Search results for "Zone"
showing 10 items of 2029 documents
Suitability of OMI aerosol index to reflect mineral dust surface conditions: preliminary application for studying the link with meningitis epidemics …
2013
12 pages; International audience; The aimof this study is to analyze the suitability of remotely-sensed aerosol retrievals to progress in the understanding of the influence of desert dust on health, and particularly on meningitis epidemics. In the Sahel, meningitis epidemics are a serious public health issue. Social factors are of prime importance in the dynamics of the epidemics, however climate and environmental factors are also suspected to play an important role. This study focuses on three Sahelian countries (Burkina Faso,Mali and Niger) which are among the most concerned in the "meningitis belt" and affected by strong dust events every year. It investigates the capability of the aeros…
Inter-Relationships Between Groundnut Yield in Senegal, Interannual Rainfall Variability and Sea-Surface Temperatures
1999
Groundnut production strongly contributes to Senegal’s economy. Interannual variations of groundnut yield for the country as a whole, and their relationship with rainfall amounts, are examined for the 31-yr period 1960–1990. It is shown that on that scale, and after removing decadal trends, almost half of the variance is explained by rainfall variability, especially that of the early part of the rainy season (July–August). Given the high spatial coherence of seasonal rainfall in the region, teleconnections with global- and regional-scale climate dynamics, including sea-surface temperatures, are assessed. Though some features are similar to the rest of the Sahel, others are more specific, su…
The East African March–May Rainy Season: Associated Atmospheric Dynamics and Predictability over the 1968–97 Period
2002
Abstract This paper focuses on the East African March–May “long rains.” Particularly, it investigates the atmospheric patterns associated to the March–May rainfall anomalies, then proposes a seasonal prediction model. In a preliminary step, in order to define a regional rainfall index, a new form of extended principal component analysis is performed, aimed at capturing both the spatial and intraseasonal rainfall coherence. What emerges is that although the long rains exhibit a low temporal coherence, calling for a separation between the months of March–April and May in teleconnection studies, they show a relatively strong spatial consistency over the Kenya–Uganda inland region. From composi…
Intraseasonal wind anomalies related to wet and dry spells during the ?long? and ?short? rainy seasons in Kenya
1997
The largest part of Kenya exhibits two major rainy seasons, the March–May «long rains» and the October–December «short rains», both related to the passage of the ITCZ, but differing in the amount of rainfall recorded and its interannual variability. In order to investigate whether these differences also apply at intraseasonal time-scales, daily rainfall data for the peak month of each rainy season (April and November) were collected for 7 consecutive years (1982–1988). The network comprises 68 stations, from which a classification of the spatial patterns of daily rainfall anomalies has been performed. Wind anomalies corresponding to the various rainfall types and to specific regional rainfa…
Spatial distribution of phytoplankton and picocyanobacteria in Lake Tanganyika in March and April 1998
2003
The spatial distribution of phytoplankton and picocyanobacteria was studied in Lake Tanganyika in relation to environmental factors. Sampling was conducted within three weeks during the wet season of 1998 when the water column stratification was most stable. The secchi depth varied between 11 and 16 m, except off the river Malagarasi (3 m). The depth of the euphotic zone was 33 to 56 m. Altogether, 218 phytoplankton taxa were identified. Their total biomass varied between 13 and 88 mg m−3 fresh weight. Picocyanobacteria were present at very high densities (104 to 6 × 10 5 cells ml−1). The influence of the river Malagarasi appeared to spread along the water surface because of the lower densi…
Cross-hemispheric transport of central African biomass burning pollutants: implications for downwind ozone production
2010
Pollutant plumes with enhanced concentrations of trace gases and aerosols were observed over the southern coast of West Africa during August 2006 as part of the AMMA wet season field campaign. Plumes were observed both in the mid and upper troposphere. In this study we examined the origin of these pollutant plumes, and their potential to photochemically produce ozone (O<sub>3</sub>) downwind over the Atlantic Ocean. Their possible contribution to the Atlantic O<sub>3</sub> maximum is also discussed. Runs using the BOLAM mesoscale model including biomass burning carbon monoxide (CO) tracers were used to confirm an origin from central African biomass burning fires. The…
Canzoni in concorso nella Palermo di fine secolo
2015
L'articolo si occupa del concorso "per la canzone siciliana" bandito nel 1891 a Palermo da Tina Withaker Scalia con la collaborazione di Giorgio Miclei. Nella prima parte viene presentato un sintetico bilancio dei precedenti non siciliani del concorso nell'Italia post-unitaria, e nella seconda vengono analizzate in dettaglio le due canzoni vincitrici.
R-Curve Modelling of Mode I Delamination in Multidirectional Carbon/Epoxy Composite Laminates
2014
In the present work, the mode I delamination behaviour of a quasi-isotropic quasi-homogeneous carbon/epoxy composite laminate with adjacent plies of 0o//45o is studied numerically. To describe the R-curve behaviour observed during crack propagation, a linear-exponential traction-separation law is proposed, where the fracture toughness and the increment in the fracture energy could be considered separately in the model. This model is then implemented in the finite element simulation of the delamination process in the composite laminate. Numerical results indicate that with the incorporation of the fibre bridging effect leads to a well-predicted force-displacement response of the composite la…
A computational framework for low-cycle fatigue in polycrystalline materials
2021
Abstract A three-dimensional framework for low-cycle fatigue analysis of polycrystalline aggregates is proposed in this work. First, a cohesive law coupling plasticity and damage is developed for modelling cycle-by-cycle degradation of material interfaces up to complete de-cohesion and failure. The law may model both quasi-static degradation under increasing monotonic load and degradation under cyclic loading, through a coupled plasticity-damage model whose activation and flow rules are formulated in a thermodynamically consistent framework. The proposed interface laws have been then implemented and coupled with a multi-region boundary element formulation, with the aim of analysing low-cycl…
Effects of Plastic Mulching and Basal Nitrogen Application Depth on Nitrogen Use Efficiency and Yield in Maize
2018
The demand for increased grain production to support population and consumption growth has led to increased interest in field management approaches that incorporate plastic mulching and fertilization management. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of plastic mulching and basal nitrogen (N)-fertilizer application depth on N balance estimations, N use efficiency (NUE) and maize yield. The experiment was conducted in 2014 and 2015 with six treatments: no N fertilizer and no mulching (CK), traditional broadcast N fertilizer with mulching (T0), basal N-fertilizer application at a depth of 6 cm with no mulching (T1), basal N-fertilizer application at a depth of 6 cm with plas…