Search results for "Water science"
showing 10 items of 1545 documents
Evaluation of split-window and dual-angle correction methods for land surface temperature retrieval from Envisat/Advanced Along Track Scanning Radiom…
2006
[1] Land surface temperature (LST) can be derived from thermal infrared remote sensing data provided that atmospheric and emissivity effects are corrected for. In this paper, two correction methods were evaluated using a database of ground LST measurements and concurrent Envisat/Advanced Along Track Scanning Radiometer (AATSR) data. They were the split-window (SW) method, which uses two channels at 11 and 12 μm, and the dual-angle (DA) method, using one single channel (11 μm) at two observation angles (close to nadir and around 55° forward). The ground LST measurements were performed in a large, flat, and thermally homogeneous area of rice fields during the summers of 2002–2005, when the cr…
Hygroscopic properties and water-soluble volume fraction of atmospheric particles in the diameter range from 50 nm to 3.8 μm during LACE 98
2002
[1] Hygroscopic properties of atmospheric aerosol particles in the Aitken, large, and giant particle range were studied during the Lindenberg Aerosol Characterization Experiment (LACE 98) in a rural area 80 km southeast of Berlin. The hygroscopic behavior of Aitken particles were determined in situ in four size classes (50, 100, 150, 250 nm) with a Hygroscopic Tandem Differential Mobility Analyzer for relative humidities (RH) of 60% and 90%. Measurements at 60% RH served as reference data used by other LACE 98 investigators for mass closure and radiative transfer calculations. In most cases, at 90% RH, the atmospheric particles could be classified into two groups (“more” and “less” hygrosco…
Sudan-Sahel rainfall onset: Definition of an objective index, types of years, and experimental hindcasts
2006
Using rainfall estimates from the 5-day version of CPC Merged Analysis of Precipitation (CMAP) and Global Precipitation Climatology Project data along with multiscale spatial key descriptors of atmospheric dynamics from National Center for Environmental Prediction/Department of Energy reanalysis 2 (NCEP/DOE), we first define a West African monsoon onset index to determine its successive dates of occurrence over the period 1979-2004 (28-29 June in mean with a standard deviation of 8.5 days). Then we focus on the three main types of time evolutions of that index at the moment of the monsoon onset in terms of precipitation, pressure, temperature, and winds at different levels to detect the mos…
Analysis of the impact of intermittent distribution by modelling the network-filling process
2010
In many countries, users acquire private tanks to reduce their vulnerability to water scarcity. In such conditions, water managers often apply intermittent distribution in order to reduce the water volumes supplied to the users. This practice modifies the hydraulic behaviour of the network and determines competition among users that need to collect enough water resource for their uses. Intermittent distribution is thus responsible for the inequality that can occur among users: those located in advantaged positions of the network are able to obtain water resources soon after the service period begins, while others have to wait much longer, after the network is full. This paper analyses the i…
Pumps as turbines (PATs) in water distribution networks affected by intermittent service
2013
A hydraulic model was developed in order to evaluate the potential energy recovery from the use of centrifugal pumps as turbines (PATs) in a water distribution network characterized by the presence of private tanks. The model integrates the Global Gradient Algorithm (GGA), with a pressure-driven model that permits a more realistic representation of the influence on the network behaviour of the private tanks filling and emptying. The model was applied to a real case study: a District Metered Area in Palermo (Italy). Three different scenarios were analysed and compared with a baseline scenario (Scenario 0 – no PAT installed) to identify the system configuration with added PATs that permits th…
Binary logistic regression versus stochastic gradient boosted decision trees in assessing landslide susceptibility for multiple-occurring landslide e…
2015
This study aims to compare binary logistic regression (BLR) and stochastic gradient treeboost (SGT) methods in assessing landslide susceptibility within the Mediterranean region for multiple-occurrence regional landslide events. A test area was selected in the north-eastern sector of Sicily (southern Italy) where thousands of debris flows and debris avalanches triggered on the first October 2009 due to an extreme storm. Exploiting the same set of predictors and the 2009 event landslide archive, BLR- and SGT-based susceptibility models have been obtained for the two catchments separately, adopting a random partition (RP) technique for validation. In addition, the models trained in one catchm…
An analysis of VLF electric field spectra measured in Titan's atmosphere by the Huygens probe
2009
[1] A numerical simulation of Titan's electromagnetic cavity in the VLF band is carried out using the Transmission Line Matrix (TLM) method, with the aim of assessing the VLF electric field spectra sent by the Huygens probe. In an Earth-like model, successive peaks would be expected in the spectra, associated with multiple reflections of the electromagnetic wave on the external surfaces of Titan's electromagnetic cavity, formed by the ionosphere and a conductive ground or underground surface. However, owing to high losses conferred by the electrical conductivity to Titan's atmosphere, the direct numerical and experimental spectra are decreasing functions of the frequency without resonances …
Summertime columnar content of atmospheric water vapor from ground-based Sun-sky radiometer measurements through a new in situ procedure
2010
[1] A new in situ technique for the retrieval of atmospheric water vapor content (i.e., precipitable water content) from Sun photometric direct solar irradiance measurements, taken at the 940 nm wavelength during clear‐sky conditions, is presented. The procedure is applied to summer data recorded in 2007, 2008, and 2009 with a Sun‐sky radiometer at the San Pietro Capofiume station in the Po valley, Italy. It is a preliminary development of the retrieval procedure providing the columnar water vapor content from measurements performed with PREDE Sun‐sky radiometers. The technique brings improvement and innovation by retrieving the best values of constants (a and b), characterizing atmospheric…
Developments for vegetation fluorescence retrieval from spaceborne high-resolution spectrometry in the O2-A and O2-B absorption bands
2010
Solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence is a weak electromagnetic signal emitted in the red and far-red spectral regions by vegetation chlorophyll under excitation by solar radiation. Chlorophyll fluorescence has been demonstrated to be a close proxy to vegetation physiological functioning. The basis for fluorescence retrieval from passive space measurements is the exploitation of the O2-A and O2-B atmospheric absorption features to isolate the fluorescence signal from the solar radiation reflected by the surface and the atmosphere. High spectral resolution measurements and a precise modeling of the atmospheric radiative transfer in the visible and near-infrared regions are mandatory. Recent…
Performance of DEMETER calibration for rainfall forecasting purposes: Application to the July–August Sahelian rainfall
2008
International audience; This work assesses and compares the skill of direct and model-output-statistics (MOS) calibrated hindcasts of the July–August rainfall amounts for the dry period 1980–2000 over the Sahel issued from the Development of a European Multimodel Ensemble System for Seasonal to Interannual Prediction (DEMETER) experiment, with the aim to highlight among the simulated parameters, i.e., those potentially relevant for rainfall forecasts purposes. Three approaches were used: the DEMETER (1) direct rainfall, (2) MOS-calibrated rainfall, and (3) MOS-calibrated atmospheric dynamics and energy. Canonical correlation analyses (CCA) were employed in the two latter approaches to calib…