Search results for "Climate"
showing 10 items of 4934 documents
Toward a Collective Agenda on AI for Earth Science Data Analysis
2021
In the last years we have witnessed the fields of geosciences and remote sensing and artificial intelligence to become closer. Thanks to both the massive availability of observational data, improved simulations, and algorithmic advances, these disciplines have found common objectives and challenges to advance the modeling and understanding of the Earth system. Despite such great opportunities, we also observed a worrying tendency to remain in disciplinary comfort zones applying recent advances from artificial intelligence on well resolved remote sensing problems. Here we take a position on research directions where we think the interface between these fields will have the most impact and be…
Causal Inference in Geoscience and Remote Sensing From Observational Data
2020
Establishing causal relations between random variables from observational data is perhaps the most important challenge in today’s science. In remote sensing and geosciences, this is of special relevance to better understand the earth’s system and the complex interactions between the governing processes. In this paper, we focus on an observational causal inference, and thus, we try to estimate the correct direction of causation using a finite set of empirical data. In addition, we focus on the more complex bivariate scenario that requires strong assumptions and no conditional independence tests can be used. In particular, we explore the framework of (nondeterministic) additive noise models, …
Background studies for acoustic neutrino detection at the South Pole
2011
The detection of acoustic signals from ultra-high energy neutrino interactions is a promising method to measure the tiny flux of cosmogenic neutrinos expected on Earth. The energy threshold for this process depends strongly on the absolute noise level in the target material. The South Pole Acoustic Test Setup (SPATS), deployed in the upper part of four boreholes of the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, has monitored the noise in Antarctic ice at the geographic South Pole for more than two years down to 500 m depth. The noise is very stable and Gaussian distributed. Lacking an in-situ calibration up to now, laboratory measurements have been used to estimate the absolute noise level in the 10 to …
Simulation of the effects of climate change on barley yields in rural Italy
2009
The Greenhouse effect is considered to be one of the most influential factors on climate change today, especially where temperature and rainfall levels/distribution are concerned, making it of considerable importance in the field of Agronomy. Crop growth and development simulation models are a valuable cognitive tool in understanding water and nutrient dynamics in soil/plant systems. This paper looks at the direct and indirect effects of climatic changes on average barley yields. The complex nature of the study rendered the use of mathematical simulation models essential, both for predicting future climate conditions and for the simulation of crop growth and development. Of the different si…
Molecular Selectivity of CH 4 –C 2 H 6 Mixed Hydrates: A GCMC Study
2021
International audience; In this paper, we report the first grand canonical Monte Carlo simulation study aiming at characterizing the competitive trapping of CH4 and C2H6 molecules into clathrate hydrates under temperature conditions typical of those encountered at the surface of Titan. Various compositions of the fluid in contact with the clathrate phase have been considered in the simulations, including pure methane, pure ethane, and mixed fluids made of various methane/ethane ratios. The trapping isotherms obtained from the simulations clearly show that ethane molecules can be enclathrated at lower pressures than methane molecules. In addition, they provide evidence that the methane molec…
The role of slabs and oceanic plate geometry in the net rotation of the lithosphere, trench motions, and slab return flow
2012
[1] Absolute plate motion models with respect to a deep mantle reference frame (e.g., hot spots) typically contain some net rotation (NR) of the lithosphere. Global mantle flow models for the present-day plate setting reproduce similarly oriented NRs but with amplitudes significantly smaller than those found in some high NR Pacific hot spot reference frames. It is therefore important to understand the mechanisms of NR excitation, which we attempt here with two-dimensional cylindrical models of an idealized Pacific domain. We study the influence of slab properties, oceanic ridge position, continental keels, and a weak asthenospheric layer on NR and trench migration. Fast slab return flow dev…
An assessment of energy vulnerability in Small Island Developing States
2020
Abstract Small Island Developing States (SIDS) suffer from several structural characteristics that jeopardize their ability to achieve a sustainable energy future. Their reliance on imported fossil fuels exacerbates their exposure to external threats on international energy markets. Their energy systems are also exposed to internal disturbances that disrupt the proper production, transmission and distribution of energy. The aim of this paper is to investigate the extent to which island energy systems are vulnerable to shocks and internal dysfunctions over which they have no control. For this purpose, we build a composite index of energy vulnerability using the Multi-Layer Benefit-of-the-Dou…
Empirical estimates of the radiative impact of an unusually extreme dust and wildfire episode on the performance of a photovoltaic plant in Western M…
2019
Abstract We have estimated the radiative impact produced by an unusually extreme dust and wildfire episode on the performance of a photovoltaic (PV) plant. The dust and wildfire events were mostly active on 26–28 and 29–30 June 2012, respectively. We took advantage of the consecutiveness of both events to separate and derive empirically the radiative effect of dust and smoke aerosols. With this purpose, we employed measurements of aerosol load, radiation and PV power output from a collocated atmospheric station and PV plant located at Burjassot (Valencia, Spain). The empirical estimates were obtained by direct comparison with a summer background day, happened right before the two consecutiv…
The Sun Is no Fun without Rain
2019
Across cultures, people associate colours with emotions. Here, we test the hypothesis that one driver of this cross-modal correspondence is the physical environment we live in. We focus on a prime example – the association of yellow with joy, – which conceivably arises because yellow is reminiscent of life-sustaining sunshine and pleasant weather. If so, this association should be especially strong in countries where sunny weather is a rare occurrence. We analysed yellow-joy associations of 6625 participants from 55 countries to investigate how yellow-joy associations varied geographically, climatologically, and seasonally. We assessed the distance to the equator, sunshine, precipitation, a…
Sex composition and group climate: A group actor−partner interdependence analysis.
2013
There is a lack of research examining how the proportion of women and men in a group effects both the group member’s perception of group climate and the aggregated perceptions of group climate for the other group members. We adapted the group actor–partner interdependence model (GAPIM; Kenny & Garcia, 2012) to examine how the perception of the group’s climate by a group member and by the other group members are related to the group member’s sex and the sex of the other group members. In addition, we examined how similar the group member’s sex was to the sex of the other group members by analyzing the interaction between the two sex variables. A total of 110 Italian graduate students (96 wom…