. In this paper, we present a novel SR method, which inherits the large-to-small patch conversion scheme from SI but uses global regression based on local linear mappings (GLM). Thus, our new SR method is called GLM-SI. In GLM-SI, each LR input patch is divided into 25 overlapped subpatches. Next, based on the local properties of these subpatches, 25 different local linear mappings are applied to the current LR input patch to generate 25 HR patch candidates, which are then regressed into one final HR patch using a global regressor. The local linear mappings are learned cluster-wise in our off-line training phase. The main contribution of this paper is as follows: Previously, linear-mapping-based conventional SR methods, including SI only used one simple yet coarse linear mapping to each patch to reconstruct its HR version. On the contrary, for each LR input patch, our GLM-SI is the first to apply a combination of multiple local linear mappings, where each local linear mapping is found according to local properties of the current LR patch. Therefore, it can better approximate nonlinear LR-to-HR mappings for HR patches with complex texture. Experiment results show that the proposed GLM-SI method outperforms most of the state-of-the-art methods, and shows comparable PSNR performance with much lower computational complexity when compared with a super-resolution method based on convolutional neural nets (SRCNN15). Compared with the previous SI method that is limited with a scale factor of 2, GLM-SI shows superior performance with average 0.79 dB higher in PSNR, and can be used for scale factors of 3 or higher.

Framework for Detection and Localization of Extreme Climate Event with Pixel Recursive Super Resolution

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kim, S. K.; Lee, J.; Zhang, C.; Ames, S.; Williams, D. N.

2017-12-01

Deep learning techniques have been successfully applied to solve many problems in climate and geoscience using massive-scaled observed and modeled data. For extreme climate event detections, several models based on deep neural networks have been recently proposed and attend superior performance that overshadows all previous handcrafted expert based method. The issue arising, though, is that accurate localization of events requires high quality of climate data. In this work, we propose framework capable of detecting and localizing extreme climate events in very coarse climate data. Our framework is based on two models using deep neural networks, (1) Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) to detect and localize extreme climate events, and (2) Pixel recursive recursive super resolution model to reconstruct high resolution climate data from low resolution climate data. Based on our preliminary work, we have presented two CNNs in our framework for different purposes, detection and localization. Our results using CNNs for extreme climate events detection shows that simple neural nets can capture the pattern of extreme climate events with high accuracy from very coarse reanalysis data. However, localization accuracy is relatively low due to the coarse resolution. To resolve this issue, the pixel recursive super resolution model reconstructs the resolution of input of localization CNNs. We present a best networks using pixel recursive super resolution model that synthesizes details of tropical cyclone in ground truth data while enhancing their resolution. Therefore, this approach not only dramat- ically reduces the human effort, but also suggests possibility to reduce computing cost required for downscaling process to increase resolution of data.

Hi-C First Results

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Cirtain, Jonathan

2013-01-01

Hi-C obtained the highest spatial and temporal resolution observatoins ever taken in the solar corona. Hi-C reveals dynamics and structure at the limit of its temporal and spatial resolution. Hi-C observed ubiquitous fine-scale flows consistent with the local sound speed.

Super-resolution and super-localization microscopy: A novel tool for imaging chemical and biological processes

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Dong, Bin

2015-01-01

Optical microscopy imaging of single molecules and single particles is an essential method for studying fundamental biological and chemical processes at the molecular and nanometer scale. The best spatial resolution (~ λ/2) achievable in traditional optical microscopy is governed by the diffraction of light. However, single molecule-based super-localization and super-resolution microscopy imaging techniques have emerged in the past decade. Individual molecules can be localized with nanometer scale accuracy and precision for studying of biological and chemical processes.This work uncovered the heterogeneous properties of the pore structures. In this dissertation, the coupling of molecular transport and catalytic reaction at the singlemore » molecule and single particle level in multilayer mesoporous nanocatalysts was elucidated. Most previous studies dealt with these two important phenomena separately. A fluorogenic oxidation reaction of non-fluorescent amplex red to highly fluorescent resorufin was tested. The diffusion behavior of single resorufin molecules in aligned nanopores was studied using total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy (TIRFM).« less

Built-Up Area Detection from High-Resolution Satellite Images Using Multi-Scale Wavelet Transform and Local Spatial Statistics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chen, Y.; Zhang, Y.; Gao, J.; Yuan, Y.; Lv, Z.

2018-04-01

Recently, built-up area detection from high-resolution satellite images (HRSI) has attracted increasing attention because HRSI can provide more detailed object information. In this paper, multi-resolution wavelet transform and local spatial autocorrelation statistic are introduced to model the spatial patterns of built-up areas. First, the input image is decomposed into high- and low-frequency subbands by wavelet transform at three levels. Then the high-frequency detail information in three directions (horizontal, vertical and diagonal) are extracted followed by a maximization operation to integrate the information in all directions. Afterward, a cross-scale operation is implemented to fuse different levels of information. Finally, local spatial autocorrelation statistic is introduced to enhance the saliency of built-up features and an adaptive threshold algorithm is used to achieve the detection of built-up areas. Experiments are conducted on ZY-3 and Quickbird panchromatic satellite images, and the results show that the proposed method is very effective for built-up area detection.

Absolute Scale Quantitative Off-Axis Electron Holography at Atomic Resolution

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Winkler, Florian; Barthel, Juri; Tavabi, Amir H.; Borghardt, Sven; Kardynal, Beata E.; Dunin-Borkowski, Rafal E.

2018-04-01

An absolute scale match between experiment and simulation in atomic-resolution off-axis electron holography is demonstrated, with unknown experimental parameters determined directly from the recorded electron wave function using an automated numerical algorithm. We show that the local thickness and tilt of a pristine thin WSe2 flake can be measured uniquely, whereas some electron optical aberrations cannot be determined unambiguously for a periodic object. The ability to determine local specimen and imaging parameters directly from electron wave functions is of great importance for quantitative studies of electrostatic potentials in nanoscale materials, in particular when performing in situ experiments and considering that aberrations change over time.

Blending Pan-European and local hydrological models for water resource assessment in Mediterranean areas: lessons learnt from a mountainous catchment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

José Polo, María; José Pérez-Palazón, María; Saénz de Rodrigáñez, Marta; Pimentel, Rafael; Arheimer, Berit

2017-04-01

Global hydrological models provide scientists and technicians with distributed data over medium to large areas from which assessment of water resource planning and use can be easily performed. However, scale conflicts between global models' spatial resolution and the local significant spatial scales in heterogeneous areas usually pose a constraint for the direct use and application of these models' results. The SWICCA (Service for Water Indicators in Climate Change Adaptation) Platform developed under the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) offers a wide range of both climate and hydrological indicators obtained on a global scale with different time and spatial resolutions. Among the different study cases supporting the SWICCA demonstration of local impact assessment, the Sierra Nevada study case (South Spain) is a representative example of mountainous coastal catchments in the Mediterranean region. This work shows the lessons learnt during the study case development to derive local impact indicator tailored to suit the local end-users of water resource in this snow-dominated area. Different approaches were followed to select the most accurate method to downscale the global data and variables to the local level in a highly abrupt topography, in a sequential step approach. 1) SWICCA global climate variable downscaling followed by river flow simulation from a local hydrological model in selected control points in the catchment, together with 2) SWICCA global river flow values downscaling to the control points followed by corrections with local transfer functions were both tested against the available local river flow series of observations during the reference period. This test was performed for the different models and the available spatial resolutions included in the SWICCA platform. From the results, the second option, that is, the use of SWICCA river flow variables, performed the best approximations, once the local transfer functions were applied to the global values and an additional correction was performed based on the relative anomalies obtained instead of the absolute values. This approach was used to derive the future projections of selected local indicators for each end-user in the area under different climate change scenarios. Despite the spatial scale conflicts, the SWICCA river flow indicators (simulated by the E-HYPEv3.1.2 model) succeeded in approximating the observations during the reference period 1970-2000 when provided on a catchment scale, once local transfer functions and further anomaly correction were performed. Satisfactory results were obtained on a monthly scale for river flow in the main stream of the watershed, and on a daily scale for the headwater streams. The accessibility to the hydrological model WiMMed, which includes a snow module, locally validated in the study area has been crucial to downscale the SWICCA results and prove their usefulness.

Three-dimensional Super Resolution Microscopy of F-actin Filaments by Interferometric PhotoActivated Localization Microscopy (iPALM).

PubMed

Wang, Yilin; Kanchanawong, Pakorn

2016-12-01

Fluorescence microscopy enables direct visualization of specific biomolecules within cells. However, for conventional fluorescence microscopy, the spatial resolution is restricted by diffraction to ~ 200 nm within the image plane and > 500 nm along the optical axis. As a result, fluorescence microscopy has long been severely limited in the observation of ultrastructural features within cells. The recent development of super resolution microscopy methods has overcome this limitation. In particular, the advent of photoswitchable fluorophores enables localization-based super resolution microscopy, which provides resolving power approaching the molecular-length scale. Here, we describe the application of a three-dimensional super resolution microscopy method based on single-molecule localization microscopy and multiphase interferometry, called interferometric PhotoActivated Localization Microscopy (iPALM). This method provides nearly isotropic resolution on the order of 20 nm in all three dimensions. Protocols for visualizing the filamentous actin cytoskeleton, including specimen preparation and operation of the iPALM instrument, are described here. These protocols are also readily adaptable and instructive for the study of other ultrastructural features in cells.

Cross-scale assessment of potential habitat shifts in a rapidly changing climate

USGS Publications Warehouse

Jarnevich, Catherine S.; Holcombe, Tracy R.; Bella, Elizabeth S.; Carlson, Matthew L.; Graziano, Gino; Lamb, Melinda; Seefeldt, Steven S.; Morisette, Jeffrey T.

2014-01-01

We assessed the ability of climatic, environmental, and anthropogenic variables to predict areas of high-risk for plant invasion and consider the relative importance and contribution of these predictor variables by considering two spatial scales in a region of rapidly changing climate. We created predictive distribution models, using Maxent, for three highly invasive plant species (Canada thistle, white sweetclover, and reed canarygrass) in Alaska at both a regional scale and a local scale. Regional scale models encompassed southern coastal Alaska and were developed from topographic and climatic data at a 2 km (1.2 mi) spatial resolution. Models were applied to future climate (2030). Local scale models were spatially nested within the regional area; these models incorporated physiographic and anthropogenic variables at a 30 m (98.4 ft) resolution. Regional and local models performed well (AUC values > 0.7), with the exception of one species at each spatial scale. Regional models predict an increase in area of suitable habitat for all species by 2030 with a general shift to higher elevation areas; however, the distribution of each species was driven by different climate and topographical variables. In contrast local models indicate that distance to right-of-ways and elevation are associated with habitat suitability for all three species at this spatial level. Combining results from regional models, capturing long-term distribution, and local models, capturing near-term establishment and distribution, offers a new and effective tool for highlighting at-risk areas and provides insight on how variables acting at different scales contribute to suitability predictions. The combinations also provides easy comparison, highlighting agreement between the two scales, where long-term distribution factors predict suitability while near-term do not and vice versa.

Downscaling global precipitation for local applications - a case for the Rhine basin

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sperna Weiland, Frederiek; van Verseveld, Willem; Schellekens, Jaap

2017-04-01

Within the EU FP7 project eartH2Observe a global Water Resources Re-analysis (WRR) is being developed. This re-analysis consists of meteorological and hydrological water balance variables with global coverage, spanning the period 1979-2014 at 0.25 degrees resolution (Schellekens et al., 2016). The dataset can be of special interest in regions with limited in-situ data availability, yet for local scale analysis particularly in mountainous regions, a resolution of 0.25 degrees may be too coarse and downscaling the data to a higher resolution may be required. A downscaling toolbox has been made that includes spatial downscaling of precipitation based on the global WorldClim dataset that is available at 1 km resolution as a monthly climatology (Hijmans et al., 2005). The input of the down-scaling tool are either the global eartH2Observe WRR1 and WRR2 datasets based on the WFDEI correction methodology (Weedon et al., 2014) or the global Multi-Source Weighted-Ensemble Precipitation (MSWEP) dataset (Beck et al., 2016). Here we present a validation of the datasets over the Rhine catchment by means of a distributed hydrological model (wflow, Schellekens et al., 2014) using a number of precipitation scenarios. (1) We start by running the model using the local reference dataset derived by spatial interpolation of gauge observations. Furthermore we use (2) the MSWEP dataset at the native 0.25-degree resolution followed by (3) MSWEP downscaled with the WorldClim dataset and final (4) MSWEP downscaled with the local reference dataset. The validation will be based on comparison of the modeled river discharges as well as rainfall statistics. We expect that down-scaling the MSWEP dataset with the WorldClim data to higher resolution will increase its performance. To test the performance of the down-scaling routine we have added a run with MSWEP data down-scaled with the local dataset and compare this with the run based on the local dataset itself. - Beck, H. E. et al., 2016. MSWEP: 3-hourly 0.25° global gridded precipitation (1979-2015) by merging gauge, satellite, and reanalysis data, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss., doi:10.5194/hess-2016-236, accepted for final publication. - Hijmans, R.J. et al., 2005. Very high resolution interpolated climate surfaces for global land areas. International Journal of Climatology 25: 1965-1978. - Schellekens, J. et al., 2016. A global water resources ensemble of hydrological models: the eartH2Observe Tier-1 dataset, Earth Syst. Sci. Data Discuss., doi:10.5194/essd-2016-55, under review. - Schellekens, J. et al., 2014. Rapid setup of hydrological and hydraulic models using OpenStreetMap and the SRTM derived digital elevation model. Environmental Modelling&Software - Weedon, G.P. et al., 2014. The WFDEI meteorological forcing data set: WATCH Forcing Data methodology applied to ERA-Interim reanalysis data. Water Resources Research, 50, doi:10.1002/2014WR015638.

Roughness of stylolites: implications of 3D high resolution topography measurements.

PubMed

Schmittbuhl, J; Renard, F; Gratier, J P; Toussaint, R

2004-12-03

Stylolites are natural pressure-dissolution surfaces in sedimentary rocks. We present 3D high resolution measurements at laboratory scales of their complex roughness. The topography is shown to be described by a self-affine scaling invariance. At large scales, the Hurst exponent is zeta(1) approximately 0.5 and very different from that at small scales where zeta(2) approximately 1.2. A crossover length scale at around L(c)=1 mm is well characterized. Measurements are consistent with a Langevin equation that describes the growth of a stylolitic interface as a competition between stabilizing long range elastic interactions at large scales or local surface tension effects at small scales and a destabilizing quenched material disorder.

Sampling supraglacial debris thickness using terrestrial photogrammetry

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nicholson, Lindsey; Mertes, Jordan

2017-04-01

The melt rate of debris-covered ice differs to that of clean ice primarily as a function of debris thickness. The spatial distribution of supraglacial debris thickness must therefore be known in order to understand how it is likely to impact glacier behaviour, and meltwater contribution to local hydrological resources and global sea level rise. However, practical means of determining debris cover thickness remain elusive. In this study we explore the utility of terrestrial photogrammetry to produce high resolution, scaled and texturized digital terrain models of debris cover exposures above ice cliffs as a means of quantifying and characterizing debris thickness. Two Nikon D5000 DSLRs with Tamron 100mm lenses were used to photograph a sample area of the Ngozumpa glacier in the Khumbu Himal of Nepal in April 2016. A Structure from Motion workflow using Agisoft Photoscan software was used to generate a surface models with <10cm resolution. A Trimble Geo7X differential GPS with Zephyr antenna, along with a local base station, was used to precisely measure marked ground control points to scale the photogrammetric surface model. Measurements of debris thickness along the exposed cliffline were made from this scaled model, assuming that the ice surface at the debris-ice boundary is horizontal, and these data are compared to 50 manual point measurements along the same clifftops. We conclude that sufficiently high resolution photogrammetry, with precise scaling information, provides a useful means to determine debris thickness at clifftop exposures. The resolution of the possible measurements depends on image resolution, the accuracy of the ground control points and the computational capacity to generate centimetre scale surface models. Application of such techniques to sufficiently high resolution imagery from UAV-borne cameras may offer a powerful means of determining debris thickness distribution patterns over debris covered glacier termini.

Nonlocal and Mixed-Locality Multiscale Finite Element Methods

DOE PAGES

Costa, Timothy B.; Bond, Stephen D.; Littlewood, David J.

2018-03-27

In many applications the resolution of small-scale heterogeneities remains a significant hurdle to robust and reliable predictive simulations. In particular, while material variability at the mesoscale plays a fundamental role in processes such as material failure, the resolution required to capture mechanisms at this scale is often computationally intractable. Multiscale methods aim to overcome this difficulty through judicious choice of a subscale problem and a robust manner of passing information between scales. One promising approach is the multiscale finite element method, which increases the fidelity of macroscale simulations by solving lower-scale problems that produce enriched multiscale basis functions. Here, inmore » this study, we present the first work toward application of the multiscale finite element method to the nonlocal peridynamic theory of solid mechanics. This is achieved within the context of a discontinuous Galerkin framework that facilitates the description of material discontinuities and does not assume the existence of spatial derivatives. Analysis of the resulting nonlocal multiscale finite element method is achieved using the ambulant Galerkin method, developed here with sufficient generality to allow for application to multiscale finite element methods for both local and nonlocal models that satisfy minimal assumptions. Finally, we conclude with preliminary results on a mixed-locality multiscale finite element method in which a nonlocal model is applied at the fine scale and a local model at the coarse scale.« less

Nonlocal and Mixed-Locality Multiscale Finite Element Methods

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Costa, Timothy B.; Bond, Stephen D.; Littlewood, David J.

In many applications the resolution of small-scale heterogeneities remains a significant hurdle to robust and reliable predictive simulations. In particular, while material variability at the mesoscale plays a fundamental role in processes such as material failure, the resolution required to capture mechanisms at this scale is often computationally intractable. Multiscale methods aim to overcome this difficulty through judicious choice of a subscale problem and a robust manner of passing information between scales. One promising approach is the multiscale finite element method, which increases the fidelity of macroscale simulations by solving lower-scale problems that produce enriched multiscale basis functions. Here, inmore » this study, we present the first work toward application of the multiscale finite element method to the nonlocal peridynamic theory of solid mechanics. This is achieved within the context of a discontinuous Galerkin framework that facilitates the description of material discontinuities and does not assume the existence of spatial derivatives. Analysis of the resulting nonlocal multiscale finite element method is achieved using the ambulant Galerkin method, developed here with sufficient generality to allow for application to multiscale finite element methods for both local and nonlocal models that satisfy minimal assumptions. Finally, we conclude with preliminary results on a mixed-locality multiscale finite element method in which a nonlocal model is applied at the fine scale and a local model at the coarse scale.« less

Scaled multisensor inspection of extended surfaces for industrial quality control

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kayser, Daniel; Bothe, Thorsten; Osten, Wolfgang

2002-06-01

Reliable real-time surface inspection of extended surfaces with high resolution is needed in several industrial applications. With respect to an efficient application to extended technical components such as aircraft or automotive parts, the inspection system has to perform a robust measurement with a ratio of less then 10-6 between depth resolution and lateral extension. This ratio is at least one order beyond the solutions that are offered by existing technologies. The concept of scaled topometry consists of arranging different optical measurement techniques with overlapping ranges of resolution systematically in order to receive characteristic surface information with the required accuracy. In such a surface inspection system, an active algorithm combines measurements on several scales of resolution and distinguishes between local fault indicating structures with different extensions and global geometric properties. The first part of this active algorithm finds indications of critical surface areas in the data of every measurement and separates them into different categories. The second part analyses the detected structures in the data with respect to their resolution and decides whether a further local measurement with a higher resolution has to be performed. The third part positions the sensors and starts the refined measurements. The fourth part finally integrates the measured local data set into the overall data mesh. We have constructed a laboratory setup capable of measuring surfaces with extensions up to 1500mm x 1000mm x 500mm (in x-, y- and z-direction respectively). Using this measurement system we will be able to separate the fault indicating structures on the surface from the global shape and to classify the detected structures according to their extensions and characteristic shapes simultaneously. The level of fault detection probability will be applicable by input parameter control.

CO{sub 2} Sequestration Capacity and Associated Aspects of the Most Promising Geologic Formations in the Rocky Mountain Region: Local-Scale Analyses

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Laes, Denise; Eisinger, Chris; Morgan, Craig

2013-07-30

The purpose of this report is to provide a summary of individual local-­scale CCS site characterization studies conducted in Colorado, New Mexico and Utah. These site-­ specific characterization analyses were performed as part of the “Characterization of Most Promising Sequestration Formations in the Rocky Mountain Region” (RMCCS) project. The primary objective of these local-­scale analyses is to provide a basis for regional-­scale characterization efforts within each state. Specifically, limits on time and funding will typically inhibit CCS projects from conducting high-­ resolution characterization of a state-­sized region, but smaller (< 10,000 km{sup 2}) site analyses are usually possible, and suchmore » can provide insight regarding limiting factors for the regional-­scale geology. For the RMCCS project, the outcomes of these local-­scale studies provide a starting point for future local-­scale site characterization efforts in the Rocky Mountain region.« less

Single-Image Super-Resolution Based on Rational Fractal Interpolation.

PubMed

Zhang, Yunfeng; Fan, Qinglan; Bao, Fangxun; Liu, Yifang; Zhang, Caiming

2018-08-01

This paper presents a novel single-image super-resolution (SR) procedure, which upscales a given low-resolution (LR) input image to a high-resolution image while preserving the textural and structural information. First, we construct a new type of bivariate rational fractal interpolation model and investigate its analytical properties. This model has different forms of expression with various values of the scaling factors and shape parameters; thus, it can be employed to better describe image features than current interpolation schemes. Furthermore, this model combines the advantages of rational interpolation and fractal interpolation, and its effectiveness is validated through theoretical analysis. Second, we develop a single-image SR algorithm based on the proposed model. The LR input image is divided into texture and non-texture regions, and then, the image is interpolated according to the characteristics of the local structure. Specifically, in the texture region, the scaling factor calculation is the critical step. We present a method to accurately calculate scaling factors based on local fractal analysis. Extensive experiments and comparisons with the other state-of-the-art methods show that our algorithm achieves competitive performance, with finer details and sharper edges.

Simulation of the Atmospheric Boundary Layer for Wind Energy Applications

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Marjanovic, Nikola

Energy production from wind is an increasingly important component of overall global power generation, and will likely continue to gain an even greater share of electricity production as world governments attempt to mitigate climate change and wind energy production costs decrease. Wind energy generation depends on wind speed, which is greatly influenced by local and synoptic environmental forcings. Synoptic forcing, such as a cold frontal passage, exists on a large spatial scale while local forcing manifests itself on a much smaller scale and could result from topographic effects or land-surface heat fluxes. Synoptic forcing, if strong enough, may suppress the effects of generally weaker local forcing. At the even smaller scale of a wind farm, upstream turbines generate wakes that decrease the wind speed and increase the atmospheric turbulence at the downwind turbines, thereby reducing power production and increasing fatigue loading that may damage turbine components, respectively. Simulation of atmospheric processes that span a considerable range of spatial and temporal scales is essential to improve wind energy forecasting, wind turbine siting, turbine maintenance scheduling, and wind turbine design. Mesoscale atmospheric models predict atmospheric conditions using observed data, for a wide range of meteorological applications across scales from thousands of kilometers to hundreds of meters. Mesoscale models include parameterizations for the major atmospheric physical processes that modulate wind speed and turbulence dynamics, such as cloud evolution and surface-atmosphere interactions. The Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model is used in this dissertation to investigate the effects of model parameters on wind energy forecasting. WRF is used for case study simulations at two West Coast North American wind farms, one with simple and one with complex terrain, during both synoptically and locally-driven weather events. The model's performance with different grid nesting configurations, turbulence closures, and grid resolutions is evaluated by comparison to observation data. Improvement to simulation results from the use of more computationally expensive high resolution simulations is only found for the complex terrain simulation during the locally-driven event. Physical parameters, such as soil moisture, have a large effect on locally-forced events, and prognostic turbulence kinetic energy (TKE) schemes are found to perform better than non-local eddy viscosity turbulence closure schemes. Mesoscale models, however, do not resolve turbulence directly, which is important at finer grid resolutions capable of resolving wind turbine components and their interactions with atmospheric turbulence. Large-eddy simulation (LES) is a numerical approach that resolves the largest scales of turbulence directly by separating large-scale, energetically important eddies from smaller scales with the application of a spatial filter. LES allows higher fidelity representation of the wind speed and turbulence intensity at the scale of a wind turbine which parameterizations have difficulty representing. Use of high-resolution LES enables the implementation of more sophisticated wind turbine parameterizations to create a robust model for wind energy applications using grid spacing small enough to resolve individual elements of a turbine such as its rotor blades or rotation area. Generalized actuator disk (GAD) and line (GAL) parameterizations are integrated into WRF to complement its real-world weather modeling capabilities and better represent wind turbine airflow interactions, including wake effects. The GAD parameterization represents the wind turbine as a two-dimensional disk resulting from the rotation of the turbine blades. Forces on the atmosphere are computed along each blade and distributed over rotating, annular rings intersecting the disk. While typical LES resolution (10-20 m) is normally sufficient to resolve the GAD, the GAL parameterization requires significantly higher resolution (1-3 m) as it does not distribute the forces from the blades over annular elements, but applies them along lines representing individual blades. In this dissertation, the GAL is implemented into WRF and evaluated against the GAD parameterization from two field campaigns that measured the inflow and near-wake regions of a single turbine. The data-sets are chosen to allow validation under the weakly convective and weakly stable conditions characterizing most turbine operations. The parameterizations are evaluated with respect to their ability to represent wake wind speed, variance, and vorticity by comparing fine-resolution GAD and GAL simulations along with coarse-resolution GAD simulations. Coarse-resolution GAD simulations produce aggregated wake characteristics similar to both GAD and GAL simulations (saving on computational cost), while the GAL parameterization enables resolution of near wake physics (such as vorticity shedding and wake expansion) for high fidelity applications. (Abstract shortened by ProQuest.).

Multiscale landscape genomic models to detect signatures of selection in the alpine plant Biscutella laevigata.

PubMed

Leempoel, Kevin; Parisod, Christian; Geiser, Céline; Joost, Stéphane

2018-02-01

Plant species are known to adapt locally to their environment, particularly in mountainous areas where conditions can vary drastically over short distances. The climate of such landscapes being largely influenced by topography, using fine-scale models to evaluate environmental heterogeneity may help detecting adaptation to micro-habitats. Here, we applied a multiscale landscape genomic approach to detect evidence of local adaptation in the alpine plant Biscutella laevigata . The two gene pools identified, experiencing limited gene flow along a 1-km ridge, were different in regard to several habitat features derived from a very high resolution (VHR) digital elevation model (DEM). A correlative approach detected signatures of selection along environmental gradients such as altitude, wind exposure, and solar radiation, indicating adaptive pressures likely driven by fine-scale topography. Using a large panel of DEM-derived variables as ecologically relevant proxies, our results highlighted the critical role of spatial resolution. These high-resolution multiscale variables indeed indicate that the robustness of associations between genetic loci and environmental features depends on spatial parameters that are poorly documented. We argue that the scale issue is critical in landscape genomics and that multiscale ecological variables are key to improve our understanding of local adaptation in highly heterogeneous landscapes.

Axisymmetric Shearing Box Models of Magnetized Disks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Guan, Xiaoyue; Gammie, Charles F.

2008-01-01

The local model, or shearing box, has proven a useful model for studying the dynamics of astrophysical disks. Here we consider the evolution of magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence in an axisymmetric local model in order to evaluate the limitations of global axisymmetric models. An exploration of the model parameter space shows the following: (1) The magnetic energy and α-decay approximately exponentially after an initial burst of turbulence. For our code, HAM, the decay time τ propto Res , where Res/2 is the number of zones per scale height. (2) In the initial burst of turbulence the magnetic energy is amplified by a factor proportional to Res3/4λR, where λR is the radial scale of the initial field. This scaling applies only if the most unstable wavelength of the magnetorotational instability is resolved and the final field is subthermal. (3) The shearing box is a resonant cavity and in linear theory exhibits a discrete set of compressive modes. These modes are excited by the MHD turbulence and are visible as quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) in temporal power spectra of fluid variables at low spatial resolution. At high resolution the QPOs are hidden by a noise continuum. (4) In axisymmetry disk turbulence is local. The correlation function of the turbulence is limited in radial extent, and the peak magnetic energy density is independent of the radial extent of the box LR for LR > 2H. (5) Similar results are obtained for the HAM, ZEUS, and ATHENA codes; ATHENA has an effective resolution that is nearly double that of HAM and ZEUS. (6) Similar results are obtained for 2D and 3D runs at similar resolution, but only for particular choices of the initial field strength and radial scale of the initial magnetic field.

Obtaining high-resolution stage forecasts by coupling large-scale hydrologic models with sensor data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fries, K. J.; Kerkez, B.

2017-12-01

We investigate how "big" quantities of distributed sensor data can be coupled with a large-scale hydrologic model, in particular the National Water Model (NWM), to obtain hyper-resolution forecasts. The recent launch of the NWM provides a great example of how growing computational capacity is enabling a new generation of massive hydrologic models. While the NWM spans an unprecedented spatial extent, there remain many questions about how to improve forecast at the street-level, the resolution at which many stakeholders make critical decisions. Further, the NWM runs on supercomputers, so water managers who may have access to their own high-resolution measurements may not readily be able to assimilate them into the model. To that end, we ask the question: how can the advances of the large-scale NWM be coupled with new local observations to enable hyper-resolution hydrologic forecasts? A methodology is proposed whereby the flow forecasts of the NWM are directly mapped to high-resolution stream levels using Dynamical System Identification. We apply the methodology across a sensor network of 182 gages in Iowa. Of these sites, approximately one third have shown to perform well in high-resolution flood forecasting when coupled with the outputs of the NWM. The quality of these forecasts is characterized using Principal Component Analysis and Random Forests to identify where the NWM may benefit from new sources of local observations. We also discuss how this approach can help municipalities identify where they should place low-cost sensors to most benefit from flood forecasts of the NWM.

A space-time multiscale modelling of Earth's gravity field variations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, Shuo; Panet, Isabelle; Ramillien, Guillaume; Guilloux, Frédéric

2017-04-01

The mass distribution within the Earth varies over a wide range of spatial and temporal scales, generating variations in the Earth's gravity field in space and time. These variations are monitored by satellites as the GRACE mission, with a 400 km spatial resolution and 10 days to 1 month temporal resolution. They are expressed in the form of gravity field models, often with a fixed spatial or temporal resolution. The analysis of these models allows us to study the mass transfers within the Earth system. Here, we have developed space-time multi-scale models of the gravity field, in order to optimize the estimation of gravity signals resulting from local processes at different spatial and temporal scales, and to adapt the time resolution of the model to its spatial resolution according to the satellites sampling. For that, we first build a 4D wavelet family combining spatial Poisson wavelets with temporal Haar wavelets. Then, we set-up a regularized inversion of inter-satellites gravity potential differences in a bayesian framework, to estimate the model parameters. To build the prior, we develop a spectral analysis, localized in time and space, of geophysical models of mass transport and associated gravity variations. Finally, we test our approach to the reconstruction of space-time variations of the gravity field due to hydrology. We first consider a global distribution of observations along the orbit, from a simplified synthetic hydrology signal comprising only annual variations at large spatial scales. Then, we consider a regional distribution of observations in Africa, and a larger number of spatial and temporal scales. We test the influence of an imperfect prior and discuss our results.

Food Self-Sufficiency across scales: How local can we go?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pradhan, Prajal; Lüdeke, Matthias K. B.; Reusser, Dominik E.; Kropp, Jürgen P.

2013-04-01

"Think global, act local" is a phrase often used in sustainability debates. Here, we explore the potential of regions to go for local supply in context of sustainable food consumption considering both the present state and the plausible future scenarios. We analyze data on the gridded crop calories production, the gridded livestock calories production, the gridded feed calories use and the gridded food calories consumption in 5' resolution. We derived these gridded data from various sources: Global Agro-ecological Zone (GAEZ v3.0), Gridded Livestock of the World (GLW), FAOSTAT, and Global Rural-Urban Mapping Project (GRUMP). For scenarios analysis, we considered changes in population, dietary patterns and possibility of obtaining the maximum potential yield. We investigate the food self-sufficiency multiple spatial scales. We start from the 5' resolution (i.e. around 10 km x 10 km in the equator) and look at 8 levels of aggregation ranging from the plausible lowest administrative level to the continental level. Results for the different spatial scales show that about 1.9 billion people live in the area of 5' resolution where enough calories can be produced to sustain their food consumption and the feed used. On the country level, about 4.4 billion population can be sustained without international food trade. For about 1 billion population from Asia and Africa, there is a need for cross-continental food trade. However, if we were able to achieve the maximum potential crop yield, about 2.6 billion population can be sustained within their living area of 5' resolution. Furthermore, Africa and Asia could be food self-sufficient by achieving their maximum potential crop yield and only round 630 million populations would be dependent on the international food trade. However, the food self-sufficiency status might differ under consideration of the future change in population, dietary patterns and climatic conditions. We provide an initial approach for investigating the regional and the local potential to address food security across multiple spatial scales. We identify the areas where one can depend more on local/regional products as a transition path towards sustainable consumption and production.

High-resolution modeling of local air-sea interaction within the Marine Continent using COAMPS

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jensen, T. G.; Chen, S.; Flatau, M. K.; Smith, T.; Rydbeck, A.

2016-12-01

The Maritime Continent (MC) is a region of intense deep atmospheric convection that serves as an important source of forcing for the Hadley and Walker circulations. The convective activity in the MC region spans multiple scales from local mesoscales to regional scales, and impacts equatorial wave propagation, coupled air-sea interaction and intra seasonal oscillations. The complex distribution of islands, shallow seas with fairly small heat storage and deep seas with large heat capacity is challenging to model. Diurnal convection over land-sea is part of a land-sea breeze system on a small scale, and is highly influenced by large variations in orography over land and marginal seas. Daytime solar insolation, run-off from the Archipelago and nighttime rainfall tends to stabilize the water column, while mixing by tidal currents and locally forced winds promote vertical mixing. The runoff from land and rivers and high net precipitation result in fresh water lenses that enhance vertical stability in the water column and help maintain high SST. We use the fully coupled atmosphere-ocean-wave version of the Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere Mesoscale Prediction System (COAMPS) developed at NRL with resolution of a few kilometers to investigate the air-sea interaction associated with the land-sea breeze system in the MC under active and inactive phases of the Madden-Julian Oscillation. The high resolution enables simulation of strong SST gradients associated with local upwelling in deeper waters and strong salinity gradients near rivers and from heavy precipitation.

Estimation of fine-scale recombination intensity variation in the white-echinus interval of D. melanogaster

PubMed Central

Singh, Nadia D.; Aquadro, Charles F.; Clark, Andrew G.

2009-01-01

Accurate assessment of local recombination rate variation is crucial for understanding the recombination process and for determining the impact of natural selection on linked sites. In Drosophila, local recombination intensity has been estimated primarily by statistical approaches, estimating the local slope of the relationship between the physical and genetic maps. However, these estimates are limited in resolution, and as a result, the physical scale at which recombination intensity varies in Drosophila is largely unknown. While there is some evidence suggesting as much as a 40-fold variation in crossover rate at a local scale in D. pseudoobscura, little is known about the fine-scale structure of recombination rate variation in D. melanogaster. Here, we experimentally examine the fine-scale distribution of crossover events in a 1.2 Mb region on the D. melanogaster X chromosome using a classic genetic mapping approach. Our results show that crossover frequency is significantly heterogeneous within this region, varying ~ 3.5 fold. Simulations suggest that this degree of heterogeneity is sufficient to affect levels of standing nucleotide diversity, although the magnitude of this effect is small. We recover no statistical association between empirical estimates of nucleotide diversity and recombination intensity, which is likely due to the limited number of loci sampled in our population genetic dataset. However, codon bias is significantly negatively correlated with fine-scale recombination intensity estimates, as expected. Our results shed light on the relevant physical scale to consider in evolutionary analyses relating to recombination rate, and highlight the motivations to increase the resolution of the recombination map in Drosophila. PMID:19504037

A Physically Based Runoff Routing Model for Land Surface and Earth System Models

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Li, Hongyi; Wigmosta, Mark S.; Wu, Huan

2013-06-13

A new physically based runoff routing model, called the Model for Scale Adaptive River Transport (MOSART), has been developed to be applicable across local, regional, and global scales. Within each spatial unit, surface runoff is first routed across hillslopes and then discharged along with subsurface runoff into a ‘‘tributary subnetwork’’ before entering the main channel. The spatial units are thus linked via routing through the main channel network, which is constructed in a scale-consistent way across different spatial resolutions. All model parameters are physically based, and only a small subset requires calibration.MOSART has been applied to the Columbia River basinmore » at 1/ 168, 1/ 88, 1/ 48, and 1/ 28 spatial resolutions and was evaluated using naturalized or observed streamflow at a number of gauge stations. MOSART is compared to two other routing models widely used with land surface models, the River Transport Model (RTM) in the Community Land Model (CLM) and the Lohmann routing model, included as a postprocessor in the Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) model package, yielding consistent performance at multiple resolutions. MOSART is further evaluated using the channel velocities derived from field measurements or a hydraulic model at various locations and is shown to be capable of producing the seasonal variation and magnitude of channel velocities reasonably well at different resolutions. Moreover, the impacts of spatial resolution on model simulations are systematically examined at local and regional scales. Finally, the limitations ofMOSART and future directions for improvements are discussed.« less

Local-scale changes in mean and heavy precipitation in Western Europe, climate change or internal variability?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Aalbers, Emma E.; Lenderink, Geert; van Meijgaard, Erik; van den Hurk, Bart J. J. M.

2018-06-01

High-resolution climate information provided by e.g. regional climate models (RCMs) is valuable for exploring the changing weather under global warming, and assessing the local impact of climate change. While there is generally more confidence in the representativeness of simulated processes at higher resolutions, internal variability of the climate system—`noise', intrinsic to the chaotic nature of atmospheric and oceanic processes—is larger at smaller spatial scales as well, limiting the predictability of the climate signal. To quantify the internal variability and robustly estimate the climate signal, large initial-condition ensembles of climate simulations conducted with a single model provide essential information. We analyze a regional downscaling of a 16-member initial-condition ensemble over western Europe and the Alps at 0.11° resolution, similar to the highest resolution EURO-CORDEX simulations. We examine the strength of the forced climate response (signal) in mean and extreme daily precipitation with respect to noise due to internal variability, and find robust small-scale geographical features in the forced response, indicating regional differences in changes in the probability of events. However, individual ensemble members provide only limited information on the forced climate response, even for high levels of global warming. Although the results are based on a single RCM-GCM chain, we believe that they have general value in providing insight in the fraction of the uncertainty in high-resolution climate information that is irreducible, and can assist in the correct interpretation of fine-scale information in multi-model ensembles in terms of a forced response and noise due to internal variability.

Local-scale changes in mean and heavy precipitation in Western Europe, climate change or internal variability?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Aalbers, Emma E.; Lenderink, Geert; van Meijgaard, Erik; van den Hurk, Bart J. J. M.

2017-09-01

High-resolution climate information provided by e.g. regional climate models (RCMs) is valuable for exploring the changing weather under global warming, and assessing the local impact of climate change. While there is generally more confidence in the representativeness of simulated processes at higher resolutions, internal variability of the climate system—`noise', intrinsic to the chaotic nature of atmospheric and oceanic processes—is larger at smaller spatial scales as well, limiting the predictability of the climate signal. To quantify the internal variability and robustly estimate the climate signal, large initial-condition ensembles of climate simulations conducted with a single model provide essential information. We analyze a regional downscaling of a 16-member initial-condition ensemble over western Europe and the Alps at 0.11° resolution, similar to the highest resolution EURO-CORDEX simulations. We examine the strength of the forced climate response (signal) in mean and extreme daily precipitation with respect to noise due to internal variability, and find robust small-scale geographical features in the forced response, indicating regional differences in changes in the probability of events. However, individual ensemble members provide only limited information on the forced climate response, even for high levels of global warming. Although the results are based on a single RCM-GCM chain, we believe that they have general value in providing insight in the fraction of the uncertainty in high-resolution climate information that is irreducible, and can assist in the correct interpretation of fine-scale information in multi-model ensembles in terms of a forced response and noise due to internal variability.

Towards a New Assessment of Urban Areas from Local to Global Scales

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bhaduri, B. L.; Roy Chowdhury, P. K.; McKee, J.; Weaver, J.; Bright, E.; Weber, E.

2015-12-01

Since early 2000s, starting with NASA MODIS, satellite based remote sensing has facilitated collection of imagery with medium spatial resolution but high temporal resolution (daily). This trend continues with an increasing number of sensors and data products. Increasing spatial and temporal resolutions of remotely sensed data archives, from both public and commercial sources, have significantly enhanced the quality of mapping and change data products. However, even with automation of such analysis on evolving computing platforms, rates of data processing have been suboptimal largely because of the ever-increasing pixel to processor ratio coupled with limitations of the computing architectures. Novel approaches utilizing spatiotemporal data mining techniques and computational architectures have emerged that demonstrates the potential for sustained and geographically scalable landscape monitoring to be operational. We exemplify this challenge with two broad research initiatives on High Performance Geocomputation at Oak Ridge National Laboratory: (a) mapping global settlement distribution; (b) developing national critical infrastructure databases. Our present effort, on large GPU based architectures, to exploit high resolution (1m or less) satellite and airborne imagery for extracting settlements at global scale is yielding understanding of human settlement patterns and urban areas at unprecedented resolution. Comparison of such urban land cover database, with existing national and global land cover products, at various geographic scales in selected parts of the world is revealing intriguing patterns and insights for urban assessment. Early results, from the USA, Taiwan, and Egypt, indicate closer agreements (5-10%) in urban area assessments among databases at larger, aggregated geographic extents. However, spatial variability at local scales could be significantly different (over 50% disagreement).

Global Swath and Gridded Data Tiling

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Thompson, Charles K.

2012-01-01

This software generates cylindrically projected tiles of swath-based or gridded satellite data for the purpose of dynamically generating high-resolution global images covering various time periods, scaling ranges, and colors called "tiles." It reconstructs a global image given a set of tiles covering a particular time range, scaling values, and a color table. The program is configurable in terms of tile size, spatial resolution, format of input data, location of input data (local or distributed), number of processes run in parallel, and data conditioning.

Spectral characteristics of background error covariance and multiscale data assimilation

DOE PAGES

Li, Zhijin; Cheng, Xiaoping; Gustafson, Jr., William I.; ...

2016-05-17

The steady increase of the spatial resolutions of numerical atmospheric and oceanic circulation models has occurred over the past decades. Horizontal grid spacing down to the order of 1 km is now often used to resolve cloud systems in the atmosphere and sub-mesoscale circulation systems in the ocean. These fine resolution models encompass a wide range of temporal and spatial scales, across which dynamical and statistical properties vary. In particular, dynamic flow systems at small scales can be spatially localized and temporarily intermittent. Difficulties of current data assimilation algorithms for such fine resolution models are numerically and theoretically examined. Ourmore » analysis shows that the background error correlation length scale is larger than 75 km for streamfunctions and is larger than 25 km for water vapor mixing ratios, even for a 2-km resolution model. A theoretical analysis suggests that such correlation length scales prevent the currently used data assimilation schemes from constraining spatial scales smaller than 150 km for streamfunctions and 50 km for water vapor mixing ratios. Moreover, our results highlight the need to fundamentally modify currently used data assimilation algorithms for assimilating high-resolution observations into the aforementioned fine resolution models. Lastly, within the framework of four-dimensional variational data assimilation, a multiscale methodology based on scale decomposition is suggested and challenges are discussed.« less

High-resolution modelling of waves, currents and sediment transport in the Catalan Sea.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sánchez-Arcilla, Agustín; Grifoll, Manel; Pallares, Elena; Espino, Manuel

2013-04-01

In order to investigate coastal shelf dynamics, a sequence of high resolution multi-scale models have been implemented for the Catalan shelf (North-western Mediterranean Sea). The suite consists of a set of increasing-resolution nested models, based on the circulation model ROMS (Regional Ocean Modelling System), the wave model SWAN (Simulation Waves Nearshore) and the sediment transport model CSTM (Community Sediment Transport Model), covering different ranges of spatial (from ~1 km at shelf-slope regions to ~40 m around river mouth or local beaches) and temporal scales (from storms events to seasonal variability). Contributions in the understanding of local processes such as along-shelf dynamics in the inner-shelf, sediment dispersal from the river discharge or bi-directional wave-current interactions under different synoptic conditions and resolution have been obtained using the Catalan Coast as a pilot site. Numerical results have been compared with "ad-hoc" intensive field campaigns, data from observational models and remote sensing products. The results exhibit acceptable agreement with observations and the investigation has allowed developing generic knowledge and more efficient (process-based) strategies for the coastal and shelf management.

Fast time-resolved electrostatic force microscopy: Achieving sub-cycle time resolution

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Karatay, Durmus U.; Harrison, Jeffrey S.; Glaz, Micah S.

The ability to measure microsecond- and nanosecond-scale local dynamics below the diffraction limit with widely available atomic force microscopy hardware would enable new scientific studies in fields ranging from biology to semiconductor physics. However, commercially available scanning-probe instruments typically offer the ability to measure dynamics only on time scales of milliseconds to seconds. Here, we describe in detail the implementation of fast time-resolved electrostatic force microscopy using an oscillating cantilever as a means to measure fast local dynamics following a perturbation to a sample. We show how the phase of the oscillating cantilever relative to the perturbation event is criticalmore » to achieving reliable sub-cycle time resolution. We explore how noise affects the achievable time resolution and present empirical guidelines for reducing noise and optimizing experimental parameters. Specifically, we show that reducing the noise on the cantilever by using photothermal excitation instead of piezoacoustic excitation further improves time resolution. We demonstrate the discrimination of signal rise times with time constants as fast as 10 ns, and simultaneous data acquisition and analysis for dramatically improved image acquisition times.« less

Multi-resolution analysis for region of interest extraction in thermographic nondestructive evaluation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ortiz-Jaramillo, B.; Fandiño Toro, H. A.; Benitez-Restrepo, H. D.; Orjuela-Vargas, S. A.; Castellanos-Domínguez, G.; Philips, W.

2012-03-01

Infrared Non-Destructive Testing (INDT) is known as an effective and rapid method for nondestructive inspection. It can detect a broad range of near-surface structuring flaws in metallic and composite components. Those flaws are modeled as a smooth contour centered at peaks of stored thermal energy, termed Regions of Interest (ROI). Dedicated methodologies must detect the presence of those ROIs. In this paper, we present a methodology for ROI extraction in INDT tasks. The methodology deals with the difficulties due to the non-uniform heating. The non-uniform heating affects low spatial/frequencies and hinders the detection of relevant points in the image. In this paper, a methodology for ROI extraction in INDT using multi-resolution analysis is proposed, which is robust to ROI low contrast and non-uniform heating. The former methodology includes local correlation, Gaussian scale analysis and local edge detection. In this methodology local correlation between image and Gaussian window provides interest points related to ROIs. We use a Gaussian window because thermal behavior is well modeled by Gaussian smooth contours. Also, the Gaussian scale is used to analyze details in the image using multi-resolution analysis avoiding low contrast, non-uniform heating and selection of the Gaussian window size. Finally, local edge detection is used to provide a good estimation of the boundaries in the ROI. Thus, we provide a methodology for ROI extraction based on multi-resolution analysis that is better or equal compared with the other dedicate algorithms proposed in the state of art.

Gradient design for liquid chromatography using multi-scale optimization.

PubMed

López-Ureña, S; Torres-Lapasió, J R; Donat, R; García-Alvarez-Coque, M C

2018-01-26

In reversed phase-liquid chromatography, the usual solution to the "general elution problem" is the application of gradient elution with programmed changes of organic solvent (or other properties). A correct quantification of chromatographic peaks in liquid chromatography requires well resolved signals in a proper analysis time. When the complexity of the sample is high, the gradient program should be accommodated to the local resolution needs of each analyte. This makes the optimization of such situations rather troublesome, since enhancing the resolution for a given analyte may imply a collateral worsening of the resolution of other analytes. The aim of this work is to design multi-linear gradients that maximize the resolution, while fulfilling some restrictions: all peaks should be eluted before a given maximal time, the gradient should be flat or increasing, and sudden changes close to eluting peaks are penalized. Consequently, an equilibrated baseline resolution for all compounds is sought. This goal is achieved by splitting the optimization problem in a multi-scale framework. In each scale κ, an optimization problem is solved with N κ  ≈ 2 κ variables that are used to build the gradients. The N κ variables define cubic splines written in terms of a B-spline basis. This allows expressing gradients as polygonals of M points approximating the splines. The cubic splines are built using subdivision schemes, a technique of fast generation of smooth curves, compatible with the multi-scale framework. Owing to the nature of the problem and the presence of multiple local maxima, the algorithm used in the optimization problem of each scale κ should be "global", such as the pattern-search algorithm. The multi-scale optimization approach is successfully applied to find the best multi-linear gradient for resolving a mixture of amino acid derivatives. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Using Wavelet Bases to Separate Scales in Quantum Field Theory

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Michlin, Tracie L.

This thesis investigates the use of Daubechies wavelets to separate scales in local quantum field theory. Field theories have an infinite number of degrees of freedom on all distance scales. Quantum field theories are believed to describe the physics of subatomic particles. These theories have no known mathematically convergent approximation methods. Daubechies wavelet bases can be used separate degrees of freedom on different distance scales. Volume and resolution truncations lead to mathematically well-defined truncated theories that can be treated using established methods. This work demonstrates that flow equation methods can be used to block diagonalize truncated field theoretic Hamiltonians by scale. This eliminates the fine scale degrees of freedom. This may lead to approximation methods and provide an understanding of how to formulate well-defined fine resolution limits.

Meteorological impact assessment of possible large scale irrigation in Southwest Saudi Arabia

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ter Maat, H. W.; Hutjes, R. W. A.; Ohba, R.; Ueda, H.; Bisselink, B.; Bauer, T.

2006-11-01

On continental to regional scales feedbacks between landuse and landcover change and climate have been widely documented over the past 10-15 years. In the present study we explore the possibility that also vegetation changes over much smaller areas may affect local precipitation regimes. Large scale (˜ 10 5 ha) irrigated plantations in semi-arid environments under particular conditions may affect local circulations and induce additional rainfall. Capturing this rainfall 'surplus' could then reduce the need for external irrigation sources and eventually lead to self-sustained water cycling. This concept is studied in the coastal plains in South West Saudi Arabia where the mountains of the Asir region exhibit the highest rainfall of the peninsula due to orographic lifting and condensation of moisture imported with the Indian Ocean monsoon and with disturbances from the Mediterranean Sea. We use a regional atmospheric modeling system (RAMS) forced by ECMWF analysis data to resolve the effect of complex surface conditions in high resolution (Δ x = 4 km). After validation, these simulations are analysed with a focus on the role of local processes (sea breezes, orographic lifting and the formation of fog in the coastal mountains) in generating rainfall, and on how these will be affected by large scale irrigated plantations in the coastal desert. The validation showed that the model simulates the regional and local weather reasonably well. The simulations exhibit a slightly larger diurnal temperature range than those captured by the observations, but seem to capture daily sea-breeze phenomena well. Monthly rainfall is well reproduced at coarse resolutions, but appears more localized at high resolutions. The hypothetical irrigated plantation (3.25 10 5 ha) has significant effects on atmospheric moisture, but due to weakened sea breezes this leads to limited increases of rainfall. In terms of recycling of irrigation gifts the rainfall enhancement in this particular setting is rather insignificant.

Ecosystem services - from assessements of estimations to quantitative, validated, high-resolution, continental-scale mapping via airborne LIDAR

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zlinszky, András; Pfeifer, Norbert

2016-04-01

"Ecosystem services" defined vaguely as "nature's benefits to people" are a trending concept in ecology and conservation. Quantifying and mapping these services is a longtime demand of both ecosystems science and environmental policy. The current state of the art is to use existing maps of land cover, and assign certain average ecosystem service values to their unit areas. This approach has some major weaknesses: the concept of "ecosystem services", the input land cover maps and the value indicators. Such assessments often aim at valueing services in terms of human currency as a basis for decision-making, although this approach remains contested. Land cover maps used for ecosystem service assessments (typically the CORINE land cover product) are generated from continental-scale satellite imagery, with resolution in the range of hundreds of meters. In some rare cases, airborne sensors are used, with higher resolution but less covered area. Typically, general land cover classes are used instead of categories defined specifically for the purpose of ecosystem service assessment. The value indicators are developed for and tested on small study sites, but widely applied and adapted to other sites far away (a process called benefit transfer) where local information may not be available. Upscaling is always problematic since such measurements investigate areas much smaller than the output map unit. Nevertheless, remote sensing is still expected to play a major role in conceptualization and assessment of ecosystem services. We propose that an improvement of several orders of magnitude in resolution and accuracy is possible through the application of airborne LIDAR, a measurement technique now routinely used for collection of countrywide three-dimensional datasets with typically sub-meter resolution. However, this requires a clear definition of the concept of ecosystem services and the variables in focus: remote sensing can measure variables closely related to "ecosystem service potential" which is the ability of the local ecosystem to deliver various functions (water retention, carbon storage etc.), but can't quantify how much of these are actually used by humans or what the estimated monetary value is. Due to its ability to measure both terrain relief and vegetation structure in high resolution, airborne LIDAR supports direct quantification of the properties of an ecosystem that lead to it delivering a given service (such as biomass, water retention, micro-climate regulation or habitat diversity). In addition, its high resolution allows direct calibration with field measurements: routine harvesting-based ecological measurements, local biodiversity indicator surveys or microclimate recordings all take place at the human scale and can be directly linked to the local value of LIDAR-based indicators at meter resolution. Therefore, if some field measurements with standard ecological methods are performed on site, the accuracy of LIDAR-based ecosystem service indicators can be rigorously validated. With this conceptual and technical approach high resolution ecosystem service assessments can be made with well established credibility. These would consolidate the concept of ecosystem services and support both scientific research and evidence-based environmental policy at local and - as data coverage is continually increasing - continental scale.

Large scale superres 3D imaging: light-sheet single-molecule localization microscopy (Conference Presentation)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lu, Chieh Han; Chen, Peilin; Chen, Bi-Chang

2017-02-01

Optical imaging techniques provide much important information in understanding life science especially cellular structure and morphology because "seeing is believing". However, the resolution of optical imaging is limited by the diffraction limit, which is discovered by Ernst Abbe, i.e. λ/2(NA) (NA is the numerical aperture of the objective lens). Fluorescence super-resolution microscopic techniques such as Stimulated emission depletion microscopy (STED), Photoactivated localization microscopy (PALM), and Stochastic optical reconstruction microscopy (STORM) are invented to have the capability of seeing biological entities down to molecular level that are smaller than the diffraction limit (around 200-nm in lateral resolution). These techniques do not physically violate the Abbe limit of resolution but exploit the photoluminescence properties and labelling specificity of fluorescence molecules to achieve super-resolution imaging. However, these super-resolution techniques limit most of their applications to the 2D imaging of fixed or dead samples due to the high laser power needed or slow speed for the localization process. Extended from 2D imaging, light sheet microscopy has been proven to have a lot of applications on 3D imaging at much better spatiotemporal resolutions due to its intrinsic optical sectioning and high imaging speed. Herein, we combine the advantage of localization microscopy and light-sheet microscopy to have super-resolved cellular imaging in 3D across large field of view. With high-density labeled spontaneous blinking fluorophore and wide-field detection of light-sheet microscopy, these allow us to construct 3D super-resolution multi-cellular imaging at high speed ( minutes) by light-sheet single-molecule localization microscopy.

Influence of Kuroshio Oceanic Eddies on North Pacific Weather Patterns

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ma, X.; Chang, P.; Saravanan, R.; Montuoro, R.; Hsieh, J. S.; Wu, D.; Lin, X.; Wu, L.; Jing, Z.

2016-02-01

High-resolution satellite observations reveal energetic meso-scale ocean eddy activity and positive correlation between meso-scale sea surface temperature (SST) and surface wind along oceanic frontal zones, such as the Kuroshio and Gulf Stream, suggesting a potential role of meso-scale oceanic eddies in forcing the atmosphere. Using a 27 km horizontal resolution Weather Research Forecasting (WRF) model forced with observed daily SST at 0.09° spatial resolution during boreal winter season, two ensembles of 10 WRF simulations, in one of which meso-scale SST variability induced by ocean eddies was suppressed, were conducted in the North Pacific to study the local and remote influence of meso-scale oceanic eddies in the Kuroshio Extention Region (KER) on the atmosphere. Suppression of meso-scale oceanic eddies results in a deep tropospheric response along and downstream of the KER, including a significant decrease (increase) in winter season mean rainfall along the KER (west coast of US), a reduction of storm genesis in the KER, and a southward shift of the jet stream and North Pacific storm track in the eastern North Pacific. The simulated local and remote rainfall response to meso-scale oceanic eddies in the KER is also supported by observational analysis. A mechanism invoking moist baroclinic instability is proposed as a plausible explanation for the linkage between meso-scale oceanic eddies in the KER and large-scale atmospheric response in the North Pacific. It is argued that meso-scale oceanic eddies can have a rectified effect on planetary boundary layer moisture, the stability of the lower atmosphere and latent heat release, which in turn affect cyclogenesis. The accumulated effect of the altered storm development downstream further contributes to the equivalent barotropic mean flow change in the eastern North Pacific basin.

Peering into Cells One Molecule at a Time: Single-molecule and plasmon-enhanced fluorescence super-resolution imaging

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Biteen, Julie

2013-03-01

Single-molecule fluorescence brings the resolution of optical microscopy down to the nanometer scale, allowing us to unlock the mysteries of how biomolecules work together to achieve the complexity that is a cell. This high-resolution, non-destructive method for examining subcellular events has opened up an exciting new frontier: the study of macromolecular localization and dynamics in living cells. We have developed methods for single-molecule investigations of live bacterial cells, and have used these techniques to investigate thee important prokaryotic systems: membrane-bound transcription activation in Vibrio cholerae, carbohydrate catabolism in Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron, and DNA mismatch repair in Bacillus subtilis. Each system presents unique challenges, and we will discuss the important methods developed for each system. Furthermore, we use the plasmon modes of bio-compatible metal nanoparticles to enhance the emissivity of single-molecule fluorophores. The resolution of single-molecule imaging in cells is generally limited to 20-40 nm, far worse than the 1.5-nm localization accuracies which have been attained in vitro. We use plasmonics to improve the brightness and stability of single-molecule probes, and in particular fluorescent proteins, which are widely used for bio-imaging. We find that gold-coupled fluorophores demonstrate brighter, longer-lived emission, yielding an overall enhancement in total photons detected. Ultimately, this results in increased localization accuracy for single-molecule imaging. Furthermore, since fluorescence intensity is proportional to local electromagnetic field intensity, these changes in decay intensity and rate serve as a nm-scale read-out of the field intensity. Our work indicates that plasmonic substrates are uniquely advantageous for super-resolution imaging, and that plasmon-enhanced imaging is a promising technique for improving live cell single-molecule microscopy.

Model-based local density sharpening of cryo-EM maps

PubMed Central

Jakobi, Arjen J; Wilmanns, Matthias

2017-01-01

Atomic models based on high-resolution density maps are the ultimate result of the cryo-EM structure determination process. Here, we introduce a general procedure for local sharpening of cryo-EM density maps based on prior knowledge of an atomic reference structure. The procedure optimizes contrast of cryo-EM densities by amplitude scaling against the radially averaged local falloff estimated from a windowed reference model. By testing the procedure using six cryo-EM structures of TRPV1, β-galactosidase, γ-secretase, ribosome-EF-Tu complex, 20S proteasome and RNA polymerase III, we illustrate how local sharpening can increase interpretability of density maps in particular in cases of resolution variation and facilitates model building and atomic model refinement. PMID:29058676

Ensemble simulations to study the impact of land use change of Atlanta to regional climate

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liu, P.; Hu, Y.; Stone, B.; Vargo, J.; Nenes, A.; Russell, A.; Trail, M.; Tsimpidi, A.

2012-12-01

Studies show that urban areas may be the "first responders" to climate change (Rosenzweig et al., 2010). Of particular interest is the potential increased temperatures in urban areas, due to use of structures and surfaces that increase local heating, and how that may impact health, air quality and other environmental factors. In response, interest has grown as to how the modification of land use in urban areas, in order to mitigate the adverse effects of urbanization can serve to reduce local temperatures, and how climate is impacted more regionally. Studies have been conducted to investigate the impact of land use change on local or regional climate by dynamic downscaling using regional climate models (RCMs), the boundary conditions (BCs) and initial conditions (ICs) of which result from coarser-resolution reanalysis data or general circulation models (GCMs). However, few studies have focused on demonstrating whether the land use change in local areas significantly impacts the climate of the larger region of the domain, and the spatial scale of the impact from urban-scale changes. This work investigated the significance of the impact of land use change in the Atlanta city area on different scales, using a range of modeling resolutions, including the contiguous US (with 36km resolution), the southeastern US (with 12km resolution) and the state of Georgia (with 4km resolution). We used WRF version 3.1.1 with and ran continuous from June to August of a simulated year 2050, driven by GISS ModelE with inputs corresponding to RCP4.5. During the simulation, spectral nudging is used in the 36km resolution domain to maintain the climate patterns with scales larger than 2000km. Two-way nesting is also used in order to take into account the feedback of nesting domains across model domains. Two land use cases over the Atlanta city are chosen. For the base case, most of the urban area of Atlanta is covered with forest; while for the second, "impervious" case, all the urban area within 30 miles of the center of Atlanta is replaced with asphalt. This choice is made to maximize the potential effects and scales of impact. To make the two cases different as much as possible, a constant green vegetation fraction of 1.0 is assigned to the forest over the Atlanta; while 0.0 is assigned to the asphalt. To test the significance of the impact of land use change, 5 ensemble members were generated for each land use case using different initial conditions. The results of student's t test found that the impact of land use change in Atlanta city has a very local impact. This finding indicates that using WRF, applied at continental and regional scales, with BCs from the GCM and with spectral nudging, is appropriate. Although our results showed the impact is very local, results may change when meteorological conditions change or the area where land use changes is increased. Therefore, when investigating the land use change relevant issues, similar testing is suggested in order to demonstrate that the domain is large enough so that downscaling by RCMs is an appropriate approach. References: Rosenzweig, C., W. Solecki, S.A. Hammer, and S. Mehrotra, 2010: Cities lead the way in climate-change action. Nature, 467, 909-911, doi:10.1038/467909a

Downscaling remotely sensed imagery using area-to-point cokriging and multiple-point geostatistical simulation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tang, Yunwei; Atkinson, Peter M.; Zhang, Jingxiong

2015-03-01

A cross-scale data integration method was developed and tested based on the theory of geostatistics and multiple-point geostatistics (MPG). The goal was to downscale remotely sensed images while retaining spatial structure by integrating images at different spatial resolutions. During the process of downscaling, a rich spatial correlation model in the form of a training image was incorporated to facilitate reproduction of similar local patterns in the simulated images. Area-to-point cokriging (ATPCK) was used as locally varying mean (LVM) (i.e., soft data) to deal with the change of support problem (COSP) for cross-scale integration, which MPG cannot achieve alone. Several pairs of spectral bands of remotely sensed images were tested for integration within different cross-scale case studies. The experiment shows that MPG can restore the spatial structure of the image at a fine spatial resolution given the training image and conditioning data. The super-resolution image can be predicted using the proposed method, which cannot be realised using most data integration methods. The results show that ATPCK-MPG approach can achieve greater accuracy than methods which do not account for the change of support issue.

On neutral metacommunity patterns of river basins at different scales of aggregation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Convertino, Matteo; Muneepeerakul, Rachata; Azaele, Sandro; Bertuzzo, Enrico; Rinaldo, Andrea; Rodriguez-Iturbe, Ignacio

2009-08-01

Neutral metacommunity models for spatial biodiversity patterns are implemented on river networks acting as ecological corridors at different resolution. Coarse-graining elevation fields (under the constraint of preserving the basin mean elevation) produce a set of reconfigured drainage networks. The hydrologic assumption made implies uniform runoff production such that each link has the same habitat capacity. Despite the universal scaling properties shown by river basins regardless of size, climate, vegetation, or exposed lithology, we find that species richness at local and regional scales exhibits resolution-dependent behavior. In addition, we investigate species-area relationships and rank-abundance patterns. The slopes of the species-area relationships, which are consistent over coarse-graining resolutions, match those found in real landscapes in the case of long-distance dispersal. The rank-abundance patterns are independent of the resolution over a broad range of dispersal length. Our results confirm that strong interactions occur between network structure and the dispersal of species and that under the assumption of neutral dynamics, these interactions produce resolution-dependent biodiversity patterns that diverge from expectations following from universal geomorphic scaling laws. Both in theoretical and in applied ecology studying how patterns change in resolution is relevant for understanding how ecological dynamics work in fragmented landscape and for sampling and biodiversity management campaigns, especially in consideration of climate change.

Fast live cell imaging at nanometer scale using annihilating filter-based low-rank Hankel matrix approach

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Min, Junhong; Carlini, Lina; Unser, Michael; Manley, Suliana; Ye, Jong Chul

2015-09-01

Localization microscopy such as STORM/PALM can achieve a nanometer scale spatial resolution by iteratively localizing fluorescence molecules. It was shown that imaging of densely activated molecules can accelerate temporal resolution which was considered as major limitation of localization microscopy. However, this higher density imaging needs to incorporate advanced localization algorithms to deal with overlapping point spread functions (PSFs). In order to address this technical challenges, previously we developed a localization algorithm called FALCON1, 2 using a quasi-continuous localization model with sparsity prior on image space. It was demonstrated in both 2D/3D live cell imaging. However, it has several disadvantages to be further improved. Here, we proposed a new localization algorithm using annihilating filter-based low rank Hankel structured matrix approach (ALOHA). According to ALOHA principle, sparsity in image domain implies the existence of rank-deficient Hankel structured matrix in Fourier space. Thanks to this fundamental duality, our new algorithm can perform data-adaptive PSF estimation and deconvolution of Fourier spectrum, followed by truly grid-free localization using spectral estimation technique. Furthermore, all these optimizations are conducted on Fourier space only. We validated the performance of the new method with numerical experiments and live cell imaging experiment. The results confirmed that it has the higher localization performances in both experiments in terms of accuracy and detection rate.

Physical basis for river segmentation from water surface observables

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Samine Montazem, A.; Garambois, P. A.; Calmant, S.; Moreira, D. M.; Monnier, J.; Biancamaria, S.

2017-12-01

With the advent of satellite missions such as SWOT we will have access to high resolution estimates of the elevation, slope and width of the free surface. A segmentation strategy is required in order to sub-sample the data set into reach master points for further hydraulic analyzes and inverse modelling. The question that arises is : what will be the best node repartition strategy that preserves hydraulic properties of river flow? The concept of hydraulic visibility introduced by Garambois et al. (2016) is investigated in order to highlight and characterize the spatio-temporal variations of water surface slope and curvature for different flow regimes and reach geometries. We show that free surface curvature is a powerful proxy for characterizing the hydraulic behavior of a reach since concavity of water surface is driven by variations in channel geometry that impacts the hydraulic properties of the flow. We evaluated the performance of three segmentation strategies by means of a well documented case, that of the Garonne river in France. We conclude that local extrema of free surface curvature appear as the best candidate for locating the segment boundaries for an optimal hydraulic representation of the segmented river. We show that for a given river different segmentation scales are possible: a fine-scale segmentation which is driven by fine-scale hydraulic to large-scale segmentation driven by large-scale geomorphology. The segmentation technique is then applied to high resolution GPS profiles of free surface elevation collected on the Negro river basin, a major contributor of the Amazon river. We propose two segmentations: a low-resolution one that can be used for basin hydrology and a higher resolution one better suited for local hydrodynamic studies.

Organic electronics for high-resolution electrocorticography of the human brain.

PubMed

Khodagholy, Dion; Gelinas, Jennifer N; Zhao, Zifang; Yeh, Malcolm; Long, Michael; Greenlee, Jeremy D; Doyle, Werner; Devinsky, Orrin; Buzsáki, György

2016-11-01

Localizing neuronal patterns that generate pathological brain signals may assist with tissue resection and intervention strategies in patients with neurological diseases. Precise localization requires high spatiotemporal recording from populations of neurons while minimizing invasiveness and adverse events. We describe a large-scale, high-density, organic material-based, conformable neural interface device ("NeuroGrid") capable of simultaneously recording local field potentials (LFPs) and action potentials from the cortical surface. We demonstrate the feasibility and safety of intraoperative recording with NeuroGrids in anesthetized and awake subjects. Highly localized and propagating physiological and pathological LFP patterns were recorded, and correlated neural firing provided evidence about their local generation. Application of NeuroGrids to brain disorders, such as epilepsy, may improve diagnostic precision and therapeutic outcomes while reducing complications associated with invasive electrodes conventionally used to acquire high-resolution and spiking data.

Monitoring African savanna water use and water stress from local to regional scale: supporting rangeland management (pilot experience in Kruger National Park, South Africa).

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Andreu, Ana; Dube, Timothy; Nieto, Hector; González-Dugo, Maria P.; Hülsmann, Stephan

2017-04-01

Drought periods and erratic rainfall patterns across large parts of Africa result in water-limited environments like savannas, highly sensitive to land management practices and changes in climate. Over the Southern part of the continent, savannas are key productive landscapes supporting livestock, crops and rural livelihoods. Monitoring water use and the natural vegetation stress over these semi-arid complex ecosystems can support rangeland management, to maintain long-term productivity. However, the precision/resolution/accuracy of the information required for management will differ at each scale: farm-local (e.g. evaluating the effect of management practices, livestock densities, crop production and grazing), to watershed (e.g. evaluating the effect of fire, detection of vulnerable areas) and regional (e.g. early prediction of drought). To overcome these constrains, TIGER project 401 combines two approaches that take advantage of different conceptual and operational capabilities of Earth Observation data sources. Sentinel 2 high spatial (10 m) and temporal ( 5 days) resolution VIS/NIR images are used for a continuous monitoring of vegetation cover and unstressed evapotranspiration (ET - using Kc-FAO56 method). This methodology will provide the required resolution for farm-local scales, tracking separately the seasonal variations of each canopy layer growth (grass and trees). Meanwhile, lower spatial resolution (1 km) MODIS thermal data allow to determine a regional water stress index (ratio between actual ET, estimated using Two Source Energy Balance-TSEB, and potential ET), supporting the detection of vulnerable areas. The model framework was tested and validated over savanna-type experimental areas (Skukuza & Malopeni), and later applied over the whole Kruger National Park during 2015-2016.

Generating High Resolution Climate Scenarios Through Regional Climate Modelling Over Southern Africa

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ndhlovu, G. Z.; Woyessa, Y. E.; Vijayaraghavan, S.

2017-12-01

limate change has impacted the global environment and the Continent of Africa, especially Southern Africa, regarded as one of the most vulnerable regions in Africa, has not been spared from these impacts. Global Climate Models (GCMs) with coarse horizontal resolutions of 150-300 km do not provide sufficient details at the local basin scale due to mismatch between the size of river basins and the grid cell of the GCM. This makes it difficult to apply the outputs of GCMs directly to impact studies such as hydrological modelling. This necessitates the use of regional climate modelling at high resolutions that provide detailed information at regional and local scales to study both climate change and its impacts. To this end, an experiment was set up and conducted with PRECIS, a regional climate model, to generate climate scenarios at a high resolution of 25km for the local region in Zambezi River basin of Southern Africa. The major input data used included lateral and surface boundary conditions based on the GCMs. The data is processed, analysed and compared with CORDEX climate change project data generated for Africa. This paper, highlights the major differences of the climate scenarios generated by PRECIS Model and CORDEX Project for Africa and further gives recommendations for further research on generation of climate scenarios. The climatic variables such as precipitation and temperatures have been analysed for flood and droughts in the region. The paper also describes the setting up and running of an experiment using a high-resolution PRECIS model. In addition, a description has been made in running the model and generating the output variables on a sub basin scale. Regional climate modelling which provides information on climate change impact may lead to enhanced understanding of adaptive water resources management. Understanding the regional climate modelling results on sub basin scale is the first step in analysing complex hydrological processes and a basis for designing of adaptation and mitigation strategies in the region. Key words: Climate change, regional climate modelling, hydrological processes, extremes, scenarios [1] Corresponding author: Email:gndhlovu@cut.ac.za Tel:+27 (0) 51 507 3072

Resolving the fine-scale structure in turbulent Rayleigh-Benard convection

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Scheel, Janet; Emran, Mohammad; Schumacher, Joerg

2013-11-01

Results from high-resolution direct numerical simulations of turbulent Rayleigh-Benard convection in a cylindrical cell with an aspect ratio of one will be presented. We focus on the finest scales of convective turbulence, in particular the statistics of the kinetic energy and thermal dissipation rates in the bulk and the whole cell. These dissipation rates as well as the local dissipation scales are compared for different Rayleigh and Prandtl numbers. We also have investigated the convergence properties of our spectral element method and have found that both dissipation fields are very sensitive to insufficient resolution. We also demonstrate that global transport properties, such as the Nusselt number and the energy balances, are partly insensitive to insufficient resolution and yield consistent results even when the dissipation fields are under-resolved. Our present numerical framework is also compared with high-resolution simulations which use a finite difference method. For most of the compared quantities the agreement is found to be satisfactory.

Atomic scale imaging of magnetic circular dichroism by achromatic electron microscopy.

PubMed

Wang, Zechao; Tavabi, Amir H; Jin, Lei; Rusz, Ján; Tyutyunnikov, Dmitry; Jiang, Hanbo; Moritomo, Yutaka; Mayer, Joachim; Dunin-Borkowski, Rafal E; Yu, Rong; Zhu, Jing; Zhong, Xiaoyan

2018-03-01

In order to obtain a fundamental understanding of the interplay between charge, spin, orbital and lattice degrees of freedom in magnetic materials and to predict and control their physical properties 1-3 , experimental techniques are required that are capable of accessing local magnetic information with atomic-scale spatial resolution. Here, we show that a combination of electron energy-loss magnetic chiral dichroism 4 and chromatic-aberration-corrected transmission electron microscopy, which reduces the focal spread of inelastically scattered electrons by orders of magnitude when compared with the use of spherical aberration correction alone, can achieve atomic-scale imaging of magnetic circular dichroism and provide element-selective orbital and spin magnetic moments atomic plane by atomic plane. This unique capability, which we demonstrate for Sr 2 FeMoO 6 , opens the door to local atomic-level studies of spin configurations in a multitude of materials that exhibit different types of magnetic coupling, thereby contributing to a detailed understanding of the physical origins of magnetic properties of materials at the highest spatial resolution.

The Berkeley Atmospheric CO2 Observation Network (BEACON): Measuring Greenhouse Gases and Criteria Pollutants within the Urban Dome

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Teige, V. E.; Weichsel, K.; Hooker, A.; Wooldridge, P. J.; Cohen, R. C.

2012-12-01

Efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions, while global in their impacts, often focus on local and regional scales for execution and are dependent on the actions of communities and individuals. Evaluating the effectiveness of local policies requires observations with much higher spatial resolution than are currently available---kilometer scale. The Berkeley Atmospheric CO2 Observation Network (BEACON):, launched at the end of 2011, aims to provide measurements of urban-scale concentrations of CO2, temperature, pressure, relative humidity, O3, CO, and NO2 with sufficient spatial and temporal resolution to characterize the sources of CO2 within cities. Our initial deployment in Oakland, California uses ~40 sensor packages at a roughly 2 km spacing throughout the city. We will present an initial analysis of the vertical gradients and other spatial patterns observed to date.

Multiscale soil moisture estimates using static and roving cosmic-ray soil moisture sensors

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

McJannet, David; Hawdon, Aaron; Baker, Brett; Renzullo, Luigi; Searle, Ross

2017-12-01

Soil moisture plays a critical role in land surface processes and as such there has been a recent increase in the number and resolution of satellite soil moisture observations and the development of land surface process models with ever increasing resolution. Despite these developments, validation and calibration of these products has been limited because of a lack of observations on corresponding scales. A recently developed mobile soil moisture monitoring platform, known as the rover, offers opportunities to overcome this scale issue. This paper describes methods, results and testing of soil moisture estimates produced using rover surveys on a range of scales that are commensurate with model and satellite retrievals. Our investigation involved static cosmic-ray neutron sensors and rover surveys across both broad (36 × 36 km at 9 km resolution) and intensive (10 × 10 km at 1 km resolution) scales in a cropping district in the Mallee region of Victoria, Australia. We describe approaches for converting rover survey neutron counts to soil moisture and discuss the factors controlling soil moisture variability. We use independent gravimetric and modelled soil moisture estimates collected across both space and time to validate rover soil moisture products. Measurements revealed that temporal patterns in soil moisture were preserved through time and regression modelling approaches were utilised to produce time series of property-scale soil moisture which may also have applications in calibration and validation studies or local farm management. Intensive-scale rover surveys produced reliable soil moisture estimates at 1 km resolution while broad-scale surveys produced soil moisture estimates at 9 km resolution. We conclude that the multiscale soil moisture products produced in this study are well suited to future analysis of satellite soil moisture retrievals and finer-scale soil moisture models.

Large-Scale, High-Resolution Neurophysiological Maps Underlying fMRI of Macaque Temporal Lobe

PubMed Central

Papanastassiou, Alex M.; DiCarlo, James J.

2013-01-01

Maps obtained by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) are thought to reflect the underlying spatial layout of neural activity. However, previous studies have not been able to directly compare fMRI maps to high-resolution neurophysiological maps, particularly in higher level visual areas. Here, we used a novel stereo microfocal x-ray system to localize thousands of neural recordings across monkey inferior temporal cortex (IT), construct large-scale maps of neuronal object selectivity at subvoxel resolution, and compare those neurophysiology maps with fMRI maps from the same subjects. While neurophysiology maps contained reliable structure at the sub-millimeter scale, fMRI maps of object selectivity contained information at larger scales (>2.5 mm) and were only partly correlated with raw neurophysiology maps collected in the same subjects. However, spatial smoothing of neurophysiology maps more than doubled that correlation, while a variety of alternative transforms led to no significant improvement. Furthermore, raw spiking signals, once spatially smoothed, were as predictive of fMRI maps as local field potential signals. Thus, fMRI of the inferior temporal lobe reflects a spatially low-passed version of neurophysiology signals. These findings strongly validate the widespread use of fMRI for detecting large (>2.5 mm) neuronal domains of object selectivity but show that a complete understanding of even the most pure domains (e.g., faces vs nonface objects) requires investigation at fine scales that can currently only be obtained with invasive neurophysiological methods. PMID:24048850

Efficient Data Mining for Local Binary Pattern in Texture Image Analysis

PubMed Central

Kwak, Jin Tae; Xu, Sheng; Wood, Bradford J.

2015-01-01

Local binary pattern (LBP) is a simple gray scale descriptor to characterize the local distribution of the grey levels in an image. Multi-resolution LBP and/or combinations of the LBPs have shown to be effective in texture image analysis. However, it is unclear what resolutions or combinations to choose for texture analysis. Examining all the possible cases is impractical and intractable due to the exponential growth in a feature space. This limits the accuracy and time- and space-efficiency of LBP. Here, we propose a data mining approach for LBP, which efficiently explores a high-dimensional feature space and finds a relatively smaller number of discriminative features. The features can be any combinations of LBPs. These may not be achievable with conventional approaches. Hence, our approach not only fully utilizes the capability of LBP but also maintains the low computational complexity. We incorporated three different descriptors (LBP, local contrast measure, and local directional derivative measure) with three spatial resolutions and evaluated our approach using two comprehensive texture databases. The results demonstrated the effectiveness and robustness of our approach to different experimental designs and texture images. PMID:25767332

Superresolution Imaging using Single-Molecule Localization

PubMed Central

Patterson, George; Davidson, Michael; Manley, Suliana; Lippincott-Schwartz, Jennifer

2013-01-01

Superresolution imaging is a rapidly emerging new field of microscopy that dramatically improves the spatial resolution of light microscopy by over an order of magnitude (∼10–20-nm resolution), allowing biological processes to be described at the molecular scale. Here, we discuss a form of superresolution microscopy based on the controlled activation and sampling of sparse subsets of photoconvertible fluorescent molecules. In this single-molecule based imaging approach, a wide variety of probes have proved valuable, ranging from genetically encodable photoactivatable fluorescent proteins to photoswitchable cyanine dyes. These have been used in diverse applications of superresolution imaging: from three-dimensional, multicolor molecule localization to tracking of nanometric structures and molecules in living cells. Single-molecule-based superresolution imaging thus offers exciting possibilities for obtaining molecular-scale information on biological events occurring at variable timescales. PMID:20055680

Hyper-Resolution Groundwater Modeling using MODFLOW 6

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hughes, J. D.; Langevin, C.

2017-12-01

MODFLOW 6 is the latest version of the U.S. Geological Survey's modular hydrologic model. MODFLOW 6 was developed to synthesize many of the recent versions of MODFLOW into a single program, improve the way different process models are coupled, and to provide an object-oriented framework for adding new types of models and packages. The object-oriented framework and underlying numerical solver make it possible to tightly couple any number of hyper-resolution models within coarser regional models. The hyper-resolution models can be used to evaluate local-scale groundwater issues that may be affected by regional-scale forcings. In MODFLOW 6, hyper-resolution meshes can be maintained as separate model datasets, similar to MODFLOW-LGR, which simplifies the development of a coarse regional model with imbedded hyper-resolution models from a coarse regional model. For example, the South Atlantic Coastal Plain regional water availability model was converted from a MODFLOW-2000 model to a MODFLOW 6 model. The horizontal discretization of the original model is approximately 3,218 m x 3,218 m. Hyper-resolution models of the Aiken and Sumter County water budget areas in South Carolina with a horizontal discretization of approximately 322 m x 322 m were developed and were tightly coupled to a modified version of the original coarse regional model that excluded these areas. Hydraulic property and aquifer geometry data from the coarse model were mapped to the hyper-resolution models. The discretization of the hyper-resolution models is fine enough to make detailed analyses of the effect that changes in groundwater withdrawals in the production aquifers have on the water table and surface-water/groundwater interactions. The approach used in this analysis could be applied to other regional water availability models that have been developed by the U.S. Geological Survey to evaluate local scale groundwater issues.

The Fragmentation Criteria in Local Vertically Stratified Self-gravitating Disk Simulations

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Baehr, Hans; Klahr, Hubert; Kratter, Kaitlin M., E-mail: baehr@mpia.de

Massive circumstellar disks are prone to gravitational instabilities, which trigger the formation of spiral arms that can fragment into bound clumps under the right conditions. Two-dimensional simulations of self-gravitating disks are useful starting points for studying fragmentation because they allow high-resolution simulations of thin disks. However, convergence issues can arise in 2D from various sources. One of these sources is the 2D approximation of self-gravity, which exaggerates the effect of self-gravity on small scales when the potential is not smoothed to account for the assumed vertical extent of the disk. This effect is enhanced by increased resolution, resulting in fragmentationmore » at longer cooling timescales β . If true, it suggests that the 3D simulations of disk fragmentation may not have the same convergence problem and could be used to examine the nature of fragmentation without smoothing self-gravity on scales similar to the disk scale height. To that end, we have carried out local 3D self-gravitating disk simulations with simple β cooling with fixed background irradiation to determine if 3D is necessary to properly describe disk fragmentation. Above a resolution of ∼40 grid cells per scale height, we find that our simulations converge with respect to the cooling timescale. This result converges in agreement with analytic expectations which place a fragmentation boundary at β {sub crit} = 3.« less

Numerical analysis of scalar dissipation length-scales and their scaling properties

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Vaishnavi, Pankaj; Kronenburg, Andreas

2006-11-01

Scalar dissipation rate, χ, is fundamental to the description of scalar-mixing in turbulent non-premixed combustion. Most contributions to the statistics for χ come from the finest turbulent mixing-scales and thus its adequate characterisation requires good resolution. Reliable χ-measurement is complicated by the trade-off between higher resolution and greater signal-to-noise ratio. Thus, the present numerical study utilises the error-free mixture fraction, Z, and fluid mechanical data from the turbulent reacting jet DNS of Pantano (2004). The aim is to quantify the resolution requirements for χ-measurement in terms of easily measurable properties of the flow like the integral-scale Reynolds number, Reδ, using spectral and spatial-filtering [cf. Barlow and Karpetis (2005)] analyses. Analysis of the 1-D cross-stream dissipation spectra enables the estimation of the dissipation length scales. It is shown that these spectrally-computed scales follow the expected Kolmogorov scaling with Reδ-0.75 . The work also involves local smoothening of the instantaneous χ-field over a non-overlapping spatial-interval (filter-width, wf), to study the smoothened χ-value as a function of wf, as wf is extrapolated to the smallest scale of interest. The dissipation length-scales thus captured show a stringent Reδ-1 scaling, compared to the usual Kolmogorov-type. This concurs with the criterion of 'resolution adequacy' of the DNS, as set out by Sreenivasan (2004) using the theory of multi-fractals.

Ultrafast ultrasound localization microscopy for deep super-resolution vascular imaging

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Errico, Claudia; Pierre, Juliette; Pezet, Sophie; Desailly, Yann; Lenkei, Zsolt; Couture, Olivier; Tanter, Mickael

2015-11-01

Non-invasive imaging deep into organs at microscopic scales remains an open quest in biomedical imaging. Although optical microscopy is still limited to surface imaging owing to optical wave diffusion and fast decorrelation in tissue, revolutionary approaches such as fluorescence photo-activated localization microscopy led to a striking increase in resolution by more than an order of magnitude in the last decade. In contrast with optics, ultrasonic waves propagate deep into organs without losing their coherence and are much less affected by in vivo decorrelation processes. However, their resolution is impeded by the fundamental limits of diffraction, which impose a long-standing trade-off between resolution and penetration. This limits clinical and preclinical ultrasound imaging to a sub-millimetre scale. Here we demonstrate in vivo that ultrasound imaging at ultrafast frame rates (more than 500 frames per second) provides an analogue to optical localization microscopy by capturing the transient signal decorrelation of contrast agents—inert gas microbubbles. Ultrafast ultrasound localization microscopy allowed both non-invasive sub-wavelength structural imaging and haemodynamic quantification of rodent cerebral microvessels (less than ten micrometres in diameter) more than ten millimetres below the tissue surface, leading to transcranial whole-brain imaging within short acquisition times (tens of seconds). After intravenous injection, single echoes from individual microbubbles were detected through ultrafast imaging. Their localization, not limited by diffraction, was accumulated over 75,000 images, yielding 1,000,000 events per coronal plane and statistically independent pixels of ten micrometres in size. Precise temporal tracking of microbubble positions allowed us to extract accurately in-plane velocities of the blood flow with a large dynamic range (from one millimetre per second to several centimetres per second). These results pave the way for deep non-invasive microscopy in animals and humans using ultrasound. We anticipate that ultrafast ultrasound localization microscopy may become an invaluable tool for the fundamental understanding and diagnostics of various disease processes that modify the microvascular blood flow, such as cancer, stroke and arteriosclerosis.

Ultrafast ultrasound localization microscopy for deep super-resolution vascular imaging.

PubMed

Errico, Claudia; Pierre, Juliette; Pezet, Sophie; Desailly, Yann; Lenkei, Zsolt; Couture, Olivier; Tanter, Mickael

2015-11-26

Non-invasive imaging deep into organs at microscopic scales remains an open quest in biomedical imaging. Although optical microscopy is still limited to surface imaging owing to optical wave diffusion and fast decorrelation in tissue, revolutionary approaches such as fluorescence photo-activated localization microscopy led to a striking increase in resolution by more than an order of magnitude in the last decade. In contrast with optics, ultrasonic waves propagate deep into organs without losing their coherence and are much less affected by in vivo decorrelation processes. However, their resolution is impeded by the fundamental limits of diffraction, which impose a long-standing trade-off between resolution and penetration. This limits clinical and preclinical ultrasound imaging to a sub-millimetre scale. Here we demonstrate in vivo that ultrasound imaging at ultrafast frame rates (more than 500 frames per second) provides an analogue to optical localization microscopy by capturing the transient signal decorrelation of contrast agents--inert gas microbubbles. Ultrafast ultrasound localization microscopy allowed both non-invasive sub-wavelength structural imaging and haemodynamic quantification of rodent cerebral microvessels (less than ten micrometres in diameter) more than ten millimetres below the tissue surface, leading to transcranial whole-brain imaging within short acquisition times (tens of seconds). After intravenous injection, single echoes from individual microbubbles were detected through ultrafast imaging. Their localization, not limited by diffraction, was accumulated over 75,000 images, yielding 1,000,000 events per coronal plane and statistically independent pixels of ten micrometres in size. Precise temporal tracking of microbubble positions allowed us to extract accurately in-plane velocities of the blood flow with a large dynamic range (from one millimetre per second to several centimetres per second). These results pave the way for deep non-invasive microscopy in animals and humans using ultrasound. We anticipate that ultrafast ultrasound localization microscopy may become an invaluable tool for the fundamental understanding and diagnostics of various disease processes that modify the microvascular blood flow, such as cancer, stroke and arteriosclerosis.

Global terrain classification using Multiple-Error-Removed Improved-Terrain (MERIT) to address susceptibility of landslides and other geohazards

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Iwahashi, J.; Yamazaki, D.; Matsuoka, M.; Thamarux, P.; Herrick, J.; Yong, A.; Mital, U.

2017-12-01

A seamless model of landform classifications with regional accuracy will be a powerful platform for geophysical studies that forecast geologic hazards. Spatial variability as a function of landform on a global scale was captured in the automated classifications of Iwahashi and Pike (2007) and additional developments are presented here that incorporate more accurate depictions using higher-resolution elevation data than the original 1-km scale Shuttle Radar Topography Mission digital elevation model (DEM). We create polygon-based terrain classifications globally by using the 280-m DEM interpolated from the Multi-Error-Removed Improved-Terrain DEM (MERIT; Yamazaki et al., 2017). The multi-scale pixel-image analysis method, known as Multi-resolution Segmentation (Baatz and Schäpe, 2000), is first used to classify the terrains based on geometric signatures (slope and local convexity) calculated from the 280-m DEM. Next, we apply the machine learning method of "k-means clustering" to prepare the polygon-based classification at the globe-scale using slope, local convexity and surface texture. We then group the divisions with similar properties by hierarchical clustering and other statistical analyses using geological and geomorphological data of the area where landslides and earthquakes are frequent (e.g. Japan and California). We find the 280-m DEM resolution is only partially sufficient for classifying plains. We nevertheless observe that the categories correspond to reported landslide and liquefaction features at the global scale, suggesting that our model is an appropriate platform to forecast ground failure. To predict seismic amplification, we estimate site conditions using the time-averaged shear-wave velocity in the upper 30-m (VS30) measurements compiled by Yong et al. (2016) and the terrain model developed by Yong (2016; Y16). We plan to test our method on finer resolution DEMs and report our findings to obtain a more globally consistent terrain model as there are known errors in DEM derivatives at higher-resolutions. We expect the improvement in DEM resolution (4 times greater detail) and the combination of regional and global coverage will yield a consistent dataset of polygons that have the potential to improve relations to the Y16 estimates significantly.

MODFLOW-LGR: Practical application to a large regional dataset

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Barnes, D.; Coulibaly, K. M.

2011-12-01

In many areas of the US, including southwest Florida, large regional-scale groundwater models have been developed to aid in decision making and water resources management. These models are subsequently used as a basis for site-specific investigations. Because the large scale of these regional models is not appropriate for local application, refinement is necessary to analyze the local effects of pumping wells and groundwater related projects at specific sites. The most commonly used approach to date is Telescopic Mesh Refinement or TMR. It allows the extraction of a subset of the large regional model with boundary conditions derived from the regional model results. The extracted model is then updated and refined for local use using a variable sized grid focused on the area of interest. MODFLOW-LGR, local grid refinement, is an alternative approach which allows model discretization at a finer resolution in areas of interest and provides coupling between the larger "parent" model and the locally refined "child." In the present work, these two approaches are tested on a mining impact assessment case in southwest Florida using a large regional dataset (The Lower West Coast Surficial Aquifer System Model). Various metrics for performance are considered. They include: computation time, water balance (as compared to the variable sized grid), calibration, implementation effort, and application advantages and limitations. The results indicate that MODFLOW-LGR is a useful tool to improve local resolution of regional scale models. While performance metrics, such as computation time, are case-dependent (model size, refinement level, stresses involved), implementation effort, particularly when regional models of suitable scale are available, can be minimized. The creation of multiple child models within a larger scale parent model makes it possible to reuse the same calibrated regional dataset with minimal modification. In cases similar to the Lower West Coast model, where a model is larger than optimal for direct application as a parent grid, a combination of TMR and LGR approaches should be used to develop a suitable parent grid.

High-resolution regional climate model evaluation using variable-resolution CESM over California

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Huang, X.; Rhoades, A.; Ullrich, P. A.; Zarzycki, C. M.

2015-12-01

Understanding the effect of climate change at regional scales remains a topic of intensive research. Though computational constraints remain a problem, high horizontal resolution is needed to represent topographic forcing, which is a significant driver of local climate variability. Although regional climate models (RCMs) have traditionally been used at these scales, variable-resolution global climate models (VRGCMs) have recently arisen as an alternative for studying regional weather and climate allowing two-way interaction between these domains without the need for nudging. In this study, the recently developed variable-resolution option within the Community Earth System Model (CESM) is assessed for long-term regional climate modeling over California. Our variable-resolution simulations will focus on relatively high resolutions for climate assessment, namely 28km and 14km regional resolution, which are much more typical for dynamically downscaled studies. For comparison with the more widely used RCM method, the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model will be used for simulations at 27km and 9km. All simulations use the AMIP (Atmospheric Model Intercomparison Project) protocols. The time period is from 1979-01-01 to 2005-12-31 (UTC), and year 1979 was discarded as spin up time. The mean climatology across California's diverse climate zones, including temperature and precipitation, is analyzed and contrasted with the Weather Research and Forcasting (WRF) model (as a traditional RCM), regional reanalysis, gridded observational datasets and uniform high-resolution CESM at 0.25 degree with the finite volume (FV) dynamical core. The results show that variable-resolution CESM is competitive in representing regional climatology on both annual and seasonal time scales. This assessment adds value to the use of VRGCMs for projecting climate change over the coming century and improve our understanding of both past and future regional climate related to fine-scale processes. This assessment is also relevant for addressing the scale limitation of current RCMs or VRGCMs when next-generation model resolution increases to ~10km and beyond.

Choice of resolution by functional trait or taxonomy affects allometric scaling in soil food webs.

PubMed

Sechi, Valentina; Brussaard, Lijbert; De Goede, Ron G M; Rutgers, Michiel; Mulder, Christian

2015-01-01

Belowground organisms often display a shift in their mass-abundance scaling relationships due to environmental factors such as soil chemistry and atmospheric deposition. Here we present new empirical data that show strong differences in allometric scaling according to whether the resolution at the local scale is based on a taxonomic or a functional classification, while only slight differences arise according to soil environmental conditions. For the first time, isometry (an inverse 1:1 proportion) is recognized in mass-abundance relationships, providing a functional signal for constant biomass distribution in soil biota regardless of discrete trophic levels. Our findings are in contrast to those from aquatic ecosystems, in that higher trophic levels in soil biota are not a direct function of increasing body mass.

Studies of x-ray localization and thickness dependence in atomic-scale elemental mapping by STEM energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy using single-frame scanning method

DOE PAGES

Lu, Ping; Moya, Jaime M.; Yuan, Renliang; ...

2018-03-01

The delocalization of x-ray signals limits the spatial resolution in atomic-scale elemental mapping by scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) using energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDS). In this study, using a SrTiO 3 [001] single crystal, we show that the x-ray localization to atomic columns is strongly dependent on crystal thickness, and a thin crystal is critical for improving the spatial resolution in atomic-scale EDS mapping. A single-frame scanning technique is used in this study instead of the multiple-frame technique to avoid peak broadening due to tracking error. The strong thickness dependence is realized by measuring the full width at half maximamore » (FWHM) as well as the peak-to-valley (P/V) ratio of the EDS profiles for Ti K and Sr K+L, obtained at several crystal thicknesses. A FWHM of about 0.16 nm and a P/V ratio of greater than 7.0 are obtained for Ti K for a crystal thickness of less than 20 nm. In conclusion, with increasing crystal thickness, the FWHM and P/V ratio increases and decreases, respectively, indicating the advantage of using a thin crystal for high-resolution EDS mapping.« less

Studies of x-ray localization and thickness dependence in atomic-scale elemental mapping by STEM energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy using single-frame scanning method

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Lu, Ping; Moya, Jaime M.; Yuan, Renliang

The delocalization of x-ray signals limits the spatial resolution in atomic-scale elemental mapping by scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) using energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDS). In this study, using a SrTiO 3 [001] single crystal, we show that the x-ray localization to atomic columns is strongly dependent on crystal thickness, and a thin crystal is critical for improving the spatial resolution in atomic-scale EDS mapping. A single-frame scanning technique is used in this study instead of the multiple-frame technique to avoid peak broadening due to tracking error. The strong thickness dependence is realized by measuring the full width at half maximamore » (FWHM) as well as the peak-to-valley (P/V) ratio of the EDS profiles for Ti K and Sr K+L, obtained at several crystal thicknesses. A FWHM of about 0.16 nm and a P/V ratio of greater than 7.0 are obtained for Ti K for a crystal thickness of less than 20 nm. In conclusion, with increasing crystal thickness, the FWHM and P/V ratio increases and decreases, respectively, indicating the advantage of using a thin crystal for high-resolution EDS mapping.« less

Studies of x-ray localization and thickness dependence in atomic-scale elemental mapping by STEM energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy using single-frame scanning method.

PubMed

Lu, Ping; Moya, Jaime M; Yuan, Renliang; Zuo, Jian Min

2018-03-01

The delocalization of x-ray signals limits the spatial resolution in atomic-scale elemental mapping by scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) using energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDS). In this study, using a SrTiO 3 [001] single crystal, we show that the x-ray localization to atomic columns is strongly dependent on crystal thickness, and a thin crystal is critical for improving the spatial resolution in atomic-scale EDS mapping. A single-frame scanning technique is used in this study instead of the multiple-frame technique to avoid peak broadening due to tracking error. The strong thickness dependence is realized by measuring the full width at half maxima (FWHM) as well as the peak-to-valley (P/V) ratio of the EDS profiles for Ti K and Sr K + L, obtained at several crystal thicknesses. A FWHM of about 0.16 nm and a P/V ratio of greater than 7.0 are obtained for Ti K for a crystal thickness of less than 20 nm. With increasing crystal thickness, the FWHM and P/V ratio increases and decreases, respectively, indicating the advantage of using a thin crystal for high-resolution EDS mapping. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Local X-ray Computed Tomography Imaging for Mineralogical and Pore Characterization

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mills, G.; Willson, C. S.

2015-12-01

Sample size, material properties and image resolution are all tradeoffs that must be considered when imaging porous media samples with X-ray computed tomography. In many natural and engineered samples, pore and throat sizes span several orders of magnitude and are often correlated with the material composition. Local tomography is a nondestructive technique that images a subvolume, within a larger specimen, at high resolution and uses low-resolution tomography data from the larger specimen to reduce reconstruction error. The high-resolution, subvolume data can be used to extract important fine-scale properties but, due to the additional noise associated with the truncated dataset, it makes segmentation of different materials and mineral phases a challenge. The low-resolution data of a larger specimen is typically of much higher-quality making material characterization much easier. In addition, the imaging of a larger domain, allows for mm-scale bulk properties and heterogeneities to be determined. In this research, a 7 mm diameter and ~15 mm in length sandstone core was scanned twice. The first scan was performed to cover the entire diameter and length of the specimen at an image voxel resolution of 4.1 μm. The second scan was performed on a subvolume, ~1.3 mm in length and ~2.1 mm in diameter, at an image voxel resolution of 1.08 μm. After image processing and segmentation, the pore network structure and mineralogical features were extracted from the low-resolution dataset. Due to the noise in the truncated high-resolution dataset, several image processing approaches were applied prior to image segmentation and extraction of the pore network structure and mineralogy. Results from the different truncated tomography segmented data sets are compared to each other to evaluate the potential of each approach in identifying the different solid phases from the original 16 bit data set. The truncated tomography segmented data sets were also compared to the whole-core tomography segmented data set in two ways: (1) assessment of the porosity and pore size distribution at different scales; and (2) comparison of the mineralogical composition and distribution. Finally, registration of the two datasets will be used to show how the pore structure and mineralogy details at the two scales can be used to supplement each other.

The internal architecture of dendritic spines revealed by super-resolution imaging: What did we learn so far?

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

MacGillavry, Harold D., E-mail: h.d.macgillavry@uu.nl; Hoogenraad, Casper C., E-mail: c.hoogenraad@uu.nl

2015-07-15

The molecular architecture of dendritic spines defines the efficiency of signal transmission across excitatory synapses. It is therefore critical to understand the mechanisms that control the dynamic localization of the molecular constituents within spines. However, because of the small scale at which most processes within spines take place, conventional light microscopy techniques are not adequate to provide the necessary level of resolution. Recently, super-resolution imaging techniques have overcome the classical barrier imposed by the diffraction of light, and can now resolve the localization and dynamic behavior of proteins within small compartments with nanometer precision, revolutionizing the study of dendritic spinemore » architecture. Here, we highlight exciting new findings from recent super-resolution studies on neuronal spines, and discuss how these studies revealed important new insights into how protein complexes are assembled and how their dynamic behavior shapes the efficiency of synaptic transmission.« less

A user's guide to localization-based super-resolution fluorescence imaging.

PubMed

Dempsey, Graham T

2013-01-01

Advances in far-field fluorescence microscopy over the past decade have led to the development of super-resolution imaging techniques that provide more than an order of magnitude improvement in spatial resolution compared to conventional light microscopy. One such approach, called Stochastic Optical Reconstruction Microscopy (STORM) uses the sequential, nanometer-scale localization of individual fluorophores to reconstruct a high-resolution image of a structure of interest. This is an attractive method for biological investigation at the nanoscale due to its relative simplicity, both conceptually and practically in the laboratory. Like most research tools, however, the devil is in the details. The aim of this chapter is to serve as a guide for applying STORM to the study of biological samples. This chapter will discuss considerations for choosing a photoswitchable fluorescent probe, preparing a sample, selecting hardware for data acquisition, and collecting and analyzing data for image reconstruction. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Extending the Reach of National Assessments: Addressing Local and Regional Needs

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lewis, K.; Carter, T.

2016-12-01

While climate change is global in scope, many impacts of greatest societal concern (and accompanying response decisions) occur on local to regional scales. The U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) is tasked with conducting quadrennial national climate assessments, and efforts for the fourth such assessment (NCA4) are underway. Recognizing that there is a growing appetite for climate information on more local scales, however, USGCRP is actively pursuing higher-resolution scientific information, while also seeking engagement with local and regional entities to ensure that NCA4 is well-positioned to address users' needs across geospatial scales. Effectively meeting user needs at regional scales requires robust observations and projections at sub-national scales, as well as a widespread network of agencies and organizations. We discuss our efforts to leverage existing relationships to identify potential users and their needs early in the assessment process. We also discuss plans for future mechanisms to engage additional regional stakeholders from resource managers to policy makers and scientists not only for quadrennial assessment but as part of a sustained process.

Scale effects on the evapotranspiration estimation over a water-controlled Mediterranean ecosystem and its influence on hydrological modelling

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Carpintero, Elisabet; González-Dugo, María P.; José Polo, María; Hain, Christopher; Nieto, Héctor; Gao, Feng; Andreu, Ana; Kustas, William; Anderson, Martha

2017-04-01

The integration of currently available satellite data into surface energy balance models can provide estimates of evapotranspiration (ET) with spatial and temporal resolutions determined by sensor characteristics. The use of data fusion techniques may increase the temporal resolution of these estimates using multiple satellites, providing a more frequent ET monitoring for hydrological purposes. The objective of this work is to analyze the effects of pixel resolution on the estimation of evapotranspiration using different remote sensing platforms, and to provide continuous monitoring of ET over a water-controlled ecosystem, the Holm oak savanna woodland known as dehesa. It is an agroforestry system with a complex canopy structure characterized by widely-spaced oak trees combined with crops, pasture and shrubs. The study was carried out during two years, 2013 and 2014, combining ET estimates at different spatial and temporal resolutions and applying data fusion techniques for a frequent monitoring of water use at fine spatial resolution. A global and daily ET product at 5 km resolution, developed with the ALEXI model using MODIS day-night temperature difference (Anderson et al., 2015a) was used as a starting point. The associated flux disaggregation scheme, DisALEXI (Norman et al., 2003), was later applied to constrain higher resolution ET from both MODIS and Landsat 7/8 images. The Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR) provided the meteorological data. Finally, a data fusion technique, the STARFM model (Gao et al., 2006), was applied to fuse MODIS and Landsat ET maps in order to obtain daily ET at 30 m resolution. These estimates were validated and analyzed at two different scales: at local scale over a dehesa experimental site and at watershed scale with a predominant Mediterranean oak savanna landscape, both located in Southern Spain. Local ET estimates from the modeling system were validated with measurements provided by an eddy covariance tower installed in the dehesa (38 ° 12 'N, 4 ° 17' W, 736 m a.s.l.). The results supported the ability of ALEXI/DisALEXI model to accurately estimate turbulent and radiative fluxes over this complex landscape, both at 1 Km and at 30 m spatial resolution. The application of the STARFM model gave significant improvement in capturing the spatio-temporal heterogeneity of ET over the different seasons, compared with traditional interpolation methods using MODIS and Landsat ET data. At basin scale, the physically-based distributed hydrological model WiMMed has been applied to evaluate ET estimates. This model focuses on the spatial interpolation of the meteorological variables and the physical modelling of the daily water balance at the cell and watershed scale, using daily streamflow rates measured at the watershed outlet for final comparison.

Influence of spatial resolution on precipitation simulations for the central Andes Mountains

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Trachte, Katja; Bendix, Jörg

2013-04-01

The climate of South America is highly influenced by the north-south oriented Andes Mountains. Their complex structure causes modifications of large-scale atmospheric circulations resulting in various mesoscale phenomena as well as a high variability in the local conditions. Due to their height and length the terrain generates distinctly climate conditions between the western and the eastern slopes. While in the tropical regions along the western flanks the conditions are cold and arid, the eastern slopes are dominated by warm-moist and rainy air coming from the Amazon basin. Below 35° S the situation reverses with rather semiarid conditions in the eastern part and temperate rainy climate along southern Chile. Generally, global circulation models (GCMs) describe the state of the global climate and its changes, but are disabled to capture regional or even local features due to their coarse resolution. This is particularly true in heterogeneous regions such as the Andes Mountains, where local driving features, e. g. local circulation systems, highly varies on small scales and thus, lead to a high variability of rainfall distributions. An appropriate technique to overcome this problem and to gain regional and local scale rainfall information is the dynamical downscaling of the global data using a regional climate model (RCM). The poster presents results of the evaluation of the performance of the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model over South America with special focus on the central Andes Mountains of Ecuador. A sensitivity study regarding the cumulus parametrization, microphysics, boundary layer processes and the radiation budget is conducted. With 17 simulations consisting of 16 parametrization scheme combinations and 1 default run a suitable model set-up for climate research in this region is supposed to be evaluated. The simulations were conducted in a two-way nested mode i) to examine the best physics scheme combination for the target and ii) to analyze the impact of spatial resolution and thus, the representation of the terrain on the result.

Meteorological Controls on Local and Regional Volcanic Ash Dispersal.

PubMed

Poulidis, Alexandros P; Phillips, Jeremy C; Renfrew, Ian A; Barclay, Jenni; Hogg, Andrew; Jenkins, Susanna F; Robertson, Richard; Pyle, David M

2018-05-02

Volcanic ash has the capacity to impact human health, livestock, crops and infrastructure, including international air traffic. For recent major eruptions, information on the volcanic ash plume has been combined with relatively coarse-resolution meteorological model output to provide simulations of regional ash dispersal, with reasonable success on the scale of hundreds of kilometres. However, to predict and mitigate these impacts locally, significant improvements in modelling capability are required. Here, we present results from a dynamic meteorological-ash-dispersion model configured with sufficient resolution to represent local topographic and convectively-forced flows. We focus on an archetypal volcanic setting, Soufrière, St Vincent, and use the exceptional historical records of the 1902 and 1979 eruptions to challenge our simulations. We find that the evolution and characteristics of ash deposition on St Vincent and nearby islands can be accurately simulated when the wind shear associated with the trade wind inversion and topographically-forced flows are represented. The wind shear plays a primary role and topographic flows a secondary role on ash distribution on local to regional scales. We propose a new explanation for the downwind ash deposition maxima, commonly observed in volcanic eruptions, as resulting from the detailed forcing of mesoscale meteorology on the ash plume.

A Parallel, Multi-Scale Watershed-Hydrologic-Inundation Model with Adaptively Switching Mesh for Capturing Flooding and Lake Dynamics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ji, X.; Shen, C.

2017-12-01

Flood inundation presents substantial societal hazards and also changes biogeochemistry for systems like the Amazon. It is often expensive to simulate high-resolution flood inundation and propagation in a long-term watershed-scale model. Due to the Courant-Friedrichs-Lewy (CFL) restriction, high resolution and large local flow velocity both demand prohibitively small time steps even for parallel codes. Here we develop a parallel surface-subsurface process-based model enhanced by multi-resolution meshes that are adaptively switched on or off. The high-resolution overland flow meshes are enabled only when the flood wave invades to floodplains. This model applies semi-implicit, semi-Lagrangian (SISL) scheme in solving dynamic wave equations, and with the assistant of the multi-mesh method, it also adaptively chooses the dynamic wave equation only in the area of deep inundation. Therefore, the model achieves a balance between accuracy and computational cost.

Scaling properties of multitension domain wall networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Oliveira, M. F.; Martins, C. J. A. P.

2015-02-01

We study the asymptotic scaling properties of domain wall networks with three different tensions in various cosmological epochs. We discuss the conditions under which a scale-invariant evolution of the network (which is well established for simpler walls) still applies and also consider the limiting case where defects are locally planar and the curvature is concentrated in the junctions. We present detailed quantitative predictions for scaling densities in various contexts, which should be testable by means of future high-resolution numerical simulations.

Hybrid Multiscale Simulation of Hydrologic and Biogeochemical Processes in the River-Groundwater Interaction Zone

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yang, X.; Scheibe, T. D.; Chen, X.; Hammond, G. E.; Song, X.

2015-12-01

The zone in which river water and groundwater mix plays an important role in natural ecosystems as it regulates the mixing of nutrients that control biogeochemical transformations. Subsurface heterogeneity leads to local hotspots of microbial activity that are important to system function yet difficult to resolve computationally. To address this challenge, we are testing a hybrid multiscale approach that couples models at two distinct scales, based on field research at the U. S. Department of Energy's Hanford Site. The region of interest is a 400 x 400 x 20 m macroscale domain that intersects the aquifer and the river and contains a contaminant plume. However, biogeochemical activity is high in a thin zone (mud layer, <1 m thick) immediately adjacent to the river. This microscale domain is highly heterogeneous and requires fine spatial resolution to adequately represent the effects of local mixing on reactions. It is not computationally feasible to resolve the full macroscale domain at the fine resolution needed in the mud layer, and the reaction network needed in the mud layer is much more complex than that needed in the rest of the macroscale domain. Hence, a hybrid multiscale approach is used to efficiently and accurately predict flow and reactive transport at both scales. In our simulations, models at both scales are simulated using the PFLOTRAN code. Multiple microscale simulations in dynamically defined sub-domains (fine resolution, complex reaction network) are executed and coupled with a macroscale simulation over the entire domain (coarse resolution, simpler reaction network). The objectives of the research include: 1) comparing accuracy and computing cost of the hybrid multiscale simulation with a single-scale simulation; 2) identifying hot spots of microbial activity; and 3) defining macroscopic quantities such as fluxes, residence times and effective reaction rates.

Estimating planktonic diversity through spatial dominance patterns in a model ocean.

PubMed

Soccodato, Alice; d'Ovidio, Francesco; Lévy, Marina; Jahn, Oliver; Follows, Michael J; De Monte, Silvia

2016-10-01

In the open ocean, the observation and quantification of biodiversity patterns is challenging. Marine ecosystems are indeed largely composed by microbial planktonic communities whose niches are affected by highly dynamical physico-chemical conditions, and whose observation requires advanced methods for morphological and molecular classification. Optical remote sensing offers an appealing complement to these in-situ techniques. Global-scale coverage at high spatiotemporal resolution is however achieved at the cost of restrained information on the local assemblage. Here, we use a coupled physical and ecological model ocean simulation to explore one possible metrics for comparing measures performed on such different scales. We show that a large part of the local diversity of the virtual plankton ecosystem - corresponding to what accessible by genomic methods - can be inferred from crude, but spatially extended, information - as conveyed by remote sensing. Shannon diversity of the local community is indeed highly correlated to a 'seascape' index, which quantifies the surrounding spatial heterogeneity of the most abundant functional group. The error implied in drastically reducing the resolution of the plankton community is shown to be smaller in frontal regions as well as in regions of intermediate turbulent energy. On the spatial scale of hundreds of kms, patterns of virtual plankton diversity are thus largely sustained by mixing communities that occupy adjacent niches. We provide a proof of principle that in the open ocean information on spatial variability of communities can compensate for limited local knowledge, suggesting the possibility of integrating in-situ and satellite observations to monitor biodiversity distribution at the global scale. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Extraction of the 3D local orientation of myocytes in human cardiac tissue using X-ray phase-contrast micro-tomography and multi-scale analysis.

PubMed

Varray, François; Mirea, Iulia; Langer, Max; Peyrin, Françoise; Fanton, Laurent; Magnin, Isabelle E

2017-05-01

This paper presents a methodology to access the 3D local myocyte arrangements in fresh human post-mortem heart samples. We investigated the cardiac micro-structure at a high and isotropic resolution of 3.5 µm in three dimensions using X-ray phase micro-tomography at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility. We then processed the reconstructed volumes to extract the 3D local orientation of the myocytes using a multi-scale approach with no segmentation. We created a simplified 3D model of tissue sample made of simulated myocytes with known size and orientations, to evaluate our orientation extraction method. Afterwards, we applied it to 2D histological cuts and to eight 3D left ventricular (LV) cardiac tissue samples. Then, the variation of the helix angles, from the endocardium to the epicardium, was computed at several spatial resolutions ranging from 3.6 3  mm 3 to 112 3  µm 3 . We measure an increased range of 20° to 30° from the coarsest resolution level to the finest level in the experimental samples. This result is in line with the higher values measured from histology. The displayed tractography demonstrates a rather smooth evolution of the transmural helix angle in six LV samples and a sudden discontinuity of the helix angle in two septum samples. These measurements bring a new vision of the human heart architecture from macro- to micro-scale. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The influence of model grid resolution on estimation of national scale nitrogen deposition and exceedance of critical levels

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dore, A. J.; Kryza, M.; Hall, J. R.; Hallsworth, S.; Keller, V. J. D.; Vieno, M.; Sutton, M. A.

2011-12-01

The Fine Resolution Atmospheric Multi-pollutant Exchange model (FRAME) has been applied to model the spatial distribution of nitrogen deposition and air concentration over the UK at a 1 km spatial resolution. The modelled deposition and concentration data were gridded at resolutions of 1 km, 5 km and 50 km to test the sensitivity of calculations of the exceedance of critical loads for nitrogen deposition to the deposition data resolution. The modelled concentrations of NO2 were validated by comparison with measurements from the rural sites in the national monitoring network and were found to achieve better agreement with the high resolution 1 km data. High resolution plots were found to represent a more physically realistic distribution of nitrogen air concentrations and deposition resulting from use of 1 km resolution precipitation and emissions data as compared to 5 km resolution data. Summary statistics for national scale exceedance of the critical load for nitrogen deposition were not highly sensitive to the grid resolution of the deposition data but did show greater area exceedance with coarser grid resolution due to spatial averaging of high nitrogen deposition hot spots. Local scale deposition at individual Sites of Special Scientific Interest and high precipitation upland sites was sensitive to choice of grid resolution of deposition data. Use of high resolution data tended to generate lower deposition values in sink areas for nitrogen dry deposition (Sites of Scientific Interest) and higher values in high precipitation upland areas. In areas with generally low exceedance (Scotland) and for certain vegetation types (montane), the exceedance statistics were more sensitive to model data resolution.

The influence of model grid resolution on estimation of national scale nitrogen deposition and exceedance of critical loads

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dore, A. J.; Kryza, M.; Hall, J. R.; Hallsworth, S.; Keller, V. J. D.; Vieno, M.; Sutton, M. A.

2012-05-01

The Fine Resolution Atmospheric Multi-pollutant Exchange model (FRAME) was applied to model the spatial distribution of reactive nitrogen deposition and air concentration over the United Kingdom at a 1 km spatial resolution. The modelled deposition and concentration data were gridded at resolutions of 1 km, 5 km and 50 km to test the sensitivity of calculations of the exceedance of critical loads for nitrogen deposition to the deposition data resolution. The modelled concentrations of NO2 were validated by comparison with measurements from the rural sites in the national monitoring network and were found to achieve better agreement with the high resolution 1 km data. High resolution plots were found to represent a more physically realistic distribution of reactive nitrogen air concentrations and deposition resulting from use of 1 km resolution precipitation and emissions data as compared to 5 km resolution data. Summary statistics for national scale exceedance of the critical load for nitrogen deposition were not highly sensitive to the grid resolution of the deposition data but did show greater area exceedance with coarser grid resolution due to spatial averaging of high nitrogen deposition hot spots. Local scale deposition at individual Sites of Special Scientific Interest and high precipitation upland sites was sensitive to choice of grid resolution of deposition data. Use of high resolution data tended to generate lower deposition values in sink areas for nitrogen dry deposition (Sites of Scientific Interest) and higher values in high precipitation upland areas. In areas with generally low exceedance (Scotland) and for certain vegetation types (montane), the exceedance statistics were more sensitive to model data resolution.

Scaling effects on spring phenology detections from MODIS data at multiple spatial resolutions over the contiguous United States

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Peng, Dailiang; Zhang, Xiaoyang; Zhang, Bing; Liu, Liangyun; Liu, Xinjie; Huete, Alfredo R.; Huang, Wenjiang; Wang, Siyuan; Luo, Shezhou; Zhang, Xiao; Zhang, Helin

2017-10-01

Land surface phenology (LSP) has been widely retrieved from satellite data at multiple spatial resolutions, but the spatial scaling effects on LSP detection are poorly understood. In this study, we collected enhanced vegetation index (EVI, 250 m) from collection 6 MOD13Q1 product over the contiguous United States (CONUS) in 2007 and 2008, and generated a set of multiple spatial resolution EVI data by resampling 250 m to 2 × 250 m and 3 × 250 m, 4 × 250 m, …, 35 × 250 m. These EVI time series were then used to detect the start of spring season (SOS) at various spatial resolutions. Further the SOS variation across scales was examined at each coarse resolution grid (35 × 250 m ≈ 8 km, refer to as reference grid) and ecoregion. Finally, the SOS scaling effects were associated with landscape fragment, proportion of primary land cover type, and spatial variability of seasonal greenness variation within each reference grid. The results revealed the influences of satellite spatial resolutions on SOS retrievals and the related impact factors. Specifically, SOS significantly varied lineally or logarithmically across scales although the relationship could be either positive or negative. The overall SOS values averaged from spatial resolutions between 250 m and 35 × 250 m at large ecosystem regions were generally similar with a difference less than 5 days, while the SOS values within the reference grid could differ greatly in some local areas. Moreover, the standard deviation of SOS across scales in the reference grid was less than 5 days in more than 70% of area over the CONUS, which was smaller in northeastern than in southern and western regions. The SOS scaling effect was significantly associated with heterogeneity of vegetation properties characterized using land landscape fragment, proportion of primary land cover type, and spatial variability of seasonal greenness variation, but the latter was the most important impact factor.

The spectral element method (SEM) on variable-resolution grids: evaluating grid sensitivity and resolution-aware numerical viscosity

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Guba, O.; Taylor, M. A.; Ullrich, P. A.

2014-11-27

We evaluate the performance of the Community Atmosphere Model's (CAM) spectral element method on variable-resolution grids using the shallow-water equations in spherical geometry. We configure the method as it is used in CAM, with dissipation of grid scale variance, implemented using hyperviscosity. Hyperviscosity is highly scale selective and grid independent, but does require a resolution-dependent coefficient. For the spectral element method with variable-resolution grids and highly distorted elements, we obtain the best results if we introduce a tensor-based hyperviscosity with tensor coefficients tied to the eigenvalues of the local element metric tensor. The tensor hyperviscosity is constructed so that, formore » regions of uniform resolution, it matches the traditional constant-coefficient hyperviscosity. With the tensor hyperviscosity, the large-scale solution is almost completely unaffected by the presence of grid refinement. This later point is important for climate applications in which long term climatological averages can be imprinted by stationary inhomogeneities in the truncation error. We also evaluate the robustness of the approach with respect to grid quality by considering unstructured conforming quadrilateral grids generated with a well-known grid-generating toolkit and grids generated by SQuadGen, a new open source alternative which produces lower valence nodes.« less

The spectral element method on variable resolution grids: evaluating grid sensitivity and resolution-aware numerical viscosity

DOE PAGES

Guba, O.; Taylor, M. A.; Ullrich, P. A.; ...

2014-06-25

We evaluate the performance of the Community Atmosphere Model's (CAM) spectral element method on variable resolution grids using the shallow water equations in spherical geometry. We configure the method as it is used in CAM, with dissipation of grid scale variance implemented using hyperviscosity. Hyperviscosity is highly scale selective and grid independent, but does require a resolution dependent coefficient. For the spectral element method with variable resolution grids and highly distorted elements, we obtain the best results if we introduce a tensor-based hyperviscosity with tensor coefficients tied to the eigenvalues of the local element metric tensor. The tensor hyperviscosity ismore » constructed so that for regions of uniform resolution it matches the traditional constant coefficient hyperviscsosity. With the tensor hyperviscosity the large scale solution is almost completely unaffected by the presence of grid refinement. This later point is important for climate applications where long term climatological averages can be imprinted by stationary inhomogeneities in the truncation error. We also evaluate the robustness of the approach with respect to grid quality by considering unstructured conforming quadrilateral grids generated with a well-known grid-generating toolkit and grids generated by SQuadGen, a new open source alternative which produces lower valence nodes.« less

Scaling Properties of Arctic Sea Ice Deformation in a High‐Resolution Viscous‐Plastic Sea Ice Model and in Satellite Observations

PubMed Central

Losch, Martin; Menemenlis, Dimitris

2018-01-01

Abstract Sea ice models with the traditional viscous‐plastic (VP) rheology and very small horizontal grid spacing can resolve leads and deformation rates localized along Linear Kinematic Features (LKF). In a 1 km pan‐Arctic sea ice‐ocean simulation, the small‐scale sea ice deformations are evaluated with a scaling analysis in relation to satellite observations of the Envisat Geophysical Processor System (EGPS) in the Central Arctic. A new coupled scaling analysis for data on Eulerian grids is used to determine the spatial and temporal scaling and the coupling between temporal and spatial scales. The spatial scaling of the modeled sea ice deformation implies multifractality. It is also coupled to temporal scales and varies realistically by region and season. The agreement of the spatial scaling with satellite observations challenges previous results with VP models at coarser resolution, which did not reproduce the observed scaling. The temporal scaling analysis shows that the VP model, as configured in this 1 km simulation, does not fully resolve the intermittency of sea ice deformation that is observed in satellite data. PMID:29576996

Scaling Properties of Arctic Sea Ice Deformation in a High-Resolution Viscous-Plastic Sea Ice Model and in Satellite Observations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hutter, Nils; Losch, Martin; Menemenlis, Dimitris

2018-01-01

Sea ice models with the traditional viscous-plastic (VP) rheology and very small horizontal grid spacing can resolve leads and deformation rates localized along Linear Kinematic Features (LKF). In a 1 km pan-Arctic sea ice-ocean simulation, the small-scale sea ice deformations are evaluated with a scaling analysis in relation to satellite observations of the Envisat Geophysical Processor System (EGPS) in the Central Arctic. A new coupled scaling analysis for data on Eulerian grids is used to determine the spatial and temporal scaling and the coupling between temporal and spatial scales. The spatial scaling of the modeled sea ice deformation implies multifractality. It is also coupled to temporal scales and varies realistically by region and season. The agreement of the spatial scaling with satellite observations challenges previous results with VP models at coarser resolution, which did not reproduce the observed scaling. The temporal scaling analysis shows that the VP model, as configured in this 1 km simulation, does not fully resolve the intermittency of sea ice deformation that is observed in satellite data.

Scaling Properties of Arctic Sea Ice Deformation in a High-Resolution Viscous-Plastic Sea Ice Model and in Satellite Observations.

PubMed

Hutter, Nils; Losch, Martin; Menemenlis, Dimitris

2018-01-01

Sea ice models with the traditional viscous-plastic (VP) rheology and very small horizontal grid spacing can resolve leads and deformation rates localized along Linear Kinematic Features (LKF). In a 1 km pan-Arctic sea ice-ocean simulation, the small-scale sea ice deformations are evaluated with a scaling analysis in relation to satellite observations of the Envisat Geophysical Processor System (EGPS) in the Central Arctic. A new coupled scaling analysis for data on Eulerian grids is used to determine the spatial and temporal scaling and the coupling between temporal and spatial scales. The spatial scaling of the modeled sea ice deformation implies multifractality. It is also coupled to temporal scales and varies realistically by region and season. The agreement of the spatial scaling with satellite observations challenges previous results with VP models at coarser resolution, which did not reproduce the observed scaling. The temporal scaling analysis shows that the VP model, as configured in this 1 km simulation, does not fully resolve the intermittency of sea ice deformation that is observed in satellite data.

Gyrokinetic turbulence: between idealized estimates and a detailed analysis of nonlinear energy transfers

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Teaca, Bogdan; Jenko, Frank; Told, Daniel

2017-04-01

Using large resolution numerical simulations of gyrokinetic (GK) turbulence, spanning an interval ranging from the end of the fluid scales to the electron gyroradius, we study the energy transfers in the perpendicular direction for a proton-electron plasma in a slab equilibrium magnetic geometry. The plasma parameters employed here are relevant to kinetic Alfvén wave turbulence in solar wind conditions. In addition, we use an idealized test representation for the energy transfers between two scales, to aid our understanding of the diagnostics applicable to the nonlinear cascade in an infinite inertial range. For GK turbulence, a detailed analysis of nonlinear energy transfers that account for the separation of energy exchanging scales is performed. Starting from the study of the energy cascade and the scale locality problem, we show that the general nonlocal nature of GK turbulence, captured via locality functions, contains a subset of interactions that are deemed local, are scale invariant (i.e. a sign of asymptotic locality) and possess a locality exponent that can be recovered directly from measurements on the energy cascade. It is the first time that GK turbulence is shown to possess an asymptotic local component, even if the overall locality of interactions is nonlocal. The results presented here and their implications are discussed from the perspective of previous findings reported in the literature and the idea of universality of GK turbulence.

Climate modeling with decision makers in mind

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Jones, Andrew; Calvin, Katherine; Lamarque, Jean -Francois

The need for regional- and local-scale climate information is increasing rapidly as decision makers seek to anticipate and manage a variety of context-specific climate risks over the next several decades. Furthermore, global climate models are not developed with these user needs in mind, and they typically operate at resolutions that are too coarse to provide information that could be used to support regional and local decisions.

Climate modeling with decision makers in mind

DOE PAGES

Jones, Andrew; Calvin, Katherine; Lamarque, Jean -Francois

2016-04-27

The need for regional- and local-scale climate information is increasing rapidly as decision makers seek to anticipate and manage a variety of context-specific climate risks over the next several decades. Furthermore, global climate models are not developed with these user needs in mind, and they typically operate at resolutions that are too coarse to provide information that could be used to support regional and local decisions.

Local Solid Shape

PubMed Central

Koenderink, Jan; van Doorn, Andrea

2015-01-01

Local solid shape applies to the surface curvature of small surface patches—essentially regions of approximately constant curvatures—of volumetric objects that are smooth volumetric regions in Euclidean 3-space. This should be distinguished from local shape in pictorial space. The difference is categorical. Although local solid shape has naturally been explored in haptics, results in vision are not forthcoming. We describe a simple experiment in which observers judge shape quality and magnitude of cinematographic presentations. Without prior training, observers readily use continuous shape index and Casorati curvature scales with reasonable resolution. PMID:27648217

3D electrode localization on wireless sensor networks for wearable BCI.

PubMed

Figueiredo, C P; Dias, N S; Hoffmann, K P; Mendes, P M

2008-01-01

This paper presents a solution for electrode localization on wearable BCI radio-enabled electrodes. Electrode positioning is a common issue in any electrical physiological recording. Although wireless node localization is a very active research topic, a precise method with few centimeters of range and a resolution in the order of millimeters is still to be found, since far-field measurements are very prone to error. The calculation of 3D coordinates for each electrode is based on anchorless range-based localization algorithms such as Multidimensional Scaling and Self-Positioning Algorithm. The implemented solution relies on the association of a small antenna to measure the magnetic field and a microcontroller to each electrode, which will be part of the wireless sensor network module. The implemented solution is suitable for EEG applications, namely the wearable BCI, with expected range of 20 cm and resolution of 5 mm.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Sakaguchi, Koichi; Leung, Lai-Yung R.; Zhao, Chun

This study presents a diagnosis of a multi-resolution approach using the Model for Prediction Across Scales - Atmosphere (MPAS-A) for simulating regional climate. Four AMIP experiments are conducted for 1999-2009. In the first two experiments, MPAS-A is configured using global quasi-uniform grids at 120 km and 30 km grid spacing. In the other two experiments, MPAS-A is configured using variable-resolution (VR) mesh with local refinement at 30 km over North America and South America embedded inside a quasi-uniform domain at 120 km elsewhere. Precipitation and related fields in the four simulations are examined to determine how well the VR simulationsmore » reproduce the features simulated by the globally high-resolution model in the refined domain. In previous analyses of idealized aqua-planet simulations, the characteristics of the global high-resolution simulation in moist processes only developed near the boundary of the refined region. In contrast, the AMIP simulations with VR grids are able to reproduce the high-resolution characteristics across the refined domain, particularly in South America. This indicates the importance of finely resolved lower-boundary forcing such as topography and surface heterogeneity for the regional climate, and demonstrates the ability of the MPAS-A VR to replicate the large-scale moisture transport as simulated in the quasi-uniform high-resolution model. Outside of the refined domain, some upscale effects are detected through large-scale circulation but the overall climatic signals are not significant at regional scales. Our results provide support for the multi-resolution approach as a computationally efficient and physically consistent method for modeling regional climate.« less

Diesel engine emissions and combustion predictions using advanced mixing models applicable to fuel sprays

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Abani, Neerav; Reitz, Rolf D.

2010-09-01

An advanced mixing model was applied to study engine emissions and combustion with different injection strategies ranging from multiple injections, early injection and grouped-hole nozzle injection in light and heavy duty diesel engines. The model was implemented in the KIVA-CHEMKIN engine combustion code and simulations were conducted at different mesh resolutions. The model was compared with the standard KIVA spray model that uses the Lagrangian-Drop and Eulerian-Fluid (LDEF) approach, and a Gas Jet spray model that improves predictions of liquid sprays. A Vapor Particle Method (VPM) is introduced that accounts for sub-grid scale mixing of fuel vapor and more accurately and predicts the mixing of fuel-vapor over a range of mesh resolutions. The fuel vapor is transported as particles until a certain distance from nozzle is reached where the local jet half-width is adequately resolved by the local mesh scale. Within this distance the vapor particle is transported while releasing fuel vapor locally, as determined by a weighting factor. The VPM model more accurately predicts fuel-vapor penetrations for early cycle injections and flame lift-off lengths for late cycle injections. Engine combustion computations show that as compared to the standard KIVA and Gas Jet spray models, the VPM spray model improves predictions of in-cylinder pressure, heat released rate and engine emissions of NOx, CO and soot with coarse mesh resolutions. The VPM spray model is thus a good tool for efficiently investigating diesel engine combustion with practical mesh resolutions, thereby saving computer time.

A Coastal Bay Summer Breeze Study, Part 2: High-resolution Numerical Simulation of Sea-breeze Local Influences

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Calmet, Isabelle; Mestayer, Patrice G.; van Eijk, Alexander M. J.; Herlédant, Olivier

2018-04-01

We complete the analysis of the data obtained during the experimental campaign around the semi circular bay of Quiberon, France, during two weeks in June 2006 (see Part 1). A reanalysis of numerical simulations performed with the Advanced Regional Prediction System model is presented. Three nested computational domains with increasing horizontal resolution down to 100 m, and a vertical resolution of 10 m at the lowest level, are used to reproduce the local-scale variations of the breeze close to the water surface of the bay. The Weather Research and Forecasting mesoscale model is used to assimilate the meteorological data. Comparisons of the simulations with the experimental data obtained at three sites reveal a good agreement of the flow over the bay and around the Quiberon peninsula during the daytime periods of sea-breeze development and weakening. In conditions of offshore synoptic flow, the simulations demonstrate that the semi-circular shape of the bay induces a corresponding circular shape in the offshore zones of stagnant flow preceding the sea-breeze onset, which move further offshore thereafter. The higher-resolution simulations are successful in reproducing the small-scale impacts of the peninsula and local coasts (breeze deviations, wakes, flow divergences), and in demonstrating the complexity of the breeze fields close to the surface over the bay. Our reanalysis also provides guidance for numerical simulation strategies for analyzing the structure and evolution of the near-surface breeze over a semi-circular bay, and for forecasting important flow details for use in upcoming sailing competitions.

Modular GIS Framework for National Scale Hydrologic and Hydraulic Modeling Support

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Djokic, D.; Noman, N.; Kopp, S.

2015-12-01

Geographic information systems (GIS) have been extensively used for pre- and post-processing of hydrologic and hydraulic models at multiple scales. An extensible GIS-based framework was developed for characterization of drainage systems (stream networks, catchments, floodplain characteristics) and model integration. The framework is implemented as a set of free, open source, Python tools and builds on core ArcGIS functionality and uses geoprocessing capabilities to ensure extensibility. Utilization of COTS GIS core capabilities allows immediate use of model results in a variety of existing online applications and integration with other data sources and applications.The poster presents the use of this framework to downscale global hydrologic models to local hydraulic scale and post process the hydraulic modeling results and generate floodplains at any local resolution. Flow forecasts from ECMWF or WRF-Hydro are downscaled and combined with other ancillary data for input into the RAPID flood routing model. RAPID model results (stream flow along each reach) are ingested into a GIS-based scale dependent stream network database for efficient flow utilization and visualization over space and time. Once the flows are known at localized reaches, the tools can be used to derive the floodplain depth and extent for each time step in the forecast at any available local resolution. If existing rating curves are available they can be used to relate the flow to the depth of flooding, or synthetic rating curves can be derived using the tools in the toolkit and some ancillary data/assumptions. The results can be published as time-enabled spatial services to be consumed by web applications that use floodplain information as an input. Some of the existing online presentation templates can be easily combined with available online demographic and infrastructure data to present the impact of the potential floods on the local community through simple, end user products. This framework has been successfully used in both the data rich environments as well as in locales with minimum available spatial and hydrographic data.

Comparing Building and Neighborhood-Scale Variability of CO₂ and O₃ to Inform Deployment Considerations for Low-Cost Sensor System Use.

PubMed

Collier-Oxandale, Ashley; Coffey, Evan; Thorson, Jacob; Johnston, Jill; Hannigan, Michael

2018-04-26

The increased use of low-cost air quality sensor systems, particularly by communities, calls for the further development of best-practices to ensure these systems collect usable data. One area identified as requiring more attention is that of deployment logistics, that is, how to select deployment sites and how to strategically place sensors at these sites. Given that sensors are often placed at homes and businesses, ideal placement is not always possible. Considerations such as convenience, access, aesthetics, and safety are also important. To explore this issue, we placed multiple sensor systems at an existing field site allowing us to examine both neighborhood-level and building-level variability during a concurrent period for CO₂ (a primary pollutant) and O₃ (a secondary pollutant). In line with previous studies, we found that local and transported emissions as well as thermal differences in sensor systems drive variability, particularly for high-time resolution data. While this level of variability is unlikely to affect data on larger averaging scales, this variability could impact analysis if the user is interested in high-time resolution or examining local sources. However, with thoughtful placement and thorough documentation, high-time resolution data at the neighborhood level has the potential to provide us with entirely new information on local air quality trends and emissions.

Modelling of the urban concentrations of PM2.5 on a high resolution for a period of 35 years, for the assessment of lifetime exposure and health effects

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kukkonen, Jaakko; Kangas, Leena; Kauhaniemi, Mari; Sofiev, Mikhail; Aarnio, Mia; Jaakkola, Jouni J. K.; Kousa, Anu; Karppinen, Ari

2018-06-01

Reliable and self-consistent data on air quality are needed for an extensive period of time for conducting long-term, or even lifetime health impact assessments. We have modelled the urban-scale concentrations of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area for a period of 35 years, from 1980 to 2014. The regional background concentrations were evaluated based on reanalyses of the atmospheric composition on global and European scales, using the SILAM model. The high-resolution urban computations included both the emissions originated from vehicular traffic (separately exhaust and suspension emissions) and those from small-scale combustion, and were conducted using the road network dispersion model CAR-FMI and the multiple-source Gaussian dispersion model UDM-FMI. The modelled concentrations of PM2.5 agreed fairly well with the measured data at a regional background station and at four urban measurement stations, during 1999-2014. The modelled concentration trends were also evaluated for earlier years, until 1988, using proxy analyses. There was no systematic deterioration of the agreement of predictions and data for earlier years (the 1980s and 1990s), compared with the results for more recent years (2000s and early 2010s). The local vehicular emissions were about 5 times higher in the 1980s, compared with the emissions during the latest considered years. The local small-scale combustion emissions increased slightly over time. The highest urban concentrations of PM2.5 occurred in the 1980s; these have since decreased to about to a half of the highest values. In general, regional background was the largest contribution in this area. Vehicular exhaust has been the most important local source, but the relative shares of both small-scale combustion and vehicular non-exhaust emissions have increased in time. The study has provided long-term, high-resolution concentration databases on regional and urban scales that can be used for the assessment of health effects associated with air pollution.

Global River Water Temperature Modelling at Hyper-Resolution

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wanders, N.; van Vliet, M. T. H.; Wada, Y.; Van Beek, L. P.

2017-12-01

The temperature of river water plays a crucial role in many physical, chemical and biological aquatic processes. The influence of changing water temperatures is not only felt locally, but also has regional and downstream impacts. Sectors that might be affected by sudden or gradual changes in the water temperature are: energy production, industry and recreation. Although it is very important to have detailed information on this environmental variable, high-resolution simulations of water temperature on a large scale are currently lacking. Here we present a novel hyper-resolution water temperature dataset at the global scale. We developed the 1-D energy routing model WARM, to simulate river temperature for the period 1980-2014 at 10 km and 50 km resolution. The WARM model accounts for surface water abstraction, reservoirs, riverine flooding and formation of ice, therefore enabling a realistic representation of the water temperature. The water temperature simulations have been validated against 358 river monitoring stations globally for the period 1980 to 2014. The results indicate the increase in resolution significantly improves the simulation performance with a decrease in the water temperature RMSE from 3.5°C to 3.0°C and an increase in the mean correlation of the daily discharge simulations, from R=0.4 to 0.6. We find an average global increase in water temperature of 0.22°C per decade between 1960-2014, with increasing trends towards the end of the simulations period. Strong increasing trends in maxima in the Northern Hemisphere (0.62°C per decade) and minima in the Southern Hemisphere (0.45°C per decade). Finally, we show the impact of major heatwaves and drought events on the water temperature and water availability. The high resolution not only improves the model performance; it also positively impacts the relevancy of the simulation for local and regional scale studies and impact assessments. This new global water temperature dataset could help to develop decision-support system related to water quality with increasing precision and accuracy.

Slope-scale dynamic states of rockfalls

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Agliardi, F.; Crosta, G. B.

2009-04-01

Rockfalls are common earth surface phenomena characterised by complex dynamics at the slope scale, depending on local block kinematics and slope geometry. We investigated the nature of this slope-scale dynamics by parametric 3D numerical modelling of rockfalls over synthetic slopes with different inclination, roughness and spatial resolution. Simulations were performed through an original code specifically designed for rockfall modeling, incorporating kinematic and hybrid algorithms with different damping functions available to model local energy loss by impact and pure rolling. Modelling results in terms of average velocity profiles suggest that three dynamic regimes (i.e. decelerating, steady-state and accelerating), previously recognized in the literature through laboratory experiments on granular flows, can set up at the slope scale depending on slope average inclination and roughness. Sharp changes in rock fall kinematics, including motion type and lateral dispersion of trajectories, are associated to the transition among different regimes. Associated threshold conditions, portrayed in "phase diagrams" as slope-roughness critical lines, were analysed depending on block size, impact/rebound angles, velocity and energy, and model spatial resolution. Motion in regime B (i.e. steady state) is governed by a slope-scale "viscous friction" with average velocity linearly related to the sine of slope inclination. This suggest an analogy between rockfall motion in regime B and newtonian flow, whereas in regime C (i.e. accelerating) an analogy with a dilatant flow was observed. Thus, although local behavior of single falling blocks is well described by rigid body dynamics, the slope scale dynamics of rockfalls seem to statistically approach that of granular media. Possible outcomes of these findings include a discussion of the transition from rockfall to granular flow, the evaluation of the reliability of predictive models, and the implementation of criteria for a preliminary evaluation of hazard assessment and countermeasure planning.

The High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC): 10 Years of Imaging Mars

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jaumann, R.; Neukum, G.; Tirsch, D.; Hoffmann, H.

2014-04-01

The HRSC Experiment: Imagery is the major source for our current understanding of the geologic evolution of Mars in qualitative and quantitative terms.Imaging is required to enhance our knowledge of Mars with respect to geological processes occurring on local, regional and global scales and is an essential prerequisite for detailed surface exploration. The High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) of ESA's Mars Express Mission (MEx) is designed to simultaneously map the morphology, topography, structure and geologic context of the surface of Mars as well as atmospheric phenomena [1]. The HRSC directly addresses two of the main scientific goals of the Mars Express mission: (1) High-resolution three-dimensional photogeologic surface exploration and (2) the investigation of surface-atmosphere interactions over time; and significantly supports: (3) the study of atmospheric phenomena by multi-angle coverage and limb sounding as well as (4) multispectral mapping by providing high-resolution threedimensional color context information. In addition, the stereoscopic imagery will especially characterize landing sites and their geologic context [1]. The HRSC surface resolution and the digital terrain models bridge the gap in scales between highest ground resolution images (e.g., HiRISE) and global coverage observations (e.g., Viking). This is also the case with respect to DTMs (e.g., MOLA and local high-resolution DTMs). HRSC is also used as cartographic basis to correlate between panchromatic and multispectral stereo data. The unique multi-angle imaging technique of the HRSC supports its stereo capability by providing not only a stereo triplet but also a stereo quintuplet, making the photogrammetric processing very robust [1, 3]. The capabilities for three dimensional orbital reconnaissance of the Martian surface are ideally met by HRSC making this camera unique in the international Mars exploration effort.

Multi-Scale Observation and Modelling of Energy and Matter Exchange in the Atmospheric Boundary-Layer (ScaleX Campaigns)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zeeman, M. J.; Wolz, K.; Adler, B.; Brenner, C.; De Roo, F.; Emeis, S.; Kalthoff, N.; Mauder, M.; Schäfer, K.; Wohlfahrt, G.; Zhao, P.

2016-12-01

We investigated biosphere-atmosphere exchange processes in relation to the atmospheric boundary-layer (ABL) flow in a shallow valley. Land-use heterogeneity and topography can force local atmospheric flow patterns, including local circulations. Such flow patterns can impair current techniques for the quantification and source attribution of surface-exchange fluxes due to flux-divergence, advection and decoupling. Wind field, temperature and humidity structures in the ABL were observed in high resolution with spatially distributed observations in a 1 km3 experimental domain. Remote-sensing observations of wind, temperature and particles in the ABL (Raman-lidar; RASS; ceilometer; microwave radiometer; 3D Doppler-lidar) were combined with a high-resolution network of in-situ observations that included vertical and horizontal profiles of wind, temperature, carbon dioxide, methane and water vapor concentrations. The experiments were co-located with the long-term eddy covariance (EC) observatory Fendt (DE-Fen; ICOS, TERENO) and were part of international cooperative efforts in 2015 and 2016 (the ScaleX campaigns). The gathered experimental data offers a scale-transcending insight in local flow patterns in mountainous terrain and their influence on surface-exchange fluxes of energy and matter as observed by EC and flux-gradient methodology. In addition, the data is used for validation of Large-Eddy Simulations in complex terrain using PALM-LES. Within this modelling framework, virtual measurements are conducted to further assess the importance of three-dimensional advective and horizontal turbulent transport terms.

Estimation of Fractional Plant Lifeform Cover Using Landsat and Airborne LiDAR/hyperspectral Data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Parra, A. S.; Xu, Q.; Dilts, T.; Weisberg, P.; Greenberg, J. A.

2017-12-01

Land-cover change has generally been understood as the result of local, landscape or regional-scale processes with most studies focusing on case-study landscapes or smaller regions. However, as we observe similar types of land-cover change occurring across different biomes worldwide, it becomes clear that global-scale processes such as climate change and CO2 fertilization, in interaction with local influences, are underlying drivers in land-cover change patterns. Prior studies on global land-cover change may not have had a suitable spatial, temporal and thematic resolution for allowing the identification of such patterns. Furthermore, the lack of globally consistent spatial data products also constitutes a limiting factor in evaluating both proximate and ultimate causes of land-cover change. In this study, we derived a global model for broadleaf tree, needleleaf tree, shrub, herbaceous, and "other" fractional cover using Landsat imagery. Combined LiDAR/hyperspectral data sets were used for calibration and validation of the Landsat-derived products. Spatially explicit uncertainties were also created as part of the data products. Our results highlight the potential for large-scale studies that model local and global influences on land-cover transition types and rates at fine thematic, spatial, and temporal resolutions. These spatial data products are relevant for identifying patterns in land-cover change due to underlying global-scale processes and can provide valuable insights into climatic and land-use factors determining vegetation distributions.

Turbulence sources, character, and effects in the stable boundary layer: Insights from multi-scale direct numerical simulations and new, high-resolution measurements

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fritts, Dave; Wang, Ling; Balsley, Ben; Lawrence, Dale

2013-04-01

A number of sources contribute to intermittent small-scale turbulence in the stable boundary layer (SBL). These include Kelvin-Helmholtz instability (KHI), gravity wave (GW) breaking, and fluid intrusions, among others. Indeed, such sources arise naturally in response to even very simple "multi-scale" superpositions of larger-scale GWs and smaller-scale GWs, mean flows, or fine structure (FS) throughout the atmosphere and the oceans. We describe here results of two direct numerical simulations (DNS) of these GW-FS interactions performed at high resolution and high Reynolds number that allow exploration of these turbulence sources and the character and effects of the turbulence that arises in these flows. Results include episodic turbulence generation, a broad range of turbulence scales and intensities, PDFs of dissipation fields exhibiting quasi-log-normal and more complex behavior, local turbulent mixing, and "sheet and layer" structures in potential temperature that closely resemble high-resolution measurements. Importantly, such multi-scale dynamics differ from their larger-scale, quasi-monochromatic gravity wave or quasi-horizontally homogeneous shear flow instabilities in significant ways. The ability to quantify such multi-scale dynamics with new, very high-resolution measurements is also advancing rapidly. New in-situ sensors on small, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), balloons, or tethered systems are enabling definition of SBL (and deeper) environments and turbulence structure and dissipation fields with high spatial and temporal resolution and precision. These new measurement and modeling capabilities promise significant advances in understanding small-scale instability and turbulence dynamics, in quantifying their roles in mixing, transport, and evolution of the SBL environment, and in contributing to improved parameterizations of these dynamics in mesoscale, numerical weather prediction, climate, and general circulation models. We expect such measurement and modeling capabilities to also aid in the design of new and more comprehensive future SBL measurement programs.

WRF Test on IBM BG/L:Toward High Performance Application to Regional Climate Research

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Chin, H S

The effects of climate change will mostly be felt on local to regional scales (Solomon et al., 2007). To develop better forecast skill in regional climate change, an integrated multi-scale modeling capability (i.e., a pair of global and regional climate models) becomes crucially important in understanding and preparing for the impacts of climate change on the temporal and spatial scales that are critical to California's and nation's future environmental quality and economical prosperity. Accurate knowledge of detailed local impact on the water management system from climate change requires a resolution of 1km or so. To this end, a high performancemore » computing platform at the petascale appears to be an essential tool in providing such local scale information to formulate high quality adaptation strategies for local and regional climate change. As a key component of this modeling system at LLNL, the Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) model is implemented and tested on the IBM BG/L machine. The objective of this study is to examine the scaling feature of WRF on BG/L for the optimal performance, and to assess the numerical accuracy of WRF solution on BG/L.« less

NUMERICAL SIMULATIONS OF CORONAL HEATING THROUGH FOOTPOINT BRAIDING

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Hansteen, V.; Pontieu, B. De; Carlsson, M.

2015-10-01

Advanced three-dimensional (3D) radiative MHD simulations now reproduce many properties of the outer solar atmosphere. When including a domain from the convection zone into the corona, a hot chromosphere and corona are self-consistently maintained. Here we study two realistic models, with different simulated areas, magnetic field strength and topology, and numerical resolution. These are compared in order to characterize the heating in the 3D-MHD simulations which self-consistently maintains the structure of the atmosphere. We analyze the heating at both large and small scales and find that heating is episodic and highly structured in space, but occurs along loop-shaped structures, andmore » moves along with the magnetic field. On large scales we find that the heating per particle is maximal near the transition region and that widely distributed opposite-polarity field in the photosphere leads to a greater heating scale height in the corona. On smaller scales, heating is concentrated in current sheets, the thicknesses of which are set by the numerical resolution. Some current sheets fragment in time, this process occurring more readily in the higher-resolution model leading to spatially highly intermittent heating. The large-scale heating structures are found to fade in less than about five minutes, while the smaller, local, heating shows timescales of the order of two minutes in one model and one minutes in the other, higher-resolution, model.« less

A Spatial Framework to Map Heat Health Risks at Multiple Scales.

PubMed

Ho, Hung Chak; Knudby, Anders; Huang, Wei

2015-12-18

In the last few decades extreme heat events have led to substantial excess mortality, most dramatically in Central Europe in 2003, in Russia in 2010, and even in typically cool locations such as Vancouver, Canada, in 2009. Heat-related morbidity and mortality is expected to increase over the coming centuries as the result of climate-driven global increases in the severity and frequency of extreme heat events. Spatial information on heat exposure and population vulnerability may be combined to map the areas of highest risk and focus mitigation efforts there. However, a mismatch in spatial resolution between heat exposure and vulnerability data can cause spatial scale issues such as the Modifiable Areal Unit Problem (MAUP). We used a raster-based model to integrate heat exposure and vulnerability data in a multi-criteria decision analysis, and compared it to the traditional vector-based model. We then used the Getis-Ord G(i) index to generate spatially smoothed heat risk hotspot maps from fine to coarse spatial scales. The raster-based model allowed production of maps at spatial resolution, more description of local-scale heat risk variability, and identification of heat-risk areas not identified with the vector-based approach. Spatial smoothing with the Getis-Ord G(i) index produced heat risk hotspots from local to regional spatial scale. The approach is a framework for reducing spatial scale issues in future heat risk mapping, and for identifying heat risk hotspots at spatial scales ranging from the block-level to the municipality level.

Resolving the fine-scale structure in turbulent Rayleigh-Bénard convection

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Scheel, Janet D.; Emran, Mohammad S.; Schumacher, Jörg

2013-11-01

We present high-resolution direct numerical simulation studies of turbulent Rayleigh-Bénard convection in a closed cylindrical cell with an aspect ratio of one. The focus of our analysis is on the finest scales of convective turbulence, in particular the statistics of the kinetic energy and thermal dissipation rates in the bulk and the whole cell. The fluctuations of the energy dissipation field can directly be translated into a fluctuating local dissipation scale which is found to develop ever finer fluctuations with increasing Rayleigh number. The range of these scales as well as the probability of high-amplitude dissipation events decreases with increasing Prandtl number. In addition, we examine the joint statistics of the two dissipation fields and the consequences of high-amplitude events. We have also investigated the convergence properties of our spectral element method and have found that both dissipation fields are very sensitive to insufficient resolution. We demonstrate that global transport properties, such as the Nusselt number, and the energy balances are partly insensitive to insufficient resolution and yield correct results even when the dissipation fields are under-resolved. Our present numerical framework is also compared with high-resolution simulations which use a finite difference method. For most of the compared quantities the agreement is found to be satisfactory.

Effect of spatial averaging on multifractal properties of meteorological time series

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hoffmann, Holger; Baranowski, Piotr; Krzyszczak, Jaromir; Zubik, Monika

2016-04-01

Introduction The process-based models for large-scale simulations require input of agro-meteorological quantities that are often in the form of time series of coarse spatial resolution. Therefore, the knowledge about their scaling properties is fundamental for transferring locally measured fluctuations to larger scales and vice-versa. However, the scaling analysis of these quantities is complicated due to the presence of localized trends and non-stationarities. Here we assess how spatially aggregating meteorological data to coarser resolutions affects the data's temporal scaling properties. While it is known that spatial aggregation may affect spatial data properties (Hoffmann et al., 2015), it is unknown how it affects temporal data properties. Therefore, the objective of this study was to characterize the aggregation effect (AE) with regard to both temporal and spatial input data properties considering scaling properties (i.e. statistical self-similarity) of the chosen agro-meteorological time series through multifractal detrended fluctuation analysis (MFDFA). Materials and Methods Time series coming from years 1982-2011 were spatially averaged from 1 to 10, 25, 50 and 100 km resolution to assess the impact of spatial aggregation. Daily minimum, mean and maximum air temperature (2 m), precipitation, global radiation, wind speed and relative humidity (Zhao et al., 2015) were used. To reveal the multifractal structure of the time series, we used the procedure described in Baranowski et al. (2015). The diversity of the studied multifractals was evaluated by the parameters of time series spectra. In order to analyse differences in multifractal properties to 1 km resolution grids, data of coarser resolutions was disaggregated to 1 km. Results and Conclusions Analysing the spatial averaging on multifractal properties we observed that spatial patterns of the multifractal spectrum (MS) of all meteorological variables differed from 1 km grids and MS-parameters were biased by -29.1 % (precipitation; width of MS) up to >4 % (min. Temperature, Radiation; asymmetry of MS). Also, the spatial variability of MS parameters was strongly affected at the highest aggregation (100 km). Obtained results confirm that spatial data aggregation may strongly affect temporal scaling properties. This should be taken into account when upscaling for large-scale studies. Acknowledgements The study was conducted within FACCE MACSUR. Please see Baranowski et al. (2015) for details on funding. References Baranowski, P., Krzyszczak, J., Sławiński, C. et al. (2015). Climate Research 65, 39-52. Hoffman, H., G. Zhao, L.G.J. Van Bussel et al. (2015). Climate Research 65, 53-69. Zhao, G., Siebert, S., Rezaei E. et al. (2015). Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 200, 156-171.

Development and application of a high resolution hybrid modelling system for the evaluation of urban air quality

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pepe, N.; Pirovano, G.; Lonati, G.; Balzarini, A.; Toppetti, A.; Riva, G. M.; Bedogni, M.

2016-09-01

A hybrid modelling system (HMS) was developed to provide hourly concentrations at the urban local scale. The system is based on the combination of a meteorological model (WRF), a chemical and transport eulerian model (CAMx), which computes concentration levels over the regional domains, and a lagrangian dispersion model (AUSTAL2000), accounting for dispersion phenomena within the urban area due to local emission sources; a source apportionment algorithm is also included in the HMS in order to avoid the double counting of local emissions. The HMS was applied over a set of nested domains, the innermost covering a 1.6 × 1.6 km2 area in Milan city center with 20 m grid resolution, for NOX simulation in 2010. For this paper the innermost domain was defined as ;local;, excluding usual definition of urban areas. WRF model captured the overall evolution of the main meteorological features, except for some very stagnant situations, thus influencing the subsequent performance of regional scale model CAMx. Indeed, CAMx was able to reproduce the spatial and temporal evolution of NOX concentration over the regional domain, except a few episodes, when observed concentrations were higher than 100 ppb. The local scale model AUSTAL2000 provided high-resolution concentration fields that sensibly mirrored the road and traffic pattern in the urban domain. Therefore, the first important outcome of the work is that the application of the hybrid modelling system allowed a thorough and consistent description of urban air quality. This result represents a relevant starting point for future evaluation of pollution exposure within an urban context. However, the overall performance of the HMS did not provide remarkable improvements with respect to stand-alone CAMx at the two only monitoring sites in Milan city center. HMS results were characterized by a smaller average bias, that improved about 6-8 ppb corresponding to 12-13% of the observed concentration, but by a lower correlation, that worsened around 1-3% (e.g. from 0.84 to 0.81 at Senato site), due to the concentration peaks produced by AUSTAL2000 during nighttime stable conditions. Additionally, the HMS results showed that it was unable to correctly take into account some local scale features (e.g. urban canyon effects), pointing out that the emission spatialization and time modulation criteria, especially those from road traffic, need further improvement. Nevertheless, a second important outcome of the work is that some of the most relevant discrepancies between modelled and observed concentrations were not related to the horizontal resolution of the dispersion models but to larger scale meteorological features not captured by the meteorological model, especially during winter period. Finally, the estimated contribution of the local emission sources accounted on the annual average for about 25-30% of the computed concentration levels in the innermost urban domain. This confirmed that the whole Milan urban area as well as the outside background areas, accounting all sources outside the innermost domain, play a key role on air quality. The result suggests that strictly local emission policies could have a limited and indecisive effect on urban air quality, although this finding could be partially biased by model underestimation of the observed concentration.

Microcontact printing of self-assembled monolayers to pattern the light-emission of polymeric light-emitting diodes

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Brondijk, J. J.; Li, X.; Akkerman, H. B.; Blom, P. W. M.; de Boer, B.

2009-04-01

By patterning a self-assembled monolayer (SAM) of thiolated molecules with opposing dipole moments on a gold anode of a polymer light-emitting diode (PLED), the charge injection and, therefore, the light-emission of the device can be controlled with a micrometer-scale resolution. Gold surfaces were modified with SAMs based on alkanethiols and perfluorinated alkanethiols, applied by microcontact printing, and their work functions have been measured. The molecules form a chemisorbed monolayer of only ˜1.5 nm on the gold surface, thereby locally changing the work function of the metal. Kelvin probe measurements show that the local work function can be tuned from 4.3 to 5.5 eV, which implies that this anode can be used as a hole blocking electrode or as a hole injecting electrode, respectively, in PLEDs based on poly( p-phenylene vinylene) (PPV) derivatives. By microcontact printing of SAMs with opposing dipole moments, the work function was locally modified and the charge injection in the PLED could be controlled down to the micrometer length scale. Consequently, the local light-emission exhibits a high contrast. Microcontact printing of SAMs is a simple and inexpensive method to pattern, with micrometer resolution, the light-emission for low-end applications like static displays.

Estimating Vegetation Rainfall Interception Using Remote Sensing Observations at Very High Resolution

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cui, Y.; Zhao, P.; Hong, Y.; Fan, W.; Yan, B.; Xie, H.

2017-12-01

Abstract: As an important compont of evapotranspiration, vegetation rainfall interception is the proportion of gross rainfall that is intercepted, stored and subsequently evaporated from all parts of vegetation during or following rainfall. Accurately quantifying the vegetation rainfall interception at a high resolution is critical for rainfall-runoff modeling and flood forecasting, and is also essential for understanding its further impact on local, regional, and even global water cycle dynamics. In this study, the Remote Sensing-based Gash model (RS-Gash model) is developed based on a modified Gash model for interception loss estimation using remote sensing observations at the regional scale, and has been applied and validated in the upper reach of the Heihe River Basin of China for different types of vegetation. To eliminate the scale error and the effect of mixed pixels, the RS-Gash model is applied at a fine scale of 30 m with the high resolution vegetation area index retrieved by using the unified model of bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF-U) for the vegetation canopy. Field validation shows that the RMSE and R2 of the interception ratio are 3.7% and 0.9, respectively, indicating the model's strong stability and reliability at fine scale. The temporal variation of vegetation rainfall interception loss and its relationship with precipitation are further investigated. In summary, the RS-Gash model has demonstrated its effectiveness and reliability in estimating vegetation rainfall interception. When compared to the coarse resolution results, the application of this model at 30-m fine resolution is necessary to resolve the scaling issues as shown in this study. Keywords: rainfall interception; remote sensing; RS-Gash analytical model; high resolution

Circulation and multiple-scale variability in the Southern California Bight

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dong, Changming; Idica, Eileen Y.; McWilliams, James C.

2009-09-01

The oceanic circulation in the Southern California Bight (SCB) is influenced by the large-scale California Current offshore, tropical remote forcing through the coastal wave guide alongshore, and local atmospheric forcing. The region is characterized by local complexity in the topography and coastline. All these factors engender variability in the circulation on interannual, seasonal, and intraseasonal time scales. This study applies the Regional Oceanic Modeling System (ROMS) to the SCB circulation and its multiple-scale variability. The model is configured in three levels of nested grids with the parent grid covering the whole US West Coast. The first child grid covers a large southern domain, and the third grid zooms in on the SCB region. The three horizontal grid resolutions are 20 km, 6.7 km, and 1 km, respectively. The external forcings are momentum, heat, and freshwater flux at the surface and adaptive nudging to gyre-scale SODA reanalysis fields at the boundaries. The momentum flux is from a three-hourly reanalysis mesoscale MM5 wind with a 6 km resolution for the finest grid in the SCB. The oceanic model starts in an equilibrium state from a multiple-year cyclical climatology run, and then it is integrated from years 1996 through 2003. In this paper, the 8-year simulation at the 1 km resolution is analyzed and assessed against extensive observational data: High-Frequency (HF) radar data, current meters, Acoustic Doppler Current Profilers (ADCP) data, hydrographic measurements, tide gauges, drifters, altimeters, and radiometers. The simulation shows that the domain-scale surface circulation in the SCB is characterized by the Southern California Cyclonic Gyre, comprised of the offshore equatorward California Current System and the onshore poleward Southern California Countercurrent. The simulation also exhibits three subdomain-scale, persistent ( i.e., standing), cyclonic eddies related to the local topography and wind forcing: the Santa Barbara Channel Eddy, the Central-SCB Eddy, and the Catalina-Clemente Eddy. Comparisons with observational data reveal that ROMS reproduces a realistic mean state of the SCB oceanic circulation, as well as its interannual (mainly as a local manifestation of an ENSO event), seasonal, and intraseasonal (eddy-scale) variations. We find high correlations of the wind curl with both the alongshore pressure gradient (APG) and the eddy kinetic energy level in their variations on time scales of seasons and longer. The geostrophic currents are much stronger than the wind-driven Ekman flows at the surface. The model exhibits intrinsic eddy variability with strong topographically related heterogeneity, westward-propagating Rossby waves, and poleward-propagating coastally-trapped waves (albeit with smaller amplitude than observed due to missing high-frequency variations in the southern boundary conditions).

Extraction of texture features with a multiresolution neural network

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lepage, Richard; Laurendeau, Denis; Gagnon, Roger A.

1992-09-01

Texture is an important surface characteristic. Many industrial materials such as wood, textile, or paper are best characterized by their texture. Detection of defaults occurring on such materials or classification for quality control anD matching can be carried out through careful texture analysis. A system for the classification of pieces of wood used in the furniture industry is proposed. This paper is concerned with a neural network implementation of the features extraction and classification components of the proposed system. Texture appears differently depending at which spatial scale it is observed. A complete description of a texture thus implies an analysis at several spatial scales. We propose a compact pyramidal representation of the input image for multiresolution analysis. The feature extraction system is implemented on a multilayer artificial neural network. Each level of the pyramid, which is a representation of the input image at a given spatial resolution scale, is mapped into a layer of the neural network. A full resolution texture image is input at the base of the pyramid and a representation of the texture image at multiple resolutions is generated by the feedforward pyramid structure of the neural network. The receptive field of each neuron at a given pyramid level is preprogrammed as a discrete Gaussian low-pass filter. Meaningful characteristics of the textured image must be extracted if a good resolving power of the classifier must be achieved. Local dominant orientation is the principal feature which is extracted from the textured image. Local edge orientation is computed with a Sobel mask at four orientation angles (multiple of (pi) /4). The resulting intrinsic image, that is, the local dominant orientation image, is fed to the texture classification neural network. The classification network is a three-layer feedforward back-propagation neural network.

Validating high-resolution California coastal flood modeling with Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar (UAVSAR)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

O'Neill, A.

2015-12-01

The Coastal Storm Modeling System (CoSMoS) is a numerical modeling scheme used to predict coastal flooding due to sea level rise and storms influenced by climate change, currently in use in central California and in development for Southern California (Pt. Conception to the Mexican border). Using a framework of circulation, wave, analytical, and Bayesian models at different geographic scales, high-resolution results are translated as relevant hazards projections at the local scale that include flooding, wave heights, coastal erosion, shoreline change, and cliff failures. Ready access to accurate, high-resolution coastal flooding data is critical for further validation and refinement of CoSMoS and improved coastal hazard projections. High-resolution Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar (UAVSAR) provides an exceptional data source as appropriately-timed flights during extreme tides or storms provide a geographically-extensive method for determining areas of inundation and flooding extent along expanses of complex and varying coastline. Landward flood extents are numerically identified via edge-detection in imagery from single flights, and can also be ascertained via change detection using additional flights and imagery collected during average wave/tide conditions. The extracted flooding positions are compared against CoSMoS results for similar tide, water level, and storm-intensity conditions, allowing for robust testing and validation of CoSMoS and providing essential feedback for supporting regional and local model improvement.

Assessing data assimilation and model boundary error strategies for high resolution ocean model downscaling in the Northern North Sea

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sandvig Mariegaard, Jesper; Huiban, Méven Robin; Tornfeldt Sørensen, Jacob; Andersson, Henrik

2017-04-01

Determining the optimal domain size and associated position of open boundaries in local high-resolution downscaling ocean models is often difficult. As an important input data set for downscaling ocean modelling, the European Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service (CMEMS) provides baroclinic initial and boundary conditions for local ocean models. Tidal dynamics is often neglected in CMEMS services at large scale but tides are generally crucial for coastal ocean dynamics. To address this need, tides can be superposed via Flather (1976) boundary conditions and the combined flow downscaled using unstructured mesh. The surge component is also only partially represented in selected CMEMS products and must be modelled inside the domain and modelled independently and superposed if the domain becomes too small to model the effect in the downscaling model. The tide and surge components can generally be improved by assimilating water level from tide gauge and altimetry data. An intrinsic part of the problem is to find the limitations of local scale data assimilation and the requirement for consistency between the larger scale ocean models and the local scale assimilation methodologies. This contribution investigates the impact of domain size and associated positions of open boundaries with and without data assimilation of water level. We have used the baroclinic ocean model, MIKE 3 FM, and its newly re-factored built-in data assimilation package. We consider boundary conditions of salinity, temperature, water level and depth varying currents from the Global CMEMS 1/4 degree resolution model from 2011, where in situ ADCP velocity data is available for validation. We apply data assimilation of in-situ tide gauge water levels and along track altimetry surface elevation data from selected satellites. The MIKE 3 FM data assimilation model which use the Ensemble Kalman filter have recently been parallelized with MPI allowing for much larger applications running on HPC. The success of the downscaling is to a large degree determined by the ability to realistically describe and dynamically model the errors on the open boundaries. Three different sizes of downscaling model domains in the Northern North Sea have been examined and two different strategies for modelling the uncertainties on the open Flather boundaries are investigated. The combined downscaling and local data assimilation skill is assessed and the impact on recommended domain size is compared to pure downscaling.

Super-resolution imaging of multiple cells by optimized flat-field epi-illumination

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Douglass, Kyle M.; Sieben, Christian; Archetti, Anna; Lambert, Ambroise; Manley, Suliana

2016-11-01

Biological processes are inherently multi-scale, and supramolecular complexes at the nanoscale determine changes at the cellular scale and beyond. Single-molecule localization microscopy (SMLM) techniques have been established as important tools for studying cellular features with resolutions of the order of around 10 nm. However, in their current form these modalities are limited by a highly constrained field of view (FOV) and field-dependent image resolution. Here, we develop a low-cost microlens array (MLA)-based epi-illumination system—flat illumination for field-independent imaging (FIFI)—that can efficiently and homogeneously perform simultaneous imaging of multiple cells with nanoscale resolution. The optical principle of FIFI, which is an extension of the Köhler integrator, is further elucidated and modelled with a new, free simulation package. We demonstrate FIFI's capabilities by imaging multiple COS-7 and bacteria cells in 100 × 100 μm2 SMLM images—more than quadrupling the size of a typical FOV and producing near-gigapixel-sized images of uniformly high quality.

Utilization of Large Scale Surface Models for Detailed Visibility Analyses

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Caha, J.; Kačmařík, M.

2017-11-01

This article demonstrates utilization of large scale surface models with small spatial resolution and high accuracy, acquired from Unmanned Aerial Vehicle scanning, for visibility analyses. The importance of large scale data for visibility analyses on the local scale, where the detail of the surface model is the most defining factor, is described. The focus is not only the classic Boolean visibility, that is usually determined within GIS, but also on so called extended viewsheds that aims to provide more information about visibility. The case study with examples of visibility analyses was performed on river Opava, near the Ostrava city (Czech Republic). The multiple Boolean viewshed analysis and global horizon viewshed were calculated to determine most prominent features and visibility barriers of the surface. Besides that, the extended viewshed showing angle difference above the local horizon, which describes angular height of the target area above the barrier, is shown. The case study proved that large scale models are appropriate data source for visibility analyses on local level. The discussion summarizes possible future applications and further development directions of visibility analyses.

Hierarchical algorithms for modeling the ocean on hierarchical architectures

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hill, C. N.

2012-12-01

This presentation will describe an approach to using accelerator/co-processor technology that maps hierarchical, multi-scale modeling techniques to an underlying hierarchical hardware architecture. The focus of this work is on making effective use of both CPU and accelerator/co-processor parts of a system, for large scale ocean modeling. In the work, a lower resolution basin scale ocean model is locally coupled to multiple, "embedded", limited area higher resolution sub-models. The higher resolution models execute on co-processor/accelerator hardware and do not interact directly with other sub-models. The lower resolution basin scale model executes on the system CPU(s). The result is a multi-scale algorithm that aligns with hardware designs in the co-processor/accelerator space. We demonstrate this approach being used to substitute explicit process models for standard parameterizations. Code for our sub-models is implemented through a generic abstraction layer, so that we can target multiple accelerator architectures with different programming environments. We will present two application and implementation examples. One uses the CUDA programming environment and targets GPU hardware. This example employs a simple non-hydrostatic two dimensional sub-model to represent vertical motion more accurately. The second example uses a highly threaded three-dimensional model at high resolution. This targets a MIC/Xeon Phi like environment and uses sub-models as a way to explicitly compute sub-mesoscale terms. In both cases the accelerator/co-processor capability provides extra compute cycles that allow improved model fidelity for little or no extra wall-clock time cost.

A single-phase elastic hyperbolic metamaterial with anisotropic mass density.

PubMed

Zhu, R; Chen, Y Y; Wang, Y S; Hu, G K; Huang, G L

2016-06-01

Wave propagation can be manipulated at a deep subwavelength scale through the locally resonant metamaterial that possesses unusual effective material properties. Hyperlens due to metamaterial's anomalous anisotropy can lead to superior-resolution imaging. In this paper, a single-phase elastic metamaterial with strongly anisotropic effective mass density has been designed. The proposed metamaterial utilizes the independently adjustable locally resonant motions of the subwavelength-scale microstructures along the two principal directions. High anisotropy in the effective mass densities obtained by the numerical-based effective medium theory can be found and even have opposite signs. For practical applications, shunted piezoelectric elements are introduced into the microstructure to tailor the effective mass density in a broad frequency range. Finally, to validate the design, an elastic hyperlens made of the single-phase hyperbolic metamaterial is proposed with subwavelength longitudinal wave imaging illustrated numerically. The proposed single-phase hyperbolic metamaterial has many promising applications for high resolution damage imaging in nondestructive evaluation and structural health monitoring.

Imaging of forced-imbibition in carbonate rocks using synchrotron X-ray micro-tomography

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Singh, K.; Menke, H. P.; Andrew, M. G.; Lin, Q.; Saif, T.; Al-Khulaifi, Y.; Reynolds, C. A.; Bijeljic, B.; Rau, C.; Blunt, M. J.

2016-12-01

We have investigated the pore-scale behavior of brine-oil systems and oil trapping during forced-imbibition in a water-wet carbonate rock in a capillary-dominated flow regime at reservoir pressure conditions. To capture the dynamics of the brine-oil front progression and snap-off process, real-time tomograms with a time resolution of 38 s (24 s for imaging and 14 s for recording the data) and a spatial resolution of 3.28 µm were acquired at Diamond Light Source (UK). The data were first analyzed at global scale (complete imaged rock) for overall front behavior. From the saturation profiles, we obtain the location of the tail of the desaturation front that progresses with a velocity of 13 µm/min. This velocity is smaller than average flow velocity 16.88 µm/min, which explains why it needs slightly more than 1 pore volume of brine injection to reach the residual saturation of oil in a water-wet rock. The data were further analyzed at local scale to investigate the pore-scale mechanisms of oil trapping during brine flooding. We isolated various trapping events which resulted in the creation of discrete oil ganglia occupying one to several pore bodies. We perform pore-scale curvature analysis of brine-oil interfaces to obtain local capillary pressure that will be related to the shape and the size of throats in which ganglia were trapped.

Spatial and radiometric characterization of multi-spectrum satellite images through multi-fractal analysis

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Alonso, Carmelo; Tarquis, Ana M.; Zúñiga, Ignacio; Benito, Rosa M.

2017-03-01

Several studies have shown that vegetation indexes can be used to estimate root zone soil moisture. Earth surface images, obtained by high-resolution satellites, presently give a lot of information on these indexes, based on the data of several wavelengths. Because of the potential capacity for systematic observations at various scales, remote sensing technology extends the possible data archives from the present time to several decades back. Because of this advantage, enormous efforts have been made by researchers and application specialists to delineate vegetation indexes from local scale to global scale by applying remote sensing imagery. In this work, four band images have been considered, which are involved in these vegetation indexes, and were taken by satellites Ikonos-2 and Landsat-7 of the same geographic location, to study the effect of both spatial (pixel size) and radiometric (number of bits coding the image) resolution on these wavelength bands as well as two vegetation indexes: the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and the Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI). In order to do so, a multi-fractal analysis of these multi-spectral images was applied in each of these bands and the two indexes derived. The results showed that spatial resolution has a similar scaling effect in the four bands, but radiometric resolution has a larger influence in blue and green bands than in red and near-infrared bands. The NDVI showed a higher sensitivity to the radiometric resolution than EVI. Both were equally affected by the spatial resolution. From both factors, the spatial resolution has a major impact in the multi-fractal spectrum for all the bands and the vegetation indexes. This information should be taken in to account when vegetation indexes based on different satellite sensors are obtained.

High-resolution Mapping of Forest Carbon Stocks in the Colombian Amazon

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Asner, G. P.; Clark, J. K.; Mascaro, J.; Galindo García, G. A.; Chadwick, K. D.; Navarrete Encinales, D. A.; Paez-Acosta, G.; Cabrera Montenegro, E.; Kennedy-Bowdoin, T.; Duque, Á.; Balaji, A.; von Hildebrand, P.; Maatoug, L.; Bernal, J. F. Phillips; Knapp, D. E.; García Dávila, M. C.; Jacobson, J.; Ordóñez, M. F.

2012-03-01

High-resolution mapping of tropical forest carbon stocks can assist forest management and improve implementation of large-scale carbon retention and enhancement programs. Previous high-resolution approaches have relied on field plot and/or Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) samples of aboveground carbon density, which are typically upscaled to larger geographic areas using stratification maps. Such efforts often rely on detailed vegetation maps to stratify the region for sampling, but existing tropical forest maps are often too coarse and field plots too sparse for high resolution carbon assessments. We developed a top-down approach for high-resolution carbon mapping in a 16.5 million ha region (>40 %) of the Colombian Amazon - a remote landscape seldom documented. We report on three advances for large-scale carbon mapping: (i) employing a universal approach to airborne LiDAR-calibration with limited field data; (ii) quantifying environmental controls over carbon densities; and (iii) developing stratification- and regression-based approaches for scaling up to regions outside of LiDAR coverage. We found that carbon stocks are predicted by a combination of satellite-derived elevation, fractional canopy cover and terrain ruggedness, allowing upscaling of the LiDAR samples to the full 16.5 million ha region. LiDAR-derived carbon mapping samples had 14.6 % uncertainty at 1 ha resolution, and regional maps based on stratification and regression approaches had 25.6 % and 29.6 % uncertainty, respectively, in any given hectare. High-resolution approaches with reported local-scale uncertainties will provide the most confidence for monitoring changes in tropical forest carbon stocks. Improved confidence will allow resource managers and decision-makers to more rapidly and effectively implement actions that better conserve and utilize forests in tropical regions.

A self-organizing Lagrangian particle method for adaptive-resolution advection-diffusion simulations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Reboux, Sylvain; Schrader, Birte; Sbalzarini, Ivo F.

2012-05-01

We present a novel adaptive-resolution particle method for continuous parabolic problems. In this method, particles self-organize in order to adapt to local resolution requirements. This is achieved by pseudo forces that are designed so as to guarantee that the solution is always well sampled and that no holes or clusters develop in the particle distribution. The particle sizes are locally adapted to the length scale of the solution. Differential operators are consistently evaluated on the evolving set of irregularly distributed particles of varying sizes using discretization-corrected operators. The method does not rely on any global transforms or mapping functions. After presenting the method and its error analysis, we demonstrate its capabilities and limitations on a set of two- and three-dimensional benchmark problems. These include advection-diffusion, the Burgers equation, the Buckley-Leverett five-spot problem, and curvature-driven level-set surface refinement.

High-resolution time-frequency representation of EEG data using multi-scale wavelets

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, Yang; Cui, Wei-Gang; Luo, Mei-Lin; Li, Ke; Wang, Lina

2017-09-01

An efficient time-varying autoregressive (TVAR) modelling scheme that expands the time-varying parameters onto the multi-scale wavelet basis functions is presented for modelling nonstationary signals and with applications to time-frequency analysis (TFA) of electroencephalogram (EEG) signals. In the new parametric modelling framework, the time-dependent parameters of the TVAR model are locally represented by using a novel multi-scale wavelet decomposition scheme, which can allow the capability to capture the smooth trends as well as track the abrupt changes of time-varying parameters simultaneously. A forward orthogonal least square (FOLS) algorithm aided by mutual information criteria are then applied for sparse model term selection and parameter estimation. Two simulation examples illustrate that the performance of the proposed multi-scale wavelet basis functions outperforms the only single-scale wavelet basis functions or Kalman filter algorithm for many nonstationary processes. Furthermore, an application of the proposed method to a real EEG signal demonstrates the new approach can provide highly time-dependent spectral resolution capability.

Multi-scale approaches for high-speed imaging and analysis of large neural populations

PubMed Central

Ahrens, Misha B.; Yuste, Rafael; Peterka, Darcy S.; Paninski, Liam

2017-01-01

Progress in modern neuroscience critically depends on our ability to observe the activity of large neuronal populations with cellular spatial and high temporal resolution. However, two bottlenecks constrain efforts towards fast imaging of large populations. First, the resulting large video data is challenging to analyze. Second, there is an explicit tradeoff between imaging speed, signal-to-noise, and field of view: with current recording technology we cannot image very large neuronal populations with simultaneously high spatial and temporal resolution. Here we describe multi-scale approaches for alleviating both of these bottlenecks. First, we show that spatial and temporal decimation techniques based on simple local averaging provide order-of-magnitude speedups in spatiotemporally demixing calcium video data into estimates of single-cell neural activity. Second, once the shapes of individual neurons have been identified at fine scale (e.g., after an initial phase of conventional imaging with standard temporal and spatial resolution), we find that the spatial/temporal resolution tradeoff shifts dramatically: after demixing we can accurately recover denoised fluorescence traces and deconvolved neural activity of each individual neuron from coarse scale data that has been spatially decimated by an order of magnitude. This offers a cheap method for compressing this large video data, and also implies that it is possible to either speed up imaging significantly, or to “zoom out” by a corresponding factor to image order-of-magnitude larger neuronal populations with minimal loss in accuracy or temporal resolution. PMID:28771570

Uniform competency-based local feature extraction for remote sensing images

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sedaghat, Amin; Mohammadi, Nazila

2018-01-01

Local feature detectors are widely used in many photogrammetry and remote sensing applications. The quantity and distribution of the local features play a critical role in the quality of the image matching process, particularly for multi-sensor high resolution remote sensing image registration. However, conventional local feature detectors cannot extract desirable matched features either in terms of the number of correct matches or the spatial and scale distribution in multi-sensor remote sensing images. To address this problem, this paper proposes a novel method for uniform and robust local feature extraction for remote sensing images, which is based on a novel competency criterion and scale and location distribution constraints. The proposed method, called uniform competency (UC) local feature extraction, can be easily applied to any local feature detector for various kinds of applications. The proposed competency criterion is based on a weighted ranking process using three quality measures, including robustness, spatial saliency and scale parameters, which is performed in a multi-layer gridding schema. For evaluation, five state-of-the-art local feature detector approaches, namely, scale-invariant feature transform (SIFT), speeded up robust features (SURF), scale-invariant feature operator (SFOP), maximally stable extremal region (MSER) and hessian-affine, are used. The proposed UC-based feature extraction algorithms were successfully applied to match various synthetic and real satellite image pairs, and the results demonstrate its capability to increase matching performance and to improve the spatial distribution. The code to carry out the UC feature extraction is available from href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317956777_UC-Feature_Extraction.

Millimeter-scale epileptiform spike propagation patterns and their relationship to seizures

PubMed Central

Vanleer, Ann C; Blanco, Justin A; Wagenaar, Joost B; Viventi, Jonathan; Contreras, Diego; Litt, Brian

2016-01-01

Objective Current mapping of epileptic networks in patients prior to epilepsy surgery utilizes electrode arrays with sparse spatial sampling (∼1.0 cm inter-electrode spacing). Recent research demonstrates that sub-millimeter, cortical-column-scale domains have a role in seizure generation that may be clinically significant. We use high-resolution, active, flexible surface electrode arrays with 500 μm inter-electrode spacing to explore epileptiform local field potential spike propagation patterns in two dimensions recorded from subdural micro-electrocorticographic signals in vivo in cat. In this study, we aimed to develop methods to quantitatively characterize the spatiotemporal dynamics of epileptiform activity at high-resolution. Approach We topically administered a GABA-antagonist, picrotoxin, to induce acute neocortical epileptiform activity leading up to discrete electrographic seizures. We extracted features from local field potential spikes to characterize spatiotemporal patterns in these events. We then tested the hypothesis that two dimensional spike patterns during seizures were different from those between seizures. Main results We showed that spatially correlated events can be used to distinguish ictal versus interictal spikes. Significance We conclude that sub-millimeter-scale spatiotemporal spike patterns reveal network dynamics that are invisible to standard clinical recordings and contain information related to seizure-state. PMID:26859260

Downscaling modelling system for multi-scale air quality forecasting

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nuterman, R.; Baklanov, A.; Mahura, A.; Amstrup, B.; Weismann, J.

2010-09-01

Urban modelling for real meteorological situations, in general, considers only a small part of the urban area in a micro-meteorological model, and urban heterogeneities outside a modelling domain affect micro-scale processes. Therefore, it is important to build a chain of models of different scales with nesting of higher resolution models into larger scale lower resolution models. Usually, the up-scaled city- or meso-scale models consider parameterisations of urban effects or statistical descriptions of the urban morphology, whereas the micro-scale (street canyon) models are obstacle-resolved and they consider a detailed geometry of the buildings and the urban canopy. The developed system consists of the meso-, urban- and street-scale models. First, it is the Numerical Weather Prediction (HIgh Resolution Limited Area Model) model combined with Atmospheric Chemistry Transport (the Comprehensive Air quality Model with extensions) model. Several levels of urban parameterisation are considered. They are chosen depending on selected scales and resolutions. For regional scale, the urban parameterisation is based on the roughness and flux corrections approach; for urban scale - building effects parameterisation. Modern methods of computational fluid dynamics allow solving environmental problems connected with atmospheric transport of pollutants within urban canopy in a presence of penetrable (vegetation) and impenetrable (buildings) obstacles. For local- and micro-scales nesting the Micro-scale Model for Urban Environment is applied. This is a comprehensive obstacle-resolved urban wind-flow and dispersion model based on the Reynolds averaged Navier-Stokes approach and several turbulent closures, i.e. k -ɛ linear eddy-viscosity model, k - ɛ non-linear eddy-viscosity model and Reynolds stress model. Boundary and initial conditions for the micro-scale model are used from the up-scaled models with corresponding interpolation conserving the mass. For the boundaries a kind of Dirichlet condition is chosen to provide the values based on interpolation from the coarse to the fine grid. When the roughness approach is changed to the obstacle-resolved one in the nested model, the interpolation procedure will increase the computational time (due to additional iterations) for meteorological/ chemical fields inside the urban sub-layer. In such situations, as a possible alternative, the perturbation approach can be applied. Here, the effects of main meteorological variables and chemical species are considered as a sum of two components: background (large-scale) values, described by the coarse-resolution model, and perturbations (micro-scale) features, obtained from the nested fine resolution model.

Evaluating the role of land cover and climate uncertainties in computing gross primary production in Hawaiian Island ecosystems

PubMed Central

Selmants, Paul C.; Moreno, Alvaro; Running, Steve W.; Giardina, Christian P.

2017-01-01

Gross primary production (GPP) is the Earth’s largest carbon flux into the terrestrial biosphere and plays a critical role in regulating atmospheric chemistry and global climate. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS)-MOD17 data product is a widely used remote sensing-based model that provides global estimates of spatiotemporal trends in GPP. When the MOD17 algorithm is applied to regional scale heterogeneous landscapes, input data from coarse resolution land cover and climate products may increase uncertainty in GPP estimates, especially in high productivity tropical ecosystems. We examined the influence of using locally specific land cover and high-resolution local climate input data on MOD17 estimates of GPP for the State of Hawaii, a heterogeneous and discontinuous tropical landscape. Replacing the global land cover data input product (MOD12Q1) with Hawaii-specific land cover data reduced statewide GPP estimates by ~8%, primarily because the Hawaii-specific land cover map had less vegetated land area compared to the global land cover product. Replacing coarse resolution GMAO climate data with Hawaii-specific high-resolution climate data also reduced statewide GPP estimates by ~8% because of the higher spatial variability of photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) in the Hawaii-specific climate data. The combined use of both Hawaii-specific land cover and high-resolution Hawaii climate data inputs reduced statewide GPP by ~16%, suggesting equal and independent influence on MOD17 GPP estimates. Our sensitivity analyses within a heterogeneous tropical landscape suggest that refined global land cover and climate data sets may contribute to an enhanced MOD17 product at a variety of spatial scales. PMID:28886187

Evaluating the role of land cover and climate uncertainties in computing gross primary production in Hawaiian Island ecosystems

USGS Publications Warehouse

Kimball, Heather L.; Selmants, Paul; Moreno, Alvaro; Running Steve W,; Giardina, Christian P.

2017-01-01

Gross primary production (GPP) is the Earth’s largest carbon flux into the terrestrial biosphere and plays a critical role in regulating atmospheric chemistry and global climate. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS)-MOD17 data product is a widely used remote sensing-based model that provides global estimates of spatiotemporal trends in GPP. When the MOD17 algorithm is applied to regional scale heterogeneous landscapes, input data from coarse resolution land cover and climate products may increase uncertainty in GPP estimates, especially in high productivity tropical ecosystems. We examined the influence of using locally specific land cover and high-resolution local climate input data on MOD17 estimates of GPP for the State of Hawaii, a heterogeneous and discontinuous tropical landscape. Replacing the global land cover data input product (MOD12Q1) with Hawaii-specific land cover data reduced statewide GPP estimates by ~8%, primarily because the Hawaii-specific land cover map had less vegetated land area compared to the global land cover product. Replacing coarse resolution GMAO climate data with Hawaii-specific high-resolution climate data also reduced statewide GPP estimates by ~8% because of the higher spatial variability of photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) in the Hawaii-specific climate data. The combined use of both Hawaii-specific land cover and high-resolution Hawaii climate data inputs reduced statewide GPP by ~16%, suggesting equal and independent influence on MOD17 GPP estimates. Our sensitivity analyses within a heterogeneous tropical landscape suggest that refined global land cover and climate data sets may contribute to an enhanced MOD17 product at a variety of spatial scales.

Evaluating the role of land cover and climate uncertainties in computing gross primary production in Hawaiian Island ecosystems.

PubMed

Kimball, Heather L; Selmants, Paul C; Moreno, Alvaro; Running, Steve W; Giardina, Christian P

2017-01-01

Gross primary production (GPP) is the Earth's largest carbon flux into the terrestrial biosphere and plays a critical role in regulating atmospheric chemistry and global climate. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS)-MOD17 data product is a widely used remote sensing-based model that provides global estimates of spatiotemporal trends in GPP. When the MOD17 algorithm is applied to regional scale heterogeneous landscapes, input data from coarse resolution land cover and climate products may increase uncertainty in GPP estimates, especially in high productivity tropical ecosystems. We examined the influence of using locally specific land cover and high-resolution local climate input data on MOD17 estimates of GPP for the State of Hawaii, a heterogeneous and discontinuous tropical landscape. Replacing the global land cover data input product (MOD12Q1) with Hawaii-specific land cover data reduced statewide GPP estimates by ~8%, primarily because the Hawaii-specific land cover map had less vegetated land area compared to the global land cover product. Replacing coarse resolution GMAO climate data with Hawaii-specific high-resolution climate data also reduced statewide GPP estimates by ~8% because of the higher spatial variability of photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) in the Hawaii-specific climate data. The combined use of both Hawaii-specific land cover and high-resolution Hawaii climate data inputs reduced statewide GPP by ~16%, suggesting equal and independent influence on MOD17 GPP estimates. Our sensitivity analyses within a heterogeneous tropical landscape suggest that refined global land cover and climate data sets may contribute to an enhanced MOD17 product at a variety of spatial scales.

Large Uncertainties in Urban-Scale Carbon Emissions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gately, C. K.; Hutyra, L. R.

2017-10-01

Accurate estimates of fossil fuel carbon dioxide (FFCO2) emissions are a critical component of local, regional, and global climate agreements. Current global inventories of FFCO2 emissions do not directly quantify emissions at local scales; instead, spatial proxies like population density, nighttime lights, and power plant databases are used to downscale emissions from national totals. We have developed a high-resolution (hourly, 1 km2) bottom-up Anthropogenic Carbon Emissions System (ACES) for FFCO2, based on local activity data for the year 2011 across the northeastern U.S. We compare ACES with three widely used global inventories, finding significant differences at regional (20%) and city scales (50-250%). At a spatial resolution of 0.1°, inventories differ by over 100% for half of the grid cells in the domain, with the largest differences in urban areas and oil and gas production regions. Given recent U.S. federal policy pull backs regarding greenhouse gas emissions reductions, inventories like ACES are crucial for U.S. actions, as the impetus for climate leadership has shifted to city and state governments. The development of a robust carbon monitoring system to track carbon fluxes is critical for emissions benchmarking and verification. We show that existing downscaled inventories are not suitable for urban emissions monitoring, as they do not consider important local activity patterns. The ACES methodology is designed for easy updating, making it suitable for emissions monitoring under most city, regional, and state greenhouse gas mitigation initiatives, in particular, for the small- and medium-sized cities that lack the resources to regularly perform their own bottom-up emissions inventories.

Validation of a 30 m resolution flood hazard model of the conterminous United States

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wing, Oliver E. J.; Bates, Paul D.; Sampson, Christopher C.; Smith, Andrew M.; Johnson, Kris A.; Erickson, Tyler A.

2017-09-01

This paper reports the development of a ˜30 m resolution two-dimensional hydrodynamic model of the conterminous U.S. using only publicly available data. The model employs a highly efficient numerical solution of the local inertial form of the shallow water equations which simulates fluvial flooding in catchments down to 50 km2 and pluvial flooding in all catchments. Importantly, we use the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Elevation Dataset to determine topography; the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers National Levee Dataset to explicitly represent known flood defenses; and global regionalized flood frequency analysis to characterize return period flows and rainfalls. We validate these simulations against the complete catalogue of Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Special Flood Hazard Area (SFHA) maps and detailed local hydraulic models developed by the USGS. Where the FEMA SFHAs are based on high-quality local models, the continental-scale model attains a hit rate of 86%. This correspondence improves in temperate areas and for basins above 400 km2. Against the higher quality USGS data, the average hit rate reaches 92% for the 1 in 100 year flood, and 90% for all flood return periods. Given typical hydraulic modeling uncertainties in the FEMA maps and USGS model outputs (e.g., errors in estimating return period flows), it is probable that the continental-scale model can replicate both to within error. The results show that continental-scale models may now offer sufficient rigor to inform some decision-making needs with dramatically lower cost and greater coverage than approaches based on a patchwork of local studies.

Spatial Structure of Above-Ground Biomass Limits Accuracy of Carbon Mapping in Rainforest but Large Scale Forest Inventories Can Help to Overcome.

PubMed

Guitet, Stéphane; Hérault, Bruno; Molto, Quentin; Brunaux, Olivier; Couteron, Pierre

2015-01-01

Precise mapping of above-ground biomass (AGB) is a major challenge for the success of REDD+ processes in tropical rainforest. The usual mapping methods are based on two hypotheses: a large and long-ranged spatial autocorrelation and a strong environment influence at the regional scale. However, there are no studies of the spatial structure of AGB at the landscapes scale to support these assumptions. We studied spatial variation in AGB at various scales using two large forest inventories conducted in French Guiana. The dataset comprised 2507 plots (0.4 to 0.5 ha) of undisturbed rainforest distributed over the whole region. After checking the uncertainties of estimates obtained from these data, we used half of the dataset to develop explicit predictive models including spatial and environmental effects and tested the accuracy of the resulting maps according to their resolution using the rest of the data. Forest inventories provided accurate AGB estimates at the plot scale, for a mean of 325 Mg.ha-1. They revealed high local variability combined with a weak autocorrelation up to distances of no more than10 km. Environmental variables accounted for a minor part of spatial variation. Accuracy of the best model including spatial effects was 90 Mg.ha-1 at plot scale but coarse graining up to 2-km resolution allowed mapping AGB with accuracy lower than 50 Mg.ha-1. Whatever the resolution, no agreement was found with available pan-tropical reference maps at all resolutions. We concluded that the combined weak autocorrelation and weak environmental effect limit AGB maps accuracy in rainforest, and that a trade-off has to be found between spatial resolution and effective accuracy until adequate "wall-to-wall" remote sensing signals provide reliable AGB predictions. Waiting for this, using large forest inventories with low sampling rate (<0.5%) may be an efficient way to increase the global coverage of AGB maps with acceptable accuracy at kilometric resolution.

Trajectories of thermospheric air parcels flowing over Alaska, reconstructed from ground-based wind measurements

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dhadly, Manbharat; Conde, Mark

2017-06-01

It is widely presumed that the convective stability and enormous kinematic viscosity of Earth's upper thermosphere hinders development of both horizontal and vertical wind shears and other gradients. Any strong local structure (over scale sizes of several hundreds of kilometers) that might somehow form would be expected to dissipate rapidly. Air flow in such an atmosphere should be relatively simple, and transport effects only slowly disperse and mix air masses. However, our observations show that wind fields in Earth's thermosphere have much more local-scale structure than usually predicated by current modeling techniques, at least at auroral latitudes; they complicate air parcel trajectories enormously, relative to typical expectations. For tracing air parcels, we used wind measurements of an all-sky Scanning Doppler Fabry-Perot interferometer and reconstructed time-resolved two-dimensional maps of the horizontal vector wind field to infer forward and backward air parcel trajectories over time. This is the first comprehensive study to visualize the complex motions of thermospheric air parcels carried through the actual observed local-scale structures in the high-latitude winds. Results show that thermospheric air parcel transport is a very difficult observational problem, because the trajectories followed are very sensitive to the detailed features of the driving wind field. To reconstruct the actual motion of a given air parcel requires wind measurements everywhere along the trajectory followed, with spatial resolutions of 100 km or less, and temporal resolutions of a few minutes or better. Understanding such transport is important, for example, in predicting the global-scale impacts of aurorally generated composition perturbations.

The Use of Statistical Downscaling to Project Regional Climate Changes as they Relate to Future Energy Production

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Werth, D. W.; O'Steen, L.; Chen, K.; Altinakar, M. S.; Garrett, A.; Aleman, S.; Ramalingam, V.

2010-12-01

Global climate change has the potential for profound impacts on society, and poses significant challenges to government and industry in the areas of energy security and sustainability. Given that the ability to exploit energy resources often depends on the climate, the possibility of climate change means we cannot simply assume that the untapped potential of today will still exist in the future. Predictions of future climate are generally based on global climate models (GCMs) which, due to computational limitations, are run at spatial resolutions of hundreds of kilometers. While the results from these models can predict climatic trends averaged over large spatial and temporal scales, their ability to describe the effects of atmospheric phenomena that affect weather on regional to local scales is inadequate. We propose the use of several optimized statistical downscaling techniques that can infer climate change at the local scale from coarse resolution GCM predictions, and apply the results to assess future sustainability for two sources of energy production dependent on adequate water resources: nuclear power (through the dissipation of waste heat from cooling towers, ponds, etc.) and hydroelectric power. All methods will be trained with 20th century data, and applied to data from the years 2040-2049 to get the local-scale changes. Models of cooling tower operation and hydropower potential will then use the downscaled data to predict the possible changes in energy production, and the implications of climate change on plant siting, design, and contribution to the future energy grid can then be examined.

Evaluating a Local Ensemble Transform Kalman Filter snow cover data assimilation method to estimate SWE within a high-resolution hydrologic modeling framework across Western US mountainous regions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Oaida, C. M.; Andreadis, K.; Reager, J. T., II; Famiglietti, J. S.; Levoe, S.

2017-12-01

Accurately estimating how much snow water equivalent (SWE) is stored in mountainous regions characterized by complex terrain and snowmelt-driven hydrologic cycles is not only greatly desirable, but also a big challenge. Mountain snowpack exhibits high spatial variability across a broad range of spatial and temporal scales due to a multitude of physical and climatic factors, making it difficult to observe or estimate in its entirety. Combing remotely sensed data and high resolution hydrologic modeling through data assimilation (DA) has the potential to provide a spatially and temporally continuous SWE dataset at horizontal scales that capture sub-grid snow spatial variability and are also relevant to stakeholders such as water resource managers. Here, we present the evaluation of a new snow DA approach that uses a Local Ensemble Transform Kalman Filter (LETKF) in tandem with the Variable Infiltration Capacity macro-scale hydrologic model across the Western United States, at a daily temporal resolution, and a horizontal resolution of 1.75 km x 1.75 km. The LETKF is chosen for its relative simplicity, ease of implementation, and computational efficiency and scalability. The modeling/DA system assimilates daily MODIS Snow Covered Area and Grain Size (MODSCAG) fractional snow cover over, and has been developed to efficiently calculate SWE estimates over extended periods of time and covering large regional-scale areas at relatively high spatial resolution, ultimately producing a snow reanalysis-type dataset. Here we focus on the assessment of SWE produced by the DA scheme over several basins in California's Sierra Nevada Mountain range where Airborne Snow Observatory data is available, during the last five water years (2013-2017), which include both one of the driest and one of the wettest years. Comparison against such a spatially distributed SWE observational product provides a greater understanding of the model's ability to estimate SWE and SWE spatial variability, and highlights under which conditions snow cover DA can add value in estimating SWE.

Light-sheet Bayesian microscopy enables deep-cell super-resolution imaging of heterochromatin in live human embryonic stem cells.

PubMed

Hu, Ying S; Zhu, Quan; Elkins, Keri; Tse, Kevin; Li, Yu; Fitzpatrick, James A J; Verma, Inder M; Cang, Hu

2013-01-01

Heterochromatin in the nucleus of human embryonic cells plays an important role in the epigenetic regulation of gene expression. The architecture of heterochromatin and its dynamic organization remain elusive because of the lack of fast and high-resolution deep-cell imaging tools. We enable this task by advancing instrumental and algorithmic implementation of the localization-based super-resolution technique. We present light-sheet Bayesian super-resolution microscopy (LSBM). We adapt light-sheet illumination for super-resolution imaging by using a novel prism-coupled condenser design to illuminate a thin slice of the nucleus with high signal-to-noise ratio. Coupled with a Bayesian algorithm that resolves overlapping fluorophores from high-density areas, we show, for the first time, nanoscopic features of the heterochromatin structure in both fixed and live human embryonic stem cells. The enhanced temporal resolution allows capturing the dynamic change of heterochromatin with a lateral resolution of 50-60 nm on a time scale of 2.3 s. Light-sheet Bayesian microscopy opens up broad new possibilities of probing nanometer-scale nuclear structures and real-time sub-cellular processes and other previously difficult-to-access intracellular regions of living cells at the single-molecule, and single cell level.

Light-sheet Bayesian microscopy enables deep-cell super-resolution imaging of heterochromatin in live human embryonic stem cells

PubMed Central

Hu, Ying S; Zhu, Quan; Elkins, Keri; Tse, Kevin; Li, Yu; Fitzpatrick, James A J; Verma, Inder M; Cang, Hu

2016-01-01

Background Heterochromatin in the nucleus of human embryonic cells plays an important role in the epigenetic regulation of gene expression. The architecture of heterochromatin and its dynamic organization remain elusive because of the lack of fast and high-resolution deep-cell imaging tools. We enable this task by advancing instrumental and algorithmic implementation of the localization-based super-resolution technique. Results We present light-sheet Bayesian super-resolution microscopy (LSBM). We adapt light-sheet illumination for super-resolution imaging by using a novel prism-coupled condenser design to illuminate a thin slice of the nucleus with high signal-to-noise ratio. Coupled with a Bayesian algorithm that resolves overlapping fluorophores from high-density areas, we show, for the first time, nanoscopic features of the heterochromatin structure in both fixed and live human embryonic stem cells. The enhanced temporal resolution allows capturing the dynamic change of heterochromatin with a lateral resolution of 50–60 nm on a time scale of 2.3 s. Conclusion Light-sheet Bayesian microscopy opens up broad new possibilities of probing nanometer-scale nuclear structures and real-time sub-cellular processes and other previously difficult-to-access intracellular regions of living cells at the single-molecule, and single cell level. PMID:27795878

Cross-Scale Molecular Analysis of Chemical Heterogeneity in Shale Rocks

DOE PAGES

Hao, Zhao; Bechtel, Hans A.; Kneafsey, Timothy; ...

2018-02-07

The organic and mineralogical heterogeneity in shale at micrometer and nanometer spatial scales contributes to the quality of gas reserves, gas flow mechanisms and gas production. Here, we demonstrate two molecular imaging approaches based on infrared spectroscopy to obtain mineral and kerogen information at these mesoscale spatial resolutions in large-sized shale rock samples. The first method is a modified microscopic attenuated total reflectance measurement that utilizes a large germanium hemisphere combined with a focal plane array detector to rapidly capture chemical images of shale rock surfaces spanning hundreds of micrometers with micrometer spatial resolution. The second method, synchrotron infrared nano-spectroscopy,more » utilizes a metallic atomic force microscope tip to obtain chemical images of micrometer dimensions but with nanometer spatial resolution. This chemically "deconvoluted" imaging at the nano-pore scale is then used to build a machine learning model to generate a molecular distribution map across scales with a spatial span of 1000 times, which enables high-throughput geochemical characterization in greater details across the nano-pore and micro-grain scales and allows us to identify co-localization of mineral phases with chemically distinct organics and even with gas phase sorbents. Finally, this characterization is fundamental to understand mineral and organic compositions affecting the behavior of shales.« less

Cross-Scale Molecular Analysis of Chemical Heterogeneity in Shale Rocks

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Hao, Zhao; Bechtel, Hans A.; Kneafsey, Timothy

The organic and mineralogical heterogeneity in shale at micrometer and nanometer spatial scales contributes to the quality of gas reserves, gas flow mechanisms and gas production. Here, we demonstrate two molecular imaging approaches based on infrared spectroscopy to obtain mineral and kerogen information at these mesoscale spatial resolutions in large-sized shale rock samples. The first method is a modified microscopic attenuated total reflectance measurement that utilizes a large germanium hemisphere combined with a focal plane array detector to rapidly capture chemical images of shale rock surfaces spanning hundreds of micrometers with micrometer spatial resolution. The second method, synchrotron infrared nano-spectroscopy,more » utilizes a metallic atomic force microscope tip to obtain chemical images of micrometer dimensions but with nanometer spatial resolution. This chemically "deconvoluted" imaging at the nano-pore scale is then used to build a machine learning model to generate a molecular distribution map across scales with a spatial span of 1000 times, which enables high-throughput geochemical characterization in greater details across the nano-pore and micro-grain scales and allows us to identify co-localization of mineral phases with chemically distinct organics and even with gas phase sorbents. Finally, this characterization is fundamental to understand mineral and organic compositions affecting the behavior of shales.« less

Understanding Multiscale Surface Water-Groundwater Interactions on Scott River Watershed Temperatures with the use of Distributed Temperature Sensing (DTS) in Support of the Coldwater Salmonid Fishery Beneficial Use

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hines, R. J.; Harter, T.; Tyler, S. W.; McFadin, B.; Yokel, E.

2008-12-01

The Scott River is a major tributary to the Klamath River that provides cold water rearing habitat for wild salmonid populations, including coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch), Chinook salmon (O. tshawytscha), and steelhead trout (O. mykiss). During the summer months (July through September), the main-stem Scott River becomes disconnected from its tributaries throughout much of Scott Valley and relies primarily on baseflow from the groundwater aquifer. Summer stream temperatures in the Scott River are currently at levels that are not considered sustainable for the native salmonid population, resulting in the enactment of a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) for temperature. Two of the conditions affecting stream temperature have been identified as increases in solar radiation due to a reduction in riparian vegetation and decreased accretion of groundwater. In conjunction with a regional scale surface water-groundwater modeling effort to investigate the benefits of various conjunctive use management alternatives on mid- and late summer baseflow in the Scott River, we completed high-resolution field measurements of stream temperature over an approximately 1,050-meter reach. Temperatures were measured using Fiber-Optic Distributed Temperature Sensing (DTS) techniques. The DTS survey in combination with FLIR stream surface temperature data from 2003 indicate that groundwater discharge to the Scott River is highly localized throughout the valley. The results of the DTS survey depict highly localized areas of groundwater accretion, as well as prominent localized temperature effects from riparian vegetation and river geomorphology. While originally modeled as a well-mixed stream during FLIR analysis, the DTS data further suggest that locally strong, vertical thermal gradients are found near the bottom of the active stream channel. The high-resolution temperature measurements were paired with fish surveys in order to determine the correlation between areas of identified lower river temperatures, groundwater accretion and other beneficial salmonid habitat indicators. Our work suggests that understanding of local-scale groundwater-stream interaction and analysis of corresponding local-scale geologic and riparian vegetation controls are critical to understanding the basin-scale groundwater-stream interactions. Preliminary data reviews indicate that groundwater discharge leads to distinct cold temperature pools near the streambed, while the remainder of the stream column is thermally well mixed. This local-scale, three-dimensional understanding is necessary if strategies are to be developed that aim for effective water resource management practices and improved beneficial use habitat. A multi-scale field reconnaissance and modeling approach is suggested to develop water management practices that lead to better habitat protection throughout the watershed.

Wind, Circulation, and Topographic Effects on Alongshore Phytoplankton Variability in the California Current

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fiechter, Jerome; Edwards, Christopher A.; Moore, Andrew M.

2018-04-01

A physical-biogeochemical model is used to produce a retrospective analysis at 3-km resolution of alongshore phytoplankton variability in the California Current during 1988-2010. The simulation benefits from downscaling a regional circulation reanalysis, which provides improved physical ocean state estimates in the high-resolution domain. The emerging pattern is one of local upwelling intensification in response to increased alongshore wind stress in the lee of capes, modulated by alongshore meanders in the geostrophic circulation. While stronger upwelling occurs near most major topographic features, substantial increases in phytoplankton biomass only ensue where local circulation patterns are conducive to on-shelf retention of upwelled nutrients. Locations of peak nutrient delivery and chlorophyll accumulation also exhibit interannual variability and trends noticeably larger than the surrounding shelf regions, thereby suggesting that long-term planktonic ecosystem response in the California Current exhibits a significant local scale (O(100 km)) alongshore component.

The impact of resolution on the dynamics of the martian global atmosphere: Varying resolution studies with the MarsWRF GCM

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Toigo, Anthony D.; Lee, Christopher; Newman, Claire E.; Richardson, Mark I.

2012-09-01

We investigate the sensitivity of the circulation and thermal structure of the martian atmosphere to numerical model resolution in a general circulation model (GCM) using the martian implementation (MarsWRF) of the planetWRF atmospheric model. We provide a description of the MarsWRF GCM and use it to study the global atmosphere at horizontal resolutions from 7.5° × 9° to 0.5° × 0.5°, encompassing the range from standard Mars GCMs to global mesoscale modeling. We find that while most of the gross-scale features of the circulation (the rough location of jets, the qualitative thermal structure, and the major large-scale features of the surface level winds) are insensitive to horizontal resolution over this range, several major features of the circulation are sensitive in detail. The northern winter polar circulation shows the greatest sensitivity, showing a continuous transition from a smooth polar winter jet at low resolution, to a distinct vertically “split” jet as resolution increases. The separation of the lower and middle atmosphere polar jet occurs at roughly 10 Pa, with the split jet structure developing in concert with the intensification of meridional jets at roughly 10 Pa and above 0.1 Pa. These meridional jets appear to represent the separation of lower and middle atmosphere mean overturning circulations (with the former being consistent with the usual concept of the “Hadley cell”). Further, the transition in polar jet structure is more sensitive to changes in zonal than meridional horizontal resolution, suggesting that representation of small-scale wave-mean flow interactions is more important than fine-scale representation of the meridional thermal gradient across the polar front. Increasing the horizontal resolution improves the match between the modeled thermal structure and the Mars Climate Sounder retrievals for northern winter high latitudes. While increased horizontal resolution also improves the simulation of the northern high latitudes at equinox, even the lowest model resolution considered here appears to do a good job for the southern winter and southern equinoctial pole (although in detail some discrepancies remain). These results suggest that studies of the northern winter jet (e.g., transient waves and cyclogenesis) will be more sensitive to global model resolution that those of the south (e.g., the confining dynamics of the southern polar vortex relevant to studies of argon transport). For surface winds, the major effect of increased horizontal resolution is in the superposition of circulations forced by local-scale topography upon the large-scale surface wind patterns. While passive predictions of dust lifting are generally insensitive to model horizontal resolution when no lifting threshold is considered, increasing the stress threshold produces significantly more lifting in higher resolution simulations with the generation of finer-scale, higher-stress winds due primarily to better-resolved topography. Considering the positive feedbacks expected for radiatively active dust lifting, we expect this bias to increase when such feedbacks are permitted.

Fast vessel segmentation in retinal images using multi-scale enhancement and second-order local entropy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yu, H.; Barriga, S.; Agurto, C.; Zamora, G.; Bauman, W.; Soliz, P.

2012-03-01

Retinal vasculature is one of the most important anatomical structures in digital retinal photographs. Accurate segmentation of retinal blood vessels is an essential task in automated analysis of retinopathy. This paper presents a new and effective vessel segmentation algorithm that features computational simplicity and fast implementation. This method uses morphological pre-processing to decrease the disturbance of bright structures and lesions before vessel extraction. Next, a vessel probability map is generated by computing the eigenvalues of the second derivatives of Gaussian filtered image at multiple scales. Then, the second order local entropy thresholding is applied to segment the vessel map. Lastly, a rule-based decision step, which measures the geometric shape difference between vessels and lesions is applied to reduce false positives. The algorithm is evaluated on the low-resolution DRIVE and STARE databases and the publicly available high-resolution image database from Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany). The proposed method achieved comparable performance to state of the art unsupervised vessel segmentation methods with a competitive faster speed on the DRIVE and STARE databases. For the high resolution fundus image database, the proposed algorithm outperforms an existing approach both on performance and speed. The efficiency and robustness make the blood vessel segmentation method described here suitable for broad application in automated analysis of retinal images.

The Impact of Spatial and Temporal Resolutions in Tropical Summer Rainfall Distribution: Preliminary Results

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liu, Q.; Chiu, L. S.; Hao, X.

2017-10-01

The abundance or lack of rainfall affects peoples' life and activities. As a major component of the global hydrological cycle (Chokngamwong & Chiu, 2007), accurate representations at various spatial and temporal scales are crucial for a lot of decision making processes. Climate models show a warmer and wetter climate due to increases of Greenhouse Gases (GHG). However, the models' resolutions are often too coarse to be directly applicable to local scales that are useful for mitigation purposes. Hence disaggregation (downscaling) procedures are needed to transfer the coarse scale products to higher spatial and temporal resolutions. The aim of this paper is to examine the changes in the statistical parameters of rainfall at various spatial and temporal resolutions. The TRMM Multi-satellite Precipitation Analysis (TMPA) at 0.25 degree, 3 hourly grid rainfall data for a summer is aggregated to 0.5,1.0, 2.0 and 2.5 degree and at 6, 12, 24 hourly, pentad (five days) and monthly resolutions. The probability distributions (PDF) and cumulative distribution functions(CDF) of rain amount at these resolutions are computed and modeled as a mixed distribution. Parameters of the PDFs are compared using the Kolmogrov-Smironov (KS) test, both for the mixed and the marginal distribution. These distributions are shown to be distinct. The marginal distributions are fitted with Lognormal and Gamma distributions and it is found that the Gamma distributions fit much better than the Lognormal.

A methodology to link national and local information for spatial targeting of ammonia mitigation efforts

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Carnell, E. J.; Misselbrook, T. H.; Dore, A. J.; Sutton, M. A.; Dragosits, U.

2017-09-01

The effects of atmospheric nitrogen (N) deposition are evident in terrestrial ecosystems worldwide, with eutrophication and acidification leading to significant changes in species composition. Substantial reductions in N deposition from nitrogen oxides emissions have been achieved in recent decades. By contrast, ammonia (NH3) emissions from agriculture have not decreased substantially and are typically highly spatially variable, making efficient mitigation challenging. One solution is to target NH3 mitigation measures spatially in source landscapes to maximize the benefits for nature conservation. The paper develops an approach to link national scale data and detailed local data to help identify suitable measures for spatial targeting of local sources near designated Special Areas of Conservation (SACs). The methodology combines high-resolution national data on emissions, deposition and source attribution with local data on agricultural management and site conditions. Application of the methodology for the full set of 240 SACs in England found that agriculture contributes ∼45 % of total N deposition. Activities associated with cattle farming represented 54 % of agricultural NH3 emissions within 2 km of the SACs, making them a major contributor to local N deposition, followed by mineral fertiliser application (21 %). Incorporation of local information on agricultural management practices at seven example SACs provided the means to correct outcomes compared with national-scale emission factors. The outcomes show how national scale datasets can provide information on N deposition threats at landscape to national scales, while local-scale information helps to understand the feasibility of mitigation measures, including the impact of detailed spatial targeting on N deposition rates to designated sites.

Tsunami hazard maps of spanish coast at national scale from seismic sources

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Aniel-Quiroga, Íñigo; González, Mauricio; Álvarez-Gómez, José Antonio; García, Pablo

2017-04-01

Tsunamis are a moderately frequent phenomenon in the NEAM (North East Atlantic and Mediterranean) region, and consequently in Spain, as historic and recent events have affected this area. I.e., the 1755 earthquake and tsunami affected the Spanish Atlantic coasts of Huelva and Cadiz and the 2003 Boumerdés earthquake triggered a tsunami that reached Balearic island coast in less than 45 minutes. The risk in Spain is real and, its population and tourism rate makes it vulnerable to this kind of catastrophic events. The Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 and the tsunami in Japan in 2011 launched the worldwide development and application of tsunami risk reduction measures that have been taken as a priority in this field. On November 20th 2015 the directive of the Spanish civil protection agency on planning under the emergency of tsunami was presented. As part of the Spanish National Security strategy, this document specifies the structure of the action plans at different levels: National, regional and local. In this sense, the first step is the proper evaluation of the tsunami hazard at National scale. This work deals with the assessment of the tsunami hazard in Spain, by means of numerical simulations, focused on the elaboration of tsunami hazard maps at National scale. To get this, following a deterministic approach, the seismic structures whose earthquakes could generate the worst tsunamis affecting the coast of Spain have been compiled and characterized. These worst sources have been propagated numerically along a reconstructed bathymetry, built from the best resolution available data. This high-resolution bathymetry was joined with a 25-m resolution DTM, to generate continuous offshore-onshore space, allowing the calculation of the flooded areas prompted by each selected source. The numerical model applied for the calculation of the tsunami propagations was COMCOT. The maps resulting from the numerical simulations show not only the tsunami amplitude at coastal areas but also the run-up and inundation length from the coastline. The run-up has been calculated with numerical model, complemented with an alternative method, based on interpolation on a tsunami run-up database created ad hoc. These estimated variables allow the identification of the most affected areas in case of tsunami and they are also the base for the local authorities to evaluate the necessity of new higher resolution studies at local scale on specific areas.

Regional and local land subsidence at the Venice coastland by TerraSAR-X PSI

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tosi, L.; Strozzi, T.; Da Lio, C.; Teatini, P.

2015-11-01

Land subsidence occurred at the Venice coastland over the 2008-2011 period has been investigated by Persistent Scatterer Interferometry (PSI) using a stack of 90 TerraSAR-X stripmap images with a 3 m resolution and a 11-day revisiting time. The regular X-band SAR acquisitions over more than three years coupled with the very-high image resolution has significantly improved the monitoring of ground displacements at regional and local scales, e.g., the entire lagoon, especially the historical palaces, the MoSE large structures under construction at the lagoon inlets to disconnect the lagoon from the Adriatic Sea during high tides, and single small structures scattered within the lagoon environments. Our results show that subsidence is characterized by a certain variability at the regional scale with superimposed important local displacements. The movements range from a gentle uplift to subsidence rates of up to 35 mm yr-1. For instance, settlements of 30-35 mm yr-1 have been detected at the three lagoon inlets in correspondence of the MoSE works, and local sinking bowls up to 10 mm yr-1 connected with the construction of new large buildings or restoration works have been measured in the Venice and Chioggia historical centers. Focusing on the city of Venice, the mean subsidence of 1.1 ± 1.0 mm yr-1 confirms the general stability of the historical center.

SOMAR-LES: A framework for multi-scale modeling of turbulent stratified oceanic flows

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chalamalla, Vamsi K.; Santilli, Edward; Scotti, Alberto; Jalali, Masoud; Sarkar, Sutanu

2017-12-01

A new multi-scale modeling technique, SOMAR-LES, is presented in this paper. Localized grid refinement gives SOMAR (the Stratified Ocean Model with Adaptive Resolution) access to small scales of the flow which are normally inaccessible to general circulation models (GCMs). SOMAR-LES drives a LES (Large Eddy Simulation) on SOMAR's finest grids, forced with large scale forcing from the coarser grids. Three-dimensional simulations of internal tide generation, propagation and scattering are performed to demonstrate this multi-scale modeling technique. In the case of internal tide generation at a two-dimensional bathymetry, SOMAR-LES is able to balance the baroclinic energy budget and accurately model turbulence losses at only 10% of the computational cost required by a non-adaptive solver running at SOMAR-LES's fine grid resolution. This relative cost is significantly reduced in situations with intermittent turbulence or where the location of the turbulence is not known a priori because SOMAR-LES does not require persistent, global, high resolution. To illustrate this point, we consider a three-dimensional bathymetry with grids adaptively refined along the tidally generated internal waves to capture remote mixing in regions of wave focusing. The computational cost in this case is found to be nearly 25 times smaller than that of a non-adaptive solver at comparable resolution. In the final test case, we consider the scattering of a mode-1 internal wave at an isolated two-dimensional and three-dimensional topography, and we compare the results with Legg (2014) numerical experiments. We find good agreement with theoretical estimates. SOMAR-LES is less dissipative than the closure scheme employed by Legg (2014) near the bathymetry. Depending on the flow configuration and resolution employed, a reduction of more than an order of magnitude in computational costs is expected, relative to traditional existing solvers.

4D XMT of Reaction in Carbonates: Reactive Transport Dynamics at Multiples Scales

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Menke, H. P.; Reynolds, C. A.; Andrew, M. G.; Nunes, J. P. P.; Bijeljic, B.; Blunt, M. J.

2016-12-01

Upscaling pore scale rock-fluid interaction processes for predictive modelling poses a challenge to underground carbon storage. We have completed experiments and flow modelling to investigate the impact of pore-space heterogeneity and scale on the dissolution of two limestones at both the mm and cm scales. Two samples were reacted with reservoir condition CO2-saturated brine at both scales and scanned dynamically as dissolution took place. First, 1-cm long 4-mm diameter micro cores were scanned during reactive flow at a 4-μm resolution between 4 and 40 times using 4D X-ray micro-tomography over the course of 1.5 hours using a laboratory μ-CT. Second, 3.8-cm diameter, 8-cm long macro cores were reacted at the same conditions inside a reservoir condition flow rig and imaged using a medical CT scanner. Each sample was imaged 10 times over the course of 1.5 hours at a 250 x 250 x 500-μm resolution. The reacted macro cores were then scanned inside a μ-CT at a 27-μm resolution to assess the alteration in pore-scale reaction-induced heterogeneity. It was found that both limestones showed channel formation at the pore-scale and progressive high porosity pathway dissolution at the core-scale with the more heterogeneous rock having dissolution progressing along direction of flow more quickly. Additionally, upon analysis of the high-resolution macro core images it was found that the dissolution pathways contained a distinct microstructure that was not visible at the resolution of the medical CT, where the reactive fluid had not completely dissolved the internal pore-structure. Flow was modelled in connected pathways, the flow streamlines were traced and streamline density for each voxel was calculated. It was found that the streamline density was highest in the most well-connected pathways and that density increased with increasing heterogeneity as the number of connected pathways decreased and flow was consolidated along fewer pathways. This work represents the first study of scale dependency using reservoir condition 4D X-ray tomography and provides insight into the mechanisms that control local reaction rates at multiple scales.

Resolution requirements for aero-optical simulations

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Mani, Ali; Wang Meng; Moin, Parviz

2008-11-10

Analytical criteria are developed to estimate the error of aero-optical computations due to inadequate spatial resolution of refractive index fields in high Reynolds number flow simulations. The unresolved turbulence structures are assumed to be locally isotropic and at low turbulent Mach number. Based on the Kolmogorov spectrum for the unresolved structures, the computational error of the optical path length is estimated and linked to the resulting error in the computed far-field optical irradiance. It is shown that in the high Reynolds number limit, for a given geometry and Mach number, the spatial resolution required to capture aero-optics within a pre-specifiedmore » error margin does not scale with Reynolds number. In typical aero-optical applications this resolution requirement is much lower than the resolution required for direct numerical simulation, and therefore, a typical large-eddy simulation can capture the aero-optical effects. The analysis is extended to complex turbulent flow simulations in which non-uniform grid spacings are used to better resolve the local turbulence structures. As a demonstration, the analysis is used to estimate the error of aero-optical computation for an optical beam passing through turbulent wake of flow over a cylinder.« less

Air-quality in the mid-21st century for the city of Paris under two climate scenarios; from regional to local scale

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Markakis, K.; Valari, M.; Colette, A.; Sanchez, O.; Perrussel, O.; Honore, C.; Vautard, R.; Klimont, Z.; Rao, S.

2014-01-01

Ozone and PM2.5 concentrations over the city of Paris are modeled with the CHIMERE air-quality model at 4 km × 4 km horizontal resolution for two future emission scenarios. High-resolution (1 km × 1 km) emission projection until 2020 for the greater Paris region is developed by local experts (AIRPARIF) and is further extended to year 2050 based on regional scale emission projections developed by the Global Energy Assessment. Model evaluation is performed based on a 10 yr control simulation. Ozone is in very good agreement with measurements while PM2.5 is underestimated by 20% over the urban area mainly due to a large wet bias in wintertime precipitation. A significant increase of maximum ozone relative to present time levels over Paris is modeled under the "business as usual" scenario (+7 ppb) while a more optimistic mitigation scenario leads to moderate ozone decrease (-3.5 ppb) in year 2050. These results are substantially different to previous regional scale projections where 2050 ozone is found to decrease under both future scenarios. A sensitivity analysis showed that this difference is due to the fact that ozone formation over Paris at the current, urban scale study, is driven by VOC-limited chemistry, whereas at the regional scale ozone formation occurs under NOx-sensitive conditions. This explains why the sharp NOx reductions implemented in the future scenarios have a different effect on ozone projections at different scales. In rural areas projections at both scales yield similar results showing that the longer time-scale processes of emission transport and ozone formation are less sensitive to model resolution. PM2.5 concentrations decrease by 78% and 89% under "business as usual" and "mitigation" scenarios respectively compared to present time period. The reduction is much more prominent over the urban part of the domain due to the effective reductions of road transport and residential emissions resulting in the smoothing of the large urban increment modelled in the control simulation.

A first large-scale flood inundation forecasting model

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Schumann, Guy J-P; Neal, Jeffrey C.; Voisin, Nathalie

2013-11-04

At present continental to global scale flood forecasting focusses on predicting at a point discharge, with little attention to the detail and accuracy of local scale inundation predictions. Yet, inundation is actually the variable of interest and all flood impacts are inherently local in nature. This paper proposes a first large scale flood inundation ensemble forecasting model that uses best available data and modeling approaches in data scarce areas and at continental scales. The model was built for the Lower Zambezi River in southeast Africa to demonstrate current flood inundation forecasting capabilities in large data-scarce regions. The inundation model domainmore » has a surface area of approximately 170k km2. ECMWF meteorological data were used to force the VIC (Variable Infiltration Capacity) macro-scale hydrological model which simulated and routed daily flows to the input boundary locations of the 2-D hydrodynamic model. Efficient hydrodynamic modeling over large areas still requires model grid resolutions that are typically larger than the width of many river channels that play a key a role in flood wave propagation. We therefore employed a novel sub-grid channel scheme to describe the river network in detail whilst at the same time representing the floodplain at an appropriate and efficient scale. The modeling system was first calibrated using water levels on the main channel from the ICESat (Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite) laser altimeter and then applied to predict the February 2007 Mozambique floods. Model evaluation showed that simulated flood edge cells were within a distance of about 1 km (one model resolution) compared to an observed flood edge of the event. Our study highlights that physically plausible parameter values and satisfactory performance can be achieved at spatial scales ranging from tens to several hundreds of thousands of km2 and at model grid resolutions up to several km2. However, initial model test runs in forecast mode revealed that it is crucial to account for basin-wide hydrological response time when assessing lead time performances notwithstanding structural limitations in the hydrological model and possibly large inaccuracies in precipitation data.« less

Local shape of pictorial relief

PubMed Central

Koenderink, Jan; van Doorn, Andrea; Wagemans, Johan

2014-01-01

How is pictorial relief represented in visual awareness? Certainly not as a “depth map,” but perhaps as a map of local surface attitudes (Koenderink & van Doorn, 1995). Here we consider the possibility that observers might instead, or concurrently, represent local surface shape, a geometrical invariant with respect to motions. Observers judge local surface shape, in a picture of a piece of sculpture, on a five-point categorical scale. Categories are cap–ridge–saddle–rut–cup–flat, where “flat” denotes the absence of shape. We find that observers readily perform such a task, with full resolution of a shape index scale (cap–ridge–saddle–rut–cup), and with excellent self-consistency over days. There exist remarkable inter-observer differences. Over a group of 10 naive observers we find that the dispersion of judgments peaks at the saddle category. There may be a relation of this finding to the history of the topic—Alberti's (1827) omission of the saddle category in his purportedly exhaustive catalog of local surface shapes. PMID:25469225

Land use and topography influence in a complex terrain area: A high resolution mesoscale modelling study over the Eastern Pyrenees using the WRF model

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jiménez-Esteve, B.; Udina, M.; Soler, M. R.; Pepin, N.; Miró, J. R.

2018-04-01

Different types of land use (LU) have different physical properties which can change local energy balance and hence vertical fluxes of moisture, heat and momentum. This in turn leads to changes in near-surface temperature and moisture fields. Simulating atmospheric flow over complex terrain requires accurate local-scale energy balance and therefore model grid spacing must be sufficient to represent both topography and land-use. In this study we use both the Corine Land Cover (CLC) and United States Geological Survey (USGS) land use databases for use with the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model and evaluate the importance of both land-use classification and horizontal resolution in contributing to successful modelling of surface temperatures and humidities observed from a network of 39 sensors over a 9 day period in summer 2013. We examine case studies of the effects of thermal inertia and soil moisture availability at individual locations. The scale at which the LU classification is observed influences the success of the model in reproducing observed patterns of temperature and moisture. Statistical validation of model output demonstrates model sensitivity to both the choice of LU database used and the horizontal resolution. In general, results show that on average, by a) using CLC instead of USGS and/or b) increasing horizontal resolution, model performance is improved. We also show that the sensitivity to these changes in the model performance shows a daily cycle.

Characterizing the spatial variability of local and background concentration signals for air pollution at the neighbourhood scale

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Shairsingh, Kerolyn K.; Jeong, Cheol-Heon; Wang, Jonathan M.; Evans, Greg J.

2018-06-01

Vehicle emissions represent a major source of air pollution in urban districts, producing highly variable concentrations of some pollutants within cities. The main goal of this study was to identify a deconvolving method so as to characterize variability in local, neighbourhood and regional background concentration signals. This method was validated by examining how traffic-related and non-traffic-related sources influenced the different signals. Sampling with a mobile monitoring platform was conducted across the Greater Toronto Area over a seven-day period during summer 2015. This mobile monitoring platform was equipped with instruments for measuring a wide range of pollutants at time resolutions of 1 s (ultrafine particles, black carbon) to 20 s (nitric oxide, nitrogen oxides). The monitored neighbourhoods were selected based on their land use categories (e.g. industrial, commercial, parks and residential areas). The high time-resolution data allowed pollutant concentrations to be separated into signals representing background and local concentrations. The background signals were determined using a spline of minimums; local signals were derived by subtracting the background concentration from the total concentration. Our study showed that temporal scales of 500 s and 2400 s were associated with the neighbourhood and regional background signals respectively. The percent contribution of the pollutant concentration that was attributed to local signals was highest for nitric oxide (NO) (37-95%) and lowest for ultrafine particles (9-58%); the ultrafine particles were predominantly regional (32-87%) in origin on these days. Local concentrations showed stronger associations than total concentrations with traffic intensity in a 100 m buffer (ρ:0.21-0.44). The neighbourhood scale signal also showed stronger associations with industrial facilities than the total concentrations. Given that the signals show stronger associations with different land use suggests that resolving the ambient concentrations differentiates which emission sources drive the variability in each signal. The benefit of this deconvolution method is that it may reduce exposure misclassification when coupled with predictive models.

Super-resolution reconstruction of MR image with a novel residual learning network algorithm

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Shi, Jun; Liu, Qingping; Wang, Chaofeng; Zhang, Qi; Ying, Shihui; Xu, Haoyu

2018-04-01

Spatial resolution is one of the key parameters of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The image super-resolution (SR) technique offers an alternative approach to improve the spatial resolution of MRI due to its simplicity. Convolutional neural networks (CNN)-based SR algorithms have achieved state-of-the-art performance, in which the global residual learning (GRL) strategy is now commonly used due to its effectiveness for learning image details for SR. However, the partial loss of image details usually happens in a very deep network due to the degradation problem. In this work, we propose a novel residual learning-based SR algorithm for MRI, which combines both multi-scale GRL and shallow network block-based local residual learning (LRL). The proposed LRL module works effectively in capturing high-frequency details by learning local residuals. One simulated MRI dataset and two real MRI datasets have been used to evaluate our algorithm. The experimental results show that the proposed SR algorithm achieves superior performance to all of the other compared CNN-based SR algorithms in this work.

Bridging the scales in a eulerian air quality model to assess megacity export of pollution

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Siour, G.; Colette, A.; Menut, L.; Bessagnet, B.; Coll, I.; Meleux, F.

2013-08-01

In Chemistry Transport Models (CTMs), spatial scale interactions are often represented through off-line coupling between large and small scale models. However, those nested configurations cannot give account of the impact of the local scale on its surroundings. This issue can be critical in areas exposed to air mass recirculation (sea breeze cells) or around regions with sharp pollutant emission gradients (large cities). Such phenomena can still be captured by the mean of adaptive gridding, two-way nesting or using model nudging, but these approaches remain relatively costly. We present here the development and the results of a simple alternative multi-scale approach making use of a horizontal stretched grid, in the Eulerian CTM CHIMERE. This method, called "stretching" or "zooming", consists in the introduction of local zooms in a single chemistry-transport simulation. It allows bridging online the spatial scales from the city (∼1 km resolution) to the continental area (∼50 km resolution). The CHIMERE model was run over a continental European domain, zoomed over the BeNeLux (Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg) area. We demonstrate that, compared with one-way nesting, the zooming method allows the expression of a significant feedback of the refined domain towards the large scale: around the city cluster of BeNeLuX, NO2 and O3 scores are improved. NO2 variability around BeNeLux is also better accounted for, and the net primary pollutant flux transported back towards BeNeLux is reduced. Although the results could not be validated for ozone over BeNeLux, we show that the zooming approach provides a simple and immediate way to better represent scale interactions within a CTM, and constitutes a useful tool for apprehending the hot topic of megacities within their continental environment.

Localized diffusive motion on two different time scales in solid alkane nanoparticles

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, S.-K.; Mamontov, E.; Bai, M.; Hansen, F. Y.; Taub, H.; Copley, J. R. D.; García Sakai, V.; Gasparovic, G.; Jenkins, T.; Tyagi, M.; Herwig, K. W.; Neumann, D. A.; Montfrooij, W.; Volkmann, U. G.

2010-09-01

High-energy-resolution quasielastic neutron scattering on three complementary spectrometers has been used to investigate molecular diffusive motion in solid nano- to bulk-sized particles of the alkane n-C32H66. The crystalline-to-plastic and plastic-to-fluid phase transition temperatures are observed to decrease as the particle size decreases. In all samples, localized molecular diffusive motion in the plastic phase occurs on two different time scales: a "fast" motion corresponding to uniaxial rotation about the long molecular axis; and a "slow" motion attributed to conformational changes of the molecule. Contrary to the conventional interpretation in bulk alkanes, the fast uniaxial rotation begins in the low-temperature crystalline phase.

Global high-resolution simulations of tropospheric nitrogen dioxide using CHASER V4.0

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sekiya, Takashi; Miyazaki, Kazuyuki; Ogochi, Koji; Sudo, Kengo; Takigawa, Masayuki

2018-03-01

We evaluate global tropospheric nitrogen dioxide (NO2) simulations using the CHASER V4.0 global chemical transport model (CTM) at horizontal resolutions of 0.56, 1.1, and 2.8°. Model evaluation was conducted using satellite tropospheric NO2 retrievals from the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) and the Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment-2 (GOME-2) and aircraft observations from the 2014 Front Range Air Pollution and Photochemistry Experiment (FRAPPÉ). Agreement against satellite retrievals improved greatly at 1.1 and 0.56° resolutions (compared to 2.8° resolution) over polluted and biomass burning regions. The 1.1° simulation generally captured the regional distribution of the tropospheric NO2 column well, whereas 0.56° resolution was necessary to improve the model performance over areas with strong local sources, with mean bias reductions of 67 % over Beijing and 73 % over San Francisco in summer. Validation using aircraft observations indicated that high-resolution simulations reduced negative NO2 biases below 700 hPa over the Denver metropolitan area. These improvements in high-resolution simulations were attributable to (1) closer spatial representativeness between simulations and observations and (2) better representation of large-scale concentration fields (i.e., at 2.8°) through the consideration of small-scale processes. Model evaluations conducted at 0.5 and 2.8° bin grids indicated that the contributions of both these processes were comparable over most polluted regions, whereas the latter effect (2) made a larger contribution over eastern China and biomass burning areas. The evaluations presented in this paper demonstrate the potential of using a high-resolution global CTM for studying megacity-scale air pollutants across the entire globe, potentially also contributing to global satellite retrievals and chemical data assimilation.

Remote sensing in support of high-resolution terrestrial carbon monitoring and modeling

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hurtt, G. C.; Zhao, M.; Dubayah, R.; Huang, C.; Swatantran, A.; ONeil-Dunne, J.; Johnson, K. D.; Birdsey, R.; Fisk, J.; Flanagan, S.; Sahajpal, R.; Huang, W.; Tang, H.; Armstrong, A. H.

2014-12-01

As part of its Phase 1 Carbon Monitoring System (CMS) activities, NASA initiated a Local-Scale Biomass Pilot study. The goals of the pilot study were to develop protocols for fusing high-resolution remotely sensed observations with field data, provide accurate validation test areas for the continental-scale biomass product, and demonstrate efficacy for prognostic terrestrial ecosystem modeling. In Phase 2, this effort was expanded to the state scale. Here, we present results of this activity focusing on the use of remote sensing in high-resolution ecosystem modeling. The Ecosystem Demography (ED) model was implemented at 90 m spatial resolution for the entire state of Maryland. We rasterized soil depth and soil texture data from SSURGO. For hourly meteorological data, we spatially interpolated 32-km 3-hourly NARR into 1-km hourly and further corrected them at monthly level using PRISM data. NLCD data were used to mask sand, seashore, and wetland. High-resolution 1 m forest/non-forest mapping was used to define forest fraction of 90 m cells. Three alternative strategies were evaluated for initialization of forest structure using high-resolution lidar, and the model was used to calculate statewide estimates of forest biomass, carbon sequestration potential, time to reach sequestration potential, and sensitivity to future forest growth and disturbance rates, all at 90 m resolution. To our knowledge, no dynamic ecosystem model has been run at such high spatial resolution over such large areas utilizing remote sensing and validated as extensively. There are over 3 million 90 m land cells in Maryland, greater than 43 times the ~73,000 half-degree cells in a state-of-the-art global land model.

Adapting generalization tools to physiographic diversity for the united states national hydrography dataset

USGS Publications Warehouse

Buttenfield, B.P.; Stanislawski, L.V.; Brewer, C.A.

2011-01-01

This paper reports on generalization and data modeling to create reduced scale versions of the National Hydrographic Dataset (NHD) for dissemination through The National Map, the primary data delivery portal for USGS. Our approach distinguishes local differences in physiographic factors, to demonstrate that knowledge about varying terrain (mountainous, hilly or flat) and varying climate (dry or humid) can support decisions about algorithms, parameters, and processing sequences to create generalized, smaller scale data versions which preserve distinct hydrographic patterns in these regions. We work with multiple subbasins of the NHD that provide a range of terrain and climate characteristics. Specifically tailored generalization sequences are used to create simplified versions of the high resolution data, which was compiled for 1:24,000 scale mapping. Results are evaluated cartographically and metrically against a medium resolution benchmark version compiled for 1:100,000, developing coefficients of linear and areal correspondence.

Bridging the scales in atmospheric composition simulations using a nudging technique

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

D'Isidoro, Massimo; Maurizi, Alberto; Russo, Felicita; Tampieri, Francesco

2010-05-01

Studying the interaction between climate and anthropogenic activities, specifically those concentrated in megacities/hot spots, requires the description of processes in a very wide range of scales from local, where anthropogenic emissions are concentrated to global where we are interested to study the impact of these sources. The description of all the processes at all scales within the same numerical implementation is not feasible because of limited computer resources. Therefore, different phenomena are studied by means of different numerical models that can cover different range of scales. The exchange of information from small to large scale is highly non-trivial though of high interest. In fact uncertainties in large scale simulations are expected to receive large contribution from the most polluted areas where the highly inhomogeneous distribution of sources connected to the intrinsic non-linearity of the processes involved can generate non negligible departures between coarse and fine scale simulations. In this work a new method is proposed and investigated in a case study (August 2009) using the BOLCHEM model. Monthly simulations at coarse (0.5° European domain, run A) and fine (0.1° Central Mediterranean domain, run B) horizontal resolution are performed using the coarse resolution as boundary condition for the fine one. Then another coarse resolution run (run C) is performed, in which the high resolution fields remapped on to the coarse grid are used to nudge the concentrations on the Po Valley area. The nudging is applied to all gas and aerosol species of BOLCHEM. Averaged concentrations and variances over Po Valley and other selected areas for O3 and PM are computed. It is observed that although the variance of run B is markedly larger than that of run A, the variance of run C is smaller because the remapping procedure removes large portion of variance from run B fields. Mean concentrations show some differences depending on species: in general mean values of run C lie between run A and run B. A propagation of the signal outside the nudging region is observed, and is evaluated in terms of differences between coarse resolution (with and without nudging) and fine resolution simulations.

Demonstrating the Uneven Importance of Fine-Scale Forest Structure on Snow Distributions using High Resolution Modeling

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Broxton, P. D.; Harpold, A. A.; van Leeuwen, W.; Biederman, J. A.

2016-12-01

Quantifying the amount of snow in forested mountainous environments, as well as how it may change due to warming and forest disturbance, is critical given its importance for water supply and ecosystem health. Forest canopies affect snow accumulation and ablation in ways that are difficult to observe and model. Furthermore, fine-scale forest structure can accentuate or diminish the effects of forest-snow interactions. Despite decades of research demonstrating the importance of fine-scale forest structure (e.g. canopy edges and gaps) on snow, we still lack a comprehensive understanding of where and when forest structure has the largest impact on snowpack mass and energy budgets. Here, we use a hyper-resolution (1 meter spatial resolution) mass and energy balance snow model called the Snow Physics and Laser Mapping (SnowPALM) model along with LIDAR-derived forest structure to determine where spatial variability of fine-scale forest structure has the largest influence on large scale mass and energy budgets. SnowPALM was set up and calibrated at sites representing diverse climates in New Mexico, Arizona, and California. Then, we compared simulations at different model resolutions (i.e. 1, 10, and 100 m) to elucidate the effects of including versus not including information about fine scale canopy structure. These experiments were repeated for different prescribed topographies (i.e. flat, 30% slope north, and south-facing) at each site. Higher resolution simulations had more snow at lower canopy cover, with the opposite being true at high canopy cover. Furthermore, there is considerable scatter, indicating that different canopy arrangements can lead to different amounts of snow, even when the overall canopy coverage is the same. This modeling is contributing to the development of a high resolution machine learning algorithm called the Snow Water Artificial Network (SWANN) model to generate predictions of snow distributions over much larger domains, which has implications for improving land surface models that do not currently resolve or parameterize fine-scale canopy structure. In addition, these findings have implications for understanding the potential of different forest management strategies (i.e. thinning) based on local topography and climate to maximize the amount and retention of snow.

Localization of synchronous cortical neural sources.

PubMed

Zerouali, Younes; Herry, Christophe L; Jemel, Boutheina; Lina, Jean-Marc

2013-03-01

Neural synchronization is a key mechanism to a wide variety of brain functions, such as cognition, perception, or memory. High temporal resolution achieved by EEG recordings allows the study of the dynamical properties of synchronous patterns of activity at a very fine temporal scale but with very low spatial resolution. Spatial resolution can be improved by retrieving the neural sources of EEG signal, thus solving the so-called inverse problem. Although many methods have been proposed to solve the inverse problem and localize brain activity, few of them target the synchronous brain regions. In this paper, we propose a novel algorithm aimed at localizing specifically synchronous brain regions and reconstructing the time course of their activity. Using multivariate wavelet ridge analysis, we extract signals capturing the synchronous events buried in the EEG and then solve the inverse problem on these signals. Using simulated data, we compare results of source reconstruction accuracy achieved by our method to a standard source reconstruction approach. We show that the proposed method performs better across a wide range of noise levels and source configurations. In addition, we applied our method on real dataset and identified successfully cortical areas involved in the functional network underlying visual face perception. We conclude that the proposed approach allows an accurate localization of synchronous brain regions and a robust estimation of their activity.

Real Time Monitoring of Flooding from Microwave Satellite Observations

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Galantowicz, John F.; Frey, Herb (Technical Monitor)

2002-01-01

We have developed a new method for making high-resolution flood extent maps (e.g., at the 30-100 m scale of digital elevation models) in real-time from low-resolution (20-70 km) passive microwave observations. The method builds a "flood-potential" database from elevations and historic flood imagery and uses it to create a flood-extent map consistent with the observed open water fraction. Microwave radiometric measurements are useful for flood monitoring because they sense surface water in clear-or-cloudy conditions and can provide more timely data (e.g., compared to radars) from relatively wide swath widths and an increasing number of available platforms (DMSP, ADEOS-II, Terra, NPOESS, GPM). The chief disadvantages for flood mapping are the radiometers' low resolution and the need for local calibration of the relationship between radiances and open-water fraction. We present our method for transforming microwave sensor-scale open water fraction estimates into high-resolution flood extent maps and describe 30-day flood map sequences generated during a retrospective study of the 1993 Great Midwest Flood. We discuss the method's potential improvement through as yet unimplemented algorithm enhancements and expected advancements in microwave radiometry (e.g., improved resolution and atmospheric correction).

Simulation of nitrate reduction in groundwater - An upscaling approach from small catchments to the Baltic Sea basin

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hansen, A. L.; Donnelly, C.; Refsgaard, J. C.; Karlsson, I. B.

2018-01-01

This paper describes a modeling approach proposed to simulate the impact of local-scale, spatially targeted N-mitigation measures for the Baltic Sea Basin. Spatially targeted N-regulations aim at exploiting the considerable spatial differences in the natural N-reduction taking place in groundwater and surface water. While such measures can be simulated using local-scale physically-based catchment models, use of such detailed models for the 1.8 million km2 Baltic Sea basin is not feasible due to constraints on input data and computing power. Large-scale models that are able to simulate the Baltic Sea basin, on the other hand, do not have adequate spatial resolution to simulate some of the field-scale measures. Our methodology combines knowledge and results from two local-scale physically-based MIKE SHE catchment models, the large-scale and more conceptual E-HYPE model, and auxiliary data in order to enable E-HYPE to simulate how spatially targeted regulation of agricultural practices may affect N-loads to the Baltic Sea. We conclude that the use of E-HYPE with this upscaling methodology enables the simulation of the impact on N-loads of applying a spatially targeted regulation at the Baltic Sea basin scale to the correct order-of-magnitude. The E-HYPE model together with the upscaling methodology therefore provides a sound basis for large-scale policy analysis; however, we do not expect it to be sufficiently accurate to be useful for the detailed design of local-scale measures.

Atomic-Scale Nuclear Spin Imaging Using Quantum-Assisted Sensors in Diamond

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ajoy, A.; Bissbort, U.; Lukin, M. D.; Walsworth, R. L.; Cappellaro, P.

2015-01-01

Nuclear spin imaging at the atomic level is essential for the understanding of fundamental biological phenomena and for applications such as drug discovery. The advent of novel nanoscale sensors promises to achieve the long-standing goal of single-protein, high spatial-resolution structure determination under ambient conditions. In particular, quantum sensors based on the spin-dependent photoluminescence of nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond have recently been used to detect nanoscale ensembles of external nuclear spins. While NV sensitivity is approaching single-spin levels, extracting relevant information from a very complex structure is a further challenge since it requires not only the ability to sense the magnetic field of an isolated nuclear spin but also to achieve atomic-scale spatial resolution. Here, we propose a method that, by exploiting the coupling of the NV center to an intrinsic quantum memory associated with the nitrogen nuclear spin, can reach a tenfold improvement in spatial resolution, down to atomic scales. The spatial resolution enhancement is achieved through coherent control of the sensor spin, which creates a dynamic frequency filter selecting only a few nuclear spins at a time. We propose and analyze a protocol that would allow not only sensing individual spins in a complex biomolecule, but also unraveling couplings among them, thus elucidating local characteristics of the molecule structure.

Equatorial Density Irregularity Structures at Intermediate Scales and Their Temporal Evolution

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kil, Hyosub; Heelis, R. A.

1998-01-01

We examine high resolution measurements of ion density in the equatorial ionosphere from the AE-E satellite during the years 1977-1981. Structure over spatial scales from 18 km to 200 m is characterized by the spectrum of irregularities at larger and smaller scales and at altitudes above 350 km and below 300 km. In the low-altitude region, only small amplitude large-scale (lambda greater than 5 km) density modulations are often observed, and thus the power spectrum of these density structures exhibits a steep spectral slope at kilometer scales. In the high-altitude region, sinusoidal density fluctuations, characterized by enhanced power near 1-km scale, are frequently observed during 2000-0200 LT. However, such fluctuations are confined to regions at the edges of larger bubble structures where the average background density is high. Small amplitude irregularity structures, observed at early local time hours, grow rapidly to high-intensity structures in about 90 min. Fully developed structures, which are observed at late local time hours, decay very slowly producing only-small differences in spectral characteristics even 4 hours later. The local time evolution of irregularity structure is investigated by using average statistics for low-(1% less than sigma less than 5%) and high-intensity (sigma greater than 10%) structures. At lower altitudes, little chance in the spectral slope is seen as a function of local time, while at higher attitudes the growth and maintenance of structures near 1 km scales dramatically affects the spectral slope.

A scale self-adapting segmentation approach and knowledge transfer for automatically updating land use/cover change databases using high spatial resolution images

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, Zhihua; Yang, Xiaomei; Lu, Chen; Yang, Fengshuo

2018-07-01

Automatic updating of land use/cover change (LUCC) databases using high spatial resolution images (HSRI) is important for environmental monitoring and policy making, especially for coastal areas that connect the land and coast and that tend to change frequently. Many object-based change detection methods are proposed, especially those combining historical LUCC with HSRI. However, the scale parameter(s) segmenting the serial temporal images, which directly determines the average object size, is hard to choose without experts' intervention. And the samples transferred from historical LUCC also need experts' intervention to avoid insufficient or wrong samples. With respect to the scale parameter(s) choosing, a Scale Self-Adapting Segmentation (SSAS) approach based on the exponential sampling of a scale parameter and location of the local maximum of a weighted local variance was proposed to determine the scale selection problem when segmenting images constrained by LUCC for detecting changes. With respect to the samples transferring, Knowledge Transfer (KT), a classifier trained on historical images with LUCC and applied in the classification of updated images, was also proposed. Comparison experiments were conducted in a coastal area of Zhujiang, China, using SPOT 5 images acquired in 2005 and 2010. The results reveal that (1) SSAS can segment images more effectively without intervention of experts. (2) KT can also reach the maximum accuracy of samples transfer without experts' intervention. Strategy SSAS + KT would be a good choice if the temporal historical image and LUCC match, and the historical image and updated image are obtained from the same resource.

FALCON: fast and unbiased reconstruction of high-density super-resolution microscopy data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Min, Junhong; Vonesch, Cédric; Kirshner, Hagai; Carlini, Lina; Olivier, Nicolas; Holden, Seamus; Manley, Suliana; Ye, Jong Chul; Unser, Michael

2014-04-01

Super resolution microscopy such as STORM and (F)PALM is now a well known method for biological studies at the nanometer scale. However, conventional imaging schemes based on sparse activation of photo-switchable fluorescent probes have inherently slow temporal resolution which is a serious limitation when investigating live-cell dynamics. Here, we present an algorithm for high-density super-resolution microscopy which combines a sparsity-promoting formulation with a Taylor series approximation of the PSF. Our algorithm is designed to provide unbiased localization on continuous space and high recall rates for high-density imaging, and to have orders-of-magnitude shorter run times compared to previous high-density algorithms. We validated our algorithm on both simulated and experimental data, and demonstrated live-cell imaging with temporal resolution of 2.5 seconds by recovering fast ER dynamics.

FALCON: fast and unbiased reconstruction of high-density super-resolution microscopy data

PubMed Central

Min, Junhong; Vonesch, Cédric; Kirshner, Hagai; Carlini, Lina; Olivier, Nicolas; Holden, Seamus; Manley, Suliana; Ye, Jong Chul; Unser, Michael

2014-01-01

Super resolution microscopy such as STORM and (F)PALM is now a well known method for biological studies at the nanometer scale. However, conventional imaging schemes based on sparse activation of photo-switchable fluorescent probes have inherently slow temporal resolution which is a serious limitation when investigating live-cell dynamics. Here, we present an algorithm for high-density super-resolution microscopy which combines a sparsity-promoting formulation with a Taylor series approximation of the PSF. Our algorithm is designed to provide unbiased localization on continuous space and high recall rates for high-density imaging, and to have orders-of-magnitude shorter run times compared to previous high-density algorithms. We validated our algorithm on both simulated and experimental data, and demonstrated live-cell imaging with temporal resolution of 2.5 seconds by recovering fast ER dynamics. PMID:24694686

Impact of Extensive Urbanization on Summertime Rainfall in the Beijing Region and the Role of Local Precipitation Recycling

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, Jun; Feng, Jinming; Yan, Zhongwei

2018-04-01

In this study, we conducted nested high-resolution simulations using the Weather Research and Forecasting model coupled with a single-layer urban canopy model to investigate the impact of extensive urbanization on regional precipitation over the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region in China. The results showed that extensive urbanization decreased precipitation considerably over and downwind of Beijing city. The prevalence of impermeable urban land inhibits local evaporation that feeds moisture into the overlying atmosphere, decreasing relative humidity and atmospheric instability. The dynamic precipitation recycling model was employed to estimate the precipitation that originates from local surface evaporation and large-scale advection of moisture. Results showed that about 11% of the urbanization-induced decrease in total precipitation over the Greater Beijing Region and its surroundings was contributed by the decrease in local recycled precipitation, while the other part (89%) was due to decreasing large-scale advected precipitation. Results suggest that the low evaporation from urban land surfaces not only reduces the supply of water vapor for local recycled precipitation directly but also decreases the convective available potential energy and hence the conversion efficiency of atmospheric moisture into rainfall. The urbanization-induced variations in local recycled precipitation were found to be correlated with the net atmospheric moisture flux on a monthly time scale.

High-Resolution Air Pollution Mapping with Google Street View Cars: Exploiting Big Data.

PubMed

Apte, Joshua S; Messier, Kyle P; Gani, Shahzad; Brauer, Michael; Kirchstetter, Thomas W; Lunden, Melissa M; Marshall, Julian D; Portier, Christopher J; Vermeulen, Roel C H; Hamburg, Steven P

2017-06-20

Air pollution affects billions of people worldwide, yet ambient pollution measurements are limited for much of the world. Urban air pollution concentrations vary sharply over short distances (≪1 km) owing to unevenly distributed emission sources, dilution, and physicochemical transformations. Accordingly, even where present, conventional fixed-site pollution monitoring methods lack the spatial resolution needed to characterize heterogeneous human exposures and localized pollution hotspots. Here, we demonstrate a measurement approach to reveal urban air pollution patterns at 4-5 orders of magnitude greater spatial precision than possible with current central-site ambient monitoring. We equipped Google Street View vehicles with a fast-response pollution measurement platform and repeatedly sampled every street in a 30-km 2 area of Oakland, CA, developing the largest urban air quality data set of its type. Resulting maps of annual daytime NO, NO 2 , and black carbon at 30 m-scale reveal stable, persistent pollution patterns with surprisingly sharp small-scale variability attributable to local sources, up to 5-8× within individual city blocks. Since local variation in air quality profoundly impacts public health and environmental equity, our results have important implications for how air pollution is measured and managed. If validated elsewhere, this readily scalable measurement approach could address major air quality data gaps worldwide.

The parsec-scale relationship between ICO and AV in local molecular clouds

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lee, Cheoljong; Leroy, Adam K.; Bolatto, Alberto D.; Glover, Simon C. O.; Indebetouw, Remy; Sandstrom, Karin; Schruba, Andreas

2018-03-01

We measure the parsec-scale relationship between integrated CO intensity (ICO) and visual extinction (AV) in 24 local molecular clouds using maps of CO emission and dust optical depth from Planck. This relationship informs our understanding of CO emission across environments, but clean Milky Way measurements remain scarce. We find uniform ICO for a given AV, with the results bracketed by previous studies of the Pipe and Perseus clouds. Our measured ICO-AV relation broadly agrees with the standard Galactic CO-to-H2 conversion factor, the relation found for the Magellanic clouds at coarser resolution, and numerical simulations by Glover & Clark (2016). This supports the idea that CO emission primarily depends on shielding, which protects molecules from dissociating radiation. Evidence for CO saturation at high AV and a threshold for CO emission at low AV varies remains uncertain due to insufficient resolution and ambiguities in background subtraction. Resolution of order 0.1 pc may be required to measure these features. We use this ICO-AV relation to predict how the CO-to-H2 conversion factor (XCO) would change if the Solar Neighbourhood clouds had different dust-to-gas ratio (metallicity). The calculations highlight the need for improved observations of the CO emission threshold and H I shielding layer depth. They are also sensitive to the shape of the column density distribution. Because local clouds collectively show a self-similar distribution, we predict a shallow metallicity dependence for XCO down to a few tenths of solar metallicity. However, our calculations also imply dramatic variations in cloud-to-cloud XCO at subsolar metallicity.

GPCC - A weather generator-based statistical downscaling tool for site-specific assessment of climate change impacts

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Resolution of climate model outputs are too coarse to be used as direct inputs to impact models for assessing climate change impacts on agricultural production, water resources, and eco-system services at local or site-specific scales. Statistical downscaling approaches are usually used to bridge th...

Strain localization in models and nature: bridging the gaps.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Burov, E.; Francois, T.; Leguille, J.

2012-04-01

Mechanisms of strain localization and their role in tectonic evolution are still largely debated. Indeed, the laboratory data on strain localization processes are not abundant, they do not cover the entire range of possible mechanisms and have to be extrapolated, sometimes with greatest uncertainties, to geological scales while the observations of localization processes at outcrop scale are scarce, not always representative, and usually are difficult to quantify. Numerical thermo-mechanical models allow us to investigate the relative importance of some of the localization processes whether they are hypothesized or observed at laboratory or outcrop scale. The numerical models can test different observationally or analytically derived laws in terms of their applicability to natural scales and tectonic processes. The models are limited, however, in their capacity of reproduction of physical mechanisms, and necessary simplify the softening laws leading to "numerical" localization. Numerical strain localization is also limited by grid resolution and the ability of specific numerical codes to handle large strains and the complexity of the associated physical phenomena. Hence, multiple iterations between observations and models are needed to elucidate the causes of strain localization in nature. We here investigate the relative impact of different weakening laws on localization of deformation using large-strain thermo-mechanical models. We test using several "generic" rifting and collision settings, the implications of structural softening, tectonic heritage, shear heating, friction angle and cohesion softening, ductile softening (mimicking grain-size reduction) as well as of a number of other mechanisms such as fluid-assisted phase changes. The results suggest that different mechanisms of strain localization may interfere in nature, yet it most cases it is not evident to establish quantifiable links between the laboratory data and the best-fitting parameters of the effective softening laws that allow to reproduce large scale tectonic evolution. For example, one of most effective and widely used mechanisms of "numerical" strain localization is friction angle softening. Yet, namely this law appears to be most difficult to justify from physical and observational grounds.

Atomic-Resolution Spectrum Imaging of Semiconductor Nanowires.

PubMed

Zamani, Reza R; Hage, Fredrik S; Lehmann, Sebastian; Ramasse, Quentin M; Dick, Kimberly A

2018-03-14

Over the past decade, III-V heterostructure nanowires have attracted a surge of attention for their application in novel semiconductor devices such as tunneling field-effect transistors (TFETs). The functionality of such devices critically depends on the specific atomic arrangement at the semiconductor heterointerfaces. However, most of the currently available characterization techniques lack sufficient spatial resolution to provide local information on the atomic structure and composition of these interfaces. Atomic-resolution spectrum imaging by means of electron energy-loss spectroscopy (EELS) in the scanning transmission electron microscope (STEM) is a powerful technique with the potential to resolve structure and chemical composition with sub-angstrom spatial resolution and to provide localized information about the physical properties of the material at the atomic scale. Here, we demonstrate the use of atomic-resolution EELS to understand the interface atomic arrangement in three-dimensional heterostructures in semiconductor nanowires. We observed that the radial interfaces of GaSb-InAs heterostructure nanowires are atomically abrupt, while the axial interface in contrast consists of an interfacial region where intermixing of the two compounds occurs over an extended spatial region. The local atomic configuration affects the band alignment at the interface and, hence, the charge transport properties of devices such as GaSb-InAs nanowire TFETs. STEM-EELS thus represents a very promising technique for understanding nanowire physical properties, such as differing electrical behavior across the radial and axial heterointerfaces of GaSb-InAs nanowires for TFET applications.

Multi-scale modeling of diffusion-controlled reactions in polymers: renormalisation of reactivity parameters.

PubMed

Everaers, Ralf; Rosa, Angelo

2012-01-07

The quantitative description of polymeric systems requires hierarchical modeling schemes, which bridge the gap between the atomic scale, relevant to chemical or biomolecular reactions, and the macromolecular scale, where the longest relaxation modes occur. Here, we use the formalism for diffusion-controlled reactions in polymers developed by Wilemski, Fixman, and Doi to discuss the renormalisation of the reactivity parameters in polymer models with varying spatial resolution. In particular, we show that the adjustments are independent of chain length. As a consequence, it is possible to match reactions times between descriptions with different resolution for relatively short reference chains and to use the coarse-grained model to make quantitative predictions for longer chains. We illustrate our results by a detailed discussion of the classical problem of chain cyclization in the Rouse model, which offers the simplest example of a multi-scale descriptions, if we consider differently discretized Rouse models for the same physical system. Moreover, we are able to explore different combinations of compact and non-compact diffusion in the local and large-scale dynamics by varying the embedding dimension.

Hierarchical graphical-based human pose estimation via local multi-resolution convolutional neural network

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhu, Aichun; Wang, Tian; Snoussi, Hichem

2018-03-01

This paper addresses the problems of the graphical-based human pose estimation in still images, including the diversity of appearances and confounding background clutter. We present a new architecture for estimating human pose using a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN). Firstly, a Relative Mixture Deformable Model (RMDM) is defined by each pair of connected parts to compute the relative spatial information in the graphical model. Secondly, a Local Multi-Resolution Convolutional Neural Network (LMR-CNN) is proposed to train and learn the multi-scale representation of each body parts by combining different levels of part context. Thirdly, a LMR-CNN based hierarchical model is defined to explore the context information of limb parts. Finally, the experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed deep learning approach for human pose estimation.

DisPATCh as a tool to evaluate coarse-scale remotely sensed soil moisture using localized in situ measurements: Application to SMOS and AMSR-E data in Southeastern Australia

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Malbéteau, Yoann; Merlin, Olivier; Molero, Beatriz; Rüdiger, Christoph; Bacon, Stephan

2016-03-01

Validating coarse-scale satellite soil moisture data still represents a big challenge, notably due to the large mismatch existing between the spatial resolution (> 10 km) of microwave radiometers and the representativeness scale (several m) of localized in situ measurements. This study aims to examine the potential of DisPATCh (Disaggregation based on Physical and Theoretical scale Change) for validating SMOS (Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity) and AMSR-E (Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer-Earth observation system) level-3 soil moisture products. The ∽40-50 km resolution SMOS and AMSR-E data are disaggregated at 1 km resolution over the Murrumbidgee catchment in Southeastern Australia during a one year period in 2010-2011, and the satellite products are compared with the in situ measurements of 38 stations distributed within the study area. It is found that disaggregation improves the mean difference, correlation coefficient and slope of the linear regression between satellite and in situ data in 77%, 92% and 94% of cases, respectively. Nevertheless, the downscaling efficiency is lower in winter than during the hotter months when DisPATCh performance is optimal. Consistently, better results are obtained in the semi-arid than in a temperate zone of the catchment. In the semi-arid Yanco region, disaggregation in summer increases the correlation coefficient from 0.63 to 0.78 and from 0.42 to 0.71 for SMOS and AMSR-E in morning overpasses and from 0.37 to 0.63 and from 0.47 to 0.73 for SMOS and AMSR-E in afternoon overpasses, respectively. DisPATCh has strong potential in low vegetated semi-arid areas where it can be used as a tool to evaluate coarse-scale remotely sensed soil moisture by explicitly representing the sub-pixel variability.

Air quality in the mid-21st century for the city of Paris under two climate scenarios; from the regional to local scale

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Markakis, K.; Valari, M.; Colette, A.; Sanchez, O.; Perrussel, O.; Honore, C.; Vautard, R.; Klimont, Z.; Rao, S.

2014-07-01

Ozone and PM2.5 concentrations over the city of Paris are modeled with the CHIMERE air-quality model at 4 km × 4 km horizontal resolution for two future emission scenarios. A high-resolution (1 km × 1 km) emission projection until 2020 for the greater Paris region is developed by local experts (AIRPARIF) and is further extended to year 2050 based on regional-scale emission projections developed by the Global Energy Assessment. Model evaluation is performed based on a 10-year control simulation. Ozone is in very good agreement with measurements while PM2.5 is underestimated by 20% over the urban area mainly due to a large wet bias in wintertime precipitation. A significant increase of maximum ozone relative to present-day levels over Paris is modeled under the "business-as-usual" scenario (+7 ppb) while a more optimistic "mitigation" scenario leads to a moderate ozone decrease (-3.5 ppb) in year 2050. These results are substantially different to previous regional-scale projections where 2050 ozone is found to decrease under both future scenarios. A sensitivity analysis showed that this difference is due to the fact that ozone formation over Paris at the current urban-scale study is driven by volatile organic compound (VOC)-limited chemistry, whereas at the regional-scale ozone formation occurs under NOx-sensitive conditions. This explains why the sharp NOx reductions implemented in the future scenarios have a different effect on ozone projections at different scales. In rural areas, projections at both scales yield similar results showing that the longer timescale processes of emission transport and ozone formation are less sensitive to model resolution. PM2.5 concentrations decrease by 78% and 89% under business-as-usual and mitigation scenarios, respectively, compared to the present-day period. The reduction is much more prominent over the urban part of the domain due to the effective reductions of road transport and residential emissions resulting in the smoothing of the large urban increment modeled in the control simulation.

Direct Numerical Simulations of Small-Scale Gravity Wave Instability Dynamics in Variable Stratification and Shear

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mixa, T.; Fritts, D. C.; Laughman, B.; Wang, L.; Kantha, L. H.

2015-12-01

Multiple observations provide compelling evidence that gravity wave dissipation events often occur in multi-scale environments having highly-structured wind and stability profiles extending from the stable boundary layer into the mesosphere and lower thermosphere. Such events tend to be highly localized and thus yield local energy and momentum deposition and efficient secondary gravity wave generation expected to have strong influences at higher altitudes [e.g., Fritts et al., 2013; Baumgarten and Fritts, 2014]. Lidars, radars, and airglow imagers typically cannot achieve the spatial resolution needed to fully quantify these small-scale instability dynamics. Hence, we employ high-resolution modeling to explore these dynamics in representative environments. Specifically, we describe numerical studies of gravity wave packets impinging on a sheet of high stratification and shear and the resulting instabilities and impacts on the gravity wave amplitude and momentum flux for various flow and gravity wave parameters. References: Baumgarten, Gerd, and David C. Fritts (2014). Quantifying Kelvin-Helmholtz instability dynamics observed in noctilucent clouds: 1. Methods and observations. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 119.15, 9324-9337. Fritts, D. C., Wang, L., & Werne, J. A. (2013). Gravity wave-fine structure interactions. Part I: Influences of fine structure form and orientation on flow evolution and instability. Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, 70(12), 3710-3734.

Fine-scale natal homing and localized movement as shaped by sex and spawning habitat in chinook salmon

USGS Publications Warehouse

Neville, Helen; Isaak, Daniel; Dunham, J.B.; Thurow, Russel; Rieman, B.

2006-01-01

Natal homing is a hallmark of the life history of salmonid fishes, but the spatial scale of homing within local, naturally reproducing salmon populations is still poorly understood. Accurate homing (paired with restricted movement) should lead to the existence of fine-scale genetic structuring due to the spatial clustering of related individuals on spawning grounds. Thus, we explored the spatial resolution of natal homing using genetic associations among individual Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) in an interconnected stream network. We also investigated the relationship between genetic patterns and two factors hypothesized to influence natal homing and localized movements at finer scales in this species, localized patterns in the distribution of spawning gravels and sex. Spatial autocorrelation analyses showed that spawning locations in both sub-basins of our study site were spatially clumped, but the upper sub-basin generally had a larger spatial extent and continuity of redd locations than the lower sub-basin, where the distribution of redds and associated habitat conditions were more patchy. Male genotypes were not autocorrelated at any spatial scale in either sub-basin. Female genotypes showed significant spatial autocorrelation and genetic patterns for females varied in the direction predicted between the two sub-basins, with much stronger autocorrelation in the sub-basin with less continuity in spawning gravels. The patterns observed here support predictions about differential constraints and breeding tactics between the two sexes and the potential for fine-scale habitat structure to influence the precision of natal homing and localized movements of individual Chinook salmon on their breeding grounds.

Relations Between Coastal Catchment Attributes and Submarine Groundwater Discharge at Different Scales

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Moosdorf, N.; Langlotz, S. T.

2016-02-01

Submarine groundwater discharge (SGD) has been recognized as a relevant field of coastal research in the last years. Its implications on local scale have been documented by an increasing number of studies researching individual locations with SGD. The local studies also often emphasize its large variability. On the other end, global scale studies try to estimate SGD related fluxes of e.g. carbon (Cole et al., 2007) and nitrogen (Beusen et al., 2013). These studies naturally use a coarse resolution, too coarse to represent the aforementioned local variability of SGD (Moosdorf et al., 2015). A way to transfer information of the local variability of SGD to large scale flux estimates is needed. Here we discuss the upscaling of local studies based on the definition and typology of coastal catchments. Coastal catchments are those stretches of coast that do not drain into major rivers but directly into the sea. Their attributes, e.g. climate, topography, land cover, or lithology can be used to extrapolate from the local scale to larger scales. We present first results of a typology, compare coastal catchment attributes to SGD estimates from field studies and discuss upscaling as well as the associated uncertainties. This study aims at bridging the gap between the scales and enabling an improved representation of local scale variability on continental to global scale. With this, it can contribute to a recent initiative to model large scale SGD fluxes (NExT SGD). References: Beusen, A.H.W., Slomp, C.P., Bouwman, A.F., 2013. Global land-ocean linkage: direct inputs of nitrogen to coastal waters via submarine groundwater discharge. Environmental Research Letters, 8(3): 6. Cole, J.J., Prairie, Y.T., Caraco, N.F., McDowell, W.H., Tranvik, L.J., Striegl, R.G., Duarte, C.M., Kortelainen, P., Downing, J.A., Middelburg, J.J., Melack, J., 2007. Plumbing the global carbon cycle: Integrating inland waters into the terrestrial carbon budget. Ecosystems, 10(1): 171-184. Moosdorf, N., Stieglitz, T., Waska, H., Durr, H.H., Hartmann, J., 2015. Submarine groundwater discharge from tropical islands: a review. Grundwasser, 20(1): 53-67.

Single-Molecule Tracking Photoactivated Localization Microscopy to Map Nano-Scale Structure and Dynamics in Living Spines

PubMed Central

MacGillavry, Harold D.; Blanpied, Thomas A.

2013-01-01

Super-resolution microscopy has rapidly become an indispensable tool in cell biology and neuroscience by enabling measurement in live cells of structures smaller than the classical limit imposed by diffraction. The most widely applied super-resolution method currently is localization microscopy, which takes advantage of the ability to determine the position of individual fluorescent molecules with nanometer accuracy even in cells. By iteratively measuring sparse subsets of photoactivatable fluorescent proteins, protein distribution in macromolecular structures can be accurately reconstructed. Moreover, the motion trajectories of individual molecules within cells can be measured, providing unique ability to measure transport kinetics, exchange rates, and binding affinities of even small subsets of molecules with high temporal resolution and great spatial specificity. This unit describes protocols to measure and quantify the distribution of scaffold proteins within single synapses of cultured hippocampal neurons, and to track and measure the diffusion of intracellular constituents of the neuronal plasma membrane. PMID:25429311

Mid-21st century air quality at the urban scale under the influence of changed climate and emissions - case studies for Paris and Stockholm

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Markakis, Konstantinos; Valari, Myrto; Engardt, Magnuz; Lacressonniere, Gwendoline; Vautard, Robert; Andersson, Camilla

2016-02-01

Ozone, PM10 and PM2.5 concentrations over Paris, France and Stockholm, Sweden were modelled at 4 and 1 km horizontal resolutions respectively for the present and 2050 periods employing decade-long simulations. We account for large-scale global climate change (RCP-4.5) and fine-resolution bottom-up emission projections developed by local experts and quantify their impact on future pollutant concentrations. Moreover, we identify biases related to the implementation of regional-scale emission projections by comparing modelled pollutant concentrations between the fine- and coarse-scale simulations over the study areas. We show that over urban areas with major regional contribution (e.g. the city of Stockholm) the bias related to coarse-scale projections may be significant and lead to policy misclassification. Our results stress the need to better understand the mechanism of bias propagation across the modelling scales in order to design more successful local-scale strategies. We find that the impact of climate change is spatially homogeneous in both regions, implying strong regional influence. The climate benefit for ozone (daily mean and maximum) is up to -5 % for Paris and -2 % for Stockholm city. The climate benefit on PM2.5 and PM10 in Paris is between -5 and -10 %, while for Stockholm we estimate mixed trends of up to 3 % depending on season and size class. In Stockholm, emission mitigation leads to concentration reductions up to 15 % for daily mean and maximum ozone and 20 % for PM. Through a sensitivity analysis we show that this response is entirely due to changes in emissions at the regional scale. On the contrary, over the city of Paris (VOC-limited photochemical regime), local mitigation of NOx emissions increases future ozone concentrations due to ozone titration inhibition. This competing trend between the respective roles of emission and climate change, results in an increase in 2050 daily mean ozone by 2.5 % in Paris. Climate and not emission change appears to be the most influential factor for maximum ozone concentration over the city of Paris, which may be particularly interesting from a health impact perspective.

Xenia Mission: Spacecraft Design Concept

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hopkins, R. C.; Johnson, C. L.; Kouveliotou, C.; Jones, D.; Baysinger, M.; Bedsole, T.; Maples, C. C.; Benfield, P. J.; Turner, M.; Capizzo, P.;

Early views of the martian surface from the Mars Orbiter Camera of Mars Global Surveyor.

PubMed

Malin, M C; Carr, M H; Danielson, G E; Davies, M E; Hartmann, W K; Ingersoll, A P; James, P B; Masursky, H; McEwen, A S; Soderblom, L A; Thomas, P; Veverka, J; Caplinger, M A; Ravine, M A; Soulanille, T A; Warren, J L

1998-03-13

High-resolution images of the martian surface at scales of a few meters show ubiquitous erosional and depositional eolian landforms. Dunes, sandsheets, and drifts are prevalent and exhibit a range of morphology, composition (inferred from albedo), and age (as seen in occurrences of different dune orientations at the same location). Steep walls of topographic depressions such as canyons, valleys, and impact craters show the martian crust to be stratified at scales of a few tens of meters. The south polar layered terrain and superposed permanent ice cap display diverse surface textures that may reflect the complex interplay of volatile and non-volatile components. Low resolution regional views of the planet provide synoptic observations of polar cap retreat, condensate clouds, and the lifecycle of local and regional dust storms.

Spatio-temporal variability of soil water content on the local scale in a Mediterranean mountain area (Vallcebre, North Eastern Spain). How different spatio-temporal scales reflect mean soil water content

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Molina, Antonio J.; Latron, Jérôme; Rubio, Carles M.; Gallart, Francesc; Llorens, Pilar

2014-08-01

As a result of complex human-land interactions and topographic variability, many Mediterranean mountain catchments are covered by agricultural terraces that have locally modified the soil water content dynamic. Understanding these local-scale dynamics helps us grasp better how hydrology behaves on the catchment scale. Thus, this study examined soil water content variability in the upper 30 cm of the soil on a Mediterranean abandoned terrace in north-east Spain. Using a dataset of high spatial (regular grid of 128 automatic TDR probes at 2.5 m intervals) and temporal (20-min time step) resolution, gathered throughout a 84-day period, the spatio-temporal variability of soil water content at the local scale and the way that different spatio-temporal scales reflect the mean soil water content were investigated. Soil water content spatial variability and its relation to wetness conditions were examined, along with the spatial structuring of the soil water content within the terrace. Then, the ability of single probes and of different combinations of spatial measurements (transects and grids) to provide a good estimate of mean soil water content on the terrace scale was explored by means of temporal stability analyses. Finally, the effect of monitoring frequency on the magnitude of detectable daily soil water content variations was studied. Results showed that soil water content spatial variability followed a bimodal pattern of increasing absolute variability with increasing soil water content. In addition, a linear trend of decreasing soil water content as the distance from the inner part of the terrace increased was identified. Once this trend was subtracted, resulting semi-variograms suggested that the spatial resolution examined was too high to appreciate spatial structuring in the data. Thus, the spatial pattern should be considered as random. Of all the spatial designs tested, the 10 × 10 m mesh grid (9 probes) was considered the most suitable option for a good, time-stable estimate of mean soil water content, as no improvement was obtained with the 5 × 5 m mesh grid (30 probes). Finally, the results of temporal aggregation showed that decreasing the monitoring frequency down to 8 h during wetting-up periods and to 1 day during drying-down ones did not result in a loss of information on daily soil water content variations.

A new implementation of full resolution SBAS-DInSAR processing chain for the effective monitoring of structures and infrastructures

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bonano, Manuela; Buonanno, Sabatino; Ojha, Chandrakanta; Berardino, Paolo; Lanari, Riccardo; Zeni, Giovanni; Manunta, Michele

2017-04-01

The advanced DInSAR technique referred to as Small BAseline Subset (SBAS) algorithm has already largely demonstrated its effectiveness to carry out multi-scale and multi-platform surface deformation analyses relevant to both natural and man-made hazards. Thanks to its capability to generate displacement maps and long-term deformation time series at both regional (low resolution analysis) and local (full resolution analysis) spatial scales, it allows to get more insights on the spatial and temporal patterns of localized displacements relevant to single buildings and infrastructures over extended urban areas, with a key role in supporting risk mitigation and preservation activities. The extensive application of the multi-scale SBAS-DInSAR approach in many scientific contexts has gone hand in hand with new SAR satellite mission development, characterized by different frequency bands, spatial resolution, revisit times and ground coverage. This brought to the generation of huge DInSAR data stacks to be efficiently handled, processed and archived, with a strong impact on both the data storage and the computational requirements needed for generating the full resolution SBAS-DInSAR results. Accordingly, innovative and effective solutions for the automatic processing of massive SAR data archives and for the operational management of the derived SBAS-DInSAR products need to be designed and implemented, by exploiting the high efficiency (in terms of portability, scalability and computing performances) of the new ICT methodologies. In this work, we present a novel parallel implementation of the full resolution SBAS-DInSAR processing chain, aimed at investigating localized displacements affecting single buildings and infrastructures relevant to very large urban areas, relying on different granularity level parallelization strategies. The image granularity level is applied in most steps of the SBAS-DInSAR processing chain and exploits the multiprocessor systems with distributed memory. Moreover, in some processing steps very heavy from the computational point of view, the Graphical Processing Units (GPU) are exploited for the processing of blocks working on a pixel-by-pixel basis, requiring strong modifications on some key parts of the sequential full resolution SBAS-DInSAR processing chain. GPU processing is implemented by efficiently exploiting parallel processing architectures (as CUDA) for increasing the computing performances, in terms of optimization of the available GPU memory, as well as reduction of the Input/Output operations on the GPU and of the whole processing time for specific blocks w.r.t. the corresponding sequential implementation, particularly critical in presence of huge DInSAR datasets. Moreover, to efficiently handle the massive amount of DInSAR measurements provided by the new generation SAR constellations (CSK and Sentinel-1), we perform a proper re-design strategy aimed at the robust assimilation of the full resolution SBAS-DInSAR results into the web-based Geonode platform of the Spatial Data Infrastructure, thus allowing the efficient management, analysis and integration of the interferometric results with different data sources.

Interference techniques in fluorescence microscopy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dogan, Mehmet

We developed a set of interference-based optical microscopy techniques to study biological structures through nanometer-scale axial localization of fluorescent biomarkers. Spectral self-interference fluorescence microscopy (SSFM) utilizes interference of direct and reflected waves emitted from fluorescent molecules in the vicinity of planar reflectors to reveal the axial position of the molecules. A comprehensive calculation algorithm based on Green's function formalism is presented to verify the validity of approximations used in a far-field approach that describes the emission of fluorescent markers near interfaces. Using the validated model, theoretical limits of axial localization were determined with emphasis given to numerical aperture (NA) dependence of localization uncertainty. SSFM was experimentally demonstrated in conformational analysis of nucleoproteins. In particular, interaction between surface-tethered 75-mer double strand DNA and integration host factor (IHF) protein was probed on Si-SiO2 substrates by determining the axial position of fluorescent labels attached to the free ends of DNA molecules. Despite its sub-nanometer precision axial localization capability, SSFM lacks high lateral resolution due to the low-NA requirement for planar reflectors. We developed a second technique, 4Pi-SSFM, which improves the lateral resolution of a conventional SSFM system by an order of magnitude while achieving nanometer-scale axial localization precision. Using two opposing high-NA objectives, fluorescence signal is interferometrically collected and spectral interference pattern is recorded. Axial position of emitters is found from analysis of the spectra. The 4Pi-SSFM technique was experimentally demonstrated by determining the surface profiles of fabricated glass surfaces and outer membranes of Shigella, a type of Gram-negative bacteria. A further discussion is presented to localize surface O antigen, which is an important oligosaccharide structure in the virulence mechanism of the Gram-negative bacteria, including E. coli and Shigella.

Simulation of localized heavy precipitation in South Korea on 20 June 2014: sensitivity test of integration time-step size and an effect of topographic resolution using WRF model

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Roh, Joon-Woo; Jee, Joon-Bum; Lim, A.-Young; Choi, Young-Jean

2015-04-01

Korean warm-season rainfall, accounting for about three-fourths of the annual precipitation, is primarily caused by Changma front, which is a kind of the East Asian summer monsoon, and localized heavy rainfall with convective instability. Various physical mechanisms potentially exert influences on heavy precipitation over South Korea. Representatively, the middle latitude and subtropical weather fronts, associated with a quasi-stationary moisture convergence zone among varying air masses, make up one of the main rain-bearing synoptic scale systems. Localized heavy rainfall events in South Korea generally arise from mesoscale convective systems embedded in these synoptic scale disturbances along the Changma front or convective instabilities resulted from unstable air mass including the direct or indirect effect of typhoons. In recent years, torrential rainfalls, which are more than 30mm/hour of precipitation amount, in warm-season has increased threefold in Seoul, which is a metropolitan city in South Korea. In order to investigate multiple potential causes of warm-season localized heavy precipitation in South Korea, a localized heavy precipitation case took place on 20 June 2014 at Seoul. This case was mainly seen to be caused by short-wave trough, which is associated with baroclinic instability in the northwest of Korea, and a thermal low, which has high moist and warm air through analysis. This structure showed convective scale torrential rain was embedded in the dynamic and in the thermodynamic structures. In addition to, a sensitivity of rainfall amount and maximum rainfall location to the integration time-step sizes was investigated in the simulations of a localized heavy precipitation case using Weather Research and Forecasting model. The simulation of time-step sizes of 9-27s corresponding to a horizontal resolution of 4.5km and 1.5km varied slightly difference of the maximum rainfall amount. However, the sensitivity of spatial patterns and temporal variations in rainfall were relatively small for the time-step sizes. The effect of topography was also important in the localized heavy precipitation simulation.

Spatial Structure of Above-Ground Biomass Limits Accuracy of Carbon Mapping in Rainforest but Large Scale Forest Inventories Can Help to Overcome

PubMed Central

Guitet, Stéphane; Hérault, Bruno; Molto, Quentin; Brunaux, Olivier; Couteron, Pierre

2015-01-01

Precise mapping of above-ground biomass (AGB) is a major challenge for the success of REDD+ processes in tropical rainforest. The usual mapping methods are based on two hypotheses: a large and long-ranged spatial autocorrelation and a strong environment influence at the regional scale. However, there are no studies of the spatial structure of AGB at the landscapes scale to support these assumptions. We studied spatial variation in AGB at various scales using two large forest inventories conducted in French Guiana. The dataset comprised 2507 plots (0.4 to 0.5 ha) of undisturbed rainforest distributed over the whole region. After checking the uncertainties of estimates obtained from these data, we used half of the dataset to develop explicit predictive models including spatial and environmental effects and tested the accuracy of the resulting maps according to their resolution using the rest of the data. Forest inventories provided accurate AGB estimates at the plot scale, for a mean of 325 Mg.ha-1. They revealed high local variability combined with a weak autocorrelation up to distances of no more than10 km. Environmental variables accounted for a minor part of spatial variation. Accuracy of the best model including spatial effects was 90 Mg.ha-1 at plot scale but coarse graining up to 2-km resolution allowed mapping AGB with accuracy lower than 50 Mg.ha-1. Whatever the resolution, no agreement was found with available pan-tropical reference maps at all resolutions. We concluded that the combined weak autocorrelation and weak environmental effect limit AGB maps accuracy in rainforest, and that a trade-off has to be found between spatial resolution and effective accuracy until adequate “wall-to-wall” remote sensing signals provide reliable AGB predictions. Waiting for this, using large forest inventories with low sampling rate (<0.5%) may be an efficient way to increase the global coverage of AGB maps with acceptable accuracy at kilometric resolution. PMID:26402522

Local-scale projections of coral reef futures and implications of the Paris Agreement

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

van Hooidonk, Ruben; Maynard, Jeffrey; Tamelander, Jerker; Gove, Jamison; Ahmadia, Gabby; Raymundo, Laurie; Williams, Gareth; Heron, Scott F.; Planes, Serge

2016-12-01

Increasingly frequent severe coral bleaching is among the greatest threats to coral reefs posed by climate change. Global climate models (GCMs) project great spatial variation in the timing of annual severe bleaching (ASB) conditions; a point at which reefs are certain to change and recovery will be limited. However, previous model-resolution projections (~1 × 1°) are too coarse to inform conservation planning. To meet the need for higher-resolution projections, we generated statistically downscaled projections (4-km resolution) for all coral reefs; these projections reveal high local-scale variation in ASB. Timing of ASB varies >10 years in 71 of the 87 countries and territories with >500 km2 of reef area. Emissions scenario RCP4.5 represents lower emissions mid-century than will eventuate if pledges made following the 2015 Paris Climate Change Conference (COP21) become reality. These pledges do little to provide reefs with more time to adapt and acclimate prior to severe bleaching conditions occurring annually. RCP4.5 adds 11 years to the global average ASB timing when compared to RCP8.5; however, >75% of reefs still experience ASB before 2070 under RCP4.5. Coral reef futures clearly vary greatly among and within countries, indicating the projections warrant consideration in most reef areas during conservation and management planning.

A synchrotron-based local computed tomography combined with data-constrained modelling approach for quantitative analysis of anthracite coal microstructure

PubMed Central

Chen, Wen Hao; Yang, Sam Y. S.; Xiao, Ti Qiao; Mayo, Sherry C.; Wang, Yu Dan; Wang, Hai Peng

2014-01-01

Quantifying three-dimensional spatial distributions of pores and material compositions in samples is a key materials characterization challenge, particularly in samples where compositions are distributed across a range of length scales, and where such compositions have similar X-ray absorption properties, such as in coal. Consequently, obtaining detailed information within sub-regions of a multi-length-scale sample by conventional approaches may not provide the resolution and level of detail one might desire. Herein, an approach for quantitative high-definition determination of material compositions from X-ray local computed tomography combined with a data-constrained modelling method is proposed. The approach is capable of dramatically improving the spatial resolution and enabling finer details within a region of interest of a sample larger than the field of view to be revealed than by using conventional techniques. A coal sample containing distributions of porosity and several mineral compositions is employed to demonstrate the approach. The optimal experimental parameters are pre-analyzed. The quantitative results demonstrated that the approach can reveal significantly finer details of compositional distributions in the sample region of interest. The elevated spatial resolution is crucial for coal-bed methane reservoir evaluation and understanding the transformation of the minerals during coal processing. The method is generic and can be applied for three-dimensional compositional characterization of other materials. PMID:24763649

Local-scale projections of coral reef futures and implications of the Paris Agreement.

PubMed

van Hooidonk, Ruben; Maynard, Jeffrey; Tamelander, Jerker; Gove, Jamison; Ahmadia, Gabby; Raymundo, Laurie; Williams, Gareth; Heron, Scott F; Planes, Serge

2016-12-21

Increasingly frequent severe coral bleaching is among the greatest threats to coral reefs posed by climate change. Global climate models (GCMs) project great spatial variation in the timing of annual severe bleaching (ASB) conditions; a point at which reefs are certain to change and recovery will be limited. However, previous model-resolution projections (~1 × 1°) are too coarse to inform conservation planning. To meet the need for higher-resolution projections, we generated statistically downscaled projections (4-km resolution) for all coral reefs; these projections reveal high local-scale variation in ASB. Timing of ASB varies >10 years in 71 of the 87 countries and territories with >500 km 2 of reef area. Emissions scenario RCP4.5 represents lower emissions mid-century than will eventuate if pledges made following the 2015 Paris Climate Change Conference (COP21) become reality. These pledges do little to provide reefs with more time to adapt and acclimate prior to severe bleaching conditions occurring annually. RCP4.5 adds 11 years to the global average ASB timing when compared to RCP8.5; however, >75% of reefs still experience ASB before 2070 under RCP4.5. Coral reef futures clearly vary greatly among and within countries, indicating the projections warrant consideration in most reef areas during conservation and management planning.

ALMA REVEALS POTENTIAL LOCALIZED DUST ENRICHMENT FROM MASSIVE STAR CLUSTERS IN II Zw 40

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Consiglio, S. Michelle; Turner, Jean L.; Beck, Sara

2016-12-10

We present subarcsecond images of submillimeter CO and continuum emission from a local galaxy forming massive star clusters: the blue compact dwarf galaxy II Zw 40. At ∼0.″4 resolution (20 pc), the CO(3-2), CO(1-0), 3 mm, and 870 μ m continuum maps illustrate star formation on the scales of individual molecular clouds. Dust contributes about one-third of the 870 μ m continuum emission, with free–free accounting for the rest. On these scales, there is not a good correspondence between gas, dust, and free–free emission. Dust continuum is enhanced toward the star-forming region as compared to the CO emission. We suggestmore » that an unexpectedly low and spatially variable gas-to-dust ratio is the result of rapid and localized dust enrichment of clouds by the massive clusters of the starburst.« less

Highly localized distributed Brillouin scattering response in a photonic integrated circuit

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zarifi, Atiyeh; Stiller, Birgit; Merklein, Moritz; Li, Neuton; Vu, Khu; Choi, Duk-Yong; Ma, Pan; Madden, Stephen J.; Eggleton, Benjamin J.

2018-03-01

The interaction of optical and acoustic waves via stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) has recently reached on-chip platforms, which has opened new fields of applications ranging from integrated microwave photonics and on-chip narrow-linewidth lasers, to phonon-based optical delay and signal processing schemes. Since SBS is an effect that scales exponentially with interaction length, on-chip implementation on a short length scale is challenging, requiring carefully designed waveguides with optimized opto-acoustic overlap. In this work, we use the principle of Brillouin optical correlation domain analysis to locally measure the SBS spectrum with high spatial resolution of 800 μm and perform a distributed measurement of the Brillouin spectrum along a spiral waveguide in a photonic integrated circuit. This approach gives access to local opto-acoustic properties of the waveguides, including the Brillouin frequency shift and linewidth, essential information for the further development of high quality photonic-phononic waveguides for SBS applications.

Femtosecond mega-electron-volt electron microdiffraction

DOE PAGES

Shen, X.; Li, R. K.; Lundstrom, U.; ...

2017-09-01

To understand and control the basic functions of physical, chemical and biological processes from micron to nano-meter scale, an instrument capable of visualizing transient structural changes of inhomogeneous materials with atomic spatial and temporal resolutions, is required. One such technique is femtosecond electron microdiffraction, in which a short electron pulse with femtosecond-scale duration is focused into a micron-scale spot and used to obtain diffraction images to resolve ultrafast structural dynamics over a localized crystalline domain. In this letter, we report the experimental demonstration of time-resolved mega-electron-volt electron microdiffraction which achieves a 5 μm root-mean-square (rms) beam size on the samplemore » and a 110 fs rms temporal resolution. Using pulses of 10k electrons at 4.2 MeV energy with a normalized emittance 3 nm-rad, we obtained high quality diffraction from a single 10 μm paraffin ( C 44 H 90) crystal. The phonon softening mode in optical-pumped polycrystalline Bi was also time-resolved, demonstrating the temporal resolution limits of the instrument. In conclusion, this new characterization capability will open many research opportunities in material and biological sciences.« less

A Coarse-to-Fine Geometric Scale-Invariant Feature Transform for Large Size High Resolution Satellite Image Registration

PubMed Central

Chang, Xueli; Du, Siliang; Li, Yingying; Fang, Shenghui

2018-01-01

Large size high resolution (HR) satellite image matching is a challenging task due to local distortion, repetitive structures, intensity changes and low efficiency. In this paper, a novel matching approach is proposed for the large size HR satellite image registration, which is based on coarse-to-fine strategy and geometric scale-invariant feature transform (SIFT). In the coarse matching step, a robust matching method scale restrict (SR) SIFT is implemented at low resolution level. The matching results provide geometric constraints which are then used to guide block division and geometric SIFT in the fine matching step. The block matching method can overcome the memory problem. In geometric SIFT, with area constraints, it is beneficial for validating the candidate matches and decreasing searching complexity. To further improve the matching efficiency, the proposed matching method is parallelized using OpenMP. Finally, the sensing image is rectified to the coordinate of reference image via Triangulated Irregular Network (TIN) transformation. Experiments are designed to test the performance of the proposed matching method. The experimental results show that the proposed method can decrease the matching time and increase the number of matching points while maintaining high registration accuracy. PMID:29702589

Femtosecond mega-electron-volt electron microdiffraction

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Shen, X.; Li, R. K.; Lundstrom, U.

To understand and control the basic functions of physical, chemical and biological processes from micron to nano-meter scale, an instrument capable of visualizing transient structural changes of inhomogeneous materials with atomic spatial and temporal resolutions, is required. One such technique is femtosecond electron microdiffraction, in which a short electron pulse with femtosecond-scale duration is focused into a micron-scale spot and used to obtain diffraction images to resolve ultrafast structural dynamics over a localized crystalline domain. In this letter, we report the experimental demonstration of time-resolved mega-electron-volt electron microdiffraction which achieves a 5 μm root-mean-square (rms) beam size on the samplemore » and a 110 fs rms temporal resolution. Using pulses of 10k electrons at 4.2 MeV energy with a normalized emittance 3 nm-rad, we obtained high quality diffraction from a single 10 μm paraffin ( C 44 H 90) crystal. The phonon softening mode in optical-pumped polycrystalline Bi was also time-resolved, demonstrating the temporal resolution limits of the instrument. In conclusion, this new characterization capability will open many research opportunities in material and biological sciences.« less

Optimized AVHRR land surface temperature downscaling method for local scale observations: case study for the coastal area of the Gulf of Gdańsk

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chybicki, Andrzej; Łubniewski, Zbigniew

2017-09-01

Satellite imaging systems have known limitations regarding their spatial and temporal resolution. The approaches based on subpixel mapping of the Earth's environment, which rely on combining the data retrieved from sensors of higher temporal and lower spatial resolution with the data characterized by lower temporal but higher spatial resolution, are of considerable interest. The paper presents the downscaling process of the land surface temperature (LST) derived from low resolution imagery acquired by the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR), using the inverse technique. The effective emissivity derived from another data source is used as a quantity describing thermal properties of the terrain in higher resolution, and allows the downsampling of low spatial resolution LST images. The authors propose an optimized downscaling method formulated as the inverse problem and show that the proposed approach yields better results than the use of other downsampling methods. The proposed method aims to find estimation of high spatial resolution LST data by minimizing the global error of the downscaling. In particular, for the investigated region of the Gulf of Gdansk, the RMSE between the AVHRR image downscaled by the proposed method and the Landsat 8 LST reference image was 2.255°C with correlation coefficient R equal to 0.828 and Bias = 0.557°C. For comparison, using the PBIM method, it was obtained RMSE = 2.832°C, R = 0.775 and Bias = 0.997°C for the same satellite scene. It also has been shown that the obtained results are also good in local scale and can be used for areas much smaller than the entire satellite imagery scene, depicting diverse biophysical conditions. Specifically, for the analyzed set of small sub-datasets of the whole scene, the obtained RSME between the downscaled and reference image was smaller, by approx. 0.53°C on average, in the case of applying the proposed method than in the case of using the PBIM method.

Identifying landscape features associated with Rift Valley fever virus transmission, Ferlo region, Senegal, using very high spatial resolution satellite imagery.

PubMed

Soti, Valérie; Chevalier, Véronique; Maura, Jonathan; Bégué, Agnès; Lelong, Camille; Lancelot, Renaud; Thiongane, Yaya; Tran, Annelise

2013-03-01

Dynamics of most of vector-borne diseases are strongly linked to global and local environmental changes. Landscape changes are indicators of human activities or natural processes that are likely to modify the ecology of the diseases. Here, a landscape approach developed at a local scale is proposed for extracting mosquito favourable biotopes, and for testing ecological parameters when identifying risk areas of Rift Valley fever (RVF) transmission. The study was carried out around Barkedji village, Ferlo region, Senegal. In order to test whether pond characteristics may influence the density and the dispersal behaviour of RVF vectors, and thus the spatial variation in RVFV transmission, we used a very high spatial resolution remote sensing image (2.4 m resolution) provided by the Quickbird sensor to produce a detailed land-cover map of the study area. Based on knowledge of vector and disease ecology, seven landscape attributes were defined at the pond level and computed from the land-cover map. Then, the relationships between landscape attributes and RVF serologic incidence rates in small ruminants were analyzed through a beta-binomial regression. Finally, the best statistical model according to the Akaike Information Criterion corrected for small samples (AICC), was used to map areas at risk for RVF. Among the derived landscape variables, the vegetation density index (VDI) computed within a 500 m buffer around ponds was positively correlated with serologic incidence (p<0.001), suggesting that the risk of RVF transmission was higher in the vicinity of ponds surrounded by a dense vegetation cover. The final risk map of RVF transmission displays a heterogeneous spatial distribution, corroborating previous findings from the same area. Our results highlight the potential of very high spatial resolution remote sensing data for identifying environmental risk factors and mapping RVF risk areas at a local scale.

Effective Alphas and Mixing for Disks with Gravitational Instabilities: Convergence Testing in Global 3D Simulations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Michael, Scott A.; Steiman-Cameron, T.; Durisen, R.; Boley, A.

2008-05-01

Using 3D simulations of a cooling disk undergoing gravitational instabilities (GIs), we compute the effective Shakura and Sunyaev (1973) alphas due to gravitational torques and compare them to predictions from an analytic local theory for thin disks by Gammie (2001). Our goal is to determine how accurately a locally defined alpha can characterize mass and angular momentum transport by GIs in disks. Cases are considered both with cooling by an imposed constant global cooling time (Mejia et al. 2005) and with realistic radiative transfer (Boley et al. 2007). Grid spacing in the azimuthal direction is varied to investigate how the computed alpha is affected by numerical resolution. The azimuthal direction is particularly important, because higher resolution in azimuth allows GI power to spread to higher-order (multi-armed) modes that behave more locally. We find that, in many important respects, the transport of mass and angular momentum by GIs is an intrinsically global phenomenon. Effective alphas are variable on a dynamic time scale over global spatial scales. Nevertheless, preliminary results at the highest resolutions for an imposed cooling time show that our computed alphas, though systematically higher, tend on average to follow Gammie's prediction to within perhaps a factor of two. Our computed alphas include only gravitational stresses, while in Gammie's treatment the effective alpha is due equally to hydrodynamic (Reynolds) and gravitational stresses. So Gammie's prediction may significantly underestimate the true average stresses in a GI-active disk. Our effective alphas appear to be reasonably well converged for 256 and 512 azimuthal zones. We also have a high-resolution simulation under way to test the extent of radial mixing by GIs of gas and its entrained dust for comparison with Stardust observations. Results will be presented if available at the time of the meeting.

Identifying landscape features associated with Rift Valley fever virus transmission, Ferlo region, Senegal, using very high spatial resolution satellite imagery

PubMed Central

2013-01-01

Introduction Dynamics of most of vector-borne diseases are strongly linked to global and local environmental changes. Landscape changes are indicators of human activities or natural processes that are likely to modify the ecology of the diseases. Here, a landscape approach developed at a local scale is proposed for extracting mosquito favourable biotopes, and for testing ecological parameters when identifying risk areas of Rift Valley fever (RVF) transmission. The study was carried out around Barkedji village, Ferlo region, Senegal. Methods In order to test whether pond characteristics may influence the density and the dispersal behaviour of RVF vectors, and thus the spatial variation in RVFV transmission, we used a very high spatial resolution remote sensing image (2.4 m resolution) provided by the Quickbird sensor to produce a detailed land-cover map of the study area. Based on knowledge of vector and disease ecology, seven landscape attributes were defined at the pond level and computed from the land-cover map. Then, the relationships between landscape attributes and RVF serologic incidence rates in small ruminants were analyzed through a beta-binomial regression. Finally, the best statistical model according to the Akaike Information Criterion corrected for small samples (AICC), was used to map areas at risk for RVF. Results Among the derived landscape variables, the vegetation density index (VDI) computed within a 500 m buffer around ponds was positively correlated with serologic incidence (p<0.001), suggesting that the risk of RVF transmission was higher in the vicinity of ponds surrounded by a dense vegetation cover. The final risk map of RVF transmission displays a heterogeneous spatial distribution, corroborating previous findings from the same area. Conclusions Our results highlight the potential of very high spatial resolution remote sensing data for identifying environmental risk factors and mapping RVF risk areas at a local scale. PMID:23452759

Assessment of the Suitability of High Resolution Numerical Weather Model Outputs for Hydrological Modelling in Mountainous Cold Regions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rasouli, K.; Pomeroy, J. W.; Hayashi, M.; Fang, X.; Gutmann, E. D.; Li, Y.

2017-12-01

The hydrology of mountainous cold regions has a large spatial variability that is driven both by climate variability and near-surface process variability associated with complex terrain and patterns of vegetation, soils, and hydrogeology. There is a need to downscale large-scale atmospheric circulations towards the fine scales that cold regions hydrological processes operate at to assess their spatial variability in complex terrain and quantify uncertainties by comparison to field observations. In this research, three high resolution numerical weather prediction models, namely, the Intermediate Complexity Atmosphere Research (ICAR), Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF), and Global Environmental Multiscale (GEM) models are used to represent spatial and temporal patterns of atmospheric conditions appropriate for hydrological modelling. An area covering high mountains and foothills of the Canadian Rockies was selected to assess and compare high resolution ICAR (1 km × 1 km), WRF (4 km × 4 km), and GEM (2.5 km × 2.5 km) model outputs with station-based meteorological measurements. ICAR with very low computational cost was run with different initial and boundary conditions and with finer spatial resolution, which allowed an assessment of modelling uncertainty and scaling that was difficult with WRF. Results show that ICAR, when compared with WRF and GEM, performs very well in precipitation and air temperature modelling in the Canadian Rockies, while all three models show a fair performance in simulating wind and humidity fields. Representation of local-scale atmospheric dynamics leading to realistic fields of temperature and precipitation by ICAR, WRF, and GEM makes these models suitable for high resolution cold regions hydrological predictions in complex terrain, which is a key factor in estimating water security in western Canada.

Regional Data Assimilation of AIRS Profiles and Radiances at the SPoRT Center

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Zavodsky, Brad; Chou, Shih-hung; Jedlovec, Gary

2009-01-01

This slide presentation reviews the Short Term Prediction Research and Transition (SPoRT) Center's mission to improve short-term weather prediction at the regional and local scale. It includes information on the cold bias in Weather Research and Forcasting (WRF), troposphere recordings from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS), and vertical resolution of analysis grid.

Use of multi-temporal UAV-derived imagery for estimating individual tree growth in Pinus pinea stands

Treesearch

Juan Guerra-Hernández; Eduardo González-Ferreiro; Vicente Monleon; Sonia Faias; Margarida Tomé; Ramón Díaz-Varela

2017-01-01

High spatial resolution imagery provided by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) can yield accurate and efficient estimation of tree dimensions and canopy structural variables at the local scale. We flew a low-cost, lightweight UAV over an experimental Pinus pinea L. plantation (290 trees distributed over 16 ha with different fertirrigation treatments)...

Lunar Observer Laser Altimeter observations for lunar base site selection

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Garvin, James B.; Bufton, Jack L.

1992-01-01

One of the critical datasets for optimal selection of future lunar landing sites is local- to regional-scale topography. Lunar base site selection will require such data for both engineering and scientific operations purposes. The Lunar Geoscience Orbiter or Lunar Observer is the ideal precursory science mission from which to obtain this required information. We suggest that a simple laser altimeter instrument could be employed to measure local-scale slopes, heights, and depths of lunar surface features important to lunar base planning and design. For this reason, we have designed and are currently constructing a breadboard of a Lunar Observer Laser Altimeter (LOLA) instrument capable of acquiring contiguous-footprint topographic profiles with both 30-m and 300-m along-track resolution. This instrument meets all the severe weight, power, size, and data rate limitations imposed by Observer-class spacecraft. In addition, LOLA would be capable of measuring the within-footprint vertical roughness of the lunar surface, and the 1.06-micron relative surface reflectivity at normal incidence. We have used airborne laser altimeter data for a few representative lunar analog landforms to simulate and analyze LOLA performance in a 100-km lunar orbit. We demonstrate that this system in its highest resolution mode (30-m diameter footprints) would quantify the topography of all but the very smallest lunar landforms. At its global mapping resolution (300-m diameter footprints), LOLA would establish the topographic context for lunar landing site selection by providing the basis for constructing a 1-2 km spatial resolution global, geodetic topographic grid that would contain a high density of observations (e.g., approximately 1000 observations per each 1 deg by 1 deg cell at the lunar equator). The high spatial and vertical resolution measurements made with a LOLA-class instrument on a precursory Lunar Observer would be highly synergistic with high-resolution imaging datasets, and will allow for direct quantification of critical slopes, heights, and depths of features visible in images of potential lunar base sites.

Local short-duration precipitation extremes in Sweden: observations, forecasts and projections

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Olsson, Jonas; Berg, Peter; Simonsson, Lennart

2015-04-01

Local short-duration precipitation extremes (LSPEs) are a key driver of hydrological hazards, notably in steep catchments with thin soils and in urban environments. The triggered floodings, landslides, etc., have large consequences for society in terms of both economy and health. Accurate estimations of LSPEs on both climatological time-scales (past, present, future) and in real-time is thus of great importance for improved hydrological predictions as well as design of constructions and infrastructure affected by hydrological fluxes. Analysis of LSPEs is, however, associated with various limitations and uncertainties. These are to a large degree associated with the small-scale nature of the meteorological processes behind LSPEs and the associated requirements on observation sensors as well as model descriptions. Some examples of causes for the limitations involved are given in the following. - Observations: High-resolution data sets available for LSPE analyses are often limited to either relatively long series from one or a few stations or relatively short series from larger station networks. Radar data have excellent resolutions in both time and space but the estimated local precipitation intensity is still highly uncertain. New and promising techniques (e.g. microwave links) are still in their infancy. - Weather forecasts (short-range): Although forecasts with the required spatial resolution for potential generation of LSPEs (around 2-4 km) are becoming operationally available, the actual forecast precision of LSPEs is largely unknown. Forecasted LSPEs may be displaced in time or, more critically, in space which strongly affects the possibility to assess hydrological risk. - Climate projections: The spatial resolution of the current RCM generation (around 25 km) is not sufficient for proper description of LSPEs. Statistical post-processing (i.e. downscaling) is required which adds substantial uncertainty to the final result. Ensemble generation of sufficiently high-resolution RCM projections is not yet computationally feasible. In this presentation, examples of recent research in Sweden related to these aspects will be given with some main findings shown and discussed. Finally, some ongoing and future research directions will be outlined (the former hopefully accompanied by some brand-new results).

Mid-21st century air quality at the urban scale under the influence of changed climate and emissions: case studies for Paris and Stockholm

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Markakis, K.; Valari, M.; Engardt, M.; Lacressonnière, G.; Vautard, R.; Andersson, C.

2015-10-01

Ozone, PM10 and PM2.5 concentrations over Paris, France and Stockholm, Sweden were modeled at 4 and 1 \\unit{km} horizontal resolutions respectively for the present and 2050 periods employing decade-long simulations. We account for large-scale global climate change (RCP-4.5) and fine resolution bottom-up emission projections developed by local experts and quantify their impact on future pollutant concentrations. Moreover, we identify biases related to the implementation of regional scale emission projections over the study areas by comparing modeled pollutant concentrations between the fine and coarse scale simulations. We show that over urban areas with major regional contribution (e.g., the city of Stockholm) the bias due to coarse emission inventory may be significant and lead to policy misclassification. Our results stress the need to better understand the mechanism of bias propagation across the modeling scales in order to design more successful local-scale strategies. We find that the impact of climate change is spatially homogeneous in both regions, implying strong regional influence. The climate benefit for ozone (daily average and maximum) is up to -5 % for Paris and -2 % for Stockholm city. The joined climate benefit on PM2.5 and PM10 in Paris is between -10 and -5 % while for Stockholm we observe mixed trends up to 3 % depending on season and size class. In Stockholm, emission mitigation leads to concentration reductions up to 15 % for daily average and maximum ozone and 20 % for PM and through a sensitivity analysis we show that this response is entirely due to changes in emissions at the regional scale. On the contrary, over the city of Paris (VOC-limited photochemical regime), local mitigation of NOx emissions increases future ozone concentrations due to ozone titration inhibition. This competing trend between the respective roles of emission and climate change, results in an increase in 2050 daily average ozone by 2.5 % in Paris. Climate and not emission change appears to be the most influential factor for maximum ozone concentration over the city of Paris, which may be particularly interesting in a health impact perspective.

High-Resolution Assimilation of GRACE Terrestrial Water Storage Observations to Represent Local-Scale Water Table Depths

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Stampoulis, D.; Reager, J. T., II; David, C. H.; Famiglietti, J. S.; Andreadis, K.

2017-12-01

Despite the numerous advances in hydrologic modeling and improvements in Land Surface Models, an accurate representation of the water table depth (WTD) still does not exist. Data assimilation of observations of the joint NASA and DLR mission, Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) leads to statistically significant improvements in the accuracy of hydrologic models, ultimately resulting in more reliable estimates of water storage. However, the usually shallow groundwater compartment of the models presents a problem with GRACE assimilation techniques, as these satellite observations account for much deeper aquifers. To improve the accuracy of groundwater estimates and allow the representation of the WTD at fine spatial scales we implemented a novel approach that enables a large-scale data integration system to assimilate GRACE data. This was achieved by augmenting the Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) hydrologic model, which is the core component of the Regional Hydrologic Extremes Assessment System (RHEAS), a high-resolution modeling framework developed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) for hydrologic modeling and data assimilation. The model has insufficient subsurface characterization and therefore, to reproduce groundwater variability not only in shallow depths but also in deep aquifers, as well as to allow GRACE assimilation, a fourth soil layer of varying depth ( 1000 meters) was added in VIC as the bottom layer. To initialize a water table in the model we used gridded global WTD data at 1 km resolution which were spatially aggregated to match the model's resolution. Simulations were then performed to test the augmented model's ability to capture seasonal and inter-annual trends of groundwater. The 4-layer version of VIC was run with and without assimilating GRACE Total Water Storage anomalies (TWSA) over the Central Valley in California. This is the first-ever assimilation of GRACE TWSA for the determination of realistic water table depths, at fine scales that are required for local water management. In addition, Open Loop and GRACE-assimilation simulations of water table depth were compared to in-situ data over the state of California, derived from observation wells operated/maintained by the U.S. Geological Service.

Nano-scale imaging and spectroscopy of plasmonic systems, thermal near-fields, and phase separation in complex oxides

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jones, Andrew C.

Optical spectroscopy represents a powerful characterization technique with the ability to directly interact with the electronic, spin, and lattice excitations in matter. In addition, through implementation of ultrafast techniques, further insight into the real-time dynamics of elementary interactions can be gained. However, the resolution of far-field microscopy techniques is restricted by the diffraction limit setting a spatial resolution limit in the 100s nm to micron range for visible and IR light, respectively. This resolution is too coarse for the characterization of mesoscopic phenomena in condensed matter physics. The development of experimental techniques with nanoscale resolution and sensitivity to optical fields has been a long standing obstacle to the characterization of condensed matter systems on their natural length scales. This dissertation focuses on the fundamental near-field optical properties of surfaces and nanoscale systems as well as the utilization of nano-optical techniques, specifically apertureless scattering-type Scanning Near-field Optical Microscopy (s-SNOM), to characterize said optical properties with nanometer scale resolution. First, the s-SNOM characterization of the field enhancement associated with the localized surface plasmon resonances on metallic structures is discussed. With their ability to localize light, plasmonic nano-structures are promising candidate systems to serve as molecular sensors and nano-photonic devices; however, it is well known that particle morphology and the plasmon resonance alone do not uniquely reflect the details of the local field distribution. Here, I demonstrate the use interferometric s-SNOM for imaging of the near-fields associated with plasmonic resonances of crystalline triangular silver nano-prisms in the visible spectral range. I subsequently show the extension of the concept of a localized plasmon into the mid-IR spectral range with the characterization of near-fields of silver nano-rods. Strong spatial field variation on lengths scales as short as 20 nm is observed associated with the dipolar and quadrupolar modes of both systems with details sensitively depending on the nanoparticle structure and environment. In light of recent publications predicting distinct spectral characteristics of thermal electromagnetic near-fields, I demonstrate the extension of s-SNOM techniques through the implementation of a heated atomic force microscope (AFM) tip acting as its own intrinsic light source for the characterization of thermal near-fields. Here, I detail the spectrally distinct and orders of magnitude enhanced resonant spectral near-field energy density associated with vibrational, phonon, and phonon-polariton modes. Modeling the thermal light scattering by the AFM, the scattering cross-section for thermal light may be related to the electromagnetic local density of states (EM-LDOS) above a surface. Lastly, the unique capability of s-SNOM techniques to characterize phase separation phenomena in correlated electron systems is discussed. This measurement capability provides new microscopic insight into the underlying mechanisms of the rich phase transition behavior exhibited by these materials. As a specific example, the infrared s-SNOM mapping of the metal-insulator transition and the associated nano-domain formation in individual VO2 micro-crystals subject to substrate stress is presented. Our results have important implications for the interpretation of the investigations of conventional polycrystalline thin films where the mutual interaction of constituent crystallites may affect the nature of phase separation processes.

A multiresolution processing method for contrast enhancement in portal imaging.

PubMed

Gonzalez-Lopez, Antonio

2018-06-18

Portal images have a unique feature among the imaging modalities used in radiotherapy: they provide direct visualization of the irradiated volumes. However, contrast and spatial resolution are strongly limited due to the high energy of the radiation sources. Because of this, imaging modalities using x-ray energy beams have gained importance in the verification of patient positioning, replacing portal imaging. The purpose of this work was to develop a method for the enhancement of local contrast in portal images. The method operates in the subbands of a wavelet decomposition of the image, re-scaling them in such a way that coefficients in the high and medium resolution subbands are amplified, an approach totally different of those operating on the image histogram, widely used nowadays. Portal images of an anthropomorphic phantom were acquired in an electronic portal imaging device (EPID). Then, different re-scaling strategies were investigated, studying the effects of the scaling parameters on the enhanced images. Also, the effect of using different types of transforms was studied. Finally, the implemented methods were combined with histogram equalization methods like the contrast limited adaptive histogram equalization (CLAHE), and these combinations were compared. Uniform amplification of the detail subbands shows the best results in contrast enhancement. On the other hand, linear re-escalation of the high resolution subbands increases the visibility of fine detail of the images, at the expense of an increase in noise levels. Also, since processing is applied only to detail subbands, not to the approximation, the mean gray level of the image is minimally modified and no further display adjustments are required. It is shown that re-escalation of the detail subbands of portal images can be used as an efficient method for the enhancement of both, the local contrast and the resolution of these images. © 2018 Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine.

Regional scale flood modeling using NEXRAD rainfall, GIS, and HEC-HMS/RAS: a case study for the San Antonio River Basin Summer 2002 storm event.

PubMed

Knebl, M R; Yang, Z-L; Hutchison, K; Maidment, D R

2005-06-01

This paper develops a framework for regional scale flood modeling that integrates NEXRAD Level III rainfall, GIS, and a hydrological model (HEC-HMS/RAS). The San Antonio River Basin (about 4000 square miles, 10,000 km2) in Central Texas, USA, is the domain of the study because it is a region subject to frequent occurrences of severe flash flooding. A major flood in the summer of 2002 is chosen as a case to examine the modeling framework. The model consists of a rainfall-runoff model (HEC-HMS) that converts precipitation excess to overland flow and channel runoff, as well as a hydraulic model (HEC-RAS) that models unsteady state flow through the river channel network based on the HEC-HMS-derived hydrographs. HEC-HMS is run on a 4 x 4 km grid in the domain, a resolution consistent with the resolution of NEXRAD rainfall taken from the local river authority. Watershed parameters are calibrated manually to produce a good simulation of discharge at 12 subbasins. With the calibrated discharge, HEC-RAS is capable of producing floodplain polygons that are comparable to the satellite imagery. The modeling framework presented in this study incorporates a portion of the recently developed GIS tool named Map to Map that has been created on a local scale and extends it to a regional scale. The results of this research will benefit future modeling efforts by providing a tool for hydrological forecasts of flooding on a regional scale. While designed for the San Antonio River Basin, this regional scale model may be used as a prototype for model applications in other areas of the country.

Rock discontinuity surface roughness variation with scale

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bitenc, Maja; Kieffer, D. Scott; Khoshelham, Kourosh

2017-04-01

ABSTRACT: Rock discontinuity surface roughness refers to local departures of the discontinuity surface from planarity and is an important factor influencing the shear resistance. In practice, the Joint Roughness Coefficient (JRC) roughness parameter is commonly relied upon and input to a shear strength criterion such as developed by Barton and Choubey [1977]. The estimation of roughness by JRC is hindered firstly by the subjective nature of visually comparing the joint profile to the ten standard profiles. Secondly, when correlating the standard JRC values and other objective measures of roughness, the roughness idealization is limited to a 2D profile of 10 cm length. With the advance of measuring technologies that provide accurate and high resolution 3D data of surface topography on different scales, new 3D roughness parameters have been developed. A desirable parameter is one that describes rock surface geometry as well as the direction and scale dependency of roughness. In this research a 3D roughness parameter developed by Grasselli [2001] and adapted by Tatone and Grasselli [2009] is adopted. It characterizes surface topography as the cumulative distribution of local apparent inclination of asperities with respect to the shear strength (analysis) direction. Thus, the 3D roughness parameter describes the roughness amplitude and anisotropy (direction dependency), but does not capture the scale properties. In different studies the roughness scale-dependency has been attributed to data resolution or size of the surface joint (see a summary of researches in [Tatone and Grasselli, 2012]). Clearly, the lower resolution results in lower roughness. On the other hand, have the investigations of surface size effect produced conflicting results. While some studies have shown a decrease in roughness with increasing discontinuity size (negative scale effect), others have shown the existence of positive scale effects, or both positive and negative scale effects. We hypothesize that roughness can increase or decrease with the joint size, depending on the large scale roughness (or waviness), which is entering the roughness calculation once the discontinuity size increases. Therefore, our objective is to characterize roughness at various spatial scales, rather than at changing surface size. Firstly, the rock surface is interpolated into a grid on which a Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) is applied. The resulting surface components have different frequencies, or in other words, they have a certain physical scale depending on the decomposition level and input grid resolution. Secondly, the Grasselli Parameter is computed for the original and each decomposed surface. Finally, the relative roughness change is analyzed with respect to increasing roughness wavelength for four different rock samples. The scale variation depends on the sample itself and thus indicates its potential mechanical behavior. References: - Barton, N. and V. Choubey (1977). "The shear strength of rock joints in theory and practice." Rock Mechanics and Rock Engineering 10(1): 1-54. - Grasselli, G. (2001). Shear strength of rock joints based on quantified surface description. École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. Lausanne, EPFL. - Tatone, B. S. A. and G. Grasselli (2009). "A method to evaluate the three-dimensional roughness of fracture surfaces in brittle geomaterials." Review of Scientific Instruments 80(12) - Tatone, B. and G. Grasselli (2012). "An Investigation of Discontinuity Roughness Scale Dependency Using High-Resolution Surface Measurements." Rock Mechanics and Rock Engineering: 1-25.

A new finite element code for the study of strain-localization under strike-slip faults

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rodríguez-González, J.; Montesi, L.

2016-12-01

Shear localization under strike-slip faults in ductile conditions remains a matter of debate. The rheology of rocks in the ductile regime is fundamentally strain-rate hardening, which complicates the understanding of the formation of narrow shear zones. Localized shear zones are present in a variety of scales, including kilometric structures at plate boundaries. To compensate for strain-rate hardening, shear zones must be weaker than their surroundings thanks to some weakening mechanism that works at multiple length scales. Mechanisms as shear heating or grain size reduction have been invoked to explain localization of deformation, but none of these mechanisms can work in scales that range from 1 to 1000 km. Layered fabric development has been suggested as a candidate to develop localized shear zones at multiple scales. To test this hypothesis, we have developed a new software that uses the Finite Element Method library deal.II written in C++. We solve the elasticity equations for elastic and Maxwell visco-elastic mediums. A key component required to study strain localization is adaptive mesh refinement. The code automatically identifies those regions in which the deformation is being localized and will increase the resolution. We benchmark the code and test its accuracy using analytical solutions of strike-slip deformation with different boundary conditions. We simulate the instantaneous deformation caused by two kinds of dislocations: a free fault subject to a far field traction and fault with an imposed displacement. We also simulate the visco-elastic relaxation following a strike-slip dislocation. We show that deal.II is a flexible library, suitable for different problems, which will prove useful to study the mechanisms that can lead to strain localization.

Puzzle Imaging: Using Large-Scale Dimensionality Reduction Algorithms for Localization.

PubMed

Glaser, Joshua I; Zamft, Bradley M; Church, George M; Kording, Konrad P

2015-01-01

Current high-resolution imaging techniques require an intact sample that preserves spatial relationships. We here present a novel approach, "puzzle imaging," that allows imaging a spatially scrambled sample. This technique takes many spatially disordered samples, and then pieces them back together using local properties embedded within the sample. We show that puzzle imaging can efficiently produce high-resolution images using dimensionality reduction algorithms. We demonstrate the theoretical capabilities of puzzle imaging in three biological scenarios, showing that (1) relatively precise 3-dimensional brain imaging is possible; (2) the physical structure of a neural network can often be recovered based only on the neural connectivity matrix; and (3) a chemical map could be reproduced using bacteria with chemosensitive DNA and conjugative transfer. The ability to reconstruct scrambled images promises to enable imaging based on DNA sequencing of homogenized tissue samples.

A Comprehensive Analysis of Multiscale Field-Aligned Currents: Characteristics, Controlling Parameters, and Relationships

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

McGranaghan, Ryan M.; Mannucci, Anthony J.; Forsyth, Colin

2017-12-01

We explore the characteristics, controlling parameters, and relationships of multiscale field-aligned currents (FACs) using a rigorous, comprehensive, and cross-platform analysis. Our unique approach combines FAC data from the Swarm satellites and the Advanced Magnetosphere and Planetary Electrodynamics Response Experiment (AMPERE) to create a database of small-scale (˜10-150 km, <1° latitudinal width), mesoscale (˜150-250 km, 1-2° latitudinal width), and large-scale (>250 km) FACs. We examine these data for the repeatable behavior of FACs across scales (i.e., the characteristics), the dependence on the interplanetary magnetic field orientation, and the degree to which each scale "departs" from nominal large-scale specification. We retrieve new information by utilizing magnetic latitude and local time dependence, correlation analyses, and quantification of the departure of smaller from larger scales. We find that (1) FACs characteristics and dependence on controlling parameters do not map between scales in a straight forward manner, (2) relationships between FAC scales exhibit local time dependence, and (3) the dayside high-latitude region is characterized by remarkably distinct FAC behavior when analyzed at different scales, and the locations of distinction correspond to "anomalous" ionosphere-thermosphere behavior. Comparing with nominal large-scale FACs, we find that differences are characterized by a horseshoe shape, maximizing across dayside local times, and that difference magnitudes increase when smaller-scale observed FACs are considered. We suggest that both new physics and increased resolution of models are required to address the multiscale complexities. We include a summary table of our findings to provide a quick reference for differences between multiscale FACs.

Regional sea level variability in a high-resolution global coupled climate model

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Palko, D.; Kirtman, B. P.

2016-12-01

The prediction of trends at regional scales is essential in order to adapt to and prepare for the effects of climate change. However, GCMs are unable to make reliable predictions at regional scales. The prediction of local sea level trends is particularly critical. The main goal of this research is to utilize high-resolution (HR) (0.1° resolution in the ocean) coupled model runs of CCSM4 to analyze regional sea surface height (SSH) trends. Unlike typical, lower resolution (1.0°) GCM runs these HR runs resolve features in the ocean, like the Gulf Stream, which may have a large effect on regional sea level. We characterize the variability of regional SSH along the Atlantic coast of the US using tide gauge observations along with fixed radiative forcing runs of CCSM4 and HR interactive ensemble runs. The interactive ensemble couples an ensemble mean atmosphere with a single ocean realization. This coupling results in a 30% decrease in the strength of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation; therefore, the HR interactive ensemble is analogous to a HR hosing experiment. By characterizing the variability in these high-resolution GCM runs and observations we seek to understand what processes influence coastal SSH along the Eastern Coast of the United States and better predict future SLR.

Structures and Intermittency in a Passive Scalar Model

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Vergassola, M.; Mazzino, A.

1997-09-01

Perturbative expansions for intermittency scaling exponents in the Kraichnan passive scalar model [Phys. Rev. Lett. 72, 1016 (1994)] are investigated. A one-dimensional compressible model is considered for this purpose. High resolution Monte Carlo simulations using an Ito approach adapted to an advecting velocity field with a very short correlation time are performed and lead to clean scaling behavior for passive scalar structure functions. Perturbative predictions for the scaling exponents around the Gaussian limit of the model are derived as in the Kraichnan model. Their comparison with the simulations indicates that the scale-invariant perturbative scheme correctly captures the inertial range intermittency corrections associated with the intense localized structures observed in the dynamics.

Voltage Imaging of Waking Mouse Cortex Reveals Emergence of Critical Neuronal Dynamics

PubMed Central

Scott, Gregory; Fagerholm, Erik D.; Mutoh, Hiroki; Leech, Robert; Sharp, David J.; Shew, Woodrow L.

2014-01-01

Complex cognitive processes require neuronal activity to be coordinated across multiple scales, ranging from local microcircuits to cortex-wide networks. However, multiscale cortical dynamics are not well understood because few experimental approaches have provided sufficient support for hypotheses involving multiscale interactions. To address these limitations, we used, in experiments involving mice, genetically encoded voltage indicator imaging, which measures cortex-wide electrical activity at high spatiotemporal resolution. Here we show that, as mice recovered from anesthesia, scale-invariant spatiotemporal patterns of neuronal activity gradually emerge. We show for the first time that this scale-invariant activity spans four orders of magnitude in awake mice. In contrast, we found that the cortical dynamics of anesthetized mice were not scale invariant. Our results bridge empirical evidence from disparate scales and support theoretical predictions that the awake cortex operates in a dynamical regime known as criticality. The criticality hypothesis predicts that small-scale cortical dynamics are governed by the same principles as those governing larger-scale dynamics. Importantly, these scale-invariant principles also optimize certain aspects of information processing. Our results suggest that during the emergence from anesthesia, criticality arises as information processing demands increase. We expect that, as measurement tools advance toward larger scales and greater resolution, the multiscale framework offered by criticality will continue to provide quantitative predictions and insight on how neurons, microcircuits, and large-scale networks are dynamically coordinated in the brain. PMID:25505314

Mesoscale Effects on Carbon Export: A Global Perspective

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Harrison, Cheryl S.; Long, Matthew C.; Lovenduski, Nicole S.; Moore, Jefferson K.

2018-04-01

Carbon export from the surface to the deep ocean is a primary control on global carbon budgets and is mediated by plankton that are sensitive to physical forcing. Earth system models generally do not resolve ocean mesoscale circulation (O(10-100) km), scales that strongly affect transport of nutrients and plankton. The role of mesoscale circulation in modulating export is evaluated by comparing global ocean simulations conducted at 1° and 0.1° horizontal resolution. Mesoscale resolution produces a small reduction in globally integrated export production (<2%) however, the impact on local export production can be large (±50%), with compensating effects in different ocean basins. With mesoscale resolution, improved representation of coastal jets block off-shelf transport, leading to lower export in regions where shelf-derived nutrients fuel production. Export is further reduced in these regions by resolution of mesoscale turbulence, which restricts the spatial area of production. Maximum mixed layer depths are narrower and deeper across the Subantarctic at higher resolution, driving locally stronger nutrient entrainment and enhanced summer export production. In energetic regions with seasonal blooms, such as the Subantarctic and North Pacific, internally generated mesoscale variability drives substantial interannual variation in local export production. These results suggest that biogeochemical tracer dynamics show different sensitivities to transport biases than temperature and salinity, which should be considered in the formulation and validation of physical parameterizations. Efforts to compare estimates of export production from observations and models should account for large variability in space and time expected for regions strongly affected by mesoscale circulation.

Assessment and Mitigation of PM pollution in the border regions of Austria and Slovenia

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Uhrner, Ulrich; Reifeltshammer, Rafael; Lackner, Bettina; Forkel, Renate; Sturm, Peter

2017-04-01

Many cities, towns and regions located at the southern fringe of the Alps face remarkably high PM levels particularly during the winter period. The project PMinter aimed 1) to analyse the air quality in S-Styria, S-Carinthia and N-Slovenia, 2) to evaluate local and regional measures to develop effective air quality management plans and finally 3) to support a sustainable improvement of air quality in the project region. Using wood for residential heating is very popular in Austria and in Slovenia. To assess the contribution from wood smoke to the total PM burden and the impact of regional and large scale transport as well as the impact of secondary aerosols were major goals of PMinter. Due to the complex terrain air quality and exposure assessment is challenging. To resolve sources which are located in valleys and basins, emissions were computed or processed on 1 km x 1 km resolution for the entire program area. A new combined model approach was developed and tested successfully using a state-of-the-art CTM (WRF/Chem) on the regional scale and the Lagrangian particle model GRAL on the local scale. A detailed analysis and comparisons with measurements and regional/local scale scenario simulations were carried out. Residential heating using wood was identified as the major source and PM component dominant on the "local scale" ( 10 km), secondary inorganic aerosol was the dominant PM component on the regional scale ( 10 km - 150 km) and above. Various mitigation scenarios for PM were computed. A "local" scenario where individual heating facilities using solid fuels were replaced by district heating and a regional scenario with 35% reduced ammonia emissions from agriculture proved to be most effective.

Zooming into local active galactic nuclei: the power of combining SDSS-IV MaNGA with higher resolution integral field unit observations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wylezalek, Dominika; Schnorr Müller, Allan; Zakamska, Nadia L.; Storchi-Bergmann, Thaisa; Greene, Jenny E.; Müller-Sánchez, Francisco; Kelly, Michael; Liu, Guilin; Law, David R.; Barrera-Ballesteros, Jorge K.; Riffel, Rogemar A.; Thomas, Daniel

2017-05-01

Ionized gas outflows driven by active galactic nuclei (AGN) are ubiquitous in high-luminosity AGN with outflow speeds apparently correlated with the total bolometric luminosity of the AGN. This empirical relation and theoretical work suggest that in the range Lbol ˜ 1043-45 erg s-1 there must exist a threshold luminosity above which the AGN becomes powerful enough to launch winds that will be able to escape the galaxy potential. In this paper, we present pilot observations of two AGN in this transitional range that were taken with the Gemini North Multi-Object Spectrograph integral field unit (IFU). Both sources have also previously been observed within the Sloan Digital Sky Survey-IV (SDSS) Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory (MaNGA) survey. While the MaNGA IFU maps probe the gas fields on galaxy-wide scales and show that some regions are dominated by AGN ionization, the new Gemini IFU data zoom into the centre with four times better spatial resolution. In the object with the lower Lbol we find evidence of a young or stalled biconical AGN-driven outflow where none was obvious at the MaNGA resolution. In the object with the higher Lbol we trace the large-scale biconical outflow into the nuclear region and connect the outflow from small to large scales. These observations suggest that AGN luminosity and galaxy potential are crucial in shaping wind launching and propagation in low-luminosity AGN. The transition from small and young outflows to galaxy-wide feedback can only be understood by combining large-scale IFU data that trace the galaxy velocity field with higher resolution, small-scale IFU maps.

Large-scale Density Structures in Magneto-rotational Disk Turbulence

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Youdin, Andrew; Johansen, A.; Klahr, H.

2009-01-01

Turbulence generated by the magneto-rotational instability (MRI) is a strong candidate to drive accretion flows in disks, including sufficiently ionized regions of protoplanetary disks. The MRI is often studied in local shearing boxes, which model a small section of the disk at high resolution. I will present simulations of large, stratified shearing boxes which extend up to 10 gas scale-heights across. These simulations are a useful bridge to fully global disk simulations. We find that MRI turbulence produces large-scale, axisymmetric density perturbations . These structures are part of a zonal flow --- analogous to the banded flow in Jupiter's atmosphere --- which survives in near geostrophic balance for tens of orbits. The launching mechanism is large-scale magnetic tension generated by an inverse cascade. We demonstrate the robustness of these results by careful study of various box sizes, grid resolutions, and microscopic diffusion parameterizations. These gas structures can trap solid material (in the form of large dust or ice particles) with important implications for planet formation. Resolved disk images at mm-wavelengths (e.g. from ALMA) will verify or constrain the existence of these structures.

Probing satellite galaxies in the Local Group by using FAST

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, Jing; Wang, You-Gang; Kong, Min-Zhi; Wang, Jie; Chen, Xuelei; Guo, Rui

2018-01-01

The abundance of neutral hydrogen (HI) in satellite galaxies in the local group is important for studying the formation history of our local group. In this work, we generated mock HI satellite galaxies in the Local Group using the high mass-resolution hydrodynamic APOSTLE simulation. The simulated HI mass function agrees with the ALFALFA survey very well above 106 M ⊙, although there is a discrepancy below this scale because of the observed flux limit. After carefully checking various systematic elements in the observations, including fitting of line width, sky coverage, integration time and frequency drift due to uncertainty in a galaxy’s distance, we predicted the abundance of HI in galaxies in a future survey that will be conducted by FAST. FAST has a larger aperture and higher sensitivity than the Arecibo telescope. We found that the HI mass function could be estimated well around 105 M ⊙ if the integration time is 40 minutes. Our results indicate that there are 61 HI satellites in the Local Group and 36 in the FAST field above 105 M ⊙. This estimation is one order of magnitude better than the current data, and will put a strong constraint on the formation history of the Local Group. Also more high resolution simulated samples are needed to achieve this target.

Plasmonics and metamaterials based super-resolution imaging (Conference Presentation)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liu, Zhaowei

2017-05-01

In recent years, surface imaging of various biological dynamics and biomechanical phenomena has seen a surge of interest. Imaging of processes such as exocytosis and kinesin motion are most effective when depth is limited to a very thin region of interest at the edge of the cell or specimen. However, many objects and processes of interest are of size scales below the diffraction limit for safe, visible wavelength illumination. Super-resolution imaging methods such as structured illumination microscopy and others have offered various compromises between resolution, imaging speed, and bio-compatibility. In this talk, I will present our most recent progress in plasmonic structured illumination microscopy (PSIM) and localized plasmonic structured illumination microscopy (LPSIM), and their applications in bio-imaging. We have achieved wide-field surface imaging with resolution down to 75 nm while maintaining reasonable speed and compatibility with biological specimens. These plasmonic enhanced super resolution techniques offer unique solutions to obtain 50nm spatial resolution and 50 frames per second wide imaging speed at the same time.

Data Assimilation of SMAP Observations and the Impact on Weather Forecasts and Heat Stress

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Zavodsky, Bradley; Case, Jonathan; Blankenship, Clay; Crosson, William; White, Khristopher

2014-01-01

SPoRT produces real-time LIS soil moisture products for situational awareness and local numerical weather prediction over CONUS, Mesoamerica, and East Africa ?Currently interact/collaborate with operational partners on evaluation of soil moisture products ?Drought/fire ?Extreme heat ?Convective initiation ?Flood and water borne diseases ?Initial efforts to assimilate L2 soil moisture observations from SMOS (as a precursor for SMAP) have been successful ?Active/passive blended product from SMAP will be assimilated similarly and higher spatial resolution should improve on local-scale processes

Ultrahigh resolution multicolor colocalization of single fluorescent probes

DOEpatents

Weiss, Shimon; Michalet, Xavier; Lacoste, Thilo D.

2005-01-18

A novel optical ruler based on ultrahigh-resolution colocalization of single fluorescent probes is described. Two unique families of fluorophores are used, namely energy-transfer fluorescent beads and semiconductor nanocrystal (NC) quantum dots, that can be excited by a single laser wavelength but emit at different wavelengths. A novel multicolor sample-scanning confocal microscope was constructed which allows one to image each fluorescent light emitter, free of chromatic aberrations, by scanning the sample with nanometer scale steps using a piezo-scanner. The resulting spots are accurately localized by fitting them to the known shape of the excitation point-spread-function of the microscope.

Recent assimilation developments of FOAM the Met Office ocean forecast system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lea, Daniel; Martin, Matthew; Waters, Jennifer; Mirouze, Isabelle; While, James; King, Robert

2015-04-01

FOAM is the Met Office's operational ocean forecasting system. This system comprises a range of models from a 1/4 degree resolution global to 1/12 degree resolution regional models and shelf seas models at 7 km resolution. The system is made up of the ocean model NEMO (Nucleus for European Modeling of the Ocean), the Los Alomos sea ice model CICE and the NEMOVAR assimilation run in 3D-VAR FGAT mode. Work is ongoing to transition to both a higher resolution global ocean model at 1/12 degrees and to run FOAM in coupled models. The FOAM system generally performs well. One area of concern however is the performance in the tropics where spurious oscillations and excessive vertical velocity gradients are found after assimilation. NEMOVAR includes a balance operator which in the extra-tropics uses geostrophic balance to produce velocity increments which balance the density increments applied. In the tropics, however, the main balance is between the pressure gradients produced by the density gradient and the applied wind stress. A scheme is presented which aims to maintain this balance when increments are applied. Another issue in FOAM is that there are sometimes persistent temperature and salinity errors which are not effectively corrected by the assimilation. The standard NEMOVAR has a single correlation length scale based on the local Rossby radius. This means that observations in the extra tropics have influence on the model only on short length-scales. In order to maximise the information extracted from the observations and to correct large scale model biases a multiple correlation length-scale scheme has been developed. This includes a larger length scale which spreads observation information further. Various refinements of the scheme are also explored including reducing the longer length scale component at the edge of the sea ice and in areas with high potential vorticity gradients. A related scheme which varies the correlation length scale in the shelf seas is also described.

Improvement of Advanced Storm-scale Analysis and Prediction System (ASAPS) on Seoul Metropolitan Area, Korea

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Park, Jeong-Gyun; Jee, Joon-Bum

2017-04-01

Dangerous weather such as severe rain, heavy snow, drought and heat wave caused by climate change make more damage in the urban area that dense populated and industry areas. Urban areas, unlike the rural area, have big population and transportation, dense the buildings and fuel consumption. Anthropogenic factors such as road energy balance, the flow of air in the urban is unique meteorological phenomena. However several researches are in process about prediction of urban meteorology. ASAPS (Advanced Storm-scale Analysis and Prediction System) predicts a severe weather with very short range (prediction with 6 hour) and high resolution (every hour with time and 1 km with space) on Seoul metropolitan area based on KLAPS (Korea Local Analysis and Prediction System) from KMA (Korea Meteorological Administration). This system configured three parts that make a background field (SUF5), analysis field (SU01) with observation and forecast field with high resolution (SUF1). In this study, we improve a high-resolution ASAPS model and perform a sensitivity test for the rainfall case. The improvement of ASAPS include model domain configuration, high resolution topographic data and data assimilation with WISE observation data.

Generator localization by current source density (CSD): Implications of volume conduction and field closure at intracranial and scalp resolutions

PubMed Central

Tenke, Craig E.; Kayser, Jürgen

2012-01-01

The topographic ambiguity and reference-dependency that has plagued EEG/ERP research throughout its history are largely attributable to volume conduction, which may be concisely described by a vector form of Ohm’s Law. This biophysical relationship is common to popular algorithms that infer neuronal generators via inverse solutions. It may be further simplified as Poisson’s source equation, which identifies underlying current generators from estimates of the second spatial derivative of the field potential (Laplacian transformation). Intracranial current source density (CSD) studies have dissected the “cortical dipole” into intracortical sources and sinks, corresponding to physiologically-meaningful patterns of neuronal activity at a sublaminar resolution, much of which is locally cancelled (i.e., closed field). By virtue of the macroscopic scale of the scalp-recorded EEG, a surface Laplacian reflects the radial projections of these underlying currents, representing a unique, unambiguous measure of neuronal activity at scalp. Although the surface Laplacian requires minimal assumptions compared to complex, model-sensitive inverses, the resulting waveform topographies faithfully summarize and simplify essential constraints that must be placed on putative generators of a scalp potential topography, even if they arise from deep or partially-closed fields. CSD methods thereby provide a global empirical and biophysical context for generator localization, spanning scales from intracortical to scalp recordings. PMID:22796039

JIGSAW-GEO (1.0): Locally Orthogonal Staggered Unstructured Grid Generation for General Circulation Modelling on the Sphere

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Engwirda, Darren

2017-01-01

An algorithm for the generation of non-uniform, locally orthogonal staggered unstructured spheroidal grids is described. This technique is designed to generate very high-quality staggered VoronoiDelaunay meshes appropriate for general circulation modelling on the sphere, including applications to atmospheric simulation, ocean-modelling and numerical weather prediction. Using a recently developed Frontal-Delaunay refinement technique, a method for the construction of high-quality unstructured spheroidal Delaunay triangulations is introduced. A locally orthogonal polygonal grid, derived from the associated Voronoi diagram, is computed as the staggered dual. It is shown that use of the Frontal-Delaunay refinement technique allows for the generation of very high-quality unstructured triangulations, satisfying a priori bounds on element size and shape. Grid quality is further improved through the application of hill-climbing-type optimisation techniques. Overall, the algorithm is shown to produce grids with very high element quality and smooth grading characteristics, while imposing relatively low computational expense. A selection of uniform and non-uniform spheroidal grids appropriate for high-resolution, multi-scale general circulation modelling are presented. These grids are shown to satisfy the geometric constraints associated with contemporary unstructured C-grid-type finite-volume models, including the Model for Prediction Across Scales (MPAS-O). The use of user-defined mesh-spacing functions to generate smoothly graded, non-uniform grids for multi-resolution-type studies is discussed in detail.

JIGSAW-GEO (1.0): locally orthogonal staggered unstructured grid generation for general circulation modelling on the sphere

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Engwirda, Darren

2017-06-01

An algorithm for the generation of non-uniform, locally orthogonal staggered unstructured spheroidal grids is described. This technique is designed to generate very high-quality staggered Voronoi-Delaunay meshes appropriate for general circulation modelling on the sphere, including applications to atmospheric simulation, ocean-modelling and numerical weather prediction. Using a recently developed Frontal-Delaunay refinement technique, a method for the construction of high-quality unstructured spheroidal Delaunay triangulations is introduced. A locally orthogonal polygonal grid, derived from the associated Voronoi diagram, is computed as the staggered dual. It is shown that use of the Frontal-Delaunay refinement technique allows for the generation of very high-quality unstructured triangulations, satisfying a priori bounds on element size and shape. Grid quality is further improved through the application of hill-climbing-type optimisation techniques. Overall, the algorithm is shown to produce grids with very high element quality and smooth grading characteristics, while imposing relatively low computational expense. A selection of uniform and non-uniform spheroidal grids appropriate for high-resolution, multi-scale general circulation modelling are presented. These grids are shown to satisfy the geometric constraints associated with contemporary unstructured C-grid-type finite-volume models, including the Model for Prediction Across Scales (MPAS-O). The use of user-defined mesh-spacing functions to generate smoothly graded, non-uniform grids for multi-resolution-type studies is discussed in detail.

Large-scale Meteorological Patterns Associated with Extreme Precipitation Events over Portland, OR

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Aragon, C.; Loikith, P. C.; Lintner, B. R.; Pike, M.

2017-12-01

Extreme precipitation events can have profound impacts on human life and infrastructure, with broad implications across a range of stakeholders. Changes to extreme precipitation events are a projected outcome of climate change that warrants further study, especially at regional- to local-scales. While global climate models are generally capable of simulating mean climate at global-to-regional scales with reasonable skill, resiliency and adaptation decisions are made at local-scales where most state-of-the-art climate models are limited by coarse resolution. Characterization of large-scale meteorological patterns associated with extreme precipitation events at local-scales can provide climatic information without this scale limitation, thus facilitating stakeholder decision-making. This research will use synoptic climatology as a tool by which to characterize the key large-scale meteorological patterns associated with extreme precipitation events in the Portland, Oregon metro region. Composite analysis of meteorological patterns associated with extreme precipitation days, and associated watershed-specific flooding, is employed to enhance understanding of the climatic drivers behind such events. The self-organizing maps approach is then used to characterize the within-composite variability of the large-scale meteorological patterns associated with extreme precipitation events, allowing us to better understand the different types of meteorological conditions that lead to high-impact precipitation events and associated hydrologic impacts. A more comprehensive understanding of the meteorological drivers of extremes will aid in evaluation of the ability of climate models to capture key patterns associated with extreme precipitation over Portland and to better interpret projections of future climate at impact-relevant scales.

Disaggregation of remotely sensed soil moisture under all sky condition using machine learning approach in Northeast Asia

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kim, S.; Kim, H.; Choi, M.; Kim, K.

2016-12-01

Estimating spatiotemporal variation of soil moisture is crucial to hydrological applications such as flood, drought, and near real-time climate forecasting. Recent advances in space-based passive microwave measurements allow the frequent monitoring of the surface soil moisture at a global scale and downscaling approaches have been applied to improve the spatial resolution of passive microwave products available at local scale applications. However, most downscaling methods using optical and thermal dataset, are valid only in cloud-free conditions; thus renewed downscaling method under all sky condition is necessary for the establishment of spatiotemporal continuity of datasets at fine resolution. In present study Support Vector Machine (SVM) technique was utilized to downscale a satellite-based soil moisture retrievals. The 0.1 and 0.25-degree resolution of daily Land Parameter Retrieval Model (LPRM) L3 soil moisture datasets from Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer 2 (AMSR2) were disaggregated over Northeast Asia in 2015. Optically derived estimates of surface temperature (LST), normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), and its cloud products were obtained from MODerate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) for the purpose of downscaling soil moisture in finer resolution under all sky condition. Furthermore, a comparison analysis between in situ and downscaled soil moisture products was also conducted for quantitatively assessing its accuracy. Results showed that downscaled soil moisture under all sky condition not only preserves the quality of AMSR2 LPRM soil moisture at 1km resolution, but also attains higher spatial data coverage. From this research we expect that time continuous monitoring of soil moisture at fine scale regardless of weather conditions would be available.

High-resolution face verification using pore-scale facial features.

PubMed

Li, Dong; Zhou, Huiling; Lam, Kin-Man

2015-08-01

Face recognition methods, which usually represent face images using holistic or local facial features, rely heavily on alignment. Their performances also suffer a severe degradation under variations in expressions or poses, especially when there is one gallery per subject only. With the easy access to high-resolution (HR) face images nowadays, some HR face databases have recently been developed. However, few studies have tackled the use of HR information for face recognition or verification. In this paper, we propose a pose-invariant face-verification method, which is robust to alignment errors, using the HR information based on pore-scale facial features. A new keypoint descriptor, namely, pore-Principal Component Analysis (PCA)-Scale Invariant Feature Transform (PPCASIFT)-adapted from PCA-SIFT-is devised for the extraction of a compact set of distinctive pore-scale facial features. Having matched the pore-scale features of two-face regions, an effective robust-fitting scheme is proposed for the face-verification task. Experiments show that, with one frontal-view gallery only per subject, our proposed method outperforms a number of standard verification methods, and can achieve excellent accuracy even the faces are under large variations in expression and pose.

Radar-driven High-resolution Hydrometeorological Forecasts of the 26 September 2007 Venice flash flood

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Massimo Rossa, Andrea; Laudanna Del Guerra, Franco; Borga, Marco; Zanon, Francesco; Settin, Tommaso; Leuenberger, Daniel

2010-05-01

Space and time scales of flash floods are such that flash flood forecasting and warning systems depend upon the accurate real-time provision of rainfall information, high-resolution numerical weather prediction (NWP) forecasts and the use of hydrological models. Currently available high-resolution NWP model models can potentially provide warning forecasters information on the future evolution of storms and their internal structure, thereby increasing convective-scale warning lead times. However, it is essential that the model be started with a very accurate representation of on-going convection, which calls for assimilation of high-resolution rainfall data. This study aims to assess the feasibility of using carefully checked radar-derived quantitative precipitation estimates (QPE) for assimilation into NWP and hydrological models. The hydrometeorological modeling chain includes the convection-permitting NWP model COSMO-2 and a hydrologic-hydraulic models built upon the concept of geomorphological transport. Radar rainfall observations are assimilated into the NWP model via the latent heat nudging method. The study is focused on 26 September 2007 extreme flash flood event which impacted the coastal area of north-eastern Italy around Venice. The hydro-meteorological modeling system is implemented over the Dese river, a 90 km2 catchment flowing to the Venice lagoon. The radar rainfall observations are carefully checked for artifacts, including beam attenuation, by means of physics-based correction procedures and comparison with a dense network of raingauges. The impact of the radar QPE in the assimilation cycle of the NWP model is very significant, in that the main individual organized convective systems were successfully introduced into the model state, both in terms of timing and localization. Also, incorrectly localized precipitation in the model reference run without rainfall assimilation was correctly reduced to about the observed levels. On the other hand, the highest rainfall intensities were underestimated by 20% at a scale of 1000 km2, and the local peaks by 50%. The positive impact of the assimilated radar rainfall was carried over into the free forecast for about 2-5 hours, depending on when this forecast was started, and was larger, when the main mesoscale convective system was present in the initial conditions. The improvements of the meteorological model simulations were directly propagated to the river flow simulations, with an extension of the warning lead time up to three hours.

Sources and pathways of the upscale effects on the Southern Hemisphere jet in MPAS-CAM4 variable-resolution simulations

DOE PAGES

Sakaguchi, Koichi; Lu, Jian; Leung, L. Ruby; ...

2016-10-22

Impacts of regional grid refinement on large-scale circulations (“upscale effects”) were detected in a previous study that used the Model for Prediction Across Scales-Atmosphere coupled to the physics parameterizations of the Community Atmosphere Model version 4. The strongest upscale effect was identified in the Southern Hemisphere jet during austral winter. This study examines the detailed underlying processes by comparing two simulations at quasi-uniform resolutions of 30 and 120 km to three variable-resolution simulations in which the horizontal grids are regionally refined to 30 km in North America, South America, or Asia from 120 km elsewhere. In all the variable-resolution simulations,more » precipitation increases in convective areas inside the high-resolution domains, as in the reference quasi-uniform high-resolution simulation. With grid refinement encompassing the tropical Americas, the increased condensational heating expands the local divergent circulations (Hadley cell) meridionally such that their descending branch is shifted poleward, which also pushes the baroclinically unstable regions, momentum flux convergence, and the eddy-driven jet poleward. This teleconnection pathway is not found in the reference high-resolution simulation due to a strong resolution sensitivity of cloud radiative forcing that dominates the aforementioned teleconnection signals. The regional refinement over Asia enhances Rossby wave sources and strengthens the upper level southerly flow, both facilitating the cross-equatorial propagation of stationary waves. Evidence indicates that this teleconnection pathway is also found in the reference high-resolution simulation. Lastly, the result underlines the intricate diagnoses needed to understand the upscale effects in global variable-resolution simulations, with implications for science investigations using the computationally efficient modeling framework.« less

Sources and pathways of the upscale effects on the Southern Hemisphere jet in MPAS-CAM4 variable-resolution simulations

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Sakaguchi, Koichi; Lu, Jian; Leung, L. Ruby

Impacts of regional grid refinement on large-scale circulations (“upscale effects”) were detected in a previous study that used the Model for Prediction Across Scales-Atmosphere coupled to the physics parameterizations of the Community Atmosphere Model version 4. The strongest upscale effect was identified in the Southern Hemisphere jet during austral winter. This study examines the detailed underlying processes by comparing two simulations at quasi-uniform resolutions of 30 and 120 km to three variable-resolution simulations in which the horizontal grids are regionally refined to 30 km in North America, South America, or Asia from 120 km elsewhere. In all the variable-resolution simulations,more » precipitation increases in convective areas inside the high-resolution domains, as in the reference quasi-uniform high-resolution simulation. With grid refinement encompassing the tropical Americas, the increased condensational heating expands the local divergent circulations (Hadley cell) meridionally such that their descending branch is shifted poleward, which also pushes the baroclinically unstable regions, momentum flux convergence, and the eddy-driven jet poleward. This teleconnection pathway is not found in the reference high-resolution simulation due to a strong resolution sensitivity of cloud radiative forcing that dominates the aforementioned teleconnection signals. The regional refinement over Asia enhances Rossby wave sources and strengthens the upper level southerly flow, both facilitating the cross-equatorial propagation of stationary waves. Evidence indicates that this teleconnection pathway is also found in the reference high-resolution simulation. Lastly, the result underlines the intricate diagnoses needed to understand the upscale effects in global variable-resolution simulations, with implications for science investigations using the computationally efficient modeling framework.« less

Large-scale horizontal flows from SOUP observations of solar granulation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

November, L. J.; Simon, G. W.; Tarbell, T. D.; Title, A. M.; Ferguson, S. H.

1987-01-01

Using high resolution time sequence photographs of solar granulation from the SOUP experiment on Spacelab 2, large scale horizontal flows were observed in the solar surface. The measurement method is based upon a local spatial cross correlation analysis. The horizontal motions have amplitudes in the range 300 to 1000 m/s. Radial outflow of granulation from a sunspot penumbra into surrounding photosphere is a striking new discovery. Both the supergranulation pattern and cellular structures having the scale of mesogranulation are seen. The vertical flows that are inferred by continuity of mass from these observed horizontal flows have larger upflow amplitudes in cell centers than downflow amplitudes at cell boundaries.

Impact of materials engineering on edge placement error (Conference Presentation)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Freed, Regina; Mitra, Uday; Zhang, Ying

2017-04-01

Transistor scaling has transitioned from wavelength scaling to multi-patterning techniques, due to the resolution limits of immersion of immersion lithography. Deposition and etch have enabled scaling in the by means of SADP and SAQP. Spacer based patterning enables extremely small linewidths, sufficient for several future generations of transistors. However, aligning layers in Z-direction, as well as aligning cut and via patterning layers, is becoming a road-block due to global and local feature variation and fidelity. This presentation will highlight the impact of deposition and etch on this feature alignment (EPE) and illustrate potential paths toward lowering EPE using material engineering.

Do rivers really obey power-laws? Using continuous high resolution measurements to define bankfull channel and evaluate downstream hydraulic-scaling over large changes in drainage area

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Scher, C.; Tennant, C.; Larsen, L.; Bellugi, D. G.

2016-12-01

Advances in remote-sensing technology allow for cost-effective, accurate, high-resolution mapping of river-channel topography and shallow aquatic bathymetry over large spatial scales. A combination of near-infrared and green spectra airborne laser swath mapping was used to map river channel bathymetry and watershed geometry over 90+ river-kilometers (75-1175 km2) of the Greys River in Wyoming. The day of flight wetted channel was identified from green LiDAR returns, and more than 1800 valley-bottom cross-sections were extracted at regular 50-m intervals. The bankfull channel geometry was identified using a "watershed-based" algorithm that incrementally filled local minima to a "spill" point, thereby constraining areas of local convergence and delineating all the potential channels along the cross-section for each distinct "spill stage." Multiple potential channels in alluvial floodplains and lack of clearly defined channel banks in bedrock reaches challenge identification of the bankfull channel based on topology alone. Here we combine a variety of topological measures, geometrical considerations, and stage levels to define a stage-dependent bankfull channel geometry, and compare the results with day of flight wetted channel data. Initial results suggest that channel hydraulic geometry and basin hydrology power-law scaling may not accurately capture downstream channel adjustments for rivers draining complex mountain topography.

Quantification of ultrasonic texture intra-heterogeneity via volumetric stochastic modeling for tissue characterization.

PubMed

Al-Kadi, Omar S; Chung, Daniel Y F; Carlisle, Robert C; Coussios, Constantin C; Noble, J Alison

2015-04-01

Intensity variations in image texture can provide powerful quantitative information about physical properties of biological tissue. However, tissue patterns can vary according to the utilized imaging system and are intrinsically correlated to the scale of analysis. In the case of ultrasound, the Nakagami distribution is a general model of the ultrasonic backscattering envelope under various scattering conditions and densities where it can be employed for characterizing image texture, but the subtle intra-heterogeneities within a given mass are difficult to capture via this model as it works at a single spatial scale. This paper proposes a locally adaptive 3D multi-resolution Nakagami-based fractal feature descriptor that extends Nakagami-based texture analysis to accommodate subtle speckle spatial frequency tissue intensity variability in volumetric scans. Local textural fractal descriptors - which are invariant to affine intensity changes - are extracted from volumetric patches at different spatial resolutions from voxel lattice-based generated shape and scale Nakagami parameters. Using ultrasound radio-frequency datasets we found that after applying an adaptive fractal decomposition label transfer approach on top of the generated Nakagami voxels, tissue characterization results were superior to the state of art. Experimental results on real 3D ultrasonic pre-clinical and clinical datasets suggest that describing tumor intra-heterogeneity via this descriptor may facilitate improved prediction of therapy response and disease characterization. Copyright © 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Airborne Sea-Surface Topography in an Absolute Reference Frame

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Brozena, J. M.; Childers, V. A.; Jacobs, G.; Blaha, J.

2003-12-01

Highly dynamic coastal ocean processes occur at temporal and spatial scales that cannot be captured by the present generation of satellite altimeters. Space-borne gravity missions such as GRACE also provide time-varying gravity and a geoidal msl reference surface at resolution that is too coarse for many coastal applications. The Naval Research Laboratory and the Naval Oceanographic Office have been testing the application of airborne measurement techniques, gravity and altimetry, to determine sea-surface height and height anomaly at the short scales required for littoral regions. We have developed a precise local gravimetric geoid over a test region in the northern Gulf of Mexico from historical gravity data and recent airborne gravity surveys. The local geoid provides a msl reference surface with a resolution of about 10-15 km and provides a means to connect airborne, satellite and tide-gage observations in an absolute (WGS-84) framework. A series of altimetry reflights over the region with time scales of 1 day to 1 year reveal a highly dynamic environment with coherent and rapidly varying sea-surface height anomalies. AXBT data collected at the same time show apparent correlation with wave-like temperature anomalies propagating up the continental slope of the Desoto Canyon. We present animations of the temporal evolution of the surface topography and water column temperature structure down to the 800 m depth of the AXBT sensors.

A cross-scale approach to understand drought-induced variability of sagebrush ecosystem productivity

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Assal, T.; Anderson, P. J.

2016-12-01

Sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) mortality has recently been reported in the Upper Green River Basin (Wyoming, USA) of the sagebrush steppe of western North America. Numerous causes have been suggested, but recent drought (2012-13) is the likely mechanism of mortality in this water-limited ecosystem which provides critical habitat for many species of wildlife. An understanding of the variability in patterns of productivity with respect to climate is essential to exploit landscape scale remote sensing for detection of subtle changes associated with mortality in this sparse, uniformly vegetated ecosystem. We used the standardized precipitation index to characterize drought conditions and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) satellite imagery (250-m resolution) to characterize broad characteristics of growing season productivity. We calculated per-pixel growing season anomalies over a 16-year period (2000-2015) to identify the spatial and temporal variability in productivity. Metrics derived from Landsat satellite imagery (30-m resolution) were used to further investigate trends within anomalous areas at local scales. We found evidence to support an initial hypothesis that antecedent winter drought was most important in explaining reduced productivity. The results indicate drought effects were inconsistent over space and time. MODIS derived productivity deviated by more than four standard deviations in heavily impacted areas, but was well within the interannual variability in other areas. Growing season anomalies highlighted dramatic declines in productivity during the 2012 and 2013 growing seasons. However, large negative anomalies persisted in other areas during the 2014 growing season, indicating lag effects of drought. We are further investigating if the reduction in productivity is mediated by local biophysical properties. Our analysis identified spatially explicit patterns of ecosystem properties altered by severe drought which are consistent with field observations of sagebrush mortality. The results provide a theoretical framework for future field based investigation at multiple spatiotemporal scales.

Multi-scale modelling to evaluate building energy consumption at the neighbourhood scale.

PubMed

Mauree, Dasaraden; Coccolo, Silvia; Kaempf, Jérôme; Scartezzini, Jean-Louis

2017-01-01

A new methodology is proposed to couple a meteorological model with a building energy use model. The aim of such a coupling is to improve the boundary conditions of both models with no significant increase in computational time. In the present case, the Canopy Interface Model (CIM) is coupled with CitySim. CitySim provides the geometrical characteristics to CIM, which then calculates a high resolution profile of the meteorological variables. These are in turn used by CitySim to calculate the energy flows in an urban district. We have conducted a series of experiments on the EPFL campus in Lausanne, Switzerland, to show the effectiveness of the coupling strategy. First, measured data from the campus for the year 2015 are used to force CIM and to evaluate its aptitude to reproduce high resolution vertical profiles. Second, we compare the use of local climatic data and data from a meteorological station located outside the urban area, in an evaluation of energy use. In both experiments, we demonstrate the importance of using in building energy software, meteorological variables that account for the urban microclimate. Furthermore, we also show that some building and urban forms are more sensitive to the local environment.

Multi-scale modelling to evaluate building energy consumption at the neighbourhood scale

PubMed Central

Coccolo, Silvia; Kaempf, Jérôme; Scartezzini, Jean-Louis

2017-01-01

A new methodology is proposed to couple a meteorological model with a building energy use model. The aim of such a coupling is to improve the boundary conditions of both models with no significant increase in computational time. In the present case, the Canopy Interface Model (CIM) is coupled with CitySim. CitySim provides the geometrical characteristics to CIM, which then calculates a high resolution profile of the meteorological variables. These are in turn used by CitySim to calculate the energy flows in an urban district. We have conducted a series of experiments on the EPFL campus in Lausanne, Switzerland, to show the effectiveness of the coupling strategy. First, measured data from the campus for the year 2015 are used to force CIM and to evaluate its aptitude to reproduce high resolution vertical profiles. Second, we compare the use of local climatic data and data from a meteorological station located outside the urban area, in an evaluation of energy use. In both experiments, we demonstrate the importance of using in building energy software, meteorological variables that account for the urban microclimate. Furthermore, we also show that some building and urban forms are more sensitive to the local environment. PMID:28880883

Wind Farm LES Simulations Using an Overset Methodology

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ananthan, Shreyas; Yellapantula, Shashank

2017-11-01

Accurate simulation of wind farm wakes under realistic atmospheric inflow conditions and complex terrain requires modeling a wide range of length and time scales. The computational domain can span several kilometers while requiring mesh resolutions in O(10-6) to adequately resolve the boundary layer on the blade surface. Overset mesh methodology offers an attractive option to address the disparate range of length scales; it allows embedding body-confirming meshes around turbine geomtries within nested wake capturing meshes of varying resolutions necessary to accurately model the inflow turbulence and the resulting wake structures. Dynamic overset hole-cutting algorithms permit relative mesh motion that allow this nested mesh structure to track unsteady inflow direction changes, turbine control changes (yaw and pitch), and wake propagation. An LES model with overset mesh for localized mesh refinement is used to analyze wind farm wakes and performance and compared with local mesh refinements using non-conformal (hanging node) unstructured meshes. Turbine structures will be modeled using both actuator line approaches and fully-resolved structures to test the efficacy of overset methods for wind farm applications. Exascale Computing Project (ECP), Project Number: 17-SC-20-SC, a collaborative effort of two DOE organizations - the Office of Science and the National Nuclear Security Administration.

Spatial and temporal connections in groundwater contribution to evaporation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lam, A.; Karssenberg, D.; van den Hurk, B. J. J. M.; Bierkens, M. F. P.

2011-08-01

In climate models, lateral terrestrial water fluxes are usually neglected. We estimated the contribution of vertical and lateral groundwater fluxes to the land surface water budget at a subcontinental scale, by modeling convergence of groundwater and surfacewater fluxes. We present a hydrological model of the entire Danube Basin at 5 km resolution, and use it to show the importance of groundwater for the surface climate. Results show that the contribution of groundwater to evaporation is significant, and can locally be higher than 30 % in summer. We demonstrate through the same model that this contribution also has important temporal characteristics. A wet episode can influence groundwater contribution to summer evaporation for several years afterwards. This indicates that modeling groundwater flow has the potential to augment the multi-year memory of climate models. We also show that the groundwater contribution to evaporation is local by presenting the groundwater travel times and the magnitude of groundwater convergence. Throughout the Danube Basin the lateral fluxes of groundwater are negligible when modeling at this scale and resolution. This suggests that groundwater can be adequately added in land surface models by including a lower closed groundwater reservoir of sufficient size with two-way interaction with surface water and the overlying soil layers.

Improved large-scale hydrological modelling through the assimilation of streamflow and downscaled satellite soil moisture observations.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

López López, Patricia; Wanders, Niko; Sutanudjaja, Edwin; Renzullo, Luigi; Sterk, Geert; Schellekens, Jaap; Bierkens, Marc

2015-04-01

The coarse spatial resolution of global hydrological models (typically > 0.25o) often limits their ability to resolve key water balance processes for many river basins and thus compromises their suitability for water resources management, especially when compared to locally-tunes river models. A possible solution to the problem may be to drive the coarse resolution models with high-resolution meteorological data as well as to assimilate ground-based and remotely-sensed observations of key water cycle variables. While this would improve the modelling resolution of the global model, the impact of prediction accuracy remains largely an open question. In this study we investigated the impact that assimilating streamflow and satellite soil moisture observations have on global hydrological model estimation, driven by coarse- and high-resolution meteorological observations, for the Murrumbidgee river basin in Australia. The PCR-GLOBWB global hydrological model is forced with downscaled global climatological data (from 0.5o downscaled to 0.1o resolution) obtained from the WATCH Forcing Data (WFDEI) and local high resolution gauging station based gridded datasets (0.05o), sourced from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology. Downscaled satellite derived soil moisture (from 0.5o downscaled to 0.1o resolution) from AMSR-E and streamflow observations collected from 25 gauging stations are assimilated using an ensemble Kalman filter. Several scenarios are analysed to explore the added value of data assimilation considering both local and global climatological data. Results show that the assimilation of streamflow observations result in the largest improvement of the model estimates. The joint assimilation of both streamflow and downscaled soil moisture observations leads to further improved in streamflow simulations (10% reduction in RMSE), mainly in the headwater catchments (up to 10,000 km2). Results also show that the added contribution of data assimilation, for both soil moisture and streamflow, is more pronounced when the global meteorological data are used to force the models. This is caused by the higher uncertainty and coarser resolution of the global forcing. This study demonstrates that it is possible to improve hydrological simulations forced by coarse resolution meteorological data with downscaled satellite soil moisture and streamflow observations and bring them closer to a hydrological model forced with local climatological data. These findings are important in light of the efforts that are currently done to go to global hyper-resolution modelling and can significantly help to advance this research.

MiKlip-PRODEF: Probabilistic Decadal Forecast for Central and Western Europe

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Reyers, Mark; Haas, Rabea; Ludwig, Patrick; Pinto, Joaquim

2013-04-01

The demand for skilful climate predictions on time-scales of several years to decades has increased in recent years, in particular for economic, societal and political terms. Within the BMBF MiKlip consortium, a decadal prediction system on the global to local scale is currently being developed. The subproject PRODEF is part of the MiKlip-Module C, which aims at the regionalisation of decadal predictability for Central and Western Europe. In PRODEF, a combined statistical-dynamical downscaling (SDD) and a probabilistic forecast tool are developed and applied to the new Earth system model of the Max-Planck Institute Hamburg (MPI-ESM), which is part of the CMIP5 experiment. Focus is given on the decadal predictability of windstorms, related wind gusts as well as wind energy potentials. SDD combines the benefits of both high resolution dynamical downscaling and purely statistical downscaling of GCM output. Hence, the SDD approach is used to obtain a very large ensemble of highly resolved decadal forecasts. With respect to the focal points of PRODEF, a clustering of temporal evolving atmospheric fields, a circulation weather type (CWT) analysis, and a storm damage indices analysis is applied to the full ensemble of the decadal hindcast experiments of the MPI-ESM in its lower resolution (MPI-ESM-LR). The ensemble consists of up to ten realisations per yearly initialised decadal hindcast experiments for the period 1960-2010 (altogether 287 realisations). Representatives of CWTs / clusters and single storm episodes are dynamical downscaled with the regional climate model COSMO-CLM with a horizontal resolution of 0.22°. For each model grid point, the distributions of the local climate parameters (e.g. surface wind gusts) are determined for different periods (e.g. each decades) by recombining dynamical downscaled episodes weighted with the respective weather type frequencies. The applicability of the SDD approach is illustrated with examples of decadal forecasts of the MPI-ESM. We are able to perform a bias correction of the frequencies of large scale weather types and to quantify the uncertainties of decadal predictability on large and local scale arising from different initial conditions. Further, probability density functions of local parameters like e.g. wind gusts for different periods and decades derived from the SDD approach is compared to observations and reanalysis data. Skill scores are used to quantify the decadal predictability for different leading time periods and to analyse whether the SDD approach shows systematic errors for some regions.

High-Resolution Forest Carbon Monitoring and Modeling: Continued Prototype Development and Deployment Across The Tri-state Area (MD, PA, DE), USA

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hurtt, G. C.; Birdsey, R.; Campbell, E.; Dolan, K. A.; Dubayah, R.; Escobar, V. M.; Finley, A. O.; Flanagan, S.; Huang, W.; Johnson, K.; Lister, A.; ONeil-Dunne, J.; Sepulveda Carlo, E.; Zhao, M.

2017-12-01

Local, national and international programs have increasing need for precise and accurate estimates of forest carbon and structure to support greenhouse gas reduction plans, climate initiatives, and other international climate treaty frameworks. In 2010 Congress directed NASA to initiate research towards the development of Carbon Monitoring Systems (CMS). In response, our team has worked to develop a robust, replicable framework to produce maps of high-resolution carbon stocks and future carbon sequestration potential. High-resolution (30m) maps of carbon stocks and uncertainty were produced by linking national 1m-resolution imagery and existing wall-to-wall airborne lidar to spatially explicit in-situ field observations such as the USFS Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) network. These same data, characterizing forest extent and vertical structure, were used to drive a prognostic ecosystem model to predict carbon fluxes and carbon sequestration potential at unprecedented spatial resolution and scale (90m), more than 100,000 times the spatial resolution of standard global models. Through project development, the domain of this research has expanded from two counties in MD (2,181 km2), to the entire state (32,133 km2), to the tri-state region of MD, PA, and DE (157,868 km2), covering forests in four major USDA ecological providences (Eastern Broadleaf, Northeastern Mixed, Outer Coastal Plain, and Central Appalachian). Across the region, we estimate 694 Tg C (14 DE, 113 MD, 567 PA) in above ground biomass, and estimate a carbon sequestration potential more than twice that amount. Empirical biomass products enhance existing approaches though high resolution accounting for trees outside traditional forest maps. Modeling products move beyond traditional MRV, and map future afforestation and reforestation potential for carbon at local actionable spatial scales. These products are relevant to multiple stakeholder needs in the region as discussed through the Tri-sate Working Group, and are actively being used to inform the state of MD's Greenhouse Gas Reduction Act. The approach is scalable, and provides a protoype framework for application in other domains and for future spaceborne lidar missions.

GIEMS-D3: A new long-term, dynamical, high-spatial resolution inundation extent dataset at global scale

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Aires, Filipe; Miolane, Léo; Prigent, Catherine; Pham Duc, Binh; Papa, Fabrice; Fluet-Chouinard, Etienne; Lehner, Bernhard

2017-04-01

The Global Inundation Extent from Multi-Satellites (GIEMS) provides multi-year monthly variations of the global surface water extent at 25kmx25km resolution. It is derived from multiple satellite observations. Its spatial resolution is usually compatible with climate model outputs and with global land surface model grids but is clearly not adequate for local applications that require the characterization of small individual water bodies. There is today a strong demand for high-resolution inundation extent datasets, for a large variety of applications such as water management, regional hydrological modeling, or for the analysis of mosquitos-related diseases. A new procedure is introduced to downscale the GIEMS low spatial resolution inundations to a 3 arc second (90 m) dataset. The methodology is based on topography and hydrography information from the HydroSHEDS database. A new floodability index is adopted and an innovative smoothing procedure is developed to ensure the smooth transition, in the high-resolution maps, between the low-resolution boxes from GIEMS. Topography information is relevant for natural hydrology environments controlled by elevation, but is more limited in human-modified basins. However, the proposed downscaling approach is compatible with forthcoming fusion with other more pertinent satellite information in these difficult regions. The resulting GIEMS-D3 database is the only high spatial resolution inundation database available globally at the monthly time scale over the 1993-2007 period. GIEMS-D3 is assessed by analyzing its spatial and temporal variability, and evaluated by comparisons to other independent satellite observations from visible (Google Earth and Landsat), infrared (MODIS) and active microwave (SAR).

Using pan-sharpened high resolution satellite data to improve impervious surfaces estimation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Xu, Ru; Zhang, Hongsheng; Wang, Ting; Lin, Hui

2017-05-01

Impervious surface is an important environmental and socio-economic indicator for numerous urban studies. While a large number of researches have been conducted to estimate the area and distribution of impervious surface from satellite data, the accuracy for impervious surface estimation (ISE) is insufficient due to high diversity of urban land cover types. This study evaluated the use of panchromatic (PAN) data in very high resolution satellite image for improving the accuracy of ISE by various pan-sharpening approaches, with a further comprehensive analysis of its scale effects. Three benchmark pan-sharpening approaches, Gram-Schmidt (GS), PANSHARP and principal component analysis (PCA) were applied to WorldView-2 in three spots of Hong Kong. The on-screen digitization were carried out based on Google Map and the results were viewed as referenced impervious surfaces. The referenced impervious surfaces and the ISE results were then re-scaled to various spatial resolutions to obtain the percentage of impervious surfaces. The correlation coefficient (CC) and root mean square error (RMSE) were adopted as the quantitative indicator to assess the accuracy. The accuracy differences between three research areas were further illustrated by the average local variance (ALV) which was used for landscape pattern analysis. The experimental results suggested that 1) three research regions have various landscape patterns; 2) ISE accuracy extracted from pan-sharpened data was better than ISE from original multispectral (MS) data; and 3) this improvement has a noticeable scale effects with various resolutions. The improvement was reduced slightly as the resolution became coarser.

Mesoscale data assimilation for a local severe rainfall event with the NHM-LETKF system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kunii, M.

2013-12-01

This study aims to improve forecasts of local severe weather events through data assimilation and ensemble forecasting approaches. Here, the local ensemble transform Kalman filter (LETKF) is implemented with the Japan Meteorological Agency's nonhydrostatic model (NHM). The newly developed NHM-LETKF contains an adaptive inflation scheme and a spatial covariance localization scheme with physical distance. One-way nested analysis in which a finer-resolution LETKF is conducted by using the outputs of an outer model also becomes feasible. These new contents should enhance the potential of the LETKF for convective scale events. The NHM-LETKF is applied to a local severe rainfall event in Japan in 2012. Comparison of the root mean square errors between the model first guess and analysis reveals that the system assimilates observations appropriately. Analysis ensemble spreads indicate a significant increase around the time torrential rainfall occurred, which would imply an increase in the uncertainty of environmental fields. Forecasts initialized with LETKF analyses successfully capture intense rainfalls, suggesting that the system can work effectively for local severe weather. Investigation of probabilistic forecasts by ensemble forecasting indicates that this could become a reliable data source for decision making in the future. A one-way nested data assimilation scheme is also tested. The experiment results demonstrate that assimilation with a finer-resolution model provides an advantage in the quantitative precipitation forecasting of local severe weather conditions.

A new multiscale approach for monitoring vegetation using remote sensing-based indicators in laboratory, field, and landscape.

PubMed

Lausch, Angela; Pause, Marion; Merbach, Ines; Zacharias, Steffen; Doktor, Daniel; Volk, Martin; Seppelt, Ralf

2013-02-01

Remote sensing is an important tool for studying patterns in surface processes on different spatiotemporal scales. However, differences in the spatiospectral and temporal resolution of remote sensing data as well as sensor-specific surveying characteristics very often hinder comparative analyses and effective up- and downscaling analyses. This paper presents a new methodical framework for combining hyperspectral remote sensing data on different spatial and temporal scales. We demonstrate the potential of using the "One Sensor at Different Scales" (OSADIS) approach for the laboratory (plot), field (local), and landscape (regional) scales. By implementing the OSADIS approach, we are able (1) to develop suitable stress-controlled vegetation indices for selected variables such as the Leaf Area Index (LAI), chlorophyll, photosynthesis, water content, nutrient content, etc. over a whole vegetation period. Focused laboratory monitoring can help to document additive and counteractive factors and processes of the vegetation and to correctly interpret their spectral response; (2) to transfer the models obtained to the landscape level; (3) to record imaging hyperspectral information on different spatial scales, achieving a true comparison of the structure and process results; (4) to minimize existing errors from geometrical, spectral, and temporal effects due to sensor- and time-specific differences; and (5) to carry out a realistic top- and downscaling by determining scale-dependent correction factors and transfer functions. The first results of OSADIS experiments are provided by controlled whole vegetation experiments on barley under water stress on the plot scale to model LAI using the vegetation indices Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and green NDVI (GNDVI). The regression model ascertained from imaging hyperspectral AISA-EAGLE/HAWK (DUAL) data was used to model LAI. This was done by using the vegetation index GNDVI with an R (2) of 0.83, which was transferred to airborne hyperspectral data on the local and regional scales. For this purpose, hyperspectral imagery was collected at three altitudes over a land cover gradient of 25 km within a timeframe of a few minutes, yielding a spatial resolution from 1 to 3 m. For all recorded spatial scales, both the LAI and the NDVI were determined. The spatial properties of LAI and NDVI of all recorded hyperspectral images were compared using semivariance metrics derived from the variogram. The first results show spatial differences in the heterogeneity of LAI and NDVI from 1 to 3 m with the recorded hyperspectral data. That means that differently recorded data on different scales might not sufficiently maintain the spatial properties of high spatial resolution hyperspectral images.

Using High Spatial Resolution Satellite Imagery to Map Forest Burn Severity Across Spatial Scales in a Pine Barrens Ecosystem

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Meng, Ran; Wu, Jin; Schwager, Kathy L.; Zhao, Feng; Dennison, Philip E.; Cook, Bruce D.; Brewster, Kristen; Green, Timothy M.; Serbin, Shawn P.

2017-01-01

As a primary disturbance agent, fire significantly influences local processes and services of forest ecosystems. Although a variety of remote sensing based approaches have been developed and applied to Landsat mission imagery to infer burn severity at 30 m spatial resolution, forest burn severity have still been seldom assessed at fine spatial scales (less than or equal to 5 m) from very-high-resolution (VHR) data. We assessed a 432 ha forest fire that occurred in April 2012 on Long Island, New York, within the Pine Barrens region, a unique but imperiled fire-dependent ecosystem in the northeastern United States. The mapping of forest burn severity was explored here at fine spatial scales, for the first time using remotely sensed spectral indices and a set of Multiple Endmember Spectral Mixture Analysis (MESMA) fraction images from bi-temporal - pre- and post-fire event - WorldView-2 (WV-2) imagery at 2 m spatial resolution. We first evaluated our approach using 1 m by 1 m validation points at the sub-crown scale per severity class (i.e. unburned, low, moderate, and high severity) from the post-fire 0.10 m color aerial ortho-photos; then, we validated the burn severity mapping of geo-referenced dominant tree crowns (crown scale) and 15 m by 15 m fixed-area plots (inter-crown scale) with the post-fire 0.10 m aerial ortho-photos and measured crown information of twenty forest inventory plots. Our approach can accurately assess forest burn severity at the sub-crown (overall accuracy is 84% with a Kappa value of 0.77), crown (overall accuracy is 82% with a Kappa value of 0.76), and inter-crown scales (89% of the variation in estimated burn severity ratings (i.e. Geo-Composite Burn Index (CBI)). This work highlights that forest burn severity mapping from VHR data can capture heterogeneous fire patterns at fine spatial scales over the large spatial extents. This is important since most ecological processes associated with fire effects vary at the less than 30 m scale and VHR approaches could significantly advance our ability to characterize fire effects on forest ecosystems.

Using high spatial resolution satellite imagery to map forest burn severity across spatial scales in a Pine Barrens ecosystem

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Meng, Ran; Wu, Jin; Schwager, Kathy L.

As a primary disturbance agent, fire significantly influences local processes and services of forest ecosystems. Although a variety of remote sensing based approaches have been developed and applied to Landsat mission imagery to infer burn severity at 30 m spatial resolution, forest burn severity have still been seldom assessed at fine spatial scales (≤ 5 m) from very-high-resolution (VHR) data. Here we assessed a 432 ha forest fire that occurred in April 2012 on Long Island, New York, within the Pine Barrens region, a unique but imperiled fire-dependent ecosystem in the northeastern United States. The mapping of forest burn severitymore » was explored here at fine spatial scales, for the first time using remotely sensed spectral indices and a set of Multiple Endmember Spectral Mixture Analysis (MESMA) fraction images from bi-temporal — pre- and post-fire event — WorldView-2 (WV-2) imagery at 2 m spatial resolution. We first evaluated our approach using 1 m by 1 m validation points at the sub-crown scale per severity class (i.e. unburned, low, moderate, and high severity) from the post-fire 0.10 m color aerial ortho-photos; then, we validated the burn severity mapping of geo-referenced dominant tree crowns (crown scale) and 15 m by 15 m fixed-area plots (inter-crown scale) with the post-fire 0.10 m aerial ortho-photos and measured crown information of twenty forest inventory plots. Our approach can accurately assess forest burn severity at the sub-crown (overall accuracy is 84% with a Kappa value of 0.77), crown (overall accuracy is 82% with a Kappa value of 0.76), and inter-crown scales (89% of the variation in estimated burn severity ratings (i.e. Geo-Composite Burn Index (CBI)). Lastly, this work highlights that forest burn severity mapping from VHR data can capture heterogeneous fire patterns at fine spatial scales over the large spatial extents. This is important since most ecological processes associated with fire effects vary at the < 30 m scale and VHR approaches could significantly advance our ability to characterize fire effects on forest ecosystems.« less

Using high spatial resolution satellite imagery to map forest burn severity across spatial scales in a Pine Barrens ecosystem

DOE PAGES

Meng, Ran; Wu, Jin; Schwager, Kathy L.; ...

2017-01-21

As a primary disturbance agent, fire significantly influences local processes and services of forest ecosystems. Although a variety of remote sensing based approaches have been developed and applied to Landsat mission imagery to infer burn severity at 30 m spatial resolution, forest burn severity have still been seldom assessed at fine spatial scales (≤ 5 m) from very-high-resolution (VHR) data. Here we assessed a 432 ha forest fire that occurred in April 2012 on Long Island, New York, within the Pine Barrens region, a unique but imperiled fire-dependent ecosystem in the northeastern United States. The mapping of forest burn severitymore » was explored here at fine spatial scales, for the first time using remotely sensed spectral indices and a set of Multiple Endmember Spectral Mixture Analysis (MESMA) fraction images from bi-temporal — pre- and post-fire event — WorldView-2 (WV-2) imagery at 2 m spatial resolution. We first evaluated our approach using 1 m by 1 m validation points at the sub-crown scale per severity class (i.e. unburned, low, moderate, and high severity) from the post-fire 0.10 m color aerial ortho-photos; then, we validated the burn severity mapping of geo-referenced dominant tree crowns (crown scale) and 15 m by 15 m fixed-area plots (inter-crown scale) with the post-fire 0.10 m aerial ortho-photos and measured crown information of twenty forest inventory plots. Our approach can accurately assess forest burn severity at the sub-crown (overall accuracy is 84% with a Kappa value of 0.77), crown (overall accuracy is 82% with a Kappa value of 0.76), and inter-crown scales (89% of the variation in estimated burn severity ratings (i.e. Geo-Composite Burn Index (CBI)). Lastly, this work highlights that forest burn severity mapping from VHR data can capture heterogeneous fire patterns at fine spatial scales over the large spatial extents. This is important since most ecological processes associated with fire effects vary at the < 30 m scale and VHR approaches could significantly advance our ability to characterize fire effects on forest ecosystems.« less

High resolution surface plasmon microscopy for cell imaging

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Argoul, F.; Monier, K.; Roland, T.; Elezgaray, J.; Berguiga, L.

2010-04-01

We introduce a new non-labeling high resolution microscopy method for cellular imaging. This method called SSPM (Scanning Surface Plasmon Microscopy) pushes down the resolution limit of surface plasmon resonance imaging (SPRi) to sub-micronic scales. High resolution SPRi is obtained by the surface plasmon lauching with a high numerical aperture objective lens. The advantages of SPPM compared to other high resolution SPRi's rely on three aspects; (i) the interferometric detection of the back reflected light after plasmon excitation, (ii) the twodimensional scanning of the sample for image reconstruction, (iii) the radial polarization of light, enhancing both resolution and sensitivity. This microscope can afford a lateral resolution of - 150 nm in liquid environment and - 200 nm in air. We present in this paper images of IMR90 fibroblasts obtained with SSPM in dried environment. Internal compartments such as nucleus, nucleolus, mitochondria, cellular and nuclear membrane can be recognized without labelling. We propose an interpretation of the ability of SSPM to reveal high index contrast zones by a local decomposition of the V (Z) function describing the response of the SSPM.

The resolution of reservoir dynamics with noise based technologies: A case study from the 2006 Basel injection experiment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hillers, Gregor; Husen, Stephan; Obermann, Anne; Planes, Thomas; Campillo, Michel; Larose, Eric

2014-05-01

We explore the applicability of noise-based monitoring and imaging techniques in the context of the 2006 Basel stimulation experiment using data from five borehole velocimeters and five surface accelerometers located around the injection site. We observe a significant perturbation of medium properties associated with the reservoir stimulation. The transient perturbation, with a duration of 20-30 days, reaches its maximum about 15 days after shut in, when microseismic activity has ceased; it is thus associated with aseismic deformation. Inverting relative velocity change and decorrelation observations using techniques developed and applied on laboratory and local to regional seismological scales, we can image the associated deformation pattern. We discuss limits of the the frequency- and lapse-time dependent resolution and suggestions for improvements considering the 3-D network geometry together with wave propagation models. The depth sensitivity of the analyzed wave field indicates resolution of perturbation in the shallow parts of the sedimentary layer above the stimulated deep volume located in the crystalline base layer. The deformation pattern is similar to InSAR/satellite observations associated with CO2 sequestration experiments, and indicates the transfer of deformation beyond scales associated with the instantaneously stimulated volume. Our detection and localization of delayed induced shallow aseismic transient deformation indicates that monitoring the evolution of reservoir properties using the ambient seismic field provides observables that complement information obtained with standard microseismic approaches. The results constitute a significant advance for the resolution of reservoir dynamics; the technology has the potential to provide critical constraints in related geotechnical situations associated with fluid injection, fracking, (nuclear) waste management, and carbon capture and storage.

Automatic Matching of Large Scale Images and Terrestrial LIDAR Based on App Synergy of Mobile Phone

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Xia, G.; Hu, C.

2018-04-01

The digitalization of Cultural Heritage based on ground laser scanning technology has been widely applied. High-precision scanning and high-resolution photography of cultural relics are the main methods of data acquisition. The reconstruction with the complete point cloud and high-resolution image requires the matching of image and point cloud, the acquisition of the homonym feature points, the data registration, etc. However, the one-to-one correspondence between image and corresponding point cloud depends on inefficient manual search. The effective classify and management of a large number of image and the matching of large image and corresponding point cloud will be the focus of the research. In this paper, we propose automatic matching of large scale images and terrestrial LiDAR based on APP synergy of mobile phone. Firstly, we develop an APP based on Android, take pictures and record related information of classification. Secondly, all the images are automatically grouped with the recorded information. Thirdly, the matching algorithm is used to match the global and local image. According to the one-to-one correspondence between the global image and the point cloud reflection intensity image, the automatic matching of the image and its corresponding laser radar point cloud is realized. Finally, the mapping relationship between global image, local image and intensity image is established according to homonym feature point. So we can establish the data structure of the global image, the local image in the global image, the local image corresponding point cloud, and carry on the visualization management and query of image.

Three-Dimensional Localization of Single Molecules for Super-Resolution Imaging and Single-Particle Tracking

PubMed Central

von Diezmann, Alex; Shechtman, Yoav; Moerner, W. E.

2017-01-01

Single-molecule super-resolution fluorescence microscopy and single-particle tracking are two imaging modalities that illuminate the properties of cells and materials on spatial scales down to tens of nanometers, or with dynamical information about nanoscale particle motion in the millisecond range, respectively. These methods generally use wide-field microscopes and two-dimensional camera detectors to localize molecules to much higher precision than the diffraction limit. Given the limited total photons available from each single-molecule label, both modalities require careful mathematical analysis and image processing. Much more information can be obtained about the system under study by extending to three-dimensional (3D) single-molecule localization: without this capability, visualization of structures or motions extending in the axial direction can easily be missed or confused, compromising scientific understanding. A variety of methods for obtaining both 3D super-resolution images and 3D tracking information have been devised, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. These include imaging of multiple focal planes, point-spread-function engineering, and interferometric detection. These methods may be compared based on their ability to provide accurate and precise position information of single-molecule emitters with limited photons. To successfully apply and further develop these methods, it is essential to consider many practical concerns, including the effects of optical aberrations, field-dependence in the imaging system, fluorophore labeling density, and registration between different color channels. Selected examples of 3D super-resolution imaging and tracking are described for illustration from a variety of biological contexts and with a variety of methods, demonstrating the power of 3D localization for understanding complex systems. PMID:28151646

Evaluation and application of the ROMS 1-way embedding procedure to the central california upwelling system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Penven, Pierrick; Debreu, Laurent; Marchesiello, Patrick; McWilliams, James C.

What most clearly distinguishes near-shore and off-shore currents is their dominant spatial scale, O (1-30) km near-shore and O (30-1000) km off-shore. In practice, these phenomena are usually both measured and modeled with separate methods. In particular, it is infeasible for any regular computational grid to be large enough to simultaneously resolve well both types of currents. In order to obtain local solutions at high resolution while preserving the regional-scale circulation at an affordable computational cost, a 1-way grid embedding capability has been integrated into the Regional Oceanic Modeling System (ROMS). It takes advantage of the AGRIF (Adaptive Grid Refinement in Fortran) Fortran 90 package based on the use of pointers. After a first evaluation in a baroclinic vortex test case, the embedding procedure has been applied to a domain that covers the central upwelling region off California, around Monterey Bay, embedded in a domain that spans the continental U.S. Pacific Coast. Long-term simulations (10 years) have been conducted to obtain mean-seasonal statistical equilibria. The final solution shows few discontinuities at the parent-child domain boundary and a valid representation of the local upwelling structure, at a CPU cost only slightly greater than for the inner region alone. The solution is assessed by comparison with solutions for the whole US Pacific Coast at both low and high resolutions and to solutions for only the inner region at high resolution with mean-seasonal boundary conditions.

Towards a high resolution, integrated hydrology model of North America: Diagnosis of feedbacks between groundwater and land energy fluxes at continental scales.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Maxwell, Reed; Condon, Laura

2016-04-01

Recent studies demonstrate feedbacks between groundwater dynamics, overland flow, land surface and vegetation processes, and atmospheric boundary layer development that significantly affect local and regional climate across a range of climatic conditions. Furthermore, the type and distribution of vegetation cover alters land-atmosphere water and energy fluxes, as well as runoff generation and overland flow processes. These interactions can result in significant feedbacks on local and regional climate. In mountainous regions, recent research has shown that spatial and temporal variability in annual evapotranspiration, and thus water budgets, is strongly dependent on lateral groundwater flow; however, the full effects of these feedbacks across varied terrain (e.g. from plains to mountains) are not well understood. Here, we present a high-resolution, integrated hydrology model that covers much of continental North America and encompasses the Mississippi and Colorado watersheds. The model is run in a fully-transient manner at hourly temporal resolution incorporating fully-coupled land energy states and fluxes with integrated surface and subsurface hydrology. Connections are seen between hydrologic variables (such as water table depth) and land energy fluxes (such as latent heat) and spatial and temporal scaling is shown to span many orders of magnitude. Model results suggest that partitioning of plant transpiration to bare soil evaporation is a function of water table depth and later groundwater flow. Using these transient simulations as a proof of concept, we present a vision for future integrated simulation capabilities.

Spatial and Temporal Dust Source Variability in Northern China Identified Using Advanced Remote Sensing Analysis

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Taramelli, A.; Pasqui, M.; Barbour, J.; Kirschbaum, D.; Bottai, L.; Busillo, C.; Calastrini, F.; Guarnieri, F.; Small, C.

2013-01-01

The aim of this research is to provide a detailed characterization of spatial patterns and temporal trends in the regional and local dust source areas within the desert of the Alashan Prefecture (Inner Mongolia, China). This problem was approached through multi-scale remote sensing analysis of vegetation changes. The primary requirements for this regional analysis are high spatial and spectral resolution data, accurate spectral calibration and good temporal resolution with a suitable temporal baseline. Landsat analysis and field validation along with the low spatial resolution classifications from MODIS and AVHRR are combined to provide a reliable characterization of the different potential dust-producing sources. The representation of intra-annual and inter-annual Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) trend to assess land cover discrimination for mapping potential dust source using MODIS and AVHRR at larger scale is enhanced by Landsat Spectral Mixing Analysis (SMA). The combined methodology is to determine the extent to which Landsat can distinguish important soils types in order to better understand how soil reflectance behaves at seasonal and inter-annual timescales. As a final result mapping soil surface properties using SMA is representative of responses of different land and soil cover previously identified by NDVI trend. The results could be used in dust emission models even if they are not reflecting aggregate formation, soil stability or particle coatings showing to be critical for accurately represent dust source over different regional and local emitting areas.

Puzzle Imaging: Using Large-Scale Dimensionality Reduction Algorithms for Localization

PubMed Central

Glaser, Joshua I.; Zamft, Bradley M.; Church, George M.; Kording, Konrad P.

2015-01-01

Current high-resolution imaging techniques require an intact sample that preserves spatial relationships. We here present a novel approach, “puzzle imaging,” that allows imaging a spatially scrambled sample. This technique takes many spatially disordered samples, and then pieces them back together using local properties embedded within the sample. We show that puzzle imaging can efficiently produce high-resolution images using dimensionality reduction algorithms. We demonstrate the theoretical capabilities of puzzle imaging in three biological scenarios, showing that (1) relatively precise 3-dimensional brain imaging is possible; (2) the physical structure of a neural network can often be recovered based only on the neural connectivity matrix; and (3) a chemical map could be reproduced using bacteria with chemosensitive DNA and conjugative transfer. The ability to reconstruct scrambled images promises to enable imaging based on DNA sequencing of homogenized tissue samples. PMID:26192446

Microdeformation and subcritical cracking in chalk

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bergsaker, Anne; Dysthe, Dag Kristian

2016-04-01

Deformation processes in chalks, both in relation to changing pore fluids and stress conditions has been of great interest as chalk is an important reservoir rock for both hydrocarbons and ground water. Lately it has also gained interest as a potential reservoir rock for captured CO2. Chalks are composed of large amounts of biogenic calcite grains, the skeletal debris of marine microorganisms. Its deformation is highly time and stress dependent, and governed by a transition from distributed to localized deformation at the onset of yield, affected by mechanisms such as subcritical crack growth and pore collapse. We present a microdeformation rig which makes use of thermal expansion as a means of subjecting small samples to strictly controlled tensile stresses. High resolution imaging provides resolutions down to 0.5 micrometers, enabling study of pore scale processes during slow deformation. Examples of localized and distributed deformation are presented.

Implications of sensor design for coral reef detection: Upscaling ground hyperspectral imagery in spatial and spectral scales

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Caras, Tamir; Hedley, John; Karnieli, Arnon

2017-12-01

Remote sensing offers a potential tool for large scale environmental surveying and monitoring. However, remote observations of coral reefs are difficult especially due to the spatial and spectral complexity of the target compared to sensor specifications as well as the environmental implications of the water medium above. The development of sensors is driven by technological advances and the desired products. Currently, spaceborne systems are technologically limited to a choice between high spectral resolution and high spatial resolution, but not both. The current study explores the dilemma of whether future sensor design for marine monitoring should prioritise on improving their spatial or spectral resolution. To address this question, a spatially and spectrally resampled ground-level hyperspectral image was used to test two classification elements: (1) how the tradeoff between spatial and spectral resolutions affects classification; and (2) how a noise reduction by majority filter might improve classification accuracy. The studied reef, in the Gulf of Aqaba (Eilat), Israel, is heterogeneous and complex so the local substrate patches are generally finer than currently available imagery. Therefore, the tested spatial resolution was broadly divided into four scale categories from five millimeters to one meter. Spectral resolution resampling aimed to mimic currently available and forthcoming spaceborne sensors such as (1) Environmental Mapping and Analysis Program (EnMAP) that is characterized by 25 bands of 6.5 nm width; (2) VENμS with 12 narrow bands; and (3) the WorldView series with broadband multispectral resolution. Results suggest that spatial resolution should generally be prioritized for coral reef classification because the finer spatial scale tested (pixel size < 0.1 m) may compensate for some low spectral resolution drawbacks. In this regard, it is shown that the post-classification majority filtering substantially improves the accuracy of all pixel sizes up to the point where the kernel size reaches the average unit size (pixel < 0.25 m). However, careful investigation as to the effect of band distribution and choice could improve the sensor suitability for the marine environment task. This in mind, while the focus in this study was on the technologically limited spaceborne design, aerial sensors may presently provide an opportunity to implement the suggested setup.

A new multi-scale method to reveal hierarchical modular structures in biological networks.

PubMed

Jiao, Qing-Ju; Huang, Yan; Shen, Hong-Bin

2016-11-15

Biological networks are effective tools for studying molecular interactions. Modular structure, in which genes or proteins may tend to be associated with functional modules or protein complexes, is a remarkable feature of biological networks. Mining modular structure from biological networks enables us to focus on a set of potentially important nodes, which provides a reliable guide to future biological experiments. The first fundamental challenge in mining modular structure from biological networks is that the quality of the observed network data is usually low owing to noise and incompleteness in the obtained networks. The second problem that poses a challenge to existing approaches to the mining of modular structure is that the organization of both functional modules and protein complexes in networks is far more complicated than was ever thought. For instance, the sizes of different modules vary considerably from each other and they often form multi-scale hierarchical structures. To solve these problems, we propose a new multi-scale protocol for mining modular structure (named ISIMB) driven by a node similarity metric, which works in an iteratively converged space to reduce the effects of the low data quality of the observed network data. The multi-scale node similarity metric couples both the local and the global topology of the network with a resolution regulator. By varying this resolution regulator to give different weightings to the local and global terms in the metric, the ISIMB method is able to fit the shape of modules and to detect them on different scales. Experiments on protein-protein interaction and genetic interaction networks show that our method can not only mine functional modules and protein complexes successfully, but can also predict functional modules from specific to general and reveal the hierarchical organization of protein complexes.

High resolution in-operando microimaging of solar cells with pulsed electrically-detected magnetic resonance

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Katz, Itai; Fehr, Matthias; Schnegg, Alexander; Lips, Klaus; Blank, Aharon

2015-02-01

The in-operando detection and high resolution spatial imaging of paramagnetic defects, impurities, and states becomes increasingly important for understanding loss mechanisms in solid-state electronic devices. Electron spin resonance (ESR), commonly employed for observing these species, cannot meet this challenge since it suffers from limited sensitivity and spatial resolution. An alternative and much more sensitive method, called electrically-detected magnetic resonance (EDMR), detects the species through their magnetic fingerprint, which can be traced in the device's electrical current. However, until now it could not obtain high resolution images in operating electronic devices. In this work, the first spatially-resolved electrically-detected magnetic resonance images (EDMRI) of paramagnetic states in an operating real-world electronic device are provided. The presented method is based on a novel microwave pulse sequence allowing for the coherent electrical detection of spin echoes in combination with powerful pulsed magnetic-field gradients. The applicability of the method is demonstrated on a device-grade 1-μm-thick amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) solar cell and an identical device that was degraded locally by an electron beam. The degraded areas with increased concentrations of paramagnetic defects lead to a local increase in recombination that is mapped by EDMRI with ∼20-μm-scale pixel resolution. The novel approach presented here can be widely used in the nondestructive in-operando three-dimensional characterization of solid-state electronic devices with a resolution potential of less than 100 nm.

Beyond Population Distribution: Enhancing Sociocultural Resolution from Remote Sensing

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bhaduri, B. L.; Rose, A.

2017-12-01

At Oak Ridge National Laboratory, since late 1990s, we have focused on developing high resolution population distribution and dynamics data from local to global scales. Increasing resolutions of geographic data has been mirrored by population data sets developed across the community. However, attempts to increase temporal and sociocultural resolutions have been limited given the lack of high resolution data on human settlements and activities. While recent advancements in moderate to high resolution earth observation have led to better physiographic data, the approach of exploiting very high resolution (sub-meter resolution) imagery has also proven useful for generating accurate human settlement maps. It allows potential (social and vulnerability) characterization of population from settlement structures by exploiting image texture and spectral features. Our recent research utilizing machine learning and geocomputation has not only validated "poverty mapping from imagery" hypothesis, but has delineated a new paradigm of rapid analysis of high resolution imagery to enhance such "neighborhood" mapping techniques. Such progress in GIScience is allowing us to move towards the goal of creating a global foundation level database for impervious surfaces and "neighborhoods," and holds tremendous promise for key applications focusing on sustainable development including many social science applications.

High resolution global flood hazard map from physically-based hydrologic and hydraulic models.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Begnudelli, L.; Kaheil, Y.; McCollum, J.

2017-12-01

The global flood map published online at http://www.fmglobal.com/research-and-resources/global-flood-map at 90m resolution is being used worldwide to understand flood risk exposure, exercise certain measures of mitigation, and/or transfer the residual risk financially through flood insurance programs. The modeling system is based on a physically-based hydrologic model to simulate river discharges, and 2D shallow-water hydrodynamic model to simulate inundation. The model can be applied to large-scale flood hazard mapping thanks to several solutions that maximize its efficiency and the use of parallel computing. The hydrologic component of the modeling system is the Hillslope River Routing (HRR) hydrologic model. HRR simulates hydrological processes using a Green-Ampt parameterization, and is calibrated against observed discharge data from several publicly-available datasets. For inundation mapping, we use a 2D Finite-Volume Shallow-Water model with wetting/drying. We introduce here a grid Up-Scaling Technique (UST) for hydraulic modeling to perform simulations at higher resolution at global scale with relatively short computational times. A 30m SRTM is now available worldwide along with higher accuracy and/or resolution local Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) in many countries and regions. UST consists of aggregating computational cells, thus forming a coarser grid, while retaining the topographic information from the original full-resolution mesh. The full-resolution topography is used for building relationships between volume and free surface elevation inside cells and computing inter-cell fluxes. This approach almost achieves computational speed typical of the coarse grids while preserving, to a significant extent, the accuracy offered by the much higher resolution available DEM. The simulations are carried out along each river of the network by forcing the hydraulic model with the streamflow hydrographs generated by HRR. Hydrographs are scaled so that the peak corresponds to the return period corresponding to the hazard map being produced (e.g. 100 years, 500 years). Each numerical simulation models one river reach, except for the longest reaches which are split in smaller parts. Here we show results for selected river basins worldwide.

Data Analysis and Non-local Parametrization Strategies for Organized Atmospheric Convection

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Brenowitz, Noah D.

The intrinsically multiscale nature of moist convective processes in the atmosphere complicates scientific understanding, and, as a result, current coarse-resolution climate models poorly represent convective variability in the tropics. This dissertation addresses this problem by 1) studying new cumulus convective closures in a pair of idealized models for tropical moist convection, and 2) developing innovative strategies for analyzing high-resolution numerical simulations of organized convection. The first two chapters of this dissertation revisit a historical controversy about the use of convective closures based on the large-scale wind field or moisture convergence. In the first chapter, a simple coarse resolution stochastic model for convective inhibition is designed which includes the non-local effects of wind-convergence on convective activity. This model is designed to replicate the convective dynamics of a typical coarse-resolution climate prediction model. The non-local convergence coupling is motivated by the phenomena of gregarious convection, whereby mesoscale convective systems emit gravity waves which can promote convection at a distant locations. Linearized analysis and nonlinear simulations show that this convergence coupling allows for increased interaction between cumulus convection and the large-scale circulation, but does not suffer from the deleterious behavior of traditional moisture-convergence closures. In the second chapter, the non-local convergence coupling idea is extended to an idealized stochastic multicloud model. This model allows for stochastic transitions between three distinct cloud types, and non-local convergence coupling is most beneficial when applied to the transition from shallow to deep convection. This is consistent with recent observational and numerical modeling evidence, and there is a growing body of work highlighting the importance of this transition in tropical meteorology. In a series of idealized Walker cell simulations, convergence coupling enhances the persistence of Kelvin wave analogs in dry regions of the domain while leaving the dynamics in moist regions largely unaltered. The final chapter of this dissertation presents a technique for analyzing the variability of a direct numerical simulation of Rayleigh-Benard convection at large aspect ratio, which is a basic prototype of convective organization. High resolution numerical models are an invaluable tool for studying atmospheric dynamics, but modern data analysis techniques struggle with the extreme size of the model outputs and the trivial symmetries of the underlying dynamical systems (e.g. shift-invariance). A new data analysis approach which is invariant to spatial symmetries is derived by combining a quasi-Lagrangian description of the data, time-lagged embedding, and manifold learning techniques. The quasi-Lagrangian description is obtained by a straightforward isothermal binning procedure, which compresses the data in a dynamically-aware fashion. A small number of orthogonal modes returned by this algorithm are able to explain the highly intermittent dynamics of the bulk heat transfer, as quantified by the Nusselt Number.

A Petascale Non-Hydrostatic Atmospheric Dynamical Core in the HOMME Framework

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Tufo, Henry

The High-Order Method Modeling Environment (HOMME) is a framework for building scalable, conserva- tive atmospheric models for climate simulation and general atmospheric-modeling applications. Its spatial discretizations are based on Spectral-Element (SE) and Discontinuous Galerkin (DG) methods. These are local methods employing high-order accurate spectral basis-functions that have been shown to perform well on massively parallel supercomputers at any resolution and scale particularly well at high resolutions. HOMME provides the framework upon which the CAM-SE community atmosphere model dynamical-core is constructed. In its current incarnation, CAM-SE employs the hydrostatic primitive-equations (PE) of motion, which limits its resolution to simulations coarser thanmore » 0.1 per grid cell. The primary objective of this project is to remove this resolution limitation by providing HOMME with the capabilities needed to build nonhydrostatic models that solve the compressible Euler/Navier-Stokes equations.« less

In-operando synchronous time-multiplexed O K-edge x-ray absorption spectromicroscopy of functioning tantalum oxide memristors

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Kumar, Suhas; Department of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305; Graves, Catherine E.

2015-07-21

Memristors are receiving keen interest because of their potential varied applications and promising large-scale information storage capabilities. Tantalum oxide is a memristive material that has shown promise for high-performance nonvolatile computer memory. The microphysics has been elusive because of the small scale and subtle physical changes that accompany conductance switching. In this study, we probed the atomic composition, local chemistry, and electronic structure of functioning tantalum oxide memristors through spatially mapped O K-edge x-ray absorption. We developed a time-multiplexed spectromicroscopy technique to enhance the weak and possibly localized oxide modifications with spatial and spectral resolutions of <30 nm and 70 meV, respectively.more » During the initial stages of conductance switching of a micrometer sized crosspoint device, the spectral changes were uniform within the spatial resolution of our technique. When the device was further driven with millions of high voltage-pulse cycles, we observed lateral motion and separation of ∼100 nm-scale agglomerates of both oxygen interstitials and vacancies. We also demonstrate a unique capability of this technique by identifying the relaxation behavior in the material during electrical stimuli by identifying electric field driven changes with varying pulse widths. In addition, we show that changes to the material can be localized to a spatial region by modifying its topography or uniformity, as against spatially uniform changes observed here during memristive switching. The goal of this report is to introduce the capability of time-multiplexed x-ray spectromicroscopy in studying weak-signal transitions in inhomogeneous media through the example of the operation and temporal evolution of a memristor.« less

Multiple-resolution Modeling of flood processes in urban catchments using WRF-Hydro: A Case Study in south Louisiana.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Saad, H.; Habib, E. H.

2017-12-01

In August 2016, the city of Lafayette and many other urban centers in south Louisiana experienced catastrophic flooding resulting from prolonged rainfall. Statewide, this historic storm displaced more than 30,000 people from their homes, resulted in damages up to $8.7 billion, put rescue workers at risk, interrupted institutions of education and business, and worst of all, resulted in the loss of life of at least 13 Louisiana residents. With growing population and increasing signs of climate change, the frequency of major floods and severe storms is expected to increase, as will the impacts of these events on our communities. Local communities need improved capabilities for forecasting flood events, monitoring of flood impacts on roads and key infrastructure, and effectively communicating real-time flood dangers at scales that are useful to the public. The current study presents the application of the WRF-Hydro modeling system to represent integrated hydrologic, hydraulic and hydrometeorological processes that drive flooding in urban basins at temporal and spatial scales that can be useful to local communities. The study site is the 25- mile2 Coulee mine catchment in Lafayette, south Louisiana. The catchment includes two tributaries with natural streams located within mostly agricultural lands. The catchment crosses the I-10 highway and through the metropolitan area of the City of Lafayette into a man-made channel, which eventually drains into the Vermilion River and the Gulf of Mexico. Due to its hydrogeomorphic setting, local and rapid diversification of land uses, low elevation, and interdependent infrastructure, the integrated modeling of this coulee is considered a challenge. A nested multi-scale model is being built using the WRF-HYDRO, with 500m and 10m resolutions for the NOAH land-surface model and diffusive wave terrain routing grids, respectively.

A numerical study on flow and pollutant transport in Singapore coastal waters.

PubMed

Xu, Ming; Chua, Vivien P

2016-10-15

Intensive economic and shipping activities in Singapore Strait have caused Singapore coastal waters to be under high risk of water pollution. A nested three-dimensional unstructured-grid SUNTANS model is applied to Singapore coastal waters to simulate flow and pollutant transport. The small domain (~50m resolution) Singapore coastal model is nested within a large domain (~200m resolution) regional model. The nested model is able to predict water surface elevations and velocities with high R(2) values of 0.96 and 0.91, respectively. Model results delineate the characteristics of circulation pattern in Singapore coastal waters during the Northeast and Southwest monsoons. The pollutants are modeled as passive tracers, and are released at six key sailing locations Points 1-6 in Singapore coastal waters and are named as Passive Tracers 1-6, respectively. Our results show that the rate of dispersion is twice as large for the Northeast monsoon compared to the Southwest monsoon due to differences in large-scale monsoons and small-scale local winds. The volume averaged concentration (VAC) diminishes faster and the local flushing time is shorter during the Northeast monsoon than the Southwest monsoon. Dispersion coefficients K and the VAC decreasing rate are maximum for Tracers 2 and 3 with shortest local flushing time due to the strong surrounding currents and abrupt bathymetry changes near Senang and St. John Islands. Dispersion coefficients K and the VAC decreasing rate are minimum for Tracer 1 due to weak currents induced by the semi-enclosed coastline near Tuas. It is found that both the lateral dispersion coefficient Ky and the compound dispersion coefficient K obey a "4/3-law", which defines a linear correlation between dispersion coefficients and 4/3-power of selected length scale. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Determination of the hydrological properties of a small-scale catchment area in Northern Greece from ASTER and SRTM DEMs and accuracy assessment with a local DTM

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tzanou, E. A.; Vergos, G. S.

2012-04-01

The combined use of Geographic Information Systems and recent high-resolution Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) from Remote Sensing imagery offers a unique opportunity to study the hydrological properties of basin and catchment dynamics and derive the hydrological features of specific regions of various spatial scales. Until recently, the availability of global DEMs was restricted to low-resolution and accuracy models, e.g., ETOPO5, ETOPO2 and GTOPO30, compared to local Digital Terrain Models (DTMs) derived from photogrammetric methods and offered usually in the form of topographic maps of various scales. The advent of the SRTM and ASTER missions, offer some new tools and opportunities in order to use their data within a GIS to study the hydrological properties of basins and consequently validate their performance both amongst each other, as well as in terms of the results derived from a local DTM. The present work focuses on the use of the recent SRTM v2 90 m and ASTER v2 30 m DEMs along with the national 500 m DTM generated by the Hellenic Military Geographic Service (HMGS), within a GIS in order to assess their performance in determining the hydrological properties of basins. To this respect, the ArcHydro extension tool of ArcGIS v9.3 and HEC-GeoRAS v4.3 have been exploited to determine the hydrographic data of the basins under study which are located in Northern Greece. The hydrological characteristics refer to stream geometry, curve number, flooding areas, etc. as well as the topographic characteristics of the basin itself, such as aspect, hillshade, slope e.t.c..

Spatial scaling of net primary productivity using subpixel landcover information

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chen, X. F.; Chen, Jing M.; Ju, Wei M.; Ren, L. L.

2008-10-01

Gridding the land surface into coarse homogeneous pixels may cause important biases on ecosystem model estimations of carbon budget components at local, regional and global scales. These biases result from overlooking subpixel variability of land surface characteristics. Vegetation heterogeneity is an important factor introducing biases in regional ecological modeling, especially when the modeling is made on large grids. This study suggests a simple algorithm that uses subpixel information on the spatial variability of land cover type to correct net primary productivity (NPP) estimates, made at coarse spatial resolutions where the land surface is considered as homogeneous within each pixel. The algorithm operates in such a way that NPP obtained from calculations made at coarse spatial resolutions are multiplied by simple functions that attempt to reproduce the effects of subpixel variability of land cover type on NPP. Its application to a carbon-hydrology coupled model(BEPS-TerrainLab model) estimates made at a 1-km resolution over a watershed (named Baohe River Basin) located in the southwestern part of Qinling Mountains, Shaanxi Province, China, improved estimates of average NPP as well as its spatial variability.

Landscape Characterization of Arctic Ecosystems Using Data Mining Algorithms and Large Geospatial Datasets

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Langford, Z. L.; Kumar, J.; Hoffman, F. M.

2015-12-01

Observations indicate that over the past several decades, landscape processes in the Arctic have been changing or intensifying. A dynamic Arctic landscape has the potential to alter ecosystems across a broad range of scales. Accurate characterization is useful to understand the properties and organization of the landscape, optimal sampling network design, measurement and process upscaling and to establish a landscape-based framework for multi-scale modeling of ecosystem processes. This study seeks to delineate the landscape at Seward Peninsula of Alaska into ecoregions using large volumes (terabytes) of high spatial resolution satellite remote-sensing data. Defining high-resolution ecoregion boundaries is difficult because many ecosystem processes in Arctic ecosystems occur at small local to regional scales, which are often resolved in by coarse resolution satellites (e.g., MODIS). We seek to use data-fusion techniques and data analytics algorithms applied to Phased Array type L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (PALSAR), Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (IFSAR), Satellite for Observation of Earth (SPOT), WorldView-2, WorldView-3, and QuickBird-2 to develop high-resolution (˜5m) ecoregion maps for multiple time periods. Traditional analysis methods and algorithms are insufficient for analyzing and synthesizing such large geospatial data sets, and those algorithms rarely scale out onto large distributed- memory parallel computer systems. We seek to develop computationally efficient algorithms and techniques using high-performance computing for characterization of Arctic landscapes. We will apply a variety of data analytics algorithms, such as cluster analysis, complex object-based image analysis (COBIA), and neural networks. We also propose to use representativeness analysis within the Seward Peninsula domain to determine optimal sampling locations for fine-scale measurements. This methodology should provide an initial framework for analyzing dynamic landscape trends in Arctic ecosystems, such as shrubification and disturbances, and integration of ecoregions into multi-scale models.

Field significance of performance measures in the context of regional climate model evaluation. Part 2: precipitation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ivanov, Martin; Warrach-Sagi, Kirsten; Wulfmeyer, Volker

2018-04-01

A new approach for rigorous spatial analysis of the downscaling performance of regional climate model (RCM) simulations is introduced. It is based on a multiple comparison of the local tests at the grid cells and is also known as `field' or `global' significance. The block length for the local resampling tests is precisely determined to adequately account for the time series structure. New performance measures for estimating the added value of downscaled data relative to the large-scale forcing fields are developed. The methodology is exemplarily applied to a standard EURO-CORDEX hindcast simulation with the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model coupled with the land surface model NOAH at 0.11 ∘ grid resolution. Daily precipitation climatology for the 1990-2009 period is analysed for Germany for winter and summer in comparison with high-resolution gridded observations from the German Weather Service. The field significance test controls the proportion of falsely rejected local tests in a meaningful way and is robust to spatial dependence. Hence, the spatial patterns of the statistically significant local tests are also meaningful. We interpret them from a process-oriented perspective. While the downscaled precipitation distributions are statistically indistinguishable from the observed ones in most regions in summer, the biases of some distribution characteristics are significant over large areas in winter. WRF-NOAH generates appropriate stationary fine-scale climate features in the daily precipitation field over regions of complex topography in both seasons and appropriate transient fine-scale features almost everywhere in summer. As the added value of global climate model (GCM)-driven simulations cannot be smaller than this perfect-boundary estimate, this work demonstrates in a rigorous manner the clear additional value of dynamical downscaling over global climate simulations. The evaluation methodology has a broad spectrum of applicability as it is distribution-free, robust to spatial dependence, and accounts for time series structure.

Understanding the climate-included variations in the seasonal water demands of irrigated crops in Northern India

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bhattarai, N.; Jain, M.

2016-12-01

Expected changes in temperature and precipitation patterns in the rice-wheat belt of Northern India have implications for balancing crop water demand and available water resources. Because the impacts of water scarcity and reduced crop production are realized at a local scale, water-saving interventions are most effective when implemented locally. However, a paucity of fine-scale studies on the relationship between variations in climate and crop water demand has limited our ability to effectively implement such interventions. In an effort to better understand the responses of irrigated crops to changing climate in Northern India at finer-scales, we propose a remote sensing based semi-empirical approach. First, we employ a multi-model surface energy balance (SEB) approach to map seasonal evapotranspiration (ET)/water use (1995-2015) at 30 to 100 m resolution from space and investigate how seasonal and inter-annual variations in temperature and precipitation are associated with regional surface-energy budgets. Second, using remote estimates of ET and other biophysical variables, such as vegetation indices, land surface temperature, and albedo, we will explain the possible relationships between climate change and seasonal water demands of crops. Our estimates of high/moderate resolution (30 to 100 m) seasonal ET maps can make clear distinctions between impacts of climate variations on crop water demand at field, plot, and regional scales in Northern India. Finally, by improving our ability to identify targeted area for water-saving interventions, this study supports agricultural resiliency of Northern India in the face of climate change.

Magnetic Doppler imaging of Ap stars

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Silvester, J.; Wade, G. A.; Kochukhov, O.; Landstreet, J. D.; Bagnulo, S.

2008-04-01

Historically, the magnetic field geometries of the chemically peculiar Ap stars were modelled in the context of a simple dipole field. However, with the acquisition of increasingly sophisticated diagnostic data, it has become clear that the large-scale field topologies exhibit important departures from this simple model. Recently, new high-resolution circular and linear polarisation spectroscopy has even hinted at the presence of strong, small-scale field structures, which were completely unexpected based on earlier modelling. This project investigates the detailed structure of these strong fossil magnetic fields, in particular the large-scale field geometry, as well as small scale magnetic structures, by mapping the magnetic and chemical surface structure of a selected sample of Ap stars. These maps will be used to investigate the relationship between the local field vector and local surface chemistry, looking for the influence the field may have on the various chemical transport mechanisms (i.e., diffusion, convection and mass loss). This will lead to better constraints on the origin and evolution, as well as refining the magnetic field model for Ap stars. Mapping will be performed using high resolution and signal-to-noise ratio time-series of spectra in both circular and linear polarisation obtained using the new-generation ESPaDOnS (CFHT, Mauna Kea, Hawaii) and NARVAL spectropolarimeters (Pic du Midi Observatory). With these data we will perform tomographic inversion of Doppler-broadened Stokes IQUV Zeeman profiles of a large variety of spectral lines using the INVERS10 magnetic Doppler imaging code, simultaneously recovering the detailed surface maps of the vector magnetic field and chemical abundances.

High-Time-Resolution Study of Magnetic Holes in the Solar Wind

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lazarus, Alan; Kasper, Justin; Stevens, Michael

2003-01-01

The objectives of this investigation are to determine the internal plasma structure of kinetic-scale and larger scale magnetic holes, and to determine their stability, their source mechanism(s), and their spatial extent. It is also of importance to determine the relationship between kinetic-scale holes and long-duration holes. As smaller and smaller magnetic depressions are investigated in order to make this a complete study, a robust criterion is necessary for distinguishing magnetic holes from random or unresolvable fluctuations in the interplanetary magnetic field. In order to resolve this ambiguity, we obtained from the MFI experiments magnetic field measurements from the WIND spacecraft at a time resolution of 46 to 184 ms over certain periods. We have also devised a measure of certainty for magnetic hole detections. The certainty factor, q, is defined as the difference between the mean magnetic field in the hole and the local magnetic field, in units of the local standard deviation of the field strength. For fullest generality, it is necessary to calculate this q over the range of available scales of interest, from 60 ms up to 300 s. This technique establishes a two dimensional matrix of relative probabilities that a hole of some duration (d) might exist in the data set at a given time (t). In identifying q-peaks in time and duration, we also come upon a natural method for distinguishing holes with internal structure from multiple holes in close proximity or holes nested inside of others. If two q-peaks are more than a half-width apart, they are simply said to be separate events.

Multiplex Networks of Cortical and Hippocampal Neurons Revealed at Different Timescales

PubMed Central

Timme, Nicholas; Ito, Shinya; Myroshnychenko, Maxym; Yeh, Fang-Chin; Hiolski, Emma; Hottowy, Pawel; Beggs, John M.

2014-01-01

Recent studies have emphasized the importance of multiplex networks – interdependent networks with shared nodes and different types of connections – in systems primarily outside of neuroscience. Though the multiplex properties of networks are frequently not considered, most networks are actually multiplex networks and the multiplex specific features of networks can greatly affect network behavior (e.g. fault tolerance). Thus, the study of networks of neurons could potentially be greatly enhanced using a multiplex perspective. Given the wide range of temporally dependent rhythms and phenomena present in neural systems, we chose to examine multiplex networks of individual neurons with time scale dependent connections. To study these networks, we used transfer entropy – an information theoretic quantity that can be used to measure linear and nonlinear interactions – to systematically measure the connectivity between individual neurons at different time scales in cortical and hippocampal slice cultures. We recorded the spiking activity of almost 12,000 neurons across 60 tissue samples using a 512-electrode array with 60 micrometer inter-electrode spacing and 50 microsecond temporal resolution. To the best of our knowledge, this preparation and recording method represents a superior combination of number of recorded neurons and temporal and spatial recording resolutions to any currently available in vivo system. We found that highly connected neurons (“hubs”) were localized to certain time scales, which, we hypothesize, increases the fault tolerance of the network. Conversely, a large proportion of non-hub neurons were not localized to certain time scales. In addition, we found that long and short time scale connectivity was uncorrelated. Finally, we found that long time scale networks were significantly less modular and more disassortative than short time scale networks in both tissue types. As far as we are aware, this analysis represents the first systematic study of temporally dependent multiplex networks among individual neurons. PMID:25536059

Land-use Scene Classification in High-Resolution Remote Sensing Images by Multiscale Deeply Described Correlatons

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Qi, K.; Qingfeng, G.

2017-12-01

With the popular use of High-Resolution Satellite (HRS) images, more and more research efforts have been placed on land-use scene classification. However, it makes the task difficult with HRS images for the complex background and multiple land-cover classes or objects. This article presents a multiscale deeply described correlaton model for land-use scene classification. Specifically, the convolutional neural network is introduced to learn and characterize the local features at different scales. Then, learnt multiscale deep features are explored to generate visual words. The spatial arrangement of visual words is achieved through the introduction of adaptive vector quantized correlograms at different scales. Experiments on two publicly available land-use scene datasets demonstrate that the proposed model is compact and yet discriminative for efficient representation of land-use scene images, and achieves competitive classification results with the state-of-art methods.

Range expansion through fragmented landscapes under a variable climate

PubMed Central

Bennie, Jonathan; Hodgson, Jenny A; Lawson, Callum R; Holloway, Crispin TR; Roy, David B; Brereton, Tom; Thomas, Chris D; Wilson, Robert J

2013-01-01

Ecological responses to climate change may depend on complex patterns of variability in weather and local microclimate that overlay global increases in mean temperature. Here, we show that high-resolution temporal and spatial variability in temperature drives the dynamics of range expansion for an exemplar species, the butterfly Hesperia comma. Using fine-resolution (5 m) models of vegetation surface microclimate, we estimate the thermal suitability of 906 habitat patches at the species' range margin for 27 years. Population and metapopulation models that incorporate this dynamic microclimate surface improve predictions of observed annual changes to population density and patch occupancy dynamics during the species' range expansion from 1982 to 2009. Our findings reveal how fine-scale, short-term environmental variability drives rates and patterns of range expansion through spatially localised, intermittent episodes of expansion and contraction. Incorporating dynamic microclimates can thus improve models of species range shifts at spatial and temporal scales relevant to conservation interventions. PMID:23701124

Research on regional numerical weather prediction

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kreitzberg, C. W.

1976-01-01

Extension of the predictive power of dynamic weather forecasting to scales below the conventional synoptic or cyclonic scales in the near future is assessed. Lower costs per computation, more powerful computers, and a 100 km mesh over the North American area (with coarser mesh extending beyond it) are noted at present. Doubling the resolution even locally (to 50 km mesh) would entail a 16-fold increase in costs (including vertical resolution and halving the time interval), and constraints on domain size and length of forecast. Boundary conditions would be provided by the surrounding 100 km mesh, and time-varying lateral boundary conditions can be considered to handle moving phenomena. More physical processes to treat, more efficient numerical techniques, and faster computers (improved software and hardware) backing up satellite and radar data could produce further improvements in forecasting in the 1980s. Boundary layer modeling, initialization techniques, and quantitative precipitation forecasting are singled out among key tasks.

High-resolution behavioral mapping of electric fishes in Amazonian habitats.

PubMed

Madhav, Manu S; Jayakumar, Ravikrishnan P; Demir, Alican; Stamper, Sarah A; Fortune, Eric S; Cowan, Noah J

2018-04-11

The study of animal behavior has been revolutionized by sophisticated methodologies that identify and track individuals in video recordings. Video recording of behavior, however, is challenging for many species and habitats including fishes that live in turbid water. Here we present a methodology for identifying and localizing weakly electric fishes on the centimeter scale with subsecond temporal resolution based solely on the electric signals generated by each individual. These signals are recorded with a grid of electrodes and analyzed using a two-part algorithm that identifies the signals from each individual fish and then estimates the position and orientation of each fish using Bayesian inference. Interestingly, because this system involves eavesdropping on electrocommunication signals, it permits monitoring of complex social and physical interactions in the wild. This approach has potential for large-scale non-invasive monitoring of aquatic habitats in the Amazon basin and other tropical freshwater systems.

Remote Sensing of Forest Loss and Human Land Use to Predict Biodiversity Impacts in Myanmar

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Connette, G.; Huang, Q.; Leimgruber, P.; Songer, M.

2017-12-01

Myanmar's ongoing transition from military rule towards a democratic government has largely ended decades of economic isolation. The resulting expansion of foreign investment, infrastructure development, and natural resource extraction has led to high rates of deforestation and the concurrent loss of critical wildlife habitat. To identify and mitigate the impacts of rapid land use change on Myanmar's globally-unique biodiversity, researchers at Smithsonian's Conservation Biology Institute have used moderate-resolution satellite imagery to map forest cover change at the national scale, while performing regional- or local-scale analyses to identify ecologically-distinct forest types. At the national scale, forest was lost at a rate of 0.55% annually from 2002-2014. Deforestation was more pronounced in Myanmar's closed-canopy forests (>80% cover), which experienced an annual rate of forest loss of 0.95%. Studies at regional and local scales show that ecologically-distinct forest types vary considerably in both geographic extent and risk of conversion to human land use. For instance, local deforestation rates around a proposed national park in Myanmar's Tanintharyi Region were 7.83% annually and have been accelerating. Recent integration of such results into wildlife habitat mapping and national conservation planning can play an important role in ensuring that future development in Myanmar is both informed and sustainable.

The Role of Law-of-the-Wall and Roughness Scale in the Surface Stress Model for LES of the Rough-wall Boundary Layer

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Brasseur, James; Paes, Paulo; Chamecki, Marcelo

2017-11-01

Large-eddy simulation (LES) of the high Reynolds number rough-wall boundary layer requires both a subfilter-scale model for the unresolved inertial term and a ``surface stress model'' (SSM) for space-time local surface momentum flux. Standard SSMs assume proportionality between the local surface shear stress vector and the local resolved-scale velocity vector at the first grid level. Because the proportionality coefficient incorporates a surface roughness scale z0 within a functional form taken from law-of-the-wall (LOTW), it is commonly stated that LOTW is ``assumed,'' and therefore ``forced'' on the LES. We show that this is not the case; the LOTW form is the ``drag law'' used to relate friction velocity to mean resolved velocity at the first grid level consistent with z0 as the height where mean velocity vanishes. Whereas standard SSMs do not force LOTW on the prediction, we show that parameterized roughness does not match ``true'' z0 when LOTW is not predicted, or does not exist. By extrapolating mean velocity, we show a serious mismatch between true z0 and parameterized z0 in the presence of a spurious ``overshoot'' in normalized mean velocity gradient. We shall discuss the source of the problem and its potential resolution.

Scaling issues in local productivity hotspots in marine ecosystems using remote sensing data: A case study in the Gulf of Maine

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ribera, M.; Gopal, S.

2014-12-01

Productivity hotspots are traditionally defined as concentrations of relatively high biomass compared to global reference values. These hotspots often signal atypical processes occurring in a location, and identifying them is a great first step at understanding the complexity inherent in the system. However, identifying local hotspots can be difficult when an overarching global pattern (i.e. spatial autocorrelation) already exists. This problem is particularly apparent in marine ecosystems because values of productivity in near-shore areas are consistently higher than those of the open ocean due to oceanographic processes such as upwelling. In such cases, if the global reference layer used to detect hotspots is too wide, hotspots may be only identified near the coast while missing known concentrations of organisms in offshore waters. On the other hand, if the global reference layer is too small, every single location may be considered a hotspot. We applied spatial and traditional statistics to remote sensing data to determine the optimal reference global spatial scale for identifying marine productivity hotspots in the Gulf of Maine. Our iterative process measured Getis and Ord's local G* statistic at different global scales until the variance of each hotspot was maximized. We tested this process with different full resolution MERIS chlorophyll layers (300m spatial resolution) for the whole Gulf of Maine. We concluded that the optimal global scale depends on the time of the year the remote sensing data was collected, particularly when coinciding with known seasonal phytoplankton blooms. The hotspots found through this process were also spatially heterogeneous in size, with bigger hotspots in areas offshore than in locations inshore. These results may be instructive for both managers and fisheries researchers as they adapt their fisheries management policies and methods to an ecosystem based approach (EBM).

Experimental criteria for the determination of fractal parameters of premixed turbulent flames

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Shepherd, I. G.; Cheng, Robert K.; Talbot, L.

1992-10-01

The influence of spatial resolution, digitization noise, the number of records used for averaging, and the method of analysis on the determination of the fractal parameters of a high Damköhler number, methane/air, premixed, turbulent stagnation-point flame are investigated in this paper. The flow exit velocity was 5 m/s and the turbulent Reynolds number was 70 based on a integral scale of 3 mm and a turbulent intensity of 7%. The light source was a copper vapor laser which delivered 20 nsecs, 5 mJ pulses at 4 kHz and the tomographic cross-sections of the flame were recorded by a high speed movie camera. The spatial resolution of the images is 155 × 121 μm/pixel with a field of view of 50 × 65 mm. The stepping caliper technique for obtaining the fractal parameters is found to give the clearest indication of the cutoffs and the effects of noise. It is necessary to ensemble average the results from more than 25 statistically independent images to reduce sufficiently the scatter in the fractal parameters. The effects of reduced spatial resolution on fractal plots are estimated by artificial degradation of the resolution of the digitized flame boundaries. The effect of pixel resolution, an apparent increase in flame length below the inner scale rolloff, appears in the fractal plots when the measurent scale is less than approximately twice the pixel resolution. Although a clearer determination of fractal parameters is obtained by local averaging of the flame boundaries which removes digitization noise, at low spatial resolution this technique can reduce the fractal dimension. The degree of fractal isotropy of the flame surface can have a significant effect on the estimation of the flame surface area and hence burning rate from two-dimensional images. To estimate this isotropy a determination of the outer cutoff is required and three-dimensional measurements are probably also necessary.

What's exposed? Mapping elements at risk from space

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Taubenböck, Hannes; Klotz, Martin; Geiß, Christian

2014-05-01

The world has suffered from severe natural disasters over the last decennium. The earthquake in Haiti in 2010 or the typhoon "Haiyan" hitting the Philippines in 2013 are among the most prominent examples in recent years. Especially in developing countries, knowledge on amount, location or type of the exposed elements or people is often not given. (Geo)-data are mostly inaccurate, generalized, not up-to-date or even not available at all. Thus, fast and effective disaster management is often delayed until necessary geo-data allow an assessment of effected people, buildings, infrastructure and their respective locations. In the last decade, Earth observation data and methods have developed a product portfolio from low resolution land cover datasets to high resolution spatially accurate building inventories to classify elements at risk or even assess indirectly population densities. This presentation will give an overview on the current available products and EO-based capabilities from global to local scale. On global to regional scale, remote sensing derived geo-products help to approximate the inventory of elements at risk in their spatial extent and abundance by mapping and modelling approaches of land cover or related spatial attributes such as night-time illumination or fractions of impervious surfaces. The capabilities and limitations for mapping physical exposure will be discussed in detail using the example of DLR's 'Global Urban Footprint' initiative. On local scale, the potential of remote sensing particularly lies in the generation of spatially and thematically accurate building inventories for the detailed analysis of the building stock's physical exposure. Even vulnerability-related indicators can be derived. Indicators such as building footprint, height, shape characteristics, roof materials, location, and construction age and structure type have already been combined with civil engineering approaches to assess building stability for large areas. Especially last generation optical sensors - often in combination with digital surface models - featuring very high geometric resolutions are perceived as advantageous for operational applications, especially for small to medium scale urban areas. With regard to user-oriented product generation in the FP-7project SENSUM, a multi-scale and multi-source reference database has been set up to systematically screen available products - global to local ones - with regard to data availability in data-rich and data-poor countries. Thus, the higher ranking goal in this presentation is to provide a systematic overview on EO-based data sets and their individual capabilities and limitations with respect to spatial, temporal and thematic details to support decision-making in before, during and after natural disasters.

Geographic variation in opinions on climate change at state and local scales in the USA

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Howe, Peter D.; Mildenberger, Matto; Marlon, Jennifer R.; Leiserowitz, Anthony

2015-06-01

Addressing climate change in the United States requires enactment of national, state and local mitigation and adaptation policies. The success of these initiatives depends on public opinion, policy support and behaviours at appropriate scales. Public opinion, however, is typically measured with national surveys that obscure geographic variability across regions, states and localities. Here we present independently validated high-resolution opinion estimates using a multilevel regression and poststratification model. The model accurately predicts climate change beliefs, risk perceptions and policy preferences at the state, congressional district, metropolitan and county levels, using a concise set of demographic and geographic predictors. The analysis finds substantial variation in public opinion across the nation. Nationally, 63% of Americans believe global warming is happening, but county-level estimates range from 43 to 80%, leading to a diversity of political environments for climate policy. These estimates provide an important new source of information for policymakers, educators and scientists to more effectively address the challenges of climate change.

Optical coherence elastography for cellular-scale stiffness imaging of mouse aorta

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wijesinghe, Philip; Johansen, Niloufer J.; Curatolo, Andrea; Sampson, David D.; Ganss, Ruth; Kennedy, Brendan F.

2017-04-01

We have developed a high-resolution optical coherence elastography system capable of estimating Young's modulus in tissue volumes with an isotropic resolution of 15 μm over a 1 mm lateral field of view and a 100 μm axial depth of field. We demonstrate our technique on healthy and hypertensive, freshly excised and intact mouse aortas. Our technique has the capacity to delineate the individual mechanics of elastic lamellae and vascular smooth muscle. Further, we observe global and regional vascular stiffening in hypertensive aortas, and note the presence of local micro-mechanical signatures, characteristic of fibrous and lipid-rich regions.

GPU-Accelerated Hybrid Algorithm for 3D Localization of Fluorescent Emitters in Dense Clusters

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jung, Yoon; Barsic, Anthony; Piestun, Rafael; Fakhri, Nikta

In stochastic switching-based super-resolution imaging, a random subset of fluorescent emitters are imaged and localized for each frame to construct a single high resolution image. However, the condition of non-overlapping point spread functions (PSFs) imposes constraints on experimental parameters. Recent development in post processing methods such as dictionary-based sparse support recovery using compressive sensing has shown up to an order of magnitude higher recall rate than single emitter fitting methods. However, the computational complexity of this approach scales poorly with the grid size and requires long runtime. Here, we introduce a fast and accurate compressive sensing algorithm for localizing fluorescent emitters in high density in 3D, namely sparse support recovery using Orthogonal Matching Pursuit (OMP) and L1-Homotopy algorithm for reconstructing STORM images (SOLAR STORM). SOLAR STORM combines OMP with L1-Homotopy to reduce computational complexity, which is further accelerated by parallel implementation using GPUs. This method can be used in a variety of experimental conditions for both in vitro and live cell fluorescence imaging.

Characterizing the local optoelectronic performance of organic solar cells with scanning-probe microscopy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Coffey, David C.

2007-12-01

Conjugated polymers, small molecules, and colloidal semiconductor nanocrystals are promising materials for use in low-cost, thin-film solar cells. The photovoltaic performance of these materials, however, is highly dependent on film structure, and directly correlating local film structures with device performance remains challenging. This dissertation describes several techniques we have developed to probe and control the local optoelectronic properties of organic semiconducting films. First, with an aim of rapidly fabricating photovoltaic films with varying morphology, we demonstrate that Dip-Pen Nanolithography (DPN) can be used to control nanoscale phase separation with sub-150 nm lateral resolution in polymer films that are 20--80 nm thick. This control is based on writing monolayer chemical templates that nucleate phase separation, and we use this technique to study heterogeneous nucleation in thin films. Second, we use time-resolved electrostatic force microscopy (trEFM) to measure photoexcited charge in polymer films with a resolution of 100 nm and 100 mus. We show that such data can predict the external quantum efficiencies of polymer photodiodes, and can thus link device performance with local optoelectronic properties. When applied to the study of blended polyfluorene films, we show that domain centers can buildup charge faster then domain interfaces, which indicates that polymer/polymer blend devices should be modeled as having impure donor/acceptor domains. Third, we use photoconductive atomic force microscopy (pcAFM) to map local photocurrents with 20 nm-resolution in polymer/fullerene solar cells- achieving an order of magnitude better resolution than previous techniques. We present photocurrent maps under short-circuit conditions (zero applied bias), as well as under various applied voltages. We find significant variations in the short-circuit current between regions that appear identical in AFM topography. These variations occur from one domain to another, as well as on larger length scales incorporating multiple domains. Our results suggest that organic solar cells can be significantly improved with better donor/acceptor structuring.

Resolution of localized chronic periodontitis associated with longstanding calculus deposits.

PubMed

Lai, Pin-Chuang; Walters, John D

2014-01-01

This report, which is based on nonstandardized serial radiographs obtained over a period of 15 years, documents a case of localized chronic periodontitis associated with progressive deposition of calculus on the distal aspect of a mandibular second molar. The site was treated by scaling and root planing, followed by a course of adjunctive systemic azithromycin. Treatment yielded favorable reductions in probing depth and clinical inflammation, leaving only few isolated sites with pockets no deeper than 4 mm. Two years after completion of active treatment, there was radiographic evidence of increased bone density distal to the second molar.

Bedrock geologic and structural map through the western Candor Colles region of Mars

USGS Publications Warehouse

Okubo, Chris H.

2014-01-01

The structure and geology of the layered deposits in the Candor Colles region corresponding to units Avfs, Avme, and Hvl of Witbeck and others (1991) are reevaluated in this 1:18,000-scale map. The objectives herein are to gather high-resolution structural measurements to (1) refine the previous unit boundaries in this area established by Witbeck and others (1991), (2) revise the local stratigraphy where necessary, (3) characterize bed forms to help constrain depositional processes, and (4) determine the styles and extent of deformation to better inform reconstructions of the local post-depositional geologic history.

Aspects of extratropical synoptic-scale processes in opposing ENSO phases

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Schwierz, C.; Wernli, H.; Hess, D.

2003-04-01

Energy and momentum provided by anomalous tropical heating/cooling affect the circulation on the global scale. Pacific Sea surface temperature anomalies strongly force local conditions in the equatorial Pacific, but are also known to change the climate in the extratropics, particularly over the American continent. The impact on more remote areas such as the Atlantic-European region is less clear. There the observed effects in both analyses and model studies show dependence on the resolution of the model/data, as well as on the time scales under consideration (Merkel and Latif, 2002; Compo et al., 2001). Most of the previous studies focus on larger-scale processes and seasonal time scales (or longer). Here we concentrate on the impact of opposing ENSO phases on extratropical synoptic-scale dynamics. The investigation is undertaken for the Niño/Niña events of 1972/3 and 1973/4 respectively, for 5 winter months (NDJFM) using ECMWF ERA40 data with 1o× 1o horizontal resolution and 60 vertical levels. The examination of the resulting differences in terms of standard dynamical fields (temperature, sea level pressure, precipitation, geopotential) is complemented with additional diagnostic fields (e.g. potential vorticity (PV), anti-/cyclone tracks and frequencies, PV streamers/cut-offs, blocking) in an attempt to gain more insight into aspects of extratropical synoptic-scale dynamical processes associated with ENSO SST anomalies.

Shallowing-upward cyclic patterns within larger-scale transgressive-regressive (T-R) sedimentary sequences, St. Peter through Decorah Formations, Ordovician, Iowa area

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Witzke, B.J.

1993-03-01

Four large-scale (2--8 Ma) T-R sedimentary sequences of M. Ord. age (late Chaz.-Sherm.) were delimited by Witzke Kolata (1980) in the Iowa area, each bounded by local to regional unconformity/disconformity surfaces. These encompass both siliciclastic and carbonate intervals, in ascending order: (1) St. Peter-Glenwood fms., (2) Platteville Fm., (3) Decorah Fm., (4) Dunleith/upper Decorah fms. Finer-scale resolution of depth-related depositional features has led to regional recognition of smaller-scale shallowing-upward cyclicity contained within each large-scale sequence. Such smaller-scale cyclicity encompasses stratigraphic intervals of 1--10 m thickness, with estimated durations of 0.5--1.5 Ma. The St. Peter Sandst. has long been regarded asmore » a classic transgressive sheet sand. However, four discrete shallowing-upward packages characterize the St. Peter-Glenwood interval regionally (IA, MN, NB, KS), including western facies displaying coarsening-upward sandstone packages with condensed conodont-rich brown shale and phosphatic sediments in their lower part (local oolitic ironstone), commonly above pyritic hardgrounds. Regional continuity of small-scale cyclic patterns in M. Ord. strata of the Iowa area may suggest eustatic controls; this can be tested through inter-regional comparisons.« less

Numerical Study of Rotating Turbulence with External Forcing

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Yeung, P. K.; Zhou, Ye

1998-01-01

Direct numerical simulation at 256(exp 3) resolution have been carried out to study the response of isotropic turbulence to the concurrent effects of solid-body rotation and numerical forcing at the large scales. Because energy transfer to the smaller scales is weakened by rotation, energy input from forcing gradually builds up at the large scales, causing the overall kinetic energy to increase. At intermediate wavenumbers the energy spectrum undergoes a transition from a limited k(exp -5/3) inertial range to k(exp -2) scaling recently predicted in the literature. Although the Reynolds stress tensor remains approximately isotropic and three-components, evidence for anisotropy and quasi- two-dimensionality in length scales and spectra in different velocity components and directions is strong. The small scales are found to deviate from local isotropy, primarily as a result of anisotropic transfer to the high wavenumbers. To understand the spectral dynamics of this flow we study the detailed behavior of nonlinear triadic interactions in wavenumber space. Spectral transfer in the velocity component parallel to the axis of rotation is qualitatively similar to that in non-rotating turbulence; however the perpendicular component is characterized by a greatly suppressed energy cascade at high wavenumber and a local reverse transfer at the largest scales. The broader implications of this work are briefly addressed.

High resolution fossil fuel combustion CO2 emission fluxes for the United States.

PubMed

Gurney, Kevin R; Mendoza, Daniel L; Zhou, Yuyu; Fischer, Marc L; Miller, Chris C; Geethakumar, Sarath; de la Rue du Can, Stephane

2009-07-15

Quantification of fossil fuel CO2 emissions at fine space and time resolution is emerging as a critical need in carbon cycle and climate change research. As atmospheric CO2 measurements expand with the advent of a dedicated remote sensing platform and denser in situ measurements, the ability to close the carbon budget at spatial scales of approximately 100 km2 and daily time scales requires fossil fuel CO2 inventories at commensurate resolution. Additionally, the growing interest in U.S. climate change policy measures are best served by emissions that are tied to the driving processes in space and time. Here we introduce a high resolution data product (the "Vulcan" inventory: www.purdue.edu/eas/carbon/vulcan/) that has quantified fossil fuel CO2 emissions for the contiguous U.S. at spatial scales less than 100 km2 and temporal scales as small as hours. This data product completed for the year 2002, includes detail on combustion technology and 48 fuel types through all sectors of the U.S. economy. The Vulcan inventory is built from the decades of local/regional air pollution monitoring and complements these data with census, traffic, and digital road data sets. The Vulcan inventory shows excellent agreement with national-level Department of Energy inventories, despite the different approach taken by the DOE to quantify U.S. fossil fuel CO2 emissions. Comparison to the global 1degree x 1 degree fossil fuel CO2 inventory, used widely by the carbon cycle and climate change community prior to the construction of the Vulcan inventory, highlights the space/time biases inherent in the population-based approach.

Multi-platform validation of a high-resolution model in the Western Mediterranean Sea: insight into spatial-temporal variability

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Aguiar, Eva; Mourre, Baptiste; Heslop, Emma; Juza, Mélanie; Escudier, Romain; Tintoré, Joaquín

2017-04-01

This study focuses on the validation of the high resolution Western Mediterranean Operational model (WMOP) developed at SOCIB, the Balearic Islands Coastal Observing and Forecasting System. The Mediterranean Sea is often seen as a small scale ocean laboratory where energetic eddies, fronts and circulation features have important ecological consequences. The Medclic project is a program between "La Caixa" Foundation and SOCIB which aims at characterizing and forecasting the "oceanic weather" in the Western Mediterranean Sea, specifically investigating the interactions between the general circulation and mesoscale processes. We use a WMOP 2009-2015 free run hindcast simulation and available observational datasets (altimetry, moorings and gliders) to both assess the numerical simulation and investigate the ocean variability. WMOP has a 2-km spatial resolution and uses CMEMS Mediterranean products as initial and boundary conditions, with surface forcing from the high-resolution Spanish Meteorological Agency model HIRLAM. Different aspects of the spatial and temporal variability in the model are validated from local to regional and basin scales: (1) the principal axis of variability of the surface circulation using altimetry and moorings along the Iberian coast, (2) the inter-annual changes of the surface flows incorporating also glider data, (3) the propagation of mesoscale eddies formed in the Algerian sub-basin using altimetry, and (4) the statistical properties of eddies (number, rotation, size) applying an eddy tracker detection method in the Western Mediterranean Sea. With these key points evaluated in the model, EOF analysis of sea surface height maps are used to investigate spatial patterns of variability associated with eddies, gyres and the basis-scale circulation and so gain insight into the interconnections between sub-basins, as well as the interactions between physical processes at different scales.

Thermal-chemical Mantle Convection Models With Adaptive Mesh Refinement

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Leng, W.; Zhong, S.

2008-12-01

In numerical modeling of mantle convection, resolution is often crucial for resolving small-scale features. New techniques, adaptive mesh refinement (AMR), allow local mesh refinement wherever high resolution is needed, while leaving other regions with relatively low resolution. Both computational efficiency for large- scale simulation and accuracy for small-scale features can thus be achieved with AMR. Based on the octree data structure [Tu et al. 2005], we implement the AMR techniques into the 2-D mantle convection models. For pure thermal convection models, benchmark tests show that our code can achieve high accuracy with relatively small number of elements both for isoviscous cases (i.e. 7492 AMR elements v.s. 65536 uniform elements) and for temperature-dependent viscosity cases (i.e. 14620 AMR elements v.s. 65536 uniform elements). We further implement tracer-method into the models for simulating thermal-chemical convection. By appropriately adding and removing tracers according to the refinement of the meshes, our code successfully reproduces the benchmark results in van Keken et al. [1997] with much fewer elements and tracers compared with uniform-mesh models (i.e. 7552 AMR elements v.s. 16384 uniform elements, and ~83000 tracers v.s. ~410000 tracers). The boundaries of the chemical piles in our AMR code can be easily refined to the scales of a few kilometers for the Earth's mantle and the tracers are concentrated near the chemical boundaries to precisely trace the evolvement of the boundaries. It is thus very suitable for our AMR code to study the thermal-chemical convection problems which need high resolution to resolve the evolvement of chemical boundaries, such as the entrainment problems [Sleep, 1988].

Spatially Resolved Distribution of Fe Species around Microbes at the Submicron Scale in Natural Bacteriogenic Iron Oxides.

PubMed

Suga, Hiroki; Kikuchi, Sakiko; Takeichi, Yasuo; Miyamoto, Chihiro; Miyahara, Masaaki; Mitsunobu, Satoshi; Ohigashi, Takuji; Mase, Kazuhiko; Ono, Kanta; Takahashi, Yoshio

2017-09-27

Natural bacteriogenic iron oxides (BIOS) were investigated using local-analyzable synchrotron-based scanning transmission X-ray microscopy (STXM) with a submicron-scale resolution. Cell, cell sheath interface (EPS), and sheath in the BIOS were clearly depicted using C-, N-, and O- near edge X-ray absorption fine structure (NEXAFS) obtained through STXM measurements. Fe-NEXAFS obtained from different regions of BIOS indicated that the most dominant iron mineral species was ferrihydrite. Fe(II)- and/or Fe(III)-acidic polysaccharides accompanied ferrihydrite near the cell and EPS regions. Our STXM/NEXAFS analysis showed that Fe species change continuously between the cell, EPS, and sheath under several 10-nm scales.

Large-scale horizontal flows from SOUP observations of solar granulation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

November, L. J.; Simon, G. W.; Tarbell, T. D.; Title, A. M.; Ferguson, S. H.

1987-09-01

Using high-resolution time-sequence photographs of solar granulation from the SOUP experiment on Spacelab 2 the authors observed large-scale horizontal flows in the solar surface. The measurement method is based upon a local spatial cross correlation analysis. The horizontal motions have amplitudes in the range 300 to 1000 m/s. Radial outflow of granulation from a sunspot penumbra into the surrounding photosphere is a striking new discovery. Both the supergranulation pattern and cellular structures having the scale of mesogranulation are seen. The vertical flows that are inferred by continuity of mass from these observed horizontal flows have larger upflow amplitudes in cell centers than downflow amplitudes at cell boundaries.

Plasmonic Nanostructures for Nano-Scale Bio-Sensing

PubMed Central

Chung, Taerin; Lee, Seung-Yeol; Song, Eui Young; Chun, Honggu; Lee, Byoungho

2011-01-01

The optical properties of various nanostructures have been widely adopted for biological detection, from DNA sequencing to nano-scale single molecule biological function measurements. In particular, by employing localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR), we can expect distinguished sensing performance with high sensitivity and resolution. This indicates that nano-scale detections can be realized by using the shift of resonance wavelength of LSPR in response to the refractive index change. In this paper, we overview various plasmonic nanostructures as potential sensing components. The qualitative descriptions of plasmonic nanostructures are supported by the physical phenomena such as plasmonic hybridization and Fano resonance. We present guidelines for designing specific nanostructures with regard to wavelength range and target sensing materials. PMID:22346679

Universal nonlinear small-scale dynamo.

PubMed

Beresnyak, A

2012-01-20

We consider astrophysically relevant nonlinear MHD dynamo at large Reynolds numbers (Re). We argue that it is universal in a sense that magnetic energy grows at a rate which is a constant fraction C(E) of the total turbulent dissipation rate. On the basis of locality bounds we claim that this "efficiency of the small-scale dynamo", C(E), is a true constant for large Re and is determined only by strongly nonlinear dynamics at the equipartition scale. We measured C(E) in numerical simulations and observed a value around 0.05 in the highest resolution simulations. We address the issue of C(E) being small, unlike the Kolmogorov constant which is of order unity. © 2012 American Physical Society

Mapping hydration dynamics and coupled water-protein fluctuations around a protein surface

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhang, Luyuan; Wang, Lijuan; Kao, Ya-Ting; Qiu, Weihong; Yang, Yi; Okobiah, Oghaghare; Zhong, Dongping

2009-03-01

Elucidation of the molecular mechanism of water-protein interactions is critical to understanding many fundamental aspects of protein science, such as protein folding and misfolding and enzyme catalysis. We recently carried out a global mapping of protein-surface hydration dynamics around a globular α-helical protein apomyoglobin. The intrinsic optical probe tryptophan was employed to scan the protein surface one at a time by site-specific mutagenesis. With femtosecond resolution, we mapped out the dynamics of water-protein interactions with more than 20 mutants and for two states, native and molten globular. A robust bimodal distribution of time scales was observed, representing two types of water motions: local relaxation and protein-coupled fluctuations. The time scales show a strong correlation with the local protein structural rigidity and chemical identity. We also resolved two distinct contributions to the overall Stokes-shifts from the two time scales. These results are significant to understanding the role of hydration water on protein structural stability, dynamics and function.

Estimating local scaling properties for the classification of interstitial lung disease patterns

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Huber, Markus B.; Nagarajan, Mahesh B.; Leinsinger, Gerda; Ray, Lawrence A.; Wismueller, Axel

2011-03-01

Local scaling properties of texture regions were compared in their ability to classify morphological patterns known as 'honeycombing' that are considered indicative for the presence of fibrotic interstitial lung diseases in high-resolution computed tomography (HRCT) images. For 14 patients with known occurrence of honeycombing, a stack of 70 axial, lung kernel reconstructed images were acquired from HRCT chest exams. 241 regions of interest of both healthy and pathological (89) lung tissue were identified by an experienced radiologist. Texture features were extracted using six properties calculated from gray-level co-occurrence matrices (GLCM), Minkowski Dimensions (MDs), and the estimation of local scaling properties with Scaling Index Method (SIM). A k-nearest-neighbor (k-NN) classifier and a Multilayer Radial Basis Functions Network (RBFN) were optimized in a 10-fold cross-validation for each texture vector, and the classification accuracy was calculated on independent test sets as a quantitative measure of automated tissue characterization. A Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used to compare two accuracy distributions including the Bonferroni correction. The best classification results were obtained by the set of SIM features, which performed significantly better than all the standard GLCM and MD features (p < 0.005) for both classifiers with the highest accuracy (94.1%, 93.7%; for the k-NN and RBFN classifier, respectively). The best standard texture features were the GLCM features 'homogeneity' (91.8%, 87.2%) and 'absolute value' (90.2%, 88.5%). The results indicate that advanced texture features using local scaling properties can provide superior classification performance in computer-assisted diagnosis of interstitial lung diseases when compared to standard texture analysis methods.

Resolution dependence of cross-tropopause ozone transport over east Asia

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Büker, M. L.; Hitchman, Matthew H.; Tripoli, Gregory J.; Pierce, R. B.; Browell, E. V.; Avery, M. A.

2005-02-01

Detailed analysis of mesoscale transport of ozone across the tropopause over east Asia during the spring of 2001 is conducted using regional simulations with the University of Wisconsin Nonhydrostatic Modeling System (UWNMS), in situ flight data, and a new two-scale approach to diagnosing this ozone flux. From late February to early April, synoptic activity regularly deformed the tropopause, leading to observations of ozone-rich (concentration exceeding 80 ppbv) stratospheric intrusions and filaments at tropospheric altitudes. Since model resolution is generally not sufficient to capture detailed small-scale mixing processes, an upper bound on the flux is proposed by assuming that there exists a dynamical division by spatial scale, above which the wind conservatively advects large-scale structures, while below it the wind leads to irreversible transport through nonconservative random strain. A formulation for this diagnosis is given and applied to ozone flux across the dynamical tropopause. Simulations were chosen to correspond with DC-8 flight 15 on 26-27 March over east Asia during the Transport and Chemical Evolution Over the Pacific (TRACE-P) campaign. Local and domain-averaged flux values using this method agree with other numerical and observational studies in similar synoptic environments. Sensitivity to numerical resolution, prescribed divisional spatial scale, and potential vorticity (PV) level is investigated. Divergent residual flow in regions of high ozone, and PV gradients tended to maximize flux magnitudes. We estimated the domain-integrated flow of ozone out of the lowermost stratosphere to be about 0.127 Tg/day. Spectral analysis of the wind field lends support for utilization of this dynamical division in this methodology.

Anatomy of small-scale mixing along a Northeast Atlantic transect

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jurado, Elena; Dijkstra, Henk A.; van der Woerd, Hans; Brussaard, Corina

2010-05-01

The study of turbulence occurring at the smallest scales, in the energy dissipation range, is required when evaluating interrelations between turbulent mixing and phytoplankton distribution. To derive microturbulent parameters, microstructure profiler surveys, consisting in high resolution temperature, salinity or velocity vertical profiles have been performed in localized regions of the open ocean. However, they are very localized and based on few datasets, difficult to extrapolate to other regions due to the dependence on the local background conditions. During the STRATIPHYT-I cruise (July-August 2009) from Las Palmas (Gran Canaria) to Reykjavik (Iceland), high resolution measurements of both turbulent mixing (with a Self Contained Autonomous Micro Profiler, SCAMP) and phytoplankton have been carried out in the top 100 m of the ocean. With these data, the gradient from a more stratified, warmer surface water tropical environment to a less stratified subpolar ocean environment is covered. Adding up a total of 15 stations and 148 profiles, it constitutes the most extensive dataset of directly derived vertical mixing coefficients in a latitudinal transect of the Northeast Atlantic. In the presentation, the focus is on the explanation of the changes in turbulent mixing along the cruise section, recalling in its latitudinal gradient and presenting parameters that can further help to evaluate effects in the phytoplankton distribution. Side issues such as the encountered disagreement between heat and density eddy diffusivities and an analysis of the main source of instabilities through GOTM model and an internal wave analysis, are also treated in detail.

In Situ Observation of Intermittent Dissipation at Kinetic Scales in the Earth's Magnetosheath

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chasapis, Alexandros; Matthaeus, W. H.; Parashar, T. N.; Wan, M.; Haggerty, C. C.; Pollock, C. J.; Giles, B. L.; Paterson, W. R.; Dorelli, J.; Gershman, D. J.; Torbert, R. B.; Russell, C. T.; Lindqvist, P.-A.; Khotyaintsev, Y.; Moore, T. E.; Ergun, R. E.; Burch, J. L.

2018-03-01

We present a study of signatures of energy dissipation at kinetic scales in plasma turbulence based on observations by the Magnetospheric Multiscale mission (MMS) in the Earth’s magnetosheath. Using several intervals, and taking advantage of the high-resolution instrumentation on board MMS, we compute and discuss several statistical measures of coherent structures and heating associated with electrons, at previously unattainable scales in space and time. We use the multi-spacecraft Partial Variance of Increments (PVI) technique to study the intermittent structure of the magnetic field. Furthermore, we examine a measure of dissipation and its behavior with respect to the PVI as well as the current density. Additionally, we analyze the evolution of the anisotropic electron temperature and non-Maxwellian features of the particle distribution function. From these diagnostics emerges strong statistical evidence that electrons are preferentially heated in subproton-scale regions of strong electric current density, and this heating is preferentially in the parallel direction relative to the local magnetic field. Accordingly, the conversion of magnetic energy into electron kinetic energy occurs more strongly in regions of stronger current density, a finding consistent with several kinetic plasma simulation studies and hinted at by prior studies using lower resolution Cluster observations.

Atomic-scale sensing of the magnetic dipolar field from single atoms

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Choi, Taeyoung; Paul, William; Rolf-Pissarczyk, Steffen; MacDonald, Andrew J.; Natterer, Fabian D.; Yang, Kai; Willke, Philip; Lutz, Christopher P.; Heinrich, Andreas J.

2017-05-01

Spin resonance provides the high-energy resolution needed to determine biological and material structures by sensing weak magnetic interactions. In recent years, there have been notable achievements in detecting and coherently controlling individual atomic-scale spin centres for sensitive local magnetometry. However, positioning the spin sensor and characterizing spin-spin interactions with sub-nanometre precision have remained outstanding challenges. Here, we use individual Fe atoms as an electron spin resonance (ESR) sensor in a scanning tunnelling microscope to measure the magnetic field emanating from nearby spins with atomic-scale precision. On artificially built assemblies of magnetic atoms (Fe and Co) on a magnesium oxide surface, we measure that the interaction energy between the ESR sensor and an adatom shows an inverse-cube distance dependence (r-3.01±0.04). This demonstrates that the atoms are predominantly coupled by the magnetic dipole-dipole interaction, which, according to our observations, dominates for atom separations greater than 1 nm. This dipolar sensor can determine the magnetic moments of individual adatoms with high accuracy. The achieved atomic-scale spatial resolution in remote sensing of spins may ultimately allow the structural imaging of individual magnetic molecules, nanostructures and spin-labelled biomolecules.

Multi-resolution extension for transmission of geodata in a mobile context

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Follin, Jean-Michel; Bouju, Alain; Bertrand, Frédéric; Boursier, Patrice

2005-03-01

A solution is proposed for the management of multi-resolution vector data in a mobile spatial information visualization system. The client-server architecture and the models of data and transfer of the system are presented first. The aim of this system is to reduce data exchanged between client and server by reusing data already present on the client side. Then, an extension of this system to multi-resolution data is proposed. Our solution is based on the use of increments in a multi-scale database. A database architecture where data sets for different predefined scales are precomputed and stored on the server side is adopted. In this model, each object representing the same real world entities at different levels of detail has to be linked beforehand. Increments correspond to the difference between two datasets with different levels of detail. They are transmitted in order to increase (or decrease) the detail to the client upon request. They include generalization and refinement operators allowing transitions between the different levels. Finally, a framework suited to the transfer of multi-resolution data in a mobile context is presented. This allows reuse of data locally available at different levels of detail and, in this way, reduces the amount of data transferred between client and server.

Concurrent multiscale modeling of microstructural effects on localization behavior in finite deformation solid mechanics

DOE PAGES

Alleman, Coleman N.; Foulk, James W.; Mota, Alejandro; ...

2017-11-06

The heterogeneity in mechanical fields introduced by microstructure plays a critical role in the localization of deformation. In order to resolve this incipient stage of failure, it is therefore necessary to incorporate microstructure with sufficient resolution. On the other hand, computational limitations make it infeasible to represent the microstructure in the entire domain at the component scale. Here, the authors demonstrate the use of concurrent multiscale modeling to incorporate explicit, finely resolved microstructure in a critical region while resolving the smoother mechanical fields outside this region with a coarser discretization to limit computational cost. The microstructural physics is modeled withmore » a high-fidelity model that incorporates anisotropic crystal elasticity and rate-dependent crystal plasticity to simulate the behavior of a stainless steel alloy. The component-scale material behavior is treated with a lower fidelity model incorporating isotropic linear elasticity and rate-independent J 2 plasticity. The microstructural and component scale subdomains are modeled concurrently, with coupling via the Schwarz alternating method, which solves boundary-value problems in each subdomain separately and transfers solution information between subdomains via Dirichlet boundary conditions. In this study, the framework is applied to model incipient localization in tensile specimens during necking.« less

EEG functional connectivity, axon delays and white matter disease.

PubMed

Nunez, Paul L; Srinivasan, Ramesh; Fields, R Douglas

2015-01-01

Both structural and functional brain connectivities are closely linked to white matter disease. We discuss several such links of potential interest to neurologists, neurosurgeons, radiologists, and non-clinical neuroscientists. Treatment of brains as genuine complex systems suggests major emphasis on the multi-scale nature of brain connectivity and dynamic behavior. Cross-scale interactions of local, regional, and global networks are apparently responsible for much of EEG's oscillatory behaviors. Finite axon propagation speed, often assumed to be infinite in local network models, is central to our conceptual framework. Myelin controls axon speed, and the synchrony of impulse traffic between distant cortical regions appears to be critical for optimal mental performance and learning. Several experiments suggest that axon conduction speed is plastic, thereby altering the regional and global white matter connections that facilitate binding of remote local networks. Combined EEG and high resolution EEG can provide distinct multi-scale estimates of functional connectivity in both healthy and diseased brains with measures like frequency and phase spectra, covariance, and coherence. White matter disease may profoundly disrupt normal EEG coherence patterns, but currently these kinds of studies are rare in scientific labs and essentially missing from clinical environments. Copyright © 2014 International Federation of Clinical Neurophysiology. All rights reserved.

Concurrent multiscale modeling of microstructural effects on localization behavior in finite deformation solid mechanics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Alleman, Coleman N.; Foulk, James W.; Mota, Alejandro; Lim, Hojun; Littlewood, David J.

2018-02-01

The heterogeneity in mechanical fields introduced by microstructure plays a critical role in the localization of deformation. To resolve this incipient stage of failure, it is therefore necessary to incorporate microstructure with sufficient resolution. On the other hand, computational limitations make it infeasible to represent the microstructure in the entire domain at the component scale. In this study, the authors demonstrate the use of concurrent multiscale modeling to incorporate explicit, finely resolved microstructure in a critical region while resolving the smoother mechanical fields outside this region with a coarser discretization to limit computational cost. The microstructural physics is modeled with a high-fidelity model that incorporates anisotropic crystal elasticity and rate-dependent crystal plasticity to simulate the behavior of a stainless steel alloy. The component-scale material behavior is treated with a lower fidelity model incorporating isotropic linear elasticity and rate-independent J2 plasticity. The microstructural and component scale subdomains are modeled concurrently, with coupling via the Schwarz alternating method, which solves boundary-value problems in each subdomain separately and transfers solution information between subdomains via Dirichlet boundary conditions. In this study, the framework is applied to model incipient localization in tensile specimens during necking.

Concurrent multiscale modeling of microstructural effects on localization behavior in finite deformation solid mechanics

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Alleman, Coleman N.; Foulk, James W.; Mota, Alejandro

The heterogeneity in mechanical fields introduced by microstructure plays a critical role in the localization of deformation. In order to resolve this incipient stage of failure, it is therefore necessary to incorporate microstructure with sufficient resolution. On the other hand, computational limitations make it infeasible to represent the microstructure in the entire domain at the component scale. Here, the authors demonstrate the use of concurrent multiscale modeling to incorporate explicit, finely resolved microstructure in a critical region while resolving the smoother mechanical fields outside this region with a coarser discretization to limit computational cost. The microstructural physics is modeled withmore » a high-fidelity model that incorporates anisotropic crystal elasticity and rate-dependent crystal plasticity to simulate the behavior of a stainless steel alloy. The component-scale material behavior is treated with a lower fidelity model incorporating isotropic linear elasticity and rate-independent J 2 plasticity. The microstructural and component scale subdomains are modeled concurrently, with coupling via the Schwarz alternating method, which solves boundary-value problems in each subdomain separately and transfers solution information between subdomains via Dirichlet boundary conditions. In this study, the framework is applied to model incipient localization in tensile specimens during necking.« less

Detection and extraction of orientation-and-scale-dependent information from two-dimensional GPR data with tuneable directional wavelet filters

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tzanis, Andreas

2013-02-01

The Ground Probing Radar (GPR) is a valuable tool for near surface geological, geotechnical, engineering, environmental, archaeological and other work. GPR images of the subsurface frequently contain geometric information (constant or variable-dip reflections) from various structures such as bedding, cracks, fractures, etc. Such features are frequently the target of the survey; however, they are usually not good reflectors and they are highly localized in time and in space. Their scale is therefore a factor significantly affecting their detectability. At the same time, the GPR method is very sensitive to broadband noise from buried small objects, electromagnetic anthropogenic activity and systemic factors, which frequently blurs the reflections from such targets. This paper introduces a method to de-noise GPR data and extract geometric information from scale-and-dip dependent structural features, based on one-dimensional B-Spline Wavelets, two-dimensional directional B-Spline Wavelet (BSW) Filters and two-dimensional Gabor Filters. A directional BSW Filter is built by sidewise arranging s identical one-dimensional wavelets of length L, tapering the s-parallel direction (span) with a suitable window function and rotating the resulting matrix to the desired orientation. The length L of the wavelet defines the temporal and spatial scale to be isolated and the span determines the length over which to smooth (spatial resolution). The Gabor Filter is generated by multiplying an elliptical Gaussian by a complex plane wave; at any orientation the temporal or spatial scale(s) to be isolated are determined by the wavelength. λ of the plane wave and the spatial resolution by the spatial aspect ratio γ, which specifies the ellipticity of the support of the Gabor function. At any orientation, both types of filter may be tuned at any frequency or spatial wavenumber by varying the length or the wavelength respectively. The filters can be applied directly to two-dimensional radargrams, in which case they abstract information about given scales at given orientations. Alternatively, they can be rotated to different orientations under adaptive control, so that they remain tuned at a given frequency or wavenumber and the resulting images can be stacked in the LS sense, so as to obtain a complete representation of the input data at a given temporal or spatial scale. In addition to isolating geometrical information for further scrutiny, the proposed filtering methods can be used to enhance the S/N ratio in a manner particularly suitable for GPR data, because the frequency response of the filters mimics the frequency characteristics of the source wavelet. Finally, signal attenuation and temporal localization are closely associated: low attenuation interfaces tend to produce reflections rich in high frequencies and fine-scale localization as a function of time. Conversely, high attenuation interfaces will produce reflections rich in low frequencies and broad localization. Accordingly, the temporal localization characteristics of the filters may be exploited to investigate the characteristics of signal propagation (hence material properties). The method is shown to be very effective in extracting fine to coarse scale information from noisy data and is demonstrated with applications to noisy GPR data from archaeometric and geotechnical surveys.

Enabling global collaborations through policy engagement and CMS applications

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Escobar, V. M.; Sepulveda Carlo, E.; Delgado Arias, S.

2015-12-01

Different spatial scales prompt different discussions among carbon data stakeholders. NASA's Carbon Monitoring System (CMS) initiative has enabled collaboration opportunities with stakeholders whose data needs and requirements are unique to the spatial scope of their work: from county to the international scale. At the very local level, the Sonoma County Agricultural Preservation and Open Space District leverages CMS high-resolution biomass estimates to develop a Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification (MRV) system in support of the District's 10-year land stewardship plan and the California's Global Warming Solutions Act (AB32). On the eastern coast, at the state level, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources utilizes the same high-resolution biomass estimates on a larger scale to better strategize in achieving the goal of 40% canopy cover statewide by 2020. At a regional scale that encompasses the three states of Maryland, Delaware, and Pennsylvania, LiDAR data collection of the Chesapeake Bay watershed dominate the stakeholder discussions. By collaborating with the U.S. Geological Survey's 3-D Elevation Program (3DEP), high-resolution LiDAR data will fill critical data gaps to help implement watershed protection strategies such as increasing riparian forest buffers to reduce runoff. Outside of the U.S., the World Resources Institute seeks to harness CMS reforestation products and technical expertise in addressing land restoration priorities specific to each Latin American country. CMS applications efforts expand beyond forest carbon examples discussed above to include carbon markets, ocean acidification, national greenhouse gas inventory, and wetlands. The broad array of case studies and lessons learned through CMS Applications in scaling carbon science for policy development at different spatial scales is providing unique opportunities that leverage science through policy needs.

Non-Gaussian Multi-resolution Modeling of Magnetosphere-Ionosphere Coupling Processes

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fan, M.; Paul, D.; Lee, T. C. M.; Matsuo, T.

2016-12-01

The most dynamic coupling between the magnetosphere and ionosphere occurs in the Earth's polar atmosphere. Our objective is to model scale-dependent stochastic characteristics of high-latitude ionospheric electric fields that originate from solar wind magnetosphere-ionosphere interactions. The Earth's high-latitude ionospheric electric field exhibits considerable variability, with increasing non-Gaussian characteristics at decreasing spatio-temporal scales. Accurately representing the underlying stochastic physical process through random field modeling is crucial not only for scientific understanding of the energy, momentum and mass exchanges between the Earth's magnetosphere and ionosphere, but also for modern technological systems including telecommunication, navigation, positioning and satellite tracking. While a lot of efforts have been made to characterize the large-scale variability of the electric field in the context of Gaussian processes, no attempt has been made so far to model the small-scale non-Gaussian stochastic process observed in the high-latitude ionosphere. We construct a novel random field model using spherical needlets as building blocks. The double localization of spherical needlets in both spatial and frequency domains enables the model to capture the non-Gaussian and multi-resolutional characteristics of the small-scale variability. The estimation procedure is computationally feasible due to the utilization of an adaptive Gibbs sampler. We apply the proposed methodology to the computational simulation output from the Lyon-Fedder-Mobarry (LFM) global magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) magnetosphere model. Our non-Gaussian multi-resolution model results in characterizing significantly more energy associated with the small-scale ionospheric electric field variability in comparison to Gaussian models. By accurately representing unaccounted-for additional energy and momentum sources to the Earth's upper atmosphere, our novel random field modeling approach will provide a viable remedy to the current numerical models' systematic biases resulting from the underestimation of high-latitude energy and momentum sources.

Fine-scale mapping of vector habitats using very high resolution satellite imagery: a liver fluke case-study.

PubMed

De Roeck, Els; Van Coillie, Frieke; De Wulf, Robert; Soenen, Karen; Charlier, Johannes; Vercruysse, Jozef; Hantson, Wouter; Ducheyne, Els; Hendrickx, Guy

2014-12-01

The visualization of vector occurrence in space and time is an important aspect of studying vector-borne diseases. Detailed maps of possible vector habitats provide valuable information for the prediction of infection risk zones but are currently lacking for most parts of the world. Nonetheless, monitoring vector habitats from the finest scales up to farm level is of key importance to refine currently existing broad-scale infection risk models. Using Fasciola hepatica, a parasite liver fluke, as a case in point, this study illustrates the potential of very high resolution (VHR) optical satellite imagery to efficiently and semi-automatically detect detailed vector habitats. A WorldView2 satellite image capable of <5m resolution was acquired in the spring of 2013 for the area around Bruges, Belgium, a region where dairy farms suffer from liver fluke infections transmitted by freshwater snails. The vector thrives in small water bodies (SWBs), such as ponds, ditches and other humid areas consisting of open water, aquatic vegetation and/or inundated grass. These water bodies can be as small as a few m2 and are most often not present on existing land cover maps because of their small size. We present a classification procedure based on object-based image analysis (OBIA) that proved valuable to detect SWBs at a fine scale in an operational and semi-automated way. The classification results were compared to field and other reference data such as existing broad-scale maps and expert knowledge. Overall, the SWB detection accuracy reached up to 87%. The resulting fine-scale SWB map can be used as input for spatial distribution modelling of the liver fluke snail vector to enable development of improved infection risk mapping and management advice adapted to specific, local farm situations.

Unstructured-grid coastal ocean modelling in Southern Adriatic and Northern Ionian Seas

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Federico, Ivan; Pinardi, Nadia; Coppini, Giovanni; Oddo, Paolo

2016-04-01

The Southern Adriatic Northern Ionian coastal Forecasting System (SANIFS) is a short-term forecasting system based on unstructured grid approach. The model component is built on SHYFEM finite element three-dimensional hydrodynamic model. The operational chain exploits a downscaling approach starting from the Mediterranean oceanographic-scale model MFS (Mediterranean Forecasting System, operated by INGV). The implementation set-up has been designed to provide accurate hydrodynamics and active tracer processes in the coastal waters of Southern Eastern Italy (Apulia, Basilicata and Calabria regions), where the model is characterized by a variable resolution in range of 50-500 m. The horizontal resolution is also high in open-sea areas, where the elements size is approximately 3 km. The model is forced: (i) at the lateral open boundaries through a full nesting strategy directly with the MFS (temperature, salinity, non-tidal sea surface height and currents) and OTPS (tidal forcing) fields; (ii) at surface through two alternative atmospheric forcing datasets (ECMWF and COSMOME) via MFS-bulk-formulae. Given that the coastal fields are driven by a combination of both local/coastal and deep ocean forcings propagating along the shelf, the performance of SANIFS was verified first (i) at the large and shelf-coastal scales by comparing with a large scale CTD survey and then (ii) at the coastal-harbour scale by comparison with CTD, ADCP and tide gauge data. Sensitivity tests were performed on initialization conditions (mainly focused on spin-up procedures) and on surface boundary conditions by assessing the reliability of two alternative datasets at different horizontal resolution (12.5 and 7 km). The present work highlights how downscaling could improve the simulation of the flow field going from typical open-ocean scales of the order of several km to the coastal (and harbour) scales of tens to hundreds of meters.

High-resolution mapping and spatial variability of soil organic carbon storage of permafrost-affected soils

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Siewert, Matthias; Hugelius, Gustaf

2017-04-01

Permafrost-affected soils store large amounts of soil organic carbon (SOC). Mapping of this SOC provides a first order spatial input variable for research that relates carbon stored in permafrost regions to carbon cycle dynamics. High-resolution satellite imagery is becoming increasingly available even in circum-polar regions. The presented research highlights findings of high-resolution mapping efforts of SOC from five study areas in the northern circum-polar permafrost region. These study areas are located in Siberia (Kytalyk, Spasskaya Pad /Neleger, Lena delta), Northern Sweden (Abisko) and Northwestern Canada (Herschel Island). Our high spatial resolution analyses show how geomorphology has a strong influence on the distribution of SOC. This is organized at different spatial scales. Periglacial landforms and processes dictate local scale SOC distribution due to patterned ground. Such landforms are non-sorted circles and ice-wedge polygons of different age and scale. Palsas and peat plateaus are formed and can cover larger areas in Sub-Arctic environments. Study areas that have not been affected by Pleistocene glaciation feature ice-rich Yedoma sediments that dominate the local relief through thermokarst formation and create landscape scale macro environments that dictate the distribution of SOC. A general trend indicates higher SOC storage in Arctic tundra soils compared to forested Boreal or Sub-Arctic taiga soils. Yet, due to the shallower active layer depth in the Arctic, much of the SOC may be permanently frozen and thus not be available to ecosystem processes. Significantly more SOC is stored in soils compared to vegetation, indicating that vegetation growth and incorporation of the carbon into the plant phytomass alone will not be able to offset SOC released from permafrost. This contribution also addresses advances in thematic mapping methods and digital soil mapping of SOC in permafrost terrain. In particular machine-learning methods, such as support vector machines, artificial neural networks and random forests show promising results as a toolbox for mapping permafrost-affected soils. Yet, these new methods do not decrease our dependency from soil pedon data from the field. In contrary, soil pedon data represents an urgent research priority. Statistical analyses are provided as an indication for best practice of soil pedon sampling for the quantification and the model representation of SOC stored in permafrost-affected soils.

Landscape-scale forest disturbance regimes in southern Peruvian Amazonia.

PubMed

Boyd, Doreen S; Hill, Ross A; Hopkinson, Chris; Baker, Timothy R

2013-10-01

Landscape-scale gap-size frequency distributions in tropical forests are a poorly studied but key ecological variable. Currently, a scale gap currently exists between local-scale field-based studies and those employing regional-scale medium-resolution satellite data. Data at landscape scales but of fine resolution would, however, facilitate investigation into a range of ecological questions relating to gap dynamics. These include whether canopy disturbances captured in permanent sample plots (PSPs) are representative of those in their surrounding landscape, and whether disturbance regimes vary with forest type. Here, therefore, we employ airborne LiDAR data captured over 142.5 km2 of mature, swamp, and regenerating forests in southeast Peru to assess the landscape-scale disturbance at a sampling resolution of up to 2 m. We find that this landscape is characterized by large numbers of small gaps; large disturbance events are insignificant and infrequent. Of the total number of gaps that are 2 m2 or larger in area, just 0.45% were larger than 100 m2, with a power-law exponent (alpha) value of the gap-size frequency distribution of 2.22. However, differences in disturbance regimes are seen among different forest types, with a significant difference in the alpha value of the gap-size frequency distribution observed for the swamp/regenerating forests compared with the mature forests at higher elevations. Although a relatively small area of the total forest of this region was investigated here, this study presents an unprecedented assessment of this landscape with respect to its gap dynamics. This is particularly pertinent given the range of forest types present in the landscape and the differences observed. The coupling of detailed insights into forest properties and growth provided by PSPs with the broader statistics of disturbance events using remote sensing is recommended as a strong basis for scaling-up estimates of landscape and regional-scale carbon balance.

Tropical Cyclone Activity in the High-Resolution Community Earth System Model and the Impact of Ocean Coupling

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, Hui; Sriver, Ryan L.

2018-01-01

High-resolution Atmosphere General Circulation Models (AGCMs) are capable of directly simulating realistic tropical cyclone (TC) statistics, providing a promising approach for TC-climate studies. Active air-sea coupling in a coupled model framework is essential to capturing TC-ocean interactions, which can influence TC-climate connections on interannual to decadal time scales. Here we investigate how the choices of ocean coupling can affect the directly simulated TCs using high-resolution configurations of the Community Earth System Model (CESM). We performed a suite of high-resolution, multidecadal, global-scale CESM simulations in which the atmosphere (˜0.25° grid spacing) is configured with three different levels of ocean coupling: prescribed climatological sea surface temperature (SST) (ATM), mixed layer ocean (SLAB), and dynamic ocean (CPL). We find that different levels of ocean coupling can influence simulated TC frequency, geographical distributions, and storm intensity. ATM simulates more storms and higher overall storm intensity than the coupled simulations. It also simulates higher TC track density over the eastern Pacific and the North Atlantic, while TC tracks are relatively sparse within CPL and SLAB for these regions. Storm intensification and the maximum wind speed are sensitive to the representations of local surface flux feedbacks in different coupling configurations. Key differences in storm number and distribution can be attributed to variations in the modeled large-scale climate mean state and variability that arise from the combined effect of intrinsic model biases and air-sea interactions. Results help to improve our understanding about the representation of TCs in high-resolution coupled Earth system models, with important implications for TC-climate applications.

Shuttle radar DEM hydrological correction for erosion modelling in small catchments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jarihani, Ben; Sidle, Roy; Bartley, Rebecca

2016-04-01

Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) that accurately replicate both landscape form and processes are critical to support modelling of environmental processes. Catchment and hillslope scale runoff and sediment processes (i.e., patterns of overland flow, infiltration, subsurface stormflow and erosion) are all topographically mediated. In remote and data-scarce regions, high resolution DEMs (LiDAR) are often not available, and moderate to course resolution digital elevation models (e.g., SRTM) have difficulty replicating detailed hydrological patterns, especially in relatively flat landscapes. Several surface reconditioning algorithms (e.g., Smoothing) and "Stream burning" techniques (e.g., Agree or ANUDEM), in conjunction with representation of the known stream networks, have been used to improve DEM performance in replicating known hydrology. Detailed stream network data are not available at regional and national scales, but can be derived at local scales from remotely-sensed data. This research explores the implication of high resolution stream network data derived from Google Earth images for DEM hydrological correction, instead of using course resolution stream networks derived from topographic maps. The accuracy of implemented method in producing hydrological-efficient DEMs were assessed by comparing the hydrological parameters derived from modified DEMs and limited high-resolution airborne LiDAR DEMs. The degree of modification is dominated by the method used and availability of the stream network data. Although stream burning techniques improve DEMs hydrologically, these techniques alter DEM characteristics that may affect catchment boundaries, stream position and length, as well as secondary terrain derivatives (e.g., slope, aspect). Modification of a DEM to better reflect known hydrology can be useful, however, knowledge of the magnitude and spatial pattern of the changes are required before using a DEM for subsequent analyses.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Stershic, Andrew J.; Dolbow, John E.; Moës, Nicolas

The Thick Level-Set (TLS) model is implemented to simulate brittle media undergoing dynamic fragmentation. This non-local model is discretized by the finite element method with damage represented as a continuous field over the domain. A level-set function defines the extent and severity of damage, and a length scale is introduced to limit the damage gradient. Numerical studies in one dimension demonstrate that the proposed method reproduces the rate-dependent energy dissipation and fragment length observations from analytical, numerical, and experimental approaches. In conclusion, additional studies emphasize the importance of appropriate bulk constitutive models and sufficient spatial resolution of the length scale.

High-resolution digital mapping of soil organic carbon in permafrost terrain using machine learning: a case study in a sub-Arctic peatland environment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Siewert, Matthias B.

2018-03-01

Soil organic carbon (SOC) stored in northern peatlands and permafrost-affected soils are key components in the global carbon cycle. This article quantifies SOC stocks in a sub-Arctic mountainous peatland environment in the discontinuous permafrost zone in Abisko, northern Sweden. Four machine-learning techniques are evaluated for SOC quantification: multiple linear regression, artificial neural networks, support vector machine and random forest. The random forest model performed best and was used to predict SOC for several depth increments at a spatial resolution of 1 m (1×1 m). A high-resolution (1 m) land cover classification generated for this study is the most relevant predictive variable. The landscape mean SOC storage (0-150 cm) is estimated to be 8.3 ± 8.0 kg C m-2 and the SOC stored in the top meter (0-100 cm) to be 7.7 ± 6.2 kg C m-2. The predictive modeling highlights the relative importance of wetland areas and in particular peat plateaus for the landscape's SOC storage. The total SOC was also predicted at reduced spatial resolutions of 2, 10, 30, 100, 250 and 1000 m and shows a significant drop in land cover class detail and a tendency to underestimate the SOC at resolutions > 30 m. This is associated with the occurrence of many small-scale wetlands forming local hot-spots of SOC storage that are omitted at coarse resolutions. Sharp transitions in SOC storage associated with land cover and permafrost distribution are the most challenging methodological aspect. However, in this study, at local, regional and circum-Arctic scales, the main factor limiting robust SOC mapping efforts is the scarcity of soil pedon data from across the entire environmental space. For the Abisko region, past SOC and permafrost dynamics indicate that most of the SOC is barely 2000 years old and very dynamic. Future research needs to investigate the geomorphic response of permafrost degradation and the fate of SOC across all landscape compartments in post-permafrost landscapes.

Performance analysis of PPP ambiguity resolution with UPD products estimated from different scales of reference station networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, Siyao; Li, Bofeng; Li, Xingxing; Zang, Nan

2018-01-01

Integer ambiguity fixing with uncalibrated phase delay (UPD) products can significantly shorten the initialization time and improve the accuracy of precise point positioning (PPP). Since the tracking arcs of satellites and the behavior of atmospheric biases can be very different for the reference networks with different scales, the qualities of corresponding UPD products may be also various. The purpose of this paper is to comparatively investigate the influence of different scales of reference station networks on UPD estimation and user ambiguity resolution. Three reference station networks with global, wide-area and local scales are used to compute the UPD products and analyze their impact on the PPP-AR. The time-to-first-fix, the unfix rate and the incorrect fix rate of PPP-AR are analyzed. Moreover, in order to further shorten the convergence time for obtaining precise positioning, a modified partial ambiguity resolution (PAR) and corresponding validation strategy are presented. In this PAR method, the ambiguity subset is determined by removing the ambiguity one by one in the order of ascending elevations. Besides, for static positioning mode, a coordinate validation strategy is employed to enhance the reliability of the fixed coordinate. The experiment results show that UPD products computed by smaller station network are more accurate and lead to a better coordinate solution; the PAR method used in this paper can shorten the convergence time and the coordinate validation strategy can improve the availability of high precision positioning.

Dimensionless, Scale Invariant, Edge Weight Metric for the Study of Complex Structural Networks

PubMed Central

Colon-Perez, Luis M.; Spindler, Caitlin; Goicochea, Shelby; Triplett, William; Parekh, Mansi; Montie, Eric; Carney, Paul R.; Price, Catherine; Mareci, Thomas H.

2015-01-01

High spatial and angular resolution diffusion weighted imaging (DWI) with network analysis provides a unique framework for the study of brain structure in vivo. DWI-derived brain connectivity patterns are best characterized with graph theory using an edge weight to quantify the strength of white matter connections between gray matter nodes. Here a dimensionless, scale-invariant edge weight is introduced to measure node connectivity. This edge weight metric provides reasonable and consistent values over any size scale (e.g. rodents to humans) used to quantify the strength of connection. Firstly, simulations were used to assess the effects of tractography seed point density and random errors in the estimated fiber orientations; with sufficient signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), edge weight estimates improve as the seed density increases. Secondly to evaluate the application of the edge weight in the human brain, ten repeated measures of DWI in the same healthy human subject were analyzed. Mean edge weight values within the cingulum and corpus callosum were consistent and showed low variability. Thirdly, using excised rat brains to study the effects of spatial resolution, the weight of edges connecting major structures in the temporal lobe were used to characterize connectivity in this local network. The results indicate that with adequate resolution and SNR, connections between network nodes are characterized well by this edge weight metric. Therefore this new dimensionless, scale-invariant edge weight metric provides a robust measure of network connectivity that can be applied in any size regime. PMID:26173147

Dimensionless, Scale Invariant, Edge Weight Metric for the Study of Complex Structural Networks.

PubMed

Colon-Perez, Luis M; Spindler, Caitlin; Goicochea, Shelby; Triplett, William; Parekh, Mansi; Montie, Eric; Carney, Paul R; Price, Catherine; Mareci, Thomas H

2015-01-01

High spatial and angular resolution diffusion weighted imaging (DWI) with network analysis provides a unique framework for the study of brain structure in vivo. DWI-derived brain connectivity patterns are best characterized with graph theory using an edge weight to quantify the strength of white matter connections between gray matter nodes. Here a dimensionless, scale-invariant edge weight is introduced to measure node connectivity. This edge weight metric provides reasonable and consistent values over any size scale (e.g. rodents to humans) used to quantify the strength of connection. Firstly, simulations were used to assess the effects of tractography seed point density and random errors in the estimated fiber orientations; with sufficient signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), edge weight estimates improve as the seed density increases. Secondly to evaluate the application of the edge weight in the human brain, ten repeated measures of DWI in the same healthy human subject were analyzed. Mean edge weight values within the cingulum and corpus callosum were consistent and showed low variability. Thirdly, using excised rat brains to study the effects of spatial resolution, the weight of edges connecting major structures in the temporal lobe were used to characterize connectivity in this local network. The results indicate that with adequate resolution and SNR, connections between network nodes are characterized well by this edge weight metric. Therefore this new dimensionless, scale-invariant edge weight metric provides a robust measure of network connectivity that can be applied in any size regime.

Spatially explicit modelling of forest structure and function using airborne lidar and hyperspectral remote sensing data combined with micrometeorological measurements

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Thomas, Valerie Anne

This research models canopy-scale photosynthesis at the Groundhog River Flux Site through the integration of high-resolution airborne remote sensing data and micrometeorological measurements collected from a flux tower. Light detection and ranging (lidar) data are analysed to derive models of tree structure, including: canopy height, basal area, crown closure, and average aboveground biomass. Lidar and hyperspectral remote sensing data are used to model canopy chlorophyll (Chl) and carotenoid concentrations (known to be good indicators of photosynthesis). The integration of lidar and hyperspectral data is applied to derive spatially explicit models of the fraction of photosynthetically active radiation (fPAR) absorbed by the canopy as well as a species classification for the site. These products are integrated with flux tower meteorological measurements (i.e., air temperature and global solar radiation) collected on a continuous basis over 2004 to apply the C-Fix model of carbon exchange to the site. Results demonstrate that high resolution lidar and lidar-hyperspectral integration techniques perform well in the boreal mixedwood environment. Lidar models are well correlated with forest structure, despite the complexities introduced in the mixedwood case (e.g., r2=0.84, 0.89, 0.60, and 0.91, for mean dominant height, basal area, crown closure, and average aboveground biomass). Strong relationships are also shown for canopy scale chlorophyll/carotenoid concentration analysis using integrated lidar-hyperspectral techniques (e.g., r2=0.84, 0.84, and 0.82 for Chl(a), Chl(a+b), and Chl(b)). Examination of the spatially explicit models of fPAR reveal distinct spatial patterns which become increasingly apparent throughout the season due to the variation in species groupings (and canopy chlorophyll concentration) within the 1 km radius surrounding the flux tower. Comparison of results from the modified local-scale version of the C-Fix model to tower gross ecosystem productivity (GEP) demonstrate a good correlation to flux tower measured GEP (r2=0.70 for 10 day averages), with the largest deviations occurring in June-July. This research has direct benefits for forest inventory mapping and management practices; mapping of canopy physiology and biochemical constituents related to forest health; and scaling and direct comparison to large resolution satellite models to help bridge the gap between the local-scale measurements at flux towers and predictions derived from continental-scale carbon models.

Development of a high-resolution emission inventory and its evaluation and application through air quality modeling for Jiangsu Province, China

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhao, Yu; Zhou, Yaduan; Mao, Pan; Zhang, Jie

2017-04-01

Improved emission inventories combining detailed source information are crucial for better understanding the atmospheric chemistry and effectively making emission control policies using air quality simulation, particularly at regional or local scales. With the downscaled inventories directly applied, chemical transport model might not be able to reproduce the authentic evolution of atmospheric pollution processes at small spatial scales. Using the bottom-up approach, a high-resolution emission inventory was developed for Jiangsu China, including SO2, NOx, CO, NH3, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), total suspended particulates (TSP), PM10, PM2.5, black carbon (BC), organic carbon (OC), and CO2. The key parameters relevant to emission estimation for over 6000 industrial sources were investigated, compiled and revised at plant level based on various data sources and on-site survey. As a result, the emission fractions of point sources were significantly elevated for most species. The improvement of this provincial inventory was evaluated through comparisons with other inventories at larger spatial scales, using satellite observation and air quality modeling. Compared to the downscaled Multi-resolution Emission Inventory for China (MEIC), the spatial distribution of NOX emissions in our provincial inventory was more consistent with summer tropospheric NO2 VCDs observed from OMI, particularly for the grids with moderate emission levels, implying the improved emission estimation for small and medium industrial plants by this work. Three inventories (national, regional, and provincial by this work) were applied in the Models-3/Community Multi-scale Air Quality (CMAQ) system for southern Jiangsu October 2012, to evaluate the model performances with different emission inputs. The best agreement between available ground observation and simulation was found when the provincial inventory was applied, indicated by the smallest normalized mean bias (NMB) and normalized mean errors (NME) for all the concerned species SO2, NO2, O3 and PM2.5. The result thus implied the advantage of improved emission inventory at local scale for high resolution air quality modeling. Under the unfavorable meteorology in which horizontal and vertical movement of atmosphere was limited, the simulated SO2 concentrations at downtown Nanjing (the capital city of Jiangsu) using the regional or national inventories were much higher than observation, implying the overestimated urban emissions when economy or population densities were applied to downscale or allocate the emissions. With more accurate spatial distribution of emissions at city level, the simulated concentrations using the provincial inventory were much closer to observation. Sensitivity analysis of PM2.5 and O3 formation was conducted using the improved provincial inventory through the Brute Force method. Iron & steel and cement plants were identified as important contributors to the PM2.5 concentrations in Nanjing. The O3 formation was VOCs-limited in southern Jiangsu, and the concentrations were negatively correlated with NOX emissions in urban areas owing to the accumulated NOx from transportation. More evaluations are further suggested for the impacts of speciation and temporal and vertical distribution of emissions on air quality modeling at regional or local scales in China.

Development of a high-resolution emission inventory and its evaluation and application through air quality modeling for Jiangsu Province, China

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhou, Yaduan; Zhao, Yu; Mao, Pan; Zhang, Qiang; Zhang, Jie; Qiu, Liping; Yang, Yang

2017-01-01

Improved emission inventories combining detailed source information are crucial for better understanding of the atmospheric chemistry and effectively making emission control policies using air quality simulation, particularly at regional or local scales. With the downscaled inventories directly applied, chemical transport models might not be able to reproduce the authentic evolution of atmospheric pollution processes at small spatial scales. Using the bottom-up approach, a high-resolution emission inventory was developed for Jiangsu China, including SO2, NOx, CO, NH3, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), total suspended particulates (TSP), PM10, PM2.5, black carbon (BC), organic carbon (OC), and CO2. The key parameters relevant to emission estimation for over 6000 industrial sources were investigated, compiled, and revised at plant level based on various data sources and on-site surveys. As a result, the emission fractions of point sources were significantly elevated for most species. The improvement of this provincial inventory was evaluated through comparisons with other inventories at larger spatial scales, using satellite observation and air quality modeling. Compared to the downscaled Multi-resolution Emission Inventory for China (MEIC), the spatial distribution of NOx emissions in our provincial inventory was more consistent with summer tropospheric NO2 VCDs observed from OMI, particularly for the grids with moderate emission levels, implying the improved emission estimation for small and medium industrial plants by this work. Three inventories (national, regional, and provincial by this work) were applied in the Models-3 Community Multi-scale Air Quality (CMAQ) system for southern Jiangsu October 2012, to evaluate the model performances with different emission inputs. The best agreement between available ground observation and simulation was found when the provincial inventory was applied, indicated by the smallest normalized mean bias (NMB) and normalized mean errors (NME) for all the concerned species SO2, NO2, O3, and PM2.5. The result thus implied the advantage of improved emission inventory at local scale for high-resolution air quality modeling. Under the unfavorable meteorology in which horizontal and vertical movement of atmosphere was limited, the simulated SO2 concentrations at downtown Nanjing (the capital city of Jiangsu) using the regional or national inventories were much higher than those observed, implying that the urban emissions were overestimated when economy or population densities were applied to downscale or allocate the emissions. With more accurate spatial distribution of emissions at city level, the simulated concentrations using the provincial inventory were much closer to observation. Sensitivity analysis of PM2.5 and O3 formation was conducted using the improved provincial inventory through the brute force method. Iron and steel plants and cement plants were identified as important contributors to the PM2.5 concentrations in Nanjing. The O3 formation was VOC-limited in southern Jiangsu, and the concentrations were negatively correlated with NOx emissions in urban areas owing to the accumulated NOx from transportation. More evaluations are further suggested for the impacts of speciation and temporal and vertical distribution of emissions on air quality modeling at regional or local scales in China.

NASA SPoRT Initialization Datasets for Local Model Runs in the Environmental Modeling System

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Case, Jonathan L.; LaFontaine, Frank J.; Molthan, Andrew L.; Carcione, Brian; Wood, Lance; Maloney, Joseph; Estupinan, Jeral; Medlin, Jeffrey M.; Blottman, Peter; Rozumalski, Robert A.

2011-01-01

The NASA Short-term Prediction Research and Transition (SPoRT) Center has developed several products for its National Weather Service (NWS) partners that can be used to initialize local model runs within the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Environmental Modeling System (EMS). These real-time datasets consist of surface-based information updated at least once per day, and produced in a composite or gridded product that is easily incorporated into the WRF EMS. The primary goal for making these NASA datasets available to the WRF EMS community is to provide timely and high-quality information at a spatial resolution comparable to that used in the local model configurations (i.e., convection-allowing scales). The current suite of SPoRT products supported in the WRF EMS include a Sea Surface Temperature (SST) composite, a Great Lakes sea-ice extent, a Greenness Vegetation Fraction (GVF) composite, and Land Information System (LIS) gridded output. The SPoRT SST composite is a blend of primarily the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) infrared and Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for Earth Observing System data for non-precipitation coverage over the oceans at 2-km resolution. The composite includes a special lake surface temperature analysis over the Great Lakes using contributions from the Remote Sensing Systems temperature data. The Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory Ice Percentage product is used to create a sea-ice mask in the SPoRT SST composite. The sea-ice mask is produced daily (in-season) at 1.8-km resolution and identifies ice percentage from 0 100% in 10% increments, with values above 90% flagged as ice.

Does objective cluster analysis serve as a useful precursor to seasonal precipitation prediction at local scale? Application to western Ethiopia

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhang, Ying; Moges, Semu; Block, Paul

2018-01-01

Prediction of seasonal precipitation can provide actionable information to guide management of various sectoral activities. For instance, it is often translated into hydrological forecasts for better water resources management. However, many studies assume homogeneity in precipitation across an entire study region, which may prove ineffective for operational and local-level decisions, particularly for locations with high spatial variability. This study proposes advancing local-level seasonal precipitation predictions by first conditioning on regional-level predictions, as defined through objective cluster analysis, for western Ethiopia. To our knowledge, this is the first study predicting seasonal precipitation at high resolution in this region, where lives and livelihoods are vulnerable to precipitation variability given the high reliance on rain-fed agriculture and limited water resources infrastructure. The combination of objective cluster analysis, spatially high-resolution prediction of seasonal precipitation, and a modeling structure spanning statistical and dynamical approaches makes clear advances in prediction skill and resolution, as compared with previous studies. The statistical model improves versus the non-clustered case or dynamical models for a number of specific clusters in northwestern Ethiopia, with clusters having regional average correlation and ranked probability skill score (RPSS) values of up to 0.5 and 33 %, respectively. The general skill (after bias correction) of the two best-performing dynamical models over the entire study region is superior to that of the statistical models, although the dynamical models issue predictions at a lower resolution and the raw predictions require bias correction to guarantee comparable skills.

Simulation of electron energy loss spectra of nanomaterials with linear-scaling density functional theory

DOE PAGES

Tait, E. W.; Ratcliff, L. E.; Payne, M. C.; ...

2016-04-20

Experimental techniques for electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) combine high energy resolution with high spatial resolution. They are therefore powerful tools for investigating the local electronic structure of complex systems such as nanostructures, interfaces and even individual defects. Interpretation of experimental electron energy loss spectra is often challenging and can require theoretical modelling of candidate structures, which themselves may be large and complex, beyond the capabilities of traditional cubic-scaling density functional theory. In this work, we present functionality to compute electron energy loss spectra within the onetep linear-scaling density functional theory code. We first demonstrate that simulated spectra agree withmore » those computed using conventional plane wave pseudopotential methods to a high degree of precision. The ability of onetep to tackle large problems is then exploited to investigate convergence of spectra with respect to supercell size. As a result, we apply the novel functionality to a study of the electron energy loss spectra of defects on the (1 0 1) surface of an anatase slab and determine concentrations of defects which might be experimentally detectable.« less

The Super-Linear Slope Of The Spatially-resolved Star Formation Law In NGC 3521 And NGC 5194 (m51a)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liu, Guilin; Koda, J.; Calzetti, D.; Fukuhara, M.; Momose, R.

2011-01-01

We have conducted interferometric observations with CARMA and an OTF mapping with the 45-m telescope at NRO in the CO (1-0) emission line of NGC 3521. Combining these new data, together with similar data for M51a and archival SINGS H-alpha, 24um, THINGS H I and GALEX FUV data for both galaxies, we investigate the empirical scaling law that connects the surface density of star formation rate (SFR) and cold gas (the Schmidt-Kennicutt law) on a spatially-resolved basis, and find a super-linear slope when carefully subtracting the background emissions in the SFR image. We argue that plausibly deriving SFR maps of nearby galaxies requires the diffuse stellar/dust background emission to be carefully subtracted (especially in mid-IR). An approach to complete this task is presented and applied in our pixel-by-pixel analysis on both galaxies, showing that the controversial results whether the molecular S-K law is super-linear or basically linear is a result of removing or preserving the local background. In both galaxies, the power index of the molecular S-K law is super-linear (1.5-1.9) at the highest available resolution (230 pc), and decreases monotonically for decreasing resolution; while the scatter (mainly intrinsic) increases as the resolution becomes higher, indicating a trend for which the S-K law breaks down below some scale. Both quantities are systematically larger in M51a than in NGC 3521, but when plotted against the de-projected scale, they become highly consistent between the two galaxies, tentatively suggesting that the sub-kpc molecular S-K law in spiral galaxies depends only on the scale being considered, without varying amongst spiral galaxies. We obtaion slope=-1.1[log(scale/kpc)]+1.4 and scatter=-0.2 [scale/kpc]+0.7 through fitting to the M51a data, which describes both galaxies impressively well on sub-kpc scales. However, a larger sample of galaxies with better sensitivity, resolution and broader FoV are required to test these results.

Critical carbon input to maintain current soil organic carbon stocks in global wheat systems

PubMed Central

Wang, Guocheng; Luo, Zhongkui; Han, Pengfei; Chen, Huansheng; Xu, Jingjing

2016-01-01

Soil organic carbon (SOC) dynamics in croplands is a crucial component of global carbon (C) cycle. Depending on local environmental conditions and management practices, typical C input is generally required to reduce or reverse C loss in agricultural soils. No studies have quantified the critical C input for maintaining SOC at global scale with high resolution. Such information will provide a baseline map for assessing soil C dynamics under potential changes in management practices and climate, and thus enable development of management strategies to reduce C footprint from farm to regional scales. We used the soil C model RothC to simulate the critical C input rates needed to maintain existing soil C level at 0.1° × 0.1° resolution in global wheat systems. On average, the critical C input was estimated to be 2.0 Mg C ha−1 yr−1, with large spatial variability depending on local soil and climatic conditions. Higher C inputs are required in wheat system of central United States and western Europe, mainly due to the higher current soil C stocks present in these regions. The critical C input could be effectively estimated using a summary model driven by current SOC level, mean annual temperature, precipitation, and soil clay content. PMID:26759192

Quantified carbon input for maintaining existing soil organic carbon stocks in global wheat systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, G.

2017-12-01

Soil organic carbon (SOC) dynamics in croplands is a crucial component of global carbon (C) cycle. Depending on local environmental conditions and management practices, typical C input is generally required to reduce or reverse C loss in agricultural soils. No studies have quantified the critical C input for maintaining SOC at global scale with high resolution. Such information will provide a baseline map for assessing soil C dynamics under potential changes in management practices and climate, and thus enable development of management strategies to reduce C footprint from farm to regional scales. We used the soil C model RothC to simulate the critical C input rates needed to maintain existing soil C level at 0.1°× 0.1° resolution in global wheat systems. On average, the critical C input was estimated to be 2.0 Mg C ha-1 yr-1, with large spatial variability depending on local soil and climatic conditions. Higher C inputs are required in wheat system of central United States and western Europe, mainly due to the higher current soil C stocks present in these regions. The critical C input could be effectively estimated using a summary model driven by current SOC level, mean annual temperature, precipitation, and soil clay content.

High-Resolution Thermal Inertia Mapping from the Mars Global Surveyor Thermal Emission Spectrometer

USGS Publications Warehouse

Mellon, M.T.; Jakosky, B.M.; Kieffer, H.H.; Christensen, P.R.

2000-01-01

High-resolution thermal inertia mapping results are presented, derived from Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Thermal Emission Spectrometer (TES) observations of the surface temperature of Mars obtained during the early portion of the MGS mapping mission. Thermal inertia is the key property controlling the diurnal surface temperature variations, and is dependent on the physical character of the top few centimeters of the surface. It represents a complex combination of particle size, rock abundance, exposures of bedrock, and degree of induration. In this work we describe the derivation of thermal inertia from TES data, present global scale analysis, and place these results into context with earlier work. A global map of nighttime thermal-bolometer-based thermal inertia is presented at 14?? per pixel resolution, with approximately 63% coverage between 50??S and 70??N latitude. Global analysis shows a similar pattern of high and low thermal inertia as seen in previous Viking low-resolution mapping. Significantly more detail is present in the high-resolution TES thermal inertia. This detail represents horizontal small-scale variability in the nature of the surface. Correlation with albedo indicates the presence of a previously undiscovered surface unit of moderate-to-high thermal inertia and intermediate albedo. This new unit has a modal peak thermal inertia of 180-250 J m-2 K-1 s-12 and a narrow range of albedo near 0.24. The unit, covering a significant fraction of the surface, typically surrounds the low thermal inertia regions and may comprise a deposit of indurated fine material. Local 3-km-resolution maps are also presented as examples of eolian, fluvial, and volcanic geology. Some impact crater rims and intracrater dunes show higher thermal inertias than the surrounding terrain; thermal inertia of aeolian deposits such as intracrater dunes may be related to average particle size. Outflow channels and valleys consistently show higher thermal inertias than the surrounding terrain. Generally, correlations between spatial variations in thermal inertia and geologic features suggest a relationship between the hundred-meter-scale morphology and the centimeter-scale surface layer. ?? 2000 Academic Press.

Numerical Upscaling of Solute Transport in Fractured Porous Media Based on Flow Aligned Blocks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Leube, P.; Nowak, W.; Sanchez-Vila, X.

2013-12-01

High-contrast or fractured-porous media (FPM) pose one of the largest unresolved challenges for simulating large hydrogeological systems. The high contrast in advective transport between fast conduits and low-permeability rock matrix, including complex mass transfer processes, leads to the typical complex characteristics of early bulk arrivals and long tailings. Adequate direct representation of FPM requires enormous numerical resolutions. For large scales, e.g. the catchment scale, and when allowing for uncertainty in the fracture network architecture or in matrix properties, computational costs quickly reach an intractable level. In such cases, multi-scale simulation techniques have become useful tools. They allow decreasing the complexity of models by aggregating and transferring their parameters to coarser scales and so drastically reduce the computational costs. However, these advantages come at a loss of detail and accuracy. In this work, we develop and test a new multi-scale or upscaled modeling approach based on block upscaling. The novelty is that individual blocks are defined by and aligned with the local flow coordinates. We choose a multi-rate mass transfer (MRMT) model to represent the remaining sub-block non-Fickian behavior within these blocks on the coarse scale. To make the scale transition simple and to save computational costs, we capture sub-block features by temporal moments (TM) of block-wise particle arrival times to be matched with the MRMT model. By predicting spatial mass distributions of injected tracers in a synthetic test scenario, our coarse-scale solution matches reasonably well with the corresponding fine-scale reference solution. For predicting higher TM-orders (such as arrival time and effective dispersion), the prediction accuracy steadily decreases. This is compensated to some extent by the MRMT model. If the MRMT model becomes too complex, it loses its effect. We also found that prediction accuracy is sensitive to the choice of the effective dispersion coefficients and on the block resolution. A key advantage of the flow-aligned blocks is that the small-scale velocity field is reproduced quite accurately on the block-scale through their flow alignment. Thus, the block-scale transverse dispersivities remain in the similar magnitude as local ones, and they do not have to represent macroscopic uncertainty. Also, the flow-aligned blocks minimize numerical dispersion when solving the large-scale transport problem.

Grain-resolved analysis of localized deformation in nickel-titanium wire under tensile load.

PubMed

Sedmák, P; Pilch, J; Heller, L; Kopeček, J; Wright, J; Sedlák, P; Frost, M; Šittner, P

2016-08-05

The stress-induced martensitic transformation in tensioned nickel-titanium shape-memory alloys proceeds by propagation of macroscopic fronts of localized deformation. We used three-dimensional synchrotron x-ray diffraction to image at micrometer-scale resolution the grain-resolved elastic strains and stresses in austenite around one such front in a prestrained nickel-titanium wire. We found that the local stresses in austenite grains are modified ahead of the nose cone-shaped buried interface where the martensitic transformation begins. Elevated shear stresses at the cone interface explain why the martensitic transformation proceeds in a localized manner. We established the crossover from stresses in individual grains to a continuum macroscopic internal stress field in the wire and rationalized the experimentally observed internal stress field and the topology of the macroscopic front by means of finite element simulations of the localized deformation. Copyright © 2016, American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Adaptive-optics SLO imaging combined with widefield OCT and SLO enables precise 3D localization of fluorescent cells in the mouse retina.

PubMed

Zawadzki, Robert J; Zhang, Pengfei; Zam, Azhar; Miller, Eric B; Goswami, Mayank; Wang, Xinlei; Jonnal, Ravi S; Lee, Sang-Hyuck; Kim, Dae Yu; Flannery, John G; Werner, John S; Burns, Marie E; Pugh, Edward N

2015-06-01

Adaptive optics scanning laser ophthalmoscopy (AO-SLO) has recently been used to achieve exquisite subcellular resolution imaging of the mouse retina. Wavefront sensing-based AO typically restricts the field of view to a few degrees of visual angle. As a consequence the relationship between AO-SLO data and larger scale retinal structures and cellular patterns can be difficult to assess. The retinal vasculature affords a large-scale 3D map on which cells and structures can be located during in vivo imaging. Phase-variance OCT (pv-OCT) can efficiently image the vasculature with near-infrared light in a label-free manner, allowing 3D vascular reconstruction with high precision. We combined widefield pv-OCT and SLO imaging with AO-SLO reflection and fluorescence imaging to localize two types of fluorescent cells within the retinal layers: GFP-expressing microglia, the resident macrophages of the retina, and GFP-expressing cone photoreceptor cells. We describe in detail a reflective afocal AO-SLO retinal imaging system designed for high resolution retinal imaging in mice. The optical performance of this instrument is compared to other state-of-the-art AO-based mouse retinal imaging systems. The spatial and temporal resolution of the new AO instrumentation was characterized with angiography of retinal capillaries, including blood-flow velocity analysis. Depth-resolved AO-SLO fluorescent images of microglia and cone photoreceptors are visualized in parallel with 469 nm and 663 nm reflectance images of the microvasculature and other structures. Additional applications of the new instrumentation are discussed.

Faster scanning and higher resolution: new setup for multilayer zone plate imaging

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Osterhoff, Markus; Soltau, Jakob; Eberl, Christian; Krebs, Hans-Ulrich

2017-09-01

Hard x-ray imaging methods are routinely used in two and three spatial dimensions to tackle challenging scientific questions of the 21st century, e.g. catalytic processes in energy research and bio-physical experiments on the single-cell level [1-3]. Among the most important experimental techniques are scanning SAXS to probe the local orientation of filaments and fluorescence mapping to quantify the local composition. The routinely available spot size has been reduced to few tens of nanometres; but the real-space resolution of these techniques can degrade by (i) vibration or drift, and (ii) spreading of beam damage, especially for soft condensed matter on small length scales. We have recently developed new Multilayer Zone Plate (MZP) optics for focusing hard (14 keV) and very hard (60 keV to above 100 keV) x-rays down to spot sizes presumably on 5 or 10nm scale. Here we report on recent progress on a new MZP based sample scanner, and how to tackle beam damage spread. The Eiger detector synchronized to a piezo scanner enables to scan in a 2D continuous mode fields of view larger than 20μm squared, or for high resolution down to (virtual) pixel sizes of below 2nm, in about three minutes for 255×255 points (90 seconds after further improvements). Nano-SAXS measurements with more than one million real-space pixels, each containing a full diffraction image, can be carried out in less than one hour, as we have shown using a Siemens star test pattern.

Nonhydrostatic nested climate modeling: A case study of the 2010 summer season over the western United States

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lebassi-Habtezion, Bereket; Diffenbaugh, Noah S.

2013-10-01

potential importance of local-scale climate phenomena motivates development of approaches to enable computationally feasible nonhydrostatic climate simulations. To that end, we evaluate the potential viability of nested nonhydrostatic model approaches, using the summer climate of the western United States (WUSA) as a case study. We use the Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) model to carry out five simulations of summer 2010. This suite allows us to test differences between nonhydrostatic and hydrostatic resolutions, single and multiple nesting approaches, and high- and low-resolution reanalysis boundary conditions. WRF simulations were evaluated against station observations, gridded observations, and reanalysis data over domains that cover the 11 WUSA states at nonhydrostatic grid spacing of 4 km and hydrostatic grid spacing of 25 km and 50 km. Results show that the nonhydrostatic simulations more accurately resolve the heterogeneity of surface temperature, precipitation, and wind speed features associated with the topography and orography of the WUSA region. In addition, we find that the simulation in which the nonhydrostatic grid is nested directly within the regional reanalysis exhibits the greatest overall agreement with observational data. Results therefore indicate that further development of nonhydrostatic nesting approaches is likely to yield important insights into the response of local-scale climate phenomena to increases in global greenhouse gas concentrations. However, the biases in regional precipitation, atmospheric circulation, and moisture flux identified in a subset of the nonhydrostatic simulations suggest that alternative nonhydrostatic modeling approaches such as superparameterization and variable-resolution global nonhydrostatic modeling will provide important complements to the nested approaches tested here.

Air-Sea Interaction in the Somali Current Region

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jensen, T. G.; Rydbeck, A.

2017-12-01

The western Indian Ocean is an area of high eddy-kinetic energy generated by local wind-stress curl, instability of boundary currents as well as Rossby waves from the west coast of India and the equatorial wave guide as they reflect off the African coast. The presence of meso-scale eddies and coastal upwelling during the Southwest Monsoon affects the air-sea interaction on those scales. The U.S. Navy's Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere Mesoscale Prediction System (COAMPS) is used to understand and quantify the surface flux, effects on surface waves and the role of Sea Surface Temperature anomalies on ocean-atmosphere coupling in that area. The COAMPS atmosphere model component with 9 km resolution is fully coupled to the Navy Coastal Ocean Model (NCOM) with 3.5 km resolution and the Simulating WAves Nearshore (SWAN) wave model with 10 km resolution. Data assimilation using a 3D-variational approach is included in hindcast runs performed daily since June 1, 2015. An interesting result is that a westward jet associated with downwelling equatorial Rossy waves initiated the reversal from the southward Somali Current found during the northeast monsoon to a northward flow in March 2016 more than a month before the beginning of the southwest monsoon. It is also found that warm SST anomalies in the Somali Current eddies, locally increase surface wind speed due to an increase in the atmospheric boundary layer height. This results in an increase in significant wave height and also an increase in heat flux to the atmosphere. Cold SST anomalies over upwelling filaments have the opposite impacts on air-sea fluxes.

Impact of four-dimensional data assimilation (FDDA) on urban climate analysis

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pan, Linlin; Liu, Yubao; Liu, Yuewei; Li, Lei; Jiang, Yin; Cheng, Will; Roux, Gregory

2015-12-01

This study investigates the impact of four-dimensional data assimilation (FDDA) on urban climate analysis, which employs the NCAR (National Center for Atmospheric Research) WRF (the weather research and forecasting model) based on climate FDDA (CFDDA) technology to develop an urban-scale microclimatology database for the Shenzhen area, a rapidly developing metropolitan located along the southern coast of China, where uniquely high-density observations, including ultrahigh-resolution surface AWS (automatic weather station) network, radio sounding, wind profilers, radiometers, and other weather observation platforms, have been installed. CFDDA is an innovative dynamical downscaling regional climate analysis system that assimilates diverse regional observations; and has been employed to produce a 5 year multiscale high-resolution microclimate analysis by assimilating high-density observations at Shenzhen area. The CFDDA system was configured with four nested-grid domains at grid sizes of 27, 9, 3, and 1 km, respectively. This research evaluates the impact of assimilating high-resolution observation data on reproducing the refining features of urban-scale circulations. Two experiments were conducted with a 5 year run using CFSR (climate forecast system reanalysis) as boundary and initial conditions: one with CFDDA and the other without. The comparisons of these two experiments with observations indicate that CFDDA greatly reduces the model analysis error and is able to realistically analyze the microscale features such as urban-rural-coastal circulation, land/sea breezes, and local-hilly terrain thermal circulations. It is demonstrated that the urbanization can produce 2.5 k differences in 2 m temperatures, delays/speeds up the land/sea breeze development, and interacts with local mountain-valley circulations.

Object-oriented recognition of high-resolution remote sensing image

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, Yongyan; Li, Haitao; Chen, Hong; Xu, Yuannan

2016-01-01

With the development of remote sensing imaging technology and the improvement of multi-source image's resolution in satellite visible light, multi-spectral and hyper spectral , the high resolution remote sensing image has been widely used in various fields, for example military field, surveying and mapping, geophysical prospecting, environment and so forth. In remote sensing image, the segmentation of ground targets, feature extraction and the technology of automatic recognition are the hotspot and difficulty in the research of modern information technology. This paper also presents an object-oriented remote sensing image scene classification method. The method is consist of vehicles typical objects classification generation, nonparametric density estimation theory, mean shift segmentation theory, multi-scale corner detection algorithm, local shape matching algorithm based on template. Remote sensing vehicles image classification software system is designed and implemented to meet the requirements .

From single-molecule spectroscopy to super-resolution imaging of the neuron: a review

PubMed Central

Laine, Romain F; Kaminski Schierle, Gabriele S; van de Linde, Sebastian; Kaminski, Clemens F

2016-01-01

Abstract For more than 20 years, single-molecule spectroscopy has been providing invaluable insights into nature at the molecular level. The field has received a powerful boost with the development of the technique into super-resolution imaging methods, ca. 10 years ago, which overcome the limitations imposed by optical diffraction. Today, single molecule super-resolution imaging is routinely used in the study of macromolecular function and structure in the cell. Concomitantly, computational methods have been developed that provide information on numbers and positions of molecules at the nanometer-scale. In this overview, we outline the technical developments that have led to the emergence of localization microscopy techniques from single-molecule spectroscopy. We then provide a comprehensive review on the application of the technique in the field of neuroscience research. PMID:28809165

Multiple Scale Analysis of the Dynamic State Index (DSI)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Müller, A.; Névir, P.

2016-12-01

The Dynamic State Index (DSI) is a novel parameter that indicates local deviations of the atmospheric flow field from a stationary, inviscid and adiabatic solution of the primitive equations of fluid mechanics. This is in contrast to classical methods, which often diagnose deviations from temporal or spatial mean states. We show some applications of the DSI to atmospheric flow phenomena on different scales. The DSI is derived from the Energy-Vorticity-Theory (EVT) which is based on two global conserved quantities, the total energy and Ertel's potential enstrophy. Locally, these global quantities lead to the Bernoulli function and the PV building together with the potential temperature the DSI.If the Bernoulli function and the PV are balanced, the DSI vanishes and the basic state is obtained. Deviations from the basic state provide an indication of diabatic and non-stationary weather events. Therefore, the DSI offers a tool to diagnose and even prognose different atmospheric events on different scales.On synoptic scale, the DSI can help to diagnose storms and hurricanes, where also the dipole structure of the DSI plays an important role. In the scope of the collaborative research center "Scaling Cascades in Complex Systems" we show high correlations between the DSI and precipitation on convective scale. Moreover, we compare the results with reduced models and different spatial resolutions.

A Novel SPM Probe with MOS Transistor and Nano Tip for Surface Electric Properties

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lee, Sang H.; Lim, Geunbae; Moon, Wonkyu

2007-03-01

In this paper, the novel SPM (Scanning Probe Microscope) probe with the planar MOS (Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor) transistor and the FIB (Focused Ion Beam) nano tip is fabricated for the surface electric properties. Since the MOS transistor has high working frequency, the device can overcome the speed limitation of EFM (Electrostatic Force Microscope) system. The sensitivity is also high, and no bulky device such as lock-in-amplifier is required. Moreover, the nano tip with nanometer scale tip radius is fabricated with FIB system, and the resolution can be improved. Therefore, the probe can rapidly detect small localized electric properties with high sensitivity and high resolution. The MOS transistor is fabricated with the common semiconductor process, and the nano tip is grown by the FIB system. The planar structure of the MOS transistor makes the fabrication process easier, which is the advantage on the commercial production. Various electric signals are applied using the function generator, and the measured data represent the well-established electric properties of the device. It shows the promising aspect of the local surface electric property detection with high sensitivity and high resolution.

High-resolution gravity field modeling using GRAIL mission data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lemoine, F. G.; Goossens, S. J.; Sabaka, T. J.; Nicholas, J. B.; Mazarico, E.; Rowlands, D. D.; Neumann, G. A.; Loomis, B.; Chinn, D. S.; Smith, D. E.; Zuber, M. T.

2015-12-01

The Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) spacecraft were designed to map the structure of the Moon through high-precision global gravity mapping. The mission consisted of two spacecraft with Ka-band inter-satellite tracking complemented by tracking from Earth. The mission had two phases: a primary mapping mission from March 1 until May 29, 2012 at an average altitude of 50 km, and an extended mission from August 30 until December 14, 2012, with an average altitude of 23 km before November 18, and 20 and 11 km after. High-resolution gravity field models using both these data sets have been estimated, with the current resolution being degree and order 1080 in spherical harmonics. Here, we focus on aspects of the analysis of the GRAIL data: we investigate eclipse modeling, the influence of empirical accelerations on the results, and we discuss the inversion of large-scale systems. In addition to global models we also estimated local gravity adjustments in areas of particular interest such as Mare Orientale, the south pole area, and the farside. We investigate the use of Ka-band Range Rate (KBRR) data versus numerical derivatives of KBRR data, and show that the latter have the capability to locally improve correlations with topography.

Geometric approach to segmentation and protein localization in cell culture assays.

PubMed

Raman, S; Maxwell, C A; Barcellos-Hoff, M H; Parvin, B

2007-01-01

Cell-based fluorescence imaging assays are heterogeneous and require the collection of a large number of images for detailed quantitative analysis. Complexities arise as a result of variation in spatial nonuniformity, shape, overlapping compartments and scale (size). A new technique and methodology has been developed and tested for delineating subcellular morphology and partitioning overlapping compartments at multiple scales. This system is packaged as an integrated software platform for quantifying images that are obtained through fluorescence microscopy. Proposed methods are model based, leveraging geometric shape properties of subcellular compartments and corresponding protein localization. From the morphological perspective, convexity constraint is imposed to delineate and partition nuclear compartments. From the protein localization perspective, radial symmetry is imposed to localize punctate protein events at submicron resolution. Convexity constraint is imposed against boundary information, which are extracted through a combination of zero-crossing and gradient operator. If the convexity constraint fails for the boundary then positive curvature maxima are localized along the contour and the entire blob is partitioned into disjointed convex objects representing individual nuclear compartment, by enforcing geometric constraints. Nuclear compartments provide the context for protein localization, which may be diffuse or punctate. Punctate signal are localized through iterative voting and radial symmetries for improved reliability and robustness. The technique has been tested against 196 images that were generated to study centrosome abnormalities. Corresponding computed representations are compared against manual counts for validation.

Multiscale modeling of lithium ion batteries: thermal aspects

PubMed Central

Zausch, Jochen

2015-01-01

Summary The thermal behavior of lithium ion batteries has a huge impact on their lifetime and the initiation of degradation processes. The development of hot spots or large local overpotentials leading, e.g., to lithium metal deposition depends on material properties as well as on the nano- und microstructure of the electrodes. In recent years a theoretical structure emerges, which opens the possibility to establish a systematic modeling strategy from atomistic to continuum scale to capture and couple the relevant phenomena on each scale. We outline the building blocks for such a systematic approach and discuss in detail a rigorous approach for the continuum scale based on rational thermodynamics and homogenization theories. Our focus is on the development of a systematic thermodynamically consistent theory for thermal phenomena in batteries at the microstructure scale and at the cell scale. We discuss the importance of carefully defining the continuum fields for being able to compare seemingly different phenomenological theories and for obtaining rules to determine unknown parameters of the theory by experiments or lower-scale theories. The resulting continuum models for the microscopic and the cell scale are numerically solved in full 3D resolution. The complex very localized distributions of heat sources in a microstructure of a battery and the problems of mapping these localized sources on an averaged porous electrode model are discussed by comparing the detailed 3D microstructure-resolved simulations of the heat distribution with the result of the upscaled porous electrode model. It is shown, that not all heat sources that exist on the microstructure scale are represented in the averaged theory due to subtle cancellation effects of interface and bulk heat sources. Nevertheless, we find that in special cases the averaged thermal behavior can be captured very well by porous electrode theory. PMID:25977870

Storm generated large scale TIDs (LSTIDs): local, regional and global observations during solar cycles 23-24

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Katamzi, Zama; Bosco Habarulema, John

2017-04-01

Large scale traveling ionospheric disturbances (LSTIDs) are a key dynamic ionospheric process that transports energy and momentum vertically and horizontally during storms. These disturbances are observed as electron density irregularities in total electron content and other ionospheric parameters. This study reports on various explorations of LSTIDs characteristics, in particular horizontal and vertical propagation, during some major/severe storms of solar cycles 23-24. We have employed GNSS TEC to estimate horizontal propagation and radio occultation data from COSMIC/FORMOSAT-3 and SWARM satellites to estimate vertical motion. The work presented here reveals the evolution of the characterisation efficiency from using sparsely populated stations, resulting in limited spatial resolution through rudimentary analysis to more densely populated GNSS network leading to more accurate temporal and spatial determinations. For example, early observations of LSTIDs largely revealed unidirectional propagation whereas later studies have showed that one storm can induce multi-directional propagation, e.g. Halloween 2003 storm induced equatorward LSTIDs on a local scale whereas the 9 March 2012 storm induced simultaneous equatorward and poleward LSTIDs on a global scale. This later study, i.e. 9 March 2012 storm, revealed for the first time that ionospheric electrodynamics, specifically variations in ExB drift, is also an efficient generator of LSTIDs. Results from these studies also revealed constructive and destructive interference pattern of storm induced LSTIDs. Constellations of LEO satellites such as COSMIC/FORMOSAT-3 and SWARM have given sufficient spatial and temporal resolution to study vertical propagation of LSTIDs in addition to the meridional propagation given by GNSS TEC; the former (i.e. vertical velocities) were found to fall below 100 m/s.

The 3D-based scaling index algorithm to optimize structure analysis of trabecular bone in postmenopausal women with and without osteoporotic spine fractures

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Muller, Dirk; Monetti, Roberto A.; Bohm, Holger F.; Bauer, Jan; Rummeny, Ernst J.; Link, Thomas M.; Rath, Christoph W.

2004-05-01

The scaling index method (SIM) is a recently proposed non-linear technique to extract texture measures for the quantitative characterisation of the trabecular bone structure in high resolution magnetic resonance imaging (HR-MRI). The three-dimensional tomographic images are interpreted as a point distribution in a state space where each point (voxel) is defined by its x, y, z coordinates and the grey value. The SIM estimates local scaling properties to describe the nonlinear morphological features in this four-dimensional point distribution. Thus, it can be used for differentiating between cluster-, rod-, sheet-like and unstructured (background) image components, which makes it suitable for quantifying the microstructure of human cancellous bone. The SIM was applied to high resolution magnetic resonance images of the distal radius in patients with and without osteoporotic spine fractures in order to quantify the deterioration of bone structure. Using the receiver operator characteristic (ROC) analysis the diagnostic performance of this texture measure in differentiating patients with and without fractures was compared with bone mineral density (BMD). The SIM demonstrated the best area under the curve (AUC) value for discriminating the two groups. The reliability of our new texture measure and the validity of our results were assessed by applying bootstrapping resampling methods. The results of this study show that trabecular structure measures derived from HR-MRI of the radius in a clinical setting using a recently proposed algorithm based on a local 3D scaling index method can significantly improve the diagnostic performance in differentiating postmenopausal women with and without osteoporotic spine fractures.

Modelling large-scale ice-sheet-climate interactions at the last glacial inception

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Browne, O. J. H.; Gregory, J. M.; Payne, A. J.; Ridley, J. K.; Rutt, I. C.

2010-05-01

In order to investigate the interactions between coevolving climate and ice-sheets on multimillenial timescales, a low-resolution atmosphere-ocean general circulation model (AOGCM) has been coupled to a three-dimensional thermomechanical ice-sheet model. We use the FAMOUS AOGCM, which is almost identical in formulation to the widely used HadCM3 AOGCM, but on account of its lower resolution (7.5° longitude × 5° latitude in the atmosphere, 3.75°× 2.5° in the ocean) it runs about ten times faster. We use the community ice-sheet model Glimmer at 20 km resolution, with the shallow ice approximation and an annual degree-day scheme for surface mass balance. With the FAMOUS-Glimmer coupled model, we have simulated the growth of the Laurentide and Fennoscandian ice sheets at the last glacial inception, under constant orbital forcing and atmospheric composition for 116 ka BP. Ice grows in both regions, totalling 5.8 m of sea-level equivalent in 10 ka, slower than proxy records suggest. Positive climate feedbacks reinforce this growth at local scales (order hundreds of kilometres), where changes are an order of magnitude larger than on the global average. The albedo feedback (higher local albedo means a cooler climate) is important in the initial expansion of the ice-sheet area. The topography feedback (higher surface means a cooler climate) affects ice-sheet thickness and is not noticeable for the first 1 ka. These two feedbacks reinforce each other. Without them, the ice volume is ~90% less after 10 ka. In Laurentia, ice expands initially on the Canadian Arctic islands. The glaciation of the islands eventually cools the nearby mainland climate sufficiently to produce a positive mass balance there. Adjacent to the ice-sheets, cloud feedbacks tend to reduce the surface mass balance and restrain ice growth; this is an example of a local feedback whose simulation requires a model that includes detailed atmospheric physics.

An intercomparison of GCM and RCM dynamical downscaling for characterizing the hydroclimatology of California and Nevada

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Xu, Z.; Rhoades, A.; Johansen, H.; Ullrich, P. A.; Collins, W. D.

2017-12-01

Dynamical downscaling is widely used to properly characterize regional surface heterogeneities that shape the local hydroclimatology. However, the factors in dynamical downscaling, including the refinement of model horizontal resolution, large-scale forcing datasets and dynamical cores, have not been fully evaluated. Two cutting-edge global-to-regional downscaling methods are used to assess these, specifically the variable-resolution Community Earth System Model (VR-CESM) and the Weather Research & Forecasting (WRF) regional climate model, under different horizontal resolutions (28, 14, and 7 km). Two groups of WRF simulations are driven by either the NCEP reanalysis dataset (WRF_NCEP) or VR-CESM outputs (WRF_VRCESM) to evaluate the effects of the large-scale forcing datasets. The impacts of dynamical core are assessed by comparing the VR-CESM simulations to the coupled WRF_VRCESM simulations with the same physical parameterizations and similar grid domains. The simulated hydroclimatology (i.e., total precipitation, snow cover, snow water equivalent and surface temperature) are compared with the reference datasets. The large-scale forcing datasets are critical to the WRF simulations in more accurately simulating total precipitation, SWE and snow cover, but not surface temperature. Both the WRF and VR-CESM results highlight that no significant benefit is found in the simulated hydroclimatology by just increasing horizontal resolution refinement from 28 to 7 km. Simulated surface temperature is sensitive to the choice of dynamical core. WRF generally simulates higher temperatures than VR-CESM, alleviates the systematic cold bias of DJF temperatures over the California mountain region, but overestimates the JJA temperature in California's Central Valley.

Can we map the interannual variability of the whole upper Southern Ocean with the current database of hydrographic observations?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Heuzé, C.; Vivier, F.; Le Sommer, J.; Molines, J.-M.; Penduff, T.

2015-12-01

With the advent of Argo floats, it now seems feasible to study the interannual variations of upper ocean hydrographic properties of the historically undersampled Southern Ocean. To do so, scattered hydrographic profiles often first need to be mapped. To investigate biases and errors associated both with the limited space-time distribution of the profiles and with the mapping methods, we colocate the mixed-layer depth (MLD) output from a state-of-the-art 1/12° DRAKKAR simulation onto the latitude, longitude, and date of actual in situ profiles from 2005 to 2014. We compare the results obtained after remapping using a nearest neighbor (NN) interpolation and an objective analysis (OA) with different spatiotemporal grid resolutions and decorrelation scales. NN is improved with a coarser resolution. OA performs best with low decorrelation scales, avoiding too strong a smoothing, but returns values over larger areas with large decorrelation scales and low temporal resolution, as more points are available. For all resolutions OA represents better the annual extreme values than NN. Both methods underestimate the seasonal cycle in MLD. MLD biases are lower than 10 m on average but can exceed 250 m locally in winter. We argue that current Argo data should not be mapped to infer decadal trends in MLD, as all methods are unable to reproduce existing trends without creating unrealistic extra ones. We also show that regions of the subtropical Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans, and the whole ice-covered Southern Ocean, still cannot be mapped even by the best method because of the lack of observational data.

Bondi or not Bondi: the impact of resolution on accretion and drag force modelling for supermassive black holes

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Beckmann, R. S.; Slyz, A.; Devriendt, J.

2018-07-01

Whilst in galaxy-size simulations, supermassive black holes (SMBHs) are entirely handled by sub-grid algorithms, computational power now allows the accretion radius of such objects to be resolved in smaller scale simulations. In this paper, we investigate the impact of resolution on two commonly used SMBH sub-grid algorithms; the Bondi-Hoyle-Lyttleton (BHL) formula for accretion on to a point mass, and the related estimate of the drag force exerted on to a point mass by a gaseous medium. We find that when the accretion region around the black hole scales with resolution, and the BHL formula is evaluated using local mass-averaged quantities, the accretion algorithm smoothly transitions from the analytic BHL formula (at low resolution) to a supply-limited accretion scheme (at high resolution). However, when a similar procedure is employed to estimate the drag force, it can lead to significant errors in its magnitude, and/or apply this force in the wrong direction in highly resolved simulations. At high Mach numbers and for small accretors, we also find evidence of the advective-acoustic instability operating in the adiabatic case, and of an instability developing around the wake's stagnation point in the quasi-isothermal case. Moreover, at very high resolution, and Mach numbers above M_∞ ≥ 3, the flow behind the accretion bow shock becomes entirely dominated by these instabilities. As a result, accretion rates on to the black hole drop by about an order of magnitude in the adiabatic case, compared to the analytic BHL formula.

Bondi or not Bondi: the impact of resolution on accretion and drag force modelling for Supermassive Black Holes

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Beckmann, R. S.; Slyz, A.; Devriendt, J.

2018-04-01

Whilst in galaxy-size simulations, supermassive black holes (SMBH) are entirely handled by sub-grid algorithms, computational power now allows the accretion radius of such objects to be resolved in smaller scale simulations. In this paper, we investigate the impact of resolution on two commonly used SMBH sub-grid algorithms; the Bondi-Hoyle-Lyttleton (BHL) formula for accretion onto a point mass, and the related estimate of the drag force exerted onto a point mass by a gaseous medium. We find that when the accretion region around the black hole scales with resolution, and the BHL formula is evaluated using local mass-averaged quantities, the accretion algorithm smoothly transitions from the analytic BHL formula (at low resolution) to a supply limited accretion (SLA) scheme (at high resolution). However, when a similar procedure is employed to estimate the drag force it can lead to significant errors in its magnitude, and/or apply this force in the wrong direction in highly resolved simulations. At high Mach numbers and for small accretors, we also find evidence of the advective-acoustic instability operating in the adiabatic case, and of an instability developing around the wake's stagnation point in the quasi-isothermal case. Moreover, at very high resolution, and Mach numbers above M_∞ ≥ 3, the flow behind the accretion bow shock becomes entirely dominated by these instabilities. As a result, accretion rates onto the black hole drop by about an order of magnitude in the adiabatic case, compared to the analytic BHL formula.

Distributed fiber-optic temperature sensing for hydrologic systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Selker, John S.; ThéVenaz, Luc; Huwald, Hendrik; Mallet, Alfred; Luxemburg, Wim; van de Giesen, Nick; Stejskal, Martin; Zeman, Josef; Westhoff, Martijn; Parlange, Marc B.

2006-12-01

Instruments for distributed fiber-optic measurement of temperature are now available with temperature resolution of 0.01°C and spatial resolution of 1 m with temporal resolution of fractions of a minute along standard fiber-optic cables used for communication with lengths of up to 30,000 m. We discuss the spectrum of fiber-optic tools that may be employed to make these measurements, illuminating the potential and limitations of these methods in hydrologic science. There are trade-offs between precision in temperature, temporal resolution, and spatial resolution, following the square root of the number of measurements made; thus brief, short measurements are less precise than measurements taken over longer spans in time and space. Five illustrative applications demonstrate configurations where the distributed temperature sensing (DTS) approach could be used: (1) lake bottom temperatures using existing communication cables, (2) temperature profile with depth in a 1400 m deep decommissioned mine shaft, (3) air-snow interface temperature profile above a snow-covered glacier, (4) air-water interfacial temperature in a lake, and (5) temperature distribution along a first-order stream. In examples 3 and 4 it is shown that by winding the fiber around a cylinder, vertical spatial resolution of millimeters can be achieved. These tools may be of exceptional utility in observing a broad range of hydrologic processes, including evaporation, infiltration, limnology, and the local and overall energy budget spanning scales from 0.003 to 30,000 m. This range of scales corresponds well with many of the areas of greatest opportunity for discovery in hydrologic science.

Local and average structures of BaTiO 3-Bi(Zn 1/2Ti 1/2)O 3

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Usher, Tedi-Marie; Iamsasri, Thanakorn; Forrester, Jennifer S.

The complex crystallographic structures of (1-x)BaTiO 3-xBi(Zn 1/2Ti 1/2)O 3 (BT-xBZT) are examined using high resolution synchrotron X-ray diffraction, neutron diffraction, and neutron pair distribution function (PDF) analyses. The short-range structures are characterized from the PDFs, and a combined analysis of the X-ray and neutron diffraction patterns is used to determine the long-range structures. Our results demonstrate that the structure appears different when averaged over different length scales. In all compositions, the local structures determined from the PDFs show local tetragonal distortions (i.e., c/a > 1). But, a box-car fitting analysis of the PDFs reveals variations at different length scales.more » For 0.80BT-0.20BZT and 0.90BT-0.10BZT, the tetragonal distortions decrease at longer atom-atom distances (e.g., 30 vs. 5 ). When the longest distances are evaluated (r > 40 ), the lattice parameters approach cubic. Neutron and X-ray diffraction yield further information about the long-range structure. Compositions 0.80BT-0.20BZT and 0.90BT-0.10BZT appear cubic by Bragg diffraction (no peak splitting), consistent with the PDFs at long distances. However, these patterns cannot be adequately fit using a cubic lattice model; modeling their structures with the P4mm space group allows for a better fit to the patterns because the space group allows for c-axis atomic displacements that occur at the local scale. Furthermore, for the compositions 0.92BT-0.08BZT and 0.94BT-0.06BZT, strong tetragonal distortions are observed at the local scale and a less-distorted tetragonal structure is observed at longer length scales. In Rietveld refinements, the latter is modeled using a tetragonal phase. Since the peak overlap in these two-phase compositions limits the ability to model the local-scale structures as tetragonal, it is approximated in the refinements as a cubic phase. These results demonstrate that alloying BT with BZT results in increased disorder and disrupts the long-range ferroelectric symmetry present in BT, while the large tetragonal distortion present in BZT persists at the local scale.« less

Local and average structures of BaTiO 3-Bi(Zn 1/2Ti 1/2)O 3

DOE PAGES

Usher, Tedi-Marie; Iamsasri, Thanakorn; Forrester, Jennifer S.; ...

2016-11-11

The complex crystallographic structures of (1-x)BaTiO 3-xBi(Zn 1/2Ti 1/2)O 3 (BT-xBZT) are examined using high resolution synchrotron X-ray diffraction, neutron diffraction, and neutron pair distribution function (PDF) analyses. The short-range structures are characterized from the PDFs, and a combined analysis of the X-ray and neutron diffraction patterns is used to determine the long-range structures. Our results demonstrate that the structure appears different when averaged over different length scales. In all compositions, the local structures determined from the PDFs show local tetragonal distortions (i.e., c/a > 1). But, a box-car fitting analysis of the PDFs reveals variations at different length scales.more » For 0.80BT-0.20BZT and 0.90BT-0.10BZT, the tetragonal distortions decrease at longer atom-atom distances (e.g., 30 vs. 5 ). When the longest distances are evaluated (r > 40 ), the lattice parameters approach cubic. Neutron and X-ray diffraction yield further information about the long-range structure. Compositions 0.80BT-0.20BZT and 0.90BT-0.10BZT appear cubic by Bragg diffraction (no peak splitting), consistent with the PDFs at long distances. However, these patterns cannot be adequately fit using a cubic lattice model; modeling their structures with the P4mm space group allows for a better fit to the patterns because the space group allows for c-axis atomic displacements that occur at the local scale. Furthermore, for the compositions 0.92BT-0.08BZT and 0.94BT-0.06BZT, strong tetragonal distortions are observed at the local scale and a less-distorted tetragonal structure is observed at longer length scales. In Rietveld refinements, the latter is modeled using a tetragonal phase. Since the peak overlap in these two-phase compositions limits the ability to model the local-scale structures as tetragonal, it is approximated in the refinements as a cubic phase. These results demonstrate that alloying BT with BZT results in increased disorder and disrupts the long-range ferroelectric symmetry present in BT, while the large tetragonal distortion present in BZT persists at the local scale.« less

Local variance for multi-scale analysis in geomorphometry.

PubMed

Drăguţ, Lucian; Eisank, Clemens; Strasser, Thomas

2011-07-15

Increasing availability of high resolution Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) is leading to a paradigm shift regarding scale issues in geomorphometry, prompting new solutions to cope with multi-scale analysis and detection of characteristic scales. We tested the suitability of the local variance (LV) method, originally developed for image analysis, for multi-scale analysis in geomorphometry. The method consists of: 1) up-scaling land-surface parameters derived from a DEM; 2) calculating LV as the average standard deviation (SD) within a 3 × 3 moving window for each scale level; 3) calculating the rate of change of LV (ROC-LV) from one level to another, and 4) plotting values so obtained against scale levels. We interpreted peaks in the ROC-LV graphs as markers of scale levels where cells or segments match types of pattern elements characterized by (relatively) equal degrees of homogeneity. The proposed method has been applied to LiDAR DEMs in two test areas different in terms of roughness: low relief and mountainous, respectively. For each test area, scale levels for slope gradient, plan, and profile curvatures were produced at constant increments with either resampling (cell-based) or image segmentation (object-based). Visual assessment revealed homogeneous areas that convincingly associate into patterns of land-surface parameters well differentiated across scales. We found that the LV method performed better on scale levels generated through segmentation as compared to up-scaling through resampling. The results indicate that coupling multi-scale pattern analysis with delineation of morphometric primitives is possible. This approach could be further used for developing hierarchical classifications of landform elements.

Local variance for multi-scale analysis in geomorphometry

PubMed Central

Drăguţ, Lucian; Eisank, Clemens; Strasser, Thomas

2011-01-01

Increasing availability of high resolution Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) is leading to a paradigm shift regarding scale issues in geomorphometry, prompting new solutions to cope with multi-scale analysis and detection of characteristic scales. We tested the suitability of the local variance (LV) method, originally developed for image analysis, for multi-scale analysis in geomorphometry. The method consists of: 1) up-scaling land-surface parameters derived from a DEM; 2) calculating LV as the average standard deviation (SD) within a 3 × 3 moving window for each scale level; 3) calculating the rate of change of LV (ROC-LV) from one level to another, and 4) plotting values so obtained against scale levels. We interpreted peaks in the ROC-LV graphs as markers of scale levels where cells or segments match types of pattern elements characterized by (relatively) equal degrees of homogeneity. The proposed method has been applied to LiDAR DEMs in two test areas different in terms of roughness: low relief and mountainous, respectively. For each test area, scale levels for slope gradient, plan, and profile curvatures were produced at constant increments with either resampling (cell-based) or image segmentation (object-based). Visual assessment revealed homogeneous areas that convincingly associate into patterns of land-surface parameters well differentiated across scales. We found that the LV method performed better on scale levels generated through segmentation as compared to up-scaling through resampling. The results indicate that coupling multi-scale pattern analysis with delineation of morphometric primitives is possible. This approach could be further used for developing hierarchical classifications of landform elements. PMID:21779138

Range-Specific High-Resolution Mesoscale Model Setup: Data Assimilation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Watson, Leela R.

2014-01-01

Mesoscale weather conditions can have an adverse effect on space launch, landing, and ground processing at the Eastern Range (ER) in Florida and Wallops Flight Facility (WFF) in Virginia. During summer, land-sea interactions across Kennedy Space Center (KSC) and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) lead to sea breeze front formation, which can spawn deep convection that can hinder operations and endanger personnel and resources. Many other weak locally driven low-level boundaries and their interactions with the sea breeze front and each other can also initiate deep convection in the KSC/CCAFS area. Some of these other boundaries include the Indian River breeze front, Banana River breeze front, outflows from previous convection, horizontal convective rolls, convergence lines from other inland bodies of water such as Lake Okeechobee, the trailing convergence line from convergence of sea breeze fronts due to the shape of Cape Canaveral, frictional convergence lines from the islands in the Bahamas, convergence lines from soil moisture differences, convergence lines from cloud shading, and others. All these subtle weak boundary interactions often make forecasting of operationally important weather very difficult at KSC/CCAFS during the convective season (May-Oct). These convective processes often build quickly, last a short time (60 minutes or less), and occur over small distances, all of which also poses a significant challenge to the local forecasters who are responsible for issuing weather advisories, watches, and warnings. Surface winds during the transition seasons of spring and fall pose the most difficulties for the forecasters at WFF. They also encounter problems forecasting convective activity and temperature during those seasons. Therefore, accurate mesoscale model forecasts are needed to aid in their decision making. Both the ER and WFF would benefit greatly from high-resolution mesoscale model output to better forecast a variety of unique weather phenomena. Global and national scale models cannot properly resolve important local-scale weather features at each location due to their horizontal resolutions being much too coarse. Therefore, a properly tuned model at a high resolution is needed to provide improved capability. This task is a multi-year effort in which the Applied Meteorology Unit (AMU) will tune the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model individually for each range. The goal of the first year, the results of which are in this report, was to tune the WRF model based on the best model resolution and run time while using reasonable computing capabilities. To accomplish this, the ER and WFF supported the tasking of the AMU to perform a number of sensitivity tests in order to determine the best model configuration for operational use at each of the ranges to best predict winds, precipitation, and temperature (Watson 2013). This task is a continuation of that work and will provide a recommended local data assimilation (DA) and numerical forecast model design optimized for the ER and WFF to support space launch activities. The model will be optimized for local weather challenges at both ranges.

Monitoring Tamarisk Defoliation and Scaling Evapotranspiration Using Remote Sensing Data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dennison, P. E.; Hultine, K. R.; Nagler, P. L.; Miura, T.; Glenn, E. P.; Ehleringer, J. R.

2008-12-01

Non-native tamarisk (Tamarix spp.) has invaded riparian ecosystems throughout the Western United States. Another non-native species, the saltcedar leaf beetle (Diorhabda elongata), has been released in an attempt to control tamarisk infestations. Most efforts directed towards monitoring tamarisk defoliation by Diorhabda have focused on changes in leaf area or sap flux, but these measurements only give a local view of defoliation impacts. We are assessing the ability of remote sensing data for monitoring tamarisk defoliation and measuring resulting changes in evapotranspiration over space and time. Tamarisk defoliation by Diorhabda has taken place during the past two summers along the Colorado River and its tributaries near Moab, Utah. We are using 15 meter spatial resolution Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) and 250 meter spatial resolution Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS) data to monitor tamarisk defoliation. An ASTER normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) time series has revealed large drops in index values associated with loss of leaf area due to defoliation. MODIS data have superior temporal monitoring abilities, but at the sacrifice of much lower spatial resolution. A MODIS enhanced vegetation index time series has revealed that for pixels where the percentage of riparian cover is moderate or high, defoliation is detectable even at 250 meter spatial resolution. We are comparing MODIS vegetation index time series to site measurements of leaf area and sap flux. We are also using an evapotranspiration model to scale potential water savings resulting from the biocontrol of tamarisk.

A hybrid modeling with data assimilation to evaluate human exposure level

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Koo, Y. S.; Cheong, H. K.; Choi, D.; Kim, A. L.; Yun, H. Y.

2015-12-01

Exposure models are designed to better represent human contact with PM (Particulate Matter) and other air pollutants such as CO, SO2, O3, and NO2. The exposure concentrations of the air pollutants to human are determined by global and regional long range transport of global and regional scales from Europe and China as well as local emissions from urban and road vehicle sources. To assess the exposure level in detail, the multiple scale influence from background to local sources should be considered. A hybrid air quality modeling methodology combing a grid-based chemical transport model with a local plume dispersion model was used to provide spatially and temporally resolved air quality concentration for human exposure levels in Korea. In the hybrid modeling approach, concentrations from a grid-based chemical transport model and a local plume dispersion model are added to provide contributions from photochemical interactions, long-range (regional) transport and local-scale dispersion. The CAMx (Comprehensive Air quality Model with Extensions was used for the background concentrations from anthropogenic and natural emissions in East Asia including Korea while the road dispersion by vehicle emission was calculated by CALPUFF model. The total exposure level of the pollutants was finally assessed by summing the background and road contributions. In the hybrid modeling, the data assimilation method based on the optimal interpolation was applied to overcome the discrepancies between the model predicted concentrations and observations. The air quality data from the air quality monitoring stations in Korea. The spatial resolution of the hybrid model was 50m for the Seoul Metropolitan Ares. This example clearly demonstrates that the exposure level could be estimated to the fine scale for the exposure assessment by using the hybrid modeling approach with data assimilation.

Local Fitting of the Kohn-Sham Density in a Gaussian and Plane Waves Scheme for Large-Scale Density Functional Theory Simulations.

PubMed

Golze, Dorothea; Iannuzzi, Marcella; Hutter, Jürg

2017-05-09

A local resolution-of-the-identity (LRI) approach is introduced in combination with the Gaussian and plane waves (GPW) scheme to enable large-scale Kohn-Sham density functional theory calculations. In GPW, the computational bottleneck is typically the description of the total charge density on real-space grids. Introducing the LRI approximation, the linear scaling of the GPW approach with respect to system size is retained, while the prefactor for the grid operations is reduced. The density fitting is an O(N) scaling process implemented by approximating the atomic pair densities by an expansion in one-center fit functions. The computational cost for the grid-based operations becomes negligible in LRIGPW. The self-consistent field iteration is up to 30 times faster for periodic systems dependent on the symmetry of the simulation cell and on the density of grid points. However, due to the overhead introduced by the local density fitting, single point calculations and complete molecular dynamics steps, including the calculation of the forces, are effectively accelerated by up to a factor of ∼10. The accuracy of LRIGPW is assessed for different systems and properties, showing that total energies, reaction energies, intramolecular and intermolecular structure parameters are well reproduced. LRIGPW yields also high quality results for extended condensed phase systems such as liquid water, ice XV, and molecular crystals.

Soil nutrients influence spatial distributions of tropical tree species.

PubMed

John, Robert; Dalling, James W; Harms, Kyle E; Yavitt, Joseph B; Stallard, Robert F; Mirabello, Matthew; Hubbell, Stephen P; Valencia, Renato; Navarrete, Hugo; Vallejo, Martha; Foster, Robin B

2007-01-16

The importance of niche vs. neutral assembly mechanisms in structuring tropical tree communities remains an important unsettled question in community ecology [Bell G (2005) Ecology 86:1757-1770]. There is ample evidence that species distributions are determined by soils and habitat factors at landscape (<10(4) km(2)) and regional scales. At local scales (<1 km(2)), however, habitat factors and species distributions show comparable spatial aggregation, making it difficult to disentangle the importance of niche and dispersal processes. In this article, we test soil resource-based niche assembly at a local scale, using species and soil nutrient distributions obtained at high spatial resolution in three diverse neotropical forest plots in Colombia (La Planada), Ecuador (Yasuni), and Panama (Barro Colorado Island). Using spatial distribution maps of >0.5 million individual trees of 1,400 species and 10 essential plant nutrients, we used Monte Carlo simulations of species distributions to test plant-soil associations against null expectations based on dispersal assembly. We found that the spatial distributions of 36-51% of tree species at these sites show strong associations to soil nutrient distributions. Neutral dispersal assembly cannot account for these plant-soil associations or the observed niche breadths of these species. These results indicate that belowground resource availability plays an important role in the assembly of tropical tree communities at local scales and provide the basis for future investigations on the mechanisms of resource competition among tropical tree species.

Development and evaluation of high-resolution regional emission inventory: A case study for Jiangsu Province, China

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhao, Y.; Mao, P.; Zhou, Y.

2017-12-01

Improved emission inventories are crucial for better understanding atmospheric chemistry with air quality simulation at regional or local scales. Using the bottom-up approach, a high-resolution emission inventory was developed for Jiangsu China. Key parameters for over 6000 industrial sources were investigated, compiled and revised at plant level based on various data sources and on-site survey. Totally 56 NMVOCs samples were collected in 9 chemical plants and analyzed with a gas chromatography-mass spectrometry system. Source profiles of stack emissions from synthetic rubber, acetate fiber, polyether, vinyl acetate, and ethylene production, and those of fugitive emissions from ethylene, butanol and octanol, propylene epoxide, polyethylene and glycol production were obtained. Improvement of this provincial inventory was evaluated through comparisons with other inventories at larger spatial scales, using satellite observation and air quality modeling. Three inventories (national, regional, and provincial by this work) were applied in the Models-3/Community Multi-scale Air Quality (CMAQ) system to evaluate the model performances with different emission inputs. The best agreement between available ground observation and simulation was found when the provincial inventory was applied, indicated by the smallest normalized mean bias (NMB) and normalized mean errors (NME) for all the concerned species SO2, NO2, O3 and PM2.5. The result thus implied the advantage of improved emission inventory at local scale for high resolution air quality modeling. Under the unfavorable meteorology in which horizontal and vertical movement of atmosphere was limited, the simulated SO2 concentrations at downtown Nanjing (the capital city of Jiangsu) using the regional or national inventories were much higher than observation, implying overestimated urban emissions when economy or population densities were applied to downscale or allocate the emissions. With more accurate spatial distribution of emissions at city level, the simulated concentrations using the provincial inventory were much closer to observation. For daily 1h-max O3, better performance was found for January, April and October 2012 when the provincial inventory was used, indicating the benefits of improved chemical speciation of VOC emissions.

Combining Remote Temperature Sensing with in-Situ Sensing to Track Marine/Freshwater Mixing Dynamics

PubMed Central

McCaul, Margaret; Barland, Jack; Cleary, John; Cahalane, Conor; McCarthy, Tim; Diamond, Dermot

2016-01-01

The ability to track the dynamics of processes in natural water bodies on a global scale, and at a resolution that enables highly localised behaviour to be visualized, is an ideal scenario for understanding how local events can influence the global environment. While advances in in-situ chem/bio-sensing continue to be reported, costs and reliability issues still inhibit the implementation of large-scale deployments. In contrast, physical parameters like surface temperature can be tracked on a global scale using satellite remote sensing, and locally at high resolution via flyovers and drones using multi-spectral imaging. In this study, we show how a much more complete picture of submarine and intertidal groundwater discharge patterns in Kinvara Bay, Galway can be achieved using a fusion of data collected from the Earth Observation satellite (Landsat 8), small aircraft and in-situ sensors. Over the course of the four-day field campaign, over 65,000 in-situ temperatures, salinity and nutrient measurements were collected in parallel with high-resolution thermal imaging from aircraft flyovers. The processed in-situ data show highly correlated patterns between temperature and salinity at the southern end of the bay where freshwater springs can be identified at low tide. Salinity values range from 1 to 2 ppt at the southern end of the bay to 30 ppt at the mouth of the bay, indicating the presence of a freshwater wedge. The data clearly show that temperature differences can be used to track the dynamics of freshwater and seawater mixing in the inner bay region. This outcome suggests that combining the tremendous spatial density and wide geographical reach of remote temperature sensing (using drones, flyovers and satellites) with ground-truthing via appropriately located in-situ sensors (temperature, salinity, chemical, and biological) can produce a much more complete and accurate picture of the water dynamics than each modality used in isolation. PMID:27589770

Combining Remote Temperature Sensing with in-Situ Sensing to Track Marine/Freshwater Mixing Dynamics.

PubMed

McCaul, Margaret; Barland, Jack; Cleary, John; Cahalane, Conor; McCarthy, Tim; Diamond, Dermot

2016-08-31

The ability to track the dynamics of processes in natural water bodies on a global scale, and at a resolution that enables highly localised behaviour to be visualized, is an ideal scenario for understanding how local events can influence the global environment. While advances in in-situ chem/bio-sensing continue to be reported, costs and reliability issues still inhibit the implementation of large-scale deployments. In contrast, physical parameters like surface temperature can be tracked on a global scale using satellite remote sensing, and locally at high resolution via flyovers and drones using multi-spectral imaging. In this study, we show how a much more complete picture of submarine and intertidal groundwater discharge patterns in Kinvara Bay, Galway can be achieved using a fusion of data collected from the Earth Observation satellite (Landsat 8), small aircraft and in-situ sensors. Over the course of the four-day field campaign, over 65,000 in-situ temperatures, salinity and nutrient measurements were collected in parallel with high-resolution thermal imaging from aircraft flyovers. The processed in-situ data show highly correlated patterns between temperature and salinity at the southern end of the bay where freshwater springs can be identified at low tide. Salinity values range from 1 to 2 ppt at the southern end of the bay to 30 ppt at the mouth of the bay, indicating the presence of a freshwater wedge. The data clearly show that temperature differences can be used to track the dynamics of freshwater and seawater mixing in the inner bay region. This outcome suggests that combining the tremendous spatial density and wide geographical reach of remote temperature sensing (using drones, flyovers and satellites) with ground-truthing via appropriately located in-situ sensors (temperature, salinity, chemical, and biological) can produce a much more complete and accurate picture of the water dynamics than each modality used in isolation.

Challenges of Representing Sub-Grid Physics in an Adaptive Mesh Refinement Atmospheric Model

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

O'Brien, T. A.; Johansen, H.; Johnson, J. N.; Rosa, D.; Benedict, J. J.; Keen, N. D.; Collins, W.; Goodfriend, E.

2015-12-01

Some of the greatest potential impacts from future climate change are tied to extreme atmospheric phenomena that are inherently multiscale, including tropical cyclones and atmospheric rivers. Extremes are challenging to simulate in conventional climate models due to existing models' coarse resolutions relative to the native length-scales of these phenomena. Studying the weather systems of interest requires an atmospheric model with sufficient local resolution, and sufficient performance for long-duration climate-change simulations. To this end, we have developed a new global climate code with adaptive spatial and temporal resolution. The dynamics are formulated using a block-structured conservative finite volume approach suitable for moist non-hydrostatic atmospheric dynamics. By using both space- and time-adaptive mesh refinement, the solver focuses computational resources only where greater accuracy is needed to resolve critical phenomena. We explore different methods for parameterizing sub-grid physics, such as microphysics, macrophysics, turbulence, and radiative transfer. In particular, we contrast the simplified physics representation of Reed and Jablonowski (2012) with the more complex physics representation used in the System for Atmospheric Modeling of Khairoutdinov and Randall (2003). We also explore the use of a novel macrophysics parameterization that is designed to be explicitly scale-aware.

Measurements from an Aerial Vehicle: A New Tool for Planetary Exploration

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wright, Henry S.; Levine, Joel S.; Croom, Mark A.; Edwards, William C.; Qualls, Garry D.; Gasbarre, Joseph F.

2004-01-01

Aerial vehicles fill a unique planetary science measurement gap, that of regional-scale, near-surface observation, while providing a fresh perspective for potential discovery. Aerial vehicles used in planetary exploration bridge the scale and resolution measurement gaps between orbiters (global perspective with limited spatial resolution) and landers (local perspective with high spatial resolution) thus complementing and extending orbital and landed measurements. Planetary aerial vehicles can also survey scientifically interesting terrain that is inaccessible or hazardous to landed missions. The use of aerial assets for performing observations on Mars, Titan, or Venus will enable direct measurements and direct follow-ons to recent discoveries. Aerial vehicles can be used for remote sensing of the interior, surface and atmosphere of Mars, Venus and Titan. Types of aerial vehicles considered are airplane "heavier than air" and airships and balloons "lighter than air". Interdependencies between the science measurements, science goals and objectives, and platform implementation illustrate how the proper balance of science, engineering, and cost, can be achieved to allow for a successful mission. Classification of measurement types along with how those measurements resolve science questions and how these instruments are accommodated within the mission context are discussed.

The Ultrathin Limit and Dead-layer Effects in Local Polarization Switching of BiFeO3

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Maksymovych, Petro; Huijben, Mark; Pan, Minghu

Using piezoresponse force microscopy in ultra-high vacuum, polarization switching has been detected and quantified in epitaxial BiFeO3 films from 200 down to ~ 4 unit cells. Local remnant piezoresponse was used to infer the applied electric field inside the ferroelectric volume, and account for the elusive effect of dead-layers in ultrathin films. The dead-layer manifested itself in the slower than anticipated decrease of the switching bias with film thickness, yielding apparent Kay-Dunn scaling of the switching field, while the statistical analysis of hysteresis loops revealed lateral variation of the dead-layer with sub-10 nm resolution.

Maintaining a Local Data Integration System in Support of Weather Forecast Operations

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Watson, Leela R.; Blottman, Peter F.; Sharp, David W.; Hoeth, Brian

2010-01-01

Since 2000, both the National Weather Service in Melbourne, FL (NWS MLB) and the Spaceflight Meteorology Group (SMG) at Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX have used a local data integration system (LDIS) as part of their forecast and warning operations. The original LDIS was developed by NASA's Applied Meteorology Unit (AMU; Bauman et ai, 2004) in 1998 (Manobianco and Case 1998) and has undergone subsequent improvements. Each has benefited from three-dimensional (3-D) analyses that are delivered to forecasters every 15 minutes across the peninsula of Florida. The intent is to generate products that enhance short-range weather forecasts issued in support of NWS MLB and SMG operational requirements within East Central Florida. The current LDIS uses the Advanced Regional Prediction System (ARPS) Data Analysis System (ADAS) package as its core, which integrates a wide variety of national, regional, and local observational data sets. It assimilates all available real-time data within its domain and is run at a finer spatial and temporal resolution than current national- or regional-scale analysis packages. As such, it provides local forecasters with a more comprehensive understanding of evolving fine-scale weather features

The effect of short ground vegetation on terrestrial laser scans at a local scale

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fan, Lei; Powrie, William; Smethurst, Joel; Atkinson, Peter M.; Einstein, Herbert

2014-09-01

Terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) can record a large amount of accurate topographical information with a high spatial accuracy over a relatively short period of time. These features suggest it is a useful tool for topographical survey and surface deformation detection. However, the use of TLS to survey a terrain surface is still challenging in the presence of dense ground vegetation. The bare ground surface may not be illuminated due to signal occlusion caused by vegetation. This paper investigates vegetation-induced elevation error in TLS surveys at a local scale and its spatial pattern. An open, relatively flat area vegetated with dense grass was surveyed repeatedly under several scan conditions. A total station was used to establish an accurate representation of the bare ground surface. Local-highest-point and local-lowest-point filters were applied to the point clouds acquired for deriving vegetation height and vegetation-induced elevation error, respectively. The effects of various factors (for example, vegetation height, edge effects, incidence angle, scan resolution and location) on the error caused by vegetation are discussed. The results are of use in the planning and interpretation of TLS surveys of vegetated areas.

High-resolution digital brain atlases: a Hubble telescope for the brain.

PubMed

Jones, Edward G; Stone, James M; Karten, Harvey J

2011-05-01

We describe implementation of a method for digitizing at microscopic resolution brain tissue sections containing normal and experimental data and for making the content readily accessible online. Web-accessible brain atlases and virtual microscopes for online examination can be developed using existing computer and internet technologies. Resulting databases, made up of hierarchically organized, multiresolution images, enable rapid, seamless navigation through the vast image datasets generated by high-resolution scanning. Tools for visualization and annotation of virtual microscope slides enable remote and universal data sharing. Interactive visualization of a complete series of brain sections digitized at subneuronal levels of resolution offers fine grain and large-scale localization and quantification of many aspects of neural organization and structure. The method is straightforward and replicable; it can increase accessibility and facilitate sharing of neuroanatomical data. It provides an opportunity for capturing and preserving irreplaceable, archival neurohistological collections and making them available to all scientists in perpetuity, if resources could be obtained from hitherto uninterested agencies of scientific support. © 2011 New York Academy of Sciences.

Unraveling submicron-scale mechanical heterogeneity by three-dimensional X-ray microdiffraction

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Li, Runguang; Xie, Qingge; Wang, Yan-Dong

Shear banding is a ubiquitous phenomenon of severe plastic deformation, and damage accumulation in shear bands often results in the catastrophic failure of a material. Despite extensive studies, the microscopic mechanisms of strain localization and deformation damage in shear bands remain elusive due to their spatial-temporal complexities embedded in bulk materials. Here we conducted synchrotron-based X-ray microdiffraction (μXRD) experiments to map out the 3D lattice strain field with a submicron resolution around fatigue shear bands in a stainless steel. Both in situ and postmortem μXRD results revealed large lattice strain gradients at intersections of the primary and secondary shear bands.more » Such strain gradients resulted in severe mechanical heterogeneities across the fatigue shear bands, leading to reduced fatigue limits in the high-cycle regime. The ability to spatially quantify the localized strain gradients with submicron resolution through μXRD opens opportunities for understanding the microscopic mechanisms of damage and failure in bulk materials.« less

Biological applications of near-field scanning optical microscopy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Moers, Marco H. P.; Ruiter, A. G. T.; Jalocha, Alain; van Hulst, Niko F.; Kalle, W. H. J.; Wiegant, J. C. A. G.; Raap, A. K.

1995-09-01

Near-field Scanning Optical Microscopy (NSOM) is a true optical microscopic technique allowing fluorescence, absorption, reflection and polarization contrast with the additional advantage of nanometer lateral resolution, unlimited by diffraction and operation at ambient conditions. NSOM based on metal coated adiabatically tapered fibers, combined with shear force feedback and operated in illumination mode, has proven to be the most powerful NSOM arrangement, because of its true localization of the optical interaction, its various optical contrast possibilities and its sensitivity down to the single molecular level. In this paper applications of `aperture' NSOM to Fluorescence In Situ Hybridization of human metaphase chromosomes are presented, where the localized fluorescence allows to identify specific DNA sequences. All images are accompanied by the simultaneously acquired force image, enabling direct comparison of the optical contrast with the sample topography on nanometer scale, far beyond the diffraction limit. Thus the unique combination of high resolution, specific optical contrast and ambient operation offers many new direction possibilities in biological studies.

Unraveling submicron-scale mechanical heterogeneity by three-dimensional X-ray microdiffraction

DOE PAGES

Li, Runguang; Xie, Qingge; Wang, Yan-Dong; ...

2017-12-28

Shear banding is a ubiquitous phenomenon of severe plastic deformation, and damage accumulation in shear bands often results in the catastrophic failure of a material. Despite extensive studies, the microscopic mechanisms of strain localization and deformation damage in shear bands remain elusive due to their spatial-temporal complexities embedded in bulk materials. Here we conducted synchrotron-based X-ray microdiffraction (μXRD) experiments to map out the 3D lattice strain field with a submicron resolution around fatigue shear bands in a stainless steel. Both in situ and postmortem μXRD results revealed large lattice strain gradients at intersections of the primary and secondary shear bands.more » Such strain gradients resulted in severe mechanical heterogeneities across the fatigue shear bands, leading to reduced fatigue limits in the high-cycle regime. The ability to spatially quantify the localized strain gradients with submicron resolution through μXRD opens opportunities for understanding the microscopic mechanisms of damage and failure in bulk materials.« less

STEP-TRAMM - A modeling interface for simulating localized rainfall induced shallow landslides and debris flow runout pathways

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Or, D.; von Ruette, J.; Lehmann, P.

2017-12-01

Landslides and subsequent debris-flows initiated by rainfall represent a common natural hazard in mountainous regions. We integrated a landslide hydro-mechanical triggering model with a simple model for debris flow runout pathways and developed a graphical user interface (GUI) to represent these natural hazards at catchment scale at any location. The STEP-TRAMM GUI provides process-based estimates of the initiation locations and sizes of landslides patterns based on digital elevation models (SRTM) linked with high resolution global soil maps (SoilGrids 250 m resolution) and satellite based information on rainfall statistics for the selected region. In the preprocessing phase the STEP-TRAMM model estimates soil depth distribution to supplement other soil information for delineating key hydrological and mechanical properties relevant to representing local soil failure. We will illustrate this publicly available GUI and modeling platform to simulate effects of deforestation on landslide hazards in several regions and compare model outcome with satellite based information.

Unraveling submicron-scale mechanical heterogeneity by three-dimensional X-ray microdiffraction

PubMed Central

Li, Runguang; Xie, Qingge; Wang, Yan-Dong; Liu, Wenjun; Wang, Mingguang; Wu, Guilin; Li, Xiaowu; Zhang, Minghe; Lu, Zhaoping; Geng, Chang; Zhu, Ting

2018-01-01

Shear banding is a ubiquitous phenomenon of severe plastic deformation, and damage accumulation in shear bands often results in the catastrophic failure of a material. Despite extensive studies, the microscopic mechanisms of strain localization and deformation damage in shear bands remain elusive due to their spatial−temporal complexities embedded in bulk materials. Here we conducted synchrotron-based X-ray microdiffraction (μXRD) experiments to map out the 3D lattice strain field with a submicron resolution around fatigue shear bands in a stainless steel. Both in situ and postmortem μXRD results revealed large lattice strain gradients at intersections of the primary and secondary shear bands. Such strain gradients resulted in severe mechanical heterogeneities across the fatigue shear bands, leading to reduced fatigue limits in the high-cycle regime. The ability to spatially quantify the localized strain gradients with submicron resolution through μXRD opens opportunities for understanding the microscopic mechanisms of damage and failure in bulk materials. PMID:29284751

A numerical solution method for acoustic radiation from axisymmetric bodies

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Caruthers, John E.; Raviprakash, G. K.

1995-01-01

A new and very efficient numerical method for solving equations of the Helmholtz type is specialized for problems having axisymmetric geometry. It is then demonstrated by application to the classical problem of acoustic radiation from a vibrating piston set in a stationary infinite plane. The method utilizes 'Green's Function Discretization', to obtain an accurate resolution of the waves using only 2-3 points per wave. Locally valid free space Green's functions, used in the discretization step, are obtained by quadrature. Results are computed for a range of grid spacing/piston radius ratios at a frequency parameter, omega R/c(sub 0), of 2 pi. In this case, the minimum required grid resolution appears to be fixed by the need to resolve a step boundary condition at the piston edge rather than by the length scale imposed by the wave length of the acoustic radiation. It is also demonstrated that a local near-field radiation boundary procedure allows the domain to be truncated very near the radiating source with little effect on the solution.

Contact microspherical nanoscopy: from fundamentals to biomedical applications

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Astratov, V. N.; Maslov, A. V.; Brettin, A.; Blanchette, K. F.; Nesmelov, Y. E.; Limberopoulos, N. I.; Walker, D. E.; Urbas, A. M.

2017-02-01

The mechanisms of super-resolution imaging by contact microspherical or microcylindrical nanoscopy remain an enigmatic question since these lenses neither have an ability to amplify the near-fields like in the case of far-field superlens, nor they have a hyperbolic dispersion similar to hyperlenses. In this work, we present results along two lines. First, we performed numerical modeling of super-resolution properties of two-dimensional (2-D) circular lens in the limit of wavelength-scale diameters, λ <= D <= 2λ, and relatively high indices of refraction, n=2. Our preliminary results on imaging point dipoles indicate that the resolution is generally close to λ/4 however on resonance with whispering gallery modes it may be slightly higher. Second, experimentally, we used actin protein filaments for the resolution quantification in microspherical nanoscopy. The critical feature of our approach is based on using arrayed cladding layer with strong localized surface plasmon resonances. This layer is used for enhancing plasmonic near-field illumination of our objects. In combination with the magnification of virtual image, this technique resulted in the lateral resolution of actin protein filaments on the order of λ/7.

A comparison of remote vs. local influence of El Niño on the coastal circulation of the northeast Pacific

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hermann, Albert J.; Curchitser, Enrique N.; Haidvogel, Dale B.; Dobbins, Elizabeth L.

2009-12-01

A set of spatially nested circulation models is used to explore interannual change in the northeast Pacific (NEP) during 1997-2002, and remote vs. local influence of the 1997-1998 El Niño on this region. Our nested set is based on the primitive equations of motion, and includes a basin-scale model of the north Pacific at ˜40-km resolution (NPac), and a regional model of the Northeast Pacific at ˜10-km resolution. The NEP model spans an area from Baja California through the Bering Sea, from the coast to ˜2000-km offshore. In this context, "remote influence" refers to effects driven by changes in ocean velocity and temperature outside of the NEP domain; "local influence" refers to direct forcing by winds and runoff within the NEP domain. A base run of this model using hindcast winds and runoff for 1996-2002 replicates the dominant spatial modes of sea-surface height anomalies from satellite data, and coastal sea level from tide gauges. We have performed a series of sensitivity runs with the NEP model for 1997-1998, which analyze the response of coastal sea level to: (1) hindcast winds and coastal runoff, as compared to their monthly climatologies and (2) hindcast boundary conditions (from the NPac model), as compared to their monthly climatologies. Results indicate penetration of sea-surface height (SSH) from the basin-scale model into the NEP domain (e.g., remote influence), with propagation as coastal trapped waves from Baja up through Alaska. Most of the coastal sea-level anomaly off Alaska in El Niño years appears due to direct forcing by local winds and runoff (local influence), and such anomalies are much stronger than those produced off California. We quantify these effects as a function of distance along the coastline, and consider how they might impact the coastal ecosystems of the NEP.

Manual therapy in the management of a patient with a symptomatic Morton's Neuroma: A case report.

PubMed

Sault, Josiah D; Morris, Matthew V; Jayaseelan, Dhinu J; Emerson-Kavchak, Alicia J

2016-02-01

Patients with Morton's neuroma are rarely referred to physical therapy. This case reports the resolution of pain, increase in local pressure pain thresholds, and improvement of scores on the Lower Extremity Functional Scale and Foot and Ankle Ability Measure following a course of joint based manual therapy for a patient who had failed standard conservative medical treatment. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A Scaling Analysis of Frequency Dependent Energy Partition for Local and Regional Seismic Phases from Explosions

DTIC Science & Technology

2007-08-31

explosions at the former Soviet Semipalatinsk test site (STS). Labeled stations are those for which high resolution digital data are available. 12 8...characteristics of regional phase observations from underground nuclear explosions at the former Soviet Semipalatinsk and Novaya Zemlya test sites , the...various regional phases observed from underground nuclear explosions at the former Soviet Semipalatinsk test site (STS). Labeled stations are those for

Estimating the Wind Resource in Uttarakhand: Comparison of Dynamic Downscaling with Doppler Lidar Wind Measurements

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Lundquist, J. K.; Pukayastha, A.; Martin, C.

Previous estimates of the wind resources in Uttarakhand, India, suggest minimal wind resources in this region. To explore whether or not the complex terrain in fact provides localized regions of wind resource, the authors of this study employed a dynamic down scaling method with the Weather Research and Forecasting model, providing detailed estimates of winds at approximately 1 km resolution in the finest nested simulation.

Non-destructive and three-dimensional measurement of local strain development during tensile deformation in an aluminium alloy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kobayashi, M.; Miura, H.; Toda, H.

2015-08-01

Anisotropy of mechanical responses depending on crystallographic orientation causes inhomogeneous deformation on the mesoscopic scale (grain size scale). Investigation of the local plastic strain development is important for discussing recrystallization mechanisms, because the sites with higher local plastic strain may act as potential nucleation sites for recrystallization. Recently, high-resolution X-ray tomography, which is non-destructive inspection method, has been utilized for observation of the materials structure. In synchrotron radiation X-ray tomography, more than 10,000 microstructural features, like precipitates, dispersions, compounds and hydrogen pores, can be observed in aluminium alloys. We have proposed employing these microstructural features as marker gauges to measure local strains, and then have developed a method to calculate the three-dimensional strain distribution by tracking the microstructural features. In this study, we report the development of local plastic strain as a function of the grain microstructure in an aluminium alloy by means of this three-dimensional strain measurement technique. Strongly heterogeneous strain development was observed during tensile loading to 30%. In other words, some parts of the sample deform little whereas another deforms a lot. However, strain in the whole specimen was keeping harmony. Comparing the microstructure with the strain concentration that is obtained by this method has a potential to reveal potential nucleation sites of recrystallization.

Direct observation of atomic-scale origins of local dissolution in Al-Cu-Mg alloys

PubMed Central

Zhang, B.; Wang, J.; Wu, B.; Oguzie, E. E.; Luo, K.; Ma, X. L.

2016-01-01

Atomistic chemical inhomogeneities are anticipated to induce dissimilarities in surface potentials, which control corrosion initiation of alloys at the atomic scale. Precise understanding of corrosion is therefore hampered by lack of definite information describing how atomistic heterogeneities regulate the process. Here, using high-angle annular dark-field (HAADF) scanning transmission electron microscope (STEM) and electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) techniques, we systematically analyzed the Al20Cu2Mn3 second phase of 2024Al and successfully observed that atomic-scale segregation of Cu at defect sites induced preferential dissolution of the adjacent zones. We define an “atomic-scale galvanic cell”, composed of zones rich in Cu and its surrounding matrix. Our findings provide vital information linking atomic-scale microstructure and pitting mechanism, particularly for Al-Cu-Mg alloys. The resolution achieved also enables understanding of dealloying mechanisms and further streamlines our comprehension of the concept of general corrosion. PMID:28000750

Solar Activity Across the Scales: From Small-Scale Quiet-Sun Dynamics to Magnetic Activity Cycles

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kitiashvili, Irina N.; Collins, Nancy N.; Kosovichev, Alexander G.; Mansour, Nagi N.; Wray, Alan A.

2017-01-01

Observations as well as numerical and theoretical models show that solar dynamics is characterized by complicated interactions and energy exchanges among different temporal and spatial scales. It reveals magnetic self-organization processes from the smallest scale magnetized vortex tubes to the global activity variation known as the solar cycle. To understand these multiscale processes and their relationships, we use a two-fold approach: 1) realistic 3D radiative MHD simulations of local dynamics together with high resolution observations by IRIS, Hinode, and SDO; and 2) modeling of solar activity cycles by using simplified MHD dynamo models and mathematical data assimilation techniques. We present recent results of this approach, including the interpretation of observational results from NASA heliophysics missions and predictive capabilities. In particular, we discuss the links between small-scale dynamo processes in the convection zone and atmospheric dynamics, as well as an early prediction of Solar Cycle 25.

Solar activity across the scales: from small-scale quiet-Sun dynamics to magnetic activity cycles

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kitiashvili, I.; Collins, N.; Kosovichev, A. G.; Mansour, N. N.; Wray, A. A.

2017-12-01

Observations as well as numerical and theoretical models show that solar dynamics is characterized by complicated interactions and energy exchanges among different temporal and spatial scales. It reveals magnetic self-organization processes from the smallest scale magnetized vortex tubes to the global activity variation known as the solar cycle. To understand these multiscale processes and their relationships, we use a two-fold approach: 1) realistic 3D radiative MHD simulations of local dynamics together with high-resolution observations by IRIS, Hinode, and SDO; and 2) modeling of solar activity cycles by using simplified MHD dynamo models and mathematical data assimilation techniques. We present recent results of this approach, including the interpretation of observational results from NASA heliophysics missions and predictive capabilities. In particular, we discuss the links between small-scale dynamo processes in the convection zone and atmospheric dynamics, as well as an early prediction of Solar Cycle 25.

Towards breaking the spatial resolution barriers: An optical flow and super-resolution approach for sea ice motion estimation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Petrou, Zisis I.; Xian, Yang; Tian, YingLi

2018-04-01

Estimation of sea ice motion at fine scales is important for a number of regional and local level applications, including modeling of sea ice distribution, ocean-atmosphere and climate dynamics, as well as safe navigation and sea operations. In this study, we propose an optical flow and super-resolution approach to accurately estimate motion from remote sensing images at a higher spatial resolution than the original data. First, an external example learning-based super-resolution method is applied on the original images to generate higher resolution versions. Then, an optical flow approach is applied on the higher resolution images, identifying sparse correspondences and interpolating them to extract a dense motion vector field with continuous values and subpixel accuracies. Our proposed approach is successfully evaluated on passive microwave, optical, and Synthetic Aperture Radar data, proving appropriate for multi-sensor applications and different spatial resolutions. The approach estimates motion with similar or higher accuracy than the original data, while increasing the spatial resolution of up to eight times. In addition, the adopted optical flow component outperforms a state-of-the-art pattern matching method. Overall, the proposed approach results in accurate motion vectors with unprecedented spatial resolutions of up to 1.5 km for passive microwave data covering the entire Arctic and 20 m for radar data, and proves promising for numerous scientific and operational applications.

A Mobile Anchor Assisted Localization Algorithm Based on Regular Hexagon in Wireless Sensor Networks

PubMed Central

Rodrigues, Joel J. P. C.

2014-01-01

Localization is one of the key technologies in wireless sensor networks (WSNs), since it provides fundamental support for many location-aware protocols and applications. Constraints of cost and power consumption make it infeasible to equip each sensor node in the network with a global position system (GPS) unit, especially for large-scale WSNs. A promising method to localize unknown nodes is to use several mobile anchors which are equipped with GPS units moving among unknown nodes and periodically broadcasting their current locations to help nearby unknown nodes with localization. This paper proposes a mobile anchor assisted localization algorithm based on regular hexagon (MAALRH) in two-dimensional WSNs, which can cover the whole monitoring area with a boundary compensation method. Unknown nodes calculate their positions by using trilateration. We compare the MAALRH with HILBERT, CIRCLES, and S-CURVES algorithms in terms of localization ratio, localization accuracy, and path length. Simulations show that the MAALRH can achieve high localization ratio and localization accuracy when the communication range is not smaller than the trajectory resolution. PMID:25133212

Non-radiative processes dominate land surface signals in the climate system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bright, R. M.; Davin, E.; O'Halloran, T. L.; Pongratz, J.; Zhao, K.; Cescatti, A.

2016-12-01

Perturbations to the surface energy budget linked to land cover/land management changes (LCMC) are rarely included in land-climate assessments although they have long been recognized as important drivers of local climate change. At local scales, climate forcings from LCMC depend strongly on changes to surface energy redistribution by various non-radiative mechanisms, dampening or even outweighing the local radiative effect of an albedo change. The extent to which these mechanisms are locally relevant for different types of LCMC across the world remains largely unquantified. Here, we combine extensive records of remote sensing and in-situ observations to quantify local forcings for nine common real-world LCMC perturbations, identifying their underlying physical mechanisms and analyzing their spatial patterns at the global scale. We find that throughout the densely populated regions, non-radiative forcings dominate the local surface temperature response in 8 of 9 LCMC scenarios. Further, the observed local response to re-/afforestation is an annual cooling in all regions south of the upper conterminous United States, Western Europe, and Indo-China. Given that the global response to re-/afforestation in these regions is likely a cooling, projects here can be seen as attractive mitigation measures. Our results - gridded to a 1° x 1° resolution - can be directly used to evaluate climate models or compute indicators providing a more comprehensive picture of the trade-offs between local and global climate forcings linked to land sector projects and policies.

Assessing the Importance of Incorporating Spatial and Temporal Variability of Soil and Plant Parameters into Local Water Balance Models for Precision Agriculture: Investigations within a California Vineyard

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hubbard, S.; Pierce, L.; Grote, K.; Rubin, Y.

2003-12-01

Due Due to the high cash crop nature of premium winegrapes, recent research has focused on developing a better understanding of the factors that influence winegrape spatial and temporal variability. Precision grapevine irrigation schemes require consideration of the factors that regulate vineyard water use such as (1) plant parameters, (2) climatic conditions, and (3) water availability in the soil as a function of soil texture. The inability to sample soil and plant parameters accurately, at a dense enough resolution, and over large enough areas has limited previous investigations focused on understanding the influences of soil water and vegetation on water balance at the local field scale. We have acquired several novel field data sets to describe the small scale (decimeters to a hundred meters) spatial variability of soil and plant parameters within a 4 acre field study site at the Robert Mondavi Winery in Napa County, California. At this site, we investigated the potential of ground penetrating radar data (GPR) for providing estimates of near surface water content. Calibration of grids of 900 MHz GPR groundwave data with conventional soil moisture measurements revealed that the GPR volumetric water content estimation approach was valid to within 1 percent accuracy, and that the data grids provided unparalleled density of soil water content over the field site as a function of season. High-resolution airborne multispectral remote sensing data was also collected at the study site, which was converted to normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and correlated to leaf area index (LAI) using plant-based measurements within a parallel study. Meteorological information was available from a weather station of the California Irrigation management Information System, located less than a mile from our study area. The measurements were used within a 2-D Vineyard Soil Irrigation Model (VSIM), which can incorporate the spatially variable, high-resolution soil and plant-based information. VSIM, which is based on the concept that equilibrium exists between climate, soils, and LAI, was used to simulate vine water stress, water use, and irrigation requirements during a single year for the site. Using the simple water-balance model with the dense characterization data, we will discuss: (1) the ability to predict vineyard soil water content at the small scales of soil heterogeneity that are observed in nature at the local-scale, (2) the relative importance of plant, climate, and soil information to predictions of the soil water balance at the site, (3) the influence of crop cover in the water balance predictions.

Changing precipitation in western Europe, climate change or natural variability?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Aalbers, Emma; Lenderink, Geert; van Meijgaard, Erik; van den Hurk, Bart

2017-04-01

Multi-model RCM-GCM ensembles provide high resolution climate projections, valuable for among others climate impact assessment studies. While the application of multiple models (both GCMs and RCMs) provides a certain robustness with respect to model uncertainty, the interpretation of differences between ensemble members - the combined result of model uncertainty and natural variability of the climate system - is not straightforward. Natural variability is intrinsic to the climate system, and a potentially large source of uncertainty in climate change projections, especially for projections on the local to regional scale. To quantify the natural variability and get a robust estimate of the forced climate change response (given a certain model and forcing scenario), large ensembles of climate model simulations of the same model provide essential information. While for global climate models (GCMs) a number of such large single model ensembles exists and have been analyzed, for regional climate models (RCMs) the number and size of single model ensembles is limited, and the predictability of the forced climate response at the local to regional scale is still rather uncertain. We present a regional downscaling of a 16-member single model ensemble over western Europe and the Alps at a resolution of 0.11 degrees (˜12km), similar to the highest resolution EURO-CORDEX simulations. This 16-member ensemble was generated by the GCM EC-EARTH, which was downscaled with the RCM RACMO for the period 1951-2100. This single model ensemble has been investigated in terms of the ensemble mean response (our estimate of the forced climate response), as well as the difference between the ensemble members, which measures natural variability. We focus on the response in seasonal mean and extreme precipitation (seasonal maxima and extremes with a return period up to 20 years) for the near to far future. For most precipitation indices we can reliably determine the climate change signal, given the applied model chain and forcing scenario. However, the analysis also shows how limited the information in single ensemble members is on the local scale forced climate response, even for high levels of global warming when the forced response has emerged from natural variability. Analysis and application of multi-model ensembles like EURO-CORDEX should go hand-in-hand with single model ensembles, like the one presented here, to be able to correctly interpret the fine-scale information in terms of a forced signal and random noise due to natural variability.

MAPPING IN MICRONESIA.

USGS Publications Warehouse

Olsen, Randle W.; Swinnerton, J.R.

1984-01-01

The U. S. Geological Survey has recently completed a series of new topographic maps of Micronesia in cooperation with the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, the Federal agency administering the islands. Monocolor 1:10,000-scale manuscripts were compiled, from which 1:25,000-scale metric quadrangles were derived with symbology consistent with USGS quadrangle mapping. The publication of these new maps coincides with the impending political changes resulting from self-determination referendums held in Micronesia. Local sources have helped considerably with field logistics and resolution of geographic name controversies. Technical aspects of this project included development of tropical feature symbology, location of cadastral subdivisions and associated boundaries and mapping of many outlying coral reefs.

The Thick Level-Set model for dynamic fragmentation

DOE PAGES

Stershic, Andrew J.; Dolbow, John E.; Moës, Nicolas

2017-01-04

The Thick Level-Set (TLS) model is implemented to simulate brittle media undergoing dynamic fragmentation. This non-local model is discretized by the finite element method with damage represented as a continuous field over the domain. A level-set function defines the extent and severity of damage, and a length scale is introduced to limit the damage gradient. Numerical studies in one dimension demonstrate that the proposed method reproduces the rate-dependent energy dissipation and fragment length observations from analytical, numerical, and experimental approaches. In conclusion, additional studies emphasize the importance of appropriate bulk constitutive models and sufficient spatial resolution of the length scale.

EUV via hole pattern fidelity enhancement through novel resist and post-litho plasma treatment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yaegashi, Hidetami; Koike, Kyohei; Fonseca, Carlos; Yamashita, Fumiko; Kaushik, Kumar; Morikita, Shinya; Ito, Kiyohito; Yoshimura, Shota; Timoshkov, Vadim; Maslow, Mark; Jee, Tae Kwon; Reijnen, Liesbeth; Choi, Peter; Feng, Mu; Spence, Chris; Schoofs, Stijn

2018-03-01

Extreme UV(EUV) technology must be potential solution for sustainable scaling, and its adoption in high volume manufacturing(HVM) is getting realistic more and more. This technology has a wide capability to mitigate various technical problem in Multi-patterning (LELELE) for via hole patterning with 193-i. It induced local pattern fidelity error such like CDU, CER, Pattern placement error. Exactly, EUV must be desirable scaling-driving tool, however, specific technical issue, named RLS (Resolution-LER-Sensitivity) triangle, obvious remaining issue. In this work, we examined hole patterning sensitizing (Lower dose approach) utilizing hole patterning restoration technique named "CD-Healing" as post-Litho. treatment.

Local structure of scalar flux in turbulent passive scalar mixing

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Konduri, Aditya; Donzis, Diego

2012-11-01

Understanding the properties of scalar flux is important in the study of turbulent mixing. Classical theories suggest that it mainly depends on the large scale structures in the flow. Recent studies suggest that the mean scalar flux reaches an asymptotic value at high Peclet numbers, independent of molecular transport properties of the fluid. A large DNS database of isotropic turbulence with passive scalars forced with a mean scalar gradient with resolution up to 40963, is used to explore the structure of scalar flux based on the local topology of the flow. It is found that regions of small velocity gradients, where dissipation and enstrophy are small, constitute the main contribution to scalar flux. On the other hand, regions of very small scalar gradient (and scalar dissipation) become less important to the scalar flux at high Reynolds numbers. The scaling of the scalar flux spectra is also investigated. The k - 7 / 3 scaling proposed by Lumley (1964) is observed at high Reynolds numbers, but collapse is not complete. A spectral bump similar to that in the velocity spectrum is observed close to dissipative scales. A number of features, including the height of the bump, appear to reach an asymptotic value at high Schmidt number.

Field_ac: a research project on ocean modelling in coastal areas. The experience in the Catalan Sea.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Grifoll, Manel; Pallarès, Elena; Tolosana-Delgado, Raimon; Fernandez, Juan; Lopez, Jaime; Mosso, Cesar; Hermosilla, Fernando; Espino, Manuel; Sanchez-Arcilla, Agustín

2013-04-01

The EU founded Field_ac project has investigated during the last three years methods and strategies for improving operational services in coastal areas. The objective has been to generate added value for shelf and regional scale predictions from GMES Marine Core Services. In this sense the experience in the Catalan Sea site has allowed to combine high-resolution numerical modeling tools nested into regional GMES services, data from intensive field campaigns or local observational networks and remote sensing products. Multi-scale coupled models have been implemented to evaluate different temporal and spatial scales of the dominant physical processes related with waves, currents, continental/river discharges or sediment transport. In this sense the experience of the Field_ac project in the Catalan Sea has permit to "connect" GMES marine core service results to the coastal (local) anthropogenic forcing (e.g. causes of morphodynamic evolution and ecosystem degradation) and will support a knowledge-based assessment of decisions in the coastal zone. This will contribute to the implementation of EU directives (e.g., the Water Framework Directive for water quality at beaches near harbour entrances or the Risk or Flood Directives for waves and sea-level at beach/river-mouth scales).

The Depositional and Erosional History of Northwestern Aeolis Mons, Gale Crater, Mars: Insights from Detailed 1:2K Geologic Mapping

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Edgar, L. A.; Calef, F. J., III; Thomson, B. J.

2017-12-01

The Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Curiosity rover is currently exploring the stratigraphy exposed in Aeolis Mons, the central mound of Gale crater. Gale crater has been the target of numerous remote sensing studies, aimed at understanding the origin and evolution of the mound, informally known as Mt. Sharp. A number of efforts have produced geologic maps of the mound and the MSL traverse path, in order to investigate the stratigraphic relationships between different sedimentary units. However, a scale gap exists between local mapping and stratigraphic analyses of the area explored by Curiosity and regional mapping of Aeolis Mons. As Curiosity explores the northwest flank of Aeolis Mons, there is a critical need for investigations to bridge this gap to enable rover-scale observations to be tied to orbital interpretations. This study is focused on detailed geologic mapping and stratigraphic correlations for the northwest flank of Aeolis Mons, including an area that the Curiosity rover will likely explore. The study region covers a 5.8 x 10 km area from approximately 137.27 to 137.44 °E and -4.70 to -4.82 °N. A 25 cm/pixel mosaic produced from images acquired by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera provides a basemap for all mapping, and topographic information is provided by a HiRISE 1 m Digital Terrain Model. Preliminary digital geologic mapping was carried out at a scale of 1:10,000 to provide a framework for detailed geologic mapping efforts. Higher-resolution geologic mapping was then conducted at a scale of 1:2,000, and type localities were identified. As a result of newer, higher-resolution datasets that are now available and more narrowly focused mapping, we identify a number of new geologic units. Erosional remnants of some units point to a substantial erosional history. Collectively, the stratigraphy records diverse sedimentary environments and more variability in the depositional and erosional histories than previously identified. This study helps bridge the gap between previous mapping efforts and detailed rover-scale mapping, and will enable rover observations to be more closely tied to orbital interpretations across the northwest flank of Aeolis Mons.

Vanishing-Overhead Linear-Scaling Random Phase Approximation by Cholesky Decomposition and an Attenuated Coulomb-Metric.

PubMed

Luenser, Arne; Schurkus, Henry F; Ochsenfeld, Christian

2017-04-11

A reformulation of the random phase approximation within the resolution-of-the-identity (RI) scheme is presented, that is competitive to canonical molecular orbital RI-RPA already for small- to medium-sized molecules. For electronically sparse systems drastic speedups due to the reduced scaling behavior compared to the molecular orbital formulation are demonstrated. Our reformulation is based on two ideas, which are independently useful: First, a Cholesky decomposition of density matrices that reduces the scaling with basis set size for a fixed-size molecule by one order, leading to massive performance improvements. Second, replacement of the overlap RI metric used in the original AO-RPA by an attenuated Coulomb metric. Accuracy is significantly improved compared to the overlap metric, while locality and sparsity of the integrals are retained, as is the effective linear scaling behavior.

Weak climatic control of stand-scale fire history during the late holocene.

PubMed

Gavin, Daniel G; Hu, Feng Sheng; Lertzman, Kenneth; Corbett, Peter

2006-07-01

Forest fire occurrence is affected by multiple controls that operate at local to regional scales. At the spatial scale of forest stands, regional climatic controls may be obscured by local controls (e.g., stochastic ignitions, topography, and fuel loads), but the long-term role of such local controls is poorly understood. We report here stand-scale (<100 ha) fire histories of the past 5000 years based on the analysis of sediment charcoal at two lakes 11 km apart in southeastern British Columbia. The two lakes are today located in similar subalpine forests, and they likely have experienced the same late-Holocene climatic changes because of their close proximity. We evaluated two independent properties of fire history: (1) fire-interval distribution, a measure of the overall incidence of fire, and (2) fire synchroneity, a measure of the co-occurrence of fire (here, assessed at centennial to millennial time scales due to the resolution of sediment records). Fire-interval distributions differed between the sites prior to, but not after, 2500 yr before present. When the entire 5000-yr period is considered, no statistical synchrony between fire-episode dates existed between the two sites at any temporal scale, but for the last 2500 yr marginal levels of synchrony occurred at centennial scales. Each individual fire record exhibited little coherency with regional climate changes. In contrast, variations in the composite record (average of both sites) matched variations in climate evidenced by late-Holocene glacial advances. This was probably due to the increased sample size and spatial extent represented by the composite record (up to 200 ha) plus increased regional climatic variability over the last several millennia, which may have partially overridden local, non-climatic controls. We conclude that (1) over past millennia, neighboring stands with similar modern conditions may have experienced different fire intervals and asynchronous patterns in fire episodes, likely because local controls outweighed the synchronizing effect of climate; (2) the influence of climate on fire occurrence is more strongly expressed when climatic variability is relatively great; and (3) multiple records from a region are essential if climate-fire relations are to be reliably described.

Compositional Signatures in Acoustic Backscatter Over Vegetated and Unvegetated Mixed Sand-Gravel Riverbeds

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Buscombe, D.; Grams, P. E.; Kaplinski, M. A.

2017-10-01

Multibeam acoustic backscatter has considerable utility for remote characterization of spatially heterogeneous bed sediment composition over vegetated and unvegetated riverbeds of mixed sand and gravel. However, the use of high-frequency, decimeter-resolution acoustic backscatter for sediment classification in shallow water is hampered by significant topographic contamination of the signal. In mixed sand-gravel riverbeds, changes in the abiotic composition of sediment (such as homogeneous sand to homogeneous gravel) tend to occur over larger spatial scales than is characteristic of small-scale bedform topography (ripples, dunes, and bars) or biota (such as vascular plants and periphyton). A two-stage method is proposed to filter out the morphological contributions to acoustic backscatter. First, the residual supragrain-scale topographic effects in acoustic backscatter with small instantaneous insonified areas, caused by ambiguity in the local (beam-to-beam) bed-sonar geometry, are removed. Then, coherent scales between high-resolution topography and backscatter are identified using cospectra, which are used to design a frequency domain filter that decomposes backscatter into the (unwanted) high-pass component associated with bedform topography (ripples, dunes, and sand waves) and vegetation, and the (desired) low-frequency component associated with the composition of sediment patches superimposed on the topography. This process strengthens relationships between backscatter and sediment composition. A probabilistic framework is presented for classifying vegetated and unvegetated substrates based on acoustic backscatter at decimeter resolution. This capability is demonstrated using data collected from diverse settings within a 386 km reach of a canyon river whose bed varies among sand, gravel, cobbles, boulders, and submerged vegetation.

Back to the future: using historical climate variation to project near-term shifts in habitat suitable for coast redwood.

PubMed

Fernández, Miguel; Hamilton, Healy H; Kueppers, Lara M

2015-11-01

Studies that model the effect of climate change on terrestrial ecosystems often use climate projections from downscaled global climate models (GCMs). These simulations are generally too coarse to capture patterns of fine-scale climate variation, such as the sharp coastal energy and moisture gradients associated with wind-driven upwelling of cold water. Coastal upwelling may limit future increases in coastal temperatures, compromising GCMs' ability to provide realistic scenarios of future climate in these coastal ecosystems. Taking advantage of naturally occurring variability in the high-resolution historic climatic record, we developed multiple fine-scale scenarios of California climate that maintain coherent relationships between regional climate and coastal upwelling. We compared these scenarios against coarse resolution GCM projections at a regional scale to evaluate their temporal equivalency. We used these historically based scenarios to estimate potential suitable habitat for coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens D. Don) under 'normal' combinations of temperature and precipitation, and under anomalous combinations representative of potential future climates. We found that a scenario of warmer temperature with historically normal precipitation is equivalent to climate projected by GCMs for California by 2020-2030 and that under these conditions, climatically suitable habitat for coast redwood significantly contracts at the southern end of its current range. Our results suggest that historical climate data provide a high-resolution alternative to downscaled GCM outputs for near-term ecological forecasts. This method may be particularly useful in other regions where local climate is strongly influenced by ocean-atmosphere dynamics that are not represented by coarse-scale GCMs. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Compositional signatures in acoustic backscatter over vegetated and unvegetated mixed sand-gravel riverbeds

USGS Publications Warehouse

Buscombe, Daniel; Grams, Paul E.; Kaplinski, Matt A.

2017-01-01

Multibeam acoustic backscatter has considerable utility for remote characterization of spatially heterogeneous bed sediment composition over vegetated and unvegetated riverbeds of mixed sand and gravel. However, the use of high-frequency, decimeter-resolution acoustic backscatter for sediment classification in shallow water is hampered by significant topographic contamination of the signal. In mixed sand-gravel riverbeds, changes in the abiotic composition of sediment (such as homogeneous sand to homogeneous gravel) tend to occur over larger spatial scales than is characteristic of small-scale bedform topography (ripples, dunes, and bars) or biota (such as vascular plants and periphyton). A two-stage method is proposed to filter out the morphological contributions to acoustic backscatter. First, the residual supragrain-scale topographic effects in acoustic backscatter with small instantaneous insonified areas, caused by ambiguity in the local (beam-to-beam) bed-sonar geometry, are removed. Then, coherent scales between high-resolution topography and backscatter are identified using cospectra, which are used to design a frequency domain filter that decomposes backscatter into the (unwanted) high-pass component associated with bedform topography (ripples, dunes, and sand waves) and vegetation, and the (desired) low-frequency component associated with the composition of sediment patches superimposed on the topography. This process strengthens relationships between backscatter and sediment composition. A probabilistic framework is presented for classifying vegetated and unvegetated substrates based on acoustic backscatter at decimeter resolution. This capability is demonstrated using data collected from diverse settings within a 386 km reach of a canyon river whose bed varies among sand, gravel, cobbles, boulders, and submerged vegetation.

Comparing carbon storage of Siberian tundra and taiga permafrost ecosystems at very high spatial resolution

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Siewert, Matthias B.; Hanisch, Jessica; Weiss, Niels; Kuhry, Peter; Maximov, Trofim C.; Hugelius, Gustaf

2015-10-01

Permafrost-affected ecosystems are important components in the global carbon (C) cycle that, despite being vulnerable to disturbances under climate change, remain poorly understood. This study investigates ecosystem carbon storage in two contrasting continuous permafrost areas of NE and East Siberia. Detailed partitioning of soil organic carbon (SOC) and phytomass carbon (PC) is analyzed for one tundra (Kytalyk) and one taiga (Spasskaya Pad/Neleger) study area. In total, 57 individual field sites (24 and 33 in the respective areas) have been sampled for PC and SOC, including the upper permafrost. Landscape partitioning of ecosystem C storage was derived from thematic upscaling of field observations using a land cover classification from very high resolution (2 × 2 m) satellite imagery. Nonmetric multidimensional scaling was used to explore patterns in C distribution. In both environments the ecosystem C is mostly stored in the soil (≥86%). At the landscape scale C stocks are primarily controlled by the presence of thermokarst depressions (alases). In the tundra landscape, site-scale variability of C is controlled by periglacial geomorphological features, while in the taiga, local differences in catenary position, soil texture, and forest successions are more important. Very high resolution remote sensing is highly beneficial to the quantification of C storage. Detailed knowledge of ecosystem C storage and ground ice distribution is needed to predict permafrost landscape vulnerability to projected climatic changes. We argue that vegetation dynamics are unlikely to offset mineralization of thawed permafrost C and that landscape-scale reworking of SOC represents the largest potential changes to C cycling.

A Bird's-Eye View of Eco-Geomorphology From a Small Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

LeClair, A. J.; Hugenholtz, C.

2012-12-01

Physical disturbance regimes play important roles in shaping ecosystems and landscapes; however, our ability to detect disturbance often depends on the method and scale of observation. Here we use a relatively new method in order to detect and map the eco-geomorphic impacts of fossorial mammals in a grassland setting. It is well-known that digging and mound building activity by these animals is a form of biological disturbance that has a number of eco-geomorphic consequences, including: soil formation, hydrology, nutrient cycling, and succession. All these processes contribute to landscape heterogeneity and often increase local micro-topographic variations through mound formation. Most studies that have examined the eco-geomorphic role of fossorial mammals have been limited to observations using traditional field-based methods. While this has yielded important data about the localized effects, the cumulative, landscape-level impacts of such small-scale disturbance events are still largely unknown. While fossorial mammals such as pocket gophers (family Geomyidae) are assumed to be ubiquitous in the environments in which they occur, the small size of individual mounds has meant that mapping their biological footprint using traditional methods has been extremely difficult. Individual mounds disappear in the pixels of conventional remote sensing imagery, while their spatial distribution makes it impractical to study them beyond the plot scale. However, recent advances in both low cost, high-resolution digital cameras, and unmanned aerial systems (UAS), have made it possible to acquire landscape-level data that matches the scale of their disturbance, thus potentially bridging the gap between ground-based field methods and traditional remote sensing imagery. In this study we used UAS-acquired, sub-decimeter resolution imagery to map and quantify the extent of fossorial mammal disturbance in a 4 km2 area of the Great Sand Hills - a stabilized dune field in southwestern Saskatchewan, Canada. This area is densely populated by both the northern pocket gopher (Thomomys talpoides) and the thirteen-lined ground squirrel (Ictidomys tridecemlineatus), both of which are active throughout the growing season. Mounds of bare sand occur both singly, and in larger, clustered networks. Older mounds are darker due to higher vegetation cover and litter accumulation, while more recent mounds are brighter due to absence of vegetation and litter. Based on objective image classification we estimate that nearly 20% of the landscape is affected by mound disturbance, while in some localized regions up to 50% of the surface is affected by recent disturbance. Overall, our case study demonstrates the potential value of UAS platforms for acquiring high-resolution remote sensing data for detecting and mapping small-scale biological disturbance.

GRACE Hydrological estimates for small basins: Evaluating processing approaches on the High Plains Aquifer, USA

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Longuevergne, Laurent; Scanlon, Bridget R.; Wilson, Clark R.

2010-11-01

The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites provide observations of water storage variation at regional scales. However, when focusing on a region of interest, limited spatial resolution and noise contamination can cause estimation bias and spatial leakage, problems that are exacerbated as the region of interest approaches the GRACE resolution limit of a few hundred km. Reliable estimates of water storage variations in small basins require compromises between competing needs for noise suppression and spatial resolution. The objective of this study was to quantitatively investigate processing methods and their impacts on bias, leakage, GRACE noise reduction, and estimated total error, allowing solution of the trade-offs. Among the methods tested is a recently developed concentration algorithm called spatiospectral localization, which optimizes the basin shape description, taking into account limited spatial resolution. This method is particularly suited to retrieval of basin-scale water storage variations and is effective for small basins. To increase confidence in derived methods, water storage variations were calculated for both CSR (Center for Space Research) and GRGS (Groupe de Recherche de Géodésie Spatiale) GRACE products, which employ different processing strategies. The processing techniques were tested on the intensively monitored High Plains Aquifer (450,000 km2 area), where application of the appropriate optimal processing method allowed retrieval of water storage variations over a portion of the aquifer as small as ˜200,000 km2.

Air-Quality and Climate Coupling in High Resolution for Urban Heat Island Study

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Halenka, T.; Huszar, P.; Belda, M.

2012-04-01

Recent studies show considerable effect of atmospheric chemistry and aerosols on climate on regional and local scale. For the purpose of qualifying and quantifying the magnitude of climate forcing due to atmospheric chemistry/aerosols on regional scale and climate change effects on air-quality the regional climate model RegCM and chemistry/aerosol model CAMx was coupled. Climate change impacts on air-quality have been studied in high resolution of 10km with interactive two-way coupling of the effects of air-quality on climate. The experiments with the couple were performed for EC FP7 project MEGAPOLI assessing the impact of the megacities and industrialized areas on climate. New experiments in high resolution are prepared andsimulated for Urban Heat Island studies within the OP Central Europe Project UHI. Meteorological fields generated by RCM drive CAMx transport, chemistry and a dry/wet deposition. A preprocessor utility was developed for transforming RegCM provided fields to CAMx input fields and format. There is critical issue of the emission inventories available for 10km resolution including the urban hot-spots, TNO emissions are adopted for the experiments. Sensitivity tests switching on/off urban areas emissions are analysed as well. The results for year 2005 are presented and discussed, interactive coupling is compared to study the potential of possible impact of urban air-pollution to the urban area climate.

Imaging Local Ca2+ Signals in Cultured Mammalian Cells

PubMed Central

Lock, Jeffrey T.; Ellefsen, Kyle L.; Settle, Bret; Parker, Ian; Smith, Ian F.

2015-01-01

Cytosolic Ca2+ ions regulate numerous aspects of cellular activity in almost all cell types, controlling processes as wide-ranging as gene transcription, electrical excitability and cell proliferation. The diversity and specificity of Ca2+ signaling derives from mechanisms by which Ca2+ signals are generated to act over different time and spatial scales, ranging from cell-wide oscillations and waves occurring over the periods of minutes to local transient Ca2+ microdomains (Ca2+ puffs) lasting milliseconds. Recent advances in electron multiplied CCD (EMCCD) cameras now allow for imaging of local Ca2+ signals with a 128 x 128 pixel spatial resolution at rates of >500 frames sec-1 (fps). This approach is highly parallel and enables the simultaneous monitoring of hundreds of channels or puff sites in a single experiment. However, the vast amounts of data generated (ca. 1 Gb per min) render visual identification and analysis of local Ca2+ events impracticable. Here we describe and demonstrate the procedures for the acquisition, detection, and analysis of local IP3-mediated Ca2+ signals in intact mammalian cells loaded with Ca2+ indicators using both wide-field epi-fluorescence (WF) and total internal reflection fluorescence (TIRF) microscopy. Furthermore, we describe an algorithm developed within the open-source software environment Python that automates the identification and analysis of these local Ca2+ signals. The algorithm localizes sites of Ca2+ release with sub-pixel resolution; allows user review of data; and outputs time sequences of fluorescence ratio signals together with amplitude and kinetic data in an Excel-compatible table. PMID:25867132

Factors associated with the deposition of Cladophora on Lake Michigan beaches in 2012

USGS Publications Warehouse

Riley, Stephen C.; Tucker, Taaja R.; Adams, Jean V.; Fogarty, Lisa R.; Lafrancois, Brenda Moraska

2015-01-01

Deposition of the macroalgae Cladophora spp. was monitored on 18 beaches around Lake Michigan during 2012 at a high temporal frequency. We observed a high degree of spatial variability in Cladophora deposition among beaches on Lake Michigan, even within local regions, with no clear regional pattern in the intensity of Cladophora deposition. A strong seasonal pattern in Cladophora deposition was observed, with the heaviest deposition occurring during mid-summer. Several beaches exhibited high temporal variability in Cladophora deposition over short time scales, suggesting that drifting algal mats may be extremely dynamic in nearshore environments of the Great Lakes. Cladophora deposition on Lake Michigan beaches was primarily related to the presence of nearshore structures, local population density, and nearshore bathymetry. There was relatively little evidence that waves, winds, or currents were associated with Cladophora deposition on beaches, but this may be due to the relatively poor resolution of existing nearshore hydrodynamic data. Developing a predictive understanding of beach-cast Cladophora dynamics in Great Lakes environments may require both intensive Cladophora monitoring and fine-scale local hydrodynamic modeling efforts.

Spatial rule-based assessment of habitat potential to predict impact of land use changes on biodiversity at municipal scale.

PubMed

Scolozzi, Rocco; Geneletti, Davide

2011-03-01

In human dominated landscapes, ecosystems are under increasing pressures caused by urbanization and infrastructure development. In Alpine valleys remnant natural areas are increasingly affected by habitat fragmentation and loss. In these contexts, there is a growing risk of local extinction for wildlife populations; hence assessing the consequences on biodiversity of proposed land use changes is extremely important. The article presents a methodology to assess the impacts of land use changes on target species at a local scale. The approach relies on the application of ecological profiles of target species for habitat potential (HP) assessment, using high resolution GIS-data within a multiple level framework. The HP, in this framework, is based on a species-specific assessment of the suitability of a site, as well of surrounding areas. This assessment is performed through spatial rules, structured as sets of queries on landscape objects. We show that by considering spatial dependencies in habitat assessment it is possible to perform better quantification of impacts of local-level land use changes on habitats.

Large-Scale Point-Cloud Visualization through Localized Textured Surface Reconstruction.

PubMed

Arikan, Murat; Preiner, Reinhold; Scheiblauer, Claus; Jeschke, Stefan; Wimmer, Michael

2014-09-01

In this paper, we introduce a novel scene representation for the visualization of large-scale point clouds accompanied by a set of high-resolution photographs. Many real-world applications deal with very densely sampled point-cloud data, which are augmented with photographs that often reveal lighting variations and inaccuracies in registration. Consequently, the high-quality representation of the captured data, i.e., both point clouds and photographs together, is a challenging and time-consuming task. We propose a two-phase approach, in which the first (preprocessing) phase generates multiple overlapping surface patches and handles the problem of seamless texture generation locally for each patch. The second phase stitches these patches at render-time to produce a high-quality visualization of the data. As a result of the proposed localization of the global texturing problem, our algorithm is more than an order of magnitude faster than equivalent mesh-based texturing techniques. Furthermore, since our preprocessing phase requires only a minor fraction of the whole data set at once, we provide maximum flexibility when dealing with growing data sets.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Allen, Melissa R.; Aziz, H. M. Abdul; Coletti, Mark A.

Changing human activity within a geographical location may have significant influence on the global climate, but that activity must be parameterized in such a way as to allow these high-resolution sub-grid processes to affect global climate within that modeling framework. Additionally, we must have tools that provide decision support and inform local and regional policies regarding mitigation of and adaptation to climate change. The development of next-generation earth system models, that can produce actionable results with minimum uncertainties, depends on understanding global climate change and human activity interactions at policy implementation scales. Unfortunately, at best we currently have only limitedmore » schemes for relating high-resolution sectoral emissions to real-time weather, ultimately to become part of larger regions and well-mixed atmosphere. Moreover, even our understanding of meteorological processes at these scales is imperfect. This workshop addresses these shortcomings by providing a forum for discussion of what we know about these processes, what we can model, where we have gaps in these areas and how we can rise to the challenge to fill these gaps.« less

Hazardous thunderstorm intensification over Lake Victoria

PubMed Central

Thiery, Wim; Davin, Edouard L.; Seneviratne, Sonia I.; Bedka, Kristopher; Lhermitte, Stef; van Lipzig, Nicole P. M.

2016-01-01

Weather extremes have harmful impacts on communities around Lake Victoria, where thousands of fishermen die every year because of intense night-time thunderstorms. Yet how these thunderstorms will evolve in a future warmer climate is still unknown. Here we show that Lake Victoria is projected to be a hotspot of future extreme precipitation intensification by using new satellite-based observations, a high-resolution climate projection for the African Great Lakes and coarser-scale ensemble projections. Land precipitation on the previous day exerts a control on night-time occurrence of extremes on the lake by enhancing atmospheric convergence (74%) and moisture availability (26%). The future increase in extremes over Lake Victoria is about twice as large relative to surrounding land under a high-emission scenario, as only over-lake moisture advection is high enough to sustain Clausius–Clapeyron scaling. Our results highlight a major hazard associated with climate change over East Africa and underline the need for high-resolution projections to assess local climate change. PMID:27658848

Cellular resolution maps of X chromosome inactivation: implications for neural development, function, and disease.

PubMed

Wu, Hao; Luo, Junjie; Yu, Huimin; Rattner, Amir; Mo, Alisa; Wang, Yanshu; Smallwood, Philip M; Erlanger, Bracha; Wheelan, Sarah J; Nathans, Jeremy

2014-01-08

Female eutherian mammals use X chromosome inactivation (XCI) to epigenetically regulate gene expression from ∼4% of the genome. To quantitatively map the topography of XCI for defined cell types at single cell resolution, we have generated female mice that carry X-linked, Cre-activated, and nuclear-localized fluorescent reporters--GFP on one X chromosome and tdTomato on the other. Using these reporters in combination with different Cre drivers, we have defined the topographies of XCI mosaicism for multiple CNS cell types and of retinal vascular dysfunction in a model of Norrie disease. Depending on cell type, fluctuations in the XCI mosaic are observed over a wide range of spatial scales, from neighboring cells to left versus right sides of the body. These data imply a major role for XCI in generating female-specific, genetically directed, stochastic diversity in eutherian mammals on spatial scales that would be predicted to affect CNS function within and between individuals. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Morphological filtering and multiresolution fusion for mammographic microcalcification detection

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chen, Lulin; Chen, Chang W.; Parker, Kevin J.

1997-04-01

Mammographic images are often of relatively low contrast and poor sharpness with non-stationary background or clutter and are usually corrupted by noise. In this paper, we propose a new method for microcalcification detection using gray scale morphological filtering followed by multiresolution fusion and present a unified general filtering form called the local operating transformation for whitening filtering and adaptive thresholding. The gray scale morphological filters are used to remove all large areas that are considered as non-stationary background or clutter variations, i.e., to prewhiten images. The multiresolution fusion decision is based on matched filter theory. In addition to the normal matched filter, the Laplacian matched filter which is directly related through the wavelet transforms to multiresolution analysis is exploited for microcalcification feature detection. At the multiresolution fusion stage, the region growing techniques are used in each resolution level. The parent-child relations between resolution levels are adopted to make final detection decision. FROC is computed from test on the Nijmegen database.

Climatic controls on hurricane patterns: a 1200-y near-annual record from Lighthouse Reef, Belize

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Denommee, K. C.; Bentley, S. J.; Droxler, A. W.

2014-01-01

Tropical cyclones (TCs) are powerful agents of destruction, and understanding climatic controls on TC patterns is of great importance. Over timescales of seasons to several decades, relationships among TC track, frequency, intensity and basin-scale climate changes are well documented by instrumental records. Over centuries to millennia, climate-shift influence on TC regimes remains poorly constrained. To better understand these relationships, records from multiple locations of TC strikes spanning millennia with high temporal resolution are required, but such records are rare. Here we report on a highly detailed sedimentary proxy record of paleo-TC strikes from the Blue Hole of Lighthouse Reef, Belize. Our findings provide an important addition to other high-resolution records, which collectively demonstrate that shifts between active and inactive TC regimes have occurred contemporaneously with shifts hemispheric-scale oceanic and atmospheric circulation patterns such as MDR SSTs and NAO mode, rather than with changes in local climate phenomena as has previously been suggested.

Multiplexed and scalable super-resolution imaging of three-dimensional protein localization in size-adjustable tissues.

PubMed

Ku, Taeyun; Swaney, Justin; Park, Jeong-Yoon; Albanese, Alexandre; Murray, Evan; Cho, Jae Hun; Park, Young-Gyun; Mangena, Vamsi; Chen, Jiapei; Chung, Kwanghun

2016-09-01

The biology of multicellular organisms is coordinated across multiple size scales, from the subnanoscale of molecules to the macroscale, tissue-wide interconnectivity of cell populations. Here we introduce a method for super-resolution imaging of the multiscale organization of intact tissues. The method, called magnified analysis of the proteome (MAP), linearly expands entire organs fourfold while preserving their overall architecture and three-dimensional proteome organization. MAP is based on the observation that preventing crosslinking within and between endogenous proteins during hydrogel-tissue hybridization allows for natural expansion upon protein denaturation and dissociation. The expanded tissue preserves its protein content, its fine subcellular details, and its organ-scale intercellular connectivity. We use off-the-shelf antibodies for multiple rounds of immunolabeling and imaging of a tissue's magnified proteome, and our experiments demonstrate a success rate of 82% (100/122 antibodies tested). We show that specimen size can be reversibly modulated to image both inter-regional connections and fine synaptic architectures in the mouse brain.

Cellular resolution maps of X-chromosome inactivation: implications for neural development, function, and disease

PubMed Central

Wu, Hao; Luo, Junjie; Yu, Huimin; Rattner, Amir; Mo, Alisa; Wang, Yanshu; Smallwood, Philip M.; Erlanger, Bracha; Wheelan, Sarah J.; Nathans, Jeremy

2014-01-01

Female eutherian mammals use X-chromosome inactivation (XCI) to epigenetically regulate gene expression from ~4% of genes. To quantitatively map the topography of XCI for defined cell types at single cell resolution, we have generated female mice that carry X-linked, Cre-activated, and nuclear-localized fluorescent reporters – GFP on one X-chromosome and tdTomato on the other. Using these reporters in combination with different Cre drivers we have defined the topographies of XCI mosaicism for multiple CNS cell types and of retinal vascular dysfunction in a model of Norrie Disease. Depending on cell type, fluctuations in the XCI mosaic are observed over a wide range of spatial scales, from neighboring cells to left vs. right sides of the body. These data imply a major role for XCI in generating female-specific, genetically directed, stochastic diversity in eutherian mammals on spatial scales that would be predicted to affect CNS function within and between individuals. PMID:24411735

Spatial and temporal connections in groundwater contribution to evaporation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lam, A.; Karssenberg, D.; van den Hurk, B. J. J. M.; Bierkens, M. F. P.

2011-02-01

In climate models, lateral terrestrial water fluxes are usually neglected. We estimated the contribution of vertical and lateral groundwater fluxes to the land surface water budget at a subcontinental scale, by modelling convergence of groundwater and surfacewater fluxes. We present a hydrological model of the entire Danube Basin at 5 km resolution, and use it to show the importance of groundwater for the surface climate. The contribution of groundwater to evaporation is significant, and can be upwards of 30% in summer. We show that this contribution is local by presenting the groundwater travel times and the magnitude of groundwater convergence. Throughout the Danube Basin the lateral fluxes of groundwater are negligible when modelling at this scale and resolution. Also, it is shown that the contribution of groundwater to evaporation has important temporal characteristics. An experiment with the same model shows that a wet episode influences groundwaters contribution to summer evaporation for several years afterwards. This indicates that modelling groundwater flow has the potential to augment the multi-year memory of climate models.

Impact of small-scale structures on estuarine circulation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liu, Zhuo; Zhang, Yinglong J.; Wang, Harry V.; Huang, Hai; Wang, Zhengui; Ye, Fei; Sisson, Mac

2018-05-01

We present a novel and challenging application of a 3D estuary-shelf model to the study of the collective impact of many small-scale structures (bridge pilings of 1 m × 2 m in size) on larger-scale circulation in a tributary (James River) of Chesapeake Bay. We first demonstrate that the model is capable of effectively transitioning grid resolution from 400 m down to 1 m near the pilings without introducing undue numerical artifact. We then show that despite their small sizes and collectively small area as compared to the total channel cross-sectional area, the pilings exert a noticeable impact on the large-scale circulation, and also create a rich structure of vortices and wakes around the pilings. As a result, the water quality and local sedimentation patterns near the bridge piling area are likely to be affected as well. However, when evaluating over the entire waterbody of the project area, the near field effects are weighed with the areal percentage which is small compared to that for the larger unaffected area, and therefore the impact on the lower James River as a whole becomes relatively insignificant. The study highlights the importance of the use of high resolution in assessing the near-field impact of structures.

3D Realistic Modeling of the Interaction of Quiet-Sun Magnetic Fields with the Chromosphere

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kitiashvili, I. N.; Kosovichev, A. G.; Mansour, N. N.; Wray, A. A.

2017-01-01

High-resolution observations and 3D simulations suggest that a local dynamo operates near the surface and produces ubiquitous small-scale magnetic elements, thus contributing to the magnetic carpet in the photosphere and to the magnetic structure and dynamics of the solar atmosphere. It appears that the traditional mechanisms of chromospheric energy and mass transport by acoustic waves and shocks are likely to play a secondary role; instead, the primary drivers in the energetics and dynamics of the chromosphere and transition region are small-scale, previously unresolved, quiet-Sun magnetic fields. These fields appear as ubiquitous, rapidly changing (on the scale of a few seconds), tiny magnetic loops and magnetized vortex tubes. Questions then arise about their origin and dynamics in the chromosphere, their links to magnetic fields in the photosphere, and their role in the energy storage and exchange between subsurface layers and the chromosphere. In the talk we will present results of 3D radiative MHD simulations obtained with the StellarBox code and discuss the energetics and dynamical interlinks between the subphotospheric layers and low chromosphere, their effects on the structure of the chromosphere, and signatures of the fine-scale magnetic features in high-resolution spectro-polarimetric observations.

Terrestrial Water Storage in African Hydrological Regimes Derived from GRACE Mission Data: Intercomparison of Spherical Harmonics, Mass Concentration, and Scalar Slepian Methods.

PubMed

Rateb, Ashraf; Kuo, Chung-Yen; Imani, Moslem; Tseng, Kuo-Hsin; Lan, Wen-Hau; Ching, Kuo-En; Tseng, Tzu-Pang

2017-03-10

Spherical harmonics (SH) and mascon solutions are the two most common types of solutions for Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) mass flux observations. However, SH signals are degraded by measurement and leakage errors. Mascon solutions (the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) release, herein) exhibit weakened signals at submascon resolutions. Both solutions require a scale factor examined by the CLM4.0 model to obtain the actual water storage signal. The Slepian localization method can avoid the SH leakage errors when applied to the basin scale. In this study, we estimate SH errors and scale factors for African hydrological regimes. Then, terrestrial water storage (TWS) in Africa is determined based on Slepian localization and compared with JPL-mascon and SH solutions. The three TWS estimates show good agreement for the TWS of large-sized and humid regimes but present discrepancies for the TWS of medium and small-sized regimes. Slepian localization is an effective method for deriving the TWS of arid zones. The TWS behavior in African regimes and its spatiotemporal variations are then examined. The negative TWS trends in the lower Nile and Sahara at -1.08 and -6.92 Gt/year, respectively, are higher than those previously reported.

Terrestrial Water Storage in African Hydrological Regimes Derived from GRACE Mission Data: Intercomparison of Spherical Harmonics, Mass Concentration, and Scalar Slepian Methods

PubMed Central

Rateb, Ashraf; Kuo, Chung-Yen; Imani, Moslem; Tseng, Kuo-Hsin; Lan, Wen-Hau; Ching, Kuo-En; Tseng, Tzu-Pang

2017-01-01

Spherical harmonics (SH) and mascon solutions are the two most common types of solutions for Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) mass flux observations. However, SH signals are degraded by measurement and leakage errors. Mascon solutions (the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) release, herein) exhibit weakened signals at submascon resolutions. Both solutions require a scale factor examined by the CLM4.0 model to obtain the actual water storage signal. The Slepian localization method can avoid the SH leakage errors when applied to the basin scale. In this study, we estimate SH errors and scale factors for African hydrological regimes. Then, terrestrial water storage (TWS) in Africa is determined based on Slepian localization and compared with JPL-mascon and SH solutions. The three TWS estimates show good agreement for the TWS of large-sized and humid regimes but present discrepancies for the TWS of medium and small-sized regimes. Slepian localization is an effective method for deriving the TWS of arid zones. The TWS behavior in African regimes and its spatiotemporal variations are then examined. The negative TWS trends in the lower Nile and Sahara at −1.08 and −6.92 Gt/year, respectively, are higher than those previously reported. PMID:28287453

The Australian National Airborne Field Experiment 2005: Soil Moisture Remote Sensing at 60 Meter Resolution and Up

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kim, E. J.; Walker, J. P.; Panciera, R.; Kalma, J. D.

2006-01-01

Spatially-distributed soil moisture observations have applications spanning a wide range of spatial resolutions from the very local needs of individual farmers to the progressively larger areas of interest to weather forecasters, water resource managers, and global climate modelers. To date, the most promising approach for space-based remote sensing of soil moisture makes use of passive microwave emission radiometers at L-band frequencies (1-2 GHz). Several soil moisture-sensing satellites have been proposed in recent years, with the European Space Agency's Soil Moisture Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission scheduled to be launched first in a couple years. While such a microwave-based approach has the advantage of essentially allweather operation, satellite size limits spatial resolution to 10's of km. Whether used at this native resolution or in conjunction with some type of downscaling technique to generate soil moisture estimates on a finer-scale grid, the effects of subpixel spatial variability play a critical role. The soil moisture variability is typically affected by factors such as vegetation, topography, surface roughness, and soil texture. Understanding and these factors is the key to achieving accurate soil moisture retrievals at any scale. Indeed, the ability to compensate for these factors ultimately limits the achievable spatial resolution and/or accuracy of the retrieval. Over the last 20 years, a series of airborne campaigns in the USA have supported the development of algorithms for spaceborne soil moisture retrieval. The most important observations involved imagery from passive microwave radiometers. The early campaigns proved that the retrieval worked for larger and larger footprints, up to satellite-scale footprints. These provided the solid basis for proposing the satellite missions. More recent campaigns have explored other aspects such as retrieval performance through greater amounts of vegetation. All of these campaigns featured extensive ground truth collection over a range of grid spacings, to provide a basis for examining the effects of subpixel variability. However, the native footprint size of the airborne L-band radiometers was always a few hundred meters. During the recently completed (November, 2005) National Airborne Field Experiment (NAFE) campaign in Australia, a compact L-band radiometer was deployed on a small aircraft. This new combination permitted routine observations at native resolutions as high as 60 meters, substantially finer than in previous airborne soil moisture campaigns, as well as satellite footprint areal coverage. The radiometer, the Polarimetric L-band Microwave Radiometer (PLMR) performed extremely well and operations included extensive calibration-related observations. Thus, along with the extensive fine-scale ground truth, the NAFE dataset includes all the ingredients for the first scaling studies involving very-high-native resolution soil moisture observations and the effects of vegetation, roughness, etc. A brief overview of the NAFE will be presented, then examples of the airborne observations with resolutions from 60 m to 1 km will be shown, and early results from scaling studies will be discussed.

An Examination of Drought-Induced Hydraulic Stress in Conifer Forests Using a Coupled Ecohydrologic Model.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Simeone, C.; Maneta, M. P.; Holden, Z. A.; Dobrowski, S.; Sala, A.

2017-12-01

Recent studies indicate that increases in drought stress due to climate change will increase forest mortality across the western U.S. Although ecohydrologic models used to study regional hydrologic stress response in forests have made rapid advances in recent years, they often incorporate simplified descriptions of the local hydrology, do not implement an explicit description of plant hydraulics, and do not permit to study the tradeoffs between frequency, intensity, and accumulation of hydrologic stress in vegetation. We use the spatially-distributed, mechanistic ecohydrologic model Ech2o, which effectively captures spatial variations in both hydrology, energy exchanges, and regional climate to simulate high-resolution tree hydraulics, estimating soil and leaf water potential, tree effective water conductance, and percent loss of conductivity in the xylem (PLC) at 250 meter resolution and sub-daily timestep across a topographically complex landscape. Tree hydraulics are simulated assuming a diffusive process in the soil-tree-atmosphere continuum. We use PLC to develop a vegetation dynamic stress index that scales plant-level processes to the landscape scale, and that takes into account the temporal accumulation of instantaneous hydraulic stress, growing season length, frequency and duration of drought periods, and plant drought tolerance. The resulting index is interpreted as the probability of drought induced tree mortality in a given location during the simulated period. We apply this index to regions of Northern Idaho and Western Montana. Results show that drought stress is highly spatially variable, sensitive to local-scale hydrologic and atmospheric conditions, and responsive to the recovery rate from individual hydraulic stress episodes.

Evaluation of interpolation techniques for the creation of gridded daily precipitation (1 × 1 km2); Cyprus, 1980-2010

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Camera, Corrado; Bruggeman, Adriana; Hadjinicolaou, Panos; Pashiardis, Stelios; Lange, Manfred A.

2014-01-01

High-resolution gridded daily data sets are essential for natural resource management and the analyses of climate changes and their effects. This study aims to evaluate the performance of 15 simple or complex interpolation techniques in reproducing daily precipitation at a resolution of 1 km2 over topographically complex areas. Methods are tested considering two different sets of observation densities and different rainfall amounts. We used rainfall data that were recorded at 74 and 145 observational stations, respectively, spread over the 5760 km2 of the Republic of Cyprus, in the Eastern Mediterranean. Regression analyses utilizing geographical copredictors and neighboring interpolation techniques were evaluated both in isolation and combined. Linear multiple regression (LMR) and geographically weighted regression methods (GWR) were tested. These included a step-wise selection of covariables, as well as inverse distance weighting (IDW), kriging, and 3D-thin plate splines (TPS). The relative rank of the different techniques changes with different station density and rainfall amounts. Our results indicate that TPS performs well for low station density and large-scale events and also when coupled with regression models. It performs poorly for high station density. The opposite is observed when using IDW. Simple IDW performs best for local events, while a combination of step-wise GWR and IDW proves to be the best method for large-scale events and high station density. This study indicates that the use of step-wise regression with a variable set of geographic parameters can improve the interpolation of large-scale events because it facilitates the representation of local climate dynamics.

Assessing uncertainty in high-resolution spatial climate data across the US Northeast.

PubMed

Bishop, Daniel A; Beier, Colin M

2013-01-01

Local and regional-scale knowledge of climate change is needed to model ecosystem responses, assess vulnerabilities and devise effective adaptation strategies. High-resolution gridded historical climate (GHC) products address this need, but come with multiple sources of uncertainty that are typically not well understood by data users. To better understand this uncertainty in a region with a complex climatology, we conducted a ground-truthing analysis of two 4 km GHC temperature products (PRISM and NRCC) for the US Northeast using 51 Cooperative Network (COOP) weather stations utilized by both GHC products. We estimated GHC prediction error for monthly temperature means and trends (1980-2009) across the US Northeast and evaluated any landscape effects (e.g., elevation, distance from coast) on those prediction errors. Results indicated that station-based prediction errors for the two GHC products were similar in magnitude, but on average, the NRCC product predicted cooler than observed temperature means and trends, while PRISM was cooler for means and warmer for trends. We found no evidence for systematic sources of uncertainty across the US Northeast, although errors were largest at high elevations. Errors in the coarse-scale (4 km) digital elevation models used by each product were correlated with temperature prediction errors, more so for NRCC than PRISM. In summary, uncertainty in spatial climate data has many sources and we recommend that data users develop an understanding of uncertainty at the appropriate scales for their purposes. To this end, we demonstrate a simple method for utilizing weather stations to assess local GHC uncertainty and inform decisions among alternative GHC products.

Multiscale 3D virtual dissections of 100-million-year-old flowers using X-ray synchrotron micro- and nanotomography.

PubMed

Moreau, Jean-David; Cloetens, Peter; Gomez, Bernard; Daviero-Gomez, Véronique; Néraudeau, Didier; Lafford, Tamzin A; Tafforeau, Paul

2014-02-01

A multiscale approach combining phase-contrast X-ray micro- and nanotomography is applied for imaging a Cretaceous fossil inflorescence in the resolution range from 0.75 μm to 50 nm. The wide range of scale views provides three-dimensional reconstructions from the external gross morphology of the inflorescence fragment to the finest exine sculptures of in situ pollen. This approach enables most of the characteristics usually observed under light microscopy, or with low magnification under scanning and transmission electron microscopy, to be obtained nondestructively. In contrast to previous tomography studies of fossil and extant flowers that used resolutions down to the micron range, we used voxels with a 50 nm side in local tomography scans. This high level of resolution enables systematic affinities of fossil flowers to be established without breaking or slicing specimens.

The structure of the interstellar medium at the 25 AU scale

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Diamond, P.J.; Goss, W.M.; Romney, J.D.

1989-12-01

A three-station VLBI Galactic H I absorption experiment has been carried out with baselines up to 600 km. The large collecting area of the European VLBI Network consisting of the Lovell Telescope (Mark Ia), the 100 m telescope at Effelsberg, and the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope was necessary to achieve adequate sensitivity for these high angular resolution (0.05 arcsec) and high-velocity resolution (0.5 km/s) observations. The extragalactic sources 3C 138, 3C 147, and 3C 380 were observed. Changes in the local H I apparent absorption were observed in all three sources as a function of resolution. The changes are mostmore » striking in the direction of 3C 138. The implied linear diameters are in the range 25 AU with typical H I densities of 10,000-100,000/cu cm. 19 refs.« less

In Situ Visualization of Block Copolymer Self‐Assembly in Organic Media by Super‐Resolution Fluorescence Microscopy

PubMed Central

Boott, Charlotte E.; Laine, Romain F.; Mahou, Pierre; Finnegan, John R.; Leitao, Erin M.

2015-01-01

Abstract Analytical methods that enable visualization of nanomaterials derived from solution self‐assembly processes in organic solvents are highly desirable. Herein, we demonstrate the use of stimulated emission depletion microscopy (STED) and single molecule localization microscopy (SMLM) to map living crystallization‐driven block copolymer (BCP) self‐assembly in organic media at the sub‐diffraction scale. Four different dyes were successfully used for single‐colour super‐resolution imaging of the BCP nanostructures allowing micelle length distributions to be determined in situ. Dual‐colour SMLM imaging was used to measure and compare the rate of addition of red fluorescent BCP to the termini of green fluorescent seed micelles to generate block comicelles. Although well‐established for aqueous systems, the results highlight the potential of super‐resolution microscopy techniques for the interrogation of self‐assembly processes in organic media. PMID:26477697

Nanoscale deformation analysis with high-resolution transmission electron microscopy and digital image correlation

DOE PAGES

Wang, Xueju; Pan, Zhipeng; Fan, Feifei; ...

2015-09-10

We present an application of the digital image correlation (DIC) method to high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) images for nanoscale deformation analysis. The combination of DIC and HRTEM offers both the ultrahigh spatial resolution and high displacement detection sensitivity that are not possible with other microscope-based DIC techniques. We demonstrate the accuracy and utility of the HRTEM-DIC technique through displacement and strain analysis on amorphous silicon. Two types of error sources resulting from the transmission electron microscopy (TEM) image noise and electromagnetic-lens distortions are quantitatively investigated via rigid-body translation experiments. The local and global DIC approaches are applied for themore » analysis of diffusion- and reaction-induced deformation fields in electrochemically lithiated amorphous silicon. As a result, the DIC technique coupled with HRTEM provides a new avenue for the deformation analysis of materials at the nanometer length scales.« less

A Bike Built for Magnetic Mapping

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Schattner, U.; Segev, A.; Lyakhovsky, V.

2017-12-01

Understanding the magnetic signature of the subsurface geology is crucial for structural, groundwater, earthquake propagation, and mineral studies. The cheapest measuring method is by walking with sensors. This approach yields high-resolution maps, yet its coverage is limited. We invented a new design that records magnetic data while riding a bicycle. The new concept offers an efficient, low-cost method of collecting high-resolution ground magnetic field data over rough terrain where conventional vehicles dare not venture. It improves the efficiency of the traditional method by more than five times. The Bike-magnetic scales up ground magnetism from a localized site survey to regional coverage. By now we covered 3300 square KM (about the size of Rhode Island) across northern Israel, in profile spacing of 1-2 km. Initial Total Magnetic Intensity maps reveal a myriad of new features that were not detected by the low-resolution regional aeromagnetic survey that collected data from 1000 m height.

Rapid mapping of polarization switching through complete information acquisition

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Somnath, Suhas; Belianinov, Alex; Kalinin, Sergei V.; Jesse, Stephen

2016-12-01

Polarization switching in ferroelectric and multiferroic materials underpins a broad range of current and emergent applications, ranging from random access memories to field-effect transistors, and tunnelling devices. Switching in these materials is exquisitely sensitive to local defects and microstructure on the nanometre scale, necessitating spatially resolved high-resolution studies of these phenomena. Classical piezoresponse force microscopy and spectroscopy, although providing necessary spatial resolution, are fundamentally limited in data acquisition rates and energy resolution. This limitation stems from their two-tiered measurement protocol that combines slow (~1 s) switching and fast (~10 kHz-1 MHz) detection waveforms. Here we develop an approach for rapid probing of ferroelectric switching using direct strain detection of material response to probe bias. This approach, facilitated by high-sensitivity electronics and adaptive filtering, enables spectroscopic imaging at a rate 3,504 times faster the current state of the art, achieving high-veracity imaging of polarization dynamics in complex microstructures.

Multi-resolution anisotropy studies of ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays detected at the Pierre Auger Observatory

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Aab, A.; Abreu, P.; Aglietta, M.; Samarai, I. Al; Albuquerque, I. F. M.; Allekotte, I.; Almela, A.; Alvarez Castillo, J.; Alvarez-Muñiz, J.; Anastasi, G. A.; Anchordoqui, L.; Andrada, B.; Andringa, S.; Aramo, C.; Arqueros, F.; Arsene, N.; Asorey, H.; Assis, P.; Aublin, J.; Avila, G.; Badescu, A. M.; Balaceanu, A.; Barreira Luz, R. J.; Baus, C.; Beatty, J. J.; Becker, K. H.; Bellido, J. A.; Berat, C.; Bertaina, M. E.; Bertou, X.; Biermann, P. L.; Billoir, P.; Biteau, J.; Blaess, S. G.; Blanco, A.; Blazek, J.; Bleve, C.; Boháčová, M.; Boncioli, D.; Bonifazi, C.; Borodai, N.; Botti, A. M.; Brack, J.; Brancus, I.; Bretz, T.; Bridgeman, A.; Briechle, F. L.; Buchholz, P.; Bueno, A.; Buitink, S.; Buscemi, M.; Caballero-Mora, K. S.; Caccianiga, L.; Cancio, A.; Canfora, F.; Caramete, L.; Caruso, R.; Castellina, A.; Cataldi, G.; Cazon, L.; Chavez, A. G.; Chinellato, J. A.; Chudoba, J.; Clay, R. W.; Colalillo, R.; Coleman, A.; Collica, L.; Coluccia, M. R.; Conceição, R.; Contreras, F.; Cooper, M. J.; Coutu, S.; Covault, C. E.; Cronin, J.; D'Amico, S.; Daniel, B.; Dasso, S.; Daumiller, K.; Dawson, B. R.; de Almeida, R. M.; de Jong, S. J.; De Mauro, G.; de Mello Neto, J. R. T.; De Mitri, I.; de Oliveira, J.; de Souza, V.; Debatin, J.; Deligny, O.; Di Giulio, C.; Di Matteo, A.; Díaz Castro, M. L.; Diogo, F.; Dobrigkeit, C.; D'Olivo, J. C.; dos Anjos, R. C.; Dova, M. T.; Dundovic, A.; Ebr, J.; Engel, R.; Erdmann, M.; Erfani, M.; Escobar, C. O.; Espadanal, J.; Etchegoyen, A.; Falcke, H.; Farrar, G.; Fauth, A. C.; Fazzini, N.; Fick, B.; Figueira, J. M.; Filipčič, A.; Fratu, O.; Freire, M. M.; Fujii, T.; Fuster, A.; Gaior, R.; García, B.; Garcia-Pinto, D.; Gaté, F.; Gemmeke, H.; Gherghel-Lascu, A.; Ghia, P. L.; Giaccari, U.; Giammarchi, M.; Giller, M.; Głas, D.; Glaser, C.; Golup, G.; Gómez Berisso, M.; Gómez Vitale, P. F.; González, N.; Gorgi, A.; Gorham, P.; Gouffon, P.; Grillo, A. F.; Grubb, T. D.; Guarino, F.; Guedes, G. P.; Hampel, M. R.; Hansen, P.; Harari, D.; Harrison, T. A.; Harton, J. L.; Hasankiadeh, Q.; Haungs, A.; Hebbeker, T.; Heck, D.; Heimann, P.; Herve, A. E.; Hill, G. C.; Hojvat, C.; Holt, E.; Homola, P.; Hörandel, J. R.; Horvath, P.; Hrabovský, M.; Huege, T.; Hulsman, J.; Insolia, A.; Isar, P. G.; Jandt, I.; Jansen, S.; Johnsen, J. A.; Josebachuili, M.; Kääpä, A.; Kambeitz, O.; Kampert, K. H.; Katkov, I.; Keilhauer, B.; Kemp, E.; Kemp, J.; Kieckhafer, R. M.; Klages, H. O.; Kleifges, M.; Kleinfeller, J.; Krause, R.; Krohm, N.; Kuempel, D.; Kukec Mezek, G.; Kunka, N.; Kuotb Awad, A.; LaHurd, D.; Lauscher, M.; Legumina, R.; Leigui de Oliveira, M. A.; Letessier-Selvon, A.; Lhenry-Yvon, I.; Link, K.; Lopes, L.; López, R.; López Casado, A.; Luce, Q.; Lucero, A.; Malacari, M.; Mallamaci, M.; Mandat, D.; Mantsch, P.; Mariazzi, A. G.; Mariş, I. C.; Marsella, G.; Martello, D.; Martinez, H.; Martínez Bravo, O.; Masías Meza, J. J.; Mathes, H. J.; Mathys, S.; Matthews, J.; Matthews, J. A. J.; Matthiae, G.; Mayotte, E.; Mazur, P. O.; Medina, C.; Medina-Tanco, G.; Melo, D.; Menshikov, A.; Messina, S.; Micheletti, M. I.; Middendorf, L.; Minaya, I. A.; Miramonti, L.; Mitrica, B.; Mockler, D.; Mollerach, S.; Montanet, F.; Morello, C.; Mostafá, M.; Müller, A. L.; Müller, G.; Muller, M. A.; Müller, S.; Mussa, R.; Naranjo, I.; Nellen, L.; Nguyen, P. H.; Niculescu-Oglinzanu, M.; Niechciol, M.; Niemietz, L.; Niggemann, T.; Nitz, D.; Nosek, D.; Novotny, V.; Nožka, H.; Núñez, L. A.; Ochilo, L.; Oikonomou, F.; Olinto, A.; Pakk Selmi-Dei, D.; Palatka, M.; Pallotta, J.; Papenbreer, P.; Parente, G.; Parra, A.; Paul, T.; Pech, M.; Pedreira, F.; Pȩkala, J.; Pelayo, R.; Peña-Rodriguez, J.; Pereira, L. A. S.; Perlín, M.; Perrone, L.; Peters, C.; Petrera, S.; Phuntsok, J.; Piegaia, R.; Pierog, T.; Pieroni, P.; Pimenta, M.; Pirronello, V.; Platino, M.; Plum, M.; Porowski, C.; Prado, R. R.; Privitera, P.; Prouza, M.; Quel, E. J.; Querchfeld, S.; Quinn, S.; Ramos-Pollan, R.; Rautenberg, J.; Ravignani, D.; Revenu, B.; Ridky, J.; Risse, M.; Ristori, P.; Rizi, V.; Rodrigues de Carvalho, W.; Rodriguez Fernandez, G.; Rodriguez Rojo, J.; Rogozin, D.; Roncoroni, M. J.; Roth, M.; Roulet, E.; Rovero, A. C.; Ruehl, P.; Saffi, S. J.; Saftoiu, A.; Salazar, H.; Saleh, A.; Salesa Greus, F.; Salina, G.; Sánchez, F.; Sanchez-Lucas, P.; Santos, E. M.; Santos, E.; Sarazin, F.; Sarmento, R.; Sarmiento, C. A.; Sato, R.; Schauer, M.; Scherini, V.; Schieler, H.; Schimp, M.; Schmidt, D.; Scholten, O.; Schovánek, P.; Schröder, F. G.; Schulz, A.; Schulz, J.; Schumacher, J.; Sciutto, S. J.; Segreto, A.; Settimo, M.; Shadkam, A.; Shellard, R. C.; Sigl, G.; Silli, G.; Sima, O.; Śmiałkowski, A.; Šmída, R.; Snow, G. R.; Sommers, P.; Sonntag, S.; Sorokin, J.; Squartini, R.; Stanca, D.; Stanič, S.; Stasielak, J.; Stassi, P.; Strafella, F.; Suarez, F.; Suarez Durán, M.; Sudholz, T.; Suomijärvi, T.; Supanitsky, A. D.; Swain, J.; Szadkowski, Z.; Taboada, A.; Taborda, O. A.; Tapia, A.; Theodoro, V. M.; Timmermans, C.; Todero Peixoto, C. J.; Tomankova, L.; Tomé, B.; Torralba Elipe, G.; Torri, M.; Travnicek, P.; Trini, M.; Ulrich, R.; Unger, M.; Urban, M.; Valdés Galicia, J. F.; Valiño, I.; Valore, L.; van Aar, G.; van Bodegom, P.; van den Berg, A. M.; van Vliet, A.; Varela, E.; Vargas Cárdenas, B.; Varner, G.; Vázquez, J. R.; Vázquez, R. A.; Veberič, D.; Vergara Quispe, I. D.; Verzi, V.; Vicha, J.; Villaseñor, L.; Vorobiov, S.; Wahlberg, H.; Wainberg, O.; Walz, D.; Watson, A. A.; Weber, M.; Weindl, A.; Wiencke, L.; Wilczyński, H.; Winchen, T.; Wittkowski, D.; Wundheiler, B.; Yang, L.; Yelos, D.; Yushkov, A.; Zas, E.; Zavrtanik, D.; Zavrtanik, M.; Zepeda, A.; Zimmermann, B.; Ziolkowski, M.; Zong, Z.; Zuccarello, F.

2017-06-01

We report a multi-resolution search for anisotropies in the arrival directions of cosmic rays detected at the Pierre Auger Observatory with local zenith angles up to 80o and energies in excess of 4 EeV (4 × 1018 eV). This search is conducted by measuring the angular power spectrum and performing a needlet wavelet analysis in two independent energy ranges. Both analyses are complementary since the angular power spectrum achieves a better performance in identifying large-scale patterns while the needlet wavelet analysis, considering the parameters used in this work, presents a higher efficiency in detecting smaller-scale anisotropies, potentially providing directional information on any observed anisotropies. No deviation from isotropy is observed on any angular scale in the energy range between 4 and 8 EeV. Above 8 EeV, an indication for a dipole moment is captured; while no other deviation from isotropy is observed for moments beyond the dipole one. The corresponding p-values obtained after accounting for searches blindly performed at several angular scales, are 1.3 × 10-5 in the case of the angular power spectrum, and 2.5 × 10-3 in the case of the needlet analysis. While these results are consistent with previous reports making use of the same data set, they provide extensions of the previous works through the thorough scans of the angular scales.

Full-waveform inversion of Crosshole GPR data: Implications for porosity estimation in chalk

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Keskinen, Johanna; Klotzsche, Anja; Looms, Majken C.; Moreau, Julien; van der Kruk, Jan; Holliger, Klaus; Stemmerik, Lars; Nielsen, Lars

2017-05-01

The Maastrichtian-Danian chalk is a widely distributed hydrocarbon and groundwater reservoir rock in north-western Europe. Knowledge of lateral and vertical heterogeneity and porosity variation in this type of rock is essential, since they critically determine the reservoir properties. We have collected a densely sampled crosshole ground-penetrating radar (GPR) dataset from a highly heterogeneous section of the chalk and inverted it with a full-waveform inversion (FWI) approach. To date, successful crosshole FWI has only been reported for a handful of GPR field data, none of which include strongly heterogeneous environments like the one considered in this study. Testing different starting models shows that all FWI results converge to very similar subsurface structures indicating that the results are robust with regard to local variations in the permittivity starting models and are not very sensitive to the conductivity starting models. Compared to their ray-based counterparts, the obtained FWI models show significantly higher resolution and improved localization of fine-scale heterogeneity. The final FWI permittivity tomogram was converted to a bulk porosity model using the Complex Refractive Index Model (CRIM) and comparisons with plug sample porosities and televiewer image logs verify that variations in the obtained permittivity are related to facies and lithology changes. The inferred porosity varies from 30 to 54%, which is consistent with values in the chalk cores from the investigated boreholes and in agreement with other studies conducted in similar rocks onshore. Moreover, porosities vary significantly over scales of less than a meter both laterally and vertically. The FWI constrains porosity variation with decimeter scale resolution in our 5 m (horizontally) by 10 m (vertically) model section bridging the gap between what is measured on the core sample scale and the scale typical of hydrogeophysical field experiments conducted to characterize fluid flow in the subsurface. The results provide complementary knowledge to traditional chalk reservoir characterization.

Ocean Mixed Layer responses to intense meteorological events during HyMeX-SOP1 from a high-resolution ocean simulation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lebeaupin Brossier, Cindy; Arsouze, Thomas; Béranger, Karine; Bouin, Marie-Noëlle; Bresson, Emilie; Ducrocq, Véronique; Giordani, Hervé; Nuret, Mathieu; Rainaud, Romain; Taupier-Letage, Isabelle

2014-12-01

The western Mediterranean Sea is a source of heat and humidity for the atmospheric low-levels in autumn. Large exchanges take place at the air-sea interface, especially during intense meteorological events, such as heavy precipitation and/or strong winds. The Ocean Mixed Layer (OML), which is quite thin at this time of year (∼ 20 m-depth), evolves rapidly under such intense fluxes. This study investigates the ocean responses under intense meteorological events that occurred during HyMeX SOP1 (5 September-6 November 2012). The OML conditions and tendencies are derived from a high-resolution ocean simulation using the sub-regional eddy-resolving NEMO-WMED36 model (1/36°-resolution), driven at the surface by hourly air-sea fluxes from the AROME-WMED forecasts (2.5 km-resolution). The high space-time resolution of the atmospheric forcing allows the highly variable surface fluxes, which induce rapid changes in the OML, to be well represented and linked to small-scale atmospheric processes. First, the simulation results are compared to ocean profiles from several platforms obtained during the campaign. Then, this study focuses on the short-term OML evolution during three events. In particular, we examine the OML cooling and mixing under strong wind events, potentially associated with upwelling, as well as the surface freshening under heavy precipitation events, producing low-salinity lenses. Tendencies demonstrate the major role of the surface forcing in the temperature and/or salinity anomaly formation. At the same time, mixing [restratification] rapidly occurs. As expected, the sign of this tendency term is very dependent on the local vertical stratification which varies at fine scale in the Mediterranean. It also controls [disables] the vertical propagation. In the Alboran Sea, the strong dynamics redistribute the OML anomalies, sometimes up to 7 days after their formation. Elsewhere, despite local amplitude modulations due to internal wave excitation by strong winds, the integrated effect of the horizontal advection is almost null on the anomalies' spread and decay. Finally, diffusion has a small contribution.

Toward multiscale modelings of grain-fluid systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chareyre, Bruno; Yuan, Chao; Montella, Eduard P.; Salager, Simon

2017-06-01

Computationally efficient methods have been developed for simulating partially saturated granular materials in the pendular regime. In contrast, one hardly avoid expensive direct resolutions of 2-phase fluid dynamics problem for mixed pendular-funicular situations or even saturated regimes. Following previous developments for single-phase flow, a pore-network approach of the coupling problems is described. The geometry and movements of phases and interfaces are described on the basis of a tetrahedrization of the pore space, introducing elementary objects such as bridge, meniscus, pore body and pore throat, together with local rules of evolution. As firmly established local rules are still missing on some aspects (entry capillary pressure and pore-scale pressure-saturation relations, forces on the grains, or kinetics of transfers in mixed situations) a multi-scale numerical framework is introduced, enhancing the pore-network approach with the help of direct simulations. Small subsets of a granular system are extracted, in which multiphase scenario are solved using the Lattice-Boltzman method (LBM). In turns, a global problem is assembled and solved at the network scale, as illustrated by a simulated primary drainage.

A Heuristic Approach to Global Landslide Susceptibility Mapping

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Stanley, Thomas; Kirschbaum, Dalia B.

2017-01-01

Landslides can have significant and pervasive impacts to life and property around the world. Several attempts have been made to predict the geographic distribution of landslide activity at continental and global scales. These efforts shared common traits such as resolution, modeling approach, and explanatory variables. The lessons learned from prior research have been applied to build a new global susceptibility map from existing and previously unavailable data. Data on slope, faults, geology, forest loss, and road networks were combined using a heuristic fuzzy approach. The map was evaluated with a Global Landslide Catalog developed at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, as well as several local landslide inventories. Comparisons to similar susceptibility maps suggest that the subjective methods commonly used at this scale are, for the most part, reproducible. However, comparisons of landslide susceptibility across spatial scales must take into account the susceptibility of the local subset relative to the larger study area. The new global landslide susceptibility map is intended for use in disaster planning, situational awareness, and for incorporation into global decision support systems.

Nano-fEM: protein localization using photo-activated localization microscopy and electron microscopy.

PubMed

Watanabe, Shigeki; Richards, Jackson; Hollopeter, Gunther; Hobson, Robert J; Davis, Wayne M; Jorgensen, Erik M

2012-12-03

Mapping the distribution of proteins is essential for understanding the function of proteins in a cell. Fluorescence microscopy is extensively used for protein localization, but subcellular context is often absent in fluorescence images. Immuno-electron microscopy, on the other hand, can localize proteins, but the technique is limited by a lack of compatible antibodies, poor preservation of morphology and because most antigens are not exposed to the specimen surface. Correlative approaches can acquire the fluorescence image from a whole cell first, either from immuno-fluorescence or genetically tagged proteins. The sample is then fixed and embedded for electron microscopy, and the images are correlated (1-3). However, the low-resolution fluorescence image and the lack of fiducial markers preclude the precise localization of proteins. Alternatively, fluorescence imaging can be done after preserving the specimen in plastic. In this approach, the block is sectioned, and fluorescence images and electron micrographs of the same section are correlated (4-7). However, the diffraction limit of light in the correlated image obscures the locations of individual molecules, and the fluorescence often extends beyond the boundary of the cell. Nano-resolution fluorescence electron microscopy (nano-fEM) is designed to localize proteins at nano-scale by imaging the same sections using photo-activated localization microscopy (PALM) and electron microscopy. PALM overcomes the diffraction limit by imaging individual fluorescent proteins and subsequently mapping the centroid of each fluorescent spot (8-10). We outline the nano-fEM technique in five steps. First, the sample is fixed and embedded using conditions that preserve the fluorescence of tagged proteins. Second, the resin blocks are sectioned into ultrathin segments (70-80 nm) that are mounted on a cover glass. Third, fluorescence is imaged in these sections using the Zeiss PALM microscope. Fourth, electron dense structures are imaged in these same sections using a scanning electron microscope. Fifth, the fluorescence and electron micrographs are aligned using gold particles as fiducial markers. In summary, the subcellular localization of fluorescently tagged proteins can be determined at nanometer resolution in approximately one week.

Carbon-Nanotube-Based Electrodes for Biomedical Applications

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Li, Jun; Meyyappan, M.

2008-01-01

A nanotube array based on vertically aligned nanotubes or carbon nanofibers has been invented for use in localized electrical stimulation and recording of electrical responses in selected regions of an animal body, especially including the brain. There are numerous established, emerging, and potential applications for localized electrical stimulation and/or recording, including treatment of Parkinson s disease, Tourette s syndrome, and chronic pain, and research on electrochemical effects involved in neurotransmission. Carbon-nanotube-based electrodes offer potential advantages over metal macroelectrodes (having diameters of the order of a millimeter) and microelectrodes (having various diameters ranging down to tens of microns) heretofore used in such applications. These advantages include the following: a) Stimuli and responses could be localized at finer scales of spatial and temporal resolution, which is at subcellular level, with fewer disturbances to, and less interference from, adjacent regions. b) There would be less risk of hemorrhage on implantation because nano-electrode-based probe tips could be configured to be less traumatic. c) Being more biocompatible than are metal electrodes, carbon-nanotube-based electrodes and arrays would be more suitable for long-term or permanent implantation. d) Unlike macro- and microelectrodes, a nano-electrode could penetrate a cell membrane with minimal disruption. Thus, for example, a nanoelectrode could be used to generate an action potential inside a neuron or in proximity of an active neuron zone. Such stimulation may be much more effective than is extra- or intracellular stimulation via a macro- or microelectrode. e) The large surface area of an array at a micron-scale footprint of non-insulated nanoelectrodes coated with a suitable electrochemically active material containing redox ingredients would make it possible to obtain a pseudocapacitance large enough to dissipate a relatively large amount of electric charge, so that a large stimulation current could be applied at a micron-scale region without exhausting the redox ingredients. f) Carbon nanotube array is more compatible with the three-dimensional network of tissues. Particularly, a better electrical-neural interface can be formed. g) A carbon nanotube array inlaid in insulating materials with only the ends exposed is an extremely sensitive electro-analysis tool that can measure the local neurotransmitter signal at extremely high sensitivity and temporal resolution.

Mapping Photoemission and Hot-Electron Emission from Plasmonic Nanoantennas

DOE PAGES

Hobbs, Richard G.; Putnam, William P.; Fallahi, Arya; ...

2017-09-19

Understanding plasmon-mediated electron emission and energy transfer on the nanometer length scale is critical to controlling light–matter interactions at nanoscale dimensions. In a high-resolution lithographic material, electron emission and energy transfer lead to chemical transformations. Here, we employ such chemical transformations in two different high-resolution electron-beam lithography resists, poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) and hydrogen silsesquioxane (HSQ), to map local electron emission and energy transfer with nanometer resolution from plasmonic nanoantennas excited by femtosecond laser pulses. We observe exposure of the electron-beam resists (both PMMA and HSQ) in regions on the surface of nanoantennas where the local field is significantly enhanced. Exposuremore » in these regions is consistent with previously reported optical-field-controlled electron emission from plasmonic hotspots as well as earlier work on low-electron-energy scanning probe lithography. For HSQ, in addition to exposure in hotspots, we observe resist exposure at the centers of rod-shaped nanoantennas in addition to exposure in plasmonic hotspots. Optical field enhancement is minimized at the center of nanorods suggesting that exposure in these regions involves a different mechanism to that in plasmonic hotspots. Our simulations suggest that exposure at the center of nanorods results from the emission of hot electrons produced via plasmon decay in the nanorods. Our results provide a means to map both optical-field-controlled electron emission and hot-electron transfer from nanoparticles via chemical transformations produced locally in lithographic materials.« less

Mapping Photoemission and Hot-Electron Emission from Plasmonic Nanoantennas

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Hobbs, Richard G.; Putnam, William P.; Fallahi, Arya

Understanding plasmon-mediated electron emission and energy transfer on the nanometer length scale is critical to controlling light–matter interactions at nanoscale dimensions. In a high-resolution lithographic material, electron emission and energy transfer lead to chemical transformations. Here, we employ such chemical transformations in two different high-resolution electron-beam lithography resists, poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) and hydrogen silsesquioxane (HSQ), to map local electron emission and energy transfer with nanometer resolution from plasmonic nanoantennas excited by femtosecond laser pulses. We observe exposure of the electron-beam resists (both PMMA and HSQ) in regions on the surface of nanoantennas where the local field is significantly enhanced. Exposuremore » in these regions is consistent with previously reported optical-field-controlled electron emission from plasmonic hotspots as well as earlier work on low-electron-energy scanning probe lithography. For HSQ, in addition to exposure in hotspots, we observe resist exposure at the centers of rod-shaped nanoantennas in addition to exposure in plasmonic hotspots. Optical field enhancement is minimized at the center of nanorods suggesting that exposure in these regions involves a different mechanism to that in plasmonic hotspots. Our simulations suggest that exposure at the center of nanorods results from the emission of hot electrons produced via plasmon decay in the nanorods. Our results provide a means to map both optical-field-controlled electron emission and hot-electron transfer from nanoparticles via chemical transformations produced locally in lithographic materials.« less

Multiscaling of vegetative indexes from remote sensing images obtained at different spatial resolutions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Alonso, Carmelo; Tarquis, Ana M.; Zuñiga, Ignacio; Benito, Rosa M.

2017-04-01

Vegetation indexes, such as Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and enhanced Vegetation index (EVI), can been used to estimate root zone soil moisture through high resolution remote sensing images. These indexes are based in red (R), near infrared (NIR) and blue (B) wavelengths data. In this work we have studied the scaling properties of both vegetation indexes analyzing the information contained in two satellite data: Landsat-7 and Ikonos. Because of the potential capacity for systematic observations at various scales, remote sensing technology extends possible data archives from present time to over several decades back. For this advantage, enormous efforts have been made by researchers and application specialists to delineate vegetation indexes from local scale to global scale by applying remote sensing imagery. To study the influence of the spatial resolution the vegetation indexes map estimated with Ikonos-2 coded in 8 bits, with a resolution of 4m, have been compared through a multifractal analysis with the ones obtained with Lansat-7 8 bits, of 30 m. resolution, on the same area of study. The scaling behaviour of NDVI and EVI presents several differences that will be discussed based on the multifractal parameters extracted from the analysis. REFERENCES Alonso, C., Tarquis, A. M., Benito, R. M. and Zuñiga, I. Correlation scaling properties between soil moisture and vegetation indices. Geophysical Research Abstracts, 11, EGU2009-13932, 2009. Alonso, C., Tarquis, A. M. and Benito, R. M. Comparison of fractal dimensions based on segmented NDVI fields obtained from different remote sensors. Geophysical Research Abstracts, 14, EGU2012-14342, 2012. Escribano Rodriguez, J., Alonso, C., Tarquis, A.M., Benito, R.M. and Hernandez Diaz-Ambrona, C. Comparison of NDVI fields obtained from different remote sensors. Geophysical Research Abstracts,15, EGU2013-14153, 2013. Lovejoy, S., Tarquis, A., Gaonac'h, H. and Schertzer, D. Single and multiscale remote sensing techniques, multifractals and MODIS derived vegetation and soil moisture, Vadose Zone J., 7, 533-546, 2008. Renosh, P. R., Schmitt, F. G., and Loisel, H.: Scaling analysis of ocean surface turbulent heterogeneities from satellite remote sensing: use of 2D structure functions. PLoS ONE, 10, e0126975, 2015. Tarquis, A.M., Platonov, A., Matulka, A., Grau, J., Sekula, E., Diez, M. and Redondo J. M. Application of multifractal analysis to the study of SAR features and oil spills on the ocean surface. Nonlin. Processes Geophys., 21, 439-450, 2014.

Tensor scale: An analytic approach with efficient computation and applications☆

PubMed Central

Xu, Ziyue; Saha, Punam K.; Dasgupta, Soura

2015-01-01

Scale is a widely used notion in computer vision and image understanding that evolved in the form of scale-space theory where the key idea is to represent and analyze an image at various resolutions. Recently, we introduced a notion of local morphometric scale referred to as “tensor scale” using an ellipsoidal model that yields a unified representation of structure size, orientation and anisotropy. In the previous work, tensor scale was described using a 2-D algorithmic approach and a precise analytic definition was missing. Also, the application of tensor scale in 3-D using the previous framework is not practical due to high computational complexity. In this paper, an analytic definition of tensor scale is formulated for n-dimensional (n-D) images that captures local structure size, orientation and anisotropy. Also, an efficient computational solution in 2- and 3-D using several novel differential geometric approaches is presented and the accuracy of results is experimentally examined. Also, a matrix representation of tensor scale is derived facilitating several operations including tensor field smoothing to capture larger contextual knowledge. Finally, the applications of tensor scale in image filtering and n-linear interpolation are presented and the performance of their results is examined in comparison with respective state-of-art methods. Specifically, the performance of tensor scale based image filtering is compared with gradient and Weickert’s structure tensor based diffusive filtering algorithms. Also, the performance of tensor scale based n-linear interpolation is evaluated in comparison with standard n-linear and windowed-sinc interpolation methods. PMID:26236148

Quantification of DNA-associated proteins inside eukaryotic cells using single-molecule localization microscopy

PubMed Central

Etheridge, Thomas J.; Boulineau, Rémi L.; Herbert, Alex; Watson, Adam T.; Daigaku, Yasukazu; Tucker, Jem; George, Sophie; Jönsson, Peter; Palayret, Matthieu; Lando, David; Laue, Ernest; Osborne, Mark A.; Klenerman, David; Lee, Steven F.; Carr, Antony M.

2014-01-01

Development of single-molecule localization microscopy techniques has allowed nanometre scale localization accuracy inside cells, permitting the resolution of ultra-fine cell structure and the elucidation of crucial molecular mechanisms. Application of these methodologies to understanding processes underlying DNA replication and repair has been limited to defined in vitro biochemical analysis and prokaryotic cells. In order to expand these techniques to eukaryotic systems, we have further developed a photo-activated localization microscopy-based method to directly visualize DNA-associated proteins in unfixed eukaryotic cells. We demonstrate that motion blurring of fluorescence due to protein diffusivity can be used to selectively image the DNA-bound population of proteins. We designed and tested a simple methodology and show that it can be used to detect changes in DNA binding of a replicative helicase subunit, Mcm4, and the replication sliding clamp, PCNA, between different stages of the cell cycle and between distinct genetic backgrounds. PMID:25106872

Complex submarine landsliding processes caused by subduction of large seamounts along the Middle America Trench

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Harders, Rieka; Ranero, Cesar R.; Weinrebe, Wilhelm; von Huene, Roland

2014-05-01

Subduction of kms-tall and tens-of-km wide seamounts cause important landsliding events at subduction zones around the word. Along the Middle America Trench, previous work based on regional swath bathymetry maps (with 100 m grids) and multichannel seismic images have shown that seamount subduction produces large-scale slumping and sliding. Some of the mass wasting event may have been catastrophic and numerical modeling has indicated that they may have produced important local tsunamis. We have re-evaluated the structure of several active submarine landlide complexes caused by large seamount subduction using side scan sonar data. The comparison of the side scan sonar data to local high-resolution bathymetry grids indicates that the backscatter data has a resolution that is somewhat similar to that produced by a 10 m bathymetry grid. Although this is an arbitrary comparison, the side scan sonar data provides comparatively much higher resolution information than the previously used regional multibeam bathymetry. We have mapped the geometry and relief of the head and side walls of the complexes, the distribution of scars and the different sediment deposits to produce a new interpretation of the modes of landsliding during subduction of large seamounts. The new higher resolution information shows that landsliding processes are considerably more complex than formerly assumed. Landslides are of notably smaller dimensions that the lower resolution data had previously appear to indicate. However, significantly large events may have occur far more often than earlier interpretations had inferred representing a more common threat that previously assumed.

Bayesian demosaicing using Gaussian scale mixture priors with local adaptivity in the dual tree complex wavelet packet transform domain

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Goossens, Bart; Aelterman, Jan; Luong, Hiep; Pizurica, Aleksandra; Philips, Wilfried

2013-02-01

In digital cameras and mobile phones, there is an ongoing trend to increase the image resolution, decrease the sensor size and to use lower exposure times. Because smaller sensors inherently lead to more noise and a worse spatial resolution, digital post-processing techniques are required to resolve many of the artifacts. Color filter arrays (CFAs), which use alternating patterns of color filters, are very popular because of price and power consumption reasons. However, color filter arrays require the use of a post-processing technique such as demosaicing to recover full resolution RGB images. Recently, there has been some interest in techniques that jointly perform the demosaicing and denoising. This has the advantage that the demosaicing and denoising can be performed optimally (e.g. in the MSE sense) for the considered noise model, while avoiding artifacts introduced when using demosaicing and denoising sequentially. In this paper, we will continue the research line of the wavelet-based demosaicing techniques. These approaches are computationally simple and very suited for combination with denoising. Therefore, we will derive Bayesian Minimum Squared Error (MMSE) joint demosaicing and denoising rules in the complex wavelet packet domain, taking local adaptivity into account. As an image model, we will use Gaussian Scale Mixtures, thereby taking advantage of the directionality of the complex wavelets. Our results show that this technique is well capable of reconstructing fine details in the image, while removing all of the noise, at a relatively low computational cost. In particular, the complete reconstruction (including color correction, white balancing etc) of a 12 megapixel RAW image takes 3.5 sec on a recent mid-range GPU.

Psychological Intervention in Primary Care After Earthquakes in Lorca, Spain

PubMed Central

Garriga, Ascensión; Egea, Carmen

2015-01-01

Objective: After the earthquakes that occurred in Lorca, Spain, on May 11, 2011, the regional mental health management employed 2 clinical psychologists for 6 months to provide care to people referred by primary care physicians. The objective was to address the expected increased demand for treatment of mental disorders, notably posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and adjustment disorders. Method: Referred individuals were evaluated and treated according to a clinical protocol designed ad hoc from June 12, 2011, to November 30, 2011. The protocol provided a stepped intervention guided by clinical and psychometric assessment using “normalization” for those with no psychiatric diagnosis, brief group treatment for mild to moderate PTSD or adjustment disorders, individual treatment for more severe PTSD, and referral to the local mental health center for other mental health disorders. Standard adult and child scales to assess posttraumatic, depression, and anxiety symptoms and resilience were used at initial assessment to guide treatment allocation and repeated to assess outcome status. Psychologists also provided a clinical assessment of symptom resolution at the end of the study. Results: Rates of symptom resolution and improvements on all scales (PTSD, depression, anxiety, and resilience) demonstrated clinically and statistically significant improvement in all treatment groups (P = .000). Dropout was low. Medications were prescribed frequently to adults; no child received medication as a result of the earthquakes. No case of mental disorder related to the earthquakes was referred to the local mental health center during the 6 months of psychologist intervention. Conclusion:The structured intervention resulted in a high resolution of cases and low dropout, allowing treatment of a larger number of people with optimal frequency (weekly), devoting more time to the most severe cases and less to those moderately or mildly affected. PMID:26137356

Supporting Energy Transitions and Miscanthus Program Development at the University of Iowa

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lain, Kayley Christina

Miscanthus is a highly productive, low-input biofuel crop that supports agricultural diversification with improved performance for climate commitment, energy security, and water quality over first generation biofuels. Despite its high performance, no local or regional markets for the feedstock have formed in North America, and current climate-based productivity assessment methods lack the information farmers and decision-makers need to establish commercial scale bioenergy markets, programs, and thermal co-firing plans. This study develops a Miscanthus Suitability Rating and a transferable field-scale siting method, applied at 10 m resolution across the State of Iowa to assess miscanthus production potential and identify individual farms that are highly suitable for large-scale miscanthus cultivation while maintaining a majority of existing row cropping acreage. Results show that highly suitable fields within 50 miles (84 km) of each of Iowa's coal-fired electrical generating units (EGUs) can displace up to 43% of current coal consumption. Every EGU in Iowa has land resource to produce local miscanthus to co-fire with other solid fuels at industry-leading levels without significantly impacting local row crop production. Seven of the state's smaller facilities could even operate exclusively on local miscanthus with advancements in densification technology. The energy evaluation tool developed in this work estimates the energy return on investment (EROI) of Iowa miscanthus for existing thermal generation facilities between 37 and 59, depending on transportation requirements and chemical field applications. This transition would diversify local agribusiness and energy feedstocks, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and provide a sustainable, dispatchable, in-state fuel source to complement wind and solar energy.

Atomic scale structure and chemistry of interfaces by Z-contrast imaging and electron energy loss spectroscopy in the stem

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

McGibbon, M.M.; Browning, N.D.; Chisholm, M.F.

The macroscopic properties of many materials are controlled by the structure and chemistry at grain boundaries. A basic understanding of the structure-property relationship requires a technique which probes both composition and chemical bonding on an atomic scale. High-resolution Z-contrast imaging in the scanning transmission electron microscope (STEM) forms an incoherent image in which changes in atomic structure and composition across an interface can be interpreted directly without the need for preconceived atomic structure models. Since the Z-contrast image is formed by electrons scattered through high angles, parallel detection electron energy loss spectroscopy (PEELS) can be used simultaneously to provide complementarymore » chemical information on an atomic scale. The fine structure in the PEEL spectra can be used to investigate the local electronic structure and the nature of the bonding across the interface. In this paper we use the complimentary techniques of high resolution Z-contrast imaging and PEELS to investigate the atomic structure and chemistry of a 25{degree} symmetric tilt boundary in a bicrystal of the electroceramic SrTiO{sub 3}.« less

Supporting observation campaigns with high resolution modeling

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Klocke, Daniel; Brueck, Matthias; Voigt, Aiko

2017-04-01

High resolution simulation in support of measurement campaigns offers a promising and emerging way to create large-scale context for small-scale observations of clouds and precipitation processes. As these simulation include the coupling of measured small-scale processes with the circulation, they also help to integrate the research communities from modeling and observations and allow for detailed model evaluations against dedicated observations. In connection with the measurement campaign NARVAL (August 2016 and December 2013) simulations with a grid-spacing of 2.5 km for the tropical Atlantic region (9000x3300 km), with local refinement to 1.2 km for the western part of the domain, were performed using the icosahedral non-hydrostatic (ICON) general circulation model. These simulations are again used to drive large eddy resolving simulations with the same model for selected days in the high definition clouds and precipitation for advancing climate prediction (HD(CP)2) project. The simulations are presented with the focus on selected results showing the benefit for the scientific communities doing atmospheric measurements and numerical modeling of climate and weather. Additionally, an outlook will be given on how similar simulations will support the NAWDEX measurement campaign in the North Atlantic and AC3 measurement campaign in the Arctic.

Millimeter-scale epileptiform spike propagation patterns and their relationship to seizures

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Vanleer, Ann C.; Blanco, Justin A.; Wagenaar, Joost B.; Viventi, Jonathan; Contreras, Diego; Litt, Brian

2016-04-01

Objective. Current mapping of epileptic networks in patients prior to epilepsy surgery utilizes electrode arrays with sparse spatial sampling (∼1.0 cm inter-electrode spacing). Recent research demonstrates that sub-millimeter, cortical-column-scale domains have a role in seizure generation that may be clinically significant. We use high-resolution, active, flexible surface electrode arrays with 500 μm inter-electrode spacing to explore epileptiform local field potential (LFP) spike propagation patterns in two dimensions recorded from subdural micro-electrocorticographic signals in vivo in cat. In this study, we aimed to develop methods to quantitatively characterize the spatiotemporal dynamics of epileptiform activity at high-resolution. Approach. We topically administered a GABA-antagonist, picrotoxin, to induce acute neocortical epileptiform activity leading up to discrete electrographic seizures. We extracted features from LFP spikes to characterize spatiotemporal patterns in these events. We then tested the hypothesis that two-dimensional spike patterns during seizures were different from those between seizures. Main results. We showed that spatially correlated events can be used to distinguish ictal versus interictal spikes. Significance. We conclude that sub-millimeter-scale spatiotemporal spike patterns reveal network dynamics that are invisible to standard clinical recordings and contain information related to seizure-state.

Localized Multi-Model Extremes Metrics for the Fourth National Climate Assessment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Thompson, T. R.; Kunkel, K.; Stevens, L. E.; Easterling, D. R.; Biard, J.; Sun, L.

2017-12-01

We have performed localized analysis of scenario-based datasets for the Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4). These datasets include CMIP5-based Localized Constructed Analogs (LOCA) downscaled simulations at daily temporal resolution and 1/16th-degree spatial resolution. Over 45 temperature and precipitation extremes metrics have been processed using LOCA data, including threshold, percentile, and degree-days calculations. The localized analysis calculates trends in the temperature and precipitation extremes metrics for relatively small regions such as counties, metropolitan areas, climate zones, administrative areas, or economic zones. For NCA4, we are currently addressing metropolitan areas as defined by U.S. Census Bureau Metropolitan Statistical Areas. Such localized analysis provides essential information for adaptation planning at scales relevant to local planning agencies and businesses. Nearly 30 such regions have been analyzed to date. Each locale is defined by a closed polygon that is used to extract LOCA-based extremes metrics specific to the area. For each metric, single-model data at each LOCA grid location are first averaged over several 30-year historical and future periods. Then, for each metric, the spatial average across the region is calculated using model weights based on both model independence and reproducibility of current climate conditions. The range of single-model results is also captured on the same localized basis, and then combined with the weighted ensemble average for each region and each metric. For example, Boston-area cooling degree days and maximum daily temperature is shown below for RCP8.5 (red) and RCP4.5 (blue) scenarios. We also discuss inter-regional comparison of these metrics, as well as their relevance to risk analysis for adaptation planning.

ESCOMPTE 2001: multi-scale modelling and experimental validation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cousin, F.; Tulet, P.; Rosset, R.

2003-04-01

ESCOMPTE is a European pollution field experiment located in the Marseille / Fos-Berre area in the summer 2001.This Mediterranean area, with frequent pollution peaks, is characterized by a complex topography subject to sea breeze regimes, together with intense localized urban, industrial and biogenic sources. Four POI have been selected, the most significant being POI2a / b, a 6-day pollution episode extensively documented for dynamics, radiation, gas phase and aerosols, with surface measurements (including measurements at sea in the gulf of Genoa, on board instrumented ferries between Marseille and Corsica), 7 aircrafts, lidar, radar and constant-level flight balloon soundings. The two-way mesoscale model MESO-NH-C (MNH-C), with horizontal resolutions of 9 and 3 km and high vertical resolution (up to 40 levels in the first 2 km), embedded in the global CTM Mocage, has been run for all POIs, with a focus here on POI2b (June 24-27,2001), a typical high pollution episode. The multi-scale modelling system MNH-C+MOCAGE allows to simulate local and regional pollution issued from emission sources in the Marseille / Fos-Berre area as well as from remote sources (e.g. the Po Valley and / or western Mediterranean sources) and their associated transboundary pollution fluxes. Detailed dynamical, chemical and aerosol (both modal and sectional spectra with organics and inorganics) simulations generally favorably compare to surface(continental and on ships), lidar and along-flight aircraft measurements.

Probing the electromagnetic field of a 15-nanometre hotspot by single molecule imaging.

PubMed

Cang, Hu; Labno, Anna; Lu, Changgui; Yin, Xiaobo; Liu, Ming; Gladden, Christopher; Liu, Yongmin; Zhang, Xiang

2011-01-20

When light illuminates a rough metallic surface, hotspots can appear, where the light is concentrated on the nanometre scale, producing an intense electromagnetic field. This phenomenon, called the surface enhancement effect, has a broad range of potential applications, such as the detection of weak chemical signals. Hotspots are believed to be associated with localized electromagnetic modes, caused by the randomness of the surface texture. Probing the electromagnetic field of the hotspots would offer much insight towards uncovering the mechanism generating the enhancement; however, it requires a spatial resolution of 1-2 nm, which has been a long-standing challenge in optics. The resolution of an optical microscope is limited to about half the wavelength of the incident light, approximately 200-300 nm. Although current state-of-the-art techniques, including near-field scanning optical microscopy, electron energy-loss spectroscopy, cathode luminescence imaging and two-photon photoemission imaging have subwavelength resolution, they either introduce a non-negligible amount of perturbation, complicating interpretation of the data, or operate only in a vacuum. As a result, after more than 30 years since the discovery of the surface enhancement effect, how the local field is distributed remains unknown. Here we present a technique that uses Brownian motion of single molecules to probe the local field. It enables two-dimensional imaging of the fluorescence enhancement profile of single hotspots on the surfaces of aluminium thin films and silver nanoparticle clusters, with accuracy down to 1.2 nm. Strong fluorescence enhancements, up to 54 and 136 times respectively, are observed in those two systems. This strong enhancement indicates that the local field, which decays exponentially from the peak of a hotspot, dominates the fluorescence enhancement profile.

Stalagmite high resolution local paleoclimatic proxies for Late Holocene in Mesoamerica: Exploring role of moisture upon the development of Mesoamerican cultures.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Martínez Izquierdo, H. B.; Bernal, J. P.; Pérez Enriquez, R.; Böhnel, H.; Morales-Malacara, J. B.; Solari, L.; Gómez-Tuena, A.

2010-03-01

The relationship between climate change and culture development in Mesoamerica is complex to unravel since many written archives were destroyed during natural disasters and cultural conflicts such as Spanish conquest. Local paleoclimate records offer a way to reconstruct this relationship. Stalagmites are amongst the most reliable records of past climate variability, due to their evolution in closed-system conditions, ease of dating, and inclusion of several geochemical proxies (such as calcite oxygen and carbon isotopic composition, trace element concentration and/or elemental ratios, color and grey-tone scale). Recently, stalagmites have been used as records to explore the climatic change during Holocene and its cultural relation in Mediterranean, Asian, North American and east African cultures. Only few works were made, however, for Mesoamerican cultures. We study here a banded stalagmite belonging to Jalpan, Queretaro, central Mexico. This stalagmite was found actively growing, with its base dated at 6.85 +/- 0.3 Ka B.P. A high resolution LA-ICP-MS Mg/Ca analysis as well as grey tone analysis were obtained in order to create annual resolution time series. The proxies were correlated with local and north Atlantic paleoclimate records. Such proxies also show signals associated with volcanic eruptions (Tacana, el Chichon, Popocatepetl and Ceboruco) during the Classic period. Other signals are associated with Maya civilization collapse. These results portray the relationship between the agricultural and population patterns with moisture variability for the center of Mexico (Teotihuacan influence zone) during late Formative and Classic period. Finally, we observe patterns such as the corresponding to the little ice age and the anthropogenic climate warming, the latter correlated with local precipitation data.

Can we map the interannual variability of the whole upper Southern Ocean with the current database of hydrographic observations?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Heuzé, Céline; Vivier, Frédéric; Le Sommer, Julien; Molines, Jean-Marc; Penduff, Thierry

2016-04-01

With the advent of Argo floats, it now seems feasible to study the interannual variations of upper ocean hydrographic properties of the historically undersampled Southern Ocean. To do so, scattered hydrographic profiles often first need to be mapped. To investigate biases and errors associated both with the limited space-time distribution of the profiles and with the mapping methods, we colocate the mixed layer depth (MLD) output from a state-of-the-art 1/12° DRAKKAR simulation onto the latitude, longitude and date of actual in-situ profiles from 2005 to 2014. We compare the results obtained after remapping using a nearest-neighbor (NN) interpolation and an objective analysis (OA) with different spatio-temporal grid resolutions and decorrelation scales. NN is improved with a coarser resolution. OA performs best with low decorrelation scales, avoiding too strong a smoothing, but returns values over larger areas with large decorrelation scales and low temporal resolution, as more points are available. For all resolutions OA represents better the annual extreme values than NN. Both methods underestimate the seasonal cycle in MLD. MLD biases are lower than 10 m on average but can exceed 250 m locally in winter. We argue that current Argo data should not be mapped to infer decadal trends in MLD, as all methods are unable to reproduce existing trends without creating unrealistic extra ones. We also show that regions of the subtropical Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans, and the whole ice-covered Southern Ocean, still cannot be mapped even by the best method because of the lack of observational data. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Fine-scale thermohaline ocean structure retrieved with 2-D prestack full-waveform inversion of multichannel seismic data: Application to the Gulf of Cadiz (SW Iberia)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dagnino, D.; Sallarès, V.; Biescas, B.; Ranero, C. R.

2016-08-01

This work demonstrates the feasibility of 2-D time-domain, adjoint-state acoustic full-waveform inversion (FWI) to retrieve high-resolution models of ocean physical parameters such as sound speed, temperature and salinity. The proposed method is first described and then applied to prestack multichannel seismic (MCS) data acquired in the Gulf of Cadiz (SW Iberia) in 2007 in the framework of the Geophysical Oceanography project. The inversion strategy flow includes specifically designed data preconditioning for acoustic noise reduction, followed by the inversion of sound speed in the shotgather domain. We show that the final sound speed model has a horizontal resolution of ˜ 70 m, which is two orders of magnitude better than that of the initial model constructed with coincident eXpendable Bathy Thermograph (XBT) data, and close to the theoretical resolution of O(λ). Temperature (T) and salinity (S) are retrieved with the same lateral resolution as sound speed by combining the inverted sound speed model with the thermodynamic equation of seawater and a local, depth-dependent T-S relation derived from regional conductivity-temperature-depth (CTD) measurements of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) database. The comparison of the inverted T and S models with XBT and CTD casts deployed simultaneously to the MCS acquisition shows that the thermohaline contrasts are resolved with an accuracy of 0.18oC for temperature and 0.08 PSU for salinity. The combination of oceanographic and MCS data into a common, pseudo-automatic inversion scheme allows to quantitatively resolve submeso-scale features that ought to be incorporated into larger-scale ocean models of oceans structure and circulation.