Search results for " MARITTIME"
showing 10 items of 473 documents
Coastal zone water quality: Calibration of a water-turbidity equation for MODIS data
2013
AbstractA nephelometric turbidity algorithm has been specifically calibrated for coastal waters in Sicily. To this purpose, intensive field campaigns were performed in July, August and September 2008. Measurements were collected in situ in three different gulfs. Statistical analysis suggests that field data should be spatially grouped but temporally separated; hence, new calibration parameters have been proposed.Turbidity retrieved by applying the algorithm using literature coefficients and the ones calibrated in situ are shown and compared. The comparison demonstrated that a specific calibration was necessary for quantitatively monitoring turbidity in Sicilian gulfs.
Performances of GPM satellite precipitation over the two major Mediterranean islands
2018
Reliable and accurate precipitation measurement or estimation is crucial for disaster monitoring and water resource management. However, obtaining accurate high-resolution precipitation fields is still a challenging task for scientists and practitioners, especially in the poorer region of the world. Nowadays the scientific community expects significant improvements in precipitation monitoring by the continuous technological evolution of satellite-rainfall estimate systems which are able to produce data with global coverage and thus can provide low-cost information even in scarcely populated areas or places where for economic reasons ground measures are missing. The most recent satellite mis…
Wind speed and temperature trends impacts on reference evapotranspiration in Southern Italy
2014
In this study, the impacts of both temperature and wind speed trends on reference evapotranspiration have been assessed using as a case study the Southern Italy, which present a wide variety of combination of such climatic variables trends in terms of direction and magnitude. The existence of statistically significant trends in wind speed and temperature from observational datasets, measured in ten stations over Southern Italy during the period 1968–2004, has been investigated. Time series have been examined using the Mann–Kendall nonparametric statistical test in order to detect possible evidences of wind speed and temperature trends at different temporal resolution and significance level.…
Exploring the linkage between dew point temperature and precipitation extremes: A multi-time-scale analysis on a semi-arid Mediterranean region
2021
Abstract Understanding warming climate implications on precipitation is of crucial importance, especially for areas particularly subjected to climate changes and land use/cover modifications, which could be extremely vulnerable to phenomena typically caused by rainfall extremes, such as floods and landslides. Past decade has been witnessing an increasing interest on simple modeling approaches based on the observation of commonly available meteorological variables and their physical linkages. In particular, based on the well-known thermodynamic Clausius-Clapeyron (CC) equation, it was widely investigated the scaling relation between rainfall extremes and variables representative of the near …
Evaluation and comparison of satellite precipitation estimates with reference to a local area in the Mediterranean Sea
2014
Precipitation measurement is a key activity for the analysis of storm processes as well as every hydrological process. Satellite retrieval systems, rain-gauge network and radar systems are complement to each other in terms of their coverage and capability of monitoring precipitation. Satellite rainfall estimates systems produce data with global coverage that can provide information in areas for which data from other sources are unavailable. Without referring to ground measurement, satellite-based estimates can be bias. Although some gauged adjusted satellite precipitation products are developed, an effective way of integrating multi-sources of precipitation information is still a challenge.…
Sensitivity of the SIMulation-EXtrapolation (SIMEX) methodology to mis-specification of the statistical properties of the measurement errors
2023
In hydrometeorological and environmental studies, it is common to seek relations between two variables (predictand and predictor), one of which (predictor) is affected by uncertainties. These errors unavoidably affect the results of the analyses by providing erroneous estimates of the parameters of the predictor-predictand model. A possible solution is represented by the SIMulation-EXtrapolation (SIMEX) methodology. This approach follows two steps: (1) perturbation of the predictor with increasing levels of uncertainties (multiples of the known error variance); and (2) finding a relation between the model's parameters and level of uncertainty, which allows their extrapolation to the error-f…
Convective precipitation over a Mediterranean area: From identification to trend analysis starting from high-resolution rain gauges data
2022
Heavy rainfall events are likely to become more frequent and severe in the next future, under the effects of a changing climate. In this context, the scientific literature is characterized by a relevant number of studies trying to identify the convective component of precipitation, since this kind of phenomena, due to their short duration and high intensity, may lead to an increased risk of flash floods or debris flows and, consequently, human life losses and economic damages. In this study, a separation between the convective and stratiform precipitation, starting from the subhourly precipitation time series recorded over Sicily (Italy), is provided on a monthly scale. Results show that th…
Estimation of the time lag occurring between vegetation indices and aridity indices in a Sicilian semi-arid catchment
2009
The evolution of drought phenomena in a Sicilian semi-arid catchment has been analyzed processing both remote sensing images and climatic data for the period 1985-2000. The remote sensing dataset includes Landsat TM and ETM+ multispectral images, while the climatic dataset includes monthly rainfall and air temperature. The results have been specifically discussed for areas where it is possible to neglect agricultural activities and vegetation growth is only influenced by natural forcing. The main outcome of this study is the quantification of the time lag between the remote sensing retrieved vegetation indices and the aridity indices (AIs) calculated from climatic data. Moreover the obtaine…
Detecting precipitation trend using a multiscale approach based on quantile regression over a Mediterranean area
2021
One of the most relevant and debated topics related to the effects of the climate change is whether intense rainfall events have become more frequent over the last decades. It is a crucial aspect, since an increase in the magnitude and frequency of occurrence of heavy rainfall events could result in a dramatic growth of floods and, in turn, human lives losses and economic damages. Because of its central position in the Mediterranean area, Sicily has been often screened with the aim to capture some trends in precipitation, potentially related to climate change. While Mann-Kendall test has been largely used for the rainfall trend detection, in this work a different procedure is considered. Pr…
Integration of fuzzy logic and image analysis for the detection of gullies in the Calhoun Critical Zone Observatory using airborne LiDAR data
2017
Abstract The entire Piedmont of the Southeastern United States, where the Calhoun Critical Zone Observatory (CCZO) is located, experienced one of the most severe erosive events of the last two centuries. Forested areas were cleared to cultivate cotton, tobacco, and other crops during the nineteenth and early twentieth century and these land use changes, together with intense rainfalls, initiated deep gullying. An accurate mapping of these landforms is important since, despite some gully stabilization and reforestation efforts, gullies are still major contributors of sediment to streams. Mapping gullies in the CCZO area is hindered by the presence of dense canopy, which precludes the identif…