WorldWideScience

Sample records for enhanced natural weathering

  1. Carbon dioxide efficiency of terrestrial enhanced weathering

    OpenAIRE

    Moosdorf, Nils; Renforth, Philip; Hartmann, Jens

    2014-01-01

    Terrestrial enhanced weathering, the spreading of ultramafic silicate rock flour to enhance natural weathering rates, has been suggested as part of a strategy to reduce global atmospheric CO2 levels. We budget potential CO2 sequestration against associated CO2 emissions to assess the net CO2 removal of terrestrial enhanced weathering. We combine global spatial data sets of potential source rocks, transport networks, and application areas with associated CO2 emissions in optimistic and pessimi...

  2. Carbon dioxide efficiency of terrestrial enhanced weathering.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Moosdorf, Nils; Renforth, Phil; Hartmann, Jens

    2014-05-06

    Terrestrial enhanced weathering, the spreading of ultramafic silicate rock flour to enhance natural weathering rates, has been suggested as part of a strategy to reduce global atmospheric CO2 levels. We budget potential CO2 sequestration against associated CO2 emissions to assess the net CO2 removal of terrestrial enhanced weathering. We combine global spatial data sets of potential source rocks, transport networks, and application areas with associated CO2 emissions in optimistic and pessimistic scenarios. The results show that the choice of source rocks and material comminution technique dominate the CO2 efficiency of enhanced weathering. CO2 emissions from transport amount to on average 0.5-3% of potentially sequestered CO2. The emissions of material mining and application are negligible. After accounting for all emissions, 0.5-1.0 t CO2 can be sequestered on average per tonne of rock, translating into a unit cost from 1.6 to 9.9 GJ per tonne CO2 sequestered by enhanced weathering. However, to control or reduce atmospheric CO2 concentrations substantially with enhanced weathering would require very large amounts of rock. Before enhanced weathering could be applied on large scales, more research is needed to assess weathering rates, potential side effects, social acceptability, and mechanisms of governance.

  3. Natural Weathering Exposure Station

    Data.gov (United States)

    Federal Laboratory Consortium — The Corps of Engineers' Treat Island Natural Weathering Exposure Station is a long-term natural weathering facility used to study concrete durability. Located on the...

  4. Weathering and weathering rates of natural stone

    Science.gov (United States)

    Winkler, Erhard M.

    1987-06-01

    Physical and chemical weathering were studied as separate processes in the past. Recent research, however, shows that most processes are physicochemical in nature. The rates at which calcite and silica weather by dissolution are dependent on the regional and local climatic environment. The weathering of silicate rocks leaves discolored margins and rinds, a function of the rocks' permeability and of the climatic parameters. Salt action, the greatest disruptive factor, is complex and not yet fully understood in all its phases, but some of the causes of disruption are crystallization pressure, hydration pressure, and hygroscopic attraction of excess moisture. The decay of marble is complex, an interaction between disolution, crack-corrosion, and expansion-contraction cycies triggered by the release of residual stresses. Thin spalls of granites commonly found near the street level of buildings are generally caused by a combination of stress relief and salt action. To study and determine weathering rates of a variety of commercial stones, the National Bureau of Standards erected a Stone Exposure Test Wall in 1948. Of the many types of stone represented, only a few fossiliferous limestones permit a valid measurement of surface reduction in a polluted urban environment.

  5. Formation of halloysite from feldspar: Low temperature, artificial weathering versus natural weathering

    Science.gov (United States)

    Parham, Walter E.

    1969-01-01

    Weathering products formed on surfaces of both potassium and plagioclase feldspar (An70), which were continuously leached in a Soxhlet extraction apparatus for 140 days with 7.21 of distilled water per day at a temperature of approximately 78°C, are morphologically identical to natural products developed on potassium feldspars weathered under conditions of good drainage in the humid tropics. The new products, which first appear as tiny bumps on the feldspar surface, start to develop mainly at exposed edges but also at apparently random sites on flat cleavage surfaces. As weathering continues, the bumps grow outward from the feldspar surface to form tapered projections, which then develop into wide-based thin films or sheets. The thin sheets of many projections merge laterally to form one continuous flame-shaped sheet. The sheets formed on potassium feldspars may then roll to form tubes that are inclined at a high angle to the feldspar surface. Etch pits of triangular outline on the artificially weathered potassium feldspars serve as sites for development of continuous, non-rolled, hollow tubes. It is inferred from its morphology that this weathering product is halloysite or its primitive form. The product of naturally weathered potassium feldspars is halloysite . 4H2O.The flame-shaped films or sheets formed on artificially weathered plagioclase feldspar do not develop into hollow tubes, but instead give rise to a platy mineral that is most probably boehmite. These plates form within the flame-shaped films, and with continued weathering are released as the film deteriorates. There is no indication from this experiment that platy pseudohexagonal kaolinite forms from any of these minerals under the initial stage of weathering.

  6. STUDIES ON NATURAL WEATHERING OF RATTAN POWDER-FILLED NATURAL RUBBER COMPOSITES

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Komethi Muniandy,

    2012-07-01

    Full Text Available This article investigates the effect of natural weathering on mechanical and morphological properties of rattan powder-filled natural rubber (NR composites as a function of filler loading and silane coupling agent. The rattan powder samples in the range of 0 to 30 phr were compounded with NR using a laboratory size two-roll mill. The natural weathering test was carried out for six months. The degradation of the samples was evaluated by performing a tensile test, a Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR, and a scanning electron microscopy (SEM test. The results indicated that after natural weathering, an increase in stress at 100% elongation (M100 can be seen for samples without the silane coupling agent, whilst M100 was reduced for samples with silane coupling agent. A drastic reduction in tensile strength and elongation at break were observed for all samples due to the photo-oxidation process that occurred during the degradation of the samples. The extent of degradation on the samples’ surfaces and the presence of oxygenated products were confirmed by SEM and FTIR studies, respectively.

  7. Anthropogenically enhanced chemical weathering and carbon evasion in the Yangtze Basin

    Science.gov (United States)

    Guo, Jingheng; Wang, Fushun; Vogt, Rolf David; Zhang, Yuhang; Liu, Cong-Qiang

    2015-01-01

    Chemical weathering is a fundamental geochemical process regulating the atmosphere-land-ocean fluxes and earth’s climate. It is under natural conditions driven primarily by weak carbonic acid that originates from atmosphere CO2 or soil respiration. Chemical weathering is therefore assumed as positively coupled with its CO2 consumption in contemporary geochemistry. Strong acids (i.e. sulfuric- and nitric acid) from anthropogenic sources have been found to influence the weathering rate and CO2 consumption, but their integrated effects remain absent in the world largest river basins. By interpreting the water chemistry and overall proton budget in the Yangtze Basin, we found that anthropogenic acidification had enhanced the chemical weathering by 40% during the past three decades, leading to an increase of 30% in solute discharged to the ocean. Moreover, substitution of carbonic acid by strong acids increased inorganic carbon evasion, offsetting 30% of the CO2 consumption by carbonic weathering. Our assessments show that anthropogenic loadings of sulfuric and nitrogen compounds accelerate chemical weathering but lower its CO2 sequestration. These findings have significant relevance to improving our contemporary global biogeochemical budgets. PMID:26150000

  8. Accelerating the carbon cycle: the ethics of enhanced weathering.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lawford-Smith, H; Currie, A

    2017-04-01

    Enhanced weathering, in comparison to other geoengineering measures, creates the possibility of a reduced cost, reduced impact way of decreasing atmospheric carbon, with positive knock-on effects such as decreased oceanic acidity. We argue that ethical concerns have a place alongside empirical, political and social factors as we consider how to best respond to the critical challenge that anthropogenic climate change poses. We review these concerns, considering the ethical issues that arise (or would arise) in the large-scale deployment of enhanced weathering. We discuss post-implementation scenarios, failures of collective action, the distribution of risk and externalities and redress for damage. We also discuss issues surrounding 'dirty hands' (taking conventionally immoral action to avoid having to take action that is even worse), whether enhanced weathering research might present a moral hazard, the importance of international governance and the notion that the implementation of large-scale enhanced weathering would reveal problematic hubris. Ethics and scientific research interrelate in complex ways: some ethical considerations caution against research and implementation, while others encourage them. Indeed, the ethical perspective encourages us to think more carefully about how, and what types of, geoengineering should be researched and implemented. © 2017 The Author(s).

  9. Potential and costs of carbon dioxide removal by enhanced weathering of rocks

    Science.gov (United States)

    Strefler, Jessica; Amann, Thorben; Bauer, Nico; Kriegler, Elmar; Hartmann, Jens

    2018-03-01

    The chemical weathering of rocks currently absorbs about 1.1 Gt CO2 a-1 being mainly stored as bicarbonate in the ocean. An enhancement of this slow natural process could remove substantial amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere, aiming to offset some unavoidable anthropogenic emissions in order to comply with the Paris Agreement, while at the same time it may decrease ocean acidification. We provide the first comprehensive assessment of economic costs, energy requirements, technical parameterization, and global and regional carbon removal potential. The crucial parameters defining this potential are the grain size and weathering rates. The main uncertainties about the potential relate to weathering rates and rock mass that can be integrated into the soil. The discussed results do not specifically address the enhancement of weathering through microbial processes, feedback of geogenic nutrient release, and bioturbation. We do not only assess dunite rock, predominantly bearing olivine (in the form of forsterite) as the mineral that has been previously proposed to be best suited for carbon removal, but focus also on basaltic rock to minimize potential negative side effects. Our results show that enhanced weathering is an option for carbon dioxide removal that could be competitive already at 60 US  t-1 CO2 removed for dunite, but only at 200 US  t-1 CO2 removed for basalt. The potential carbon removal on cropland areas could be as large as 95 Gt CO2 a-1 for dunite and 4.9 Gt CO2 a-1 for basalt. The best suited locations are warm and humid areas, particularly in India, Brazil, South-East Asia and China, where almost 75% of the global potential can be realized. This work presents a techno-economic assessment framework, which also allows for the incorporation of further processes.

  10. Salt-enhanced chemical weathering of building materials and bacterial mineralization of calcium carbonate as a treatment

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schiro, M.; Ruiz-Agudo, E.; Jroundi, F.; Gonzalez-Muñoz, M. T.; Rodriguez-Navarro, C.

    2012-04-01

    Salt weathering is an important mechanism contributing to the degradation and loss of stone building materials. In addition to the physical weathering resulting from crystallization pressure, the presence of salts in solution greatly enhances the chemical weathering potential of pore waters. Flow through experiments quantify the dissolution rates of calcite and quartz grains (63-125 micrometer diameter) when subjected to 1.0 ionic strength solutions of MgSO4, MgCl, Na2SO4 or NaCl. Results indicate that the identity of the cation is the primary control over the dissolution rate of both calcite and quartz substrates, with salt-enhanced dissolution occurring most rapidly in Mg2+ bearing solutions. It has been observed that weathering rates of rocks in nature, as well as building stones, are slowed down by naturally occurring or artificially produced patinas. These tend to be bacterially produced, durable mineralized coatings that lend some degree of protection to the underlying stone surface [1]. Our research shows that bacterially produced carbonate coatings can be quite effective at reducing chemical weathering of stone by soluble salts. The calcite-producing-bacteria used in this study were isolated from stone monuments in Granada, Spain [2] and cultivated in an organic-rich culture medium on a variety of artificial and natural substrates (including limestone, marble, sandstone, quartz, calcite single crystals, glass cover-slips, and sintered porous glass). Scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) was used to image bacterial calcite growth and biofilm formation. In-situ atomic force microscopy (AFM) enabled calculation of dissolution rates of untreated and bacterially treated surfaces. 2D-XRD showed the mineralogy and crystallographic orientation of bacterial calcium carbonate. Results indicate that bacterially produced calcite crystals form a coherent, mechanically resistant surface layer in perfect crystallographic continuity with the calcite substrate (self

  11. The Effects of Natural Weathering on Color Stability of Impregnated and Varnished Wood Materials

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Turkay Turkoglu

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available The aim of this study was to investigate effects of natural weathering on color stability of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L. and Oriental beech (Fagus orientalis L. impregnated with some chemicals [tanalith-E (TN-E, adolit-KD5 (AD-KD5, and chromated copper arsenate (CCA] and then varnished [synthetic varnish (SV and polyurethane varnish (PV]. While applying varnish increased lightness, impregnation decreased lightness of the wood specimens before natural weathering. Natural weathering caused greenish, bluish, and dark color tones of the wood surface. Total color change was increased with increasing exposure times in natural weathering. Untreated (control wood specimens exhibited higher color changes than the other wood specimens in all the stages of natural weathering. The total color changes of untreated Oriental beech specimens were less than untreated Scots pine specimens. The color stability of impregnated and varnished wood specimens gave better results than untreated and solely varnished wood specimens after natural weathering. The best color stability was obtained from both Oriental beech and Scots pine wood impregnated with TN-E before PV coating.

  12. On nutrients and trace metals: Effects from Enhanced Weathering

    Science.gov (United States)

    Amann, T.; Hartmann, J.

    2015-12-01

    The application of rock flour on suitable land ("Enhanced Weathering") is one proposed strategy to reduce the increase of atmospheric CO2 concentrations. At the same time it is an old and established method to add fertiliser and influence soil properties. Investigations of this method focused on the impact on the carbonate system, as well as on engineering aspects of a large-scale application, but potential side effects were never discussed quantitatively. We analysed about 120,000 geochemically characterised volcanic rock samples from the literature. Applying basic statistics, theoretical release rates of nutrients and potential contaminants by Enhanced Weathering were evaluated for typical rock types. Applied rock material can contain significant amounts of essential or beneficial nutrients (potassium, phosphorus, micronutrients). Their release can partly cover the demand of major crops like wheat, rice or corn, thereby increasing crop yield on degraded soils. However, the concentrations of considered elements are variable within a specific rock type, depending on the geological setting. High heavy metal concentrations are found in (ultra-) basic rocks, the class with the highest CO2 drawdown potential. More acidic rocks contain less or no critical amounts, but sequester less CO2. Findings show that the rock selection determines the capability to supply significant amounts of nutrients, which could partly substitute industrial mineral fertiliser usage. At the same time, the release of harmful trace element has to be considered. Through careful selection of regionally available rocks, benefits could be maximised and drawbacks reduced. The deployment of Enhanced Weathering to sequester CO2 and to ameliorate soils necessitates an ecosystem management, considering the release and fate of weathered elements in plants, soils and water. Cropland with degraded soils would benefit while having a net negative CO2 effect, while other carbon dioxide removal strategies, like

  13. The natural weathering of staurolite: crystal-surface textures, relative stability, and the rate-determining step

    Science.gov (United States)

    Michael A. Velbel; Charles L. Basso; Michael J. Zieg

    1996-01-01

    Mineral surface-textures on naturally weathered crystals of staurolite [monoclinic, pseudo-orthorhombic; Fe4Al18Si8O46(OH)2] indicate that staurolite weathering is generally interface-limited. Etch pits on naturally weathered staurolites are disk-shaped,...

  14. Influence of weather conditions on natural radioactivity

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Simion, Florin; Simion, Elena; Cuculeanu, Vasile; Mihalcea, Ion

    2011-01-01

    This paper presents the dependence of the natural radioactivity on atmospheric weather conditions: air temperature, atmospheric pressure, wind speed, atmospherical precipitations and relative humidity. The values used in the paper were taken from the environmental radioactivity monitoring in Botosani city, Romania, as measured by the Environmental Radioactivity Surveillance Station. Daily global measurements of atmospheric deposition beta and atmospheric aerosols as well were carried out, including the indirect determination of radon and thoron, and the absorbed gamma dose rate in air, as well. Sampling and measurement frequency depended on the type of sample analyzed as follows: atmospheric deposition were taken daily, atmospheric aerosols were collected 4 times/day, with a sampling interval of 5 hours while the air absorbed dose rate was determined at a hourly rate. The coefficient of multiple correlation between the type of analysis and weather conditions, was determined. By using multiple linear regression it was highlighted the natural radioactivity dependence on the atmospheric conditions and meteorological parameters by a mathematical expression that can be used to determine missing values in a time series of measured data. By predicting the measured values our procedure can be considered as a validation process of the measurement accuracy

  15. Influences of air pollutants on polymeric materials. Natural weathering of polymers

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Reichert, T.F.R. [Fraunhofer-Institut fuer Chemische Technologie, Pfinztal-Berghausen (Germany)

    1995-12-31

    Polymeric materials are affected during their entire service life by a number of environmental influences. These originate from both man made and natural sources. Such environmental influences include solar radiation, temperature, humidity and air pollutant effects. They all act together, some independently and some synergistically, to influence material properties, as well as functionality, service life, quality and reliability of the poly materials and systems. The main degradation process is chain scission with loss of molecular weight and oxidation, followed by fading of colours and loss of gloss and mechanical strength. Due to the large number of different types of polymers there are many types of degradation processes and it is difficult to generalise about the effects of the environment on organic materials. Materials, as opposed to organisms, have no self-repair mechanism which allows them to tolerate a certain level of stress. In principle, therefore, it is not possible to define critical levels for the effects of pollutants on materials below which no deterioration occurs. Material deterioration by weathering is normally a very slow process lasting some or more years. Therefore attempts have been made to produce deterioration in short-term experiments by using high stress levels. The limits for the high stress levels are given by the comparability of the obtained damage from artificially accelerated weathering with these from real natural weathering. To investigate the damage caused by air pollutants on polymeric materials, samples were natural weathered with some light exposed and some dark stored samples in different climatic and polluted areas of Germany. The weathering stations are closed to the continuously measuring stations for air quality

  16. Influences of air pollutants on polymeric materials. Natural weathering of polymers

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Reichert, T F.R. [Fraunhofer-Institut fuer Chemische Technologie, Pfinztal-Berghausen (Germany)

    1996-12-31

    Polymeric materials are affected during their entire service life by a number of environmental influences. These originate from both man made and natural sources. Such environmental influences include solar radiation, temperature, humidity and air pollutant effects. They all act together, some independently and some synergistically, to influence material properties, as well as functionality, service life, quality and reliability of the poly materials and systems. The main degradation process is chain scission with loss of molecular weight and oxidation, followed by fading of colours and loss of gloss and mechanical strength. Due to the large number of different types of polymers there are many types of degradation processes and it is difficult to generalise about the effects of the environment on organic materials. Materials, as opposed to organisms, have no self-repair mechanism which allows them to tolerate a certain level of stress. In principle, therefore, it is not possible to define critical levels for the effects of pollutants on materials below which no deterioration occurs. Material deterioration by weathering is normally a very slow process lasting some or more years. Therefore attempts have been made to produce deterioration in short-term experiments by using high stress levels. The limits for the high stress levels are given by the comparability of the obtained damage from artificially accelerated weathering with these from real natural weathering. To investigate the damage caused by air pollutants on polymeric materials, samples were natural weathered with some light exposed and some dark stored samples in different climatic and polluted areas of Germany. The weathering stations are closed to the continuously measuring stations for air quality

  17. Weather impacts on natural, social and economic systems. German report

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Flechsig, M; Gerlinger, K; Herrmann, N; Klein, R J.T.; Schneider, M; Sterr, H; Schellnhuber, H J

    2000-05-01

    The EU project Weather Impacts on Natural, Social and Economic Systems (WISE) has analysed impacts of current climate variability to evaluate the sensitivity of today's society to extreme weather. Unlike studies of anticipated impacts of climate change, WISE did not rely on scenarios and projections, but on existing and newly collected data. The research involved (i) the statistical modelling of meteorological and sectoral time series, aimed at quantifying the impacts of changing weather variables on sector output, (ii) a population survey, aimed at investigating public perception of and behavioural response to unusually hot and dry summers and mild winters, and (iii) a management survey, aimed at obtaining insight into managers' awareness and perception of the importance of extreme weather on their operations. The three activities revealed a wealth of data and information, providing relevant insights into Germany's sensitivity to and perception of extreme weather events. Sectors that were analysed included agriculture, outdoor fire, water supply, human health, electricity and gas consumption and tourism. It appears from the statistical modelling that extreme weather can have impressive impacts on all sectors, especially when expressed in monetary terms. However, weather variability is generally considered a manageable risk, to which sectors in Germany appear reasonably well-adapted. The population and management surveys reveal both positive and negative impacts of extreme weather. People generally respond to these impacts by adjusting their activities. The utilities (electricity, gas and water) indicate that they are robsut to the current level of weather variability and do not consider climate change an important threat to their operations. The tourism sector experiences impacts but typically takes a reactive approach to adaptation, although it is also developing weather-insensitive products. (orig.)

  18. Protecting against natural hazards - Information seeking behaviour in anticipation of severe weather events

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Jeuring, Jelmer

    2011-01-01

    Protection against natural hazards - Information seeking behaviour in anticipation of severe weather events Severe weather events can have considerable impact on society, including tourism organisations and tourists. Providing accurate and timely information about possible risks due to environmental

  19. Weather impacts on natural, social and economic systems. German report

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Flechsig, M.; Gerlinger, K.; Herrmann, N.; Klein, R.J.T.; Schneider, M.; Sterr, H.; Schellnhuber, H.J.

    2000-05-01

    The EU project Weather Impacts on Natural, Social and Economic Systems (WISE) has analysed impacts of current climate variability to evaluate the sensitivity of today's society to extreme weather. Unlike studies of anticipated impacts of climate change, WISE did not rely on scenarios and projections, but on existing and newly collected data. The research involved (i) the statistical modelling of meteorological and sectoral time series, aimed at quantifying the impacts of changing weather variables on sector output, (ii) a population survey, aimed at investigating public perception of and behavioural response to unusually hot and dry summers and mild winters, and (iii) a management survey, aimed at obtaining insight into managers' awareness and perception of the importance of extreme weather on their operations. The three activities revealed a wealth of data and information, providing relevant insights into Germany's sensitivity to and perception of extreme weather events. Sectors that were analysed included agriculture, outdoor fire, water supply, human health, electricity and gas consumption and tourism. It appears from the statistical modelling that extreme weather can have impressive impacts on all sectors, especially when expressed in monetary terms. However, weather variability is generally considered a manageable risk, to which sectors in Germany appear reasonably well-adapted. The population and management surveys reveal both positive and negative impacts of extreme weather. People generally respond to these impacts by adjusting their activities. The utilities (electricity, gas and water) indicate that they are robsut to the current level of weather variability and do not consider climate change an important threat to their operations. The tourism sector experiences impacts but typically takes a reactive approach to adaptation, although it is also developing weather-insensitive products. (orig.)

  20. Scaling in nature: From DNA through heartbeats to weather

    Science.gov (United States)

    Havlin, S.; Buldyrev, S. V.; Bunde, A.; Goldberger, A. L.; Ivanov, P. Ch.; Peng, C.-K.; Stanley, H. E.

    1999-12-01

    The purpose of this talk is to describe some recent progress in applying scaling concepts to various systems in nature. We review several systems characterized by scaling laws such as DNA sequences, heartbeat rates and weather variations. We discuss the finding that the exponent α quantifying the scaling in DNA in smaller for coding than for noncoding sequences. We also discuss the application of fractal scaling analysis to the dynamics of heartbeat regulation, and report the recent finding that the scaling exponent α is smaller during sleep periods compared to wake periods. We also discuss the recent findings that suggest a universal scaling exponent characterizing the weather fluctuations.

  1. Biotite weathering in a natural forest setting near Derome, Sweden

    Science.gov (United States)

    Balogh-Brunstad, Z.; Negrich, K.; Hassenkam, T.; Wallander, H.; Stipp, S. L.

    2011-12-01

    Chemical weathering is a key process in non-nitrogen nutrient acquisition by microbes, fungi and plants. Biotite is commonly the major source of potassium, magnesium and iron. A unique opportunity arose to study natural weathering of biotite by mixed conifer and hardwood forest vegetation and associated microbes and fungi at an abandoned mine site. After the mining stopped over 30 years ago biotite was left behind in piles and the forest vegetation progressively colonized the site. Samples were collected from the top 40 cm of the biotite piles in a vicinity of pine, spruce and birch trees and included some young seedlings. Macroscopic observations documented abundant hyphal growth between the sheets of biotite. We hypothesized that fungal hyphae grow between the sheets to explore the nutrient source and weather the biotite leaving hyphal-sized etched channels on the basal surfaces. Biotite surfaces were examined with atomic force microscopy (AFM) and environmental scanning electron microscopy (ESEM) in their natural state and after removing the biological material from the mineral surfaces. The ESEM images show extensive hyphal colonization and patchy biofilm cover of the entire biotite surface on and within the sheets and at the edges of the particles. Fungal hyphae did not attach strongly to the basal surfaces of the biotite flakes as a result of small particles on the surfaces and the uneven micro-topography. The AFM images illustrate a complex microbial community around the fungal hyphae and detailed fungal morphology. High resolution AFM images show unique globular features of diameter 10-100 nm on all biofilm surfaces. However, removal of the biological material resulted in smooth and un-etched surfaces indicating that either our removal techniques are too invasive and destroy the surface layers of interest, or the etching of the basal surface is not the main mechanism for chemical weathering and base-cation nutrient immobilization in this natural setting

  2. Olivine Dissolution in Seawater: Implications for CO2 Sequestration through Enhanced Weathering in Coastal Environments

    Science.gov (United States)

    2017-01-01

    Enhanced weathering of (ultra)basic silicate rocks such as olivine-rich dunite has been proposed as a large-scale climate engineering approach. When implemented in coastal environments, olivine weathering is expected to increase seawater alkalinity, thus resulting in additional CO2 uptake from the atmosphere. However, the mechanisms of marine olivine weathering and its effect on seawater–carbonate chemistry remain poorly understood. Here, we present results from batch reaction experiments, in which forsteritic olivine was subjected to rotational agitation in different seawater media for periods of days to months. Olivine dissolution caused a significant increase in alkalinity of the seawater with a consequent DIC increase due to CO2 invasion, thus confirming viability of the basic concept of enhanced silicate weathering. However, our experiments also identified several important challenges with respect to the detailed quantification of the CO2 sequestration efficiency under field conditions, which include nonstoichiometric dissolution, potential pore water saturation in the seabed, and the potential occurrence of secondary reactions. Before enhanced weathering of olivine in coastal environments can be considered an option for realizing negative CO2 emissions for climate mitigation purposes, these aspects need further experimental assessment. PMID:28281750

  3. Development of tailored indigenous marine consortia for the degradation of naturally weathered polyethylene films

    OpenAIRE

    Syranidou, Evdokia; Karkanorachaki, Katerina; Amorotti, Filippo; Repouskou, Eftychia; Kroll, Kevin; Kolvenbach, Boris; Corvini, Philippe F-X; Fava, Fabio; Kalogerakis, Nicolas

    2017-01-01

    This study investigated the potential of bacterial-mediated polyethylene (PE) degradation in a two-phase microcosm experiment. During phase I, naturally weathered PE films were incubated for 6 months with the indigenous marine community alone as well as bioaugmented with strains able to grow in minimal medium with linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE) as the sole carbon source. At the end of phase I the developed biofilm was harvested and re-inoculated with naturally weathered PE films. Bac...

  4. The effect of natural weathering on the mechanical, morphological and thermal properties of high impact polystyrene (HIPS)

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Sahin, Tuelin; Sinmazcelik, Tamer; Sahin, Senol

    2007-01-01

    The effect of natural weathering on the mechanical, morphological and thermal properties on the high impact polystyrene (HIPS) and cold drawn HIPS are investigated. After natural weathering period of 8760 h, under known meteorological parameters, the changes in mechanical properties are investigated by using tensile, instrumented impact and hardness tests. Thermo-mechanical properties are characterized by using thermomechanical analysis (TMA) and melt flow index (MFI). Fractured surfaces of the materials are investigated by scanning electron microscope (SEM). Natural weathering effects on fracture mechanisms are discussed by means of fractographical analysis. Remarkable morphological changes were observed especially at the surface of the material. This results in dramatic loss in mechanical properties

  5. Durability of anti-graffiti coatings on stone: natural vs accelerated weathering.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Carmona-Quiroga, Paula M; Jacobs, Robert M J; Martínez-Ramírez, Sagrario; Viles, Heather A

    2017-01-01

    Extending the use of novel anti-graffiti coatings to built heritage could be of particular interest providing the treatments are efficient enough in facilitating graffiti removal and long-lasting to maintain their protective properties without interfering with the durability of the substrates. However, studies of the durability of these coatings are scarce and have been mainly carried out under accelerated weathering conditions, the most common practice for assessing the durability of materials but one that does not reproduce accurately natural working conditions. The present study aimed to assess the durability of the anti-graffiti protection afforded by two anti-graffiti treatments (a water dispersion of polyurethane with a perfluoropolyether backbone and a water based crystalline micro wax) on Portland limestone and Woodkirk sandstone after 1 year of outdoor exposure in the South of England with periodic painting and cleaning episodes taking place. A parallel study under artificial weathering conditions in a QUV chamber for 2000 hours was also carried out. Changes to the coatings were assessed by measuring colour, gloss, water-repellency, roughness and microstructure, the latter through micro-Raman and optical microscope observations, periodically during the experiments. The results show that both anti-graffiti treatments deteriorated under both artificial and natural weathering conditions. For the polyurethane based anti-graffiti treatment, artificial ageing produced more deterioration than 1 year of outdoor exposure in the south of England due to loss of adhesion from the stones, whereas for micro wax coating there were no substantial differences between the two types of weathering.

  6. Durability of anti-graffiti coatings on stone: natural vs accelerated weathering.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Paula M Carmona-Quiroga

    Full Text Available Extending the use of novel anti-graffiti coatings to built heritage could be of particular interest providing the treatments are efficient enough in facilitating graffiti removal and long-lasting to maintain their protective properties without interfering with the durability of the substrates. However, studies of the durability of these coatings are scarce and have been mainly carried out under accelerated weathering conditions, the most common practice for assessing the durability of materials but one that does not reproduce accurately natural working conditions. The present study aimed to assess the durability of the anti-graffiti protection afforded by two anti-graffiti treatments (a water dispersion of polyurethane with a perfluoropolyether backbone and a water based crystalline micro wax on Portland limestone and Woodkirk sandstone after 1 year of outdoor exposure in the South of England with periodic painting and cleaning episodes taking place. A parallel study under artificial weathering conditions in a QUV chamber for 2000 hours was also carried out. Changes to the coatings were assessed by measuring colour, gloss, water-repellency, roughness and microstructure, the latter through micro-Raman and optical microscope observations, periodically during the experiments. The results show that both anti-graffiti treatments deteriorated under both artificial and natural weathering conditions. For the polyurethane based anti-graffiti treatment, artificial ageing produced more deterioration than 1 year of outdoor exposure in the south of England due to loss of adhesion from the stones, whereas for micro wax coating there were no substantial differences between the two types of weathering.

  7. On the Nature of People's Reaction to Space Weather and Meteorological Weather Changes

    Science.gov (United States)

    Khabarova, O. V.; Dimitrova, S.

    2009-12-01

    Our environment includes many natural and artificial agents affecting any person on the Earth in one way or other. This work is focused on two of them - weather and space weather, which are permanently effective. Their cumulative effect is proved by means of the modeling. It is shown that combination of geomagnetic and solar indices and weather strength parameter (which includes six main meteorological parameters) correlates with health state significantly better (up to R=0.7), than separate environmental parameters do. The typical shape of any health characteristics' time-series during human body reaction to any negative impact represents a curve, well-known in medicine as a General Adaptation Syndrome curve by Hans Selye. We demonstrate this on the base of blood pressure time-series and acupunctural experiment data, averaged by group. The first stage of adaptive stress-reaction (resistance to stress) is sometimes observed 1-2 days before geomagnetic storm onset. The effect of "outstripping reaction to magnetic storm", named Tchizhevsky- Velkhover effect, had been known for many years, but its explanation was obtained recently due to the consideration of the near-Earth space plasma processes. It was shown that lowfrequency variations of the solar wind density on a background of the density growth can stimulate the development of the geomagnetic filed (GMF) variations of the wide frequency range. These variations seem to have "bioeffective frequencies", resonant with own frequencies of body organs and systems. The mechanism of human body reaction is supposed to be a parametrical resonance in low-frequency range (which is determined by the resonance in large-scale organs and systems) and a simple forced resonance in GHz-range of variations (the resonance of micro-objects in the organism such as DNA, cell membranes, blood ions etc.) Given examples of mass-reaction of the objects to ULF-range GMF variations during quiet space weather time prove this hypothesis.

  8. The effect of natural weathering on the chemical and isotopic composition of biotites

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Clauer, N.; Bonnot-Courtois, C.

    1982-01-01

    The effect of progressive natural weathering on the isotopic (Rb-Sr, K-Ar, deltaD, delta 18 O) and chemical (REE, H 2 O + ) compositions of biotite has been studied on a suite of migmatitic biotites from the Chad Republic. During the early stages of weathering the Rb-Sr system is strongly affected, the hydrogen and oxygen isotope compositions change markedly, the minerals are depleted in light REE, the water content increases by a factor of two, and the K-Ar system is relatively little disturbed. During intensive weathering the K-Ar system is more strongly disturbed than the Rb-Sr system. Most of the isotopic and chemical modifications take place under nonequilibrium conditions and occur before newly formed kaolinite and/or smectite can be detected. These observations suggest that (a) 'protominerals' may form within the biotite structure during the initial period of weathering, and (b) only when chemical equilibrium is approached in the weathering profile are new minerals able to form. (author)

  9. Enhanced weathering strategies for stabilizing climate and averting ocean acidification

    Science.gov (United States)

    Taylor, Lyla L.; Quirk, Joe; Thorley, Rachel M. S.; Kharecha, Pushker A.; Hansen, James; Ridgwell, Andy; Lomas, Mark R.; Banwart, Steve A.; Beerling, David J.

    2016-04-01

    Chemical breakdown of rocks, weathering, is an important but very slow part of the carbon cycle that ultimately leads to CO2 being locked up in carbonates on the ocean floor. Artificial acceleration of this carbon sink via distribution of pulverized silicate rocks across terrestrial landscapes may help offset anthropogenic CO2 emissions. We show that idealized enhanced weathering scenarios over less than a third of tropical land could cause significant drawdown of atmospheric CO2 and ameliorate ocean acidification by 2100. Global carbon cycle modelling driven by ensemble Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) projections of twenty-first-century climate change (RCP8.5, business-as-usual; RCP4.5, medium-level mitigation) indicates that enhanced weathering could lower atmospheric CO2 by 30-300 ppm by 2100, depending mainly on silicate rock application rate (1 kg or 5 kg m-2 yr-1) and composition. At the higher application rate, end-of-century ocean acidification is reversed under RCP4.5 and reduced by about two-thirds under RCP8.5. Additionally, surface ocean aragonite saturation state, a key control on coral calcification rates, is maintained above 3.5 throughout the low latitudes, thereby helping maintain the viability of tropical coral reef ecosystems. However, we highlight major issues of cost, social acceptability, and potential unanticipated consequences that will limit utilization and emphasize the need for urgent efforts to phase down fossil fuel emissions.

  10. Enhanced Weathering Strategies for Stabilizing Climate and Averting Ocean Acidification

    Science.gov (United States)

    Taylor, Lyla L.; Quirk, Joe; Thorley, Rachel M. S.; Kharecha, Pushker A.; Hansen, James; Ridgwell, Andy; Lomas, Mark R.; Banwart, Steve A.; Beerling, David J.

    2015-01-01

    Chemical breakdown of rocks, weathering, is an important but very slow part of the carbon cycle that ultimately leads to CO2 being locked up in carbonates on the ocean floor. Artificial acceleration of this carbon sink via distribution of pulverized silicate rocks across terrestrial landscapes may help offset anthropogenic CO2 emissions. We show that idealized enhanced weathering scenarios over less than a third of tropical land could cause significant drawdown of atmospheric CO2 and ameliorate ocean acidification by 2100. Global carbon cycle modelling driven by ensemble Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) projections of twenty-first-century climate change (RCP8.5, business-as-usual; RCP4.5, medium-level mitigation) indicates that enhanced weathering could lower atmospheric CO2 by 30-300 ppm by 2100, depending mainly on silicate rock application rate (1 kg or 5 kg m(exp -2) yr (exp -1)) and composition. At the higher application rate, end-of-century ocean acidification is reversed under RCP4.5 and reduced by about two-thirds under RCP8.5. Additionally, surface ocean aragonite saturation state, a key control on coral calcification rates, is maintained above 3.5 throughout the low latitudes, thereby helping maintain the viability of tropical coral reef ecosystems. However, we highlight major issues of cost, social acceptability, and potential unanticipated consequences that will limit utilization and emphasize the need for urgent efforts to phase down fossil fuel emissions.

  11. Modeling the evolution of natural cliffs subject to weathering. 1, Limit analysis approach

    OpenAIRE

    Utili, Stefano; Crosta, Giovanni B.

    2011-01-01

    Retrogressive landsliding evolution of natural slopes subjected to weathering has been modeled by assuming Mohr-Coulomb material behavior and by using an analytical method. The case of weathering-limited slope conditions, with complete erosion of the accumulated debris, has been modeled. The limit analysis upper-bound method is used to study slope instability induced by a homogeneous decrease of material strength in space and time. The only assumption required in the model concerns the degree...

  12. Enhancing the biodegradation of oil in sandy sediments with choline: A naturally methylated nitrogen compound

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Mortazavi, Behzad; Horel, Agota; Anders, Jennifer S.; Mirjafari, Arsalan; Beazley, Melanie J.; Sobecky, Patricia A.

    2013-01-01

    We investigated how additions of choline, a naturally occurring methylated nitrogen-containing compound, accelerated hydrocarbon degradation in sandy sediments contaminated with moderately weathered crude oil (4000 mg kg −1 sediment). Addition of lauroylcholine chloride (LCC) and tricholine citrate (TCC) to oil contaminated sediments resulted in 1.6 times higher hydrocarbon degradation rates compared to treatments without added choline derivatives. However, the degradation rate constant for the oil contaminated sediments amended with LCC was similar to that in contaminated sediments amended with inorganic nitrogen, phosphorus, and glucose. Additions of LLC and TCC to sediments containing extensively weathered oil also resulted in enhanced mineralization rates. Cultivation-free 16S rRNA analysis revealed the presence of an extant microbial community with clones closely related to known hydrocarbon degraders from the Gammaproteobacteria, Alphaproteobacteria, and Firmicutes phyla. The results demonstrate that the addition of minimal amounts of organic compounds to oil contaminated sediments enhances the degradation of hydrocarbons. -- Highlights: •Aerobic degradation of weathered crude oil in sandy sediments was determined. •The effect of input of choline on degradation rates was determined. •16S rRNA clone library analyses were used to examine the microbial phylogeny. •The bacterial community was consisted of clones related to hydrocarbon degraders. •Hydrocarbon degradation in sandy sediments was accelerated by addition of choline. -- Choline, a naturally occurring methylated nitrogen-containing compound, accelerated hydrocarbon degradation in sandy sediments by an extant microbial community

  13. Evaluation of the toxic properties of naturally weathered Exxon Valdez crude oil to surrogate wildlife species

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Stubblefield, W.A.; Hancock, G.A.; Ford, W.H.; Prince, H.H.; Ringer, R.K.

    1995-01-01

    The toxic properties of naturally weathered Exxon Valdez crude oil (WEVC) to avian and mammalian wildlife species were evaluated using the surrogate species, mallard duck, Anas platyrhynchos, and European ferret, Mustela putorius. This study was conducted to evaluate the potential for toxic (rather than physical) injury to wildlife species that may have been exposed to WEVC, either through external contact or through dietary uptake. Previous studies have assessed the toxicity of unweathered crude oils, including Alaska North Slope Crude, but little information exists regarding the toxicity of a naturally weathered crude oil, typical of that encountered following a spill. A battery of laboratory toxicity tests was conducted, in compliance with standard and published test procedures, to evaluate acute and subchronic toxicity of WEVC. These included tests of food avoidance, reproductive effects, and direct eggshell application toxicity. Naturally weathered EVC, recovered postspill from Prince William Sound, was used as the test material. 36 refs., 7 figs., 4 tabs

  14. Natural weathering of archaeo-metallurgical slags: an analog for present day vitrified wastes

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Mahe-le-Carlier, C.

    2000-01-01

    The study of the natural alteration of ancient vitreous slags (100 to 4000 years) suggests a single global mechanism. In a first stage, weathering consists of a selective extraction of the modifier cations of glass (including Pb and Ba). This phenomenon is associated with an increase of the solution pH, inducing the glass dissolution (Al, Fe). Pb and Ba are extracted from weathered glass. Pb is located in Fe-hydroxides, Ba may form sulfides. The rate of alteration varies from 20 to 180 μm per 1000 years. (authors)

  15. Defining the `negative emission' capacity of global agriculture deployed for enhanced rock weathering

    Science.gov (United States)

    Beerling, D. J.; Taylor, L.; Banwart, S. A.; Kantzas, E. P.; Lomas, M.; Mueller, C.; Ridgwell, A.; Quegan, S.

    2016-12-01

    Enhanced rock weathering involves application of crushed silicates (e.g. basalt) to the landscape to accelerate their chemical breakdown to release base cations and form bicarbonate that ultimate sequester CO2 in the oceans. Global croplands cover an area of 12 million km2 and might be deployed for long-term removal of anthropogenic CO2 through enhanced rock weathering with a number of co-benefits for food security. This presentation assesses the potential of this strategy to contribute to `negative emissions' as defined by a suite of simulations coupling a detailed model of rock grain weathering by crop root-microbial processes with a managed land dynamic global vegetation model driven by the `business as usual' future climate change scenarios. We calculate potential atmospheric CO2 drawdown over the next century by introducing a strengthened C-sink term into the global carbon cycle model within an intermediate complexity Earth system model. Our simulations indicate agricultural lands deployed in this way constitute a `low tech' biological negative emissions strategy. As part of a wider portfolio of options, this strategy might contribute to limiting future warming to 2oC, subject to economic costs and energy requirements.

  16. Degradation assessment of natural weathering on low density polyethylene/thermoplastic soya spent powder blends

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nuradibah, M. A.; Sam, S. T.; Noriman, N. Z.; Ragunathan, S.; Ismail, H.

    2015-07-01

    Soya spent powder was blended with low density polyethylene (LDPE) ranging from 5-25 wt%. Glycerol was added to soya spent powder (SSP) for preparation of thermoplastic soya spent powder (TSSP). Then, the blends were exposed to natural weathering for 6 months. The susceptibility of the LDPE/soya spent powder blends based on its tensile, morphological properties and structural changes was measured every three months. The tensile strength of LDPE/TSSP blends after 6 months of weathering was the lowest compared to the other blends whereas LDPE/SSP blends after 6 months of weathering demonstrated the lowest elongation at break (Eb). Large pore can be seen on the surface of 25 wt% of LDPE/SSP blends.

  17. Geomorphology's role in the study of weathering of cultural stone

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pope, Gregory A.; Meierding, Thomas C.; Paradise, Thomas R.

    2002-10-01

    Great monumental places—Petra, Giza, Angkor, Stonehenge, Tikal, Macchu Picchu, Rapa Nui, to name a few—are links to our cultural past. They evoke a sense of wonderment for their aesthetic fascination if not for their seeming permanence over both cultural and physical landscapes. However, as with natural landforms, human constructs are subject to weathering and erosion. Indeed, many of our cultural resources suffer from serious deterioration, some natural, some enhanced by human impact. Groups from the United Nations to local civic and tourism assemblies are deeply interested in maintaining and preserving such cultural resources, from simple rock art to great temples. Geomorphologists trained in interacting systems, process and response to thresholds, rates of change over time, and spatial variation of weathering processes and effects are able to offer insight into how deterioration occurs and what can be done to ameliorate the impact. Review of recent literature and case studies presented here demonstrate methodological and theoretical advances that have resulted from the study of cultural stone weathering. Because the stone was carved at a known date to a "baseline" or zero-datum level, some of the simplest methods (e.g., assessing surface weathering features or measuring surface recession in the field) provide useful data on weathering rates and processes. Such data are difficult or impossible to obtain in "natural" settings. Cultural stone weathering studies demonstrate the importance of biotic and saline weathering agents and the significance of weathering factors such as exposure (microclimate) and human impact. More sophisticated methods confirm these observations, but also reveal discrepancies between field and laboratory studies. This brings up two important caveats for conservators and geomorphologists. For the conservator, are laboratory and natural setting studies really analogous and useful for assessing stone damage? For the geomorphologist, does

  18. Weatherization is a Natural Choice for Montana: Weatherization Assistance Close-Up Fact Sheet

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    2001-01-01

    Montana demonstrates its commitment to technology and efficiency through the Weatherization Program. Weatherization uses advanced technologies and techniques to reduce energy costs for low-income families by increasing the energy efficiency of their homes

  19. Weatherization is a Natural Choice for Montana: Weatherization Assistance Close-Up Fact Sheet

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    D& R International

    2001-10-10

    Montana demonstrates its commitment to technology and efficiency through the Weatherization Program. Weatherization uses advanced technologies and techniques to reduce energy costs for low-income families by increasing the energy efficiency of their homes.

  20. Preliminary quantification of a shape model for etch-pits formed during natural weathering of olivine

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Nowicki, M. Anna; Velbel, Michael A.

    2011-01-01

    Many etch-pits on olivine grains occur as a pair of cone-shaped pits sharing a base, which consequently appear as diamond-shaped etch-pits in cross-section. Quantitative image analysis of back-scattered electron images establishes empirical dimensions of olivine etch-pits in naturally weathered samples from Hawaii and North Carolina. Images of naturally etched olivine were acquired from polished thin-sections by scanning electron microscopy. An average cone-radius-to-height ratio (r:h) of 1.78 was determined for diamond-shaped cross-sections of etch-pits occurring in naturally weathered olivine grains, largely consistent with previous qualitative results. Olivine etch-pit shape as represented by r:h varies from slightly more than half the average value to slightly more than twice the average. Etch-pit shape does not appear to vary systematically with etch-pit size.

  1. Atmospheric weathering and silica-coated feldspar: analogy with zeolite molecular sieves, granite weathering, soil formation, ornamental slabs, and ceramics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Smith, J V

    1998-03-31

    Feldspar surfaces respond to chemical, biological, and mechanical weathering. The simplest termination is hydroxyl (OH), which interacts with any adsorption layer. Acid leaching of alkalis and aluminum generated a silica-rich, nanometers-thick skin on certain feldspars. Natural K, Na-feldspars develop fragile surfaces as etch pits expand into micrometer honeycombs, possibly colonized by lichens. Most crystals have various irregular coats. Based on surface-catalytic processes in molecular sieve zeolites, I proposed that some natural feldspars lose weakly bonded Al-OH (aluminol) to yield surfaces terminated by strongly bonded Si-OH (silanol). This might explain why some old feldspar-bearing rocks weather slower than predicted from brief laboratory dissolution. Lack of an Al-OH infrared frequency from a feldspar surface is consistent with such a silanol-dominated surface. Raman spectra of altered patches on acid-leached albite correspond with amorphous silica rather than hydroxylated silica-feldspar, but natural feldspar may respond differently. The crystal structure of H-exchanged feldspar provides atomic positions for computer modeling of complex ideas for silica-terminated feldspar surfaces. Natural weathering also depends on swings of temperature and hydration, plus transport of particles, molecules, and ionic complexes by rain and wind. Soil formation might be enhanced by crushing granitic outcrops to generate new Al-rich surfaces favorable for chemical and biological weathering. Ornamental slabs used by architects and monumental masons might last longer by minimizing mechanical abrasion during sawing and polishing and by silicifying the surface. Silica-terminated feldspar might be a promising ceramic surface.

  2. Weathering products of basic rocks as sorptive materials of natural radionuclides

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Omelianenko, B.I.; Niconov, B.S.; Ryzhov, B.I.; Shikina, N.D.

    1994-06-01

    The principal requirements for employing natural minerals as buffer and backfill material in high-level waste (HLW) repositories are high sorptive properties, low water permeability, relatively high thermal conductivity, and thermostability. The major task of the buffer is to prevent the penetration of radionuclides into groundwater. The authors of this report examined weathered basic rocks from three regions of Russia in consideration as a suitable radioactive waste barrier

  3. Enhanced Weathering Strategies for Stabilizing Climate and Averting Ocean Acidification - Supplementary Information

    Science.gov (United States)

    Taylor, Lyla L.; Quirk, Joe; Thorley, Rachel M. S.; Kharecha, Pushker A.; Hansen, James; Ridgwell, Andy; Lomas, Mark R.; Banwart, Steve A.; Beerling, David J.

    2015-01-01

    Chemical breakdown of rocks, weathering, is an important but very slow part of the carbon cycle that ultimately leads to CO2 being locked up in carbonates on the ocean floor. Artificial acceleration of this carbon sink via distribution of pulverized silicate rocks across terrestrial landscapes may help offset anthropogenic CO2 emissions. We show that idealized enhanced weathering scenarios over less than a third of tropical land could cause significant drawdown of atmospheric CO2 and ameliorate ocean acidification by 2100. Global carbon cycle modelling driven by ensemble Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) projections of twenty-first-century climate change (RCP8.5, business-as-usual; RCP4.5, medium-level mitigation) indicates that enhanced weathering could lower atmospheric CO2 by 30-300 ppm by 2100, depending mainly on silicate rock application rate (1 kg or 5 kg m(exp. -2) yr (exp -1)) and composition. At the higher application rate, end-of-century ocean acidification is reversed under RCP4.5 and reduced by about two-thirds under RCP8.5. Additionally, surface ocean aragonite saturation state, a key control on coral calcification rates, is maintained above 3.5 throughout the low latitudes, thereby helping maintain the viability of tropical coral reef ecosystems. However, we highlight major issues of cost, social acceptability, and potential unanticipated consequences that will limit utilization and emphasize the need for urgent efforts to phase down fossil fuel emissions.

  4. Regulatory applications of the relationships between natural gas usage and weather; Climate information for the application of solar energy

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Gray, J.A.; Patterson, D.L.; Proctor, M.S.; Warren, H.E.; Robles-Gil, S.

    1997-05-01

    This books includes two articles, each with an abstract dealing with the economic aspects of natural gas usage and solar energy usage both depending on the data about weather forecasting. The demand of natural gas depends on weather and the analysis of gas usage is required in a rate case in order to properly estimate the volumes and revenues that would be recovered from current rate under conditions of normal weather. The actual uses of the principal types of solar energy systems, based on their climatic, technological and economical context are needed for future estimation concerning this energy sources which would have a more significant role in the future

  5. Enhanced Continental Weathering on Antarctica During the Mid Miocene Climatic Optima Based on Pb Isotopes

    Science.gov (United States)

    Martin, E. E.; Fenn, C.; Basak, C.

    2012-12-01

    Feedbacks between climate and continental weathering can be monitored over geologic time scales using Pb isotopes preserved in marine sediments. During chemical weathering, radiogenic Pb is preferentially released to the dissolved phase, producing weathering solutions with more radiogenic isotopic values than the parent rock. The offset between the composition of the solution and rock tend to increase with the intensity of incongruent weathering (von Blanckenburg and Nägler, 2001; Harlavan and Erel, 2002). The seawater isotopic signal extracted from Fe-Mn oxides on bulk marine sediments is interpreted to represent the composition of local dissolved weathering inputs. For example, increasing seawater Pb isotopes observed during the most recent deglaciation are believed to reflect enhanced weathering of newly exposed glacial rock flour under warm conditions (Foster and Vance, 2006; Kurzweil et al., 2010). For this study we evaluated Nd and Pb isotopes from both the seawater fraction (extracted from Fe-Mn oxides) and parent rock (the detrital fraction of marine sediment) during the Mid-Miocene Climatic Optimum (MMCO) and subsequent cooling and East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS) expansion (18 to 8 Ma) from Ocean Drilling Program site 744 on Kerguelen Plateau (2300 m; Indian sector) and sites 689 and 690 on Maud Rise (2080 m and 2914 m; Atlantic sector). The absolute value of seawater 206Pb/204Pb and separation between values for seawater and detrital fractions increased during the MMCO, suggesting enhanced weathering in proglacial and deglaciated areas exposed by ice sheet meltback during the warm interval. During the ensuing cooling, seawater values and the offset between the two archives decreased. Similar trends are displayed by 207Pb/204Pb and 208Pb/204Pb, although 207Pb/204Pb detrital values tend to be higher than seawater values. Reconstructions of atmospheric pCO2 in the Miocene have suggested both 1) decoupling between pCO2 and climate with consistently low

  6. Climate and weather risk in natural resource models

    Science.gov (United States)

    Merrill, Nathaniel Henry

    This work, consisting of three manuscripts, addresses natural resource management under risk due to variation in climate and weather. In three distinct but theoretically related applications, I quantify the role of natural resources in stabilizing economic outcomes. In Manuscript 1, we address policy designed to effect the risk of cyanobacteria blooms in a drinking water reservoir through watershed wide policy. Combining a hydrologic and economic model for a watershed in Rhode Island, we solve for the efficient allocation of best management practices (BMPs) on livestock pastures to meet a monthly risk-based as well as mean-based water quality objective. In order to solve for the efficient allocations of nutrient control effort, we optimize a probabilistically constrained integer-programming problem representing the choices made on each farm and the resultant conditions that support cyanobacteria blooms. In doing so, we employ a genetic algorithm (GA). We hypothesize that management based on controlling the upper tail of the probability distribution of phosphorus loading implies different efficient management actions as compared to controlling mean loading. We find a shift to more intense effort on fewer acres when a probabilistic objective is specified with cost savings of meeting risk levels of up to 25% over mean loading based policies. Additionally, we illustrate the relative cost effectiveness of various policies designed to meet this risk-based objective. Rainfall and the subsequent overland runoff is the source of transportation of nutrients to a receiving water body, with larger amounts of phosphorus moving in more intense rainfall events. We highlight the importance of this transportation mechanism by comparing policies under climate change scenarios, where the intensity of rainfall is projected to increase and the time series process of rainfall to change. In Manuscript 2, we introduce a new economic groundwater model that incorporates the gradual shift

  7. Realistic natural atmospheric phenomena and weather effects for interactive virtual environments

    Science.gov (United States)

    McLoughlin, Leigh

    Clouds and the weather are important aspects of any natural outdoor scene, but existing dynamic techniques within computer graphics only offer the simplest of cloud representations. The problem that this work looks to address is how to provide a means of simulating clouds and weather features such as precipitation, that are suitable for virtual environments. Techniques for cloud simulation are available within the area of meteorology, but numerical weather prediction systems are computationally expensive, give more numerical accuracy than we require for graphics and are restricted to the laws of physics. Within computer graphics, we often need to direct and adjust physical features or to bend reality to meet artistic goals, which is a key difference between the subjects of computer graphics and physical science. Pure physically-based simulations, however, evolve their solutions according to pre-set rules and are notoriously difficult to control. The challenge then is for the solution to be computationally lightweight and able to be directed in some measure while at the same time producing believable results. This work presents a lightweight physically-based cloud simulation scheme that simulates the dynamic properties of cloud formation and weather effects. The system simulates water vapour, cloud water, cloud ice, rain, snow and hail. The water model incorporates control parameters and the cloud model uses an arbitrary vertical temperature profile, with a tool described to allow the user to define this. The result of this work is that clouds can now be simulated in near real-time complete with precipitation. The temperature profile and tool then provide a means of directing the resulting formation..

  8. NASA Aviation Safety Program Weather Accident Prevention/weather Information Communications (WINCOMM)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Feinberg, Arthur; Tauss, James; Chomos, Gerald (Technical Monitor)

    2002-01-01

    Weather is a contributing factor in approximately 25-30 percent of general aviation accidents. The lack of timely, accurate and usable weather information to the general aviation pilot in the cockpit to enhance pilot situational awareness and improve pilot judgment remains a major impediment to improving aviation safety. NASA Glenn Research Center commissioned this 120 day weather datalink market survey to assess the technologies, infrastructure, products, and services of commercial avionics systems being marketed to the general aviation community to address these longstanding safety concerns. A market survey of companies providing or proposing to provide graphical weather information to the general aviation cockpit was conducted. Fifteen commercial companies were surveyed. These systems are characterized and evaluated in this report by availability, end-user pricing/cost, system constraints/limits and technical specifications. An analysis of market survey results and an evaluation of product offerings were made. In addition, recommendations to NASA for additional research and technology development investment have been made as a result of this survey to accelerate deployment of cockpit weather information systems for enhancing aviation safety.

  9. Development of tailored indigenous marine consortia for the degradation of naturally weathered polyethylene films.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Syranidou, Evdokia; Karkanorachaki, Katerina; Amorotti, Filippo; Repouskou, Eftychia; Kroll, Kevin; Kolvenbach, Boris; Corvini, Philippe F-X; Fava, Fabio; Kalogerakis, Nicolas

    2017-01-01

    This study investigated the potential of bacterial-mediated polyethylene (PE) degradation in a two-phase microcosm experiment. During phase I, naturally weathered PE films were incubated for 6 months with the indigenous marine community alone as well as bioaugmented with strains able to grow in minimal medium with linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE) as the sole carbon source. At the end of phase I the developed biofilm was harvested and re-inoculated with naturally weathered PE films. Bacteria from both treatments were able to establish an active population on the PE surfaces as the biofilm community developed in a time dependent way. Moreover, a convergence in the composition of these communities was observed towards an efficient PE degrading microbial network, comprising of indigenous species. In acclimated communities, genera affiliated with synthetic (PE) and natural (cellulose) polymer degraders as well as hydrocarbon degrading bacteria were enriched. The acclimated consortia (indigenous and bioaugmented) reduced more efficiently the weight of PE films in comparison to non-acclimated bacteria. The SEM images revealed a dense and compact biofilm layer and signs of bio-erosion on the surface of the films. Rheological results suggest that the polymers after microbial treatment had wider molecular mass distribution and a marginally smaller average molar mass suggesting biodegradation as opposed to abiotic degradation. Modifications on the surface chemistry were observed throughout phase II while the FTIR profiles of microbially treated films at month 6 were similar to the profiles of virgin PE. Taking into account the results, we can suggest that the tailored indigenous marine community represents an efficient consortium for degrading weathered PE plastics.

  10. Development of tailored indigenous marine consortia for the degradation of naturally weathered polyethylene films.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Evdokia Syranidou

    Full Text Available This study investigated the potential of bacterial-mediated polyethylene (PE degradation in a two-phase microcosm experiment. During phase I, naturally weathered PE films were incubated for 6 months with the indigenous marine community alone as well as bioaugmented with strains able to grow in minimal medium with linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE as the sole carbon source. At the end of phase I the developed biofilm was harvested and re-inoculated with naturally weathered PE films. Bacteria from both treatments were able to establish an active population on the PE surfaces as the biofilm community developed in a time dependent way. Moreover, a convergence in the composition of these communities was observed towards an efficient PE degrading microbial network, comprising of indigenous species. In acclimated communities, genera affiliated with synthetic (PE and natural (cellulose polymer degraders as well as hydrocarbon degrading bacteria were enriched. The acclimated consortia (indigenous and bioaugmented reduced more efficiently the weight of PE films in comparison to non-acclimated bacteria. The SEM images revealed a dense and compact biofilm layer and signs of bio-erosion on the surface of the films. Rheological results suggest that the polymers after microbial treatment had wider molecular mass distribution and a marginally smaller average molar mass suggesting biodegradation as opposed to abiotic degradation. Modifications on the surface chemistry were observed throughout phase II while the FTIR profiles of microbially treated films at month 6 were similar to the profiles of virgin PE. Taking into account the results, we can suggest that the tailored indigenous marine community represents an efficient consortium for degrading weathered PE plastics.

  11. On the dual nature of lichen-induced rock surface weathering in contrasting micro-environments.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Marques, Joana; Gonçalves, João; Oliveira, Cláudia; Favero-Longo, Sergio E; Paz-Bermúdez, Graciela; Almeida, Rubim; Prieto, Beatriz

    2016-10-01

    Contradictory evidence from biogeomorphological studies has increased the debate on the extent of lichen contribution to differential rock surface weathering in both natural and cultural settings. This study, undertaken in Côa Valley Archaeological Park, aimed at evaluating the effect of rock surface orientation on the weathering ability of dominant lichens. Hyphal penetration and oxalate formation at the lichen-rock interface were evaluated as proxies of physical and chemical weathering, respectively. A new protocol of pixel-based supervised image classification for the analysis of periodic acid-Schiff stained cross-sections of colonized schist revealed that hyphal spread of individual species was not influenced by surface orientation. However, hyphal spread was significantly higher in species dominant on northwest facing surfaces. An apparently opposite effect was noticed in terms of calcium oxalate accumulation at the lichen-rock interface; it was detected by Raman spectroscopy and complementary X-ray microdiffraction on southeast facing surfaces only. These results suggest that lichen-induced physical weathering may be most severe on northwest facing surfaces by means of an indirect effect of surface orientation on species abundance, and thus dependent on the species, whereas lichen-induced chemical weathering is apparently higher on southeast facing surfaces and dependent on micro-environmental conditions, giving only weak support to the hypothesis that lichens are responsible for the currently observed pattern of rock-art distribution in Côa Valley. Assumptions about the drivers of open-air rock-art distribution patterns elsewhere should also consider the micro-environmental controls of lichen-induced weathering, to avoid biased measures of lichen contribution to rock-art deterioration. © 2016 by the Ecological Society of America.

  12. Socio-Economic Impacts of Space Weather and User Needs for Space Weather Information

    Science.gov (United States)

    Worman, S. L.; Taylor, S. M.; Onsager, T. G.; Adkins, J. E.; Baker, D. N.; Forbes, K. F.

    2017-12-01

    The 2015 National Space Weather Strategy and Space Weather Action Plan (SWAP) details the activities, outcomes, and timelines to build a "Space Weather Ready Nation." NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center and Abt Associates are working together on two SWAP initiatives: (1) identifying, describing, and quantifying the socio-economic impacts of moderate and severe space weather; and (2) outreach to engineers and operators to better understand user requirements for space weather products and services. Both studies cover four technological sectors (electric power, commercial aviation, satellites, and GNSS users) and rely heavily on industry input. Findings from both studies are essential for decreasing vulnerabilities and enhancing preparedness.

  13. Adverse Weather Evokes Nostalgia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    van Tilburg, Wijnand A P; Sedikides, Constantine; Wildschut, Tim

    2018-03-01

    Four studies examined the link between adverse weather and the palliative role of nostalgia. We proposed and tested that (a) adverse weather evokes nostalgia (Hypothesis 1); (b) adverse weather causes distress, which predicts elevated nostalgia (Hypothesis 2); (c) preventing nostalgia exacerbates weather-induced distress (Hypothesis 3); and (d) weather-evoked nostalgia confers psychological benefits (Hypothesis 4). In Study 1, participants listened to recordings of wind, thunder, rain, and neutral sounds. Adverse weather evoked nostalgia. In Study 2, participants kept a 10-day diary recording weather conditions, distress, and nostalgia. We also obtained meteorological data. Adverse weather perceptions were positively correlated with distress, which predicted higher nostalgia. Also, adverse natural weather was associated with corresponding weather perceptions, which predicted elevated nostalgia. (Results were mixed for rain.) In Study 3, preventing nostalgia (via cognitive load) increased weather-evoked distress. In Study 4, weather-evoked nostalgia was positively associated with psychological benefits. The findings pioneer the relevance of nostalgia as source of comfort in adverse weather.

  14. The weathering effect in natural environment on kenaf blast and unsaturated polyester composite

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mohammed, M.; Rozyanty, A. R.; Beta, B. O.; Adam, T.; Osman, A. F.; Salem, I. A. S.; Dahham, O. S.; Al-Samarrai, M. N.; Mohammed, A. M.

    2017-10-01

    A Kenaf composite was prepared by using hand lay-up process. The effect of weather on mechanical, morphology and thermal properties of kenaf composite were studied. Tensile strength of kenaf compositewas found to be 60MPa. Unfortunately, tensile strength of thecomposite starts to decrease after the first weathering month through to the weathering periods with constant reduction of tensile, at the end of the wreathing period., almost 85% the composite mechanical behaviour is lost. From the mechanical properties result obtained it clearly seen that natural fiber and their composites are not able to stand environmental condition because they have poor wettability, incompatibility with some polymeric matrices and high moisture absorption. Due to the high moisture absorption properties, there are formations of void in interfacial adhesion between fiber and matrix which can reduce the mechanical properties of composite such as flexural strength or flexural modulus this clearly supported by SEM results. Fortunately some modification can do towards improving the mechanical properties and it is good enough to achieve the high performance of the composite with proper system formulation during the modification processand the result of reinforced kenaffiber will be presented in our next publication.

  15. Weather derivatives or how an energy company can hedge its weather risks

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Tahghighi, A.; Carpentier, Ph.

    2000-01-01

    This paper gives a detailed overview of weather derivatives and explains where this new class of financial products falls. The emergence of weather derivatives came about as a response to a need in the energy sector to hedge this sector's weather risks. This article focuses on the nature of these financial contracts, what they include and how they are priced. This article concludes by stating that energy companies in Europe can no longer afford to remain exposed to weather risks in an increasingly privatized and competitive market

  16. Regulatory applications of the relationships between natural gas usage and weather

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Gray, J.A.; Patterson, D.L.; Proctor, M.S.; Warren, H.E.

    1997-01-01

    This document provides the basics required for analysis and forecasting of natural gas usage for determining the revenues and revision of rates. The focus is on the Local Distribution Company and its customers. Analysis of gas usage is required in a rate case in order to properly estimate the volumes and revenues that would be recovered from current rate under conditions of normal weather. Normal volumes are also required to evaluate proposed rates. In the context of the Local Distribution Company's procurement of gas supply, forecasting of gas usage is required to determine both the daily usage profile and the peak day requirement

  17. Compositional changes of aromatic steroid hydrocarbons in naturally weathered oil residues in the Egyptian western desert

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Barakat, A.O.; Qian, Y.; Kim, M.; Kennicutt, M.C. II

    2002-01-01

    Aromatic steranes are geochemical markers that can be used to study the maturation of organic matter of sediments and to correlate crude oils and source rocks. In this study, naturally weathered oil residues from an arid waste disposal site in Al-Alamein, Egypt, were analyzed for monoaromatic and triaromatic steranes to show the usefulness of biomarker compounds in assessing changes in chemical composition during the degradation of oil residues that have been released onto terrestrial environments. Gas chromatography and mass spectrometry were used to characterize the individual aromatic compounds. Results indicate that triaromatic sterane distributions are similar in oil residues with varying extents of weathering. The distribution correlated with a fresh crude oil sample from Western Desert-sourced oil. Molecular ratios of triaromatic sterane compounds were found to be suitable for source identification. The major changes in chemical compositions resulting from the weathering of the oil included the depletion of short chain mono- and tri-aromatic steranes in extremely weathered samples. The results of the triaromatic sterane distribution correspond with weathering classifications based on the analyses of saturated and aromatic hydrocarbons and the ratios of n-alkanes, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and saturate biomarker compounds. 15 refs., 3 tabs., 3 figs

  18. Severe Weather Field Experience: An Undergraduate Field Course on Career Enhancement and Severe Convective Storms

    Science.gov (United States)

    Godfrey, Christopher M.; Barrett, Bradford S.; Godfrey, Elaine S.

    2011-01-01

    Undergraduate students acquire a deeper understanding of scientific principles through first-hand experience. To enhance the learning environment for atmospheric science majors, the University of North Carolina at Asheville has developed the severe weather field experience. Participants travel to Tornado Alley in the Great Plains to forecast and…

  19. The Origin of the "Seasons" in Space Weather

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dikpati, Mausumi; Cally, Paul S.; McIntosh, Scott W.; Heifetz, Eyal

    2017-11-01

    Powerful `space weather' events caused by solar activity pose serious risks to human health, safety, economic activity and national security. Spikes in deaths due to heart attacks, strokes and other diseases occurred during prolonged power outages. Currently it is hard to prepare for and mitigate the impact of space weather because it is impossible to forecast the solar eruptions that can cause these terrestrial events until they are seen on the Sun. However, as recently reported in Nature, eruptive events like coronal mass ejections and solar flares, are organized into quasi-periodic "seasons", which include enhanced bursts of eruptions for several months, followed by quiet periods. We explored the dynamics of sunspot-producing magnetic fields and discovered for the first time that bursty and quiet seasons, manifested in surface magnetic structures, can be caused by quasi-periodic energy-exchange among magnetic fields, Rossby waves and differential rotation of the solar interior shear-layer (called tachocline). Our results for the first time provide a quantitative physical mechanism for forecasting the strength and duration of bursty seasons several months in advance, which can greatly enhance our ability to warn humans about dangerous solar bursts and prevent damage to satellites and power stations from space weather events.

  20. NWS Weather Fatality, Injury and Damage Statistics

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... Weather Awareness Floods, Wind Chill, Tornadoes, Heat... Education Weather Terms, Teachers, Statistics government web resources and services. Natural Hazard Statistics Statistics U.S. Summaries 78-Year List of Severe Weather Fatalities Preliminary Hazardous Weather Statistics for 2017 Now

  1. Naturally Occurring Radionuclides and Rare Earth Elements Pattern in Weathered Japanese Soil Samples

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Sahoo, S.K.; Hosoda, M.; Takahashi, H.; Sorimachi, A.; Ishikawa, T.; Tokonami, S.; Uchida, S.

    2011-01-01

    From the viewpoint of radiation protection, determination of natural radionuclides e.g. thorium and uranium in soil samples are important. Accurate methods for determination of Th and U is gaining importance. The geochemical behavior of Th, U and rare earth elements (REEs) are relatively close to one another while compared to other elements in geological environment. Radioactive elements like 232 Th and 238 U along with their decay products (e.g. 226 Ra) are present in most of the environmental matrices and can be transferred to living bodies by different pathways that can lead to sources of exposure of man. Therefore, it is necessary to monitor these natural radionuclides in weathered soil samples to assess the possible hazards. The activity concentrations of 226 Ra, 228 Th, and 40 K in soils have been measured using a g γ-ray spectroscopy system with high purity germanium detector. The thorium, uranium and REEs were determined from the same sample using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). Granitic rocks contain higher amounts of Th, U and light REEs compared to other igneous rocks such as basalt and andesites. Therefore, it is necessary to understand the interaction between REEs and nature of soils, as soils are complex heterogeneous mixture of organic and inorganic solids, water and gases. In this paper, we have discussed about distribution pattern of 226 Ra, 232 Th and 238 U along with REEs in soil samples of weathered acid rock (granite and ryolite) collected from two prefectures in Japan: 1. Gifu and 2. Okinawa. (author)

  2. Enhancing the Awareness of the Interaction of the Space Weather and Public: Some Case Studies in Turkey

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tulunay, Y.; Tulunay, E.; Kocabas, Z.; Altuntas, E.; Yapici, T.; Senalp, E. T.; Hippler, R.

    2009-04-01

    Space Weather has important effects on many systems and peripherals that human interacts with. However, most of the people are not aware of those interactions. During the FP6 SWEETS, COST 724 and the ‘I love my Sun' activities it was aimed to create basis to bring together academicians from universities, experts from industry, scientific institutes, and the public, especially the school children of age 7-11, in order to enhance the awareness of space weather effects and to discuss appropriate countermeasures by different education and promotion methods including non-technical ones. This work mentions the activities performed in Turkey within the framework. Since 1990, a small group at METU has been developing data driven models in order to forecast some critical system parameters related with the near-Earth space processes. With the background on the subject the group feels responsible to organise activities in Turkey to inform public on enhancing the awareness of space weather effects. In order to inform and educate public on their interaction with the Space Weather, distinct social activities which take quick and strong attention were organised. Those include art shows and workshops, quizes, movies and entertainments, special programs for school children of age 7-11 under the ‘I love my Sun' activities, press releases, audio-visual media including webpages [Tulunay, 2007]. The impact of the activities can be evaluated considering the before and after activity record materials of the participants. For instance, under the ‘I love my Sun' activities, the school children drew pictures related with Sun before and after the informative programs. The performance of reaching the school children on the subject is very promising. Sub-activities conducted under the action are: 1. Space Weather Dance Show "Sonnensturm" 2. Web Quiz all over Europe: In Türkiye 3. Space Weather / Sun / Heliospheric Public Science Festivals in 27 Countries: In Türkiye 4. Space Weather on

  3. Waste glass weathering

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Bates, J.K.; Buck, E.C.

    1994-01-01

    The weathering of glass is reviewed by examining processes that affect the reaction of commercial, historical, natural, and nuclear waste glass under conditions of contact with humid air and slowly dripping water, which may lead to immersion in nearly static solution. Radionuclide release data from weathered glass under conditions that may exist in an unsaturated environment are presented and compared to release under standard leaching conditions. While the comparison between the release under weathering and leaching conditions is not exact, due to variability of reaction in humid air, evidence is presented of radionuclide release under a variety of conditions. These results suggest that both the amount and form of radionuclide release can be affected by the weathering of glass

  4. Climate change mitigation: potential benefits and pitfalls of enhanced rock weathering in tropical agriculture.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Edwards, David P; Lim, Felix; James, Rachael H; Pearce, Christopher R; Scholes, Julie; Freckleton, Robert P; Beerling, David J

    2017-04-01

    Restricting future global temperature increase to 2°C or less requires the adoption of negative emissions technologies for carbon capture and storage. We review the potential for deployment of enhanced weathering (EW), via the application of crushed reactive silicate rocks (such as basalt), on over 680 million hectares of tropical agricultural and tree plantations to offset fossil fuel CO 2 emissions. Warm tropical climates and productive crops will substantially enhance weathering rates, with potential co-benefits including decreased soil acidification and increased phosphorus supply promoting higher crop yields sparing forest for conservation, and reduced cultural eutrophication. Potential pitfalls include the impacts of mining operations on deforestation, producing the energy to crush and transport silicates and the erosion of silicates into rivers and coral reefs that increases inorganic turbidity, sedimentation and pH, with unknown impacts for biodiversity. We identify nine priority research areas for untapping the potential of EW in the tropics, including effectiveness of tropical agriculture at EW for major crops in relation to particle sizes and soil types, impacts on human health, and effects on farmland, adjacent forest and stream-water biodiversity. © 2017 The Author(s).

  5. Assessing Weather Curiosity in University Students

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stewart, A. E.

    2017-12-01

    This research focuses upon measuring an individual's level of trait curiosity about the weather using the Weather Curiosity Scale (WCS). The measure consists of 15 self-report items that describe weather preferences and/or behaviors that people may perform more or less frequently. The author reports on two initial studies of the WCS that have used the responses of 710 undergraduate students from a large university in the southeastern United States. In the first study, factor analysis of the 15 items indicated that the measure was unidimensional - suggesting that its items singularly assessed weather curiosity. The WCS also was internally consistent as evidenced by an acceptable Cronbach's alpha, a = .81). The second study sought to identify other personality variables that may relate with the WCS scores and thus illuminate the nature of weather curiosity. Several clusters of personality variables appear to underlie the curiosity levels people exhibited, the first of which related to perceptual curiosity (r = .59). Being curious about sights, sounds, smells, and textures generally related somewhat to curiosity about weather. Two measures of trait sensitivity to environmental stimulation, the Highly Sensitive Person Scale (r = .47) and the Orientation Sensitivity Scale of the Adult Temperament Questionnaire (r = .43), also predicted weather curiosity levels. Finally, possessing extraverted personality traits (r = .34) and an intense style of experiencing one's emotions (r = .33) related to weather curiosity. How can this measure be used in K-12 or post-secondary settings to further climate literacy? First, the WCS can identify students with natural curiosities about weather and climate so these students may be given more challenging instruction that will leverage their natural interests. Second, high-WCS students may function as weather and climate ambassadors during inquiry-based learning activities and thus help other students who are not as oriented to the

  6. It Started in a GE Freezer: Basic Precipitation Research Triggers the Business of Weather Modification

    Science.gov (United States)

    Harper, K.

    2015-12-01

    At the end of World War II, Nobel Prize-winning chemist Irving Langmuir and his team at the General Electric Research Laboratory in Schenectady, New York, were doing advanced research on cloaking smokes and aircraft icing for the US military. Trying to determine why some clouds precipitated while others did not, Langmuir concluded that non-precipitating clouds were lacking "ice nuclei" that would gather up cloud droplets until they became large enough to fall out of the cloud. If they could find an artificial substitute, it would be possible to modify clouds and the weather. Dry ice particles did the trick, military funding followed, and cloud busting commenced. But a handful of entrepreneurial meteorologists saw a different purpose: enhancing precipitation and preventing hail damage. The commercialization of weather modification was underway, with cloud seeding enhancing rainfall east of the Cascades, in the Desert Southwest, and even in the watersheds serving New York City. Hail busting took off in the Dakotas, and snowpack enhancement got a boost in Montana. Basic cloud physics research very quickly became commercial weather modification, fulfilling a postwar desire to use science and technology to control nature and creating an opening for meteorologists to provide a variety of specialized services to businesses whose profits depend on the weather.

  7. Behaviour of rare earth elements, as natural analogues of transuranium elements, during weathering of basaltic glasses

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Daux, V.; Crovisier, J.L.; Petit, J.C.

    1991-01-01

    Subglacial basaltic glasses from Iceland have been studied in order to investigate REE behaviour low-temperature weathering. Just as actinides accumulate in the hydrated superficial corrosion layer of borosilicate glasses, REEs are found to be enriched in the natural corrosion layer of basaltic glasses (palagonite). However, this enrichment is only relative for basaltic glasses [fr

  8. Space Weather Laboratory

    Data.gov (United States)

    Federal Laboratory Consortium — The Space Weather Computational Laboratory is a Unix and PC based modeling and simulation facility devoted to research analysis of naturally occurring electrically...

  9. GEOSS interoperability for Weather, Ocean and Water

    Science.gov (United States)

    Richardson, David; Nyenhuis, Michael; Zsoter, Ervin; Pappenberger, Florian

    2013-04-01

    "Understanding the Earth system — its weather, climate, oceans, atmosphere, water, land, geodynamics, natural resources, ecosystems, and natural and human-induced hazards — is crucial to enhancing human health, safety and welfare, alleviating human suffering including poverty, protecting the global environment, reducing disaster losses, and achieving sustainable development. Observations of the Earth system constitute critical input for advancing this understanding." With this in mind, the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) started implementing the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS). GEOWOW, short for "GEOSS interoperability for Weather, Ocean and Water", is supporting this objective. GEOWOW's main challenge is to improve Earth observation data discovery, accessibility and exploitability, and to evolve GEOSS in terms of interoperability, standardization and functionality. One of the main goals behind the GEOWOW project is to demonstrate the value of the TIGGE archive in interdisciplinary applications, providing a vast amount of useful and easily accessible information to the users through the GEO Common Infrastructure (GCI). GEOWOW aims at developing funcionalities that will allow easy discovery, access and use of TIGGE archive data and of in-situ observations, e.g. from the Global Runoff Data Centre (GRDC), to support applications such as river discharge forecasting.TIGGE (THORPEX Interactive Grand Global Ensemble) is a key component of THORPEX: a World Weather Research Programme to accelerate the improvements in the accuracy of 1-day to 2 week high-impact weather forecasts for the benefit of humanity. The TIGGE archive consists of ensemble weather forecast data from ten global NWP centres, starting from October 2006, which has been made available for scientific research. The TIGGE archive has been used to analyse hydro-meteorological forecasts of flooding in Europe as well as in China. In general the analysis has been favourable in terms of

  10. Strontium and argon isotopes in naturally weathered biotites, muscovites and feldspars

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Clauer, N.

    1981-01-01

    A Rb-Sr and K-Ar isotopical study on progressively weathered biotites, muscovites and feldspars from plutonic and eruptive rocks shows that their continental weathering is a complex phenomenon controlled by environmental conditions. During weathering of biotites, the K-Ar couple often mimics the Rb-Sr couple. The radiogenic Sr and Ar isotopes are systematically leached out, but the behaviour of the elemental Rb, K, Sr and Ar depends upon the environment. In contrast, the Sr and Ar balances of muscovites are maintained, even during very intensive weathering. In mixtures of feldspars, the common Sr seems to be leached out preferentially to the radiogenic isotope, while the K-Ar balance is maintained. (Auth.)

  11. Fair weather atmospheric electricity

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Harrison, R G

    2011-01-01

    Not long after Franklin's iconic studies, an atmospheric electric field was discovered in 'fair weather' regions, well away from thunderstorms. The origin of the fair weather field was sought by Lord Kelvin, through development of electrostatic instrumentation and early data logging techniques, but was ultimately explained through the global circuit model of C.T.R. Wilson. In Wilson's model, charge exchanged by disturbed weather electrifies the ionosphere, and returns via a small vertical current density in fair weather regions. New insights into the relevance of fair weather atmospheric electricity to terrestrial and planetary atmospheres are now emerging. For example, there is a possible role of the global circuit current density in atmospheric processes, such as cloud formation. Beyond natural atmospheric processes, a novel practical application is the use of early atmospheric electrostatic investigations to provide quantitative information on past urban air pollution.

  12. The Early Years: The Wonders of Weather

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ashbrook, Peggy

    2013-01-01

    This article reports on the wonders of winter weather, as it often inspires teachers' and students' interest in collecting weather data, especially if snow falls. Beginning weather data collection in preschool will introduce children to the concepts of making regular observations of natural phenomena, recording the observations (data),…

  13. Effects of Wood Roughness, Light Pigments, and Water Repellent on the Color Stability of Painted Spruce Subjected to Natural and Accelerated Weathering

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ladislav Reinprecht

    2015-09-01

    Full Text Available This study examined the color stability of painted Norway spruce (Picea abies samples subjected to natural and accelerated weathering, using Duncan’s tests and correlation analyses. The following effects were studied: (1 the different initial roughness of the wood; (2 use of transparent or lightly-pigmented top-coat layers; and (3 the presence of the final water-repellent layer. Natural weathering at a 45° slope in an industrial zone lasted 104 weeks, whereas accelerated weathering in Xenotest with 0.55 W/m2 UV irradiation at 340 nm and sprayed water lasted 12 weeks. The color stability of painted spruce, measured in a CIE-L*a*b* system, was not, in the majority of cases, significantly affected by the initial roughness of the wood, the type of top-coat (WoodCare UV or PerlColor layer, or presence of the final water repellent (AquaStop layer. The light pine or larch pigments in the top-coat layers had positive color stabilizing effects. In their presence, the darkening (-L* and total color differences (E* of the painted samples dropped ca. 2.5 times during exterior weathering and ca. 5 times during Xenotest weathering. Samples painted with transparent coatings turned a reddish shade (+a* during the Xenotest, while those exposed to the exterior absorbed dirt and became more blue (-b*.

  14. New Technologies for Weather Accident Prevention

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stough, H. Paul, III; Watson, James F., Jr.; Daniels, Taumi S.; Martzaklis, Konstantinos S.; Jarrell, Michael A.; Bogue, Rodney K.

    2005-01-01

    Weather is a causal factor in thirty percent of all aviation accidents. Many of these accidents are due to a lack of weather situation awareness by pilots in flight. Improving the strategic and tactical weather information available and its presentation to pilots in flight can enhance weather situation awareness and enable avoidance of adverse conditions. This paper presents technologies for airborne detection, dissemination and display of weather information developed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in partnership with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), industry and the research community. These technologies, currently in the initial stages of implementation by industry, will provide more precise and timely knowledge of the weather and enable pilots in flight to make decisions that result in safer and more efficient operations.

  15. Enhanced seasonal predictability of the summer mean temperature in Central Europe favored by new dominant weather patterns

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hoffmann, P.

    2018-04-01

    In this study two complementary approaches have been combined to estimate the reliability of the data-driven seasonal predictability of the meteorological summer mean temperature (T_{JJA}) over Europe. The developed model is based on linear regressions and uses early season predictors to estimate the target value T_{JJA}. We found for the Potsdam (Germany) climate station that the monthly standard deviations (σ) from January to April and the temperature mean ( m) in April are good predictors to describe T_{JJA} after 1990. However, before 1990 the model failed. The core region where this model works is the north-eastern part of Central Europe. We also analyzed long-term trends of monthly Hess/Brezowsky weather types as possible causes of the dynamical changes. In spring, a significant increase of the occurrences for two opposite weather patterns was found: Zonal Ridge across Central Europe (BM) and Trough over Central Europe (TRM). Both currently make up about 30% of the total alternating weather systems over Europe. Other weather types are predominantly decreasing or their trends are not significant. Thus, the predictability may be attributed to these two weather types where the difference between the two Z500 composite patterns is large. This also applies to the north-eastern part of Central Europe. Finally, the detected enhanced seasonal predictability over Europe is alarming, because severe side effects may occur. One of these are more frequent climate extremes in summer half-year.

  16. Rapid enhancement of chemical weathering recorded by extremely light seawater lithium isotopes at the Permian-Triassic boundary

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sun, He; Xiao, Yilin; Gao, Yongjun; Zhang, Guijie; Casey, John F.; Shen, Yanan

    2018-04-01

    Lithium (Li) isotope analyses of sedimentary rocks from the Meishan section in South China reveal extremely light seawater Li isotopic signatures at the Permian–Triassic boundary (PTB), which coincide with the most severe mass extinction in the history of animal life. Using a dynamic seawater lithium box model, we show that the light seawater Li isotopic signatures can be best explained by a significant influx of riverine [Li] with light δ7Li to the ocean realm. The seawater Li isotope excursion started ≥300 Ky before and persisted up to the main extinction event, which is consistent with the eruption time of the Siberian Traps. The eruption of the Siberian Traps exposed an enormous amount of fresh basalt and triggered CO2 release, rapid global warming, and acid rains, which in turn led to a rapid enhancement of continental weathering. The enhanced continental weathering delivered excessive nutrients to the oceans that could lead to marine eutrophication, anoxia, acidification, and ecological perturbation, ultimately resulting in the end-Permian mass extinction.

  17. A reactive transport model for Marcellus shale weathering

    Science.gov (United States)

    Heidari, Peyman; Li, Li; Jin, Lixin; Williams, Jennifer Z.; Brantley, Susan L.

    2017-11-01

    Shale formations account for 25% of the land surface globally and contribute a large proportion of the natural gas used in the United States. One of the most productive shale-gas formations is the Marcellus, a black shale that is rich in organic matter and pyrite. As a first step toward understanding how Marcellus shale interacts with water in the surface or deep subsurface, we developed a reactive transport model to simulate shale weathering under ambient temperature and pressure conditions, constrained by soil and water chemistry data. The simulation was carried out for 10,000 years since deglaciation, assuming bedrock weathering and soil genesis began after the last glacial maximum. Results indicate weathering was initiated by pyrite dissolution for the first 1000 years, leading to low pH and enhanced dissolution of chlorite and precipitation of iron hydroxides. After pyrite depletion, chlorite dissolved slowly, primarily facilitated by the presence of CO2 and organic acids, forming vermiculite as a secondary mineral. A sensitivity analysis indicated that the most important controls on weathering include the presence of reactive gases (CO2 and O2), specific surface area, and flow velocity of infiltrating meteoric water. The soil chemistry and mineralogy data could not be reproduced without including the reactive gases. For example, pyrite remained in the soil even after 10,000 years if O2 was not continuously present in the soil column; likewise, chlorite remained abundant and porosity remained small if CO2 was not present in the soil gas. The field observations were only simulated successfully when the modeled specific surface areas of the reactive minerals were 1-3 orders of magnitude smaller than surface area values measured for powdered minerals. Small surface areas could be consistent with the lack of accessibility of some fluids to mineral surfaces due to surface coatings. In addition, some mineral surface is likely interacting only with equilibrated pore

  18. Combining traditional weather forecasting, science in Kenya | IDRC ...

    International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Digital Library (Canada)

    2012-02-24

    Feb 24, 2012 ... Kenyan farmers have relied on the indigenous weather prediction methods of the Nganyi rainmakers for generations. But extreme weather caused by climate change is affecting the natural signs that rainmakers use to predict weather. Many fear traditional methods are therefore becoming redundant and ...

  19. Remote sensing optical instrumentation for enhanced space weather monitoring from the L1 and L5 Lagrange points

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kraft, S.; Puschmann, K. G.; Luntama, J. P.

    2017-09-01

    As part of the Space Situational Awareness Programme (SSA), ESA has initiated the assessment of two missions currently foreseen to be implemented to enable enhanced space weather monitoring. These missions utilize the positioning of satellites at the Lagrangian L1 and L5 points. These Phase 0 or Pre-Phase A mission studies are about to be completed and will thereby have soon passed the Mission Definition Review. Phase A studies are planned to start in 2017. The space weather monitoring system currently considers four remote sensing optical instruments and several in-situ instruments to analyse the Sun and the solar wind conditions, in order to provide early warnings of increased solar activity and to identify and mitigate potential threats to society and ground, airborne and space based infrastructure. The suggested optical instruments take heritage from ESA and NASA science missions like SOHO, STEREO and Solar Orbiter, but the instruments are foreseen to be optimized for operational space weather monitoring purposes with high reliability and robustness demands. The instruments are required to provide high quality measurements particularly during severe space weather events. The program intends to utilize the results of the on-going ESA instrument prototyping and technology development activities, and to initiate pre-developments of the operational space weather instruments to ensure the required maturity before the mission implementation.

  20. Combining traditional weather forecasting, science in Kenya | CRDI ...

    International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Digital Library (Canada)

    24 févr. 2012 ... Kenyan farmers have relied on the indigenous weather prediction methods of the Nganyi rainmakers for generations. But extreme weather caused by climate change is affecting the natural signs that rainmakers use to predict weather. Many fear traditional methods are therefore becoming redundant and ...

  1. Topographic imprint on chemical weathering in deeply weathered soil-mantled landscapes (southern Brazil)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vanacker, Veerle; Schoonejans, Jerome; Ameijeiras-Marino, Yolanda; Opfergelt, Sophie; Minella, Jean

    2017-04-01

    The regolith mantle is defined as the thin layer of unconsolidated material overlaying bedrock that contributes to shape the Earth's surface. The development of the regolith mantle in a landscape is the result of in-situ weathering, atmospheric input and downhill transport of weathering products. Bedrock weathering - the physical and chemical transformations of rock to soil - contributes to the vertical development of the regolith layer through downward propagation of the weathering front. Lateral transport of soil particles, aggregates and solutes by diffusive and concentrated particle and solute fluxes result in lateral redistribution of weathering products over the hillslope. In this study, we aim to expand the empirical basis on long-term soil evolution at the landscape scale through a detailed study of soil weathering in subtropical soils. Spatial variability in chemical mass fluxes and weathering intensity were studied along two toposequences with similar climate, lithology and vegetation but different slope morphology. This allowed us to isolate the topographic imprint on chemical weathering and soil development. The toposequences have convexo-concave slope morphology, and eight regolith profiles were analysed involving the flat upslope, steep midslope and flat toeslope part. Our data show a clear topographic imprint on soil development. Along hillslope, the chemical weathering intensity of the regolith profiles increases with distance from the crest. In contrast to the upslope positions, the soils in the basal concavities develop on in-situ and transported regolith. While the chemical weathering extent on the slope convexities (the upslope profiles) is similar for the steep and gentle toposequence, there is a clear difference in the rate of increase of the chemical weathering extent with distance from the crest. The increase of chemical weathering extent along hillslope is highest for the steep toposequence, suggesting that topography enhances soil particle

  2. Enhancing Diversity in the Geosciences through National Dissemination of the AMS Online Weather Studies Distance Learning Course

    Science.gov (United States)

    Weinbeck, R. S.; Geer, I. W.; Mills, E. W.; Porter, W. A.; Moran, J. M.

    2002-12-01

    Our nation faces a serious challenge in attracting young people to science and science-related careers (including teaching). This is particularly true for members of groups underrepresented in science, mathematics, engineering, and technology and is especially acute in the number of minority college students majoring in the geosciences. A formidable obstacle in attracting undergraduates to the geosciences is lack of access, that is, no opportunity to enroll in an introductory geoscience course simply because none is offered at their college or university. Often introductory or survey courses are a student's first exposure to the geosciences. To help alleviate this problem, the American Meteorological Society (AMS) through its Education Program developed and implemented nationally an introductory weather and climate course, Online Weather Studies, which can be added to an institution's menu of general education course offerings. This highly successful course will be offered at 130 colleges and universities nationwide, including 30 minority-serving institutions, 20 of which have joined the AMS Online Weather Studies Diversity Program during 2002. The AMS encourages course adoption by more institutions serving large numbers of minority students through support from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Opportunities for Enhancing Diversity in the Geosciences (OEDG) and Course, Curriculum and Laboratory Improvement-National Dissemination (CCLI-ND) programs. Online Weather Studies is an innovative, 12- to 15-week introductory college-level, online distance-learning course on the fundamentals of atmospheric science. Learner-formatted current weather data are delivered via the Internet and coordinated with investigations keyed to the day's weather. The principal innovation of Online Weather Studies is that students learn about weather as it happens in near real-time-a highly motivational learning experience. The AMS Education Program designed and services this course and

  3. Cockpit weather information needs

    Science.gov (United States)

    Scanlon, Charles H.

    1992-01-01

    The primary objective is to develop an advanced pilot weather interface for the flight deck and to measure its utilization and effectiveness in pilot reroute decision processes, weather situation awareness, and weather monitoring. Identical graphical weather displays for the dispatcher, air traffic control (ATC), and pilot crew should also enhance the dialogue capabilities for reroute decisions. By utilizing a broadcast data link for surface observations, forecasts, radar summaries, lightning strikes, and weather alerts, onboard weather computing facilities construct graphical displays, historical weather displays, color textual displays, and other tools to assist the pilot crew. Since the weather data is continually being received and stored by the airborne system, the pilot crew has instantaneous access to the latest information. This information is color coded to distinguish degrees of category for surface observations, ceiling and visibilities, and ground radar summaries. Automatic weather monitoring and pilot crew alerting is accomplished by the airborne computing facilities. When a new weather information is received, the displays are instantaneously changed to reflect the new information. Also, when a new surface or special observation for the intended destination is received, the pilot crew is informed so that information can be studied at the pilot's discretion. The pilot crew is also immediately alerted when a severe weather notice, AIRMET or SIGMET, is received. The cockpit weather display shares a multicolor eight inch cathode ray tube and overlaid touch panel with a pilot crew data link interface. Touch sensitive buttons and areas are used for pilot selection of graphical and data link displays. Time critical ATC messages are presented in a small window that overlays other displays so that immediate pilot alerting and action can be taken. Predeparture and reroute clearances are displayed on the graphical weather system so pilot review of weather along

  4. Sugaring marble in the Monumental Cemetery in Bologna (Italy): characterization of naturally and artificially weathered samples and first results of consolidation by hydroxyapatite

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sassoni, Enrico; Franzoni, Elisa

    2014-12-01

    The so-called sugaring of marble is a very common degradation phenomenon, affecting both historical monuments and modern buildings, which is originated by environmental temperature fluctuations. Thermal cycles are indeed responsible for micro-cracks formation at the boundaries between calcite grains, so that marble is subjected to granular disintegration and can be reduced to a sugar-like powder of isolated calcite grains by just the pressure of a finger. Since no effective, compatible and durable treatment for sugaring marble consolidation is currently available, in this paper a novel consolidating treatment recently proposed for limestone, based on the formation of hydroxyapatite inside the stone, was investigated for weathered marble. To test the new treatment on suitably decayed marble samples, some naturally sugaring marbles from the Monumental Cemetery in Bologna (Italy, nineteenth century) were firstly characterized by scanning electron microscope (SEM), mercury intrusion porosimetry (MIP) and ultrasonic pulse velocity (UPV) measurement. Then, artificially weathered samples were produced by heating fresh Carrara marble samples at 400 °C for 1 h. The effects of artificial weathering were characterized using the same techniques as above, and a very good agreement was found between microstructure and mechanical features of naturally and artificially weathered samples. Then, the hydroxyapatite-based treatment was tested on the so-obtained artificially weathered samples, and the treatment effects were characterized by UPV, MIP and SEM equipped with energy dispersive spectrometry and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. The hydroxyapatite-based treatment exhibited a remarkable ability of restoring marble cohesion and a good compatibility in terms of modifications in pore size distribution, which leads to regard this treatment as a very promising consolidant for weathered marble.

  5. AMS Online Weather Studies: The National Dissemination of a Distance Learning Course for Enhancing Diversity in the Geosciences

    Science.gov (United States)

    Weinbeck, R. S.; Geer, I. W.; Mills, E. W.; Porter, W. A.; Moran, J. M.

    2004-12-01

    Our nation faces a serious challenge in attracting young people to science and science-related careers (including teaching). This is particularly true for members of groups underrepresented in science, mathematics, engineering, and technology and is especially acute in the number of minority college students majoring in the geosciences. A formidable obstacle in attracting undergraduates to the geosciences is lack of access, that is, no opportunity to enroll in geoscience courses simply because none is offered at their college or university. Often college-level introductory courses are a student's first exposure to the geosciences. To help alleviate this problem of access, the American Meteorological Society (AMS) has developed and implemented nationally an introductory weather and climate course, Online Weather Studies, which can be added to an institution's menu of general education course offerings. This highly successful course has been licensed by over 230 colleges and universities nationwide, among them 72 minority-serving institutions which have joined via the AMS Online Weather Studies Geosciences Diversity Program since 2002. This program designed to reach institutions serving large numbers of minority students has been made possible through support from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Opportunities for Enhancing Diversity in the Geosciences (OEDG) and Course, Curriculum and Laboratory Improvement-National Dissemination (CCLI-ND) programs. Online Weather Studies is an innovative, 12- to 15-week introductory college-level, online distance-learning course on the fundamentals of atmospheric science. Learner-formatted current weather data are delivered via the Internet and coordinated with investigations keyed to the day's weather. The principal innovation of Online Weather Studies is that students learn about weather as it happens in near real-time - a highly motivational learning experience. The AMS Education Program designed and services this course

  6. Mitigating Aviation Communication and Satellite Orbit Operations Surprises from Adverse Space Weather

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tobiska, W. Kent

    2008-01-01

    Adverse space weather affects operational activities in aviation and satellite systems. For example, large solar flares create highly variable enhanced neutral atmosphere and ionosphere electron density regions. These regions impact aviation communication frequencies as well as precision orbit determination. The natural space environment, with its dynamic space weather variability, is additionally changed by human activity. The increase in orbital debris in low Earth orbit (LEO), combined with lower atmosphere CO2 that rises into the lower thermosphere and causes increased cooling that results in increased debris lifetime, adds to the environmental hazards of navigating in near-Earth space. This is at a time when commercial space endeavors are posed to begin more missions to LEO during the rise of the solar activity cycle toward the next maximum (2012). For satellite and aviation operators, adverse space weather results in greater expenses for orbit management, more communication outages or aviation and ground-based high frequency radio used, and an inability to effectively plan missions or service customers with space-based communication, imagery, and data transferal during time-critical activities. Examples of some revenue-impacting conditions and solutions for mitigating adverse space weather are offered.

  7. Skin Penetration Enhancement by Natural Oils for Dihydroquercetin Delivery.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Čižinauskas, Vytis; Elie, Nicolas; Brunelle, Alain; Briedis, Vitalis

    2017-09-12

    Natural oils are commonly used in topical pharmaceutical formulations as emulsifiers, stabilizers or solubility enhancers. They are presented as safe and inert components, mainly used for formulation purposes. It is confirmed that natural oils can affect the skin penetration of various substances. Fatty acids are mainly responsible for this effect. Current understanding lacks reliable scientific data on penetration of natural oils into the skin and their skin penetration enhancement potential. In the current study, fatty acid content analysis was used to determine the principal fatty acids in soybean, olive, avocado, sea-buckthorn pulp, raspberry seed and coconut oils. Time of flight secondary ion mass spectrometry bioimaging was used to determine the distribution of these fatty acids in human skin ex vivo after application of the oils. Skin penetration enhancement ratios were determined for a perspective antioxidant compound dihydroquercetin. The results demonstrated skin penetration of fatty acids from all oils tested. Only soybean and olive oils significantly increased the skin distribution of dihydroquercetin and can be used as skin penetration enhancers. However, no correlation can be determined between the fatty acids' composition and skin penetration enhancement using currently available methodological approaches. This indicates that potential chemical penetration enhancement should be evaluated during formulation of topically applied products containing natural oils.

  8. Weathering durability of commercial polymeric coatings tested by positron annihilation spectroscopy

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Chen, H.; Peng, Q.; Huang, Y.Y.; Zhang, R.; Li, Y.; Zhang, J.; Wu, Y.C.; Richardson, J.R.; Sandreczki, T.C.; Jean, Y.C.

    2003-01-01

    A series of commercial coatings were prepared according to the industrial specifications and were exposed to Florida natural weathering and controlled UVA irradiation. The Doppler broadening energy spectra (DBES) of positron annihilation were measured as a function of incident positron energy at different periods of weathering. A significant decrease in the S parameter was observed and it was used as an indicator to test coating durability in micro-scale. Application to weathering durability of commercial polymeric coatings under natural weathering and controlled UVA irradiation is investigated by using the S parameter from the DBES

  9. Strengthening Research Capacity to Enhance Natural Resources ...

    International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Digital Library (Canada)

    ... to Enhance Natural Resources Management and Improve Rural Livelihoods ... and contribute to the food and income security of the rural poor by enhancing the ... of its 2017 call for proposals to establish Cyber Policy Centres in the Global South. ... partnering on a new initiative, aimed at reducing the emerging risk that.

  10. Weather Impacts on Natural, Social and Economic Systems (WISE). Part 2. Individual Perception of Climate Extremes in Italy

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Galeotti, M.; Goria, A.; Spantidaki, E.; Mombrini, P.

    2004-02-01

    This paper focuses on the results of the research work carried out by Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM) within the WISE project. This project aims at investigating the effects and the impacts of extreme weather events, particularly very warm summers, mild winters and storms, on the socio-economic systems of European countries. The output consists of a series of empirical studies, both of quantitative and qualitative descriptive nature. The work of FEEM in the WISE project covers the quantitative analysis of the impacts of climate extremes on the socio-economic system in Italy and the analysis of individuals' perception of climate extremes based on results from individuals' surveys. In this paper is considered the study of the perception of weather impacts through questionnaire survey to the general public. With regard to the individuals' perception survey, a sample of 300 individuals were interviewed by telephone: 150 extracted from the North of Italy and 150 from the South of Italy. Individuals were asked general questions about their perception of climate extremes, and about the impacts of weather extremes on their daily habits at work, at home, in their leisure activities, on their transport patterns, on their health and tourism choices

  11. ENHANCEMENTS TO NATURAL ATTENUATION: SELECTED CASE STUDIES

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Vangelas, K; W. H. Albright, W; E. S. Becvar, E; C. H. Benson, C; T. O. Early, T; E. Hood, E; P. M. Jardine, P; M. Lorah, M; E. Majche, E; D. Major, D; W. J. Waugh, W; G. Wein, G; O. R. West, O

    2007-05-15

    In 2003 the US Department of Energy (DOE) embarked on a project to explore an innovative approach to remediation of subsurface contaminant plumes that focused on introducing mechanisms for augmenting natural attenuation to achieve site closure. Termed enhanced attenuation (EA), this approach has drawn its inspiration from the concept of monitored natural attenuation (MNA).

  12. Naturally enhanced ion-acoustic spectra and their interpretation

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Sedgemore-Schulthess, K.J.F.; St. Maurice, J.P.

    2001-01-01

    acceleration, wave-particle and wave-wave interactions in the ionosphere, and their association with magnetospheric processes. There is now a substantial body of literature documenting observations of enhanced ion-acoustic spectra, but there remains controversy over generation mechanisms. We present a review...... years there has been much interest in naturally occurring (as opposed to artificially stimulated) enhanced ion-acoustic spectra seen in the auroral zone and cusp/cleft region. A study of the plasma instability processes that lead to such spectra will help us to better understand auroral particle...... of literature documenting observations of naturally enhanced ion-acoustic spectra, observed mainly along the geomagnetic field direction, along with a discussion of the theories put forward to explain such phenomena....

  13. Utilization of Live Localized Weather Information for Sustainable Agriculture

    Science.gov (United States)

    Anderson, J.; Usher, J.

    2010-09-01

    Authors: Jim Anderson VP, Global Network and Business Development WeatherBug® Professional Jeremy Usher Managing Director, Europe WeatherBug® Professional Localized, real-time weather information is vital for day-to-day agronomic management of all crops. The challenge for agriculture is twofold in that local and timely weather data is not often available for producers and farmers, and it is not integrated into decision-support tools they require. Many of the traditional sources of weather information are not sufficient for agricultural applications because of the long distances between weather stations, meaning the data is not always applicable for on-farm decision making processes. The second constraint with traditional weather information is the timeliness of the data. Most delivery systems are designed on a one-hour time step, whereas many decisions in agriculture are based on minute-by-minute weather conditions. This is especially true for decisions surrounding chemical and fertilizer application and frost events. This presentation will outline how the creation of an agricultural mesonet (weather network) can enable producers and farmers with live, local weather information from weather stations installed in farm/field locations. The live weather information collected from each weather station is integrated into a web-enabled decision support tool, supporting numerous on-farm agronomic activities such as pest management, or dealing with heavy rainfall and frost events. Agronomic models can be used to assess the potential of disease pressure, enhance the farmer's abilities to time pesticide applications, or assess conditions contributing to yield and quality fluctuations. Farmers and industry stakeholders may also view quality-assured historical weather variables at any location. This serves as a record-management tool for viewing previously uncharted agronomic weather events in graph or table form. This set of weather tools is unique and provides a

  14. Weather Impacts on Natural, Social and Economic Systems (WISE). Part I. Sectoral Analysis of Climate Impacts in Italy

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Galeotti, M.; Goria, A.; Spantidaki, E.; Mombrini, P.

    2004-02-01

    This paper focuses on the results of the research work carried out by Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM) within the WISE project. This project aims at investigating the effects and the impacts of extreme weather events, particularly very warm summers, mild winters and storms, on the socio-economic systems of European countries. The output consists of a series of empirical studies, both of quantitative and qualitative descriptive nature. The work of FEEM in the WISE project covers the quantitative analysis of the impacts of climate extremes on the socio-economic system in Italy and the analysis of individuals' perception of climate extremes based on results from individuals' surveys. In this paper is presented the statistical modelling of the impact of weather, through quantitative analysis of activity time series. In particular, the core sectors analysed include fires, health, energy use, tourism and agriculture

  15. Weathered antlers as a source of DNA

    Science.gov (United States)

    Roy G. Lopez; Paul Beier

    2012-01-01

    We tested antlers of Coues white-tailed (Odocoileus virginianus couesi) and mule deer (O. hemionus) in various stages of natural decomposition to determine the degree of weathering that cast antlers could endure and still yield usable DNA. Based on physical characteristics, we partitioned antlers into 7 weathering categories ranging from freshly cast (class 1) to...

  16. Light Nonaqueous-Phase Liquid Weathering at Various Fuel Release Sites

    National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

    Henry, Bruce

    1999-01-01

    ...) contracted with Parsons ES to perform this fuels weathering study. Of particular interest for this study is the weathering or natural depletion of benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylenes (BTEX...

  17. Asteroid age distributions determined by space weathering and collisional evolution models

    Science.gov (United States)

    Willman, Mark; Jedicke, Robert

    2011-01-01

    We provide evidence of consistency between the dynamical evolution of main belt asteroids and their color evolution due to space weathering. The dynamical age of an asteroid's surface (Bottke, W.F., Durda, D.D., Nesvorný, D., Jedicke, R., Morbidelli, A., Vokrouhlický, D., Levison, H. [2005]. Icarus 175 (1), 111-140; Nesvorný, D., Jedicke, R., Whiteley, R.J., Ivezić, Ž. [2005]. Icarus 173, 132-152) is the time since its last catastrophic disruption event which is a function of the object's diameter. The age of an S-complex asteroid's surface may also be determined from its color using a space weathering model (e.g. Willman, M., Jedicke, R., Moskovitz, N., Nesvorný, D., Vokrouhlický, D., Mothé-Diniz, T. [2010]. Icarus 208, 758-772; Jedicke, R., Nesvorný, D., Whiteley, R.J., Ivezić, Ž., Jurić, M. [2004]. Nature 429, 275-277; Willman, M., Jedicke, R., Nesvorny, D., Moskovitz, N., Ivezić, Ž., Fevig, R. [2008]. Icarus 195, 663-673. We used a sample of 95 S-complex asteroids from SMASS and obtained their absolute magnitudes and u, g, r, i, z filter magnitudes from SDSS. The absolute magnitudes yield a size-derived age distribution. The u, g, r, i, z filter magnitudes lead to the principal component color which yields a color-derived age distribution by inverting our color-age relationship, an enhanced version of the 'dual τ' space weathering model of Willman et al. (2010). We fit the size-age distribution to the enhanced dual τ model and found characteristic weathering and gardening times of τw = 2050 ± 80 Myr and τg=4400-500+700Myr respectively. The fit also suggests an initial principal component color of -0.05 ± 0.01 for fresh asteroid surface with a maximum possible change of the probable color due to weathering of Δ PC = 1.34 ± 0.04. Our predicted color of fresh asteroid surface matches the color of fresh ordinary chondritic surface of PC1 = 0.17 ± 0.39.

  18. Climate, weather, and hops

    Science.gov (United States)

    As climate and weather become more variable, hop growers face increased uncertainty in making decisions about their crop. Given the unprecedented nature of these changes, growers may no longer have enough information and intuitive understanding to adequately assess the situation and evaluate their m...

  19. Study of weathering velocity of rocks with uranium as a natural tracer. Application to two drainage basins of the north-east of Brazil

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Costa Pinto Moreira Nordemann, L.M. da.

    1977-01-01

    Study on rock weathering rate, i.e. rock-soil interface formation, by measuring the elements dissolved in river waters. These elements are used as natural tracers. This work has been carried out in the drainage basin of Preto and Salgado Rivers, in Brazil. Conventional elements, sodium, potassium, calcium and magnesium have been utilized first and all dissolved salts have been used as natural tracers to allow comparison with other scientific works. Then, uranium has been used because it is not found in rain waters so that corrections are not necessary and because its abundance can be measured by α and γ spectrometry, and the 234 U/ 238 U ratio obtained, 234 U being more rapidly dissolved during weathering. Another reason is that no interaction occurs between uranium and the biomass. It is then possible to find a geochemical balance for this area [fr

  20. Weather or Not To Teach Junior High Meteorology.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Knorr, Thomas P.

    1984-01-01

    Presents a technique for teaching meteorology allowing students to observe and analyze consecutive weather maps and relate local conditions; a model illustrating the three-dimensional nature of the atmosphere is employed. Instructional methods based on studies of daily weather maps to trace systems sweeping across the United States are discussed.…

  1. Natural and technologically enhanced sources of radon-222

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Travis, C.C.; Watson, A.P.; McDowell-Boyer, L.M.; Cotter, S.J.; Randolph, M.L.; Fields, D.E.

    1979-01-01

    An assessment of 222 Rn releases (curies/year) from major natural and technologically enhanced sources in the United States is presented. The resulting inhalation population dose commitments to the bronchial epithelium of the lung (lung-rem) are also estimated. The sources of radon considered are natural soil, evapotranspiration, potable water supplies, building materials, natural gas, uranium mining and milling, coal and phosphate mining, phosphate fertilizer, liquefied petroleum gas, geothermal power facilities, coal-fired power plants, and gas and oil wells. The most important natural source of 222 Rn is decay of 226 Ra in the soil and rocks of the earth's crust. This source results in approximately 40% of the total population dose from all sources of radon. The largest technoligcally enhanced contributor to population dose is airborne 222 Rn in building interiors, which is estimated to contribute 55% to the total population exposure to 222 Rn. Each of the other sources is estimated to contribute less than 3% to the total

  2. Directable weathering of concave rock using curvature estimation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jones, Michael D; Farley, McKay; Butler, Joseph; Beardall, Matthew

    2010-01-01

    We address the problem of directable weathering of exposed concave rock for use in computer-generated animation or games. Previous weathering models that admit concave surfaces are computationally inefficient and difficult to control. In nature, the spheroidal and cavernous weathering rates depend on the surface curvature. Spheroidal weathering is fastest in areas with large positive mean curvature and cavernous weathering is fastest in areas with large negative mean curvature. We simulate both processes using an approximation of mean curvature on a voxel grid. Both weathering rates are also influenced by rock durability. The user controls rock durability by editing a durability graph before and during weathering simulation. Simulations of rockfall and colluvium deposition further improve realism. The profile of the final weathered rock matches the shape of the durability graph up to the effects of weathering and colluvium deposition. We demonstrate the top-down directability and visual plausibility of the resulting model through a series of screenshots and rendered images. The results include the weathering of a cube into a sphere and of a sheltered inside corner into a cavern as predicted by the underlying geomorphological models.

  3. Weather shocks and cropland decisions in rural Mozambique

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Salazar Espinoza, César Antonio; Jones, Edward Samuel; Tarp, Finn

    2015-01-01

    to examine the effect of weather shocks on cropland decisions. We account for the bounded nature of land shares and estimate a Pooled Fractional Probit model for panel data. Our results show that crop choice is sensitive to past weather shocks. Farmers shift land use away from cash and permanent crops one...

  4. Enhanced learning of natural visual sequences in newborn chicks.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wood, Justin N; Prasad, Aditya; Goldman, Jason G; Wood, Samantha M W

    2016-07-01

    To what extent are newborn brains designed to operate over natural visual input? To address this question, we used a high-throughput controlled-rearing method to examine whether newborn chicks (Gallus gallus) show enhanced learning of natural visual sequences at the onset of vision. We took the same set of images and grouped them into either natural sequences (i.e., sequences showing different viewpoints of the same real-world object) or unnatural sequences (i.e., sequences showing different images of different real-world objects). When raised in virtual worlds containing natural sequences, newborn chicks developed the ability to recognize familiar images of objects. Conversely, when raised in virtual worlds containing unnatural sequences, newborn chicks' object recognition abilities were severely impaired. In fact, the majority of the chicks raised with the unnatural sequences failed to recognize familiar images of objects despite acquiring over 100 h of visual experience with those images. Thus, newborn chicks show enhanced learning of natural visual sequences at the onset of vision. These results indicate that newborn brains are designed to operate over natural visual input.

  5. Climate control: United States weather modification in the cold war and beyond.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Harper, Kristine C

    2008-03-01

    Rainmaking, hail busting, fog lifting, snowpack enhancing, lightning suppressing, hurricane snuffing...weather control. At the lunatic fringe of scientific discussion in the early twentieth century--and the subject of newspaper articles with tones ranging from skeptical titters to awestruck wonder--weather modification research became more serious after World War II. In the United States, the 'seeds' of silver iodide and dry ice purported to enhance rainfall and bust hailstorms soon became seeds of controversy from which sprouted attempts by federal, state and local government to control the controllers and exploit 'designer weather' for their own purposes.

  6. GPS Estimates of Integrated Precipitable Water Aid Weather Forecasters

    Science.gov (United States)

    Moore, Angelyn W.; Gutman, Seth I.; Holub, Kirk; Bock, Yehuda; Danielson, David; Laber, Jayme; Small, Ivory

    2013-01-01

    Global Positioning System (GPS) meteorology provides enhanced density, low-latency (30-min resolution), integrated precipitable water (IPW) estimates to NOAA NWS (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminis tration Nat ional Weather Service) Weather Forecast Offices (WFOs) to provide improved model and satellite data verification capability and more accurate forecasts of extreme weather such as flooding. An early activity of this project was to increase the number of stations contributing to the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL) GPS meteorology observing network in Southern California by about 27 stations. Following this, the Los Angeles/Oxnard and San Diego WFOs began using the enhanced GPS-based IPW measurements provided by ESRL in the 2012 and 2013 monsoon seasons. Forecasters found GPS IPW to be an effective tool in evaluating model performance, and in monitoring monsoon development between weather model runs for improved flood forecasting. GPS stations are multi-purpose, and routine processing for position solutions also yields estimates of tropospheric zenith delays, which can be converted into mm-accuracy PWV (precipitable water vapor) using in situ pressure and temperature measurements, the basis for GPS meteorology. NOAA ESRL has implemented this concept with a nationwide distribution of more than 300 "GPSMet" stations providing IPW estimates at sub-hourly resolution currently used in operational weather models in the U.S.

  7. Portable Weather Applications for General Aviation Pilots.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ahlstrom, Ulf; Ohneiser, Oliver; Caddigan, Eamon

    2016-09-01

    The objective of this study was to examine the potential benefits and impact on pilot behavior from the use of portable weather applications. Seventy general aviation (GA) pilots participated in the study. Each pilot was randomly assigned to an experimental or a control group and flew a simulated single-engine GA aircraft, initially under visual meteorological conditions (VMC). The experimental group was equipped with a portable weather application during flight. We recorded measures for weather situation awareness (WSA), decision making, cognitive engagement, and distance from the aircraft to hazardous weather. We found positive effects from the use of the portable weather application, with an increased WSA for the experimental group, which resulted in credibly larger route deviations and credibly greater distances to hazardous weather (≥30 dBZ cells) compared with the control group. Nevertheless, both groups flew less than 20 statute miles from hazardous weather cells, thus failing to follow current weather-avoidance guidelines. We also found a credibly higher cognitive engagement (prefrontal oxygenation levels) for the experimental group, possibly reflecting increased flight planning and decision making on the part of the pilots. Overall, the study outcome supports our hypothesis that portable weather displays can be used without degrading pilot performance on safety-related flight tasks, actions, and decisions as measured within the constraints of the present study. However, it also shows that an increased WSA does not automatically translate to enhanced flight behavior. The study outcome contributes to our knowledge of the effect of portable weather applications on pilot behavior and decision making. © 2016, Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.

  8. Weather derivatives: Business hedge instrument from weather risks

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Đorđević Bojan S.

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available In the late 1990s, a new financial market was developed - a market for weather derivatives, so that the risk managers could hedge their exposure to weather risk. After a rather slow start, the weather derivatives market had started to grow rapidly. Risk managers could no longer blame poor financial results on the weather. Weather risk could now be removed by hedging procedure. This paper will explain briefly what the weather derivatives are and will point out at some of the motives for use of derivatives. Thereafter we will look at the history of the weather risk market, how the weather derivatives market has developed in recent years and also who are the current and potential players in the weather derivatives market.

  9. Olivine weathering in soil, and its effects on growth and nutrient uptake in Ryegrass (Lolium perenne L.: a pot experiment.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hein F M ten Berge

    Full Text Available Mineral carbonation of basic silicate minerals regulates atmospheric CO(2 on geological time scales by locking up carbon. Mining and spreading onto the earth's surface of fast-weathering silicates, such as olivine, has been proposed to speed up this natural CO(2 sequestration ('enhanced weathering'. While agriculture may offer an existing infrastructure, weathering rate and impacts on soil and plant are largely unknown. Our objectives were to assess weathering of olivine in soil, and its effects on plant growth and nutrient uptake. In a pot experiment with perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne L., weathering during 32 weeks was inferred from bioavailability of magnesium (Mg in soil and plant. Olivine doses were equivalent to 1630 (OLIV1, 8150, 40700 and 204000 (OLIV4 kg ha(-1. Alternatively, the soluble Mg salt kieserite was applied for reference. Olivine increased plant growth (+15.6% and plant K concentration (+16.5% in OLIV4. At all doses, olivine increased bioavailability of Mg and Ni in soil, as well as uptake of Mg, Si and Ni in plants. Olivine suppressed Ca uptake. Weathering estimated from a Mg balance was equivalent to 240 kg ha(-1 (14.8% of dose, OLIV1 to 2240 kg ha(-1 (1.1%, OLIV4. This corresponds to gross CO(2 sequestration of 290 to 2690 kg ha(-1 (29 10(3 to 269 10(3 kg km(-2. Alternatively, weathering estimated from similarity with kieserite treatments ranged from 13% to 58% for OLIV1. The Olsen model for olivine carbonation predicted 4.0% to 9.0% weathering for our case, independent of olivine dose. Our % values observed at high doses were smaller than this, suggesting negative feedbacks in soil. Yet, weathering appears fast enough to support the 'enhanced weathering' concept. In agriculture, olivine doses must remain within limits to avoid imbalances in plant nutrition, notably at low Ca availability; and to avoid Ni accumulation in soil and crop.

  10. Role of organic acids in enhancing the desorption and uptake of weathered p,p'-DDE by Cucurbita pepo

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    White, Jason C.; Mattina, MaryJane Incorvia; Lee, W.-Y.; Eitzer, Brian D.; Iannucci-Berger, William

    2003-01-01

    The addition of low molecular weight organic acids to soil may enhance phytoremediation of persistent organic pollutants. - Experiments were conducted to assess the effect of seven organic acids [succinic, tartaric, malic, malonic, oxalic, citric, ethylenediaminetetraacetic (EDTA)] over a concentration range of two orders of magnitude (0.001-0.10 M) on the abiotic desorption of weathered p,p'-DDE and the extraction of polyvalent inorganic ions from soil. At 0.05 M all organic acids significantly increased contaminant desorption by 19-80%. Organic acids also increased the aqueous concentration of eight inorganic constituents extracted from soil, with at least a six-fold increase in the release of Al, Fe, Mn, and P at 0.001 M. Zucchini seedlings grown for 28 d in soil containing weathered p,p'-DDE (300 ng/g, dry weight) were periodically amended with distilled water, citric or oxalic acids (0.01 M). Plants receiving water removed 1.7% of the p,p'-DDE from the soil. Seedlings amended with citric or oxalic acids removed 2.1 and 1.9% of the contaminant, respectively, and contained up to 66% more contaminant in the shoot system than unamended vegetation. A second crop of untreated (distilled water) zucchini in the same soil removed more contaminant than the first crop (2.5%), although the addition of organic acids did not further enhance contaminant uptake. The data indicate that the addition of low molecular weight organic acids causes the partial dissolution of the soil structure through the chelation of inorganic structural ions, potentially enhancing bioavailability and having implications for the phytoremediation of persistent organic pollutants in soil

  11. Limits to human enhancement: nature, disease, therapy or betterment?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hofmann, Bjørn

    2017-10-10

    New technologies facilitate the enhancement of a wide range of human dispositions, capacities, or abilities. While it is argued that we need to set limits to human enhancement, it is unclear where we should find resources to set such limits. Traditional routes for setting limits, such as referring to nature, the therapy-enhancement distinction, and the health-disease distinction, turn out to have some shortcomings. However, upon closer scrutiny the concept of enhancement is based on vague conceptions of what is to be enhanced. Explaining why it is better to become older, stronger, and more intelligent presupposes a clear conception of goodness, which is seldom provided. In particular, the qualitative better is frequently confused with the quantitative more. We may therefore not need "external" measures for setting its limits - they are available in the concept of enhancement itself. While there may be shortcomings in traditional sources of limit setting to human enhancement, such as nature, therapy, and disease, such approaches may not be necessary. The specification-of-betterment problem inherent in the conception of human enhancement itself provides means to restrict its unwarranted proliferation. We only need to demand clear, sustainable, obtainable goals for enhancement that are based on evidence, and not on lofty speculations, hypes, analogies, or weak associations. Human enhancements that specify what will become better, and provide adequate evidence, are good and should be pursued. Others should not be accepted.

  12. Longing for Clouds - Does Beautiful Weather have to be Fine?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mădălina Diaconu

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available Any attempt to outline a meteorological aesthetics centered on so-called beautiful weather has to overcome several difficulties: In everyday life, the appreciation of the weather is mostly related to practical interests or reduced to the ideal of stereotypical fine weather that is conceived according to blue-sky thinking irrespective of climate diversity. Also, an aesthetics of fine weather seems, strictly speaking, to be impossible given that such weather conditions usually allow humans to focus on aspects other than weather, which contradicts the autotelic character of beauty. The unreflective equation of beautiful weather with moderately sunny weather and a cloudless sky also collides with the psychological need for variation: even living in a “paradisal” climate would be condemned to end in monotony. Finally, whereas fine weather is related in modern realistic literature to cosmic harmony and a universal natural order, contemporary literary examples show that in the age of the climate change, fine weather may be deceitful and its passive contemplation, irresponsible. This implies the necessity of a reflective aesthetic attitude on weather, as influenced by art, literature, and science, which discovers the poetics of bad weather and the wonder that underlies average weather conditions.

  13. A Analysis of the Development of Weather Concepts

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mroz, Paul John

    Weather information in all forms is poorly understood and often misinterpreted by the general public. Weather literacy is necessary for everyone if critical weather messages, designed to save lives and protect property, are to be effective. The purpose of this study was to seek content and causal evidence for a developmental concept of Weather Information Processing that was consistent with Piagetian Cognitive Stages of Development. Three ordinal Content Stages Of Weather Information Processing (phenomena, process and mechanism) and three ordinal Causal Explanation Stages Of Weather Information Processing (non-real, natural, and scientifically valid abstract ideas) were explored for their relationship with Piaget's Pre-Operational, Concrete and Formal Stages of Development. One hundred and fifty -five elementary and secondary school students from two school districts were administered a written Piagetian exam. Commonly available television weather programs were categorized, randomly assigned and viewed by 42 randomly selected students who were administered three Piagetian tasks. Students were clinically interviewed for the level of content information and causal explanations (reasoning). Results indicated that content information and causal reasoning of students to televised weather information is significantly related (p Cognitive Stages of Development. Two Piagetian logic operations (seriation and correlation) were established as significantly different (p Information Processing and have implications for teaching and presenting weather information to the public.

  14. Virtual nature environment with nature sound exposure induce stress recovery by enhanced parasympathetic activity

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Annerstedt, Matilda; Jönsson, Peter; Wallergård, Mattias

    2013-01-01

    . The group that recovered in virtual nature without sound and the control group displayed no particular autonomic activation or deactivation. The results demonstrate a potential mechanistic link between nature, the sounds of nature, and stress recovery, and suggest the potential importance of virtual reality......Experimental research on stress recovery in natural environments is limited, as is study of the effect of sounds of nature. After inducing stress by means of a virtual stress test, we explored physiological recovery in two different virtual natural environments (with and without exposure to sounds...... of nature) and in one control condition. Cardiovascular data and saliva cortisol were collected. Repeated ANOVA measurements indicated parasympathetic activation in the group subjected to sounds of nature in a virtual natural environment, suggesting enhanced stress recovery may occur in such surroundings...

  15. Establishing Natural Nootropics: Recent Molecular Enhancement Influenced by Natural Nootropic

    OpenAIRE

    Noor Azuin Suliman; Che Norma Mat Taib; Mohamad Aris Mohd Moklas; Mohd Ilham Adenan; Mohamad Taufik Hidayat Baharuldin; Rusliza Basir

    2016-01-01

    Nootropics or smart drugs are well-known compounds or supplements that enhance the cognitive performance. They work by increasing the mental function such as memory, creativity, motivation, and attention. Recent researches were focused on establishing a new potential nootropic derived from synthetic and natural products. The influence of nootropic in the brain has been studied widely. The nootropic affects the brain performances through number of mechanisms or pathways, for example, dopaminer...

  16. NOAA Weather Radio - All Hazards

    Science.gov (United States)

    Non-Zero All Hazards Logo Emergency Alert Description Event Codes Fact Sheet FAQ Organization Search -event information for all types of hazards: weather (e.g., tornadoes, floods), natural (e.g Management or Preparedness, civil defense, police or mayor/commissioner sets up linkages to send messages on

  17. Connecting the Pioneers, Current Leaders and the Nature and History of Space Weather with K-12 Classrooms and the General Public

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ng, C.; Thompson, B. J.; Cline, T.; Lewis, E.; Barbier, B.; Odenwald, S.; Spadaccini, J.; James, N.; Stephenson, B.; Davis, H. B.; Major, E. R.; Space Weather Living History

    2011-12-01

    The Space Weather Living History program will explore and share the breakthrough new science and captivating stories of space environments and space weather by interviewing space physics pioneers and leaders active from the International Geophysical Year (IGY) to the present. Our multi-mission project will capture, document and preserve the living history of space weather utilizing original historical materials (primary sources). The resulting products will allow us to tell the stories of those involved in interactive new media to address important STEM needs, inspire the next generation of explorers, and feature women as role models. The project is divided into several stages, and the first stage, which began in mid-2011, focuses on resource gathering. The goal is to capture not just anecdotes, but the careful analogies and insights of researchers and historians associated with the programs and events. The Space Weather Living History Program has a Scientific Advisory Board, and with the Board's input our team will determine the chronology, key researchers, events, missions and discoveries for interviews. Education activities will be designed to utilize autobiographies, newspapers, interviews, research reports, journal articles, conference proceedings, dissertations, websites, diaries, letters, and artworks. With the help of a multimedia firm, we will use some of these materials to develop an interactive timeline on the web, and as a downloadable application in a kiosk and on tablet computers. In summary, our project augments the existing historical records with education technologies, connect the pioneers, current leaders and the nature and history of space weather with K-12 classrooms and the general public, covering all areas of studies in Heliophysics. The project is supported by NASA award NNX11AJ61G.

  18. Strontium stable isotope behaviour accompanying basalt weathering

    Science.gov (United States)

    Burton, K. W.; Parkinson, I. J.; Gíslason, S. G. R.

    2016-12-01

    The strontium (Sr) stable isotope composition of rivers is strongly controlled by the balance of carbonate to silicate weathering (Krabbenhöft et al. 2010; Pearce et al. 2015). However, rivers draining silicate catchments possess distinctly heavier Sr stable isotope values than their bedrock compositions, pointing to significant fractionation during weathering. Some have argued for preferential release of heavy Sr from primary phases during chemical weathering, others for the formation of secondary weathering minerals that incorporate light isotopes. This study presents high-precision double-spike Sr stable isotope data for soils, rivers, ground waters and estuarine waters from Iceland, reflecting both natural weathering and societal impacts on those environments. The bedrock in Iceland is dominantly basaltic, d88/86Sr ≈ +0.27, extending to lighter values for rhyolites. Geothermal waters range from basaltic Sr stable compositions to those akin to seawater. Soil pore waters reflect a balance of input from primary mineral weathering, precipitation and litter recycling and removal into secondary phases and vegetation. Rivers and ground waters possess a wide range of d88/86Sr compositions from +0.101 to +0.858. Elemental and isotope data indicate that this fractionation primarily results from the formation or dissolution of secondary zeolite (d88/86Sr ≈ +0.10), but also carbonate (d88/86Sr ≈ +0.22) and sometimes anhydrite (d88/86Sr ≈ -0.73), driving the residual waters to heavier or lighter values, respectively. Estuarine waters largely reflect mixing with seawater, but are also be affected by adsorption onto particulates, again driving water to heavy values. Overall, these data indicate that the stability and nature of secondary weathering phases, exerts a strong control on the Sr stable isotope composition of silicate rivers. [1] Krabbenhöft et al. (2010) Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta 74, 4097-4109. [2] Pearce et al. (2015) Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta 157, 125-146.

  19. Efficacy of Hydrophobic Coatings in Protecting Oak Wood Surfaces during Accelerated Weathering

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Miloš Pánek

    2017-10-01

    Full Text Available The durability of transparent coatings applied to an oak wood exterior is relatively low due to its anatomic structure and chemical composition. Enhancement of the protection of oak wood against weathering using transparent hydrophobic coatings is presented in this study. Oak wood surfaces were modified using UV-stabilizers, hindered amine light stabilizer (HALS, and ZnO and TiO2 nanoparticles before the application of a commercial hydrophobic topcoat. A transparent oil-based coating was used as a control coating system. The artificial weathering test lasted 6 weeks and colour, gloss, and contact angle changes were regularly evaluated during this period. The changes in the microscopic structure were studied with confocal laser scanning microscopy. The results proved limited durability against weathering of both tested hydrophobic coatings. The formation of micro-cracks causing the leaching of degraded wood compounds and discolouration of oak wood were observed after 1 or 3 weeks of the weathering test. Until then, an oil-based coating film had protected the wood sufficiently, but after 6 weeks the wood was fully defoliated to its non-homogenous thickness, which was caused by the presence of large oak vessels, and by the effects of specific oak tannins. Using transparent hydrophobic coatings can prolong the service life of the exteriors of wood products by decreasing their moisture content. Without proper construction protection against rainwater, the hydrophobic coating itself cannot guarantee the preservation of the natural appearance of wood exteriors.

  20. Detecting weather radar clutter using satellite-based nowcasting products

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Jensen, Thomas B.S.; Gill, Rashpal S.; Overgaard, Søren

    2006-01-01

    This contribution presents the initial results from experiments with detection of weather radar clutter by information fusion with satellite based nowcasting products. Previous studies using information fusion of weather radar data and first generation Meteosat imagery have shown promising results...... for the detecting and removal of clutter. Naturally, the improved spatio-temporal resolution of the Meteosat Second Generation sensors, coupled with its increased number of spectral bands, is expected to yield even better detection accuracies. Weather radar data from three C-band Doppler weather radars...... Application Facility' of EUMETSAT and is based on multispectral images from the SEVIRI sensor of the Meteosat-8 platform. Of special interest is the 'Precipitating Clouds' product, which uses the spectral information coupled with surface temperatures from Numerical Weather Predictions to assign probabilities...

  1. The use of automatic weather stations to measure the soil temperature in the Mordovia State Nature Reserve (Russia in 2016

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Oleg G. Grishutkin

    2017-10-01

    Full Text Available The article presents the soil temperature data obtained using two automatic weather stations located in the Mordovia State Nature Reserve (Russia. Measurements were carried out at the soil surface and at depths of 20 cm, 40 cm and 60 cm. The meteorological stations are located 15 km apart, in general, in similar landscapes. This caused similar results of meteorological measurements. Differences in the average of the daily temperature at corresponding depths are less than 2°C. The average annual temperature differs less than 0.5°C, i.е. within a sensor's error. The annual temperature trend is typical for Central Russia. And it is characterised by well warming in summer and stagnation in winter. The diurnal amplitudes are small. This can be explained by the location of both weather stations under the forest canopy and a well-developed ground vegetation cover.

  2. The Evolution of Land Plants and the Silicate Weathering Feedback

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ibarra, D. E.; Caves Rugenstein, J. K.; Bachan, A.; Baresch, A.; Lau, K. V.; Thomas, D.; Lee, J. E.; Boyce, C. K.; Chamberlain, C. P.

    2017-12-01

    It has long been recognized that the advent of vascular plants in the Paleozoic must have changed silicate weathering and fundamentally altered the long-term carbon cycle. Efforts to quantify these effects have been formulated in carbon cycle models that are, in part, calibrated by weathering studies of modern plant communities. In models of the long-term carbon cycle, plants play a key role in controlling atmospheric CO2, particularly in the late Paleozoic. We test the impact of some established and recent theories regarding plant-enhanced weathering by coupling a one-dimensional vapor transport model to a reactive transport model of silicate weathering. In this coupled model, we evaluate consequences of plant evolutionary innovation that have not been mechanistically incorporated into most existing models: 1) the role of evolutionary shifts in plant transpiration in enhancing silicate weathering by increasing downwind transport and recycling of water vapor to continental interiors; 2) the importance of deeply-rooted plants and their associated microbial communities in increasing soil CO2 and weathering zone length scales; and, 3) the cumulative effect of these processes. Our modeling approach is framed by energy/supply constraints calibrated for minimally vegetated-, vascular plant forested-, and angiosperm-worlds. We find that the emergence of widespread transpiration and associated inland vapor recycling approximately doubles weathering solute concentrations when deep-rooted vascular plants (Devonian-Carboniferous) fully replace a minimally vegetated (pre-Devonian) world. The later evolution of angiosperms (Cretaceous and Cenozoic) and subsequent increase in transpiration fluxes increase weathering solute concentrations by approximately an additional 20%. Our estimates of the changes in weatherability caused by land plant evolution are of a similar magnitude, but explained with new process-based mechanisms, than those used in existing carbon cycle models. We

  3. Use of weathered and fresh bottom ash mix layers as a subbase in road constructions: environmental behavior enhancement by means of a retaining barrier.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Del Valle-Zermeño, R; Chimenos, J M; Giró-Paloma, J; Formosa, J

    2014-12-01

    The presence of neoformed cement-like phases during the weathering of non-stabilized freshly quenched bottom ash favors the development of a bound pavement material with improved mechanical properties. Use of weathered and freshly quenched bottom ash mix layers placed one over the other allowed the retention of leached heavy metals and metalloids by means of a reactive percolation barrier. The addition of 50% of weathered bottom ash to the total subbase content diminished the release of toxic species to below environmental regulatory limits. The mechanisms of retention and the different processes and factors responsible of leaching strongly depended on the contaminant under concern as well as on the chemical and physical factors. Thus, the immediate reuse of freshly quenched bottom ash as a subbase material in road constructions is possible, as both the mechanical properties and long-term leachability are enhanced. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  4. Technologically enhanced natural radioactivity around the coal fired power plant

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kovac, J.; Marovic, G.

    1997-01-01

    In some situations the exposure to natural radiation sources is enhanced as a result to technological developments. Burning of coal is one source of enhanced radiation exposure to naturally occurring elements, particularly radium, thorium and uranium. Most of the radioactive substances are concentrated in the ash and slag, which are heavy and drop to the bottom of a furnace. Lighter fly ash is carried up the chimney and into the atmosphere. The bottom ash and slag are usually deposited in a waste pile, from where some activity may leach into aquifers or be dispersed by wind.The main pathways through which the populations living around coal fired power plants are exposed to enhanced levels of natural radionuclides are inhalation and ingestion of the activity discharged into the Exosphere. For this reason, extensive investigations have been under way for several years in the coal fired power plant in Croatia, which uses an anthracite coal with a higher than usual uranium content. (authors)

  5. Enhancing Natural Killer Cell Mediated Targeting and Responses to Myeloid Leukemias

    Science.gov (United States)

    2017-10-01

    AWARD NUMBER: W81XWH-16-1-0380 TITLE: Enhancing Natural Killer Cell Mediated Targeting and Responses to Myeloid Leukemias PRINCIPAL...2017 4. TITLE AND SUBTITLE 5a. CONTRACT NUMBER Enhancing Natural Killer Cell Mediated Targeting and Responses to Myeloid Leukemias 5b. GRANT NUMBER...leukemias still have poor prognosis, particularly in the elderly, and require hematopoietic cell transplants to fully kill the tumor, which is both

  6. WEATHER INDEX- THE BASIS OF WEATHER DERIVATIVES

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Botos Horia Mircea

    2011-07-01

    Full Text Available This paper approaches the subject of Weather Derivatives, more exactly their basic element the weather index. The weather index has two forms, the Heating Degree Day (HDD and the Cooling Degree Day (CDD. We will try to explain their origin, use and the relationship between the two forms of the index. In our research we started from the analysis of the weather derivatives and what they are based on. After finding out about weather index, we were interested in understanding exactly how they work and how they influence the value of the contract. On the national level the research in the field is scares, but foreign materials available. The study for this paper was based firstly on reading about Weather Derivative, and then going in the meteorogical field and determining the way by which the indices were determined. After this, we went to the field with interest in the indices, such as the energy and gas industries, and figured out how they determined the weather index. For the examples we obtained data from the weather index database, and calculated the value for the period. The study is made on a period of five years, in 8 cities of the European Union. The result of this research is that we can now understand better the importance of the way the indices work and how they influence the value of the Weather Derivatives. This research has an implication on the field of insurance, because of the fact that weather derivative are at the convergence point of the stock markets and the insurance market. The originality of the paper comes from the personal touch given to the theoretical aspect and through the analysis of the HDD and CDD index in order to show their general behaviour and relationship.

  7. Carbon dioxide sequestration by mineral carbonation. Feasibility of enhanced natural weathering as a CO2 emission reduction technology

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Huijgen, W.J.J.

    2007-01-01

    A possible technology that can contribute to the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions is CO2 sequestration by mineral carbonation. The basic concept behind mineral CO2 sequestration is the mimicking of natural weathering processes in which calcium or magnesium containing minerals react with gaseous CO2 and form solid calcium or magnesium carbonates. Potential advantages of mineral CO2 sequestration compared to, e.g., geological CO2 storage include (1) the permanent and inherently safe sequestration of CO2, due to the thermodynamic stability of the carbonate product formed and (2) the vast potential sequestration capacity, because of the widespread and abundant occurrence of suitable feedstock. In addition, carbonation is an exothermic process, which potentially limits the overall energy consumption and costs of CO2 emission reduction. However, weathering processes are slow, with timescales at natural conditions of thousands to millions of years. For industrial implementation, a reduction of the reaction time to the order of minutes has to be achieved by developing alternative process routes. The aim of this thesis is an investigation of the technical, energetic, and economic feasibility of CO2 sequestration by mineral carbonation. In Chapter 1 the literature published on CO2 sequestration by mineral carbonation is reviewed. Among the potentially suitable mineral feedstock for mineral CO2 sequestration, Ca-silicates, more particularly wollastonite (CaSiO3), a mineral ore, and steel slag, an industrial alkaline solid residue, are selected for further research. Alkaline Ca-rich residues seem particularly promising, since these materials are inexpensive and available near large industrial point sources of CO2. In addition, residues tend to react relatively rapidly with CO2 due to their (geo)chemical instability. Various process routes have been proposed for mineral carbonation, which often include a pre-treatment of the solid feedstock (e.g., size reduction and

  8. Seafloor weathering buffering climate: numerical experiments

    Science.gov (United States)

    Farahat, N. X.; Archer, D. E.; Abbot, D. S.

    2013-12-01

    Continental silicate weathering is widely held to consume atmospheric CO2 at a rate controlled in part by temperature, resulting in a climate-weathering feedback [Walker et al., 1981]. It has been suggested that weathering of oceanic crust of warm mid-ocean ridge flanks also has a CO2 uptake rate that is controlled by climate [Sleep and Zahnle, 2001; Brady and Gislason, 1997]. Although this effect might not be significant on present-day Earth [Caldeira, 1995], seafloor weathering may be more pronounced during snowball states [Le Hir et al., 2008], during the Archean when seafloor spreading rates were faster [Sleep and Zahnle, 2001], and on waterworld planets [Abbot et al., 2012]. Previous studies of seafloor weathering have made significant contributions using qualitative, generally one-box, models, and the logical next step is to extend this work using a spatially resolved model. For example, experiments demonstrate that seafloor weathering reactions are temperature dependent, but it is not clear whether the deep ocean temperature affects the temperature at which the reactions occur, or if instead this temperature is set only by geothermal processes. Our goal is to develop a 2-D numerical model that can simulate hydrothermal circulation and resulting alteration of oceanic basalts, and can therefore address such questions. A model of diffusive and convective heat transfer in fluid-saturated porous media simulates hydrothermal circulation through porous oceanic basalt. Unsteady natural convection is solved for using a Darcy model of porous media flow that has been extensively benchmarked. Background hydrothermal circulation is coupled to mineral reaction kinetics of basaltic alteration and hydrothermal mineral precipitation. In order to quantify seafloor weathering as a climate-weathering feedback process, this model focuses on hydrothermal reactions that influence carbon uptake as well as ocean alkalinity: silicate rock dissolution, calcium and magnesium leaching

  9. Effects of corpuscular radiation on weather and climate

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Bucha, V.

    1989-01-01

    There is no doubt that the antropogenic effect play an important role in the effects of corpuscular radiation on weather and climate. The task, however, is to distinguish between antropogenic effect in the atmosphere due to human activities and natural climatic fluctuations influencing biological systems. The increase in global temperature during the past 100 years is in relatively good coincidence with the increase in geomagnetic (corpuscular) activity. It is concluded that it could have been the increase in temperature on the Northern Hemisphere, due to the processes occurring in the auroral oval under enhanced corpuscular radiation which led to an increased atmospheric concentration of CO2 in the past. Both processes, i.e., antropogenic and solar activity effects, should be therefore intensively studied due to their important role for elucidating the past and present global change mainly in temperature, climate and biological systems

  10. N2-fixing tropical legume evolution: a contributor to enhanced weathering through the Cenozoic?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Epihov, Dimitar Z; Batterman, Sarah A; Hedin, Lars O; Leake, Jonathan R; Smith, Lisa M; Beerling, David J

    2017-08-16

    Fossil and phylogenetic evidence indicates legume-rich modern tropical forests replaced Late Cretaceous palm-dominated tropical forests across four continents during the early Cenozoic (58-42 Ma). Tropical legume trees can transform ecosystems via their ability to fix dinitrogen (N 2 ) and higher leaf N compared with non-legumes (35-65%), but it is unclear how their evolutionary rise contributed to silicate weathering, the long-term sink for atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO 2 ). Here we hypothesize that the increasing abundance of N 2 -fixing legumes in tropical forests amplified silicate weathering rates by increased input of fixed nitrogen (N) to terrestrial ecosystems via interrelated mechanisms including increasing microbial respiration and soil acidification, and stimulating forest net primary productivity. We suggest the high CO 2 early Cenozoic atmosphere further amplified legume weathering. Evolution of legumes with high weathering rates was probably driven by their high demand for phosphorus and micronutrients required for N 2 -fixation and nodule formation. © 2017 The Author(s).

  11. Arduino Based Weather Monitoring Telemetry System Using NRF24L01+

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sidqi, Rafi; Rio Rynaldo, Bagus; Hadi Suroso, Satya; Firmansyah, Rifqi

    2018-04-01

    Abstract-Weather is an important part of the natural environment, thus knowing weather information is needed before doing activity. The main purpose of this research was to develop a weather monitoring system which capable to transmit weather data via radio frequency by using nRF24L01+ 2,4GHz radio module. This research implement Arduino UNO as the main controller of the system which send data wirelessly using the radio module and received by a receiver system. Received data then logged and displayed using a Graphical User Interface on a personal computer. Test and experiment result show that the system was able to transmit weather data via radio wave with maximum transmitting range of 32 meters.

  12. The use of automatic weather stations to measure the soil temperature in the Mordovia State Nature Reserve (Russia) in 2016

    OpenAIRE

    Oleg G. Grishutkin

    2017-01-01

    The article presents the soil temperature data obtained using two automatic weather stations located in the Mordovia State Nature Reserve (Russia). Measurements were carried out at the soil surface and at depths of 20 cm, 40 cm and 60 cm. The meteorological stations are located 15 km apart, in general, in similar landscapes. This caused similar results of meteorological measurements. Differences in the average of the daily temperature at corresponding depths are less than 2°C. The average ann...

  13. Optimization design of solar enhanced natural draft dry cooling tower

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Zou, Zheng; Guan, Zhiqiang; Gurgenci, Hal

    2013-01-01

    Highlights: • We proposed a cost model for solar enhanced natural draft dry cooling tower. • We proposed an optimization scheme for this new cooling system. • We optimally designed one for a 50 MW EGS geothermal plant as a demonstration. • Results proved its economic advantages for EGS geothermal application. - Abstract: This paper proposed an optimization scheme for solar enhanced natural draft dry cooling tower design, in which a detailed cost model was proposed including capital, labour, maintenance and operation costs of each component. Based on the developed cost model, the optimal design option can be identified in terms of the relatively lower annual cost and the relatively higher total extra income over the Solar Enhanced Natural Draft Dry Cooling Tower (SENDDCT) lifetime. As a case study, a SENDDCT was optimally designed to meet the cooling demand for a 50 MW geothermal power plant with Engineered Geothermal System (EGS) technology. The results showed that the optimized SENDDCT not only has better cooling performance during the daytime but also is a cost effective option for EGS geothermal power plants

  14. EFFECT OF ARTIFICIAL WEATHERING ON WOOD LAMINATES COLOR TREATED WITH TWO FINISHING PRODUCTS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Thais Jacob Mendes

    2016-03-01

    Full Text Available Weathering is one of the main reasons for the degradation of wood, especially its color. The application of finishes minimizes these effects. This study aimed to monitor the effect of artificial weathering on wood veneer of the species cumaru (Dipteryx odorata and pau marfim (Balfourodendron riedelianum with two finishes, the marine varnish and Cetol, with monitoring using a spectrophotometer. The samples were subjected to cycles of exposure to weathering for 20, 40, 52, 76, 124, 226, 430, 838 and 960 hours. The colorimetric parameters (L*, a*, b*, C and h* were measured before treatment, after application of the products and during the weathering time intervals. The application of finishes darkened veneer of cumaru wood and pau marfim in nature. However, in higher weathering times, both species returned to a lighter color, and even became lighter than the natural wood. The use of Cetol was more efficient, giving greater stability in the conservation of wood color of the species studied.

  15. Modelling natural electromagnetic interference in man-made conductors for space weather applications

    Science.gov (United States)

    Trichtchenko, Larisa

    2016-04-01

    Power transmission lines above the ground, cables and pipelines in the ground and under the sea, and in general all man-made long grounded conductors are exposed to the variations of the natural electromagnetic field. The resulting currents in the networks (commonly named geomagnetically induced currents, GIC), are produced by the conductive and/or inductive coupling and can compromise or even disrupt system operations and, in extreme cases, cause power blackouts, railway signalling mis-operation, or interfere with pipeline corrosion protection systems. To properly model the GIC in order to mitigate their impacts it is necessary to know the frequency dependence of the response of these systems to the geomagnetic variations which naturally span a wide frequency range. For that, the general equations of the electromagnetic induction in a multi-layered infinitely long cylinder (representing cable, power line wire, rail or pipeline) embedded in uniform media have been solved utilising methods widely used in geophysics. The derived electromagnetic fields and currents include the effects of the electromagnetic properties of each layer and of the different types of the surrounding media. This exact solution then has been used to examine the electromagnetic response of particular samples of long conducting structures to the external electromagnetic wave for a wide range of frequencies. Because the exact solution has a rather complicated structure, simple approximate analytical formulas have been proposed, analysed and compared with the results from the exact model. These approximate formulas show good coincidence in the frequency range spanning from geomagnetic storms (less than mHz) to pulsations (mHz to Hz) to atmospherics (kHz) and above, and can be recommended for use in space weather applications.

  16. Oxyradical accumulation and rapid deterioration of soybean seeds due to field weathering.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yadav, Sanjeev; Bhatia, V S; Guruprasad, K N

    2006-02-01

    The effect of field weathering on oxyradical accumulation and subsequent changes were studied in the seeds of soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.] cv. JS 71-05. Electron spin resonance (ESR) quantification of oxyradical revealed that field weathering plays an important role in acceleration of their accumulation. One week of weathering increased the accumulation of oxyradicals to almost 2-fold and triggered the deteriorative cascade, by enhancing the lipid peroxidation and membrane perturbation, leading to cell death in seed tissues and poor germinability and vigour of soybean seeds. Thus, the weather conditions at the time of physiological maturity to harvesting of crop are very crucial and the field weathering plays a critical role for the maintenance of seed quality.

  17. Integrating climate forecasts and natural gas supply information into a natural gas purchasing decision

    Science.gov (United States)

    Changnon, David; Ritsche, Michael; Elyea, Karen; Shelton, Steve; Schramm, Kevin

    2000-09-01

    This paper illustrates a key lesson related to most uses of long-range climate forecast information, namely that effective weather-related decision-making requires understanding and integration of weather information with other, often complex factors. Northern Illinois University's heating plant manager and staff meteorologist, along with a group of meteorology students, worked together to assess different types of available information that could be used in an autumn natural gas purchasing decision. Weather information assessed included the impact of ENSO events on winters in northern Illinois and the Climate Prediction Center's (CPC) long-range climate outlooks. Non-weather factors, such as the cost and available supplies of natural gas prior to the heating season, contribute to the complexity of the natural gas purchase decision. A decision tree was developed and it incorporated three parts: (a) natural gas supply levels, (b) the CPC long-lead climate outlooks for the region, and (c) an ENSO model developed for DeKalb. The results were used to decide in autumn whether to lock in a price or ride the market each winter. The decision tree was tested for the period 1995-99, and returned a cost-effective decision in three of the four winters.

  18. Characterization of Corrosion Products on Carbon Steel Exposed to Natural Weathering and to Accelerated Corrosion Tests

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Renato Altobelli Antunes

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available The aim of this work was to compare the corrosion products formed on carbon steel plates submitted to atmospheric corrosion in urban and industrial atmospheres with those formed after accelerated corrosion tests. The corrosion products were characterized by X-ray diffraction, Mössbauer spectroscopy, and Raman spectroscopy. The specimens were exposed to natural weathering in both atmospheres for nine months. The morphologies of the corrosion products were evaluated using scanning electron microscopy. The main product found was lepidocrocite. Goethite and magnetite were also found on the corroded specimens but in lower concentrations. The results showed that the accelerated test based on the ASTM B117 procedure presented poor correlation with the atmospheric corrosion tests whereas an alternated fog/dry cycle combined with UV radiation exposure provided better correlation.

  19. Weathering effects on tensile and stress rupture strength of glass fiber reinforced vinylester and epoxy thermoset pipes

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nizamuddin, Syed

    Glass fiber reinforced vinylester (GFRE) and epoxy (GFRE) pipes have been used for more than three decades to mitigate corrosion problems in oil fields, chemical and industrial plants. In these services, both GFRV and GFRE pipes are exposed to various environmental conditions. Long-term mechanical durability of these pipes after exposure to environmental conditions, which include natural weathering exposure to seasonal temperature variation, sea water, humidity and other corrosive fluids like crude oil, should be well known. Although extensive research has been undertaken, several major issues pertaining to the performance of these pipes under a number of environmental conditions still remain unresolved. The main objective of this study is to investigate the effects of natural weathering, combined natural weathering with seawater and crude oil exposure, for time periods ranging from 3 to 36 months respectively, on the tensile and stress rupture behavior of GFRV and GFRE pipes. Ring specimens are machined from GFRV and GFRE pipes and tested before and after exposure to different weathering conditions prevalent in the eastern region (Dhahran) of Saudi Arabia and present under service conditions. The natural weathering and combined natural weathering with crude oil exposure of GFRV specimens revealed increased tensile strength even after 36 months of exposure when compared with that of the as received samples. However, the combined natural weathering with seawater exposure of GFRV samples revealed better tensile behavior till 24 months of exposure, and after 36 months their tensile strength was seen to be below that of the as received GFRV samples. The stress rupture behavior of natural weather exposed GFRV samples showed an improvement after 12 months of exposure and it decreased after 24 and 36 months of exposure when compared with the as received GFRV samples. The combined natural weathering with crude oil and seawater exposure of GFRV sample revealed improved

  20. New weather depiction technology for night vision goggle (NVG) training: 3D virtual/augmented reality scene-weather-atmosphere-target simulation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Folaron, Michelle; Deacutis, Martin; Hegarty, Jennifer; Vollmerhausen, Richard; Schroeder, John; Colby, Frank P.

    2007-04-01

    US Navy and Marine Corps pilots receive Night Vision Goggle (NVG) training as part of their overall training to maintain the superiority of our forces. This training must incorporate realistic targets; backgrounds; and representative atmospheric and weather effects they may encounter under operational conditions. An approach for pilot NVG training is to use the Night Imaging and Threat Evaluation Laboratory (NITE Lab) concept. The NITE Labs utilize a 10' by 10' static terrain model equipped with both natural and cultural lighting that are used to demonstrate various illumination conditions, and visual phenomena which might be experienced when utilizing night vision goggles. With this technology, the military can safely, systematically, and reliably expose pilots to the large number of potentially dangerous environmental conditions that will be experienced in their NVG training flights. A previous SPIE presentation described our work for NAVAIR to add realistic atmospheric and weather effects to the NVG NITE Lab training facility using the NVG - WDT(Weather Depiction Technology) system (Colby, et al.). NVG -WDT consist of a high end multiprocessor server with weather simulation software, and several fixed and goggle mounted Heads Up Displays (HUDs). Atmospheric and weather effects are simulated using state-of-the-art computer codes such as the WRF (Weather Research μ Forecasting) model; and the US Air Force Research Laboratory MODTRAN radiative transport model. Imagery for a variety of natural and man-made obscurations (e.g. rain, clouds, snow, dust, smoke, chemical releases) are being calculated and injected into the scene observed through the NVG via the fixed and goggle mounted HUDs. This paper expands on the work described in the previous presentation and will describe the 3D Virtual/Augmented Reality Scene - Weather - Atmosphere - Target Simulation part of the NVG - WDT. The 3D virtual reality software is a complete simulation system to generate realistic

  1. Optimized Strategies for Detecting Extrasolar Space Weather

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hallinan, Gregg

    2018-06-01

    Fully understanding the implications of space weather for the young solar system, as well as the wider population of planet-hosting stars, requires remote sensing of space weather in other stellar systems. Solar coronal mass ejections can be accompanied by bright radio bursts at low frequencies (typically measurement of the magnetic field strength of the planet, informing on whether the atmosphere of the planet can survive the intense magnetic activity of its host star. However, both stellar and planetary radio emission are highly variable and optimal strategies for detection of these emissions requires the capability to monitor 1000s of nearby stellar/planetary systems simultaneously. I will discuss optimized strategies for both ground and space-based experiments to take advantage of the highly variable nature of the radio emissions powered by extrasolar space weather to enable detection of stellar CMEs and planetary magnetospheres.

  2. Room acoustic enhancement in a small hall with very low natural reverberation time

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Gade, Anders Christian

    1996-01-01

    natural combinations of room acoustic properties. Consequently, the natural reverberation time in a newly opened 350 seat multipurpose hall in Denmark was designed as low as 0.7 sec. Two different reverberation enhancement systems were considered and tested in the hall. The objective and subjective...... testing results are reported and compared with previous results obtained in another small hall supplied with a similar enhancement system. The results concerning 'realism' are also compared with acoustic properties found in 'natural' halls of different sizes and reverberation times.......In small multipurpose halls to be equipped with electronic reverberation enhancement systems, selecting a very low natural reverberation time is advantageous for several reasons. It will 1) reduce the risk of feedback, 2) increase the possible range of room acoustic variation and 3) allow for more...

  3. Communicating space weather to policymakers and the wider public

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ferreira, Bárbara

    2014-05-01

    As a natural hazard, space weather has the potential to affect space- and ground-based technological systems and cause harm to human health. As such, it is important to properly communicate this topic to policymakers and the general public alike, informing them (without being unnecessarily alarmist) about the potential impact of space-weather phenomena and how these can be monitored and mitigated. On the other hand, space weather is related to interesting phenomena on the Sun such as coronal-mass ejections, and incorporates one of the most beautiful displays in the Earth and its nearby space environment: aurora. These exciting and fascinating aspects of space weather should be cultivated when communicating this topic to the wider public, particularly to younger audiences. Researchers have a key role to play in communicating space weather to both policymakers and the wider public. Space scientists should have an active role in informing policy decisions on space-weather monitoring and forecasting, for example. And they can exercise their communication skills by talking about space weather to school children and the public in general. This presentation will focus on ways to communicate space weather to wider audiences, particularly policymakers. It will also address the role researchers can play in this activity to help bridge the gap between the space science community and the public.

  4. Performance evaluation of two protective treatments on salt-laden limestones and marble after natural and artificial weathering.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Salvadori, Barbara; Pinna, Daniela; Porcinai, Simone

    2014-02-01

    Salt crystallization is a major damage factor in stone weathering, and the application of inappropriate protective products may amplify its effects. This research focuses on the evaluation of two protective products' performance (organic polydimethylsiloxane and inorganic ammonium oxalate (NH4)2(COO)2·H2O) in the case of a salt load from behind. Experimental laboratory simulations based on salt crystallization cycles and natural weathering in an urban area were carried out. The effects were monitored over time, applying different methods: weight loss evaluation, colorimetric and water absorption by capillarity measurements, stereomicroscope observations, FTIR and SEM-EDS analyses. The results showed minor impact exerted on the short term on stones, particularly those treated with the water repellent, by atmospheric agents compared to salt crystallization. Lithotypes with low salt load (Gioia marble) underwent minor changes than the heavily salt-laden limestones (Lecce and Ançã stones), which were dramatically damaged when treated with polysiloxane. The results suggest that the ammonium oxalate treatment should be preferred to polysiloxane in the presence of soluble salts, even after desalination procedures which might not completely remove them. In addition, the neo-formed calcium oxalate seemed to effectively protect the stone, improving its resistance against salt crystallization without occluding the pores and limiting the superficial erosion caused by atmospheric agents.

  5. Establishing Natural Nootropics: Recent Molecular Enhancement Influenced by Natural Nootropic

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Noor Azuin Suliman

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available Nootropics or smart drugs are well-known compounds or supplements that enhance the cognitive performance. They work by increasing the mental function such as memory, creativity, motivation, and attention. Recent researches were focused on establishing a new potential nootropic derived from synthetic and natural products. The influence of nootropic in the brain has been studied widely. The nootropic affects the brain performances through number of mechanisms or pathways, for example, dopaminergic pathway. Previous researches have reported the influence of nootropics on treating memory disorders, such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and Huntington’s diseases. Those disorders are observed to impair the same pathways of the nootropics. Thus, recent established nootropics are designed sensitively and effectively towards the pathways. Natural nootropics such as Ginkgo biloba have been widely studied to support the beneficial effects of the compounds. Present review is concentrated on the main pathways, namely, dopaminergic and cholinergic system, and the involvement of amyloid precursor protein and secondary messenger in improving the cognitive performance.

  6. Establishing Natural Nootropics: Recent Molecular Enhancement Influenced by Natural Nootropic.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Suliman, Noor Azuin; Mat Taib, Che Norma; Mohd Moklas, Mohamad Aris; Adenan, Mohd Ilham; Hidayat Baharuldin, Mohamad Taufik; Basir, Rusliza

    2016-01-01

    Nootropics or smart drugs are well-known compounds or supplements that enhance the cognitive performance. They work by increasing the mental function such as memory, creativity, motivation, and attention. Recent researches were focused on establishing a new potential nootropic derived from synthetic and natural products. The influence of nootropic in the brain has been studied widely. The nootropic affects the brain performances through number of mechanisms or pathways, for example, dopaminergic pathway. Previous researches have reported the influence of nootropics on treating memory disorders, such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and Huntington's diseases. Those disorders are observed to impair the same pathways of the nootropics. Thus, recent established nootropics are designed sensitively and effectively towards the pathways. Natural nootropics such as Ginkgo biloba have been widely studied to support the beneficial effects of the compounds. Present review is concentrated on the main pathways, namely, dopaminergic and cholinergic system, and the involvement of amyloid precursor protein and secondary messenger in improving the cognitive performance.

  7. WEATHERABILITY OF ENHANCED DEGRADABLE PLASTICS

    Science.gov (United States)

    The main objective of this study was to assess the performance and the asociated variability of several selected enhanced degradable plastic materials under a variety of different exposure conditions. Other objectives were to identify the major products formed during degradation ...

  8. Advances in Optimizing Weather Driven Electric Power Systems.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Clack, C.; MacDonald, A. E.; Alexander, A.; Dunbar, A. D.; Xie, Y.; Wilczak, J. M.

    2014-12-01

    The importance of weather-driven renewable energies for the United States (and global) energy portfolio is growing. The main perceived problems with weather-driven renewable energies are their intermittent nature, low power density, and high costs. The National Energy with Weather System Simulator (NEWS) is a mathematical optimization tool that allows the construction of weather-driven energy sources that will work in harmony with the needs of the system. For example, it will match the electric load, reduce variability, decrease costs, and abate carbon emissions. One important test run included existing US carbon-free power sources, natural gas power when needed, and a High Voltage Direct Current power transmission network. This study shows that the costs and carbon emissions from an optimally designed national system decrease with geographic size. It shows that with achievable estimates of wind and solar generation costs, that the US could decrease its carbon emissions by up to 80% by the early 2030s, without an increase in electric costs. The key requirement would be a 48 state network of HVDC transmission, creating a national market for electricity not possible in the current AC grid. These results were found without the need for storage. Further, we tested the effect of changing natural gas fuel prices on the optimal configuration of the national electric power system. Another test that was carried out was an extension to global regions. The extension study shows that the same properties found in the US study extend to the most populous regions of the planet. The extra test is a simplified version of the US study, and is where much more research can be carried out. We compare our results to other model results.

  9. Municipalities' Preparedness for Weather Hazards and Response to Weather Warnings.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mehiriz, Kaddour; Gosselin, Pierre

    2016-01-01

    The study of the management of weather-related disaster risks by municipalities has attracted little attention even though these organizations play a key role in protecting the population from extreme meteorological conditions. This article contributes to filling this gap with new evidence on the level and determinants of Quebec municipalities' preparedness for weather hazards and response to related weather warnings. Using survey data from municipal emergency management coordinators and secondary data on the financial and demographic characteristics of municipalities, the study shows that most Quebec municipalities are sufficiently prepared for weather hazards and undertake measures to protect the population when informed of imminent extreme weather events. Significant differences between municipalities were noted though. Specifically, the level of preparedness was positively correlated with the municipalities' capacity and population support for weather-related disaster management policies. In addition, the risk of weather-related disasters increases the preparedness level through its effect on population support. We also found that the response to weather warnings depended on the risk of weather-related disasters, the preparedness level and the quality of weather warnings. These results highlight areas for improvement in the context of increasing frequency and/or severity of such events with current climate change.

  10. National Weather Service

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... GIS International Weather Cooperative Observers Storm Spotters Tsunami Facts and Figures National Water Center WEATHER SAFETY NOAA Weather Radio StormReady Heat Lightning Hurricanes Thunderstorms Tornadoes Rip Currents Floods Winter Weather ...

  11. Global Space Weather Observational Network: Challenges and China's Contribution

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, C.

    2017-12-01

    To understand space weather physical processes and predict space weather accurately, global space-borne and ground-based space weather observational network, making simultaneous observations from the Sun to geo-space (magnetosphere, ionosphere and atmosphere), plays an essential role. In this talk, we will present the advances of the Chinese space weather science missions, including the ASO-S (Advanced Space-borne Solar Observatory), MIT (Magnetosphere - Ionosphere- Thermosphere Coupling Exploration), and the ESA-China joint space weather science mission SMILE (Solar wind - Magnetosphere - Ionosphere Link Explore), a new mission to image the magnetosphere. Compared to satellites, ground-based monitors are cheap, convenient, and provide continuous real-time data. We will also introduce the Chinese Meridian Project (CMP), a ground-based program fully utilizing the geographic location of the Chinese landmass to monitor the geo-space environment. CMP is just one arm of a larger program that Chinese scientists are proposing to the international community. The International Meridian Circle Program (IMCP) for space weather hopes to connect chains of ground-based monitors at the longitudinal meridians 120 deg E and 60 deg W. IMCP takes advantage of the fact that these meridians already have the most monitors of any on Earth, with monitors in Russia, Australia, Brazil, the United States, Canada, and other countries. This data will greatly enhance the ability of scientists to monitor and predict the space weather worldwide.

  12. Weathering of the New Albany Shale, Kentucky, USA: I. Weathering zones defined by mineralogy and major-element composition

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tuttle, M.L.W.; Breit, G.N.

    2009-01-01

    Comprehensive understanding of chemical and mineralogical changes induced by weathering is valuable information when considering the supply of nutrients and toxic elements from rocks. Here minerals that release and fix major elements during progressive weathering of a bed of Devonian New Albany Shale in eastern Kentucky are documented. Samples were collected from unweathered core (parent shale) and across an outcrop excavated into a hillside 40 year prior to sampling. Quantitative X-ray diffraction mineralogical data record progressive shale alteration across the outcrop. Mineral compositional changes reflect subtle alteration processes such as incongruent dissolution and cation exchange. Altered primary minerals include K-feldspars, plagioclase, calcite, pyrite, and chlorite. Secondary minerals include jarosite, gypsum, goethite, amorphous Fe(III) oxides and Fe(II)-Al sulfate salt (efflorescence). The mineralogy in weathered shale defines four weathered intervals on the outcrop-Zones A-C and soil. Alteration of the weakly weathered shale (Zone A) is attributed to the 40-a exposure of the shale. In this zone, pyrite oxidization produces acid that dissolves calcite and attacks chlorite, forming gypsum, jarosite, and minor efflorescent salt. The pre-excavation, active weathering front (Zone B) is where complete pyrite oxidation and alteration of feldspar and organic matter result in increased permeability. Acidic weathering solutions seep through the permeable shale and evaporate on the surface forming abundant efflorescent salt, jarosite and minor goethite. Intensely weathered shale (Zone C) is depleted in feldspars, chlorite, gypsum, jarosite and efflorescent salts, but has retained much of its primary quartz, illite and illite-smectite. Goethite and amorphous FE(III) oxides increase due to hydrolysis of jarosite. Enhanced permeability in this zone is due to a 14% loss of the original mass in parent shale. Denudation rates suggest that characteristics of Zone C

  13. GOES-16 Space Weather Data Availability and Applications

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tilton, M.; Rowland, W. F.; Codrescu, S.; Seaton, D. B.; Redmon, R. J.; Hsu, V.

    2017-12-01

    In November 2016, NOAA launched the first in the "R" series of Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites, GOES-16. Compared to its GOES predecessors, the GOES-R series satellites provide improved in situ measurements of charged particles, higher cadence magnetic field measurements, and enhanced remote sensing of the sun through ultraviolet (UV) imagery and X-ray/UV irradiance. GOES-16 space weather instruments will nominally reach provisional status near the beginning of 2018. After this milestone has been achieved, NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) will provide archive access to GOES-16 space weather data. This presentation will describe the status of the space weather instruments, including available products and their applicability for forecasters, modelers, academics, spacecraft operators, and other users. It will discuss the available access systems for all levels of data-raw telemetry (Level 0), science measurements in high resolution (L1b), and higher-level (L2+) products developed by NCEI scientists. Finally, it will cover NCEI's efforts to promote space weather awareness through data visualization tools and image dissemination via the Helioviewer project.

  14. Enhanced functional connectivity properties of human brains during in-situ nature experience.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Zheng; He, Yujia; Yu, Yuguo

    2016-01-01

    In this study, we investigated the impacts of in-situ nature and urban exposure on human brain activities and their dynamics. We randomly assigned 32 healthy right-handed college students (mean age = 20.6 years, SD = 1.6; 16 males) to a 20 min in-situ sitting exposure in either a nature (n = 16) or urban environment (n = 16) and measured their Electroencephalography (EEG) signals. Analyses revealed that a brief in-situ restorative nature experience may induce more efficient and stronger brain connectivity with enhanced small-world properties compared with a stressful urban experience. The enhanced small-world properties were found to be correlated with "coherent" experience measured by Perceived Restorativeness Scale (PRS). Exposure to nature also induces stronger long-term correlated activity across different brain regions with a right lateralization. These findings may advance our understanding of the functional activities during in-situ environmental exposures and imply that a nature or nature-like environment may potentially benefit cognitive processes and mental well-being.

  15. Enhanced natural radiation exposure enhanced by human activity: the largest contributor to the Chinese population dose

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Pan Ziqiang; Liu Yanyang

    2011-01-01

    For the radiation exposure caused by human activities, the enhanced natural radiation exposure is the largest contributor to Chinese population dose. This problem has attracted social attention in recent years. Efforts have been made in several fields, such as radon indoors and in workplace, environmental problems associated with NORMs, occupational radiation hazards of non-uranium mine, and radiation dose evaluation for energy chain, but there are still many problems to be solved. In order to protect the health of workers and the public, while ensuring industrial production and economic development, it is also necessary to continue to strengthen research in all aspects above mentioned, and gradually promote the control of natural radiation exposure enhanced by human activities. (authors)

  16. Using Weather Types to Understand and Communicate Weather and Climate Impacts

    Science.gov (United States)

    Prein, A. F.; Hale, B.; Holland, G. J.; Bruyere, C. L.; Done, J.; Mearns, L.

    2017-12-01

    A common challenge in atmospheric research is the translation of scientific advancements and breakthroughs to decision relevant and actionable information. This challenge is central to the mission of NCAR's Capacity Center for Climate and Weather Extremes (C3WE, www.c3we.ucar.edu). C3WE advances our understanding of weather and climate impacts and integrates these advances with distributed information technology to create tools that promote a global culture of resilience to weather and climate extremes. Here we will present an interactive web-based tool that connects historic U.S. losses and fatalities from extreme weather and climate events to 12 large-scale weather types. Weather types are dominant weather situations such as winter high-pressure systems over the U.S. leading to very cold temperatures or summertime moist humid air masses over the central U.S. leading to severe thunderstorms. Each weather type has a specific fingerprint of economic losses and fatalities in a region that is quantified. Therefore, weather types enable a direct connection of observed or forecasted weather situation to loss of life and property. The presented tool allows the user to explore these connections, raise awareness of existing vulnerabilities, and build resilience to weather and climate extremes.

  17. Surface Weather, Signal Service and Weather Bureau

    Data.gov (United States)

    National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — Surface Weather, Signal Service and Weather Bureau (SWSSWB) Records primarily created by the United States Army Signal Service from 1819 until the paid and voluntary...

  18. The Nature of Mercury's Hollows, and Space Weathering Close to the Sun

    Science.gov (United States)

    Blewett, D. T.; Chabot, N. L.; Denevi, B. W.; Ernst, C. M.

    2018-05-01

    Hollows are a landform that appear to form by loss of a volatile-bearing phase from silicate rock. Hollows are very young and are likely to be forming in the present day. Hollows may be an analog for extreme weathering on near-Sun asteroids.

  19. INTERACTIVE GLOBAL NETWORK FOR WEATHER DATA OBTAINING, EXCHANGE AND DISSEMINATION

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ю.А. Авер’янова

    2012-12-01

    Full Text Available  The possibility to enhance the weather information provision of relevant customers is considered. It is based on the use of the complex global system for weather information obtaining, exchange and dissemination. The structural diagram of the system is proposed. The structural diagram is completed with addition connections that allow to pay strong attention on the most dangerous meteorological phenomena at the critical moment of flight. The proposed approach gives possibility to aircraft crew to select and use specified operative information and increase the probability for proper decision taking. The aircraft are used as the dynamic elements for data obtaining and exchange in the frame of the global system for weather information obtaining, exchange and dissemination.

  20. Calcium weathering in forested soils and the effedt of different tree species

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Dijkstra, F.A.; Breemen, van N.; Jongmans, A.G.; Davies, G.R.; Likens, G.E.

    2003-01-01

    Soil weathering can be an important mechanism to neutralize acidity in forest soils. Tree species may differ in their effect on or response to soil weathering. We used soil mineral data and the natural strontium isotope ratio Sr-87/Sr-86 as a tracer to identify the effect of tree species on the Ca

  1. Lithium-isotope evidence for enhanced silicate weathering during OAE 1a (Early Aptian Selli event)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lechler, Maria; Pogge von Strandmann, Philip A. E.; Jenkyns, Hugh C.; Prosser, Giacomo; Parente, Mariano

    2015-12-01

    An abrupt rise in temperature, forced by a massive input of CO2 into the atmosphere, is commonly invoked as the main trigger for Oceanic Anoxic Events (OAEs). Global warming initiated a cascade of palaeoenvironmental perturbations starting with increased continental weathering and an accelerated hydrological cycle that delivered higher loads of nutrients to coastal areas, stimulating biological productivity. The end-result was widespread anoxia and deposition of black shales: the hallmarks of OAEs. In order to assess the role of weathering as both an OAE initiator and terminator (via CO2 sequestration) during the Early Aptian OAE 1a (Selli Event, ∼120 Ma) the isotopic ratio of lithium isotopes was analysed in three sections of shallow-marine carbonates from the Pacific and Tethyan realms and one basinal pelagic section from the Tethyan domain. Because the isotopic composition of lithium in seawater is largely controlled by continental silicate weathering and high- and low-temperature alteration of basaltic material, a shift to lighter δ7Li values is expected to characterize OAEs. The studied sections illustrate this phenomenon: δ7Li values decrease to a minimum coincident with the negative carbon-isotope excursion that effectively records the onset of OAE 1a. A second negative δ7Li excursion occurs coeval with the minimum in strontium isotopes after the event. The striking similarity to the strontium-isotope record argues for a common driver. The formation and destruction (weathering) of an oceanic LIP could account for the parallel trend in both isotope systems. The double-spike in lithium isotopes is probably related to a change in weathering congruencies. Such a chemostratigraphy is consistent with the hypothesis that an increase in silicate weathering, in conjunction with organic-carbon burial, led to drawdown of atmospheric CO2 during the early Aptian OAE 1a.

  2. What's the Weather Like Today?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Miller, Heather; Smith, Mandy McCormick; Trundle, Kathy Cabe

    2014-01-01

    Teaching students to make daily weather observations is one way educators assist them as they learn to dress appropriately. In addition, it provides a natural and developmentally appropriate link between science and other curriculum areas, such as literacy and language development. The "Next Generation Science Standards" (NGSS Lead…

  3. The Alligator rivers natural analogue - Modelling of uranium and thorium migration in the weathered zone at Koongarra

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Skagius, K.; Lindgren, M.; Boghammar, A.; Brandberg, F.; Pers, K.; Widen, H.

    1993-08-01

    The Koongarra Uranium Deposit in the Alligator Rivers Region in the Northern Territory of Australia is a natural analogue being investigated with the aim to contribute to the understanding of the scientific basis for the long term prediction of radionuclide migration within geological environments relevant to radioactive waste repositories. The dispersion of uranium and decay products in the weathered zone has been modelled with a simple advection-dispersion-reversible sorption model and with a model extended to also consider α-recoil and transfer of radionuclides between different mineral phases of the rock. The modelling work was carried out in several iterations, each including a review of available laboratory and field data, selection of the system to be modelled and suitable model, and a comparison of modelling results with field observations. Uranium concentrations in bulk rock calculated with the simple advection-dispersion- reversible sorption model were in fair agreement with observed data using parameter values within ranges recommended based on independent interpretations. The advection-dispersion-reversible sorption model is a large simplification of the system among other things because the partitioning of radionuclides between water and solid phase is described with a sorption equilibrium term only. Although the results from this study not are enough to validate simple performance assessment models in a strict sense, it has been shown that even simple models are able to describe the present day distribution of uranium in the weathered zone at Koongarra. 23 refs, 61 figs

  4. The Alligator rivers natural analogue - Modelling of uranium and thorium migration in the weathered zone at Koongarra

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Skagius, K; Lindgren, M; Boghammar, A; Brandberg, F; Pers, K; Widen, H [Kemakta, Stockholm (Sweden)

    1993-08-01

    The Koongarra Uranium Deposit in the Alligator Rivers Region in the Northern Territory of Australia is a natural analogue being investigated with the aim to contribute to the understanding of the scientific basis for the long term prediction of radionuclide migration within geological environments relevant to radioactive waste repositories. The dispersion of uranium and decay products in the weathered zone has been modelled with a simple advection-dispersion-reversible sorption model and with a model extended to also consider {alpha}-recoil and transfer of radionuclides between different mineral phases of the rock. The modelling work was carried out in several iterations, each including a review of available laboratory and field data, selection of the system to be modelled and suitable model, and a comparison of modelling results with field observations. Uranium concentrations in bulk rock calculated with the simple advection-dispersion- reversible sorption model were in fair agreement with observed data using parameter values within ranges recommended based on independent interpretations. The advection-dispersion-reversible sorption model is a large simplification of the system among other things because the partitioning of radionuclides between water and solid phase is described with a sorption equilibrium term only. Although the results from this study not are enough to validate simple performance assessment models in a strict sense, it has been shown that even simple models are able to describe the present day distribution of uranium in the weathered zone at Koongarra. 23 refs, 61 figs.

  5. A Reactive Transport Model for Marcellus Shale Weathering

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, L.; Heidari, P.; Jin, L.; Williams, J.; Brantley, S.

    2017-12-01

    Shale formations account for 25% of the land surface globally. One of the most productive shale-gas formations is the Marcellus, a black shale that is rich in organic matter and pyrite. As a first step toward understanding how Marcellus shale interacts with water, we developed a reactive transport model to simulate shale weathering under ambient temperature and pressure conditions, constrained by soil chemistry and water data. The simulation was carried out for 10,000 years, assuming bedrock weathering and soil genesis began right after the last glacial maximum. Results indicate weathering was initiated by pyrite dissolution for the first 1,000 years, leading to low pH and enhanced dissolution of chlorite and precipitation of iron hydroxides. After pyrite depletion, chlorite dissolved slowly, primarily facilitated by the presence of CO2 and organic acids, forming vermiculite as a secondary mineral. A sensitivity analysis indicated that the most important controls on weathering include the presence of reactive gases (CO2 and O2), specific surface area, and flow velocity of infiltrating meteoric water. The soil chemistry and mineralogy data could not be reproduced without including the reactive gases. For example, pyrite remained in the soil even after 10,000 years if O2 was not continuously present in the soil column; likewise, chlorite remained abundant and porosity remained small with the presence of soil CO2. The field observations were only simulated successfully when the specific surface areas of the reactive minerals were 1-3 orders of magnitude smaller than surface area values measured for powdered minerals, reflecting the lack of accessibility of fluids to mineral surfaces and potential surface coating. An increase in the water infiltration rate enhanced weathering by removing dissolution products and maintaining far-from-equilibrium conditions. We conclude that availability of reactive surface area and transport of H2O and gases are the most important

  6. Electrochemical soil remediation - accelerated soil weathering?

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Ottosen, L.M.; Villumsen, A.; Hansen, H.K.; Jensen, P.E.; Pedersen, A.J. [Dept. of Civil Engineering, Technical Univ. of Denmark, Lyngby (Denmark); Ribeiro, A.B. [Dept. of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, New Univ. of Lisbon, Monte da Caparica (Portugal)

    2001-07-01

    In electrochemical soil remediation systems, where enhancement solutions and complexing agents are not used, a developing acidic front is mobilizing the heavy metals and the electric current is removing the mobilized elements from the soil. The hypotheses investigated in this paper is whether this process may be comparable to the chemical soil weathering that occurs in the environment due to the acidic rain, where the mobilized elements are removed from the soil by the penetrating water. Even through the weathering process is highly accelerated in the electrochemical cell. This paper shows results from electrodialytic remediation experiments performed with four different Danish heavy metal polluted soils. The main emphasis is laid on the relation between the developing acidic front and electromigration of Cu, Zn, Mn, Mg, Fe and Ca. (orig.)

  7. Study on the behavior of naturally occurring radioactivity originated from heavy minerals in weathering process of granite

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Nakano, M.; Nakashima, Y.

    1993-01-01

    Mass fraction of biotite and of heavy minerals originally in granite rocks at Naegi granite area are 3% and 1 x 10 -4 %, respectively. Though their values are very small, specific activities of 238 U is 1.3 Bq/g and 80 Bq/g, respectively. Their values are much higher than that of gross granite (0.1 Bq/g). Therefore, they play important roles in the weathering process. Authors separated biotite and heavy minerals from less-weathered and weathered (outcrop, plastic materials) granite samples by using heavy liquid, and determined each specific activities and activity ratios. Furthermore, the surface of heavy minerals were washed in 6 N HCl for 20 minutes. And lost fraction of activity in the heavy minerals was determined. The result suggested that activity around heavy mineral's surface was removed into surroundings or external environment through weathering process. (5 figs.)

  8. Climate Central World Weather Attribution (WWA) project: Real-time extreme weather event attribution analysis

    Science.gov (United States)

    Haustein, Karsten; Otto, Friederike; Uhe, Peter; Allen, Myles; Cullen, Heidi

    2015-04-01

    Extreme weather detection and attribution analysis has emerged as a core theme in climate science over the last decade or so. By using a combination of observational data and climate models it is possible to identify the role of climate change in certain types of extreme weather events such as sea level rise and its contribution to storm surges, extreme heat events and droughts or heavy rainfall and flood events. These analyses are usually carried out after an extreme event has occurred when reanalysis and observational data become available. The Climate Central WWA project will exploit the increasing forecast skill of seasonal forecast prediction systems such as the UK MetOffice GloSea5 (Global seasonal forecasting system) ensemble forecasting method. This way, the current weather can be fed into climate models to simulate large ensembles of possible weather scenarios before an event has fully emerged yet. This effort runs along parallel and intersecting tracks of science and communications that involve research, message development and testing, staged socialization of attribution science with key audiences, and dissemination. The method we employ uses a very large ensemble of simulations of regional climate models to run two different analyses: one to represent the current climate as it was observed, and one to represent the same events in the world that might have been without human-induced climate change. For the weather "as observed" experiment, the atmospheric model uses observed sea surface temperature (SST) data from GloSea5 (currently) and present-day atmospheric gas concentrations to simulate weather events that are possible given the observed climate conditions. The weather in the "world that might have been" experiments is obtained by removing the anthropogenic forcing from the observed SSTs, thereby simulating a counterfactual world without human activity. The anthropogenic forcing is obtained by comparing the CMIP5 historical and natural simulations

  9. Acidic weathering of carbonate building stones: experimental assessment

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ryszard Kryza

    2009-06-01

    Full Text Available Three types of carbonate rocks, travertine, limestone and marble have been studied to determine their selected technical parameters (water absorption, resistance to salt crystallization damage and reaction to experimentally modelled acid rain weathering imitating the polluted urban atmospheric conditions. The acidic agents present in natural acid rain precipitation, H2SO4, HCl, HNO3, CH3COOH and mixture of all the acids, “Acid mix”, were tested. The initial stages of acid weathering involve, apart from chemical dissolution, particularly intense physical detachment of rock particles (granular disintegration significantly contributing to the total mass loss. Travertine was found to be most prone to salt crystallization damage and to acid weathering, and these features should be taken into account especially in external architectural usage of this stone in cold climate conditions and polluted urban atmosphere.

  10. Weather swap as an instrument for weather risk management in wheat production

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Marković Todor

    2012-01-01

    Full Text Available A special type of weather derivatives are weather forwards and they exists mostly in the form of weather swaps. Hedging effectiveness in wheat production with and without weather swap was analyzed in this paper using stochastic dominance. The results show that the effect of risk reduction is significant using weather swap, but geographical- basis risk and production-related basis risk are important factor that reduce the utility of weather derivatives.

  11. Cloudy with a Chance of Solar Flares: The Sun as a Natural Hazard

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pellish, Jonathan

    2017-01-01

    Space weather is a naturally occurring phenomenon that represents a quantifiable risk to space- and ground-based infrastructure as well as society at large. Space weather hazards include permanent and correctable faults in computer systems, Global Positioning System (GPS) and high-frequency communication disturbances, increased airline passenger and astronaut radiation exposure, and electric grid disruption. From the National Space Weather Strategy, published by the Office of Science and Technology Policy in October 2015, space weather refers to the dynamic conditions of the space environment that arise from emissions from the Sun, which include solar flares, solar energetic particles, and coronal mass ejections. These emissions can interact with Earth and its surrounding space, including the Earth's magnetic field, potentially disrupting technologies and infrastructures. Space weather is measured using a range of space- and ground-based platforms that directly monitor the Sun, the Earth's magnetic field, the conditions in interplanetary space and impacts at Earth's surface, like neutron ground-level enhancement. The NASA Goddard Space Flight Center's Space Weather Research Center and their international collaborators in government, industry, and academia are working towards improved techniques for predicting space weather as part of the strategy and action plan to better quantify and mitigate space weather hazards. In addition to accurately measuring and predicting space weather, we also need to continue developing more advanced techniques for evaluating space weather impacts on space- and ground-based infrastructure. Within the Earth's atmosphere, elevated neutron flux driven by atmosphere-particle interactions from space weather is a primary risk source. Ground-based neutron sources form an essential foundation for quantifying space weather impacts in a variety of systems.

  12. Enhanced functional connectivity properties of human brains during in-situ nature experience

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Zheng Chen

    2016-07-01

    Full Text Available In this study, we investigated the impacts of in-situ nature and urban exposure on human brain activities and their dynamics. We randomly assigned 32 healthy right-handed college students (mean age = 20.6 years, SD = 1.6; 16 males to a 20 min in-situ sitting exposure in either a nature (n = 16 or urban environment (n = 16 and measured their Electroencephalography (EEG signals. Analyses revealed that a brief in-situ restorative nature experience may induce more efficient and stronger brain connectivity with enhanced small-world properties compared with a stressful urban experience. The enhanced small-world properties were found to be correlated with “coherent” experience measured by Perceived Restorativeness Scale (PRS. Exposure to nature also induces stronger long-term correlated activity across different brain regions with a right lateralization. These findings may advance our understanding of the functional activities during in-situ environmental exposures and imply that a nature or nature-like environment may potentially benefit cognitive processes and mental well-being.

  13. Development of a New Data Tool for Computing Launch and Landing Availability with Respect to Surface Weather

    Science.gov (United States)

    Burns, K. Lee; Altino, Karen

    2008-01-01

    The Marshall Space Flight Center Natural Environments Branch has a long history of expertise in the modeling and computation of statistical launch availabilities with respect to weather conditions. Their existing data analysis product, the Atmospheric Parametric Risk Assessment (APRA) tool, computes launch availability given an input set of vehicle hardware and/or operational weather constraints by calculating the climatological probability of exceeding the specified constraint limits, APRA has been used extensively to provide the Space Shuttle program the ability to estimate impacts that various proposed design modifications would have to overall launch availability. The model accounts for both seasonal and diurnal variability at a single geographic location and provides output probabilities for a single arbitrary launch attempt. Recently, the Shuttle program has shown interest in having additional capabilities added to the APRA model, including analysis of humidity parameters, inclusion of landing site weather to produce landing availability, and concurrent analysis of multiple sites, to assist in operational landing site selection. In addition, the Constellation program has also expressed interest in the APRA tool, and has requested several additional capabilities to address some Constellation-specific issues, both in the specification and verification of design requirements and in the development of operations concepts. The combined scope of the requested capability enhancements suggests an evolution of the model beyond a simple revision process. Development has begun for a new data analysis tool that will satisfy the requests of both programs. This new tool, Probabilities of Atmospheric Conditions and Environmental Risk (PACER), will provide greater flexibility and significantly enhanced functionality compared to the currently existing tool.

  14. Weathering and landscape evolution

    Science.gov (United States)

    Turkington, Alice V.; Phillips, Jonathan D.; Campbell, Sean W.

    2005-04-01

    In recognition of the fundamental control exerted by weathering on landscape evolution and topographic development, the 35th Binghamton Geomorphology Symposium was convened under the theme of Weathering and Landscape Evolution. The papers and posters presented at the conference imparted the state-of-the-art in weathering geomorphology, tackled the issue of scale linkage in geomorphic studies and offered a vehicle for interdisciplinary communication on research into weathering and landscape evolution. The papers included in this special issue are encapsulated here under the general themes of weathering mantles, weathering and relative dating, weathering and denudation, weathering processes and controls and the 'big picture'.

  15. Root-driven Weathering Impacts on Mineral-Organic Associations in Deep Soil

    Science.gov (United States)

    Keiluweit, M.; Garcia Arredondo, M.; Tfaily, M. M.; Kukkadapu, R. K.; Schulz, M. S.; Lawrence, C. R.

    2017-12-01

    Plant roots dramatically reshape the soil environments through the release of organic compounds. While root-derived organic compounds are recognized as an important source of soil C, their role in promoting weathering reactions has largely been overlooked. On the one hand, root-driven weathering may generate mineral-organic associations, which can protect soil C for centuries to millennia. On the other hand, root-driven weathering also transforms minerals, potentially disrupting protective mineral-organic associations in the process. Hence root-derived C may not only initiate C accumulation, but also diminish C stocks through disruption of mineral-organic associations. Here we determined the impact of rhizogenic weathering on mineral-organic associations, and associated changes in C storage, across the Santa Cruz Marine Terrace chronosequence (65ka-226ka). Using a combination of high-resolution mass spectrometry, Mössbauer, and X-ray (micro)spectroscopy, we examined mineral-organic associations of deep soil horizons characterized by intense rhizogenic weathering gradients. Initial rhizogenic weathering dramatically increased C stocks, which is directly linked to an increase of microbially-derived C bound to monomeric Fe and Al and nano-goethite. As weathering proceeded, the soil C stocks declined concurrent with an increasingly plant-derived C signature and decreasing crystallinity. X-ray spectromicroscopic analyses revealed strong spatial associations between C and Fe during initial weathering stages, indicative of protective mineral-organic associations. In contrast, later weathering stages showed weaker spatial relationships between C and Fe. We conclude that rhizogenic weathering enhance C storage by creating protective mineral-organic associations in the initial weathering stages. As root-driven weathering proceeds, minerals are transformed into more crystalline phases that retain lower amounts of C. Our results demonstrate that root-induced weathering

  16. Weather impacts on leisure activities in Halifax, Nova Scotia

    Science.gov (United States)

    Spinney, Jamie E. L.; Millward, Hugh

    2011-03-01

    The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of daily atmospheric weather conditions on daily leisure activity engagement, with a focus on physically active leisure. The methods capitalize on time diary data that were collected in Halifax, Nova Scotia to calculate objective measures of leisure activity engagement. Daily meteorological data from Environment Canada and daily sunrise and sunset times from the National Research Council of Canada are used to develop objective measures of the natural atmospheric environment. The time diary data were merged with the meteorological data in order to quantify the statistical association between daily weather conditions and the type, participation rate, frequency, and duration of leisure activity engagement. The results indicate that inclement and uncomfortable weather conditions, especially relating to thermal comfort and mechanical comfort, pose barriers to physically active leisure engagement, while promoting sedentary and home-based leisure activities. Overall, daily weather conditions exhibit modest, but significant, effects on leisure activity engagement; the strongest associations being for outdoor active sports and outdoor active leisure time budgets. In conclusion, weather conditions influence the type, participation rate, frequency, and duration of leisure activity engagement, which is an important consideration for health-promotion programming.

  17. Imaging and Analytical Approaches for Characterization of Soil Mineral Weathering

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Dohnalkova, Alice; Arey, Bruce; Varga, Tamas; Miller, Micah; Kovarik, Libor

    2017-07-01

    Soil minerals weathering is the primary natural source of nutrients necessary to sustain productivity in terrestrial ecosystems. Soil microbial communities increase soil mineral weathering and mineral-derived nutrient availability through physical and chemical processes. Rhizosphere, the zone immediately surrounding plant roots, is a biogeochemical hotspot with microbial activity, soil organic matter production, mineral weathering, and secondary phase formation all happening in a small temporally ephemeral zone of steep geochemical gradients. The detailed exploration of the micro-scale rhizosphere is essential to our better understanding of large-scale processes in soils, such as nutrient cycling, transport and fate of soil components, microbial-mineral interactions, soil erosion, soil organic matter turnover and its molecular-level characterization, and predictive modeling.

  18. Reconstruction of Historical Weather by Assimilating Old Weather Diary Data

    Science.gov (United States)

    Neluwala, P.; Yoshimura, K.; Toride, K.; Hirano, J.; Ichino, M.; Okazaki, A.

    2017-12-01

    Climate can control not only human life style but also other living beings. It is important to investigate historical climate to understand the current and future climates. Information about daily weather can give a better understanding of past life on earth. Long-term weather influences crop calendar as well as the development of civilizations. Unfortunately, existing reconstructed daily weather data are limited to 1850s due to the availability of instrumental data. The climate data prior to that are derived from proxy materials (e.g., tree-ring width, ice core isotopes, etc.) which are either in annual or decadal scale. However, there are many historical documents which contain information about weather such as personal diaries. In Japan, around 20 diaries in average during the 16th - 19th centuries have been collected and converted into a digitized form. As such, diary data exist in many other countries. This study aims to reconstruct historical daily weather during the 18th and 19th centuries using personal daily diaries which have analogue weather descriptions such as `cloudy' or `sunny'. A recent study has shown the possibility of assimilating coarse weather data using idealized experiments. We further extend this study by assimilating modern weather descriptions similar to diary data in recent periods. The Global Spectral model (GSM) of National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) is used to reconstruct weather with the Local Ensemble Kalman filter (LETKF). Descriptive data are first converted to model variables such as total cloud cover (TCC), solar radiation and precipitation using empirical relationships. Those variables are then assimilated on a daily basis after adding random errors to consider the uncertainty of actual diary data. The assimilation of downward short wave solar radiation using weather descriptions improves RMSE from 64.3 w/m2 to 33.0 w/m2 and correlation coefficient (R) from 0.5 to 0.8 compared with the case without any

  19. Chemical and Biological Catalytic Enhancement of Weathering of Silicate Minerals and industrial wastes as a Novel Carbon Capture and Storage Technology

    Science.gov (United States)

    Park, A. H. A.

    2014-12-01

    Increasing concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is attributed to rising consumption of fossil fuels around the world. The development of solutions to reduce CO2 emissions to the atmosphere is one of the most urgent needs of today's society. One of the most stable and long-term solutions for storing CO2 is via carbon mineralization, where minerals containing metal oxides of Ca or Mg are reacted with CO2 to produce thermodynamically stable Ca- and Mg-carbonates that are insoluble in water. Carbon mineralization can be carried out in-situ or ex-situ. In the case of in-situ mineralization, the degree of carbonation is thought to be limited by both mineral dissolution and carbonate precipitation reaction kinetics, and must be well understood to predict the ultimate fate of CO2 within geological reservoirs. While the kinetics of in-situ mineral trapping via carbonation is naturally slow, it can be enhanced at high temperature and high partial pressure of CO2. The addition of weak organic acids produced from food waste has also been shown to enhance mineral weathering kinetics. In the case of the ex-situ carbon mineralization, the role of these ligand-bearing organic acids can be further amplified for silicate mineral dissolution. Unfortunately, high mineral dissolution rates often lead to the formation of a silica-rich passivation layer on the surface of silicate minerals. Thus, the use of novel solvent mixture that allows chemically catalyzed removal of this passivation layer during enhanced Mg-leaching surface reaction has been proposed and demonstrated. Furthermore, an engineered biological catalyst, carbonic anhydrase, has been developed and evaluated to accelerate the hydration of CO2, which is another potentially rate-limiting step of the carbonation reaction. The development of these novel catalytic reaction schemes has significantly improved the overall efficiency and sustainability of in-situ and ex-situ mineral carbonation technologies and allowed direct

  20. Monthly Weather Review

    Data.gov (United States)

    National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — Supplements to the Monthly Weather Review publication. The Weather Bureau published the Monthly weather review Supplement irregularly from 1914 to 1949. The...

  1. The sun and space weather Second Edition

    CERN Document Server

    Hanslmeier, Arnold

    2007-01-01

    This second edition is a great enhancement of literature which will help the reader get deeper into the specific topics. There are new sections included such as space weather data sources and examples, new satellite missions, and the latest results. At the end a comprehensive index is given which will allow the reader to quickly find his topics of interest. The Sun and Space weather are two rapidly evolving topics. The importance of the Sun for the Earth, life on Earth, climate and weather processes was recognized long ago by the ancients. Now, for the first time there is a continuous surveillance of solar activity at nearly all wavelengths. These data can be used to improve our understanding of the complex Sun-Earth interaction. The first chapters of the book deal with the Sun as a star and its activity phenomena as well as its activity cycle in order to understand the complex physics of the Sun-Earth system. The reader will see that there are many phenomena but still no definite explanations and models exis...

  2. Determination of weathering and conservation of sculptured stone by use of the laser method

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Aaberg, G.; Stijfhoorn, D.E.

    1996-09-01

    Weathering and deterioration of sculptured stone and masonry is a natural process which stars at the same moment the stone is quarried and exposed to exogenous conditions. This process of natural decay has, however, been accelerated due to the emission of different man-made pollutants, domestic and industrial, local and global. The ISOLASER project is based on the laser microprobe technique for determining the depth of natural and induced weathering and the effect of conservation measures of cultural objects of carbonaceous sandstone and marble/limestone. The purpose of the project is to determine the depth of weathering and depth of penetration of conservation agents in unweathered calcite-cemented stone and the weathering profile in linseed oil-treated stone after accelerated weathering cycles in a climatic chamber. The analytical results show that even after such a short period as five weeks of exposure the effect of SO 2 , NO 2 and elevated humidity on Gotland sandstone can be easily observed in a change of the δ 13 C values in the outermost 2 mm of the stone. Treating the sample with linseed oil has a preserving effect on the rock and hinders the deteriorating effect of SO 2 and NO 2 . The oil treatment even preserves the signature of previously incorporated organic carbon. Compilation of a questionnaire representing a broad field within natural sciences in cultural heritage research in Europe, shows an overwhelming positive approach to the project as such. The questioned researchers consider the laser method particularly useful as a complementary method in other investigations and states that the method can without doubt give new dimensions to the analysis of important cultural objects. 2 refs., 6 figs

  3. Mechanism and kinetics of mineral weathering under acid conditions

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Anbeek, C.

    1994-01-01

    This study deals with the relationships between crystal structure, grain diameter, surface morphology and dissolution kinetics for feldspar and quartz under acid conditions.

    Intensively ground samples from large, naturally weathered mineral fragments are frequently used in

  4. Creating a Realistic Weather Environment for Motion-Based Piloted Flight Simulation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Daniels, Taumi S.; Schaffner, Philip R.; Evans, Emory T.; Neece, Robert T.; Young, Steve D.

    2012-01-01

    A flight simulation environment is being enhanced to facilitate experiments that evaluate research prototypes of advanced onboard weather radar, hazard/integrity monitoring (HIM), and integrated alerting and notification (IAN) concepts in adverse weather conditions. The simulation environment uses weather data based on real weather events to support operational scenarios in a terminal area. A simulated atmospheric environment was realized by using numerical weather data sets. These were produced from the High-Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR) model hosted and run by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). To align with the planned flight simulation experiment requirements, several HRRR data sets were acquired courtesy of NOAA. These data sets coincided with severe weather events at the Memphis International Airport (MEM) in Memphis, TN. In addition, representative flight tracks for approaches and departures at MEM were generated and used to develop and test simulations of (1) what onboard sensors such as the weather radar would observe; (2) what datalinks of weather information would provide; and (3) what atmospheric conditions the aircraft would experience (e.g. turbulence, winds, and icing). The simulation includes a weather radar display that provides weather and turbulence modes, derived from the modeled weather along the flight track. The radar capabilities and the pilots controls simulate current-generation commercial weather radar systems. Appropriate data-linked weather advisories (e.g., SIGMET) were derived from the HRRR weather models and provided to the pilot consistent with NextGen concepts of use for Aeronautical Information Service (AIS) and Meteorological (MET) data link products. The net result of this simulation development was the creation of an environment that supports investigations of new flight deck information systems, methods for incorporation of better weather information, and pilot interface and operational improvements

  5. Technically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive materials; identification, characterization and treatment

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Aly, H.F.

    2001-01-01

    Radioactive materials (TENORM) is produced in a relatively large amount with relatively small radioactivity, however in many instances the radioactivity levels exceeds that permissible. In this presentation, the different industries where enhanced levels of natural radioactivity is identified and characterized will be given. The different approaches for treatment of this enhanced radioactivity will be addressed. Finally, our research and development activities in characterization and treatment of TENORM produced from the oil fields in Egypt will be presented. (authors)

  6. Coupling of physical erosion and chemical weathering after phases of intense human activity

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schoonejans, Jerome; Vanacker, Veerle; Opfergelt, Sophie; Ameijeiras-Mariño, Yolanda; Kubik, Peter W.

    2014-05-01

    Anthropogenic disturbance of natural vegetation profoundly alters the lateral and vertical fluxes of soil nutrients and particles at the land surface. Human-induced acceleration of soil erosion can thereby result in an imbalance between physical erosion, soil production and chemical weathering. The (de-)coupling between physical erosion and chemical weathering in ecosystems with strong anthropogenic disturbances is not yet fully understood, as earlier studies mostly focused on natural ecosystems. In this study, we explore the chemical weathering intensity for four study sites located in the Internal Zone of the Spanish Betic Cordillera. Most of the sites belong to the Nevado-Filabres complex, but are characterized by different rates of long-term exhumation, 10Be catchment-wide denudation and hill slope morphology. Denudation rates are generally low, but show large variation between the three sites (from 23 to 246 mm kyr-1). The magnitude of denudation rates is consistent with longer-term uplift rates derived from marine deposits, fission-track measurements and vertical fault slip rates. Two to three soil profiles were sampled per study site at exposed ridge tops. All soils overly fractured mica schist, and are very thin (< 60cm). In each soil profile, we sampled 5 depth slices, rock fragments and the (weathered) bedrock. In total, 38 soil and 20 rock samples were analyzed for their chemical composition. The chemical weathering intensity is constrained by the Chemical Depletion Fraction that is based on a chemical mass balance approach using Zr as an immobile element. Chemical weathering accounts for 5 to 35% of the total mass lost due to denudation. We observe systematically higher chemical weathering intensities (CDFs) in sites with lower denudation rates (and vice versa), suggesting that weathering is supply-limited. Our measurements of soil elemental losses from 10 soil profiles suggest that the observed variation in chemical weathering is strongly associated

  7. Impact of AIRS Thermodynamic Profile on Regional Weather Forecast

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chou, Shih-Hung; Zavodsky, Brad; Jedlovee, Gary

    2010-01-01

    Prudent assimilation of AIRS thermodynamic profiles and quality indicators can improve initial conditions for regional weather models. AIRS-enhanced analysis has warmer and moister PBL. Forecasts with AIRS profiles are generally closer to NAM analyses than CNTL. Assimilation of AIRS leads to an overall QPF improvement in 6-h accumulated precipitation forecasts. Including AIRS profiles in assimilation process enhances the moist instability and produces stronger updrafts and a better precipitation forecast than the CNTL run.

  8. Review: Natural killer cells enhance the immune surveillance of ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    All the cells of the immune system cooperatively work against infectious agents and cancerous cells but Natural killer (NK) cells are playing an important role to respond to tumor by enhancing the expression of complementary domain (CD86) on dendritic cells (DCs) and production of IL-12. NK cells demolished tumor ...

  9. Dynamic Weather Routes: A Weather Avoidance Concept for Trajectory-Based Operations

    Science.gov (United States)

    McNally, B. David; Love, John

    2011-01-01

    The integration of convective weather modeling with trajectory automation for conflict detection, trial planning, direct routing, and auto resolution has uncovered a concept that could help controllers, dispatchers, and pilots identify improved weather routes that result in significant savings in flying time and fuel burn. Trajectory automation continuously and automatically monitors aircraft in flight to find those that could potentially benefit from improved weather reroutes. Controllers, dispatchers, and pilots then evaluate reroute options to assess their suitability given current weather and traffic. In today's operations aircraft fly convective weather avoidance routes that were implemented often hours before aircraft approach the weather and automation does not exist to automatically monitor traffic to find improved weather routes that open up due to changing weather conditions. The automation concept runs in real-time and employs two keysteps. First, a direct routing algorithm automatically identifies flights with large dog legs in their routes and therefore potentially large savings in flying time. These are common - and usually necessary - during convective weather operations and analysis of Fort Worth Center traffic shows many aircraft with short cuts that indicate savings on the order of 10 flying minutes. The second and most critical step is to apply trajectory automation with weather modeling to determine what savings could be achieved by modifying the direct route such that it avoids weather and traffic and is acceptable to controllers and flight crews. Initial analysis of Fort Worth Center traffic suggests a savings of roughly 50% of the direct route savings could be achievable.The core concept is to apply trajectory automation with convective weather modeling in real time to identify a reroute that is free of weather and traffic conflicts and indicates enough time and fuel savings to be considered. The concept is interoperable with today

  10. Surfactant and natural sunlight enhanced Photogalvanic effect of Sudan I dye

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Pooran Koli

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available Photogalvanic cells (PG have been extensively studied for solar power and storage at low intensity artificial sunlight. But, PG can be practically significant and applicable in daily life only when they are validated at natural sunlight intensity. Therefore, the present study of photogalvanics of Sudan I-Fructose with efficiency enhancer chemical such as Sodium Lauryl Sulfate (SLS surfactant in alkaline medium has been used to observe their workable feasibility in natural sunlight with investigation for optimal fabrication parameters. The cell has been found workable in natural sunlight with greatly enhanced optimum cell performance compared to that for reported similar cells. The observed optimum cell performance in terms of maximum power, short-circuit current, open-circuit potential, conversion efficiency and storage capacity (as half change time is of the order of 1081.1 μW, 4200 μA, 1048 mV, 13.5%, and 31 min, respectively.

  11. Clay formation and metal fixation during weathering of coal fly ash

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Zevenbergen, C.; Bradley, J.P.; Reeuwijk, L.P. Van; Shyam, A.K.; Hjelmar, O.; Comans, R.N.J.

    1999-01-01

    The enormous and worldwide production of coal fly ash cannot be durably isolated from the weathering cycle, and the weathering characteristics of fly ash must be known to understand the long-term environmental impact. The authors studied the weathering of two coal fly ashes and compared them with published data from weathered volcanic ash, it's closest natural analogue. Both types of ash contain abundant aluminosilicate glass, which alters to noncrystalline clay. However, this study reveals that the kinetics of coal fly ash weathering are more rapid than those of volcanic ash because the higher pH of fresh coal fly ash promotes rapid dissolution of the glass. After about 10 years of weathering, the noncrystalline clay content of coal fly ash is higher than that of 250-year-old volcanic ash. The observed rapid clay formation together with heavy metal fixation imply that the long-term environmental impact of coal fly ash disposal may be less severe and the benefits more pronounced than predicted from previous studies on unweathered ash. Their findings suggest that isolating coal fly ash from the weathering cycle may be counterproductive because, in the long-term under conditions of free drainage, fly ash is converted into fertile soil capable of supporting agriculture

  12. Does Silicate Weathering of Loess Affect Atmospheric CO2?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Anderson, S. P.

    2002-12-01

    Weathering of glacial loess may be a significant, yet unrecognized, component of the carbon cycle. Glaciers produce fine-grained sediment, exposing vast amounts of mineral surface area to weathering processes, yet silicate mineral weathering rates at glacier beds and of glacial till are not high. Thus, despite the tremendous potential for glaciers to influence global weathering rates and atmospheric CO2 levels, this effect has not been demonstrated. Loess, comprised of silt-clay sizes, may be the key glacial deposit in which silicate weathering rates are high. Loess is transported by wind off braid plains of rivers, and deposited broadly (order 100 km from the source) in vegetated areas. Both the fine grain size, and hence large mineral surface area, and presence of vegetation should render loess deposits highly susceptible to silicate weathering. These deposits effectively extend the geochemical impact of glaciation in time and space, and bring rock flour into conditions conducive to chemical weathering. A simple 1-d model of silicate weathering fluxes from a soil profile demonstrates the potential of loess deposition to enhance CO2 consumption. At each time step, computed mineral dissolution (using anorthite and field-based rate constants) modifies the size of mineral grains within the soil. In the case of a stable soil surface, this results in a gradual decline in weathering fluxes and CO2 consumption through time, as finer grain sizes dissolve away. Computed weathering fluxes for a typical loess, with an initial mean grain size of 25 μm, are an order of magnitude greater than fluxes from a non-loess soil that differs only in having a mean grain size of 320 μm. High weathering fluxes are maintained through time if loess is continually deposited. Deposition rates as low as 0.01 mm/yr (one loess grain thickness per year) can lead to a doubling of CO2 consumption rates within 5 ka. These results suggest that even modest loess deposition rates can significantly

  13. Cold-Weather Sports

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... Videos for Educators Search English Español Cold-Weather Sports KidsHealth / For Teens / Cold-Weather Sports What's in this article? What to Do? Classes ... weather. What better time to be outdoors? Winter sports can help you burn calories, increase your cardiovascular ...

  14. Impact of grain size and rock composition on simulated rock weathering

    Science.gov (United States)

    Israeli, Yoni; Emmanuel, Simon

    2018-05-01

    Both chemical and mechanical processes act together to control the weathering rate of rocks. In rocks with micrometer size grains, enhanced dissolution at grain boundaries has been observed to cause the mechanical detachment of particles. However, it remains unclear how important this effect is in rocks with larger grains, and how the overall weathering rate is influenced by the proportion of high- and low-reactivity mineral phases. Here, we use a numerical model to assess the effect of grain size on chemical weathering and chemo-mechanical grain detachment. Our model shows that as grain size increases, the weathering rate initially decreases; however, beyond a critical size no significant decrease in the rate is observed. This transition occurs when the density of reactive boundaries is less than ˜ 20 % of the entire domain. In addition, we examined the weathering rates of rocks containing different proportions of high- and low-reactivity minerals. We found that as the proportion of low-reactivity minerals increases, the weathering rate decreases nonlinearly. These simulations indicate that for all compositions, grain detachment contributes more than 36 % to the overall weathering rate, with a maximum of ˜ 50 % when high- and low-reactivity minerals are equally abundant in the rock. This occurs because selective dissolution of the high-reactivity minerals creates large clusters of low-reactivity minerals, which then become detached. Our results demonstrate that the balance between chemical and mechanical processes can create complex and nonlinear relationships between the weathering rate and lithology.

  15. Fantasy and Reality in the History of Weather and Climate Control

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fleming, J. R.

    2005-12-01

    This presentation examines the history of large-scale weather and climate engineering since 1840, with special reference to imaginative and speculative literature and with special relevance to ethical and policy issues. Ultimate control of the weather and climate embodies both our wildest fantasies and our greatest fears. Fantasy often informs reality (and vice-versa). NASA managers know this well, as do Trekkies. The best science fiction authors typically build from the current state of a field to construct futuristic scenarios that reveal and explore the human condition. Scientists as well often venture into flights of fancy. Though not widely documented, the fantasy-reality axis is also a prominent aspect of the history of the geosciences. James Espy's proposal in the 1840s to enhance precipitation by lighting huge fires, thus stimulating convective updrafts, preceded the widespread charlatanism of the rain-makers, or so-called "pluviculturalists," in the western U.S. One hundred years later, promising discoveries in "cloud seeding" by Irving Langmuir and his associates at the General Electric Corporation rapidly devolved into unsupportable proposals and questionable practices by military and commercial rain-makers seeking to control the weather. During the Cold War, Soviet engineers also promoted a chilling vision (to Westerners) of global climate control. Recently, rather immodest proposals to "fix" a climate system perceived to be out of control have received wide circulation. In 2003 the U.S. Pentagon released a report recommending that the government should "explore geo-engineering options that control the climate." In 2004 a symposium in Cambridge, England set out to "identify, debate, and evaluate" possible, but highly controversial options for the design and construction of engineering projects for the management and mitigation of global climate change. This talk will locate the history of weather and climate modification within a long tradition of

  16. Application of chemical tools to evaluate phytoremediation of weathered hydrocarbons

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Camp, H.; Kulakow, P.; Smart, D.R.; O'Reilly, K.

    2002-01-01

    The effectiveness of using phytoremediation methods to treat soils contaminated with hydrocarbons was tested in a three-year study at a site in northern California at a treatment pond for refinery process water. The treatment pond was drained several years ago and is targeted for cleanup. The petroleum hydrocarbons from the refinery waste were already highly degraded from natural weathering processes by the time the study began. The soil consists of about 23 per cent sand, 38 per cent silt, and 39 per cent clay. The study followed the Environmental Protection Agency's standardized field protocol and analytical approach. During the study, chemical data for several hydrocarbon parameters was gathered. Soil samples were Soxhlet-extracted in organic solvent and measured for oil and grease and total petroleum hydrocarbons using gravimetric techniques. One of the objectives was to develop an accurate quantitative way to identify sites and conditions where phytoremediation will be effective to supplement decision-tree-type approaches. The focus of the study is the application of chemical data in evaluating the effectiveness of the treatment process. Phytoremediation uses living plants for in situ remediation of polluted soils. The basic benefits of the techniques is that it is aesthetically pleasing, natural and passive. In addition, it is effective in cleaning up sites with low to moderate levels of pollution at shallow depths. A particular form of phytoremediation called rhizodegradation or enhanced rhizosphere biodegradation was the treatment used in this study. It is a treatment in which microorganisms digest organic substances and beak them down by biodegradation while being supported in the plant root structure. Test results indicate that the effects of phytoremediation treatments are subtle for highly weathered source material. It was noted that more statistical analysis will be performed with the data to determine compositional changes due to phytoremediation

  17. Innovative Near Real-Time Data Dissemination Tools Developed by the Space Weather Research Center

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mullinix, R.; Maddox, M. M.; Berrios, D.; Kuznetsova, M.; Pulkkinen, A.; Rastaetter, L.; Zheng, Y.

    2012-12-01

    Space weather affects virtually all of NASA's endeavors, from robotic missions to human exploration. Knowledge and prediction of space weather conditions are therefore essential to NASA operations. The diverse nature of currently available space environment measurements and modeling products compels the need for a single access point to such information. The Integrated Space Weather Analysis (iSWA) System provides this single point access along with the capability to collect and catalog a vast range of sources including both observational and model data. NASA Goddard Space Weather Research Center heavily utilizes the iSWA System daily for research, space weather model validation, and forecasting for NASA missions. iSWA provides the capabilities to view and analyze near real-time space weather data from any where in the world. This presentation will describe the technology behind the iSWA system and describe how to use the system for space weather research, forecasting, training, education, and sharing.

  18. The sensitivity of snowfall to weather states over Sweden

    Science.gov (United States)

    Norin, Lars; Devasthale, Abhay; L'Ecuyer, Tristan S.

    2017-09-01

    For a high-latitude country like Sweden snowfall is an important contributor to the regional water cycle. Furthermore, snowfall impacts surface properties, affects atmospheric thermodynamics, has implications for traffic and logistics management, disaster preparedness, and also impacts climate through changes in surface albedo and turbulent heat fluxes. For Sweden it has been shown that large-scale atmospheric circulation patterns, or weather states, are important for precipitation variability. Although the link between atmospheric circulation patterns and precipitation has been investigated for rainfall there are no studies focused on the sensitivity of snowfall to weather states over Sweden.In this work we investigate the response of snowfall to eight selected weather states. These weather states consist of four dominant wind directions together with cyclonic and anticyclonic circulation patterns and enhanced positive and negative phases of the North Atlantic Oscillation. The presented analysis is based on multiple data sources, such as ground-based radar measurements, satellite observations, spatially interpolated in situ observations, and reanalysis data. The data from these sources converge to underline the sensitivity of falling snow over Sweden to the different weather states.In this paper we examine both average snowfall intensities and snowfall accumulations associated with the different weather states. It is shown that, even though the heaviest snowfall intensities occur during conditions with winds from the south-west, the largest contribution to snowfall accumulation arrives with winds from the south-east. Large differences in snowfall due to variations in the North Atlantic Oscillation are shown as well as a strong effect of cyclonic and anticyclonic circulation patterns. Satellite observations are used to reveal the vertical structures of snowfall during the different weather states.

  19. Presenting Critical Space Weather Information to Customers and Stakeholders (Invited)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Viereck, R. A.; Singer, H. J.; Murtagh, W. J.; Rutledge, B.

    2013-12-01

    Space weather involves changes in the near-Earth space environment that impact technological systems such as electric power, radio communication, satellite navigation (GPS), and satellite opeartions. As with terrestrial weather, there are several different kinds of space weather and each presents unique challenges to the impacted technologies and industries. But unlike terrestrial weather, many customers are not fully aware of space weather or how it impacts their systems. This issue is further complicated by the fact that the largest space weather events occur very infrequently with years going by without severe storms. Recent reports have estimated very large potential costs to the economy and to society if a geomagnetic storm were to cause major damage to the electric power transmission system. This issue has come to the attention of emergency managers and federal agencies including the office of the president. However, when considering space weather impacts, it is essential to also consider uncertainties in the frequency of events and the predicted impacts. The unique nature of space weather storms, the specialized technologies that are impacted by them, and the disparate groups and agencies that respond to space weather forecasts and alerts create many challenges to the task of communicating space weather information to the public. Many customers that receive forecasts and alerts are highly technical and knowledgeable about the subtleties of the space environment. Others know very little and require ongoing education and explanation about how a space weather storm will affect their systems. In addition, the current knowledge and understanding of the space environment that goes into forecasting storms is quite immature. It has only been within the last five years that physics-based models of the space environment have played important roles in predictions. Thus, the uncertainties in the forecasts are quite large. There is much that we don't know about space

  20. Extreme Weather and Climate: Workshop Report

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sobel, Adam; Camargo, Suzana; Debucquoy, Wim; Deodatis, George; Gerrard, Michael; Hall, Timothy; Hallman, Robert; Keenan, Jesse; Lall, Upmanu; Levy, Marc; hide

    2016-01-01

    Extreme events are the aspects of climate to which human society is most sensitive. Due to both their severity and their rarity, extreme events can challenge the capacity of physical, social, economic and political infrastructures, turning natural events into human disasters. Yet, because they are low frequency events, the science of extreme events is very challenging. Among the challenges is the difficulty of connecting extreme events to longer-term, large-scale variability and trends in the climate system, including anthropogenic climate change. How can we best quantify the risks posed by extreme weather events, both in the current climate and in the warmer and different climates to come? How can we better predict them? What can we do to reduce the harm done by such events? In response to these questions, the Initiative on Extreme Weather and Climate has been created at Columbia University in New York City (extreme weather.columbia.edu). This Initiative is a University-wide activity focused on understanding the risks to human life, property, infrastructure, communities, institutions, ecosystems, and landscapes from extreme weather events, both in the present and future climates, and on developing solutions to mitigate those risks. In May 2015,the Initiative held its first science workshop, entitled Extreme Weather and Climate: Hazards, Impacts, Actions. The purpose of the workshop was to define the scope of the Initiative and tremendously broad intellectual footprint of the topic indicated by the titles of the presentations (see Table 1). The intent of the workshop was to stimulate thought across disciplinary lines by juxtaposing talks whose subjects differed dramatically. Each session concluded with question and answer panel sessions. Approximately, 150 people were in attendance throughout the day. Below is a brief synopsis of each presentation. The synopses collectively reflect the variety and richness of the emerging extreme event research agenda.

  1. Integrating Enhanced STEM Themes in the UTEP CAREERS Weather Camp for Youth

    Science.gov (United States)

    Güereque, M.; Olgin, J. G.; Kier, M. W.; Winston, C. E.; Fitzgerald, R. M.; Morris, V. R.

    2014-12-01

    The NOAA Center for Atmospheric Science (NCAS) sponsors a network of high school and middle school summer camps entitled "Channeling Atmospheric Research into Educational Experiences Reaching Students program, CAREERS". These camps are conducted nationwide at NCAS academic partners; the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP), Howard University (HU), University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez (UPRM), and Jackson State University (JSU). The goals of these camps are to increase the interest of secondary school (HS) students in atmospheric and weather related sciences, target under-represented students, and to ultimately boost their college enrollment in STEM related fields. For 2014 at UTEP, the annual student-outreach weather camp program underwent a thematic overhaul that sought to incorporate more of the geological and environmental context of the region. Doctoral students were allowed to assume greater responsibility for the design, development and implementation of the camp activities. The prevailing assumption was that these Ph.D. students were better suited for peer mentoring, bridging the age and interest gap, and delivering the material through the modern technologies and modes of communication. The redesigned approach focused on the identification of climate drivers within the region and this concept formed a thread throughout the planning and design of the camp modules. The outcome resulted in the incorporation of project based learning (PBL) activities, field excursions, and deployment of weather instrumentation, for explaining regional climate processes and events. Standardized surveys were administered to camp participants to evaluate the efficacy, as well as student perceptions of the camp and its activities. Results will be presented that are based on qualitative and quantitative analysis of student responses.

  2. Developing biogeochemical tracers of apatite weathering by ectomycorrhizal fungi

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vadeboncoeur, M. A.; Bryce, J. G.; Hobbie, E. A.; Meana-Prado, M. F.; Blichert-Toft, J.

    2012-12-01

    Chronic acid deposition has depleted calcium (Ca) from many New England forest soils, and intensive harvesting may reduce phosphorus (P) available to future rotations. Thin glacial till soils contain trace amounts of apatite, a primary calcium phosphate mineral, which may be an important long-term source of both P and Ca to ecosystems. The extent to which ECM fungi enhance the weathering rate of primary minerals in soil which contain growth-limiting nutrients remains poorly quantified, in part due to biogeochemical tracers which are subsequently masked by within-plant fractionation. Rare earth elements (REEs) and Pb isotope ratios show some potential for revealing differences in soil apatite weathering rates across forest stands and silvicultural treatments. To test the utility of these tracers, we grew birch seedlings semi-hydroponically under controlled P-limited conditions, supplemented with mesh bags containing granite chips. Our experimental design included nonmycorrhizal (NM) as well as ectomycorrhizal cultures (Cortinarius or Leccinum). Resulting mycorrhizal roots and leachates of granite chips were analyzed for these tracers. REE concentrations in roots were greatly elevated in treatments with granite relative to those without granite, demonstrating uptake of apatite weathering products. Roots with different mycorrhizal fungi accumulated similar concentrations of REEs and were generally elevated compared to the NM cultures. Ammonium chloride leaches of granite chips grown in contact with mycorrhizal hyphae show elevated REE concentrations and significantly radiogenic Pb isotope signatures relative to bulk rock, also supporting enhanced apatite dissolution. Our results in culture are consistent with data from field-collected sporocarps from hardwood stands in the Bartlett Experimental Forest in New Hampshire, in which Cortinarius sporocarp Pb isotope ratios were more radiogenic than those of other ectomycorrhizal sporocarps. Taken together, the experimental

  3. Visualization and quantification of weathering effects on capillary water uptake of natural building stones by using neutron imaging

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Raneri, Simona; Barone, Germana; Mazzoleni, Paolo; Rabot, Eva

    2016-01-01

    Building stones are frequently subjected to very intense degradation due to salt crystallization, often responsible for strong modifications of their pore network. These effects have a great influence on the mechanical properties and durability of the materials, and on the penetration of water. Therefore, the quantification and visualization of water absorption into the pore network of degraded stones could provide useful information to better understand the weathering process. In this study, neutron radiography has been used (1) to monitor and visualize in two dimensions the capillary water uptake in a Sicilian calcarenite widely used as building and replace stone (namely Sabucina stone) and (2) to quantify the water content distribution, as a function of time and weathering degree. Additionally, traditional experiments based on gravimetric methods have been performed, following the standard recommendations. Results demonstrated a change in the physical properties of Sabucina stones with the intensification of the degradation process, with severe effects on the capillary imbibition dynamics. The water penetration depth at the end of the experiment was substantially higher in the fresh than in the weathered stones. The water absorption kinetics was faster in the weathered samples, and the amount of water absorbed increased with the number of weathering cycles. Good agreement between classical and neutron imaging data has also been evidenced. However, neutron radiography has allowed retrieving additional spatial information on the water absorption process, and to better understand how salt weathering affects the petrophysical properties of the studied stone and how it influences then the stone response against water. (orig.)

  4. Visualization and quantification of weathering effects on capillary water uptake of natural building stones by using neutron imaging

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Raneri, Simona; Barone, Germana; Mazzoleni, Paolo [University of Catania, Department of Biological, Geological and Environment Sciences, Catania (Italy); Rabot, Eva [Laboratoire Leon Brillouin (CNRS/CEA), Gif-Sur-Yvette (France)

    2016-11-15

    Building stones are frequently subjected to very intense degradation due to salt crystallization, often responsible for strong modifications of their pore network. These effects have a great influence on the mechanical properties and durability of the materials, and on the penetration of water. Therefore, the quantification and visualization of water absorption into the pore network of degraded stones could provide useful information to better understand the weathering process. In this study, neutron radiography has been used (1) to monitor and visualize in two dimensions the capillary water uptake in a Sicilian calcarenite widely used as building and replace stone (namely Sabucina stone) and (2) to quantify the water content distribution, as a function of time and weathering degree. Additionally, traditional experiments based on gravimetric methods have been performed, following the standard recommendations. Results demonstrated a change in the physical properties of Sabucina stones with the intensification of the degradation process, with severe effects on the capillary imbibition dynamics. The water penetration depth at the end of the experiment was substantially higher in the fresh than in the weathered stones. The water absorption kinetics was faster in the weathered samples, and the amount of water absorbed increased with the number of weathering cycles. Good agreement between classical and neutron imaging data has also been evidenced. However, neutron radiography has allowed retrieving additional spatial information on the water absorption process, and to better understand how salt weathering affects the petrophysical properties of the studied stone and how it influences then the stone response against water. (orig.)

  5. Briefing highlights space weather risks to GPS

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tretkoff, Ernie

    2011-07-01

    Solar storms, which are expected to increase as the Sun nears the most active phase of the solar cycle, can disrupt a variety of technologies on which society relies. Speakers at a 22 June briefing on Capitol Hill in Washington, D. C., focused on how space weather can affect the Global Positioning System (GPS), which is used in a wide range of industries, including commercial air travel, agriculture, national security, and emergency response. Rocky Stone, chief technical pilot for United Airlines, noted that GPS allows more aircraft to be in airspace, saves fuel, and helps aircraft move safely on runways. “Improvements in space weather forecasting need to be pursued,” he said. Precision GPS has also “changed the whole nature of farming,” said Ron Hatch, Director of Navigation Systems, NavCom Technology/John Deere. GPS makes it possible for tractors to be driven in the most efficient paths and for fertilizer and water to be applied precisely to the areas that most need them. Space weather-induced degradation of GPS signals can cause significant loss to farms that rely on GPS. Elizabeth Zimmerman, Deputy Associate Administrator for the Office of Response and Recovery at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), described how FEMA relies on GPS for disaster recovery. The agency is developing an operations plan for dealing with space weather, she said.

  6. NASA Space Weather Center Services: Potential for Space Weather Research

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zheng, Yihua; Kuznetsova, Masha; Pulkkinen, Antti; Taktakishvili, A.; Mays, M. L.; Chulaki, A.; Lee, H.; Hesse, M.

    2012-01-01

    The NASA Space Weather Center's primary objective is to provide the latest space weather information and forecasting for NASA's robotic missions and its partners and to bring space weather knowledge to the public. At the same time, the tools and services it possesses can be invaluable for research purposes. Here we show how our archive and real-time modeling of space weather events can aid research in a variety of ways, with different classification criteria. We will list and discuss major CME events, major geomagnetic storms, and major SEP events that occurred during the years 2010 - 2012. Highlights of major tools/resources will be provided.

  7. Radiological Assessments and Enhanced Natural Radioactivity

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Zeevaert, T.; Vanmaercke, H.; Paridaens, K.

    2001-01-01

    The objectives of the research in the field of the environmental impact assessment models performed the Belgian Nuclear Research Centre SCK-CEN are (1) to elaborate and to improve methods and guidelines for the evaluation of restoration options for contaminated sites; (2) to develop, test and improve biosphere models for the performance assessment of radioactive waste disposal in near-surface or geological repositories; (3) to asses the impact of releases from nuclear or industrial installations; (4) to apply new techniques for retrospective radon measurements and to assess radon decay product exposure by combining these techniques; and (5) to increase capabilities in mapping and surveying sites possibly or likely contaminated with enhanced levels of natural radiation. Main achievements in these areas for 2000 are summarised

  8. Weather conditions drive dynamic habitat selection in a generalist predator

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Sunde, Peter; Thorup, Kasper; Jacobsen, Lars B.

    2014-01-01

    Despite the dynamic nature of habitat selection, temporal variation as arising from factors such as weather are rarely quantified in species-habitat relationships. We analysed habitat use and selection (use/availability) of foraging, radio-tagged little owls (Athene noctua), a nocturnal, year...... and quadratic effects of temperature. Even when controlling for the temporal context, both land cover types were used more evenly than predicted from variation in availability (functional response in habitat selection). Use of two other land cover categories (pastures and moist areas) increased linearly...... with temperature and was proportional to their availability. The study shows that habitat selection by generalist foragers may be highly dependent on temporal variables such as weather, probably because such foragers switch between weather dependent feeding opportunities offered by different land cover types...

  9. Weatherization Works: Weatherization Assistance Program Close-Up Fact Sheet

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    2001-01-01

    The United States demonstrates its commitment to technology and efficiency through the Weatherization Program. Weatherization uses advanced technologies and techniques to reduce energy costs for low-income families by increasing the energy efficiency of their homes

  10. Detecting Anthropogenic Disturbance on Weathering and Erosion Processes

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vanacker, V.; Schoonejans, J.; Bellin, N.; Ameijeiras-Mariño, Y.; Opfergelt, S.; Christl, M.

    2014-12-01

    Anthropogenic disturbance of natural vegetation can profoundly alter the physical, chemical and biological processes within soils. Rapid removal of topsoil during intense farming can result in an imbalance between soil production through chemical weathering and physical erosion, with direct implications on local biogeochemical cycling. However, the feedback mechanisms between soil erosion, chemical weathering and biogeochemical cycling in response to anthropogenic forcing are not yet fully understood. In this paper, we analyze dynamic soil properties for a rapidly changing anthropogenic landscape in the Spanish Betic Cordillera; and focus on the coupling between physical erosion, soil production and soil chemical weathering. Modern erosion rates were quantified through analysis of sediment deposition volumes behind check dams, and represent catchment-average erosion rates over the last 10 to 50 years. Soil production rates are derived from in-situ produced 10Be nuclide concentrations, and represent long-term flux rates. In each catchment, soil chemical weathering intensities were calculated for two soil-regolith profiles. Although Southeast Spain is commonly reported as the European region that is most affected by land degradation, modern erosion rates are low (140 t ha-1 yr-1). About 50 % of the catchments are losing soils at a rate of less than 60 t km-2 yr-1. Our data show that modern erosion rates are roughly of the same magnitude as the long-term or cosmogenically-derived erosion rates in the Betic Cordillera. Soils developed on weathered metamorphic rocks have no well-developed profile characteristics, and are generally thin and stony. Nevertheless, soil chemical weathering intensities are high; and question the occurrence of past soil truncation.

  11. How Satellites Have Contributed to Building a Weather Ready Nation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lapenta, W.

    2017-12-01

    NOAA's primary mission since its inception has been to reduce the loss of life and property, as well as disruptions from, high impact weather and water-related events. In recent years, significant societal losses resulting even from well forecast extreme events have shifted attention from the forecast alone toward ensuring societal response is equal to the risks that exist for communities, businesses and the public. The responses relate to decisions ranging from coastal communities planning years in advance to mitigate impacts from rising sea level, to immediate lifesaving decisions such as a family seeking adequate shelter during a tornado warning. NOAA is committed to building a "Weather-Ready Nation" where communities are prepared for and respond appropriately to these events. The Weather-Ready Nation (WRN) strategic priority is building community resilience in the face of increasing vulnerability to extreme weather, water, climate and environmental threats. To build a Weather-Ready Nation, NOAA is enhancing Impact-Based Decision Support Services (IDSS), transitioning science and technology advances into forecast operations, applying social science research to improve the communication and usefulness of information, and expanding its dissemination efforts to achieve far-reaching readiness, responsiveness and resilience. These four components of Weather-Ready Nation are helping ensure NOAA data, products and services are fully utilized to minimize societal impacts from extreme events. Satellite data and satellite products have been important elements of the national Weather Service (NWS) operations for more than 40 years. When one examines the uses of satellite data specific to the internal forecast and warning operations of NWS, two main applications are evident. The first is the use of satellite data in numerical weather prediction models; the second is the use of satellite imagery and derived products for mesoscale and short-range weather warning and

  12. Powernext weather, benchmark indices for effective weather risk management

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    2006-01-01

    According to the U.S. Department of Energy, an estimated 25% of the GNP is affected by weather-related events. The variations in temperature - even small ones - can also have long-lasting effects on the operational results of a company. Among other, the Energy supply sector is sensitive to weather risks: a milder or harsher than usual winter leads to a decrease or increase of energy consumption. The price of electricity on power trading facilities like Powernext is especially sensitive to odd changes in temperatures. Powernext and Meteo-France (the French meteorological agency) have joined expertise in order to promote the use of weather indices in term of decision making or underlying of hedging tools to energy actors, end users from any other sector of activity and specialists of the weather risk hedging. The Powernext Weather indices are made from information collected by Meteo-France's main observation network according to the norms of international meteorology, in areas carefully selected. The gross data are submitted to a thorough review allowing the correction of abnormalities and the reconstitution of missing data. Each index is fashioned to take into account the economic activity in the various regions of the country as represented by each region's population. This demographic information represents a fair approximation of the weight of the regional economic activity. This document presents the Powernext/Meteo France partnership for the elaboration of efficient weather-related risk management indices. (J.S.)

  13. Application of enhanced gas chromatography/triple quadrupole mass spectrometry for monitoring petroleum weathering and forensic source fingerprinting in samples impacted by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Adhikari, Puspa L; Wong, Roberto L; Overton, Edward B

    2017-10-01

    Accurate characterization of petroleum hydrocarbons in complex and weathered oil residues is analytically challenging. This is primarily due to chemical compositional complexity of both the oil residues and environmental matrices, and the lack of instrumental selectivity due to co-elution of interferences with the target analytes. To overcome these analytical selectivity issues, we used an enhanced resolution gas chromatography coupled with triple quadrupole mass spectrometry in Multiple Reaction Monitoring (MRM) mode (GC/MS/MS-MRM) to eliminate interferences within the ion chromatograms of target analytes found in environmental samples. This new GC/MS/MS-MRM method was developed and used for forensic fingerprinting of deep-water and marsh sediment samples containing oily residues from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The results showed that the GC/MS/MS-MRM method increases selectivity, eliminates interferences, and provides more accurate quantitation and characterization of trace levels of alkyl-PAHs and biomarker compounds, from weathered oil residues in complex sample matrices. The higher selectivity of the new method, even at low detection limits, provides greater insights on isomer and homolog compositional patterns and the extent of oil weathering under various environmental conditions. The method also provides flat chromatographic baselines for accurate and unambiguous calculation of petroleum forensic biomarker compound ratios. Thus, this GC/MS/MS-MRM method can be a reliable analytical strategy for more accurate and selective trace level analyses in petroleum forensic studies, and for tacking continuous weathering of oil residues. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  14. Technologically enhanced natural radiation (TENR II). Proceedings of an international symposium

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    NONE

    2002-02-01

    Natural radiation is ubiquitous. In recent decades, there has been a developing interest in fully documenting exposure of human beings to radiation of natural origin. Radiation experts have recognized that natural sources of radiation can cause exposure of members of the general public and workers to levels that warrant consideration of whether controls should be applied. The second International Symposium on Technologically Enhanced Natural Radiation (TENR II) was held in Rio de Janeiro from 12 to 17 September 1999. The objective of the symposium was to provide a forum for the international exchange of information on the scientific and technical aspects of those components of exposure to natural radiation that warrant consideration. These components were examined under the headings: the technological enhancement of natural radiation in mining and non-nuclear industries; radon indoors and outdoors; mobility and transfer of natural radionuclides; natural radiation and health effects; analytical techniques and methodologies; the remediation of contaminated sites; and regulatory and legal aspects. The symposium found that exposures to natural sources of radiation should be considered from the point of view of their amenability to control. This approach is reflected in the International Basic Safety Standards for Protection against Ionizing Radiation and for the Safety of Radiation Sources (BSS) and the associated IAEA documents on occupational exposure and rehabilitation of contaminated lands. The concepts of exclusion and intervention are particularly relevant to the amenability to control of natural sources of radiation. Indeed, the BSS specify that any exposure whose magnitude is essentially unamenable to control through the requirements of the BSS is out of the scope of the BSS. The BSS further indicate that protective or remedial actions shall be undertaken whenever they are justified in terms of the benefit to be obtained. Following their deliberations, the

  15. Radiogenic Isotopes in Weathering and Hydrology

    Science.gov (United States)

    Blum, J. D.; Erel, Y.

    2003-12-01

    There are a small group of elements that display variations in their isotopic composition, resulting from radioactive decay within minerals over geological timescales. These isotopic variations provide natural fingerprints of rock-water interactions and have been widely utilized in studies of weathering and hydrology. The isotopic systems that have been applied in such studies are dictated by the limited number of radioactive parent-daughter nuclide pairs with half-lives and isotopic abundances that result in measurable differences in daughter isotope ratios among common rocks and minerals. Prior to their application to studies of weathering and hydrology, each of these isotopic systems was utilized in geochronology and petrology. As in the case of their original introduction into geochronology and petrology, isotopic systems with the highest concentrations of daughter isotopes in common rocks and minerals and systems with the largest observed isotopic variations were introduced first and have made the largest impact on our understanding of weathering and hydrologic processes. Although radiogenic isotopes have helped elucidate many important aspects of weathering and hydrology, it is important to note that in almost every case that will be discussed in this chapter, our fundamental understanding of these topics came from studies of variations in the concentrations of major cations and anions. This chapter is a "tools chapter" and thus it will highlight applications of radiogenic isotopes that have added additional insight into a wide spectrum of research areas that are summarized in almost all of the other chapters of this volume.The first applications of radiogenic isotopes to weathering processes were based on studies that sought to understand the effects of chemical weathering on the geochronology of whole-rock samples and geochronologically important minerals (Goldich and Gast, 1966; Dasch, 1969; Blaxland, 1974; Clauer, 1979, 1981; Clauer et al., 1982); as well

  16. First NASA Aviation Safety Program Weather Accident Prevention Project Annual Review

    Science.gov (United States)

    Colantonio, Ron

    2000-01-01

    The goal of this Annual Review was to present NASA plans and accomplishments that will impact the national aviation safety goal. NASA's WxAP Project focuses on developing the following products: (1) Aviation Weather Information (AWIN) technologies (displays, sensors, pilot decision tools, communication links, etc.); (2) Electronic Pilot Reporting (E-PIREPS) technologies; (3) Enhanced weather products with associated hazard metrics; (4) Forward looking turbulence sensor technologies (radar, lidar, etc.); (5) Turbulence mitigation control system designs; Attendees included personnel from various NASA Centers, FAA, National Weather Service, DoD, airlines, aircraft and pilot associations, industry, aircraft manufacturers and academia. Attendees participated in discussion sessions aimed at collecting aviation user community feedback on NASA plans and R&D activities. This CD is a compilation of most of the presentations presented at this Review.

  17. Effect of Reprocessing and Accelerated Weathering on Impact-Modified Recycled Blend

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ramesh, V.; Mohanty, Smita; Biswal, Manoranjan; Nayak, Sanjay K.

    2015-12-01

    Recovery of recycled polycarbonate, acrylonitrile butadiene styrene, high-impact polystyrene, and its blends from waste electrical and electronic equipment plastics products properties were enhanced by the addition of virgin polycarbonate and impact modifier. The optimized blend formulation was processed through five cycles, at processing temperature, 220-240 °C and accelerated weathering up to 700 h. Moreover, the effect of reprocessing and accelerated weathering in the physical properties of the modified blends was investigated by mechanical, thermal, rheological, and morphological studies. The results show that in each reprocessing cycle, the tensile strength and impact strength decreased significantly and the similar behavior has been observed from accelerated weathering. Subsequently, the viscosity decreases and this decrease becomes the effect of thermal and photo-oxidative degradation. This can be correlated with FTIR analysis.

  18. Integrated Decision Tools for Sustainable Watershed/Ground Water and Crop Health using Predictive Weather, Remote Sensing, and Irrigation Decision Tools

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jones, A. S.; Andales, A.; McGovern, C.; Smith, G. E. B.; David, O.; Fletcher, S. J.

    2017-12-01

    US agricultural and Govt. lands have a unique co-dependent relationship, particularly in the Western US. More than 30% of all irrigated US agricultural output comes from lands sustained by the Ogallala Aquifer in the western Great Plains. Six US Forest Service National Grasslands reside within the aquifer region, consisting of over 375,000 ha (3,759 km2) of USFS managed lands. Likewise, National Forest lands are the headwaters to many intensive agricultural regions. Our Ogallala Aquifer team is enhancing crop irrigation decision tools with predictive weather and remote sensing data to better manage water for irrigated crops within these regions. An integrated multi-model software framework is used to link irrigation decision tools, resulting in positive management benefits on natural water resources. Teams and teams-of-teams can build upon these multi-disciplinary multi-faceted modeling capabilities. For example, the CSU Catalyst for Innovative Partnerships program has formed a new multidisciplinary team that will address "Rural Wealth Creation" focusing on the many integrated links between economic, agricultural production and management, natural resource availabilities, and key social aspects of govt. policy recommendations. By enhancing tools like these with predictive weather and other related data (like in situ measurements, hydrologic models, remotely sensed data sets, and (in the near future) linking to agro-economic and life cycle assessment models) this work demonstrates an integrated data-driven future vision of inter-meshed dynamic systems that can address challenging multi-system problems. We will present the present state of the work and opportunities for future involvement.

  19. Weathering Natural Disasters with a Net of Safety

    Science.gov (United States)

    Berson, Ilene R.; Berson, Michael J.

    2008-01-01

    Faster and more efficient coverage on television and the Internet is increasingly exposing children to traumatic images of natural devastation both at home and abroad. Natural disasters, such as the wildfires in California or the trauma caused by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, have become commonplace. Catastrophic events like these serve as…

  20. Weather and emotional state

    Science.gov (United States)

    Spasova, Z.

    2010-09-01

    Introduction Given the proven effects of weather on the human organism, an attempt to examine its effects on a psychic and emotional level has been made. Emotions affect the bio-tonus, working ability and concentration, hence their significance in various domains of economic life, such as health care, education, transportation, tourism, etc. Data and methods The research has been made in Sofia City within a period of 8 months, using 5 psychological methods (Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ), State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), Test for Self-assessment of the emotional state (developed by Wessman and Ricks), Test for evaluation of moods and Test "Self-confidence - Activity - Mood" (developed by the specialists from the Military Academy in Saint Petersburg). The Fiodorov-Chubukov's complex-climatic method was used to characterize meteorological conditions because of the purpose to include in the analysis a maximal number of meteorological elements. 16 weather types are defined in dependence of the meteorological elements values according to this method. Abrupt weather changes from one day to another, defined by the same method, were considered as well. Results and discussions The results obtained by t-test show that the different categories of weather lead to changes in the emotional status, which indicates a character either positive or negative for the organism. The abrupt weather changes, according to expectations, have negative effect on human emotions but only when a transition to the cloudy weather or weather type, classified as "unfavourable" has been realized. The relationship between weather and human emotions is rather complicated since it depends on individual characteristics of people. One of these individual psychological characteristics, marked by the dimension "neuroticism", has a strong effect on emotional reactions in different weather conditions. Emotionally stable individuals are more "protected" to the weather influence on their emotions

  1. Casebook on application for weather

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    2009-11-01

    This book introduces the excellent cases on application using weather at the industry, research center and public office. It lists the names and application cases in 2008 and 2009, which includes research on decease in risk by weather in the industry by Sam sung institute of safety and environment, service on weather information for people by KT, application with weather information in the flight by Korean air, use on weather information for prevention of disasters by Masan city hall, upgrade for business with weather marketing, center for river forecast in NOAA and the case using weather management for high profit margins.

  2. Weather Instruments.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brantley, L. Reed, Sr.; Demanche, Edna L.; Klemm, E. Barbara; Kyselka, Will; Phillips, Edwin A.; Pottenger, Francis M.; Yamamoto, Karen N.; Young, Donald B.

    This booklet presents some activities to measure various weather phenomena. Directions for constructing a weather station are included. Instruments including rain gauges, thermometers, wind vanes, wind speed devices, humidity devices, barometers, atmospheric observations, a dustfall jar, sticky-tape can, detection of gases in the air, and pH of…

  3. Weathering process in Sør Rondane Mountains, East Antarctica

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kanamaru, T.; Suganuma, Y.; Oiwane, H.; Miura, M.; Okuno, J.; Hayakawa, H.

    2016-12-01

    Weathering process under the hyper-arid and hypothermal environment is a key to understand the geomorphogic process and landscape evolution in Antarctica and on Mars. A nunber of studies have focused on weathering process of basaltic rocks in Antarctica, however, the nature of the weathering process of plutonic type rock, a common rock type on the Earth, have been less focused and remain unclear. Here, we report the physical/chemical weathering process of the granitic rocks obtained from Dronning Maud Land in East Antarctica based on a multiplicity of petrological approaches. Loss on Ignition (LOI) and major element composition of the crust and core of the rock samples indicate that chemical weathering process in this area seems to be very limited. The microscopic observations and laser-Raman micro spectroscopy for thin sections from the crust and core indicate that goethite grains are formed mainly in the vein around the crust, which is consistent with the higher Fe3+/Fe2+ contrast from the core to crust. A negative correlation between the rock hardness and color strength index (CSI) values also indicate that crust of rock samples tend to less hard than core due to cracking of the rock samples and following goethite formation. On the other hand, EPMA analysis indicates that original Fe-Ti oxide grains in the core of rock samples are damaged by weathering, and altered to hematite, and to non-stoichiometric Fe-Ti compound associated with ilmenite grans in case of the higher relative height samples. These reveal that the weathering process of the plutonic rocks under the hyper-cold and hypothermal environment are mainly controlled by oxidation, including iron hydroxide formation in the veins formed by mechanical distraction, and Fe-Ti oxide alteration in rock interior.

  4. A Milestone in Commercial Space Weather: USTAR Center for Space Weather

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tobiska, W.; Schunk, R. W.; Sojka, J. J.; Thompson, D. C.; Scherliess, L.; Zhu, L.; Gardner, L. C.

    2009-12-01

    As of 2009, Utah State University (USU) hosts a new organization to develop commercial space weather applications using funding that has been provided by the State of Utah’s Utah Science Technology and Research (USTAR) initiative. The USTAR Center for Space Weather (UCSW) is located on the USU campus in Logan, Utah and is developing innovative applications for mitigating adverse space weather effects in technological systems. Space weather’s effects upon the near-Earth environment are due to dynamic changes in the Sun’s photons, particles, and fields. Of the space environment domains that are affected by space weather, the ionosphere is the key region that affects communication and navigation systems. The UCSW has developed products for users of systems that are affected by space weather-driven ionospheric changes. For example, on September 1, 2009 USCW released, in conjunction with Space Environment Technologies, the world’s first real-time space weather via an iPhone app. Space WX displays the real-time, current global ionosphere total electron content along with its space weather drivers; it is available through the Apple iTunes store and is used around the planet. The Global Assimilation of Ionospheric Measurements (GAIM) system is now being run operationally in real-time at UCSW with the continuous ingestion of hundreds of global data streams to dramatically improve the ionosphere’s characterization. We discuss not only funding and technical advances that have led to current products but also describe the direction for UCSW that includes partnering opportunities for moving commercial space weather into fully automated specification and forecasting over the next half decade.

  5. Optimizing Placement of Weather Stations: Exploring Objective Functions of Meaningful Combinations of Multiple Weather Variables

    Science.gov (United States)

    Snyder, A.; Dietterich, T.; Selker, J. S.

    2017-12-01

    Many regions of the world lack ground-based weather data due to inadequate or unreliable weather station networks. For example, most countries in Sub-Saharan Africa have unreliable, sparse networks of weather stations. The absence of these data can have consequences on weather forecasting, prediction of severe weather events, agricultural planning, and climate change monitoring. The Trans-African Hydro-Meteorological Observatory (TAHMO.org) project seeks to address these problems by deploying and operating a large network of weather stations throughout Sub-Saharan Africa. To design the TAHMO network, we must determine where to place weather stations within each country. We should consider how we can create accurate spatio-temporal maps of weather data and how to balance the desired accuracy of each weather variable of interest (precipitation, temperature, relative humidity, etc.). We can express this problem as a joint optimization of multiple weather variables, given a fixed number of weather stations. We use reanalysis data as the best representation of the "true" weather patterns that occur in the region of interest. For each possible combination of sites, we interpolate the reanalysis data between selected locations and calculate the mean average error between the reanalysis ("true") data and the interpolated data. In order to formulate our multi-variate optimization problem, we explore different methods of weighting each weather variable in our objective function. These methods include systematic variation of weights to determine which weather variables have the strongest influence on the network design, as well as combinations targeted for specific purposes. For example, we can use computed evapotranspiration as a metric that combines many weather variables in a way that is meaningful for agricultural and hydrological applications. We compare the errors of the weather station networks produced by each optimization problem formulation. We also compare these

  6. ADVANCING THE SCIENCE OF NATURAL AND ENHANCED ATTENUATION FOR CHLORINATED SOLVENTS

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Looney, B; TOM O. EARLY, T; TYLER GILMORE, T; FRANCIS H. CHAPELLE, F; NORMAN H. CUTSHALL, N; JEFF ROSS, J; MARK ANKENY, M; Michael Heitkamp, M; DAVID MAJOR, D; CHARLES J. NEWELL, C; W. JODY WAUGH, W; GARY WEIN, G; Karen Vangelas, K; Karen-M Adams, K; CLAIRE H. SINK, C

    2006-12-27

    This report summarizes the results of a three-year program that addressed key scientific and technical aspects related to natural and enhanced attenuation of chlorinated organics. The results from this coordinated three-year program support a variety of technical and regulatory advancements. Scientists, regulators, engineers, end-users and stakeholders participated in the program, which was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the Interstate Technology and Regulatory Council (ITRC). The overarching objective of the effort was to examine environmental remedies that are based on natural processes--remedies such as Monitored Natural Attenuation (MNA) or Enhanced Attenuation (EA). A key result of the recent effort was the general affirmation of the approaches and guidance in the original U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) chlorinated solvent MNA protocols and directives from 1998 and 1999, respectively. The research program did identify several specific opportunities for advances based on: (1) mass balance as the central framework for attenuation based remedies, (2) scientific advancements and achievements during the past ten years, (3) regulatory and policy development and real-world experience using MNA, and (4) exploration of various ideas for integrating attenuation remedies into a systematic set of ''combined remedies'' for contaminated sites. These opportunities are summarized herein and are addressed in more detail in referenced project documents and journal articles, as well as in the technical and regulatory documents being developed within the ITRC. Natural attenuation processes occur in all soil and groundwater systems and act, to varying degrees, on all contaminants. Thus, a decision to rely on natural attenuation processes as part of a site-remediation strategy does not depend on the occurrence of natural attenuation, but on its effectiveness in meeting site-specific remediation goals. Meeting these goals

  7. Synoptic weather types associated with critical fire weather

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mark J. Schroeder; Monte Glovinsky; Virgil F. Hendricks; Frank C. Hood; Melvin K. Hull; Henry L. Jacobson; Robert Kirkpatrick; Daniel W. Krueger; Lester P. Mallory; Albert G. Oeztel; Robert H. Reese; Leo A. Sergius; Charles E. Syverson

    1964-01-01

    Recognizing that weather is an important factor in the spread of both urban and wildland fires, a study was made of the synoptic weather patterns and types which produce strong winds, low relative humidities, high temperatures, and lack of rainfall--the conditions conducive to rapid fire spread. Such historic fires as the San Francisco fire of 1906, the Berkeley fire...

  8. Weatherization: Wyoming's Hidden Resource; Weatherization Assistance Close-Up Fact Sheet

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    2001-01-01

    Wyoming demonstrates its commitment to technology and efficiency through the Weatherization Program. Weatherization uses advanced technologies and techniques to reduce energy costs for low-income families by increasing the energy efficiency of their homes

  9. The Social and Economic Impacts of Space Weather (US Project)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pulkkinen, A. A.; Bisi, M. M.; Webb, D. F.; Oughton, E. J.; Worman, S. L.; Taylor, S. M.; Onsager, T. G.; Adkins, J. E.; Baker, D. N.; Forbes, K. F.; Basoli, D.; Griot, O.

    2017-12-01

    The National Space Weather Action Plan calls for new research into the social and economic impacts of space weather and for the development of quantitative estimates of potential costs. In response to this call, NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) and Abt Associates are working together to identify, describe, and quantify the impact of space weather to U.S. interests. This study covers impacts resulting from both moderate and severe space weather events across four technological sectors: Electric power, commercial aviation, satellites, and Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) users. It captures the full range of potential impacts, identified from an extensive literature review and from additional conversations with more than 50 sector stakeholders of diverse expertise from engineering to operations to end users. We organize and discuss our findings in terms of five broad but interrelated impact categories including Defensive Investments, Mitigating Actions, Asset Damages, Service Interruptions, and Health Effects. We also present simple, tractable estimates of the potential costs where we focused on quantifying a subset of all identified impacts that are apt to be largest and are also most plausible during moderate and more severe space weather scenarios. We hope that our systematic exploration of the social and economic impacts provides a foundation for the future work that is critical for designing technologies, developing procedures, and implementing policies that can effectively reduce our known and evolving vulnerabilities to this natural hazard.

  10. Natural and Synthetic Barriers to Immobilize Radionuclides

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Um, W.

    2011-01-01

    The experiments of weathering of glass waste form and the reacted sediments with simulated glass leachates show that radionuclide sequestration can be significantly enhanced by promoting the formation of secondary precipitates. In addition, synthetic phosphate-bearing nanoporous material exhibits high stability at temperature and has a very high K d value for U(VI) removal. Both natural and synthetic barrier materials can be used as additional efficient adsorbents for retarding transport of radionuclides for various contaminated waste streams and waste forms present at U. S. Department of Energy clean-up sites and the proposed geologic radioactive waste disposal facility. In the radioactive waste repository facility, natural or synthetic materials are planned to be used as a barrier material to immobilize and retard radionuclide release. The getter material can be used to selectively scavenge the radionuclide of interest from a liquid waste stream and subsequently incorporate the loaded getters in a cementitious or various monolithic waste forms. Also, the getter material is to reduce the release of radionuclides from monolithic waste forms. Also, the getter material is to reduce the release of radionuclides from monolithic waste forms. Also, the getter material is to reduce the release of radionuclides form monolithic waste forms by being emplaced as a backfill barrier material around the wastes or waste form to minimize the potential around the wastes or waste form to minimize the potential hazard of leached radioactive wastes. The barrier material should be highly efficient to sequester radionuclides and possess physical and chemical stability for long-term exposure to severe weathering conditions. Because potential leaching of radionuclides depends on various environmental and weathering conditions of the near-field repository, the barrier materials must be durable and not disintegrate under a range of moisture, temperature, pressure, radiation, Eh, ph. and

  11. Weather Information Processing

    Science.gov (United States)

    1991-01-01

    Science Communications International (SCI), formerly General Science Corporation, has developed several commercial products based upon experience acquired as a NASA Contractor. Among them are METPRO, a meteorological data acquisition and processing system, which has been widely used, RISKPRO, an environmental assessment system, and MAPPRO, a geographic information system. METPRO software is used to collect weather data from satellites, ground-based observation systems and radio weather broadcasts to generate weather maps, enabling potential disaster areas to receive advance warning. GSC's initial work for NASA Goddard Space Flight Center resulted in METPAK, a weather satellite data analysis system. METPAK led to the commercial METPRO system. The company also provides data to other government agencies, U.S. embassies and foreign countries.

  12. Wacky Weather

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sabarre, Amy; Gulino, Jacqueline

    2013-01-01

    What do a leaf blower, water hose, fan, and ice cubes have in common? Ask the students who participated in an integrative science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (I-STEM) education unit, "Wacky Weather," and they will tell say "fun and severe weather"--words one might not have expected! The purpose of the unit…

  13. Weather Radar Stations

    Data.gov (United States)

    Department of Homeland Security — These data represent Next-Generation Radar (NEXRAD) and Terminal Doppler Weather Radar (TDWR) weather radar stations within the US. The NEXRAD radar stations are...

  14. Experimental investigation on natural circulation and air-injection enhanced circulation in a simple loop

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Walter Ambrosini; Nicola Forgione; Francesco Oriolo; Filippo Pellacani; Mariano Tarantino; Claudio Struckmann

    2005-01-01

    Full text of publication follows: Natural circulation represents an interesting phenomenon because of both the complex aspects characterising it and for the widespread application in industry. On the other hand, injection of a gas into a rising branch of a loop represents a means to establish or to enhance a circulation flow, as it occurs in the so-called 'air-lift' loops. Both natural circulation and gas-injection enhanced circulation are presently considered for cooling Accelerator Driven System (ADS) reactors. These are subcritical reactors in which the fission reaction chain is maintained by the injection of neutrons obtained by spallation reactions in a target through a high energy proton beam generated in an external accelerator. The capability of such reactors to be used as incinerators of long lived fission products makes them particularly interesting in the light of the closure of the nuclear fuel cycle. Some of the fluids proposed as coolants for these reactors are liquid metals, with main interest for lead and lead-bismuth eutectic (LBE). Experimental activities are being performed in support to the design of the reactor prototype by different organisations. The university of Pisa, in addition to provide cooperation in these large scale activities performed with LBE has set up a specific experimental program aimed at studying the fundamental mechanisms involved in natural circulation and gas-injection enhanced circulation. The adopted experimental facility consists in a simple loop, having a rectangular lay-out (roughly, 4 m tall and 1 m wide), equipped with a 5 kW, 1 m tall heater, a 2 m long pipe-in-pipe heat exchanger, an air injection device and a separator. The fluid adopted in the tests performed up to now is water, though studies for evaluating the feasibility of the adoption of different fluids have been undertaken. Experimental data reported in previous publications concerning this research were related to a relatively high range of gas

  15. Creating a comprehensive quality-controlled dataset of severe weather occurrence in Europe

    Science.gov (United States)

    Groenemeijer, P.; Kühne, T.; Liang, Z.; Holzer, A.; Feuerstein, B.; Dotzek, N.

    2010-09-01

    Ground-truth quality-controlled data on severe weather occurrence is required for meaningful research on severe weather hazards. Such data are collected by observation networks of several authorities in Europe, most prominently the National Hydrometeorological Institutes (NHMS). However, some events challenge the capabilities of such conventional networks by their isolated and short-lived nature. These rare and very localized but extreme events include thunderstorm wind gusts, large hail and tornadoes and are poorly resolved by synoptic observations. Moreover, their detection by remote-sensing techniques such as radar and satellites is in development and has proven to be difficult. Using the fact that all across across Europe there are many people with a special personal or professional interest in such events, who are typically organized in associations, allows pursuing a different strategy. Data delivered to the European Severe Weather Database is recorded and quality controlled by ESSL and a large number of partners including the Hydrometeorological Institutes of Germany, Finland, Austria, Italy and Bulgaria. Additionally, nine associations of storm spotters and centres of expertise in these and other countries are involved. The two categories of organizations (NHMSes/other) each have different privileges in the quality control procedure, which involves assigning a quality level of QC0+ (plausibility checked), QC1 (confirmed by reliable sources) or QC2 (verified) to each of the reports. Within the EWENT project funded by the EU 7th framework programme, the RegioExakt project funded by the German Ministry of Education and Research, and with support from the German Weather Service (DWD), several enhancements of the ESWD have been and will be carried out. Completed enhancements include the creation of an interface that allows partner organizations to upload data automatically, in the case of our German partner "Skywarn Germany" in near-real time. Moreover, the

  16. TECHNOLOGIES TO ENHANCE THE OPERATION OF EXISTING NATURAL GAS COMPESSION INFRASTRUCTURE

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Anthony J. Smalley; Ralph E. Harris; Gary D. Bourn; Danny M. Deffenbaugh

    2006-01-24

    This quarterly report documents work performed under Tasks 15, 16, and 18 through 23 of the project entitled: ''Technologies to Enhance the Operation of Existing Natural Gas Compression Infrastructure''. The project objective is to develop and substantiate methods for operating integral engine/compressors in gas pipeline service, which reduce fuel consumption, increase capacity, and enhance mechanical integrity. The report presents results of design analysis performed on the TCVC10 engine/compressor installed at Dominion's Groveport Compressor Station to develop options and guide decisions for reducing pulsations and enhancing compressor system efficiency and capacity. The report further presents progress on modifying and testing the laboratory GMVH6 at SwRI for correcting air imbalance.

  17. Internet Weather Source

    Data.gov (United States)

    National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — The National Weather Service (NWS) National Telecommunications Gateway provides weather, hydrologic, and climate forecasts and warnings for the United States, its...

  18. Medical weather forecast as the risk management facilities of meteopathia with population

    Science.gov (United States)

    Efimenko, Natalya; Chalaya, Elena; Povolotskaia, Nina; Senik, Irina; Topuriya, David

    2013-04-01

    Frequent cases of extreme deviations of weather conditions and anthropogenic press on the Earth atmosphere are external stressors and provoke the development of meteopathic reactions (DMR) with people suffering from dysadaptation (DA). [EGU2011-6740-3; EGU2012-6103]. The influence of weather factors on the person is multivariate which complicates the search of physiological indicators of this exposure. The results of long-term researches of meteodependence and risks development of weather-conditional pathologic reactions with people suffering from DA (1640 observed people) in various systems and human body subsystems (thermal control, cardiovascular, respiratory, vegetative and central nervous systems) were taken as a principle of calculation methodology of estimation of weather pathogenicity (EWP). This estimation is used in the system of medical weather forecast (MWF) in the resorts of Caucasian Mineral Waters and is marked as an organized structure in prevention of DMR risks. Nowadays MWF efficiency is from 78% to 95% as it depends not only on the performance of models of dynamic, synoptic, heliogeophysical forecasts, but also on the underestimation of environmental factors which often act as dominating stressors. The program of atmospheric global system monitoring and real-time forecasts doesn`t include atmospheric electricity factors, ionization factors, range and chemistry factors of aerosol particles and organic volatile plant matters in atmospheric boundary layer. New fractality researches of control mechanisms processes providing adaptation to external and internal environmental conditions with patients suffering from DA allowed us to understand the meaning of the phenomenon of structural similarity and similarity of physiological response processes to the influence of weather types with similar dominating environmental factors. Particularly, atmospheric conditions should be regarded as stressor natural factors that create deionization conditions of the

  19. Typhoon impacts on chemical weathering source provenance of a High Standing Island watershed, Taiwan

    Science.gov (United States)

    Meyer, Kevin J.; Carey, Anne E.; You, Chen-Feng

    2017-10-01

    Chemical weathering source provenance changes associated with Typhoon Mindulle (2004) were identified for the Choshui River Watershed in west-central Taiwan using radiogenic Sr isotope (87Sr/86Sr) and major ion chemistry analysis of water samples collected before, during, and following the storm event. Storm water sampling over 72 h was conducted in 3 h intervals, allowing for novel insight into weathering regime changes in response to intense rainfall events. Chemical weathering sources were determined to be bulk silicate and disseminated carbonate minerals at the surface and silicate contributions from deep thermal waters. Loss on ignition analysis of collected rock samples indicate disseminated carbonate can compose over 25% by weight of surface mineralogy, but typically makes up ∼2-3% of watershed rock. 87Sr/86Sr and major element molar ratios indicate that Typhoon Mindulle caused a weathering regime switch from normal flow incorporating a deep thermal signature to that of a system dominated by surface weathering. The data suggest release of silicate solute rich soil pore waters during storm events, creating a greater relative contribution of silicate weathering to the solute load during periods of increased precipitation and runoff. Partial depletion of this soil solute reservoir and possible erosion enhanced carbonate weathering lead to increased importance of carbonates to the weathering regime as the storm continues. Major ion data indicate that complex mica weathering (muscovite, biotite, illite, chlorite) may represent an important silicate weathering pathway in the watershed. Deep thermal waters represent an important contribution to river solutes during normal non-storm flow conditions. Sulfuric acid sourced from pyrite weathering is likely a major weathering agent in the Choshui River watershed.

  20. How accurate are the weather forecasts for Bierun (southern Poland)?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gawor, J.

    2012-04-01

    Weather forecast accuracy has increased in recent times mainly thanks to significant development of numerical weather prediction models. Despite the improvements, the forecasts should be verified to control their quality. The evaluation of forecast accuracy can also be an interesting learning activity for students. It joins natural curiosity about everyday weather and scientific process skills: problem solving, database technologies, graph construction and graphical analysis. The examination of the weather forecasts has been taken by a group of 14-year-old students from Bierun (southern Poland). They participate in the GLOBE program to develop inquiry-based investigations of the local environment. For the atmospheric research the automatic weather station is used. The observed data were compared with corresponding forecasts produced by two numerical weather prediction models, i.e. COAMPS (Coupled Ocean/Atmosphere Mesoscale Prediction System) developed by Naval Research Laboratory Monterey, USA; it runs operationally at the Interdisciplinary Centre for Mathematical and Computational Modelling in Warsaw, Poland and COSMO (The Consortium for Small-scale Modelling) used by the Polish Institute of Meteorology and Water Management. The analysed data included air temperature, precipitation, wind speed, wind chill and sea level pressure. The prediction periods from 0 to 24 hours (Day 1) and from 24 to 48 hours (Day 2) were considered. The verification statistics that are commonly used in meteorology have been applied: mean error, also known as bias, for continuous data and a 2x2 contingency table to get the hit rate and false alarm ratio for a few precipitation thresholds. The results of the aforementioned activity became an interesting basis for discussion. The most important topics are: 1) to what extent can we rely on the weather forecasts? 2) How accurate are the forecasts for two considered time ranges? 3) Which precipitation threshold is the most predictable? 4) Why

  1. Impact of aerosols, dust, water vapor and clouds on fair weather PG and implications for the Carnegie curve

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kourtidis, Konstantinos; Georgoulias, Aristeidis

    2017-04-01

    We studied the impact of anthropogenic aerosols, fine mode natural aerosols, Saharan dust, atmospheric water vapor, cloud fraction, cloud optical depth and cloud top height on the magnitude of fair weather PG at the rural station of Xanthi. Fair weather PG was measured in situ while the other parameters were obtained from the MODIS instrument onboard the Terra and Aqua satellites. All of the above parameteres were found to impact fair weather PG magnitude. Regarding aerosols, the impact was larger for Saharan dust and fine mode natural aerosols whereas regarding clouds the impact was larger for cloud fraction while less than that of aerosols. Water vapour and ice precipitable water were also found to influence fair weather PG. Since aerosols and water are ubiquitous in the atmosphere and exhibit large spatial and temporal variability, we postulate that our understanding of the Carnegie curve might need revision.

  2. Mariners Weather Log

    Data.gov (United States)

    National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — The Mariners Weather Log (MWL) is a publication containing articles, news and information about marine weather events and phenomena, worldwide environmental impact...

  3. Pilot Weather Reports

    Data.gov (United States)

    National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — Aviation weather reports relayed from pilots to FAA air traffic controllers or National Weather Service personnel. Elements include sky cover, turbulence, wind...

  4. Insurance as an adaptation strategy for extreme weather events indeveloping countries and economies in transition

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Mills, Evan

    2004-06-30

    The insurance industry can play a material role indecreasing the vulnerability of developing countries and economies intransition to weather-related natural disasters while simultaneouslysupporting both its own market-based objectives and the objectives ofsustainable development. Although insurance is not a "silver bullet" forthe problems posed by natural disasters in emerging markets,public-private partnerships can enhance insurance's ability to spread therisks and manage the costs of weather-related disasters as well as toincrease the pool of people who have access to coverage. (For simplicityin this report, the phrase "emerging markets" is intended to encompassdeveloping countries and economies in transition.) Promising strategiesfor emerging markets involve establishing innovative products and systemsfor delivering insurance and using technologies and practices that bothreduce vulnerability to disaster-related insurance losses and supportsustainable development (including reducing greenhouse gas emissions).These strategies can enhance sustainable development efforts and increasethe insurability of risks, making insurance markets in emerging marketsmore viable. Emerging markets are especially vulnerable to extremeweather events, which impede development by causing physical damage,compromising human and ecosystem health, diverting scarce resources todisaster relief and recovery, and deterring future investment andinsurance availability by amplifying the risks faced by foreigninterests. An average of 300 million people are affected or killed eachyear by weather-related disasters in emerging markets. Characteristics ofemerging markets contributing to their particular vulnerability incontrast to developed nations include: greater frequency of poverty;weaker lifelines (transportation, communication, utilities, emergencyresponse, and hospitals); poorer quality of construction and absence ofor deficiencies in building codes and other regulations; and

  5. Surface Weather Observations

    Data.gov (United States)

    National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — The Surface Weather Observation Collection consists primarily of hourly, synoptic, daily, and monthly forms submitted to the archive by the National Weather Service...

  6. Radar Weather Observation

    Data.gov (United States)

    National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — Radar Weather Observation is a set of archived historical manuscripts stored on microfiche. The primary source of these radar weather observations manuscript records...

  7. Best Practices in Weathering Climate Risks: Advancing Corporate and Community Resilience

    Science.gov (United States)

    Klima, K.; Winkelman, S.

    2012-12-01

    As the annual costs of severe weather events in the US grow into the billions of dollars, companies and communities are examining how best to plan ahead to protect their assets and bolster their bottom line. The Center for Clean Air Policy's Weathering Climate Risks program aims to help cities and companies enhance resilience to the economic impacts of severe weather and a changing climate. This presentation will highlight three communication techniques aimed at different types of audiences such as businesses, policymakers, the media, and society. First, we find that although planning for natural hazards now saves money later, stakeholders must fi¬nd their own self-interest if they are going to engage in a solution. Thus we research best practices and hold informational, off-the-record interviews to better understand the different stakeholders' perspectives, key concerns, and issues surrounding adaptation, resilience, and/or hazard mitigation. Diverse stakeholders find it attractive when a solution has multiple co-benefits such as climate resilience, greenhouse gas reduction, reduced costs, and social benefits. Second, we use off-the-record dialogues emphasizing candid public-private discussion to promote collaborative problem solving. Our high-level workshops typically consist of 30-40 scientists, companies, communities, and policymakers. We begin with presenting background material, such as geographic information systems (GIS) maps. Then we move to informal conservation. Topics include ideas such as "Ask the Climate Question": How will infrastructure, land development, and investment decisions affect GHG emissions and resilience to climate change impacts? We find these dialogues help stakeholders share their perspectives and advance public-private collaboration on climate resilience to protect critical urban infrastructure, ensure business continuity, and increase extreme weather resilience. Third, we find that communication to the general public must capture

  8. Space Weather Impacts on Spacecraft Operations: Identifying and Establishing High-Priority Operational Services

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lawrence, G.; Reid, S.; Tranquille, C.; Evans, H.

    2013-12-01

    Space Weather is a multi-disciplinary and cross-domain system defined as, 'The physical and phenomenological state of natural space environments. The associated discipline aims, through observation, monitoring, analysis and modelling, at understanding and predicting the state of the Sun, the interplanetary and planetary environments, and the solar and non-solar driven perturbations that affect them, and also at forecasting and nowcasting the potential impacts on biological and technological systems'. National and Agency-level efforts to provide services addressing the myriad problems, such as ESA's SSA programme are therefore typically complex and ambitious undertakings to introduce a comprehensive suite of services aimed at a large number and broad range of end users. We focus on some of the particular threats and risks that Space Weather events pose to the Spacecraft Operations community, and the resulting implications in terms of User Requirements. We describe some of the highest-priority service elements identified as being needed by the Operations community, and outline some service components that are presently available, or under development. The particular threats and risks often vary according to orbit, so the particular User Needs for Operators at LEO, MEO and GEO are elaborated. The inter-relationship between these needed service elements and existing service components within the broader Space Weather domain is explored. Some high-priority service elements and potential correlation with Space Weather drivers include: solar array degradation and energetic proton storms; single event upsets at GEO and solar proton events and galactic cosmic rays; surface charging and deep dielectric charging at MEO and radiation belt dynamics; SEUs at LEO and the South Atlantic Anomaly and its variability. We examine the current capability to provide operational services addressing such threats and identify some advances that the Operations community can expect to benefit

  9. Weather-enabled future onboard surveillance and navigation systems

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mutuel, L.; Baillon, B.; Barnetche, B.; Delpy, P.

    2009-09-01

    With the increasing traffic and the development of business trajectories, there is a widespread need to anticipate any adverse weather conditions that could impact the performance of the flight or to use of atmospheric parameters to optimize trajectories. Current sensors onboard air transport are challenged to provide the required service, while new products for business jets and general aviation open the door to innovative assimilation of weather information in onboard surveillance and navigation. The paper aims at surveying current technology available to air transport aircraft and pointing out their shortcomings in view of the modernization proposed in SESAR and NextGen implementation plans. Foreseen innovations are then illustrated via results of ongoing research like FLYSAFE or standardization efforts, in particular meteorological datalink services and impact on Human-Machine Interface. The paper covers the operational need to avoid adverse weather like thunderstorm, icing, turbulence, windshear and volcanic ash, but also the requirement to control in 4D the trajectory through the integration of wind and temperature grids in the flight management. The former will lead to enhanced surveillance systems onboard the aircraft with new displays and new alerting schemes, ranging from targeted information supporting better re-planning to auto-escape strategies. The latter will be standard in next generation flight management systems. Finally both will rely on ATM products that will also assimilate weather information so that situational awareness is shared and decision is collaborative.

  10. Bacterially-mediated weathering of crystalline and amorphous Cu-slags

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Potysz, Anna; Grybos, Malgorzata; Kierczak, Jakub; Guibaud, Gilles; Lens, Piet N.L.; Hullebusch, Eric D. van

    2016-01-01

    Two types of Cu-slags (CS: crystalline massive slag and GS: granulated amorphous slag) exhibiting a different chemical and mineral phase composition were compared with respect to their susceptibility to bacterial weathering using Pseudomonas aeruginosa (n° CIP 105094). Abiotic conditions e.g. sterile growth medium and ultrapure water were used for comparison. The experiments were extended up to 112 days with a systematic liquid phase renewal every 14 days. The results revealed significant release of elements in the bacterially mediated weathering experiments. Concentrations of elements (Si, Fe, Cu, Zn and Pb) in the biotic solutions were increased at least by 20% up to 99% compared to abiotic ones. From 3 to 77% of the leached elements were associated to the fraction >0.22 μm. Scanning electron microscope observations demonstrated greater weathering of mineral phases in biotic experiments than in abiotic ones which is in accordance with the solution chemistry exhibiting higher concentrations of elements leached in biotic set-ups. In the case of CS, glass and sulfides weathering was yet observed in abiotic experiment, whereas partial dissolution of fayalite (Fe_2SiO_4) was solely affected by the presence of bacteria. GS having a higher bulk content of metallic elements was found to be more stable than sulfide-bearing CS, while its (GS) glass matrix was found to weather easier under biotic conditions. - Highlights: • Pseudomonas aeruginosa significantly enhance the release of elements from Cu-slags. • Bacteria and/or associated metabolites assist as biosorbent (e.g. Zn). • Amorphous slag is more susceptible to bio-weathering. • Metal carriers of crystalline slag are prone to dissolution. • Fe-bearing fayalite is altered solely due to the presence of bacteria.

  11. Daily Weather Records

    Data.gov (United States)

    National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — These daily weather records were compiled from a subset of stations in the Global Historical Climatological Network (GHCN)-Daily dataset. A weather record is...

  12. Short-term natural gas consumption forecasting

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Potocnik, P.; Govekar, E.; Grabec, I.

    2007-01-01

    Energy forecasting requirements for Slovenia's natural gas market were investigated along with the cycles of natural gas consumption. This paper presented a short-term natural gas forecasting approach where the daily, weekly and yearly gas consumption were analyzed and the information obtained was incorporated into the forecasting model for hourly forecasting for the next day. The natural gas market depends on forecasting in order to optimize the leasing of storage capacities. As such, natural gas distribution companies have an economic incentive to accurately forecast their future gas consumption. The authors proposed a forecasting model with the following properties: two submodels for the winter and summer seasons; input variables including past consumption data, weather data, weather forecasts and basic cycle indexes; and, a hierarchical forecasting structure in which a daily model was used as the basis, with the hourly forecast obtained by modeling the relative daily profile. This proposed method was illustrated by a forecasting example for Slovenia's natural gas market. 11 refs., 11 figs

  13. Differences in the importance of weather and weather-based decisions among campers in Ontario parks (Canada)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hewer, Micah J.; Scott, Daniel J.; Gough, William A.

    2017-10-01

    Parks and protected areas represent an important resource for tourism in Canada, in which camping is a common recreational activity. The important relationship between weather and climate with recreation and tourism has been widely acknowledged within the academic literature. Howbeit, the need for activity-specific assessments has been identified as an on-going need for future research in the field of tourism climatology. Furthermore, very little is known about the interrelationships between personal characteristics and socio-demographics with weather preferences and behavioural thresholds. This study uses a stated climate preferences approach (survey responses) to explore differences in the importance of weather and related weather-based decisions among summer campers in Ontario parks. Statistically significant differences were found among campers for each of the four dependent variables tested in this study. Physically active campers placed greater importance on weather but were still more tolerant of adverse weather conditions. Older campers placed greater importance on weather. Campers travelling shorter distances placed greater importance on weather and were more likely to leave the park early due to adverse weather. Campers staying for longer periods of time were less likely to leave early due to weather and were willing to endure longer durations of adverse weather conditions. Beginner campers placed greater importance on weather, were more likely to leave early due to weather and recorded lower temporal weather thresholds. The results of this study contribute to the study of tourism climatology by furthering understanding of how personal characteristics such as gender, age, activity selection, trip duration, distance travelled, travel experience and life cycles affect weather preferences and decisions, focusing this time on recreational camping in a park tourism context.

  14. Estrategic prospecting for the network of weather observers

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Pulgarin Calle, David Esteban; Jimenez, Jose Fernando

    2011-01-01

    The Network of Weather Observers (RedOTA) is a reticulate system with technical and social nodes that interact to produce and share information about the weather and, to support cultural and educational dynamics, on these issues. This article describes the process of formulating a development strategy to bring the network to grow and, improving the quality of environmental information. First there is an account of the history to this initiative. Then is the definition of the ethical and operational principles underlying the network, and the description of its main actors. Finally, we present the collective exercise of strategic exploration, the definition of the action plans, the indicators to assess performance and some conclusions about the possibilities of RedOTA in the social and natural environment of the Aburra Valley.

  15. Salt-Induced Physical Weathering of Stone

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schiro, M.; Ruiz-Agudo, E.; Rodriguez-Navarro, C.

    2010-12-01

    Salt weathering is recognized as an important mechanism that contributes to the modeling and shaping of the earth’s surface, in a range of environments spanning from the Sahara desert to Antarctica. It also contributes to the degradation and loss of cultural heritage, particularly carved stone and historic buildings. Soluble salts have recently been suggested to contribute to the shaping of rock outcrops on Mars and are being identified in other planetary bodies such as the moons of Jupiter (Europa and IO)1. Soluble salts such as sulfates, nitrates, chlorides and carbonates of alkali and alkali earth metals can crystallize within the porous system of rocks and building stones, exerting sufficient pressure against the pore walls to fracture the substrate. This physical damage results in increased porosity, thus providing a higher surface area for salt-enhanced chemical weathering. To better understand how salt-induced physical weathering occurs, we have studied the crystallization of the particularly damaging salt, sodium sulfate2, in a model system (a sintered porous glass of controlled porosity and pore size). For this elusive task of studying sub-surface crystallization in pores, we combined a variety of instruments to identify which phases crystallized during evaporation and calculated the supersaturation and associated crystallization pressure that caused damage. The heat of crystallization was measured using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), providing the timing of crystallization events and phase transitions3, while the evaporation rate was recorded using thermal gravimetry (TG). These methods enabled calculation of the sodium sulfate concentration in solution at every point during evaporation. Two-dimensional X-ray diffraction (2D-XRD) performs synchrotron-like experiments in a normal lab by using a Molybdenum X-ray source (more than 5 times more penetrative than conventional Copper source). Using this method, we determined that the first phase to

  16. Adaptation of Mesoscale Weather Models to Local Forecasting

    Science.gov (United States)

    Manobianco, John T.; Taylor, Gregory E.; Case, Jonathan L.; Dianic, Allan V.; Wheeler, Mark W.; Zack, John W.; Nutter, Paul A.

    2003-01-01

    objective and subjective verification methodologies. Objective (e.g., statistical) verification of point forecasts is a stringent measure of model performance, but when used alone, it is not usually sufficient for quantifying the value of the overall contribution of the model to the weather-forecasting process. This is especially true for mesoscale models with enhanced spatial and temporal resolution that may be capable of predicting meteorologically consistent, though not necessarily accurate, fine-scale weather phenomena. Therefore, subjective (phenomenological) evaluation, focusing on selected case studies and specific weather features, such as sea breezes and precipitation, has been performed to help quantify the added value that cannot be inferred solely from objective evaluation.

  17. Weather, Climate and Food Security

    Science.gov (United States)

    Beer, T.

    2016-12-01

    To climatologists food security is dominated by the impacts of weather and climate on food systems. But the link between the atmosphere and food security is more complex. Extreme weather events such as tropical cyclones impact directly on agriculture, but they also impact on the logistical distribution of food and can thus disrupt the food supply chain, especially in urban areas. Drought affects human life and health as well as impacting dramatically on the sustainable development of society. It represents a pending danger for vulnerable agricultural systems that depend on the rainfall, water supply and reservoirs. Developed countries are affected, but the impact is disproportionate within the developing world. Drought, especially when it results in famine, can change the life and economic development of developing nations and stifle their development for decades. A holistic approach is required to understand the phenomena, to forecast catastrophic events such as drought and famine and to predict their societal consequences. In the Food Security recommendations of the Rio+20 Forum on Science, Technology and Innovation for Sustainable Development it states that it is important "To understand fully how to measure, assess and reduce the impacts of production on the natural environment including climate change, recognizing that different measures of impact (e.g. water, land, biodiversity, carbon and other greenhouse gases, etc) may trade-off against each other..." This talk will review the historical link between weather, climate, drought and food supplies; examine the international situation; and summarise the response of the scientific community

  18. Standard Practice for Exposure of Cover Materials for Solar Collectors to Natural Weathering Under Conditions Simulating Operational Mode

    CERN Document Server

    American Society for Testing and Materials. Philadelphia

    1995-01-01

    1.1 This practice provides a procedure for the exposure of cover materials for flat-plate solar collectors to the natural weather environment at temperatures that are elevated to approximate operating conditions. 1.2 This practice is suitable for exposure of both glass and plastic solar collector cover materials. Provisions are made for exposure of single and double cover assemblies to accommodate the need for exposure of both inner and outer solar collector cover materials. 1.3 This practice does not apply to cover materials for evacuated collectors or photovoltaics. 1.4 The values stated in SI units are to be regarded as the standard. 1.5 This standard does not purport to address all of the safety concerns, if any, associated with its use. It is the responsibility of the user of this standard to establish appropriate safety and health practices and determine the applicability of regulatory limitations prior to use.

  19. Climate Change, Extreme Weather Events, and Human Health Implications in the Asia Pacific Region.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hashim, Jamal Hisham; Hashim, Zailina

    2016-03-01

    The Asia Pacific region is regarded as the most disaster-prone area of the world. Since 2000, 1.2 billion people have been exposed to hydrometeorological hazards alone through 1215 disaster events. The impacts of climate change on meteorological phenomena and environmental consequences are well documented. However, the impacts on health are more elusive. Nevertheless, climate change is believed to alter weather patterns on the regional scale, giving rise to extreme weather events. The impacts from extreme weather events are definitely more acute and traumatic in nature, leading to deaths and injuries, as well as debilitating and fatal communicable diseases. Extreme weather events include heat waves, cold waves, floods, droughts, hurricanes, tropical cyclones, heavy rain, and snowfalls. Globally, within the 20-year period from 1993 to 2012, more than 530 000 people died as a direct result of almost 15 000 extreme weather events, with losses of more than US$2.5 trillion in purchasing power parity. © 2015 APJPH.

  20. Standard Practice for Exposure of Solar Collector Cover Materials to Natural Weathering Under Conditions Simulating Stagnation Mode

    CERN Document Server

    American Society for Testing and Materials. Philadelphia

    1992-01-01

    1.1 This practice covers a procedure for the exposure of solar collector cover materials to the natural weather environment at elevated temperatures that approximate stagnation conditions in solar collectors having a combined back and edge loss coefficient of less than 1.5 W/(m2 · °C). 1.2 This practice is suitable for exposure of both glass and plastic solar collector cover materials. Provisions are made for exposure of single and double cover assemblies to accommodate the need for exposure of both inner and outer solar collector cover materials. 1.3 This practice does not apply to cover materials for evacuated collectors, photovoltaic cells, flat-plate collectors having a combined back and edge loss coefficient greater than 1.5 W/(m2 ·° C), or flat-plate collectors whose design incorporates means for limiting temperatures during stagnation. 1.4 This standard does not purport to address all of the safety concerns, if any, associated with its use. It is the responsibility of the user of this standard t...

  1. Weatherization Makes Headlines in Connecticut: Weatherization Assistance Close-Up Fact Sheet

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    2001-01-01

    Connecticut demonstrates its commitment to technology and efficiency through the Weatherization Program. Weatherization uses advanced technologies and techniques to reduce energy costs for low-income families by increasing the energy efficiency of their homes

  2. Weatherization Makes Headlines in Connecticut: Weatherization Assistance Close-Up Fact Sheet

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    D& R International

    2001-10-10

    Connecticut demonstrates its commitment to technology and efficiency through the Weatherization Program. Weatherization uses advanced technologies and techniques to reduce energy costs for low-income families by increasing the energy efficiency of their homes.

  3. Biologically enhanced mineral weathering: what does it look like, can we model it?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schulz, M. S.; Lawrence, C. R.; Harden, J. W.; White, A. F.

    2011-12-01

    The interaction between plants and minerals in soils is hugely important and poorly understood as it relates to the fate of soil carbon. Plant roots, fungi and bacteria inhabit the mineral soil and work symbiotically to extract nutrients, generally through low molecular weight exudates (organic acids, extracelluar polysachrides (EPS), siderophores, etc.). Up to 60% of photosynthetic carbon is allocated below ground as roots and exudates, both being important carbon sources in soils. Some exudates accelerate mineral weathering. To test whether plant exudates are incorporated into poorly crystalline secondary mineral phases during precipitation, we are investigating the biologic-mineral interface. We sampled 5 marine terraces along a soil chronosequence (60 to 225 ka), near Santa Cruz, CA. The effects of the biologic interactions with mineral surfaces were characterized through the use of Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). Morphologically, mycorrhizal fungi were observed fully surrounding minerals, fungal hyphae were shown to tunnel into primary silicate minerals and we have observed direct hyphal attachment to mineral surfaces. Fungal tunneling was seen in all 5 soils by SEM. Additionally, specific surface area (using a nitrogen BET method) of primary minerals was measured to determine if the effects of mineral tunneling are quantifiable in older soils. Results suggest that fungal tunneling is more extensive in the primary minerals of older soils. We have also examined the influence of organic acids on primary mineral weathering during soil development using a geochemical reactive transport model (CrunchFlow). Addition of organic acids in our models of soil development at Santa Cruz result in decreased activity of Fe and Al in soil pore water, which subsequently alters the spatial extent of primary mineral weathering and kaolinite precipitation. Overall, our preliminary modeling results suggest biological processes may be an important but underrepresented aspect of

  4. Analysis of dynamic enhancement of natural convection cooling by a discrete vibrating plate

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Florio, L.A.; Harnoy, A. [New Jersey Institute of Technology, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Newark, NJ (United States)

    2006-12-15

    A dynamic means of locally enhancing laminar natural convection cooling in a vertical channel through the localized application of fluid oscillations is numerically investigated. The two-dimensional system considered for these purposes is a vertical channel with a small transversely oscillating plate placed near a constant heat flux channel wall. The flow and heat transfer in the system resulting from the combined effects of the natural convection and the oscillating plate were determined. The results indicate that for displacement amplitudes of at least one-third of the mean spacing and with dimensionless frequencies (Re/{radical}(Gr)) of at least 2{pi}, the local heat transfer coefficient can be enhanced by as much as 41%. (orig.)

  5. The waviness of the extratropical jet and daily weather extremes

    Science.gov (United States)

    Röthlisberger, Matthias; Martius, Olivia; Pfahl, Stephan

    2016-04-01

    In recent years the Northern Hemisphere mid-latitudes have experienced a large number of weather extremes with substantial socio-economic impact, such as the European and Russian heat waves in 2003 and 2010, severe winter floods in the United Kingdom in 2013/2014 and devastating winter storms such as Lothar (1999) and Xynthia (2010) in Central Europe. These have triggered an engaged debate within the scientific community on the role of human induced climate change in the occurrence of such extremes. A key element of this debate is the hypothesis that the waviness of the extratropical jet is linked to the occurrence of weather extremes, with a wavier jet stream favouring more extremes. Previous work on this topic is expanded in this study by analyzing the linkage between a regional measure of jet waviness and daily temperature, precipitation and wind gust extremes. We show that indeed such a linkage exists in many regions of the world, however this waviness-extremes linkage varies spatially in strength and sign. Locally, it is strong only where the relevant weather systems, in which the extremes occur, are affected by the jet waviness. Its sign depends on how the frequency of occurrence of the relevant weather systems is correlated with the occurrence of high and low jet waviness. These results go beyond previous studies by noting that also a decrease in waviness could be associated with an enhanced number of some weather extremes, especially wind gust and precipitation extremes over western Europe.

  6. Experimental study of critical heat flux enhancement with hypervapotron structure under natural circulation conditions

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Hou, Fangxin [Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology, Tsinghua University, Beijing (China); Chang, Huajian [Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology, Tsinghua University, Beijing (China); State Nuclear Power Technology R& D Center (Beijing), Beijing (China); Zhao, Yufeng, E-mail: zhaoyufeng@snptc.com.cn [State Nuclear Power Technology R& D Center (Beijing), Beijing (China); Zhang, Ming; Gao, Tianfang [State Nuclear Power Technology R& D Center (Beijing), Beijing (China); Chen, Peipei [State Power Investment Corporation, Beijing (China)

    2017-05-15

    Highlights: • Natural circulation tests are performed to study the effect of hypervapotron on CHF. • Hypervapotron structure improves CHF under natural circulation conditions. • Visualization data illustrate vapor blanket behavior under subcooled flow conditions. - Abstract: The enhancement of critical heat flux with a hypervapotron structure under natural circulation conditions is investigated in this study. Subcooled flow boiling CHF experiments are performed using smooth and hypervapotron surfaces at different inclination angles under natural circulation conditions. The experimental facility, TESEC (Test of External Vessel Surface with Enhanced Cooling), is designed to conduct CHF experiments in a 30 mm by 61 mm rectangular flow channel with a 200 mm long heated surface along the flow direction. The two-phase flow of subcooled flow boiling on both smooth and hypervapotron heating plates is observed and analyzed by the high-speed visualization technology. The results show that both smooth surface and hypervapotron surface CHF data exhibit a similar trend against inclination angles compared with the CHF results under forced flow condition on the same facility in earlier studies. However, the CHF enhancement of the hypervapotron structure is evidently more significant than the one under forced flow conditions. The experiments also indicate that the natural flow rates are higher with hypervapotron structure. The initiation of CHF is analyzed under transient subcooling and flow rate conditions for both smooth and hypervapotron heating surfaces. An explanation is given for the significant enhancement effect caused by the hypervapotron surface under natural circulation conditions. The visualization data are exhibited to demonstrate the behavior of the vapor blanket at various inclination angles and on different surfaces. The geometric data of the vapor blanket are quantified by an image post-processing method. It is found that the thickness of the vapor blanket

  7. Natural weathering in dry disposed ash dump: Insight from chemical, mineralogical and geochemical analysis of fresh and unsaturated drilled cores.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Akinyemi, S A; Akinlua, A; Gitari, W M; Khuse, N; Eze, P; Akinyeye, R O; Petrik, L F

    2012-07-15

    Some existing alternative applications of coal fly ash such as cement manufacturing; road construction; landfill; and concrete and waste stabilisation use fresh ash directly collected from coal-fired power generating stations. Thus, if the rate of usage continues, the demand for fresh ash for various applications will exceed supply and use of weathered dry disposed ash will become necessary alternative. As a result it's imperative to understand the chemistry and pH behaviour of some metals inherent in dry disposed fly ash. The bulk chemical composition as determined by XRF analysis showed that SiO2, Al2O3 and Fe2O3 were the major oxides in fresh ash and unsaturated weathered ashes. The unsaturated weathered ashes are relatively depleted in CaO, Fe2O3, TiO2, SiO2, Na2O and P2O5 due to dissolution and hydrolysis caused by chemical interaction with ingressing CO2 from the atmosphere and infiltrating rain water. Observed accumulations of Fe2O3, TiO2, CaO, K2O, Na2O and SO3 and Zn, Zr, Sr, Pb, Ni, Cr and Co in the lower layers indicate progressive downward movement through the ash dump though at a slow rate. The bulk mineralogy of unsaturated weathered dry disposed ash, as determined by XRD analysis, revealed quartz and mullite as the major crystalline phases; while anorthite, hematite, enstatite, lime, calcite, and mica were present as minor mineral phases. Pore water chemistry revealed a low concentration of readily soluble metals in unsaturated weathered ashes in comparison with fresh ash, which shows high leachability. This suggests that over time the precipitation of transient minor secondary mineral phases; such as calcite and mica might retard residual metal release from unsaturated weathered ash. Chloride and sulphate species of the water soluble extracts of weathered ash are at equilibrium with Na+ and K+; these demonstrate progressive leaching over time and become supersaturated at the base of unsaturated weathered ash. This suggests that the ash dump does not

  8. Winter Weather Emergencies

    Science.gov (United States)

    Severe winter weather can lead to health and safety challenges. You may have to cope with Cold related health problems, including ... there are no guarantees of safety during winter weather emergencies, you can take actions to protect yourself. ...

  9. New York Signals Weatherization Savings: Weatherization Assistance Close-Up Fact Sheet

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    2001-01-01

    New York demonstrates its commitment to technology and efficiency through the Weatherization Program. Weatherization uses advanced technologies and techniques to reduce energy costs for low-income families by increasing the energy efficiency of their homes

  10. New York Signals Weatherization Savings: Weatherization Assistance Close-Up Fact Sheet

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    D& R International

    2001-10-10

    New York demonstrates its commitment to technology and efficiency through the Weatherization Program. Weatherization uses advanced technologies and techniques to reduce energy costs for low-income families by increasing the energy efficiency of their homes.

  11. Thermal enhancement of charge and discharge cycles for adsorbed natural gas storage

    KAUST Repository

    Rahman, Kazi Afzalur; Loh, Wai Soong; Chakraborty, Anutosh; Saha, Bidyut Baran; Chun, Won Gee; Ng, Kim Choon

    2011-01-01

    The usage of adsorbed natural gas (ANG) storage is hindered by the thermal management during the adsorption and desorption processes. An effective thermal enhancement is thus essential for the development of the ANG technology and the motivation

  12. NASA GSFC Space Weather Center - Innovative Space Weather Dissemination: Web-Interfaces, Mobile Applications, and More

    Science.gov (United States)

    Maddox, Marlo; Zheng, Yihua; Rastaetter, Lutz; Taktakishvili, A.; Mays, M. L.; Kuznetsova, M.; Lee, Hyesook; Chulaki, Anna; Hesse, Michael; Mullinix, Richard; hide

    2012-01-01

    The NASA GSFC Space Weather Center (http://swc.gsfc.nasa.gov) is committed to providing forecasts, alerts, research, and educational support to address NASA's space weather needs - in addition to the needs of the general space weather community. We provide a host of services including spacecraft anomaly resolution, historical impact analysis, real-time monitoring and forecasting, custom space weather alerts and products, weekly summaries and reports, and most recently - video casts. There are many challenges in providing accurate descriptions of past, present, and expected space weather events - and the Space Weather Center at NASA GSFC employs several innovative solutions to provide access to a comprehensive collection of both observational data, as well as space weather model/simulation data. We'll describe the challenges we've faced with managing hundreds of data streams, running models in real-time, data storage, and data dissemination. We'll also highlight several systems and tools that are utilized by the Space Weather Center in our daily operations, all of which are available to the general community as well. These systems and services include a web-based application called the Integrated Space Weather Analysis System (iSWA http://iswa.gsfc.nasa.gov), two mobile space weather applications for both IOS and Android devices, an external API for web-service style access to data, google earth compatible data products, and a downloadable client-based visualization tool.

  13. Reaction Norms in Natural Conditions: How Does Metabolic Performance Respond to Weather Variations in a Small Endotherm Facing Cold Environments?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Petit, Magali; Vézina, François

    2014-01-01

    Reaction norms reflect an organisms' capacity to adjust its phenotype to the environment and allows for identifying trait values associated with physiological limits. However, reaction norms of physiological parameters are mostly unknown for endotherms living in natural conditions. Black-capped chickadees (Poecile atricapillus) increase their metabolic performance during winter acclimatization and are thus good model to measure reaction norms in the wild. We repeatedly measured basal (BMR) and summit (Msum) metabolism in chickadees to characterize, for the first time in a free-living endotherm, reaction norms of these parameters across the natural range of weather variation. BMR varied between individuals and was weakly and negatively related to minimal temperature. Msum varied with minimal temperature following a Z-shape curve, increasing linearly between 24°C and −10°C, and changed with absolute humidity following a U-shape relationship. These results suggest that thermal exchanges with the environment have minimal effects on maintenance costs, which may be individual-dependent, while thermogenic capacity is responding to body heat loss. Our results suggest also that BMR and Msum respond to different and likely independent constraints. PMID:25426860

  14. Association between forestry ecological engineering and dust weather in Inner Mongolia: A panel study

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jixia, Huang; Qibin, Zhang; Jing, Tan; Depeng, Yue; Quansheng, Ge

    2018-04-01

    Forestry ecological engineering projects in Western China include the Three-North Shelter Forest Project (TNSFP), the Natural Forest Protection Project (NFPP), the Grain for Green Project (GGP) and the Beijing-Tianjin Sandstorm Source Project (BTSSP). Such projects play an important role in the control of dust weather in Western China. In this research, data on the frequency of sandstorms, sand-blowing and dust-floating weather, the area of four forestry ecological engineering projects, wind, rainfall and vegetation coverage from 2000 to 2010 were collected based on the unit of prefecture-level cities in Inner Mongolia. The panel-data model was used to analyze the quantitative association between forestry ecological engineering and dust weather. The results indicate that wind has a strong promotional effect on dust weather, while forestry ecological engineering and rainfall have a containment effect. In addition, the impacts of the four studied forestry ecological engineering projects on dust weather differ. For every increase of 1000 km2 in the Three-North Shelter Forest Project, the annual number of days of sandstorm weather decreased by 4 days. Similarly, for every increase of 1000 km2 in the Beijing-Tianjin Sandstorm Source Project, the sand-blowing weather decreased by 4.4 days annually. In addition, NFPP and GGP have a more obvious inhibitory effect on the dust-floating weather.

  15. Fasting enhances TRAIL-mediated liver natural killer cell activity via HSP70 upregulation.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Vu T A Dang

    Full Text Available Acute starvation, which is frequently observed in clinical practice, sometimes augments the cytolytic activity of natural killer cells against neoplastic cells. In this study, we investigated the molecular mechanisms underlying the enhancement of natural killer cell function by fasting in mice. The total number of liver resident natural killer cells in a unit weight of liver tissue obtained from C57BL/6J mice did not change after a 3-day fast, while the proportions of tumor necrosis factor-related apoptosis-inducing ligand (TRAIL+ and CD69+ natural killer cells were significantly elevated (n = 7, p <0.01, as determined by flow cytometric analysis. Furthermore, we found that TRAIL- natural killer cells that were adoptively transferred into Rag-2-/- γ chain-/- mice could convert into TRAIL+ natural killer cells in fasted mice at a higher proportion than in fed mice. Liver natural killer cells also showed high TRAIL-mediated antitumor function in response to 3-day fasting. Since these fasted mice highly expressed heat shock protein 70 (n = 7, p <0.05 in liver tissues, as determined by western blot, the role of this protein in natural killer cell activation was investigated. Treatment of liver lymphocytes with 50 µg/mL of recombinant heat shock protein 70 led to the upregulation of both TRAIL and CD69 in liver natural killer cells (n = 6, p <0.05. In addition, HSP70 neutralization by intraperitoneally injecting an anti- heat shock protein 70 monoclonal antibody into mice prior to fasting led to the downregulation of TRAIL expression (n = 6, p <0.05. These findings indicate that acute fasting enhances TRAIL-mediated liver natural killer cell activity against neoplastic cells through upregulation of heat shock protein 70.

  16. Aviation & Space Weather Policy Research: Integrating Space Weather Observations & Forecasts into Operations

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fisher, G.; Jones, B.

    2006-12-01

    The American Meteorological Society and SolarMetrics Limited are conducting a policy research project leading to recommendations that will increase the safety, reliability, and efficiency of the nation's airline operations through more effective use of space weather forecasts and information. This study, which is funded by a 3-year National Science Foundation grant, also has the support of the Federal Aviation Administration and the Joint Planning and Development Office (JPDO) who is planning the Next Generation Air Transportation System. A major component involves interviewing and bringing together key people in the aviation industry who deal with space weather information. This research also examines public and industrial strategies and plans to respond to space weather information. The focus is to examine policy issues in implementing effective application of space weather services to the management of the nation's aviation system. The results from this project will provide government and industry leaders with additional tools and information to make effective decisions with respect to investments in space weather research and services. While space weather can impact the entire aviation industry, and this project will address national and international issues, the primary focus will be on developing a U.S. perspective for the airlines.

  17. Dissolution of multi-component LNAPL gasolines: The effects of weathering and composition

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lekmine, Greg; Bastow, Trevor P.; Johnston, Colin D.; Davis, Greg B.

    2014-05-01

    The composition of light non-aqueous phase liquid (LNAPL) gasoline and other petroleum products changes profoundly over their life once released into aquifers. However limited attention has been given to how such changes affect key parameters such as the activity coefficients which control partitioning of components of petroleum fuel into groundwater and are used to predict long-term risk from fuel releases. Laboratory experiments were conducted on a range of fresh, weathered and synthetic gasoline mixtures designed to mimic the expected changes in composition in an aquifer. Weathered gasoline created under controlled evaporation and water washing, and naturally weathered gasoline, were investigated. Equilibrium concentrations in water and molar fractions in the gasoline mixtures were compared with equilibrium concentrations predicted by Raoult's law assuming ideal behaviour of the solutions. The experiments carried out allowed the relative sensitivity of the activity coefficients of key risk drivers such as benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene (BTEX) compounds to be quantified with respect to the presence of other types of compounds and where the source LNAPL had undergone different types of weathering. Results differed for the mixtures examined but in some cases higher than predicted dissolved equilibrium concentrations showed non-ideal behaviour for toluene, benzene and xylenes. Comparison of the activity coefficients showed that the naturally weathered gasoline and a 50% evaporated unleaded gasoline present a similar range of values varying between 1.0 and 1.2, suggesting close to ideal partitioning between the LNAPL and water. The fresh and water-washed gasoline had higher values for the activity coefficient, from 1.2 to 1.4, indicating non-ideal partitioning. Results from synthetic mixtures demonstrated that these differences could be due to the different molar fractions of the nC5 and nC6 aliphatic hydrocarbons acting on the molecular interactions

  18. Some technologically enhanced exposures to natural radiation environment in India

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Lalit, B.Y.; Shukla, V.K.; Ramachandran, T.V.; Mishra, U.C.

    1982-01-01

    A summary of results of gamma spectrometric measurements of natural radioactivity in a number of coal and flyash samples from thermal power plants and phosphatic fertilizer samples collected from various fertilizer plants in India are presented. These constitute the sources of technologically enhanced exposures to natural radiation. A brief description of sampling and measurement procedures is given. The radiation doses to the population from coal burning for electricity generation have been calculated using the method outlined in UNSCEAR report of 1979 with corrections for local population density. The external radiation dose to the farmers has been calculated on the basis of usage of phosphatic fertilizers for rice, wheat, millets and sugarcane crops for the normal agricultural practices

  19. Impact of bacterial ice nucleating particles on weather predicted by a numerical weather prediction model

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sahyoun, Maher; Korsholm, Ulrik S.; Sørensen, Jens H.; Šantl-Temkiv, Tina; Finster, Kai; Gosewinkel, Ulrich; Nielsen, Niels W.

    2017-12-01

    Bacterial ice-nucleating particles (INP) have the ability to facilitate ice nucleation from super-cooled cloud droplets at temperatures just below the melting point. Bacterial INP have been detected in cloud water, precipitation, and dry air, hence they may have an impact on weather and climate. In modeling studies, the potential impact of bacteria on ice nucleation and precipitation formation on global scale is still uncertain due to their small concentration compared to other types of INP, i.e. dust. Those earlier studies did not account for the yet undetected high concentration of nanoscale fragments of bacterial INP, which may be found free or attached to soil dust in the atmosphere. In this study, we investigate the sensitivity of modeled cloud ice, precipitation and global solar radiation in different weather scenarios to changes in the fraction of cloud droplets containing bacterial INP, regardless of their size. For this purpose, a module that calculates the probability of ice nucleation as a function of ice nucleation rate and bacterial INP fraction was developed and implemented in a numerical weather prediction model. The threshold value for the fraction of cloud droplets containing bacterial INP needed to produce a 1% increase in cloud ice was determined at 10-5 to 10-4. We also found that increasing this fraction causes a perturbation in the forecast, leading to significant differences in cloud ice and smaller differences in convective and total precipitation and in net solar radiation reaching the surface. These effects were most pronounced in local convective events. Our results show that bacterial INP can be considered as a trigger factor for precipitation, but not an enhancement factor.

  20. Space Weather Services of Korea

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yoon, K.; Hong, S.; Jangsuk, C.; Dong Kyu, K.; Jinyee, C.; Yeongoh, C.

    2016-12-01

    The Korean Space Weather Center (KSWC) of the National Radio Research Agency (RRA) is a government agency which is the official source of space weather information for Korean Government and the primary action agency of emergency measure to severe space weather condition. KSWC's main role is providing alerts, watches, and forecasts in order to minimize the space weather impacts on both of public and commercial sectors of satellites, aviation, communications, navigations, power grids, and etc. KSWC is also in charge of monitoring the space weather condition and conducting research and development for its main role of space weather operation in Korea. In this study, we will present KSWC's recent efforts on development of application-oriented space weather research products and services on user needs, and introduce new international collaborative projects, such as IPS-Driven Enlil model, DREAM model estimating electron in satellite orbit, global network of DSCOVR and STEREO satellites tracking, and ARMAS (Automated Radiation Measurement for Aviation Safety).

  1. Weather Information Communications (WINCOMM) Project: Dissemination of Weather Information for the Reduction of Aviation Weather-Related Accident Causal Factors

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jarrell, Michael; Tanger, Thomas

    2004-01-01

    Weather Information Communications (WINCOMM) is part of the Weather Accident Prevention (WxAP) Project, which is part of the NASA's Aviation Safety and Security Program. The goals of WINCOMM are to facilitate the exchange of tactical and strategic weather information between air and ground. This viewgraph presentation provides information on data link decision factors, architectures, validation goals. WINCOMM is capable of providing en-route communication air-to-ground, ground-to-air, and air-to-air, even on international or intercontinental flights. The presentation also includes information on the capacity, cost, and development of data links.

  2. Weather based risks and insurances for agricultural production

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gobin, Anne

    2015-04-01

    Extreme weather events such as frost, drought, heat waves and rain storms can have devastating effects on cropping systems. According to both the agriculture and finance sectors, a risk assessment of extreme weather events and their impact on cropping systems is needed. The principle of return periods or frequencies of natural hazards is adopted in many countries as the basis of eligibility for the compensation of associated losses. For adequate risk management and eligibility, hazard maps for events with a 20-year return period are often used. Damages due to extreme events are strongly dependent on crop type, crop stage, soil type and soil conditions. The impact of extreme weather events particularly during the sensitive periods of the farming calendar therefore requires a modelling approach to capture the mixture of non-linear interactions between the crop, its environment and the occurrence of the meteorological event in the farming calendar. Physically based crop models such as REGCROP (Gobin, 2010) assist in understanding the links between different factors causing crop damage. Subsequent examination of the frequency, magnitude and impacts of frost, drought, heat stress and soil moisture stress in relation to the cropping season and crop sensitive stages allows for risk profiles to be confronted with yields, yield losses and insurance claims. The methodology is demonstrated for arable food crops, bio-energy crops and fruit. The perspective of rising risk-exposure is exacerbated further by limited aid received for agricultural damage, an overall reduction of direct income support to farmers and projected intensification of weather extremes with climate change. Though average yields have risen continuously due to technological advances, there is no evidence that relative tolerance to adverse weather events has improved. The research is funded by the Belgian Science Policy Organisation (Belspo) under contract nr SD/RI/03A.

  3. How lithology and climate affect REE mobility and fractionation along a shale weathering transect of the Susquehanna Shale Hills Critical Zone Observatory

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ma, L.; Jin, L.; Dere, A. L.; White, T.; Mathur, R.; Brantley, S. L.

    2012-12-01

    Shale weathering is an important process in global elemental cycles. Accompanied by the transformation of bedrock into regolith, many elements including rare earth elements (REE) are mobilized primarily by chemical weathering in the Critical Zone. Then, REE are subsequently transported from the vadose zone to streams, with eventual deposition in the oceans. REE have been identified as crucial and strategic natural resources; and discovery of new REE deposits will be facilitated by understanding global REE cycles. At present, the mechanisms and environmental factors controlling release, transport, and deposition of REE - the sources and sinks - at Earth's surface remain unclear. Here, we present a systematic study of soils, stream sediments, stream waters, soil water and bedrock in six small watersheds that are developed on shale bedrock in the eastern USA to constrain the mobility and fractionation of REE during early stages of chemical weathering. The selected watersheds are part of the shale transect established by the Susquehanna Shale Hills Observatory (SSHO) and are well suited to investigate weathering on shales of different compositions or within different climate regimes but on the same shale unit. Our REE study from SSHO, a small gray shale watershed in central Pennsylvania, shows that up to 65% of the REE (relative to parent bedrock) is depleted in the acidic and organic-rich soils due to chemical leaching. Both weathering soil profiles and natural waters show a preferential removal of middle REE (MREE: Sm to Dy) relative to light REE (La to Nd) and heavy REE (Ho to Lu) during shale weathering, due to preferential release of MREE from a phosphate phase (rhabdophane). Strong positive Ce anomalies observed in the regolith and stream sediments point to the fractionation and preferential precipitation of Ce as compared to other REE, in the generally oxidizing conditions of the surface environments. One watershed developed on the Marcellus black shale in

  4. Space Weather Research Presented at the 2007 AGU Fall Meeting

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kumar, Mohi

    2007-12-01

    AGU's 47th annual Fall Meeting, held 10-14 December 2007 in San Francisco, Calif., was the largest gathering of geoscientists in the Union's history. More than 14,600 people attended. The Space Physics and Aeronomy (SPA) sections sported excellent turnout, with more than 1300 abstracts submitted over 114 poster and oral sessions. Topics discussed that related to space weather were manifold: the nature of the Sun-Earth system revealed through newly launched satellites, observations and models of ionospheric convection, advances in the understanding of radiation belt physics, Sun-Earth coupling via energetic coupling, data management and archiving into virtual observatories, and the applications of all this research to space weather forecasting and prediction.

  5. The effects of weathering on the physical and mechanical properties of igneous and metamorphic saprolites

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Rocchi, Irene; Coop, M. R.; Maccarini, M.

    2017-01-01

    The present paper presents three extensive datasets of laboratory testing on weathered geomaterials, which are emblematic of soil types widely found worldwide. The overall dataset includes soils originating from igneous and metamorphic rocks, either coarse or fine grained and having either felsic...... or mafic minerals. In particular, the data are interpreted to highlight the effects that weathering has on the physical and mechanical properties of these natural geomaterials comparing them with published data with the aim to provide a general framework of interpretation that takes into account...... this geological process and links soil mechanics to engineering geology. Generally, weathering induces a reduction in the grain size, both due to physical actions (e.g. opening of grain contacts) and to the chemical decomposition of minerals resulting in the formation of clay minerals. As weathering proceeds...

  6. Alaska Native Weatherization Training and Jobs Program First Steps Toward Tribal Weatherization – Human Capacity Development

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Wiita, Joanne

    2013-07-30

    The Alaska Native Weatherization Training and Jobs Project expanded weatherization services for tribal members’ homes in southeast Alaska while providing weatherization training and on the job training (OJT) for tribal citizens that lead to jobs and most probably careers in weatherization-related occupations. The program resulted in; (a) 80 Alaska Native citizens provided with skills training in five weatherization training units that were delivered in cooperation with University of Alaska Southeast, in accordance with the U.S. Department of Energy Core Competencies for Weatherization Training that prepared participants for employment in three weatherizationrelated occupations: Installer, Crew Chief, and Auditor; (b) 25 paid OJT training opportunities for trainees who successfully completed the training course; and (c) employed trained personnel that have begun to rehab on over 1,000 housing units for weatherization.

  7. Convection Weather Detection by General Aviation Pilots with Convectional and Data-Linked Graphical Weather Information Sources

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chamberlain, James P.; Latorella, Kara A.

    2001-01-01

    This study compares how well general aviation (GA) pilots detect convective weather in flight with different weather information sources. A flight test was conducted in which GA pilot test subjects were given different in-flight weather information cues and flown toward convective weather of moderate or greater intensity. The test subjects were not actually flying the aircraft, but were given pilot tasks representative of the workload and position awareness requirements of the en route portion of a cross country GA flight. On each flight, one test subject received weather cues typical of a flight in visual meteorological conditions (VMC), another received cues typical of flight in instrument meteorological conditions (IMC), and a third received cues typical of flight in IMC but augmented with a graphical weather information system (GWIS). The GWIS provided the subject with near real time data-linked weather products, including a weather radar mosaic superimposed on a moving map with a symbol depicting the aircraft's present position and direction of track. At several points during each flight, the test subjects completed short questionnaires which included items addressing their weather situation awareness and flight decisions. In particular, test subjects were asked to identify the location of the nearest convective cells. After the point of nearest approach to convective weather, the test subjects were asked to draw the location of convective weather on an aeronautical chart, along with the aircraft's present position. This paper reports preliminary results on how accurately test subjects provided with these different weather sources could identify the nearest cell of moderate or greater intensity along their route of flight. Additional flight tests are currently being conducted to complete the data set.

  8. Integration of Weather Avoidance and Traffic Separation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Consiglio, Maria C.; Chamberlain, James P.; Wilson, Sara R.

    2011-01-01

    This paper describes a dynamic convective weather avoidance concept that compensates for weather motion uncertainties; the integration of this weather avoidance concept into a prototype 4-D trajectory-based Airborne Separation Assurance System (ASAS) application; and test results from a batch (non-piloted) simulation of the integrated application with high traffic densities and a dynamic convective weather model. The weather model can simulate a number of pseudo-random hazardous weather patterns, such as slow- or fast-moving cells and opening or closing weather gaps, and also allows for modeling of onboard weather radar limitations in range and azimuth. The weather avoidance concept employs nested "core" and "avoid" polygons around convective weather cells, and the simulations assess the effectiveness of various avoid polygon sizes in the presence of different weather patterns, using traffic scenarios representing approximately two times the current traffic density in en-route airspace. Results from the simulation experiment show that the weather avoidance concept is effective over a wide range of weather patterns and cell speeds. Avoid polygons that are only 2-3 miles larger than their core polygons are sufficient to account for weather uncertainties in almost all cases, and traffic separation performance does not appear to degrade with the addition of weather polygon avoidance. Additional "lessons learned" from the batch simulation study are discussed in the paper, along with insights for improving the weather avoidance concept. Introduction

  9. The scope of the Weatherization Assistance Program: The weatherized population and the resource base

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Power, M.; Eisenberg, J.F.; Michels, E. (Economic Opportunity Research Inst., Washington, DC (United States)); Witherspoon, M.J. (National Association for State Community Service Programs, Washington, DC (United States)); Brown, M.A. (Oak Ridge National Lab., TN (United States))

    1992-05-01

    This study is one of five parts of the US Department of Energy's national evaluation of its Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP). It has three major goals: (1) to enumerate the size and sources of investment in low-income weatherization; (2) to provide a count of the number of low-income units weatherized by all weatherization programs and characterized the type and tenure of those homes; and (3) to document the extent to which the DOE/WAP funding has been expanded though use of external resources.

  10. The scope of the Weatherization Assistance Program: The weatherized population and the resource base

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Power, M.; Eisenberg, J.F.; Michels, E. [Economic Opportunity Research Inst., Washington, DC (United States); Witherspoon, M.J. [National Association for State Community Service Programs, Washington, DC (United States); Brown, M.A. [Oak Ridge National Lab., TN (United States)

    1992-05-01

    This study is one of five parts of the US Department of Energy`s national evaluation of its Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP). It has three major goals: (1) to enumerate the size and sources of investment in low-income weatherization; (2) to provide a count of the number of low-income units weatherized by all weatherization programs and characterized the type and tenure of those homes; and (3) to document the extent to which the DOE/WAP funding has been expanded though use of external resources.

  11. Space Weather- Physics and Effects

    CERN Document Server

    Bothmer, Volker

    2007-01-01

    This book is a state-of-the-art review on the physics of space weather and on space weather impacts on human technology, including manned spaceflight. With contributions from a team of international experts, this comprehensive work covers all aspects of space weather physical processes, and all known aspects of space hazards from humans, both in space and on Earth. Space Weather - Physics and Effects provides the first comprehensive, scientific background of space storms caused by the sun and its impact on geospace focuses on weather issues that have become vital for the development of nationwide technological infrastructures explains magnetic storms on Earth, including the effects of EUV radiation on the atmosphere is an invaluable aid in establishing real-time weather forecasts details the threat that solar effects might have on modern telecommunication systems, including national power grid systems, aircraft and manned spaceflight.

  12. Fabulous Weather Day

    Science.gov (United States)

    Marshall, Candice; Mogil, H. Michael

    2007-01-01

    Each year, first graders at Kensington Parkwood Elementary School in Kensington, Maryland, look forward to Fabulous Weather Day. Students learn how meteorologists collect data about the weather, how they study wind, temperature, precipitation, basic types/characteristics of clouds, and how they forecast. The project helps the students grow in…

  13. Seasonal Forecasting of Fire Weather Based on a New Global Fire Weather Database

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dowdy, Andrew J.; Field, Robert D.; Spessa, Allan C.

    2016-01-01

    Seasonal forecasting of fire weather is examined based on a recently produced global database of the Fire Weather Index (FWI) system beginning in 1980. Seasonal average values of the FWI are examined in relation to measures of the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD). The results are used to examine seasonal forecasts of fire weather conditions throughout the world.

  14. Enhance Nature Exploration with Technology

    Science.gov (United States)

    Holloway, Patricia; Mahan, Carol

    2012-01-01

    Kids and nature seem like a natural combination, but what was natural a generation ago is different today. Children are spending less time outdoors but continue to need nature for their physical, emotional, and mental development. This fact has led author Richard Louv to suggest that today's children are suffering from "nature-deficit disorder"…

  15. Weatherization is a Hit in Michigan: Weatherization Assistance Close-Up Fact Sheet

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    2001-01-01

    Michigan demonstrates its commitment to technology and efficiency through the Weatherization Program. Weatherization uses advanced technologies and techniques to reduce energy costs for low-income families by increasing the energy efficiency of their homes

  16. Weatherization Builds on Delaware's Innovative Past: Weatherization Assistance Close-Up Fact Sheet

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    2001-01-01

    Delaware demonstrates its commitment to technology and efficiency through the Weatherization Program. Weatherization uses advanced technologies and techniques to reduce energy costs for low-income families by increasing the energy efficiency of their homes

  17. Hydrologic and environmental controls on uranium-series and strontium isotope ratios in a natural weathering environment

    Science.gov (United States)

    White, A. M.; Ma, L.; Moravec, B. G.; McIntosh, J. C.; Chorover, J.

    2017-12-01

    In a remote, volcanic headwater catchment of the Jemez River Basin Critical Zone Observatory (JRB-CZO) in NM, stable water isotopes and solute chemistry have shown that snowmelt infiltrates and is stored before later discharging into springs and streams via subsurface flowpaths that vary seasonally. Therefore, water-rock reactions are also expected to change with season as hydrologic flowpaths transport water, gases and solutes through different biogeochemical conditions, rock types and fracture networks. Uranium-series isotopes have been shown to be a novel tracer of water-rock reactions and source water contributions while strontium isotopes are frequently used as indicators of chemical weathering and bedrock geology. This study combines both isotopes to understand how U and Sr isotope signatures evolve through the Critical Zone (CZ). More specifically, this work examines the relationship between seasonality, water transit time (WTT), and U-series and Sr isotopes in stream and spring waters from three catchments within the JRB-CZO, as well as lithology, rock type and CZ structure in solid phase cores. Samples from ten springs with known WTTs were analyzed for U and Sr isotopes to determine the effect of WTT on the isotopic composition of natural waters. Results suggest that WTT alone cannot explain the variability of U and Sr isotopes in JRB-CZO springs. Stream samples were also collected across two water years to establish how seasonality controls surface water isotopic composition. U and Sr isotope values vary with season, consistent with a previous study from the La Jara catchment; however, this study revealed that these changes do not show a systematic pattern among the three catchments suggesting that differences in the mineralogy and structure of the deep CZ in individual catchments, and partitioning of water along deep vs surficial and fracture vs matrix flow paths, likely also control isotopic variability. The distribution of U-series and Sr isotopes in

  18. Training Early Career Space Weather Researchers and other Space Weather Professionals at the CISM Space Weather Summer School

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gross, N. A.; Hughes, W.

    2011-12-01

    This talk will outline the organization of a summer school designed to introduce young professions to a sub-discipline of geophysics. Through out the 10 year life time of the Center for Integrated Space Weather Modeling (CISM) the CISM Team has offered a two week summer school that introduces new graduate students and other interested professional to the fundamentals of space weather. The curriculum covers basic concepts in space physics, the hazards of space weather, and the utility of computer models of the space environment. Graduate students attend from both inside and outside CISM, from all the sub-disciplines involved in space weather (solar, heliosphere, geomagnetic, and aeronomy), and from across the nation and around the world. In addition, between 1/4 and 1/3 of the participants each year are professionals involved in space weather in some way, such as: forecasters from NOAA and the Air Force, Air Force satellite program directors, NASA specialists involved in astronaut radiation safety, and representatives from industries affected by space weather. The summer school has adopted modern pedagogy that has been used successfully at the undergraduate level. A typical daily schedule involves three morning lectures followed by an afternoon lab session. During the morning lectures, student interaction is encouraged using "Timeout to Think" questions and peer instruction, along with question cards for students to ask follow up questions. During the afternoon labs students, working in groups of four, answer thought provoking questions using results from simulations and observation data from a variety of source. Through the interactions with each other and the instructors, as well as social interactions during the two weeks, students network and form bonds that will last them through out their careers. We believe that this summer school can be used as a model for summer schools in a wide variety of disciplines.

  19. Powernext weather, benchmark indices for effective weather risk management; Powernext Weather, des indices de reference pour gerer le risque meteo

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    NONE

    2006-07-01

    According to the U.S. Department of Energy, an estimated 25% of the GNP is affected by weather-related events. The variations in temperature - even small ones - can also have long-lasting effects on the operational results of a company. Among other, the Energy supply sector is sensitive to weather risks: a milder or harsher than usual winter leads to a decrease or increase of energy consumption. The price of electricity on power trading facilities like Powernext is especially sensitive to odd changes in temperatures. Powernext and Meteo-France (the French meteorological agency) have joined expertise in order to promote the use of weather indices in term of decision making or underlying of hedging tools to energy actors, end users from any other sector of activity and specialists of the weather risk hedging. The Powernext Weather indices are made from information collected by Meteo-France's main observation network according to the norms of international meteorology, in areas carefully selected. The gross data are submitted to a thorough review allowing the correction of abnormalities and the reconstitution of missing data. Each index is fashioned to take into account the economic activity in the various regions of the country as represented by each region's population. This demographic information represents a fair approximation of the weight of the regional economic activity. This document presents the Powernext/Meteo France partnership for the elaboration of efficient weather-related risk management indices. (J.S.)

  20. Second-order multiple-scattering theory associated with backscattering enhancement for a millimeter wavelength weather radar with a finite beam width

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kobayashi, Satoru; Tanelli, Simone; Im, Eastwood

    2005-01-01

    Effects of multiple scattering on reflectivity are studied for millimeter wavelength weather radars. A time-independent vector theory, including up to second-order scattering, is derived for a single layer of hydrometeors of a uniform density and a uniform diameter. In this theory, spherical waves with a Gaussian antenna pattern are used to calculate ladder and cross terms in the analytical scattering theory. The former terms represent the conventional multiple scattering, while the latter terms cause backscattering enhancement in both the copolarized and cross-polarized components. As the optical thickness of the hydrometeor layer increases, the differences from the conventional plane wave theory become more significant, and essentially, the reflectivity of multiple scattering depends on the ratio of mean free path to radar footprint radius. These results must be taken into account when analyzing radar reflectivity for use in remote sensing.

  1. Climate Prediction - NOAA's National Weather Service

    Science.gov (United States)

    Statistical Models... MOS Prod GFS-LAMP Prod Climate Past Weather Predictions Weather Safety Weather Radio National Weather Service on FaceBook NWS on Facebook NWS Director Home > Climate > Predictions Climate Prediction Long range forecasts across the U.S. Climate Prediction Web Sites Climate Prediction

  2. Differential rates of feldspar weathering in granitic regoliths

    Science.gov (United States)

    White, A.F.; Bullen, T.D.; Schulz, M.S.; Blum, A.E.; Huntington, T.G.; Peters, N.E.

    2001-01-01

    Differential rates of plagioclase and K-feldspar weathering commonly observed in bedrock and soil environments are examined in terms of chemical kinetic and solubility controls and hydrologic permeability. For the Panola regolith, in the Georgia Piedmont Province of southeastern United States, petrographic observations, coupled with elemental balances and 87Sr/86Sr ratios, indicate that plagioclase is being converted to kaolinite at depths > 6 m in the granitic bedrock. K-feldspar remains pristine in the bedrock but subsequently weathers to kaolinite at the overlying saprolite. In contrast, both plagioclase and K-feldspar remain stable in granitic bedrocks elsewhere in Piedmont Province, such as Davis Run, Virginia, where feldspars weather concurrently in an overlying thick saprolite sequence. Kinetic rate constants, mineral surface areas, and secondary hydraulic conductivities are fitted to feldspar losses with depth in the Panola and Davis Run regoliths using a time-depth computer spreadsheet model. The primary hydraulic conductivities, describing the rates of meteoric water penetration into the pristine granites, are assumed to be equal to the propagation rates of weathering fronts, which, based on cosmogenic isotope dating, are 7 m/106 yr for the Panola regolith and 4 m/106 yr for the Davis Run regolith. Best fits in the calculations indicate that the kinetic rate constants for plagioclase in both regoliths are factors of two to three times faster than K-feldspar, which is in agreement with experimental findings. However, the range for plagioclase and K-feldspar rates (kr = 1.5 x 10-17 to 2.8 x 10-16 mol m-2 s-1) is three to four orders of magnitude lower than for that for experimental feldspar dissolution rates and are among the slowest yet recorded for natural feldspar weathering. Such slow rates are attributed to the relatively old geomorphic ages of the Panola and Davis Run regoliths, implying that mineral surface reactivity decreases significantly with

  3. Caustic Waste-Soil Weathering Reactions and Their Impacts on Trace Contaminant Migration and Sequestration

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Dr. Jon Chorover; Dr. Karl T. Mueller; Dr. Peggy O'Day; R. Jeff Serne

    2006-01-01

    The principal goal of this project was to assess the molecular nature and stability of radionuclide immobilization during weathering reactions in bulk Hanford sediments and their high surface area clay mineral constituents

  4. Phototoxic potential of undispersed and dispersed fresh and weathered Macondo crude oils to Gulf of Mexico Marine Organisms.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Finch, Bryson E; Marzooghi, Solmaz; Di Toro, Dominic M; Stubblefield, William A

    2017-10-01

    Crude oils contain a mixture of hydrocarbons, including phototoxic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) that have the ability to absorb ultraviolet (UV) light. Absorption of UV light by PAHs can substantially increase their toxicity to marine organisms. The objective of the present study was to examine the potential for phototoxicity of fresh and naturally weathered Macondo crude oils alone and in combination with the dispersant Corexit 9500 to mysid shrimp (Americamysis bahia), inland silverside (Menidia beryllina), sheepshead minnow (Cyprinodon variegatus), and Gulf killifish (Fundulus grandis). Acute toxicity tests were conducted using combinations of natural or artificial sunlight and low-energy water-accommodated fractions (WAFs) of fresh and weathered Macondo crude oils collected from the Gulf of Mexico. Studies were also conducted to compare the phototoxicity resulting from natural and artificial sunlight. Fresh Macondo crude oil was more phototoxic than weathered crude oils, both in the presence and in the absence of UV light. Differences in toxicity between fresh and weathered crude oils were likely attributed to lighter-ringed PAHs in fresh crude oils. Phototoxic PAHs were relatively resistant to weathering compared with lighter-ringed PAHs. The addition of Corexit 9500 to crude oil increased toxicity compared with tests with crude oil alone, by increasing phototoxic PAH concentrations in WAFs. Macondo crude oils had the potential to be phototoxic to Gulf of Mexico marine organisms if specific light conditions and PAH concentrations were present during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Environ Toxicol Chem 2017;36:2640-2650. © 2017 SETAC. © 2017 SETAC.

  5. Graphical tools for TV weather presentation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Najman, M.

    2010-09-01

    Contemporary meteorology and its media presentation faces in my opinion following key tasks: - Delivering the meteorological information to the end user/spectator in understandable and modern fashion, which follows industry standard of video output (HD, 16:9) - Besides weather icons show also the outputs of numerical weather prediction models, climatological data, satellite and radar images, observed weather as actual as possible. - Does not compromise the accuracy of presented data. - Ability to prepare and adjust the weather show according to actual synoptic situtation. - Ability to refocus and completely adjust the weather show to actual extreme weather events. - Ground map resolution weather data presentation need to be at least 20 m/pixel to be able to follow the numerical weather prediction model resolution. - Ability to switch between different numerical weather prediction models each day, each show or even in the middle of one weather show. - The graphical weather software need to be flexible and fast. The graphical changes nee to be implementable and airable within minutes before the show or even live. These tasks are so demanding and the usual original approach of custom graphics could not deal with it. It was not able to change the show every day, the shows were static and identical day after day. To change the content of the weather show daily was costly and most of the time impossible with the usual approach. The development in this area is fast though and there are several different options for weather predicting organisations such as national meteorological offices and private meteorological companies to solve this problem. What are the ways to solve it? What are the limitations and advantages of contemporary graphical tools for meteorologists? All these questions will be answered.

  6. Road weather information for travelers : improving road weather messages and dissemination methods.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) Road Weather Management Program (RWMP) recently completed a study titled Human Factors Analysis of Road Weather Advisory and Control Information (Publication No. FHWAJPO- 10-053). The goal of the study was to...

  7. National Convective Weather Diagnostic

    Data.gov (United States)

    National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — Current convective hazards identified by the National Convective Weather Detection algorithm. The National Convective Weather Diagnostic (NCWD) is an automatically...

  8. Pilot's Automated Weather Support System (PAWSS) concepts demonstration project. Phase 1: Pilot's weather information requirements and implications for weather data systems design

    Science.gov (United States)

    Crabill, Norman L.; Dash, Ernie R.

    1991-01-01

    The weather information requirements for pilots and the deficiencies of the current aviation weather support system in meeting these requirements are defined. As the amount of data available to pilots increases significantly in the near future, expert system technology will be needed to assist pilots in assimilating that information. Some other desirable characteristics of an automation-assisted system for weather data acquisition, dissemination, and assimilation are also described.

  9. Ultra-Accelerated Natural Sunlight Exposure Testing Facilities

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lewandowski, Allan A.; Jorgensen, Gary J.

    2004-11-23

    A multi-faceted concentrator apparatus for providing ultra-accelerated natural sunlight exposure testing for sample materials under controlled weathering conditions comprising: facets that receive incident natural sunlight, transmits VIS/NIR and reflects UV/VIS onto a secondary reflector that delivers a uniform flux of UV/VIS onto a sample exposure plane located near a center of a facet array in a chamber that provide concurrent levels of temperature and/or relative humidity at high levels of up to 100.times. of natural sunlight that allow sample materials to be subjected to accelerated irradiance exposure factors for a significant period of time of about 3 to 10 days to provide a corresponding time of about at least a years worth representative weathering of sample materials.

  10. Cause and Properties of the Extreme Space Weather Event of 2012 July 23

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, Y. D.; Luhmann, J. G.; Kajdic, P.; Kilpua, E.; Lugaz, N.; Nitta, N.; Lavraud, B.; Bale, S. D.; Farrugia, C. J.; Galvin, A. B.

    2013-12-01

    Extreme space weather refers to extreme conditions in space driven by solar eruptions and subsequent disturbances in interplanetary space, or otherwise called solar superstorms. Understanding extreme space weather events is becoming ever more vital, as the vulnerability of our society and its technological infrastructure to space weather has increased dramatically. Instances of extreme space weather, however, are very rare by definition and therefore are difficult to study. Here we report and investigate an extreme event, which occurred on 2012 July 23 with a maximum speed of about 3050 km/s near the Sun. This event, with complete modern remote sensing and in situ observations from multiple vantage points, provides an unprecedented opportunity to study the cause and consequences of extreme space weather. It produced a superfast shock with a peak solar wind speed of 2246 km/s and a superstrong magnetic cloud with a peak magnetic field of 109 nT observed near 1 AU at STEREO A. The record solar wind speed and magnetic field would produce a record geomagnetic storm since the space era with a minimum Dst of -1200 - -600 nT, if this event hit the Earth. We demonstrate how successive coronal mass ejections (CMEs) can be enhanced into a solar superstorm as they interact en route from the Sun to 1 AU. These results not only provide a benchmark for studies of extreme space weather, but also present a new view of how an extreme space weather event can be generated from usual solar eruptions.

  11. Weathering of rock 'Ginger'

    Science.gov (United States)

    1997-01-01

    One of the more unusual rocks at the site is Ginger, located southeast of the lander. Parts of it have the reddest color of any material in view, whereas its rounded lobes are gray and relatively unweathered. These color differences are brought out in the inset, enhanced at the upper right. In the false color image at the lower right, the shape of the visible-wavelength spectrum (related to the abundance of weathered ferric iron minerals) is indicated by the hue of the rocks. Blue indicates relatively unweathered rocks. Typical soils and drift, which are heavily weathered, are shown in green and flesh tones. The very red color in the creases in the rock surface correspond to a crust of ferric minerals. The origin of the rock is uncertain; the ferric crust may have grown underneath the rock, or it may cement pebbles together into a conglomerate. Ginger will be a target of future super-resolution studies to better constrain its origin.Mars Pathfinder is the second in NASA's Discovery program of low-cost spacecraft with highly focused science goals. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, developed and manages the Mars Pathfinder mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. The Imager for Mars Pathfinder (IMP) was developed by the University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory under contract to JPL. Peter Smith is the Principal Investigator. JPL is an operating division of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).

  12. Weather forecasting based on hybrid neural model

    Science.gov (United States)

    Saba, Tanzila; Rehman, Amjad; AlGhamdi, Jarallah S.

    2017-11-01

    Making deductions and expectations about climate has been a challenge all through mankind's history. Challenges with exact meteorological directions assist to foresee and handle problems well in time. Different strategies have been investigated using various machine learning techniques in reported forecasting systems. Current research investigates climate as a major challenge for machine information mining and deduction. Accordingly, this paper presents a hybrid neural model (MLP and RBF) to enhance the accuracy of weather forecasting. Proposed hybrid model ensure precise forecasting due to the specialty of climate anticipating frameworks. The study concentrates on the data representing Saudi Arabia weather forecasting. The main input features employed to train individual and hybrid neural networks that include average dew point, minimum temperature, maximum temperature, mean temperature, average relative moistness, precipitation, normal wind speed, high wind speed and average cloudiness. The output layer composed of two neurons to represent rainy and dry weathers. Moreover, trial and error approach is adopted to select an appropriate number of inputs to the hybrid neural network. Correlation coefficient, RMSE and scatter index are the standard yard sticks adopted for forecast accuracy measurement. On individual standing MLP forecasting results are better than RBF, however, the proposed simplified hybrid neural model comes out with better forecasting accuracy as compared to both individual networks. Additionally, results are better than reported in the state of art, using a simple neural structure that reduces training time and complexity.

  13. Weather forecast

    CERN Document Server

    Courtier, P

    1994-02-07

    Weather prediction is performed using the numerical model of the atmosphere evolution.The evolution equations are derived from the Navier Stokes equation for the adiabatic part but the are very much complicated by the change of phase of water, the radiation porocess and the boundary layer.The technique used operationally is described. Weather prediction is an initial value problem and accurate initial conditions need to be specified. Due to the small number of observations available (105 ) as compared to the dimension of the model state variable (107),the problem is largely underdetermined. Techniques of optimal control and inverse problems are used and have been adapted to the large dimension of our problem. our problem.The at mosphere is a chaotic system; the implication for weather prediction is discussed. Ensemble prediction is used operationally and the technique for generating initial conditions which lead to a numerical divergence of the subsequent forecasts is described.

  14. Natural Aphrodisiacs-A Review of Selected Sexual Enhancers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    West, Elizabeth; Krychman, Michael

    2015-10-01

    The Food and Drug Administration defines an aphrodisiac drug product as "any product that bears labeling claims that it will arouse or increase sexual desire, or that it will improve sexual performance." Presently, there are no approved medications for the treatment of lowered desire for women, and many opt for "natural" products. The aim of this article was to review the most popular and currently used aphrodisiac products marketed in the United States. The safety and efficacy of animal- and plant-based aphrodisiacs, vitamins and minerals, and popular over-the-counter combination supplements have been reviewed. An English PubMed literature search was performed using the key words "sexuality," "sex," "aphrodisiac," and "sexual enhancer." Approximately 50 articles were reviewed by the authors. The authors used relevant case series, case-controlled, and randomized clinical trial data. Products were evaluated based on the quality of research, and their known efficacy and safety considerations. Products with low risk and potential benefit for sexual response based on prior research studies were highlighted. Research has demonstrated that the risks of yohimbine, Spanish fly, mad honey, and Bufo toad may outweigh any benefit, and these products should be avoided. Other products, such as Maca, Tribulus, Ginkgo, and ginseng, have limited but emerging data. Randomized clinical trial data are often lacking, but future research should be performed to further elucidate the efficacy and safety of these products. Future randomized clinical trials are warranted before health care practitioners can recommend most aphrodisiac products. There remain some medical concerns with drug interactions, purity, reliability, and safety. West E and Krychman M. Natural aphrodisiacs-A review of selected sexual enhancers.. Copyright © 2015 International Society for Sexual Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  15. Surface Weather Observations Hourly

    Data.gov (United States)

    National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — Standard hourly observations taken at Weather Bureau/National Weather Service offices and airports throughout the United States. Hourly observations began during the...

  16. Land Surface Weather Observations

    Data.gov (United States)

    National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — METAR is the international standard code format for hourly surface weather observations. The acronym roughly translates from French as Aviation Routine Weather...

  17. Impact of extreme weather events and climate change for health and social care systems.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Curtis, Sarah; Fair, Alistair; Wistow, Jonathan; Val, Dimitri V; Oven, Katie

    2017-12-05

    This review, commissioned by the Research Councils UK Living With Environmental Change (LWEC) programme, concerns research on the impacts on health and social care systems in the United Kingdom of extreme weather events, under conditions of climate change. Extreme weather events considered include heatwaves, coldwaves and flooding. Using a structured review method, we consider evidence regarding the currently observed and anticipated future impacts of extreme weather on health and social care systems and the potential of preparedness and adaptation measures that may enhance resilience. We highlight a number of general conclusions which are likely to be of international relevance, although the review focussed on the situation in the UK. Extreme weather events impact the operation of health services through the effects on built, social and institutional infrastructures which support health and health care, and also because of changes in service demand as extreme weather impacts on human health. Strategic planning for extreme weather and impacts on the care system should be sensitive to within country variations. Adaptation will require changes to built infrastructure systems (including transport and utilities as well as individual care facilities) and also to institutional and social infrastructure supporting the health care system. Care sector organisations, communities and individuals need to adapt their practices to improve resilience of health and health care to extreme weather. Preparedness and emergency response strategies call for action extending beyond the emergency response services, to include health and social care providers more generally.

  18. Evaluation of Enhanced High Resolution MODIS/AMSR-E SSTs and the Impact on Regional Weather Forecast

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schiferl, Luke D.; Fuell, Kevin K.; Case, Jonathan L.; Jedlovec, Gary J.

    2010-01-01

    Over the last few years, the NASA Short-term Prediction Research and Transition (SPoRT) Center has been generating a 1-km sea surface temperature (SST) composite derived from retrievals of the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) for use in operational diagnostics and regional model initialization. With the assumption that the day-to-day variation in the SST is nominal, individual MODIS passes aboard the Earth Observing System (EOS) Aqua and Terra satellites are used to create and update four composite SST products each day at 0400, 0700, 1600, and 1900 UTC, valid over the western Atlantic and Caribbean waters. A six month study from February to August 2007 over the marine areas surrounding southern Florida was conducted to compare the use of the MODIS SST composite versus the Real-Time Global SST analysis to initialize the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. Substantial changes in the forecast heat fluxes were seen at times in the marine boundary layer, but relatively little overall improvement was measured in the sensible weather elements. The limited improvement in the WRF model forecasts could be attributed to the diurnal changes in SST seen in the MODIS SST composites but not accounted for by the model. Furthermore, cloud contamination caused extended periods when individual passes of MODIS were unable to update the SSTs, leading to substantial SST latency and a cool bias during the early summer months. In order to alleviate the latency problems, the SPoRT Center recently enhanced its MODIS SST composite by incorporating information from the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer-EOS (AMSR-E) instruments as well as the Operational Sea Surface Temperature and Sea Ice Analysis. These enhancements substantially decreased the latency due to cloud cover and improved the bias and correlation of the composites at available marine point observations. While these enhancements improved upon the modeled cold bias using the original MODIS SSTs

  19. Paper birch decline in the Niobrara River Valley, Nebraska: Weather, microclimate, and birch stand conditions

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stroh, Esther D.; Miller, Joel P.

    2009-01-01

    The Niobrara River Valley in north-central Nebraska supports scattered stands of paper birch (Betula papyrifera Marsh), a species more typical of boreal forests. These birch stands are considered to be relictual populations that have persisted since the end of the Wisconsin glaciation, when regional flora was more boreal in nature (Wright 1970, Kaul and others, 1988). Dieback of canopy-sized birch has been observed throughout the Niobrara Valley in recent years, although no onset dates are documented. The current dieback event probably started around or after the early 1980’s. The study objectives were to understand microclimatic conditions in birch stands relative to nearby weather stations and historic weather conditions, and to assess current health conditions of individual birch trees. Temperature was measured every half-hour from June 2005 through October 2007 in 12 birch stands and individual birch tree health was measured as expressed by percent living canopy in these and 13 additional stands in spring 2006 and 2007. Birch site microclimate was compared to data from a National Weather Service station in Valentine, Nebraska, and to an automated weather station at The Nature Conservancy Niobrara Valley Preserve 24 kilometers north of Johnstown, Nebraska. Historic weather data from the Valentine station and another National Weather Service Station at Ainsworth, Nebraska, were used to reconstruct minimum and maximum temperature at The Nature Conservancy and one microclimate monitoring station using Kalman filtering and smoothing algorithms. Birch stand microclimate differed from local weather stations as well as among stands. Birch health was associated with annual minimum temperature regimes; those stands whose annual daily minimum temperature regimes were most like The Nature Conservancy station contained smaller proportions of living trees. Frequency of freeze/thaw conditions capable of inducing rootlet injury and subsequent crown dieback significantly have

  20. TECHNOLOGIES TO ENHANCE THE OPERATION OF EXISTING NATURAL GAS COMPRESSION INFRASTRUCTURE

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Anthony J. Smalley; Ralph E. Harris; Gary D. Bourn; Danny M. Deffenbaugh

    2005-10-27

    This quarterly report documents work performed under Tasks 15, 16, and 18 through 23 of the project entitled: ''Technologies to Enhance the Operation of Existing Natural Gas Compression Infrastructure''. The project objective is to develop and substantiate methods for operating integral engine/compressors in gas pipeline service, which reduce fuel consumption, increase capacity, and enhance mechanical integrity. The report first summarizes key results from survey site tests performed on an HBA-6 installed at Duke Energy's Bedford compressor station, and on a TCVC10 engine/compressor installed at Dominion's Groveport Compressor Station. The report then presents results of design analysis performed on the Bedford HBA-6 to develop options and guide decisions for reducing pulsations and enhancing compressor system efficiency and capacity. The report further presents progress on modifying and testing the laboratory GMVH6 at SwRI for correcting air imbalance.

  1. Sun, weather, and climate

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Herman, J.R.; Goldberg, R.A.

    1985-01-01

    The general field of sun-weather/climate relationships that is, apparent weather and climate responses to solar activity is introduced and theoretical and experimental suggestions for further research to identify and investigate the unknown casual mechanisms are provided. Topics of discussion include: (1) solar-related correlation factors and energy sources; (2) long-term climate trends; (3) short-term meteorological correlations; (4) miscellaneous obscuring influences; (5) physical processes and mechanisms; (6) recapitulation of sun-weather relationships; and (7) guidelines for experiments. 300 references

  2. "Share weather" : Design and evaluation of a new concept for sharing weather information

    OpenAIRE

    Elevant, Katarina

    2013-01-01

    Already centuries ago, humans had observed the weather in their everyday lives, seeking ways to understand, comprehend, and predict it. Until the present day, weather has had tremendous impacts on our lives and with climate change human civilizations as well. With new media technologies weather constitutes a part of the information services used by many residents of modern cities, people and businesses worldwide. The rise of Web 2.0, a cyberspace where individuals may connect and interact und...

  3. Space Weather in Operation

    Data.gov (United States)

    National Aeronautics and Space Administration — The “Space Weather in Operations” effort will provide on-demand and near-real time space weather event information to the Data Access Toolkit (DAT), which is the...

  4. Weather Augmented Risk Determination (WARD) System

    Science.gov (United States)

    Niknejad, M.; Mazdiyasni, O.; Momtaz, F.; AghaKouchak, A.

    2017-12-01

    Extreme climatic events have direct and indirect impacts on society, economy and the environment. Based on the United States Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) data, over one third of the U.S. GDP can be considered as weather-sensitive involving some degree of weather risk. This expands from a local scale concrete foundation construction to large scale transportation systems. Extreme and unexpected weather conditions have always been considered as one of the probable risks to human health, productivity and activities. The construction industry is a large sector of the economy, and is also greatly influenced by weather-related risks including work stoppage and low labor productivity. Identification and quantification of these risks, and providing mitigation of their effects are always the concerns of construction project managers. In addition to severe weather conditions' destructive effects, seasonal changes in weather conditions can also have negative impacts on human health. Work stoppage and reduced labor productivity can be caused by precipitation, wind, temperature, relative humidity and other weather conditions. Historical and project-specific weather information can improve better project management and mitigation planning, and ultimately reduce the risk of weather-related conditions. This paper proposes new software for project-specific user-defined data analysis that offers (a) probability of work stoppage and the estimated project length considering weather conditions; (b) information on reduced labor productivity and its impacts on project duration; and (c) probabilistic information on the project timeline based on both weather-related work stoppage and labor productivity. The software (WARD System) is designed such that it can be integrated into the already available project management tools. While the system and presented application focuses on the construction industry, the developed software is general and can be used for any application that involves

  5. Metaevaluation of National Weatherization Assistance Program Based on State Studies, 1993-2002

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Berry, L

    2003-04-02

    The National Weatherization Assistance Program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and implemented by state and local agencies throughout the United States, weatherizes homes for low-income residents in order to increase their energy efficiency and lower utility bills. Research staff members at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) have performed two previous metaevaluations of this program (Berry, 1997; Schweitzer and Berry, 1999). Both of these earlier metaevaluations involved synthesizing the results from individual studies of state weatherization efforts completed during a several year period. This report is the third in a series of metaevaluations of state-level studies. It is built on the foundation developed by the previous two metaevaluations. The purpose of this report, like that of the two earlier ORNL metaevaluations, is to provide a current estimate of the average national energy savings per home weatherized for the Weatherization Assistance Program based on the relevant state-level studies. All three of the metaevaluations, including this one, were designed to be updates to the findings of a national evaluation of the Weatherization Assistance Program, which examined a representative national sample of several thousand structures weatherized in 1989 (Brown, Berry, Balzer, and Faby 1993). Although the first and second metaevaluations used separate sets of state-level studies, completed during different time periods, there was little difference in their findings about the typical national energy savings per weatherized home for homes that heat with natural gas. Our initial analysis efforts for this report involved repeating the same procedures that had been used in the previous two reports. In particular, we collected and examined only the state-level evaluations that had become available between September of 1998 and August of 2002. Once again, we found little difference in the average energy savings estimates per weatherized home that were

  6. Visualizing Space Weather: The Planeterrella Auroral Simulator as a Heliophysics Public Outreach Tool

    Science.gov (United States)

    Masongsong, E. V.; Lilensten, J.; Booth, M. J.; Suri, G.; Heflinger, T. G.; Angelopoulos, V.

    2014-12-01

    The NASA THEMIS and ARTEMIS satellite missions study "space weather," which describes the solar wind influence on Earth's protective magnetic shield, the magnetosphere. Space weather is important to study and predict because it can damage critical GPS and communications satellites, harm space travelers, and even disable our global electrical grid. The Planeterrella is an innovative heliophysics outreach demonstration, expanding public awareness of space weather by visualizing the sun-Earth connection up close and in-person. Using a glass vacuum chamber, two magnetized spheres and a 1kV power supply, the device can simulate plasma configurations of the solar corona, solar wind, Van Allen radiation belts, and auroral ovals, all of which are observable only by satellites. This "aurora in a bottle" is a modernized version of the original Terrella built by Kristian Birkeland in the 1890s to show that the aurora are electrical in nature. Adapted from plans by Lilensten et al. at CNRS-IPAG, the UCLA Planeterrella was completed in Nov. 2013, the second device of its kind in the U.S., and the centerpiece of the THEMIS/ARTEMIS mobile public outreach exhibit. In combination with captivating posters, 3D magnetic field models, dazzling aurora videos and magnetosphere animations, the Planeterrella has already introduced over 1200 people to the electrical link between our sun and the planets. Most visitors had seen solar flare images in the news, however the Planeterrella experience enhanced their appreciation of the dynamic solar wind and its effects on Earth's invisible magnetic field. Most importantly, visitors young and old realized that magnets are not just cool toys or only for powering hybrid car motors and MRIs, they are a fundamental aspect of ongoing life on Earth and are key to the formation and evolution of planets, moons, and stars, extending far beyond our galaxy to other planetary systems throughout the universe. Novel visualizations such as the Planeterrella can

  7. Ultra-accelerated natural sunlight exposure testing

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jorgensen, Gary J.; Bingham, Carl; Goggin, Rita; Lewandowski, Allan A.; Netter, Judy C.

    2000-06-13

    Process and apparatus for providing ultra accelerated natural sunlight exposure testing of samples under controlled weathering without introducing unrealistic failure mechanisms in exposed materials and without breaking reciprocity relationships between flux exposure levels and cumulative dose that includes multiple concurrent levels of temperature and relative humidity at high levels of natural sunlight comprising: a) concentrating solar flux uniformly; b) directing the controlled uniform sunlight onto sample materials in a chamber enclosing multiple concurrent levels of temperature and relative humidity to allow the sample materials to be subjected to accelerated irradiance exposure factors for a sufficient period of time in days to provide a corresponding time of about at least a years worth of representative weathering of the sample materials.

  8. Global warming and ocean acidification through halted weathering feedback during the Middle Eocene Climatic Optimum

    Science.gov (United States)

    van der Ploeg, R.; Selby, D. S.; Cramwinckel, M.; Bohaty, S. M.; Sluijs, A.; Middelburg, J. J.

    2016-12-01

    The Middle Eocene Climatic Optimum (MECO) represents a 500 kyr period of global warming 40 million years ago associated with a rise in atmospheric CO2 concentrations, but its cause remains enigmatic. Moreover, on the timescale of the MECO, an increase in silicate weathering rates on the continents is expected to balance carbon input and restore the alkalinity of the oceans, but this is in sharp disagreement with observations of extensive carbonate dissolution. Here we show, based on osmium isotope ratios of marine sediments from three different sites, that CO2 rise and warming did not lead to enhanced continental weathering during the MECO, in contrast to expectations from carbon cycle theory. Remarkably, a minor shift to lower, more unradiogenic osmium isotope ratios rather indicates an episode of increased volcanism or reduced continental weathering. This disproves silicate weathering as a geologically constant feedback to CO2 variations. Rather, we suggest that global Early and Middle Eocene warmth diminished the weatherability of continental rocks, ultimately leading to CO2 accumulation during the MECO, and show the plausibility of this scenario using carbon cycle modeling simulations. We surmise a dynamic weathering feedback might explain multiple enigmatic phases of coupled climate and carbon cycle change in the Cretaceous and Cenozoic.

  9. Effects on non-human species inhabiting areas with enhanced level of natural radioactivity in the north of Russia: a review

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Geras' kin, Stanislav A. [Russian Institute of Agricultural Radiology and Agroecology RAAS, 249020 Obninsk, Kaluga region (Russian Federation)]. E-mail: stgeraskin@gmail.com; Evseeva, Tatiana I. [Institute of Biology, Komi Scientific Center, Ural Division RAS, Kommunisticheskaya 28, 167982 Syktyvkar (Russian Federation); Belykh, Elena S. [Institute of Biology, Komi Scientific Center, Ural Division RAS, Kommunisticheskaya 28, 167982 Syktyvkar (Russian Federation); Majstrenko, Tatiana A. [Institute of Biology, Komi Scientific Center, Ural Division RAS, Kommunisticheskaya 28, 167982 Syktyvkar (Russian Federation); Michalik, Boguslaw [Central Mining Institute, Pl. Gwarkow 1, 40-166 Katowice (Poland); Taskaev, Anatoliy I. [Institute of Biology, Komi Scientific Center, Ural Division RAS, Kommunisticheskaya 28, 167982 Syktyvkar (Russian Federation)

    2007-05-15

    Results of long-term radioecological investigations in areas with an enhanced level of natural radioactivity in the north of Russia are summarized. Deleterious changes within animal and plant populations inhabiting areas with an enhanced level of natural radioactivity in the Komi Republic were revealed. These changes are expressed in enhanced levels of mutagenesis, destructive processes in the tissues of animals, disturbances of reproductive functions and reduced offspring viability. Compensatory processes, resulting in animal and plant survival under extremely adverse conditions of radium and uranium-radium contamination, were observed as well. However, obvious signs of adaptation failed to be detected. The findings suggest that adverse somatic and genetic effects are possible in plants and animals in the dose range observed at sites with an enhanced level of natural radioactivity. In contrast, different plant species inhabiting an area with an enhanced level of natural radioactivity in the taiga zone of the Sakha Republic (Yakutia) reveal a stimulation of growth processes, photosynthesis, endogenous low molecular weight antioxidant synthesis as well as adaptive response. It is apparent from the data presented that naturally occurring differences in terrestrial radiation level could be of genetic and ecological consequence.

  10. Oxalate secretion by ectomycorrhizal Paxillus involutus is mineral-specific and controls calcium weathering from minerals

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schmalenberger, A.; Duran, A. L.; Bray, A. W.; Bridge, J.; Bonneville, S.; Benning, L. G.; Romero-Gonzalez, M. E.; Leake, J. R.; Banwart, S. A.

    2015-01-01

    Trees and their associated rhizosphere organisms play a major role in mineral weathering driving calcium fluxes from the continents to the oceans that ultimately control long-term atmospheric CO2 and climate through the geochemical carbon cycle. Photosynthate allocation to tree roots and their mycorrhizal fungi is hypothesized to fuel the active secretion of protons and organic chelators that enhance calcium dissolution at fungal-mineral interfaces. This was tested using 14CO2 supplied to shoots of Pinus sylvestris ectomycorrhizal with the widespread fungus Paxillus involutus in monoxenic microcosms, revealing preferential allocation by the fungus of plant photoassimilate to weather grains of limestone and silicates each with a combined calcium and magnesium content of over 10 wt.%. Hyphae had acidic surfaces and linear accumulation of weathered calcium with secreted oxalate, increasing significantly in sequence: quartz, granite mineral-specific oxalate exudation in ectomycorrhizal weathering to dissolve calcium bearing minerals, thus contributing to the geochemical carbon cycle. PMID:26197714

  11. Weather conditions associated with autumn migration by mule deer in Wyoming

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chadwick D. Rittenhouse

    2015-06-01

    Full Text Available Maintaining ecological integrity necessitates a proactive approach of identifying and acquiring lands to conserve unfragmented landscapes, as well as evaluating existing mitigation strategies to increase connectivity in fragmented landscapes. The increased use of highway underpasses and overpasses to restore connectivity for wildlife species offers clear conservation benefits, yet also presents a unique opportunity to understand how weather conditions may impact movement of wildlife species. We used remote camera observations (19,480 from an existing wildlife highway underpass in Wyoming and daily meteorological observations to quantify weather conditions associated with autumn migration of mule deer in 2009 and 2010. We identified minimal daily temperature and snow depth as proximate cues associated with mule deer migration to winter range. These weather cues were consistent across does and bucks, but differed slightly by year. Additionally, extreme early season snow depth or cold temperature events appear to be associated with onset of migration. This information will assist wildlife managers and transportation officials as they plan future projects to maintain and enhance migration routes for mule deer.

  12. Decision Making and Risk Evaluation Frameworks for Extreme Space Weather Events

    Science.gov (United States)

    Uritskaya, O.; Robinson, R. M.; Pulkkinen, A. A.

    2017-12-01

    Extreme Space Weather events (ESWE) are in the spotlight nowadays because they can produce a significant impact not only due to their intensity and broad geographical scope, but also because of the widespread levels and the multiple sectors of the economy that could be involved. In the task of evaluation of the ESWE consequences, the most problematic and vulnerable aspect is the determination and calculation of the probability of statistically infrequent events and the subsequent assessment of the economic risks. In this work, we conduct a detailed analysis of the available frameworks of the general Decision-Making Theory in the presence of uncertainty, in the context of their applicability for the numerical estimation of the risks and losses associated with ESWE. The results of our study demonstrate that, unlike the Multiple-criteria decision analysis or Minimax approach to modeling of the possible scenarios for the ESWE effects, which prevail in the literature, the most suitable concept is the Games Against Nature (GAN). It enables an evaluation of every economically relevant aspect of space weather conditions and obtain more detailed results. Choosing the appropriate methods for solving GAN models, i.e. determining the most optimal strategy with a given level of uncertainty, requires estimating the conditional probabilities of Space Weather events for each outcome of possible scenarios of this natural disaster. Due to the specifics of complex natural and economic systems, with which we are dealing in this case, this problem remains unsolved, mainly because of inevitable loss of information at every stage of the decision-making process. The analysis is illustrated by deregulated electricity markets of the USA and Canada, whose power grid systems are known to be perceptive to ESWE. The GAN model is more appropriate in identifying potential risks in economic systems. The proposed approach, when applied to the existing database of Space Weather observations and

  13. Taking Weatherization to New Heights in Colorado: Weatherization Assistance Close-Up Fact Sheet

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    2001-01-01

    Colorado demonstrates its commitment to technology and efficiency through the Weatherization Program. Weatherization uses advanced technologies and techniques to reduce energy costs for low-income families by increasing the energy efficiency of their homes

  14. Weatherization Sails on Maryland's Legacy of Innovation: Weatherization Assistance Close-Up Fact Sheet

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    2001-01-01

    Maryland demonstrates its commitment to technology and efficiency through the Weatherization Program. Weatherization uses advanced technologies and techniques to reduce energy costs for low-income families by increasing the energy efficiency of their homes

  15. Weatherization Plays a Starring Role in Mississippi: Weatherization Assistance Close-Up Fact Sheet

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    D& R International

    2001-10-10

    Mississippi demonstrates its commitment to technology and efficiency through the Weatherization Program. Weatherization uses advanced technologies and techniques to reduce energy costs for low-income families by increasing the energy efficiency of their homes.

  16. The new Athens Center applied to Space Weather Forecasting

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Mavromichalaki, H.; Sarlanis, C.; Souvatzoglou, G.; Mariatos, G.; Gerontidou, M.; Plainaki, C.; Papaioannou, A.; Tatsis, S.; Belov, A.; Eroshenko, E.; Yanke, V.

    2006-01-01

    The Sun provides most of the initial energy driving space weather and modulates the energy input from sources outside the solar system, but this energy undergoes many transformations within the various components of the solar-terrestrial system, which is comprised of the solar wind, magnetosphere and radiation belts, the ionosphere, and the upper and lower atmospheres of Earth. This is the reason why an Earth's based neutron monitor network can be used in order to produce a real time forecasting of space weather phenomena.Since 2004 a fully functioned new data analysis Center in real-time is in operation in Neutron Monitor Station of Athens University (ANMODAP Center) suitable for research applications. It provides a multi sided use of twenty three neutron monitor stations distributing in all world and operating in real-time given crucial information on space weather phenomena. In particular, the ANMODAP Center can give a preliminary alert of ground level enhancements (GLEs) of solar cosmic rays which can be registered around 20 to 30 minutes before the main part of lower energy particles. Therefore these energetic solar cosmic rays provide the advantage of forth warning. Moreover, the monitoring of the precursors of cosmic rays gives a forehand estimate on that kind of events should be expected (geomagnetic storms and/or Forbush decreases)

  17. Impact of bacterial and fungal processes on 14C-hexadecane mineralisation in weathered hydrocarbon contaminated soil

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Adetutu, Eric M.; Ball, Andy S.; Weber, John; Aleer, Samuel; Dandie, Catherine E.; Juhasz, Albert L.

    2012-01-01

    In this study, the impact of bacterial and fungal processes on 14 C-hexadecane mineralisation was investigated in weathered hydrocarbon contaminated soil. The extent of 14 C-hexadecane mineralisation varied depending on the bioremediation strategy employed. Under enhanced natural attenuation conditions, 14 C-hexadecane mineralisation after 98 days was 8.5 ± 3.7% compared to 14 C-hexadecane mineralisation was further enhanced through Tween 80 amendments (28.9 ± 2.4%) which also promoted the growth of a Phanerochaete chyrsosporium fungal mat. Although fungal growth in weathered hydrocarbon contaminated soil could be promoted through supplementing additional carbon sources (Tween 80, sawdust, compost, pea straw), fungal 14 C-hexadecane mineralisation was negligible when sodium azide was added to soil microcosms to inhibit bacterial activity. In contrast, when fungal activity was inhibited through nystatin additions, 14 C-hexadecane mineralisation ranged from 6.5 ± 0.2 to 35.8 ± 3.8% after 98 days depending on the supplied amendment. Bacteria inhibition with sodium azide resulted in a reduction in bacterial diversity (33–37%) compared to microcosms supplemented with nystatin or microcosms without inhibitory supplements. However, alkB bacterial groups were undetected in sodium azide supplemented microcosms, highlighting the important role of this bacterial group in 14 C-hexadecane mineralisation. - Highlights: ► The roles of different microbial groups in hydrocarbon mineralisation was assessed. ► Inhibiting fungal growth did not affect 14 C-hexadecane mineralisation. ► Inhibiting bacterial growth resulted in negligible 14 C-hexadecane mineralisation. ► alkB bacterial groups were undetected in sodium azide supplemented microcosms. ► The importance of alkB groups in 14 C-hexadecane mineralisation was highlighted.

  18. Weatherization Savings Takes Root in New Mexico: Weatherization Assistance Close-Up Fact Sheet

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    2001-01-01

    New Mexico demonstrates its commitment to technology and efficiency through the Weatherization Program. Weatherization uses advanced technologies and techniques to reduce energy costs for low-income families by increasing the energy efficiency of their homes

  19. Acute and subchronic toxicity of naturally weathered Exxon Valdez crude oil in mallards and ferrets

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Stubblefield, W.A.; Hancock, G.A.; Ford, W.H.; Ringer, R.K.

    1995-01-01

    The toxic properties of naturally weathered Exxon Valdez crude oil (WEVC) were assessed in a battery of acute and subchronic toxicity tests using mallards, Anas platyrhynchos, and European ferrets, Mustela putorius. Adult mallard acute oral toxicity study results indicated no mortalities or signs o toxicity, i.e., no-observed-adverse-effect level (NOAEL) and median lethal dose (LD50) > 5,000 mg/kg. Acute oral feeding and food avoidance tests with ducklings also indicated no toxicity (NOAEL and LC50 > 50,000 mg/kg diet) with no evidence of food avoidance (FAC50 > 20,000 mg/kg diet). No mortalities or toxic signs were noted in a 14-d feeding study with adult birds at dietary concentrations up to 100,000 mg WEVC/kg diet. Among clinical and physiological end points evaluated, the only significant difference noted was an increase in liver: body weight ratios in the 100,000-mg WEVC/kg diet dose group. No differences in clinical chemistry or hematological parameters were noted, and there were no consistent differences in histological evaluations of organ tissues. Daily oral doses of up to 5,000 mg/kg of WEVC over 5 d resulted in minimal effects on ferrets. Increased serum albumin concentrations were observed in the 5,000-mg/kg dose group females and decreased spleen weights were noted in females of all WEVC treatment groups. No other significant observations were noted

  20. AWE: Aviation Weather Data Visualization Environment

    Science.gov (United States)

    Spirkovska, Lilly; Lodha, Suresh K.; Norvig, Peter (Technical Monitor)

    2000-01-01

    Weather is one of the major causes of aviation accidents. General aviation (GA) flights account for 92% of all the aviation accidents, In spite of all the official and unofficial sources of weather visualization tools available to pilots, there is an urgent need for visualizing several weather related data tailored for general aviation pilots. Our system, Aviation Weather Data Visualization Environment AWE), presents graphical displays of meteorological observations, terminal area forecasts, and winds aloft forecasts onto a cartographic grid specific to the pilot's area of interest. Decisions regarding the graphical display and design are made based on careful consideration of user needs. Integral visual display of these elements of weather reports is designed for the use of GA pilots as a weather briefing and route selection tool. AWE provides linking of the weather information to the flight's path and schedule. The pilot can interact with the system to obtain aviation-specific weather for the entire area or for his specific route to explore what-if scenarios and make "go/no-go" decisions. The system, as evaluated by some pilots at NASA Ames Research Center, was found to be useful.

  1. Managing extreme natural disasters in coastal areas

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kesavan, P. C.; Swaminathan, M. S.

    2006-08-01

    Extreme natural hazards, particularly the hydro-meteorological disasters, are emerging as a cause of major concern in the coastal regions of India and a few other developing countries. These have become more frequent in the recent past, and are taking a heavy toll of life and livelihoods. Low level of technology development in the rural areas together with social, economic and gender inequities enhance the vulnerability of the largely illiterate, unskilled, and resource-poor fishing, farming and landless labour communities. Their resilience to bounce back to pre-disaster level of normality is highly limited. For the planet Earth at crossroads, the imminent threat, however, is from a vicious spiral among environmental degradation, poverty and climate change-related natural disasters interacting in a mutually reinforcing manner. These, in turn, retard sustainable development, and also wipe out any small gains made thereof. To counter this unacceptable trend, the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation has developed a biovillage paradigm and rural knowledge centres for ecotechnological and knowledge empowerment of the coastal communities at risk. Frontier science and technologies blended with traditional knowledge and ecological prudence result in ecotechnologies with pro-nature, pro-poor and pro-women orientation. The rural communities are given training and helped to develop capacity to adopt ecotechnologies for market-driven eco-enterprises. The modern information and communication-based rural knowledge centres largely operated by trained semi-literate young women provide time- and locale-specific information on weather, crop and animal husbandry, market trends and prices for local communities, healthcare, transport, education, etc. to the local communities. The ecotechnologies and time- and locale-specific information content development are need-based and chosen in a ‘bottom-up’ manner. The use of recombinant DNA technology for genetic shielding of agricultural

  2. Natural and archaeological analogues: a review

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Brookins, D.G.

    1987-01-01

    In this chapter natural analogues in the geomedia for various aspects of radioactive waste disposal are discussed. Particular reference is made to the Okla Natural Reactor in Gabon. Igneous contact zones are discussed and natural analogues of waste-form materials. The importance of archaeological remains and anthropogenic materials left by man, in assessing weathering conditions and serving as radioactive waste analogues, is also emphasised. (UK)

  3. Weatherization and Intergovernmental Program - Weatherization Assistance Program

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    None

    2010-06-01

    The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Weatherization Assistance Program reduces energy costs for low-income households by increasing the energy efficiency of their homes, while ensuring their health and safety.

  4. Using AIRS retrievals in the WRF-LETKF system to improve regional numerical weather prediction

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Takemasa Miyoshi

    2012-09-01

    Full Text Available In addition to conventional observations, atmospheric temperature and humidity profile data from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS Version 5 retrieval products are assimilated into the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF model, using the local ensemble transform Kalman filter (LETKF. Although a naive assimilation of all available quality-controlled AIRS retrieval data yields an inferior analysis, the additional enhancements of adaptive inflation and horizontal data thinning result in a general improvement of numerical weather prediction skill due to AIRS data. In particular, the adaptive inflation method is enhanced so that it no longer assumes temporal homogeneity of the observing network and allows for a better treatment of the temporally inhomogeneous AIRS data. Results indicate that the improvements due to AIRS data are more significant in longer-lead forecasts. Forecasts of Typhoons Sinlaku and Jangmi in September 2008 show improvements due to AIRS data.

  5. Verification of Space Weather Forecasts using Terrestrial Weather Approaches

    Science.gov (United States)

    Henley, E.; Murray, S.; Pope, E.; Stephenson, D.; Sharpe, M.; Bingham, S.; Jackson, D.

    2015-12-01

    The Met Office Space Weather Operations Centre (MOSWOC) provides a range of 24/7 operational space weather forecasts, alerts, and warnings, which provide valuable information on space weather that can degrade electricity grids, radio communications, and satellite electronics. Forecasts issued include arrival times of coronal mass ejections (CMEs), and probabilistic forecasts for flares, geomagnetic storm indices, and energetic particle fluxes and fluences. These forecasts are produced twice daily using a combination of output from models such as Enlil, near-real-time observations, and forecaster experience. Verification of forecasts is crucial for users, researchers, and forecasters to understand the strengths and limitations of forecasters, and to assess forecaster added value. To this end, the Met Office (in collaboration with Exeter University) has been adapting verification techniques from terrestrial weather, and has been working closely with the International Space Environment Service (ISES) to standardise verification procedures. We will present the results of part of this work, analysing forecast and observed CME arrival times, assessing skill using 2x2 contingency tables. These MOSWOC forecasts can be objectively compared to those produced by the NASA Community Coordinated Modelling Center - a useful benchmark. This approach cannot be taken for the other forecasts, as they are probabilistic and categorical (e.g., geomagnetic storm forecasts give probabilities of exceeding levels from minor to extreme). We will present appropriate verification techniques being developed to address these forecasts, such as rank probability skill score, and comparing forecasts against climatology and persistence benchmarks. As part of this, we will outline the use of discrete time Markov chains to assess and improve the performance of our geomagnetic storm forecasts. We will also discuss work to adapt a terrestrial verification visualisation system to space weather, to help

  6. Evaluation of the US Department of Energy Weatherization Innovation Pilot Program (2010-2014)

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Tonn, Bruce Edward [Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States); Rose, Erin M. [Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States); Hawkins, Beth A. [Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)

    2017-05-01

    This report contains results from analysis conducted on each of the Weatherization Innovation Pilot Program (WIPP) grants awarded to 16 organizations by the US Department of Energy (DOE) in 2010. The purpose of WIPP was to explore the potential adoptability or replicability of innovative processes or technologies for the enhancement of DOE’s Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP). DOE initiated the WIPP grant to accelerate effective innovations in home energy efficiency and other WAP mission-related goals for income-qualifying households of low socioeconomic status. This study was performed alongside a broader, national evaluation of WAP conducted by Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) for DOE.

  7. Copper leaching of MSWI bottom ash co-disposed with refuse: effect of short-term accelerated weathering.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Su, Lianghu; Guo, Guangzhai; Shi, Xinlong; Zuo, Minyu; Niu, Dongjie; Zhao, Aihua; Zhao, Youcai

    2013-06-01

    Co-disposal of refuse with municipal solid waste incinerator (MSWI) bottom ash (IBA) either multi-layered as landfill cover or mixed with refuse could pose additional risk to the environment because of enhanced leaching of heavy metals, especially Cu. This study applied short-term accelerated weathering to IBA, and monitored the mineralogical and chemical properties of IBA during the weathering process. Cu extractability of the weathered IBA was then evaluated using standard leaching protocols (i.e. SPLP and TCLP) and co-disposal leaching procedure. The results showed that weathering had little or no beneficial effect on Cu leaching in SPLP and TCLP, which can be explained by the adsorption and complexation of Cu with DOM. However, the Cu leaching of weathered IBA was reduced significantly when situated in fresh simulated landfill leachate. This was attributed to weakening Cu complexation with fulvic acid or hydrophilic fractions and/or intensifying Cu absorption to neoformed hydr(oxide) minerals in weathered IBA. The amount of total leaching Cu and Cu in free or labile complex fraction (the fraction with the highest mobility and bio-toxicity) of the 408-h weathered IBA were remarkably decreased by 86.3% and 97.6% in the 15-day co-disposal leaching test. Accelerated weathering of IBA may be an effective pretreatment method to decrease Cu leaching prior to its co-disposal with refuse. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  8. Insurance against weather risk : use of heating degree-days from non-local stations for weather derivatives

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Asseldonk, van M.A.P.M.

    2003-01-01

    Weather derivatives enable policy-holders to safeguard themselves against extreme weather conditions. The effectiveness and the efficiency of the risk transfer is determined by the spatial risk basis, which is the stochastic dependency of the local weather outcome being insured and the outcome of

  9. Can the Weather Affect My Child's Asthma?

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... English Español Can the Weather Affect My Child's Asthma? KidsHealth / For Parents / Can the Weather Affect My ... Asthma? Print Can the Weather Affect My Child's Asthma? Yes. Weather conditions can bring on asthma symptoms. ...

  10. Extreme weather events: Should drinking water quality management systems adapt to changing risk profiles?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Khan, Stuart J; Deere, Daniel; Leusch, Frederic D L; Humpage, Andrew; Jenkins, Madeleine; Cunliffe, David

    2015-11-15

    Among the most widely predicted and accepted consequences of global climate change are increases in both the frequency and severity of a variety of extreme weather events. Such weather events include heavy rainfall and floods, cyclones, droughts, heatwaves, extreme cold, and wildfires, each of which can potentially impact drinking water quality by affecting water catchments, storage reservoirs, the performance of water treatment processes or the integrity of distribution systems. Drinking water guidelines, such as the Australian Drinking Water Guidelines and the World Health Organization Guidelines for Drinking-water Quality, provide guidance for the safe management of drinking water. These documents present principles and strategies for managing risks that may be posed to drinking water quality. While these principles and strategies are applicable to all types of water quality risks, very little specific attention has been paid to the management of extreme weather events. We present a review of recent literature on water quality impacts of extreme weather events and consider practical opportunities for improved guidance for water managers. We conclude that there is a case for an enhanced focus on the management of water quality impacts from extreme weather events in future revisions of water quality guidance documents. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  11. Fire Weather Products for Public and Emergency Use: Extending Professional Resources to the Public

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rogers, M. A.; Schranz, S.; Kriederman, L.

    2012-12-01

    Large wildfires require significant resources to combat, including dedicated meteorological support to provide accurate and timely forecasts to assist incident commanders in making decisions for logistical and tactical firefighting operations. Smaller fires often require the same capabilities for understanding fire and the fire weather environment, but access to needed resources and tools is often limited due to technical, training, or education limitations. Providing fire weather information and training to incident commanders for smaller wildfires should prove to enhance firefighting capabilities and improve safety for both firefighters and for the public as well. One of the premier tools used to support fire weather forecasting for the largest wildfires is the FX-Net product, a thin-client version of the Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System used by NWS incident meteorologists (IMETs) deployed to large wildfires. We present results from an ongoing project to extend the sophisticated products available from FX-Net to more accessible and mobile software platforms, such as Google Earth. The project involves input from IMETs and fire commanders to identify the key parameters used in fighting wildfires, and involves a large training component for fire responders to utilize simplified products to improve understanding of fire weather in the context of firefighting operations.

  12. Enhancement of orimulsion biodegradation through the addition of natural marine carbon substrates

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Proctor, L.M.; Toy, E.; Lapham, L.; Cherrier, J.; Chanton, J.P. [Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL (USA). Dept. of Oceanography

    2001-04-01

    Orimulsion is a bitumen-based heavy fuel that is a less expensive alternative to traditional fuel oils. However, because its density is intermediate between that of freshwater and seawater, in the event of a spill, the fuel could strand in the sediments. Previous work indicated that only 0.6 - 2.7% of the bitumen would degrade in long incubations of marine sediments. Various natural carbon substrates were added to stimulate the degradation of bitumen by native populations of benthic bacteria. The concentration and carbon isotopic signature of the respired carbon dioxide was measured to partition the substrates that supported bacterial respiration. It was found that the addition of seagrass and pinfish stimulated the degradation of bitumen by as much as 2 to 9-fold relative to incubations without these substrates. Biodegradation of bitumen may be enhanced by the addition of natural marine carbon substrates and may be a useful approach for bioremediation. Preadaption of the bacteria to bitumen did not significantly enhance their ability to degrade it. 13 refs., 5 figs., 2 tab.

  13. ... AND HERE COMES THE WEATHER - Austrian TV and radio weather news in the eye of the public

    Science.gov (United States)

    Keul, A.; Holzer, A. M.; Wostal, T.

    2010-09-01

    Media weather reports as the main avenue of meteorological and climatological information to the general public have always been in the focus of critical investigation. Former research found that although weather reports are high-interest topics, the amount of information recalled by non-experts is rather low, and criticized this. A pilot study (Keul et al., 2009) by the Salzburg University in cooperation with ORF, the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation, used historic radio files on a fair-weather and a storm situation. It identified the importance of intelligible wording of the weather forecast messages for lay people. Without quality control, weather information can stimulate rumours, false comfort or false alarms. More qualitative and experimental research, also on TV weather, seems justified. This need for further research was addressed by a second and larger field experiment in the spring of 2010. The survey took place in Salzburg City, Austria, with a quota sample of about 90 lay persons. This time TV and radio weather reports were used and a more realistic listening and viewing situation was created by presenting the latest weather forecasts of the given day to the test persons in the very next hours after originally broadcasting them. It asked lay people what they find important in the weather reports and what they remember for their actual next-day use. Reports of a fairweather prognosis were compared with a warning condition. The weather media mix of the users was explored. A second part of the study was a questionnaire which tested the understanding of typical figures of speech used in weather forecasts or even meteorological terms, which might also be important for fully understanding the severe weather warnings. This leads to quantitative and qualitative analysis from which the most important and unexpected results are presented. Short presentation times (1.5 to 2 minutes) make Austrian radio and TV weather reports a narrow compromise between general

  14. A Severe Weather Laboratory Exercise for an Introductory Weather and Climate Class Using Active Learning Techniques

    Science.gov (United States)

    Grundstein, Andrew; Durkee, Joshua; Frye, John; Andersen, Theresa; Lieberman, Jordan

    2011-01-01

    This paper describes a new severe weather laboratory exercise for an Introductory Weather and Climate class, appropriate for first and second year college students (including nonscience majors), that incorporates inquiry-based learning techniques. In the lab, students play the role of meteorologists making forecasts for severe weather. The…

  15. Heat transfer enhancement in a turbulent natural convection boundary layer along a vertical flat plate

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Tsuji, Toshihiro; Kajitani, Tsuyoshi; Nishino, Tatsuhiko

    2007-01-01

    An experimental study on heat transfer enhancement for a turbulent natural convection boundary layer in air along a vertical flat plate has been performed by inserting a long flat plate in the spanwise direction (simple heat transfer promoter) and short flat plates aligned in the spanwise direction (split heat transfer promoter) with clearances into the near-wall region of the boundary layer. For a simple heat transfer promoter, the heat transfer coefficients increase by a peak value of approximately 37% in the downstream region of the promoter compared with those in the usual turbulent natural convection boundary layer. It is found from flow visualization and simultaneous measurements of the flow and thermal fields with hot- and cold-wires that such increase of heat transfer coefficients is mainly caused by the deflection of flows toward the outer region of the boundary layer and the invasion of low-temperature fluids from the outer region to the near-wall region with large-scale vortex motions riding out the promoter. However, heat transfer coefficients for a split heat transfer promoter exhibit an increase in peak value of approximately 60% in the downstream region of the promoter. Flow visualization and PIV measurements show that such remarkable heat transfer enhancement is attributed to longitudinal vortices generated by flows passing through the clearances of the promoter in addition to large-scale vortex motions riding out the promoter. Consequently, it is concluded that heat transfer enhancement of the turbulent natural convection boundary layer can be substantially achieved in a wide area of the turbulent natural convection boundary layer by employing multiple column split heat transfer promoters. It may be expected that the heat transfer enhancement in excess of approximately 40% can be accomplished by inserting such promoters

  16. Engaging Earth- and Environmental-Science Undergraduates Through Weather Discussions and an eLearning Weather Forecasting Contest

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schultz, David M.; Anderson, Stuart; Seo-Zindy, Ryo

    2013-06-01

    For students who major in meteorology, engaging in weather forecasting can motivate learning, develop critical-thinking skills, improve their written communication, and yield better forecasts. Whether such advances apply to students who are not meteorology majors has been less demonstrated. To test this idea, a weather discussion and an eLearning weather forecasting contest were devised for a meteorology course taken by third-year undergraduate earth- and environmental-science students. The discussion consisted of using the recent, present, and future weather to amplify the topics of the week's lectures. Then, students forecasted the next day's high temperature and the probability of precipitation for Woodford, the closest official observing site to Manchester, UK. The contest ran for 10 weeks, and the students received credit for participation. The top students at the end of the contest received bonus points on their final grade. A Web-based forecast contest application was developed to register the students, receive their forecasts, and calculate weekly standings. Students who were successful in the forecast contest were not necessarily those who achieved the highest scores on the tests, demonstrating that the contest was possibly testing different skills than traditional learning. Student evaluations indicate that the weather discussion and contest were reasonably successful in engaging students to learn about the weather outside of the classroom, synthesize their knowledge from the lectures, and improve their practical understanding of the weather. Therefore, students taking a meteorology class, but not majoring in meteorology, can derive academic benefits from weather discussions and forecast contests. Nevertheless, student evaluations also indicate that better integration of the lectures, weather discussions, and the forecasting contests is necessary.

  17. [Human nature and the enhancement of human beings in the light of the transhumanist program].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Goffi, Jean-Yves

    2011-01-01

    There are three main approaches about the question of Human Nature. essentialists consider that there exists a permanent Human Nature, shared by every human being. Existentialists consider that there is no such thing as human nature, but inescapable modes of being in the world. A moderate approach would consider that Human Nature can be modified within the limits of anthropological invariants. Transhumanists are conservative in that they think that there is a Human Nature; but they are radical in that they believe that it can (and must) be transcended by bio-technnologies and computer technologies. This project is evaluated as a caricature of suitable human enhancement.

  18. Cool and dry weather enhances the effects of air pollution on emergency IHD hospital admissions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Qiu, Hong; Yu, Ignatius Tak-Sun; Wang, Xiaorong; Tian, Linwei; Tse, Lap Ah; Wong, Tze Wai

    2013-09-20

    Associations between ambient pollution and cardiovascular morbidity including ischemic heart disease (IHD) have been confirmed. Weather factors such as temperature, season and relative humidity (RH) may modify the effects of pollution. We conducted this study to examine the effects of air pollution on emergency IHD hospital admissions varied across seasons and RH levels, and to explore the possible joint modification of weather factors on pollution effects. Daily time series of air pollution concentrations, mean temperature and RH were collected from IHD hospital admissions from 1998 to 2007 in Hong Kong. We used generalized additive Poisson models with interaction term to estimate the pollution effects varied across seasons and RH levels, after adjusting for time trends, weather conditions, and influenza outbreaks. An increase in the detrimental effects of air pollution in cool season and on low humidity days was observed. In the cool and dry season, a 10 μg/m(3) increment of lag03 exposure was associated with an increase of emergency IHD admissions by 1.82% (95% CI: 1.24-2.40%), 3.89% (95% CI: 3.08-4.70%), and 2.19% (95% CI: 1.33-3.06%) for particles with an aerodynamic diameter less than 10 μm (PM10), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), and ozone (O3), respectively. The effects of pollutants decreased greatly and lost statistical significance in the warm and humid season. We found season and RH jointly modified the associations between ambient pollution and IHD admissions, resulting in increased IHD admissions in the cool and dry season and reduced admissions in the warm and humid season. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

  19. Natural analogues of bitumen and bituminized radioactive waste

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hellmuth, K.-H.

    1989-07-01

    Occurrences of natural bitumen provide possibilities to identify and assess materials, processes, phenomena and conditions in nature which can serve as model cases valid also with respect to a final repository. Natural bitumens meet the basic requirements for use as natural analogues. In natural sites, processes of bitumen formation and degradation often work simultaneously. The major processes are thermal alteration, evaporation, reaction with water, biodegradation, oxidation, weathering and radiation degradation. Progress in analytical organic geochemistry made during recent years has enabled a deeper understanding of the structural and compositional effects of these processes on bitumen. This is necessary in natural analogue applications. The time scales involved in degradation processes, as observed in natural occurrences, exceed the time scales dictated by the half-lives of most important fission products in low and medium level waste by orders of magnitude. Only exposure to the weather at the surface leads to a more rapid destruction of bitumen. Trace metals in bitumen arenot released until the matrix is completely destroyed. Products of radiation degradation and weathering of bitumen are able, to a certain degree, to delay migration of the metal ions released. Impregnation with bitumen may effectively reduce the microbial decomposition of easily destructable organic waste components, as can be deduced on the basis of the excellent preservation of fossils observed in bitumen. The complexity of all the natural sites described requires extensive understanding of the origin and kind of organic material in bitumen, its maturation, migration, alteration and degradation and of the geological and tectonic evolution of the site. The latter is used for establishing the time scale

  20. Synoptic weather typing applied to air pollution mortality among the elderly in 10 Canadian cities.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vanos, Jennifer K; Cakmak, Sabit; Bristow, Corben; Brion, Vladislav; Tremblay, Neil; Martin, Sara L; Sheridan, Scott S

    2013-10-01

    Synoptic circulation patterns (large-scale weather systems) affect ambient levels of air pollution, as well as the relationship between air pollution and human health. To investigate the air pollution-mortality relationship within weather types and seasons, and to determine which combination of atmospheric conditions may pose increased health threats in the elderly age categories. The relative risk of mortality (RR) due to air pollution was examined using Poisson generalized linear models (GLMs) within specific weather types. Analysis was completed by weather type and age group (all ages, ≤64, 65-74, 75-84, ≥85 years) in ten Canadian cities from 1981 to 1999. There was significant modification of RR by weather type and age. When examining the entire population, weather type was shown to have the greatest modifying effect on the risk of dying due to ozone (O3). This effect was highest on average for the dry tropical (DT) weather type, with the all-age RR of mortality at a population weighted mean (PWM) found to be 1.055 (95% CI 1.026-1.085). All-weather type risk estimates increased with age due to exposure to carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), and sulphur dioxide (SO2). On average, RR increased by 2.6, 3.8 and 1.5% for the respective pollutants between the ≤64 and ≥85 age categories. Conversely, mean ozone estimates remained relatively consistent with age. Elevated levels of air pollution were found to be detrimental to the health of elderly individuals for all weather types. However, the entire population was negatively effected by air pollution on the hot dry (DT) and hot humid (MT) days. We identified a significant modification of RR for mortality due to air pollution by age, which is enhanced under specific weather types. Efforts should be targeted at minimizing pollutant exposure to the elderly and/or all age groups with respect to weather type in question. Crown Copyright © 2013 Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  1. Wildland fire as a self-regulating mechanism: the role of previous burns and weather in limiting fire progression.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Parks, Sean A; Holsinger, Lisa M; Miller, Carol; Nelson, Cara R

    2015-09-01

    Theory suggests that natural fire regimes can result in landscapes that are both self-regulating and resilient to fire. For example, because fires consume fuel, they may create barriers to the spread of future fires, thereby regulating fire size. Top-down controls such as weather, however, can weaken this effect. While empirical examples demonstrating this pattern-process feedback between vegetation and fire exist, they have been geographically limited or did not consider the influence of time between fires and weather. The availability of remotely sensed data identifying fire activity over the last four decades provides an opportunity to explicitly quantify-the ability of wildland fire to limit the progression of subsequent fire. Furthermore, advances in fire progression mapping now allow an evaluation of how daily weather as a top-down control modifies this effect. In this study, we evaluated the ability of wildland fire to create barriers that limit the spread of subsequent fire along a gradient representing time between fires in four large study areas in the western United States. Using fire progression maps in conjunction with weather station data, we also evaluated the influence of daily weather. Results indicate that wildland fire does limit subsequent fire spread in all four study areas, but this effect decays over time; wildland fire no longer limits subsequent fire spread 6-18 years after fire, depending on the study area. We also found that the ability of fire to regulate, subsequent fire progression was substantially reduced under extreme conditions compared to moderate weather conditions in all four study areas. This study increases understanding of the spatial feedbacks that can lead to self-regulating landscapes as well as the effects of top-down controls, such as weather, on these feedbacks. Our results will be useful to managers who seek to restore natural fire regimes or to exploit recent burns when managing fire.

  2. Regional-seasonal weather forecasting

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Abarbanel, H.; Foley, H.; MacDonald, G.; Rothaus, O.; Rudermann, M.; Vesecky, J.

    1980-08-01

    In the interest of allocating heating fuels optimally, the state-of-the-art for seasonal weather forecasting is reviewed. A model using an enormous data base of past weather data is contemplated to improve seasonal forecasts, but present skills do not make that practicable. 90 references. (PSB)

  3. Use of Remote Sensing Data to Enhance the National Weather Service (NWS) Storm Damage Toolkit

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jedlovec, Gary; Molthan, Andrew; White, Kris; Burks, Jason; Stellman, Keith; Smith, Matthew

    2012-01-01

    SPoRT is improving the use of near real-time satellite data in response to severe weather events and other diasters. Supported through NASA s Applied Sciences Program. Planned interagency collaboration to support NOAA s Damage Assessment Toolkit, with spinoff opportunities to support other entities such as USGS and FEMA.

  4. Enhanced Attenuation: A Reference Guide On Approaches To Increase The Natural Treatment Capacity Of A System

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Vangelas, K

    2006-01-30

    The objective of this document is to explore the realm of enhancements to natural attenuation processes for cVOCs and review examples that have been proposed, modeled, and implemented. We will identify lessons learned from these case studies to confirm that enhancements are technically feasible and have the potential to achieve a favorable, cost-effective contaminant mass balance. Furthermore, we hope to determine if opportunities for further improvement of the enhancements exist and suggest areas where new and innovative types of enhancements might be possible.

  5. ENHANCED ATTENUATION: A REFERENCE GUIDE ON APPROACHES TO INCREASE THE NATURAL TREATMENT CAPACITY OF A SYSTEM

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Looney, B; Michael Heitkamp, M; Gary Wein (NOEMAIL), G; Karen Vangelas, K; Karen-M Adams, K; Tom Early; Bob Borden; David Major; W. Jody Waugh; Todd Wiedemeier; Claire H. Sink

    2006-08-10

    The objective of this document is to explore the realm of enhancements to natural attenuation processes for cVOCs and review examples that have been proposed, modeled, and implemented. We will identify lessons learned from these case studies to confirm that enhancements are technically feasible and have the potential to achieve a favorable, cost-effective contaminant mass balance. Furthermore, we hope to determine if opportunities for further improvement of the enhancements exist and suggest areas where new and innovative types of enhancements might be possible.

  6. Weather Derivatives – Origin, Types and Application

    OpenAIRE

    Piotr Binkowski

    2008-01-01

    The number of companies that are exposed to the revenues loss risk caused by weather variability is still increasing. The businesses that are mostly exposed to weather risk are following: energy, agriculture, constructions and transport. That situation has initiated dynamic growth of weather derivatives markets as well as the awareness of the weather risk among the market participants. Presently, the weather derivatives markets evaluate rapidly in all the mature economies: USA, Asia and Europ...

  7. Cavity-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy of Natural Gas with Optical Feedback cw-Diode Lasers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hippler, Michael

    2015-08-04

    We report on improvements made on our previously introduced technique of cavity-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (CERS) with optical feedback cw-diode lasers in the gas phase, including a new mode-matching procedure which keeps the laser in resonance with the optical cavity without inducing long-term frequency shifts of the laser, and using a new CCD camera with improved noise performance. With 10 mW of 636.2 nm diode laser excitation and 30 s integration time, cavity enhancement achieves noise-equivalent detection limits below 1 mbar at 1 bar total pressure, depending on Raman cross sections. Detection limits can be easily improved using higher power diodes. We further demonstrate a relevant analytical application of CERS, the multicomponent analysis of natural gas samples. Several spectroscopic features have been identified and characterized. CERS with low power diode lasers is suitable for online monitoring of natural gas mixtures with sensitivity and spectroscopic selectivity, including monitoring H2, H2S, N2, CO2, and alkanes.

  8. Weatherization in Arkansas: A Gem of a Program: Weatherization Assistance Close-Up Fact Sheet

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    2001-01-01

    Arkansas demonstrates its commitment to technology and efficiency through the Weatherization Program. Weatherization uses advanced technologies and techniques to reduce energy costs for low-income families by increasing the energy efficiency of their homes

  9. Weather Derivatives – Origin, Types and Application

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Piotr Binkowski

    2008-01-01

    Full Text Available The number of companies that are exposed to the revenues loss risk caused by weather variability is still increasing. The businesses that are mostly exposed to weather risk are following: energy, agriculture, constructions and transport. That situation has initiated dynamic growth of weather derivatives markets as well as the awareness of the weather risk among the market participants. Presently, the weather derivatives markets evaluate rapidly in all the mature economies: USA, Asia and Europe. Constructing weather derivatives relies on qu- antifying climate factors in the form of indexes, what is quite simple task, more difficultly can be gathering precise historical data of required climate factors. Taking into consideration so far development of derivatives especially the financial derivatives based on different types of indexes financial market has at disposal wide range of different types of proved derivatives (futures, forward, options, swaps, which can be successfully utilised on the weather-driven markets both for hedging weather risk and speculating.

  10. An Experimental Study on the Water-Induced Strength Reduction in Zigong Argillaceous Siltstone with Different Degree of Weathering

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yu-chuan Yang

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available The water-softening property of soft rocks is a key problem in geotechnical engineering. A typical red-bed soft rock (the Zigong argillaceous siltstones with different weathering degree is selected as an example to study the water-softening property and the influence of degree of weathering. A series of mechanical and microstructure tests are carried out to analyze the weathering characteristics and mechanism of the Zigong argillaceous siltstones. The results of mechanical experiments reveal that the water content and the weathering degree of rock specimens both have a weakening effect on the compressive and shear strengths. According to the results of present microstructure tests, the mechanical properties of the Zigong argillaceous siltstones are closely correlated with their physical properties, including internal microstructure and material composition for highly weathered rocks or moderately weathered rocks (in both natural and saturation conditions. Finally, experimental results indicate that the changes of microstructure and internal materials are two main factors that influence rock strength parameters after contacting with water and that these properties reflect the rock weathering degree. In a word, when red-bed soft rocks are encountered in geotechnical engineering, special attention should be paid to presence of water.

  11. KSC Weather and Research

    Science.gov (United States)

    Maier, Launa; Huddleston, Lisa; Smith, Kristin

    2016-01-01

    This briefing outlines the history of Kennedy Space Center (KSC) Weather organization, past research sponsored or performed, current organization, responsibilities, and activities, the evolution of weather support, future technologies, and an update on the status of the buoys located offshore of Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and KSC.

  12. Weather and road capacity

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Jensen, Thomas Christian

    2014-01-01

    The paper presents estimations of the effect of bad weather on the observed speed on a Danish highway section; Køge Bugt Motorvejen. The paper concludes that weather, primarily precipitation and snow, has a clear negative effect on speed when the road is not in hypercongestion mode. Furthermore...

  13. Tales of future weather

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Hazeleger, W.; Van den Hurk, B.J.J.M.; Min, E.; Van Oldenborgh, G.J.; Petersen, A.C.; Stainforth, D.A.; Vasileiadou, E.; Smith, L.A.

    2015-01-01

    Society is vulnerable to extreme weather events and, by extension, to human impacts on future events. As climate changes weather patterns will change. The search is on for more effective methodologies to aid decision-makers both in mitigation to avoid climate change and in adaptation to changes. The

  14. Observational study of atmospheric surface layer and coastal weather in northern Qatar

    Science.gov (United States)

    Samanta, Dhrubajyoti; Sadr, Reza

    2016-04-01

    Atmospheric surface layer is the interaction medium between atmosphere and Earth's surface. Better understanding of its turbulence nature is essential in characterizing the local weather, climate variability and modeling of turbulent exchange processes. The importance of Middle East region, with its unique geographical, economical and weather condition is well recognized. However, high quality micrometeorological observational studies are rare in this region. Here we show experimental results from micrometeorological observations from an experimental site in the coastal region of Qatar during August-December 2015. Measurements of winds are obtained from three sonic anemometers installed on a 9 m tower placed at Al Ghariyah beach in northern Qatar (26.08 °N, 51.36 °E). Different surface layer characteristics is analyzed and compared with earlier studies in equivalent weather conditions. Monthly statistics of wind speed, wind direction, temperature, humidity and heat index are made from concurrent observations from sonic anemometer and weather station to explore variations with surface layer characteristics. The results also highlights potential impact of sea breeze circulation on local weather and atmospheric turbulence. The observed daily maximum temperature and heat index during morning period may be related to sea breeze circulations. Along with the operational micrometeorological observation system, a camera system and ultrasonic wave measurement system are installed recently in the site to study coastline development and nearshore wave dynamics. Overall, the complete observational set up is going to provide new insights about nearshore wind dynamics and wind-wave interaction in Qatar.

  15. 49 CFR 195.224 - Welding: Weather.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... 49 Transportation 3 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Welding: Weather. 195.224 Section 195.224 Transportation Other Regulations Relating to Transportation (Continued) PIPELINE AND HAZARDOUS MATERIALS SAFETY... PIPELINE Construction § 195.224 Welding: Weather. Welding must be protected from weather conditions that...

  16. The Spirit of North Dakota: Alive in Weatherization; Weatherization Assistance Close-Up Fact Sheet

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    2001-01-01

    North Dakota demonstrates its commitment to technology and efficiency through the Weatherization Program. Weatherization uses advanced technologies and techniques to reduce energy costs for low-income families by increasing the energy efficiency of their homes

  17. A Tribute to Weatherization Solutions in South Dakota: Weatherization Assistance Close-Up Fact Sheet

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    2001-01-01

    South Dakota demonstrates its commitment to technology and efficiency through the Weatherization Program. Weatherization uses advanced technologies and techniques to reduce energy costs for low-income families by increasing the energy efficiency of their homes

  18. A first: U.S. natural gas wellhead value tops oil's

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Anon.

    1994-01-01

    The value of natural gas production in the US in 1993 exceeded that of crude oil output for the first time in history. The reversal owes as much to trends in price as in production and, most recently, record frigid weather in much of the US. Another key factor is a newly revitalized, restructured gas industry operating in the most unfettered regulatory environment in recent memory. The industry's sterling performance in accommodating the surge in demand caused by the arctic cold that steamrolled across North America early in the 1993--94 winter strengthens the natural gas case for reliability. And that can only enhance the industry's prospects for adding more long term supply contracts. Looming on the immediate horizon is the prospect of an extended slump in oil prices, which could mean that natural gas dominance in US petroleum industry revenues will be short lived if low cost oil recaptures market share from gas. While that may temporarily dethrone natural gas from its new top slot, the reversal in 1993 represents what is likely to be a long term trend for the US petroleum industry

  19. Lessons in weather data interoperability: the National Mesonet Program

    Science.gov (United States)

    Evans, J. D.; Werner, B.; Cogar, C.; Heppner, P.

    2015-12-01

    The National Mesonet Program (NMP) links local, state, and regional surface weather observation networks (a.k.a. mesonets) to enhance the prediction of high-impact, local-scale weather events. A consortium of 23 (and counting) private firms, state agencies, and universities provides near-real-time observations from over 7,000 fixed weather stations, and over 1,000 vehicle-mounted sensors, every 15 minutes or less, together with the detailed sensor and station metadata required for effective forecasts and decision-making. In order to integrate these weather observations across the United States, and to provide full details about sensors, stations, and observations, the NMP has defined a set of conventions for observational data and sensor metadata. These conventions address the needs of users with limited bandwidth and computing resources, while also anticipating a growing variety of sensors and observations. For disseminating weather observation data, the NMP currently employs a simple ASCII format derived from the Integrated Ocean Observing System. This simplifies data ingest into common desktop software, and parsing by simple scripts; and it directly supports basic readings of temperature, pressure, etc. By extending the format to vector-valued observations, it can also convey readings taken at different altitudes (e.g. windspeed) or depths (e.g., soil moisture). Extending beyond these observations to fit a greater variety of sensors (solar irradiation, sodar, radar, lidar) may require further extensions, or a move to more complex formats (e.g., based on XML or JSON). We will discuss the tradeoffs of various conventions for different users and use cases. To convey sensor and station metadata, the NMP uses a convention known as Starfish Fungus Language (*FL), derived from the Open Geospatial Consortium's SensorML standard. *FL separates static and dynamic elements of a sensor description, allowing for relatively compact expressions that reference a library of

  20. Integrating Sphere-based Weathering Device

    Data.gov (United States)

    Federal Laboratory Consortium — Description:In the artificial ultraviolet (UV) weathering of materials, a need exists for weathering devices that can uniformly illuminate test specimens with a high...

  1. Study of arsenopyrite weathering products in mine wastes from abandoned tungsten and tin exploitations

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Murciego, A. [Department of Geology, Plza. de los Caidos s/n. Salamanca University, 37008 Salamanca (Spain); Alvarez-Ayuso, E., E-mail: esther.alvarez@irnasa.csic.es [Department of Environmental Geochemistry, IRNASA (CSIC), Apdo. 257, 37071 Salamanca (Spain); Pellitero, E. [Department of Geology, Plza. de los Caidos s/n. Salamanca University, 37008 Salamanca (Spain); Rodriguez, M.A. [Faculty of Sciences, Crystallography and Mineralogy Area, Avd. Elvas s/n. Extremadura University, 06071 Badajoz (Spain); Garcia-Sanchez, A. [Department of Environmental Geochemistry, IRNASA (CSIC), Apdo. 257, 37071 Salamanca (Spain); Tamayo, A.; Rubio, J.; Rubio, F. [Ceramic and Glass Institute (CSIC), c/Kelsen, 5, 28049 Cantoblanco, Madrid (Spain); Rubin, J. [Material Science Institute of Aragon, CSIC-Zaragoza University, c/Maria de Luna 3, 50009 Zaragoza (Spain)

    2011-02-15

    Arsenopyrite-rich wastes from abandoned tungsten and tin exploitations were studied to determine the composition and characteristics of the secondary phases formed under natural weathering conditions so as to assess their potential environmental risk. Representative weathered arsenopyrite-bearing rock wastes collected from the mine dumps were analysed using the following techniques: X-ray powder diffraction (XRD) analysis, polarizing microscopy analysis, electron microprobe analysis (EMPA) and microRaman and Moessbauer spectroscopies. Scorodite, pharmacosiderite and amorphous ferric arsenates (AFA) with Fe/As molar ratios in the range 1.2-2.5 were identified as secondary arsenic products. The former showed to be the most abundant and present in the different studied mining areas. Its chemical composition showed to vary in function of the original surrounding rock mineralogy in such a way that phosphoscorodite was found as the mineral variety present in apatite-containing geoenvirons. Other ever-present weathering phases were goethite and hydrous ferric oxides (HFO), displaying, respectively, As retained amounts about 1 and 20% (expressed as As{sub 2}O{sub 5}). The low solubility of scorodite, the relatively low content of AFA and the formation of compounds of variable charge, mostly of amorphous nature, with high capacity to adsorb As attenuate importantly the dispersion of this element into the environment from these arsenopyrite-bearing wastes.

  2. Study of arsenopyrite weathering products in mine wastes from abandoned tungsten and tin exploitations

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Murciego, A.; Alvarez-Ayuso, E.; Pellitero, E.; Rodriguez, M.A.; Garcia-Sanchez, A.; Tamayo, A.; Rubio, J.; Rubio, F.; Rubin, J.

    2011-01-01

    Arsenopyrite-rich wastes from abandoned tungsten and tin exploitations were studied to determine the composition and characteristics of the secondary phases formed under natural weathering conditions so as to assess their potential environmental risk. Representative weathered arsenopyrite-bearing rock wastes collected from the mine dumps were analysed using the following techniques: X-ray powder diffraction (XRD) analysis, polarizing microscopy analysis, electron microprobe analysis (EMPA) and microRaman and Moessbauer spectroscopies. Scorodite, pharmacosiderite and amorphous ferric arsenates (AFA) with Fe/As molar ratios in the range 1.2-2.5 were identified as secondary arsenic products. The former showed to be the most abundant and present in the different studied mining areas. Its chemical composition showed to vary in function of the original surrounding rock mineralogy in such a way that phosphoscorodite was found as the mineral variety present in apatite-containing geoenvirons. Other ever-present weathering phases were goethite and hydrous ferric oxides (HFO), displaying, respectively, As retained amounts about 1 and 20% (expressed as As 2 O 5 ). The low solubility of scorodite, the relatively low content of AFA and the formation of compounds of variable charge, mostly of amorphous nature, with high capacity to adsorb As attenuate importantly the dispersion of this element into the environment from these arsenopyrite-bearing wastes.

  3. Accelerated laboratory weathering of acrylic lens materials

    Science.gov (United States)

    Arndt, Thomas; Richter, Steffen; Kogler, René; Pasierb, Mike; Walby, Christopher

    2015-09-01

    Flat samples from various poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) formulations were subjected to outdoor weathering in Arizona and Florida, EMMAQUA® accelerated outdoor weathering, and two accelerated laboratory weathering procedures at 3 Sun irradiance which, imitate dry (Arizona) and wet (Florida) conditions. The main mode of degradation is yellowing and not the generation of haze for any weathering procedure within the investigated radiant exposure. Higher UV absorber concentrations lead to smaller changes in optical properties and in the resulting relative concentrator photovoltaic (CPV) module efficiencies. Comparison of sample properties after various weathering procedures reveals that the influence of weathering factors other than radiant exposure depends on the sample as well.

  4. Test-Enhanced Learning of Natural Concepts: Effects on Recognition Memory, Classification, and Metacognition

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jacoby, Larry L.; Wahlheim, Christopher N.; Coane, Jennifer H.

    2010-01-01

    Three experiments examined testing effects on learning of natural concepts and metacognitive assessments of such learning. Results revealed that testing enhanced recognition memory and classification accuracy for studied and novel exemplars of bird families on immediate and delayed tests. These effects depended on the balance of study and test…

  5. 36 CFR 910.71 - Weather protection.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-01

    ... 36 Parks, Forests, and Public Property 3 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Weather protection. 910.71 Section 910.71 Parks, Forests, and Public Property PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION GENERAL... DEVELOPMENT AREA Glossary of Terms § 910.71 Weather protection. Weather protection means a seasonal or...

  6. Flight Deck Weather Avoidance Decision Support: Implementation and Evaluation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wu, Shu-Chieh; Luna, Rocio; Johnson, Walter W.

    2013-01-01

    Weather related disruptions account for seventy percent of the delays in the National Airspace System (NAS). A key component in the weather plan of the Next Generation of Air Transportation System (NextGen) is to assimilate observed weather information and probabilistic forecasts into the decision process of flight crews and air traffic controllers. In this research we explore supporting flight crew weather decision making through the development of a flight deck predicted weather display system that utilizes weather predictions generated by ground-based radar. This system integrates and presents this weather information, together with in-flight trajectory modification tools, within a cockpit display of traffic information (CDTI) prototype. that the CDTI features 2D and perspective 3D visualization models of weather. The weather forecast products that we implemented were the Corridor Integrated Weather System (CIWS) and the Convective Weather Avoidance Model (CWAM), both developed by MIT Lincoln Lab. We evaluated the use of CIWS and CWAM for flight deck weather avoidance in two part-task experiments. Experiment 1 compared pilots' en route weather avoidance performance in four weather information conditions that differed in the type and amount of predicted forecast (CIWS current weather only, CIWS current and historical weather, CIWS current and forecast weather, CIWS current and forecast weather and CWAM predictions). Experiment 2 compared the use of perspective 3D and 21/2D presentations of weather for flight deck weather avoidance. Results showed that pilots could take advantage of longer range predicted weather forecasts in performing en route weather avoidance but more research will be needed to determine what combinations of information are optimal and how best to present them.

  7. Economic Effects of Precipitation Enhancement in the Corn Belt.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gapcia, Philip; Changnon, Stanley; Pinar, Musa

    1990-01-01

    Policy formulation in weather modification requires an understanding of the economic effects from altered weather. The focus of this study is to provide insight into the beneficiaries of a functioning weather modification technology when applied at various spatial and temporal levels. An econometric model which links the corn/scybean production to U.S. cattle, hog and poultry sectors is used to determine the effects of precipitation enhancement in the U.S. Corn Belt, a humid climatic region. A regional supply formulation permits assessment of weather modification on production, prices, revenues to producers, and savings in consumers expenditures on meat. The results provide insight into the distribution of economic effects, emphasize the importance of careful planning in the use of weather modification technology, and provide useful information on the roles of local, state, and federal governments in the support of weather modification.

  8. TECHNOLOGIES TO ENHANCE THE OPERATION OF EXISTING NATURAL GAS COMPRESSION INFRASTRUCTURE

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Anthony J. Smalley; Ralph E. Harris; Gary D. Bourn; Danny M. Deffenbaugh

    2005-07-27

    This quarterly report documents work performed under Tasks 15, 16, and 18 through 23 of the project entitled: ''Technologies to Enhance the Operation of Existing Natural Gas Compression Infrastructure''. The project objective is to develop and substantiate methods for operating integral engine/compressors in gas pipeline service, which reduce fuel consumption, increase capacity, and enhance mechanical integrity. The report first documents a survey site test performed on a TCVC10 engine/compressor installed at Dominion's Groveport Compressor Station. This test completes planned screening efforts designed to guide selection of one or more units for design analysis and testing with emphasis on identification and reduction of compressor losses. The report further presents the validation of the simulation model for the Air Balance tasks and outline of conceptual manifold designs.

  9. Weathering of a petroleum spill in a tropical mangrove swamp

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Fisher, S.J.; Alexander, R.; Kagi, R.I. [Curtin Univ., Perth (Australia)

    1996-12-31

    In August 1987, an indeterminate amount of petroleum condensate was released from a buried pipe leading to contamination of a tropical mangrove swamp surrounding a tidal creek in North Western Australia. Since no bioremediation was attempted at this site, we have monitored the natural weathering of the condensate by detailed analysis of the petroleum hydrocarbons extracted from sediment samples collected on 11 occasions over a 3 year period.

  10. Quantifying methane emissions from natural gas production in north-eastern Pennsylvania

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Z. R. Barkley

    2017-11-01

    Full Text Available Natural gas infrastructure releases methane (CH4, a potent greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere. The estimated emission rate associated with the production and transportation of natural gas is uncertain, hindering our understanding of its greenhouse footprint. This study presents a new application of inverse methodology for estimating regional emission rates from natural gas production and gathering facilities in north-eastern Pennsylvania. An inventory of CH4 emissions was compiled for major sources in Pennsylvania. This inventory served as input emission data for the Weather Research and Forecasting model with chemistry enabled (WRF-Chem, and atmospheric CH4 mole fraction fields were generated at 3 km resolution. Simulated atmospheric CH4 enhancements from WRF-Chem were compared to observations obtained from a 3-week flight campaign in May 2015. Modelled enhancements from sources not associated with upstream natural gas processes were assumed constant and known and therefore removed from the optimization procedure, creating a set of observed enhancements from natural gas only. Simulated emission rates from unconventional production were then adjusted to minimize the mismatch between aircraft observations and model-simulated mole fractions for 10 flights. To evaluate the method, an aircraft mass balance calculation was performed for four flights where conditions permitted its use. Using the model optimization approach, the weighted mean emission rate from unconventional natural gas production and gathering facilities in north-eastern Pennsylvania approach is found to be 0.36 % of total gas production, with a 2σ confidence interval between 0.27 and 0.45 % of production. Similarly, the mean emission estimates using the aircraft mass balance approach are calculated to be 0.40 % of regional natural gas production, with a 2σ confidence interval between 0.08 and 0.72 % of production. These emission rates as a percent of production are

  11. Quantifying methane emissions from natural gas production in north-eastern Pennsylvania

    Science.gov (United States)

    Barkley, Zachary R.; Lauvaux, Thomas; Davis, Kenneth J.; Deng, Aijun; Miles, Natasha L.; Richardson, Scott J.; Cao, Yanni; Sweeney, Colm; Karion, Anna; Smith, MacKenzie; Kort, Eric A.; Schwietzke, Stefan; Murphy, Thomas; Cervone, Guido; Martins, Douglas; Maasakkers, Joannes D.

    2017-11-01

    Natural gas infrastructure releases methane (CH4), a potent greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere. The estimated emission rate associated with the production and transportation of natural gas is uncertain, hindering our understanding of its greenhouse footprint. This study presents a new application of inverse methodology for estimating regional emission rates from natural gas production and gathering facilities in north-eastern Pennsylvania. An inventory of CH4 emissions was compiled for major sources in Pennsylvania. This inventory served as input emission data for the Weather Research and Forecasting model with chemistry enabled (WRF-Chem), and atmospheric CH4 mole fraction fields were generated at 3 km resolution. Simulated atmospheric CH4 enhancements from WRF-Chem were compared to observations obtained from a 3-week flight campaign in May 2015. Modelled enhancements from sources not associated with upstream natural gas processes were assumed constant and known and therefore removed from the optimization procedure, creating a set of observed enhancements from natural gas only. Simulated emission rates from unconventional production were then adjusted to minimize the mismatch between aircraft observations and model-simulated mole fractions for 10 flights. To evaluate the method, an aircraft mass balance calculation was performed for four flights where conditions permitted its use. Using the model optimization approach, the weighted mean emission rate from unconventional natural gas production and gathering facilities in north-eastern Pennsylvania approach is found to be 0.36 % of total gas production, with a 2σ confidence interval between 0.27 and 0.45 % of production. Similarly, the mean emission estimates using the aircraft mass balance approach are calculated to be 0.40 % of regional natural gas production, with a 2σ confidence interval between 0.08 and 0.72 % of production. These emission rates as a percent of production are lower than rates found in any

  12. Bearingless helicopter main rotor development. Volume 2: Combined load fatigue evaluation of weathered graphite/epoxy composite

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rackiewicz, J. J.

    1977-01-01

    Small scale combined load fatigue tests were conducted on six artificially and six naturally weathered test specimens. The test specimen material was unidirectionally oriented A-S graphite - woven glass scrim epoxy resin laminate.

  13. North America Synoptic Weather Maps

    Data.gov (United States)

    National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — Series of Synoptic Weather Maps. Maps contains a surface analysis comprised of plotted weather station observations, isobars indicating low and high-pressure...

  14. An assessment of fire occurrence regime and performance of Canadian fire weather index in south central Siberian boreal region

    OpenAIRE

    Chu, T.; Guo, X.

    2014-01-01

    Wildfire is the dominant natural disturbance in Eurasian boreal region, which acts as a major driver of the global carbon cycle. An effectiveness of wildfire management requires suitable tools for fire prevention and fire risk assessment. This study aims to investigate fire occurrence patterns in relation to fire weather conditions in the remote south central Siberia region. The Canadian Fire Weather Index derived from large-scale meteorol...

  15. Thorium, uranium and rare earth elements concentration in weathered Japanese soil samples

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Sahoo, Sarata Kumar; Hosoda, Masahiro; Kamagata, Sadatoshi; Sorimachi, Atsuyuki; Ishikawa, Tetsuo; Tokonami, Shinji; Uchida, Shigeo

    2011-01-01

    The geochemical behavior of thorium, uranium and rare earth elements (REEs) are relatively close to one another while compared to other elements in a geological environment. Radioactive elements like 232 Th and 238 U along with their decay products (e.g. 226 Ra) are present in most environmental matrices and can be transferred to living bodies by different pathways which can lead to the sources of exposure to man. For these reasons, it has been necessary to monitor those natural radionuclides in weathered soil samples to assess the possible hazards. It has been observed that granitic rocks contain higher amounts of U, Th and light REEs compared to other igneous rocks such as basalt and andesites. To better understand the interaction between REEs and soils, the nature of soils must be considered. In this paper, we discussed the distribution pattern of 232 Th and 238 U along with REEs in soil samples of weathered acid rock (granite and ryolite) collected from two prefectures of Japan: (1) Kobe city in Hyogo prefecture and (2) Mutsu city and Higashidori village in Aomori prefecture. (author)

  16. Weather Risk Management in Agriculture

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Martina Bobriková

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available The paper focuses on valuation of a weather derivative with payoffs depending on temperature. We use historical data from the weather station in the Slovak town Košice to obtain unique prices of option contracts in an incomplete market. Numerical examples of prices of some contracts are presented, using the Burn analysis. We provide an example of how a weather contract can be designed to hedge the financial risk of a suboptimal temperature condition. The comparative comparison of the selected option hedging strategies has shown the best results for the producers in agricultural industries who hedges against an unfavourable weather conditions. The results of analysis proved that by buying put option or call option, the farmer establishes the highest payoff in the case of temperature decrease or increase. The Long Straddle Strategy is the most expensive but is available to the farmer who hedges against a high volatility in temperature movement. We conclude with the findings that weather derivatives could be useful tools to diminish the financial losses for agricultural industries highly dependent for temperature.

  17. Geography and Weather: Mountain Meterology.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mogil, H. Michael; Collins, H. Thomas

    1990-01-01

    Provided are 26 ideas to help children explore the effects of mountains on the weather. Weather conditions in Nepal and Colorado are considered separately. Nine additional sources of information are listed. (CW)

  18. Parametric study on the advantages of weather-predicted control algorithm of free cooling ventilation system

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Medved, Sašo; Babnik, Miha; Vidrih, Boris; Arkar, Ciril

    2014-01-01

    Predicted climate changes and the increased intensity of urban heat islands, as well as population aging, will increase the energy demand for the cooling of buildings in the future. However, the energy demand for cooling can be efficiently reduced by low-exergy free-cooling systems, which use natural processes, like evaporative cooling or the environmental cold of ambient air during night-time ventilation for the cooling of buildings. Unlike mechanical cooling systems, the energy for the operation of free-cooling system is needed only for the transport of the cold from the environment into the building. Because the natural cold potential is time dependent, the efficiency of free-cooling systems could be improved by introducing a weather forecast into the algorithm for the controlling. In the article, a numerical algorithm for the optimization of the operation of free-cooling systems with night-time ventilation is presented and validated on a test cell with different thermal storage capacities and during different ambient conditions. As a case study, the advantage of weather-predicted controlling is presented for a summer week for typical office room. The results show the necessity of the weather-predicted controlling of free-cooling ventilation systems for achieving the highest overall energy efficiency of such systems in comparison to mechanical cooling, better indoor comfort conditions and a decrease in the primary energy needed for cooling of the buildings. - Highlights: • Energy demand for cooling will increase due to climate changes and urban heat island • Free cooling could significantly reduce energy demand for cooling of the buildings. • Free cooling is more effective if weather prediction is included in operation control. • Weather predicted free cooling operation algorithm was validated on test cell. • Advantages of free-cooling on mechanical cooling is shown with different indicators

  19. Who is protecting tourists in New Zealand from severe weather hazards?: an exploration of the role of locus of responsibility in protective behaviour decisions

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Jeuring, Jelmer; Becken, Susanne

    2011-01-01

    Much of New Zealand's tourism industry is focused on 'the outdoors', capitalising on its natural environment and attractions. However, this 'product' makes New Zealand tourism vulnerable to environmental variability and disturbances, including the weather. As a consequence, New Zealand weather has a

  20. Loss experience from natural phenomena hazards in the Department of Energy (50 years of natural phenomena hazard losses)

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hill, J.R.

    1993-01-01

    This paper presents a historical prespective on losses due to natural hazard incidents (1943-1993) at Department of Energy (DOE) and predecessor agencies including the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and the Energy Research and Development Agency (ERDA). This paper also demonstrates how an existing DOE resource can be used to gain valuable insight into injury or property damage incidents. That resource is the Computerized Accident/Incident Reporting System (CAIRS) module of DOE's Safety Performance Measurement System. CAIRS data selected the 1981-1991 DOE injury/illness reports, from all the accident reports of the AEC that cited a natural phenomena hazard as either the direct or indirect cause of the injury/property damage. Specifically, injury or property damage reports were selected for analysis if they had a causal factor link to severe weather or natural phenomena hazard categories. Natural phenomena hazard categories are injury/property damage caused by hurricane/tornado, earthquake, lightning, or flood. Severe weather categories are injury/property damage associated with other than normal weather conditions. The lessons learned, as a result of reviewing case histories, are presented, as are suggestions on how to reduce the likelihood of future injuries/property damage as a result of similar events. A significant finding, is that most injuries and property damage were the result of an indirect causal link to a natural phenomena hazard and thus, may be more preventable than previously thought possible. The primary message, however, is that CAIRS and other incident data bases are valuable resources and should be considered for use by those interested in identifying new ways of protecting the health and safety of the worker and for reducing building losses due to the effects of natural phenomena hazards

  1. High potential for weathering and climate effects of non-vascular vegetation in the Late Ordovician

    Science.gov (United States)

    Porada, Philipp; Lenton, Tim; Pohl, Alexandre; Weber, Bettina; Mander, Luke; Donnadieu, Yannick; Beer, Christian; Pöschl, Ulrich; Kleidon, Axel

    2017-04-01

    Early non-vascular vegetation in the Late Ordovician may have strongly increased chemical weathering rates of surface rocks at the global scale. This could have led to a drawdown of atmospheric CO2 and, consequently, a decrease in global temperature and an interval of glaciations. Under current climatic conditions, usually field or laboratory experiments are used to quantify enhancement of chemical weathering rates by non-vascular vegetation. However, these experiments are constrained to a small spatial scale and a limited number of species. This complicates the extrapolation to the global scale, even more so for the geological past, where physiological properties of non-vascular vegetation may have differed from current species. Here we present a spatially explicit modelling approach to simulate large-scale chemical weathering by non-vascular vegetation in the Late Ordovician. For this purpose, we use a process-based model of lichens and bryophytes, since these organisms are probably the closest living analogue to Late Ordovician vegetation. The model explicitly represents multiple physiological strategies, which enables the simulated vegetation to adapt to Ordovician climatic conditions. We estimate productivity of Ordovician vegetation with the model, and relate it to chemical weathering by assuming that the organisms dissolve rocks to extract phosphorus for the production of new biomass. Thereby we account for limits on weathering due to reduced supply of unweathered rock material in shallow regions, as well as decreased transport capacity of runoff for dissolved weathered material in dry areas. We simulate a potential global weathering flux of 2.8 km3 (rock) per year, which we define as volume of primary minerals affected by chemical transformation. Our estimate is around 3 times larger than today's global chemical weathering flux. Furthermore, chemical weathering rates simulated by our model are highly sensitive to atmospheric CO2 concentration, which implies

  2. Quantifying nutrient uptake as driver of rock weathering in forest ecosystems by magnesium stable isotopes

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    D. Uhlig

    2017-06-01

    Full Text Available Plants and soil microbiota play an active role in rock weathering and potentially couple weathering at depth with erosion at the soil surface. The nature of this coupling is still unresolved because we lacked means to quantify the passage of chemical elements from rock through higher plants. In a temperate forested landscape characterised by relatively fast (∼ 220 t km−2 yr−1 denudation and a kinetically limited weathering regime of the Southern Sierra Critical Zone Observatory (SSCZO, California, we measured magnesium (Mg stable isotopes that are sensitive indicators of Mg utilisation by biota. We find that Mg is highly bio-utilised: 50–100 % of the Mg released by chemical weathering is taken up by forest trees. To estimate the tree uptake of other bio-utilised elements (K, Ca, P and Si we compared the dissolved fluxes of these elements and Mg in rivers with their solubilisation fluxes from rock (rock dissolution flux minus secondary mineral formation flux. We find a deficit in the dissolved fluxes throughout, which we attribute to the nutrient uptake by forest trees. Therefore both the Mg isotopes and the flux comparison suggest that a substantial part of the major element weathering flux is consumed by the tree biomass. The enrichment of 26Mg over 24Mg in tree trunks relative to leaves suggests that tree trunks account for a substantial fraction of the net uptake of Mg. This isotopic and elemental compartment separation is prevented from obliteration (which would occur by Mg redissolution by two potential effects. Either the mineral nutrients accumulate today in regrowing forest biomass after clear cutting, or they are exported in litter and coarse woody debris (CWD such that they remain in solid biomass. Over pre-forest-management weathering timescales, this removal flux might have been in operation in the form of natural erosion of CWD. Regardless of the removal mechanism, our approach provides entirely novel means towards

  3. Quantifying nutrient uptake as driver of rock weathering in forest ecosystems by magnesium stable isotopes

    Science.gov (United States)

    Uhlig, David; Schuessler, Jan A.; Bouchez, Julien; Dixon, Jean L.; von Blanckenburg, Friedhelm

    2017-06-01

    Plants and soil microbiota play an active role in rock weathering and potentially couple weathering at depth with erosion at the soil surface. The nature of this coupling is still unresolved because we lacked means to quantify the passage of chemical elements from rock through higher plants. In a temperate forested landscape characterised by relatively fast (˜ 220 t km-2 yr-1) denudation and a kinetically limited weathering regime of the Southern Sierra Critical Zone Observatory (SSCZO), California, we measured magnesium (Mg) stable isotopes that are sensitive indicators of Mg utilisation by biota. We find that Mg is highly bio-utilised: 50-100 % of the Mg released by chemical weathering is taken up by forest trees. To estimate the tree uptake of other bio-utilised elements (K, Ca, P and Si) we compared the dissolved fluxes of these elements and Mg in rivers with their solubilisation fluxes from rock (rock dissolution flux minus secondary mineral formation flux). We find a deficit in the dissolved fluxes throughout, which we attribute to the nutrient uptake by forest trees. Therefore both the Mg isotopes and the flux comparison suggest that a substantial part of the major element weathering flux is consumed by the tree biomass. The enrichment of 26Mg over 24Mg in tree trunks relative to leaves suggests that tree trunks account for a substantial fraction of the net uptake of Mg. This isotopic and elemental compartment separation is prevented from obliteration (which would occur by Mg redissolution) by two potential effects. Either the mineral nutrients accumulate today in regrowing forest biomass after clear cutting, or they are exported in litter and coarse woody debris (CWD) such that they remain in solid biomass. Over pre-forest-management weathering timescales, this removal flux might have been in operation in the form of natural erosion of CWD. Regardless of the removal mechanism, our approach provides entirely novel means towards the direct quantification of

  4. Specific weather biotrop factors in the mountain resorts of North Caucasus

    Science.gov (United States)

    Efimenko, Natalia; Chalaya, Elena; Povolotckaia, Nina; Senik, Irina; Slepykh, Victor

    2015-04-01

    Key aspects of weather therapeutic action in the mountain resorts of the Northern Caucasus (RNC) are formed under the combined influence of global, regional and local atmospheric processes, picturesque landscape, vegetation which create specificity and attraction of the weather regime for the interests of resort rehabilitation, recreation and tourism practically during the whole year. They include high purity of surface atmosphere (background level of aerosols for the countryside, the transparency of the atmosphere 0.780 -0.890); natural hypo barium and hypoxia (5-10%); increased natural aeroionization (N+=400-1000 ion/cm3; N- = 600-1200 ion/cm3; KUI = 0.8 -1.0); the softness of temperature rate (± 600 W/m ); regime of solar radiation favourable for heliotherapy. Pathogenic effects in the mountains can occur both in front atmospheric processes and in conditions of relatively favorable weather. For example, in a stable anti-cyclonic air mass with the sunny weather, foehn effects can happen that are accompanied by excessively low air humidity (lower than 20-30%), the air temperature rises in the afternoon (in winter until 15- 20°C, in summer - up to 25-35°C). The situation can be worsened by ozone intrusion (O3) with the increase of its concentration by 20 ppb or more, temperature stratification change, formation of pollution accumulation conditions in the gorges and valleys where the resort towns are located. We can observe: the increase in the concentration of aerosol pollution from 1.78 to 4 and even up to 8-10 particles/cm (particle diameter is 500-1000 nm); the rise in mass concentration of submicron aerosol up to 75 mkg/m3 and the gas pollution (CO, COx, O3) of the surface atmosphere. Against this backdrop the effects of rapid changes in the chemical composition of natural ions due to the formation of positive nitrogen ions (often with a prevalence of positive over negative air ions) can be sometimes developed. In such situations people suffering from

  5. Using Artificial Intelligence to Inform Pilots of Weather

    Science.gov (United States)

    Spirkovska, Lilly; Lodha, Suresh K.

    2006-01-01

    An automated system to assist a General Aviation (GA) pilot in improving situational awareness of weather in flight is now undergoing development. This development is prompted by the observation that most fatal GA accidents are attributable to loss of weather awareness. Loss of weather awareness, in turn, has been attributed to the difficulty of interpreting traditional preflight weather briefings and the difficulty of both obtaining and interpreting traditional in-flight weather briefings. The developmental automated system not only improves weather awareness but also substantially reduces the time a pilot must spend in acquiring and maintaining weather awareness.

  6. Enhancing blood donor skin disinfection using natural oils.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Alabdullatif, Meshari; Boujezza, Imen; Mekni, Mohamed; Taha, Mariam; Kumaran, Dilini; Yi, Qi-Long; Landoulsi, Ahmed; Ramirez-Arcos, Sandra

    2017-12-01

    Effective donor skin disinfection is essential in preventing bacterial contamination of blood components with skin flora bacteria like Staphylococcus epidermidis. Cell aggregates of S. epidermidis (biofilms) are found on the skin and are resistant to the commonly used donor skin disinfectants chlorhexidine-gluconate and isopropyl alcohol. It has been demonstrated that essential oils synergistically enhance the antibacterial activity of chlorhexidine-gluconate. The objective of this study was to test plant-extracted essential oils in combination with chlorhexidine-gluconate or chlorhexidine-gluconate plus isopropyl alcohol for their ability to eliminate S. epidermidis biofilms. The composition of oils extracted from Artemisia herba-alba, Lavandula multifida, Origanum marjoram, Rosmarinus officinalis, and Thymus capitatus was analyzed using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. A rabbit model was used to assess skin irritation caused by the oils. In addition, the anti-biofilm activity of the oils used alone or in combination with chlorhexidine-gluconate or chlorhexidine-gluconate plus isopropyl alcohol was tested against S. epidermidis biofilms. Essential oil concentrations 10%, 20%, and 30% were chosen for anti-biofilm assays, because skin irritation was observed at concentrations greater than 30%. All oils except for O. marjoram had anti-biofilm activity at these three concentrations. L. multifida synergistically enhanced the anti-biofilm activity of chlorhexidine-gluconate and resulted in the highest anti-biofilm activity observed when combined with chlorhexidine-gluconate plus isopropyl alcohol. Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry revealed that the main component contributing to the activity of L. multifida oil was a natural terpene alcohol called linalool. The anti-biofilm activity of chlorhexidine-gluconate plus isopropyl alcohol can be greatly enhanced by L. multifida oil or linalool. Therefore, these components could potentially be used to improve blood

  7. Effects of Weather on Tourism and its Moderation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Park, J. H.; Kim, S.; Lee, D. K.

    2016-12-01

    Tourism is weather sensitive industry (Gómez Martín, 2005). As climate change has been intensifying, the concerns about negative effects of weather on tourism also have been increasing. This study attempted to find ways that mitigate the negative effects from weather on tourism, by analyzing a path of the effects of weather on intention to revisit and its moderation. The data of the study were collected by a self-recording online questionnaire survey of South Korean domestic tourists during August 2015, and 2,412 samples were gathered. A path model of effects of weather on intention to revisit that including moderating effects from physical attraction satisfaction and service satisfaction was ran. Season was controlled in the path model. The model fit was adequate (CMIN/DF=2.372(p=.000), CFI=.974, RMSEA=.024, SRMR=0.040), and the Model Comparison, which assumes that the base model to be correct with season constrained model, showed that there was a seasonal differences in the model ( DF=24, CMIN=32.430, P=.117). By the analysis, it was figured out that weather and weather expectation affected weather satisfaction, and the weather satisfaction affected intention to revisit (spring/fall: .167**, summer: .104**, and winter: .114**). Meanwhile physical attraction satisfaction (.200**), and service satisfaction (.210**) of tourism positively moderated weather satisfaction in summer, and weather satisfaction positively moderated physical attraction (.238**) satisfaction and service satisfaction (.339**). In other words, in summer, dissatisfaction from hot weather was moderated by satisfaction from physical attractions and services, and in spring/fall, comfort weather conditions promoted tourists to accept tourism experience and be satisfied from attractions and services positively. Based on the result, it was expected that if industries focus on offering the good attractions and services based on weather conditions, there would be positive effects to alleviate tourists

  8. Designing a Weather Station

    Science.gov (United States)

    Roman, Harry T.

    2012-01-01

    The collection and analysis of weather data is crucial to the location of alternate energy systems like solar and wind. This article presents a design challenge that gives students a chance to design a weather station to collect data in advance of a large wind turbine installation. Data analysis is a crucial part of any science or engineering…

  9. Flood and Weather Monitoring Using Real-time Twitter Data Streams

    Science.gov (United States)

    Demir, I.; Sit, M. A.; Sermet, M. Y.

    2016-12-01

    Social media data is a widely used source to making inference within public crisis periods and events in disaster times. Specifically, since Twitter provides large-scale data publicly in real-time, it is one of the most extensive resources with location information. This abstract provides an overview of a real-time Twitter analysis system to support flood preparedness and response using a comprehensive information-centric flood ontology and natural language processing. Within the scope of this project, we deal with acquisition and processing of real-time Twitter data streams. System fetches the tweets with specified keywords and classifies them as related to flooding or heavy weather conditions. The system uses machine learning algorithms to discover patterns using the correlation between tweets and Iowa Flood Information System's (IFIS) extensive resources. The system uses these patterns to forecast the formation and progress of a potential future flood event. While fetching tweets, predefined hashtags are used for filtering and enhancing the relevancy for selected tweets. With this project, tweets can also be used as an alternative data source where other data sources are not sufficient for specific tasks. During the disasters, the photos that people upload alongside their tweets can be collected and placed to appropriate locations on a mapping system. This allows decision making authorities and communities to see the most recent outlook of the disaster interactively. In case of an emergency, concentration of tweets can help the authorities to determine a strategy on how to reach people most efficiently while providing them the supplies they need. Thanks to the extendable nature of the flood ontology and framework, results from this project will be a guide for other natural disasters, and will be shared with the community.

  10. Root distribution and seasonal water status in weathered granitic bedrock under chaparral

    Science.gov (United States)

    P. D. Sternberg; M. A. Anderson; R. C. Graham; J. L. Beyers; K. R. Tice

    1996-01-01

    Soils in mountainous terrain are often thin and unable to store sufficient water to support existing vegetation through dry seasons. This observation has led to speculation about the role of bedrock in supporting plant growth in natural ecosystems, since weathered bedrocks often have appreciable porosity and, like soil, can store and transmit water. This study, within...

  11. Prevalence of weather sensitivity in Germany and Canada

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mackensen, Sylvia; Hoeppe, Peter; Maarouf, Abdel; Tourigny, Pierre; Nowak, Dennis

    2005-01-01

    Several studies have shown that atmospheric conditions can affect well-being or disease, and that some individuals seem to be more sensitive to weather than others. Since epidemiological data on the prevalence of weather-related health effects are lacking, two representative weather sensitivity (WS) surveys were conducted independently in Germany and Canada. The objectives of this paper are: (1) to identify the prevalence of WS in Germany and Canada, (2) to describe weather-related symptoms and the corresponding weather conditions, and (3) to compare the findings in the two countries. In Germany 1,064 citizens (age >16 years) were interviewed in January 2001, and in Canada 1,506 persons (age >18 years) were interviewed in January 1994. The results showed that 19.2% of the German population thought that weather affected their health “to a strong degree,” 35.3% that weather had “some influence on their health” (sum of both = 54.5% weather sensitive), whereas the remaining 45.5% did not consider that weather had an effect on their health status. In Canada 61% of the respondents considered themselves to be sensitive to the weather. The highest prevalence of WS (high + some influence) in Germans was found in the age group older than 60 years (68%), which was almost identical in the Canadian population (69%). The highest frequencies of weather-related symptoms were reported in Germany for stormy weather (30%) and when it became colder (29%). In Canada mainly cold weather (46%), dampness (21%) and rain (20%) were considered to affect health more than other weather types. The most frequent symptoms reported in Germany were headache/migraine (61%), lethargy (47%), sleep disturbances (46%), fatigue (42%), joint pain (40%), irritation (31%), depression (27%), vertigo (26%), concentration problems (26%) and scar pain (23%). Canadian weather-sensitive persons reported colds (29%), psychological effects (28%) and painful joints, muscles or arthritis (10%). In Germany 32

  12. Five case studies of multifamily weatherization programs

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Kinney, L; Wilson, T.; Lewis, G. [Synertech Systems Corp. (United States); MacDonald, M. [Oak Ridge National Lab., TN (United States)

    1997-12-31

    The multifamily case studies that are the subject of this report were conducted to provide a better understanding of the approach taken by program operators in weatherizing large buildings. Because of significant variations in building construction and energy systems across the country, five states were selected based on their high level of multifamily weatherization. This report summarizes findings from case studies conducted by multifamily weatherization operations in five cities. The case studies were conducted between January and November 1994. Each of the case studies involved extensive interviews with the staff of weatherization subgrantees conducting multifamily weatherization, the inspection of 4 to 12 buildings weatherized between 1991 and 1993, and the analysis of savings and costs. The case studies focused on innovative techniques which appear to work well.

  13. Use of a Data-Linked Weather Information Display and Effects on Pilot Navigation Decision Making in a Piloted Simulation Study

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yuchnovicz, Daniel E.; Novacek, Paul F.; Burgess, Malcolm A.; Heck, Michael L.; Stokes, Alan F.

    2001-01-01

    This study provides recommendations to the FAA and to prospective manufacturers based on an exploration of the effects of data link weather displays upon pilot decision performance. An experiment was conducted with twenty-four current instrument rated pilots who were divided into two equal groups and presented with a challenging but realistic flight scenario involving weather containing significant embedded convective activity. All flights were flown in a full-mission simulation facility within instrument meteorological conditions. The inflight weather display depicted NexRad images, graphical METARs and textual METARs. The objective was to investigate the potential for misuse of a weather display, and incorporate recommendations for the design and use of these displays. The primary conclusion of the study found that the inflight weather display did not improve weather avoidance decision making. Some of the reasons to support this finding include: the pilot's inability to easily perceive their proximity to the storms, increased workload and difficulty in deciphering METAR textual data. The compelling nature of a graphical weather display caused many pilots to reduce their reliance on corroborating weather information from other sources. Minor changes to the weather display could improve the ability of a pilot to make better decisions on hazard avoidance.

  14. Osmium isotope perturbations during the Pliensbachian-Toarcian (Early Jurassic): Relationships between volcanism, weathering, and climate change

    Science.gov (United States)

    Percival, Lawrence; Cohen, Anthony; Davies, Marc; Dickson, Alexander; Jenkyns, Hugh; Hesselbo, Stephen; Mather, Tamsin; Xu, Weimu; Storm, Marisa

    2016-04-01

    The Mesozoic Era marked a time of greenhouse conditions on Earth, punctuated by a number of abrupt perturbations to the carbon cycle, such as Ocean Anoxic Events (OAEs). OAEs are typically marked in the stratigraphic record by the appearance of organic-rich shales, and excursions in carbon-isotope ratios registered in carbonates and organic matter. A range of geochemical evidence indicates changes to global temperatures, typically featuring abrupt warming possibly caused by CO2 emissions resulting from Large Igneous Province (LIP) volcanism. A warmer atmosphere is thought to have led to changes in the global hydrological cycle, which would likely have enhanced global weathering rates. The Toarcian OAE (T-OAE) is inferred, from osmium isotope ratios in organic-rich mudrocks from Yorkshire and western North America, to have been a time of such increased weathering rates. However, it is likely that the sediments at these locations were deposited in relatively hydrographically restricted environments, potentially more susceptible to the influence of local input; consequently, they may not offer the best representation of the global seawater Os-isotope composition at that time. In this study, we have measured the osmium isotope composition of siciliclastic mudrocks in a core from the Mochras borehole (Llanbedr Farm, Cardigan Bay Basin, Wales), which constitutes a sedimentary record for a fully open-marine seaway that connected Tethys to the Boreal ocean during the Toarcian. We analysed samples from strata including both the T-OAE and preceding Pliensbachian-Toarcian boundary (Pl-To), both of which record multiple geochemical excursions and records of elevated extinction amongst benthic fauna. We find that the latest Pliensbachian records seawater 187Os/188Os of ~0.35-0.4, rising to ~0.5 at the Pl-To boundary, before a further rise to ~0.7 during the T-OAE. We conclude that such increases in radiogenic Os flux to the ocean system resulted from enhanced continental

  15. Severe Weather Data Inventory (SWDI)

    Data.gov (United States)

    National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — The Severe Weather Data Inventory (SWDI) is an integrated database of severe weather records for the United States. SWDI enables a user to search through a variety...

  16. Laboratory weathering of combusted oil shale

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Essington, M.E.

    1991-01-01

    The objective of this study was to examine the mineralogy and leachate chemistry of three combusted oil shales (two Green River Formation and one New Albany) in a laboratory weathering environment using the humidity cell technique. The mineralogy of the combusted western oil shales (Green River Formation) is process dependent. In general, processing resulted in the formation of anhydrite, lime, periclase, and hematite. During the initial stages of weathering, lime, periclase, and hematite. During the initial stages of weathering, lime, periclase, and anhydrite dissolve and ettringite precipitates. The initial leachates are highly alkaline, saline, and dominated by Na, hydroxide, and SO 4 . As weathering continues, ettringite precipitates. The initial leachates are highly alkaline, saline, and dominated by Na, hydroxide, and SO 4 . As weathering continues, ettringite dissolves, gypsum and calcite precipitate, and the leachates are dominated by Mg, SO 4 , and CO 3 . Leachate pH is rapidly reduced to between 8.5 and 9 with leaching. The combusted eastern oil shale (New Albany) is composed of quartz, illite, hematite, and orthoclase. Weathering results in the precipitation of gypsum. The combusted eastern oil shale did not display a potential to produce acid drainage. Leachate chemistry was dominated by Ca and SO 4 . Element concentrations continually decreased with weathering. IN a western disposal environment receiving minimal atmospheric precipitation, spent oil shale will remain in the initial stages of weathering, and highly alkaline and saline conditions will dominate leachate chemistry. In an eastern disposal environment, soluble salts will be rapidly removed from the spent oil shale to potentially affect the surrounding environment

  17. Identifying the changes of geo-engineering properties of dunites due to weathering utilizing electrical resistivity tomography (ERT)

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ündül, Ömer; Tuğrul, Atiye; Zarif, İ Halil; Özyalın, Şenol

    2015-01-01

    Weathering phenomena have an important role in many construction facilities with varying depths and grades. Due to the anisotropic and heterogeneous nature of weathering profiles of some rocks, uncertainities exist in determining the geo-engineering properties. Geo-electrical studies have been utilized to overcome such uncertainities for various subsurface conditions including the determination of boundaries between weathered and unweathered parts of different rock types.In this study, the electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) results were correlated with conventional methods in determining the effects of weathering on the geo-engineering properties of dunites. During the research, weathering grades were determined by field studies including discontinuity spacings, aperture and properties of fill materials. The detailed petrographical studies, determination of petrophysical properties (e.g. water absorption and effective porosity) and mechanical properties (e.g. unconfined compressive strength (UCS)) constitute the laboratory studies. ERT studies were carried out in a row of sixty electrodes with electrode spacings of 0.5 m utilizing a Wenner–Schlumberger configuration. According to the comparison of the inversion model sections with the weathering profiles obtained by field and laboratory studies it is concluded that the use of ERT with a Wenner–Schlumberger configuration supplies comparable data for wider subsurface areas from the view of weathering and its effect on geo-engineering properties of dunites. In addition, ERT techniques are very useful where conventional techniques are inadequate in determining the full weathering profile. (paper)

  18. Atmospheric natural disasters in Serbia: Management experience and economic effects

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Nikolić Jugoslav

    2013-01-01

    Full Text Available Natural disasters occur as a result of an action of natural forces and represent limitations in spatial planning and efficient spatial development, with different consequences in terms of scope on humans, living things and tangible property. Consequences can be ecological, economic, in terms of health, demographic, social, psychological, etc. Weather modification management involves policies, methods, techniques and technologies that affect atmospheric features in order to make atmospheric water useful for humans, while eliminating its negative effects. Highly significant risk of natural disasters in Serbia is related to hailstorm disasters and droughts as atmospheric elementary disasters. The goal of this paper is to present certain methodologies and experience in Serbia in the weather modification management, mainly in the hailstorm processes. This paper provides analysis and critical review of the methodology of an action, with the analysis of the economic benefits. Cost-benefit analysis of a hail suppression project in Serbia was performed. The results point to the economic justification of some aspects of artificial influence on weather disasters.

  19. Internet-accessible real-time weather information system

    Digital Repository Service at National Institute of Oceanography (India)

    Desai, R.G.P.; Joseph, A.; Desa, E.; Mehra, P.; Desa, E.; Gouveia, A.D.

    An internet-accessible real-time weather information system has been developed. This system provides real-time accessibility to weather information from a multitude of spatially distributed weather stations. The Internet connectivity also offers...

  20. Weather on Steroids: The Art of Climate Change Science.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Boudrias, M. A.; Gershunov, A.; Sizonenko, T.; Wiese, A.; Fox, H.

    2017-12-01

    There have been many different kinds of efforts to improve climate change literacy of diverse audiences in the past several years. The challenge has been to balance science content with audience-specific messaging that engages them in both rational and affective ways. In the San Diego Region, Climate Education Partners (CEP) has been working with business leaders, elected officials, tribal leaders, and other community leaders to develop a suite of programs and activities to enhance the channels of communication outside traditional settings. CEP has partnered with the La Jolla Historical Society and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in a unique exhibition of art inspired by climate science, a project blending science and art to communicate the science of climate change in a new way and engage audiences more effectively. Weather on Steroids: the Art of Climate Change Science explores the question of consequences, challenges, and opportunities that arise from the changing climate on our planet. The exhibition merges the artistic and scientific to create a visual dialogue about the vexing problem of climate change, explores how weather variability affects the day-to-day life of local communities, and investigates Southern California vulnerability to climate change. Science serves as the inspiration for the creative responses from visual artists, who merge subjective images with empirical observation to reveal how climate variations upset the planet's balance with extreme weather impacts. Both the scientists and artists created didactic pages to explain their perspectives and each pair worked closely to incorporate the information into the creative piece so that the connection of each of 11 art installations to the science that inspired them is clear. By illuminating the reality of climate change, Weather on Steroids aspires to proactively stimulate public dialogue about one of the most important issues of our time.

  1. North American natural gas price outlook

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Denhardt, R.

    1998-01-01

    Issues regarding future natural gas prices for North America were discussed. Various aspects of the issue including the relationship between storage, weather and prices, received attention. It was noted that strong demand-growth will be needed to support near-term Canadian export increases without price declines. The issue of Gulf Coast production was also discussed. Power generation using natural gas as fuel is expected to support strong growth in the demand for natural gas. tabs., figs

  2. Scaling Patterns of Natural Urban Places as a Rule for Enhancing Their Urban Functionality Using Trajectory Data

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jia, T.; Yu, X.

    2018-04-01

    With the availability of massive trajectory data, it is highly valuable to reveal their activity information for many domains such as understanding the functionality of urban regions. This article utilizes the scaling patterns of human activities to enhance functional distribution of natural urban places. Specifically, we proposed a temporal city clustering algorithm to aggregate the stopping locations into natural urban places, which are reported to follow remarkable power law distributions of sizes and obey a universal law of economy of scale on human interactions with urban infrastructure. Besides, we proposed a novel Bayesian inference model with damping factor to estimate the most likely POI type associated with a stopping location. Our results suggest that hot natural urban places could be effectively identified from their scaling patterns and their functionality can be very well enhanced. For instance, natural urban places containing airport or railway station can be highly stressed by accumulating the massive types of human activities.

  3. Weather Regulates Location, Timing, and Intensity of Dengue Virus Transmission between Humans and Mosquitoes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Campbell, Karen M; Haldeman, Kristin; Lehnig, Chris; Munayco, Cesar V; Halsey, Eric S; Laguna-Torres, V Alberto; Yagui, Martín; Morrison, Amy C; Lin, Chii-Dean; Scott, Thomas W

    2015-01-01

    % resolution. Local duration in limited areas of temperature-humidity weather-space identifies potential locations, timing, and magnitude of transmission. The weather-space profile of transmission-potential provides needed data that define a systematic and highly-sensitive weather-disease connection, demonstrating separate but coupled roles of temperature and humidity. New insights regarding natural regulation of human-mosquito transmission across diverse ecological settings advance our understanding of risk locally and globally for dengue and other mosquito-borne diseases and support advances in public health policy/operations, providing an evidence-base for modeling, predicting risk, and surveillance-prevention planning.

  4. Weather Regulates Location, Timing, and Intensity of Dengue Virus Transmission between Humans and Mosquitoes.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Karen M Campbell

    -100% at 1°C x 2% resolution.Local duration in limited areas of temperature-humidity weather-space identifies potential locations, timing, and magnitude of transmission. The weather-space profile of transmission-potential provides needed data that define a systematic and highly-sensitive weather-disease connection, demonstrating separate but coupled roles of temperature and humidity. New insights regarding natural regulation of human-mosquito transmission across diverse ecological settings advance our understanding of risk locally and globally for dengue and other mosquito-borne diseases and support advances in public health policy/operations, providing an evidence-base for modeling, predicting risk, and surveillance-prevention planning.

  5. The enhanced greenhouse signal versus natural variations in observed climate time series: a statistical approach

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Schoenwiese, C D [J.W. Goethe Univ., Frankfurt (Germany). Inst. for Meteorology and Geophysics

    1996-12-31

    It is a well-known fact that human activities lead to an atmospheric concentration increase of some IR-active trace gases (greenhouse gases GHG) and that this influence enhances the `greenhouse effect`. However, there are major quantitative and regional uncertainties in the related climate model projections and the observational data reflect the whole complex of both anthropogenic and natural forcing of the climate system. This contribution aims at the separation of the anthropogenic enhanced greenhouse signal in observed global surface air temperature data versus other forcing using statistical methods such as multiple (multiforced) regressions and neural networks. The competitive natural forcing considered are volcanic and solar activity, in addition the ENSO (El Nino/Southern Oscillation) mechanism. This analysis will be extended also to the NAO (North Atlantic Oscillation) and anthropogenic sulfate formation in the troposphere

  6. The enhanced greenhouse signal versus natural variations in observed climate time series: a statistical approach

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Schoenwiese, C.D. [J.W. Goethe Univ., Frankfurt (Germany). Inst. for Meteorology and Geophysics

    1995-12-31

    It is a well-known fact that human activities lead to an atmospheric concentration increase of some IR-active trace gases (greenhouse gases GHG) and that this influence enhances the `greenhouse effect`. However, there are major quantitative and regional uncertainties in the related climate model projections and the observational data reflect the whole complex of both anthropogenic and natural forcing of the climate system. This contribution aims at the separation of the anthropogenic enhanced greenhouse signal in observed global surface air temperature data versus other forcing using statistical methods such as multiple (multiforced) regressions and neural networks. The competitive natural forcing considered are volcanic and solar activity, in addition the ENSO (El Nino/Southern Oscillation) mechanism. This analysis will be extended also to the NAO (North Atlantic Oscillation) and anthropogenic sulfate formation in the troposphere

  7. Detection of Weather Radar Clutter

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Bøvith, Thomas

    2008-01-01

    classification and use a range of different techniques and input data. The first method uses external information from multispectral satellite images to detect clutter. The information in the visual, near-infrared, and infrared parts of the spectrum can be used to distinguish between cloud and cloud-free areas......Weather radars provide valuable information on precipitation in the atmosphere but due to the way radars work, not only precipitation is observed by the weather radar. Weather radar clutter, echoes from non-precipitating targets, occur frequently in the data, resulting in lowered data quality....... Especially in the application of weather radar data in quantitative precipitation estimation and forecasting a high data quality is important. Clutter detection is one of the key components in achieving this goal. This thesis presents three methods for detection of clutter. The methods use supervised...

  8. Combined experimental and numerical evaluation of a prototype nano-PCM enhanced wallboard

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Biswas, Kaushik; Lu, Jue; Soroushian, Parviz; Shrestha, Som

    2014-01-01

    Highlights: • Field-testing of a nano-PCM wallboard under varying weather conditions. • Numerical model validation and annual simulations of PCM wallboard performance. • Reduced cooling electricity consumption results from PCM wallboard. • PCM wallboard reduces peak cooling loads with implications on power plant capacity. • PCM performance was sensitive to building temperature set point for cooling. - Abstract: In the United States, forty-eight (48) percent of the residential end-use energy consumption is spent on space heating and air conditioning. Reducing envelope-generated heating and cooling loads through application of phase change materials (PCMs) in building envelopes can enhance the energy efficiency of buildings and reduce energy consumption. Experimental testing and numerical modeling of PCM-enhanced envelope components are two important aspects of the evaluation of their energy benefits. An innovative phase change material (nano-PCM) was developed with PCM supported by expanded graphite (interconnected) nanosheets, which are highly conductive and allow enhanced thermal storage and energy distribution. The nano-PCM is shape-stable for convenient incorporation into lightweight building components. A wall with cellulose cavity insulation and a prototype PCM-enhanced interior wallboard was built and tested in a natural exposure test (NET) facility in a hot-humid climate location. The test wall contained the PCM wallboard and a regular gypsum wallboard, for a side-by-side annual comparison study. Further, numerical modeling of the wall containing the nano-PCM wallboard was performed to determine its actual impact on wall-generated heating and cooling loads. The model was first validated using experimental data, and then used for annual simulations using typical meteorological year (TMY3) weather data. This article presents the measured performance and numerical analysis evaluating the energy-saving potential of the nano-PCM-enhanced wallboard

  9. Mechanical Properties and Weathering Behavior of Polypropylene-Hemp Shives Composites

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Marcel Ionel Popa

    2013-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper presents the obtaining and the characterization of composites with polypropylene matrix and hemp shives as filler in different ratios and containing poly(propylene-co maleic anhydride (MAH-PP 3% wt as compatibility agent. The weathering behavior of the composite enclosing 60% hemp shives, performed after the exposure to UV radiations at different exposure times, was evaluated. The changes in the chemical and morphological structures were investigated by FT-IR and RAMAN spectroscopies and AFM microscopy. The mechanical characteristics of the composites were determined before and after an artificial aging process, and they are within the limits of the values reported for polyolefin-based composites and materials with natural fillers. During the accelerated weathering process, the correlation between the chemical degradation of the main components of the composite and the modification of the mechanical properties after the process of aging has been observed.

  10. The greenhouse effect and extreme weather

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Groenaas, Sigbjoern; Kvamstoe, Nils Gunnar

    2002-01-01

    The article asserts that an anthropogenic global warming is occurring. This greenhouse effect is expected to cause more occurrences of extreme weather. It is extremely difficult, however, to relate specific weather catastrophes to global warming with certainty, since such extreme weather conditions are rare historically. The subject is controversial. The article also discusses the public debate and the risk of floods

  11. Effect of Temperature Shock and Inventory Surprises on Natural Gas and Heating Oil Futures Returns

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hu, John Wei-Shan; Lin, Chien-Yu

    2014-01-01

    The aim of this paper is to examine the impact of temperature shock on both near-month and far-month natural gas and heating oil futures returns by extending the weather and storage models of the previous study. Several notable findings from the empirical studies are presented. First, the expected temperature shock significantly and positively affects both the near-month and far-month natural gas and heating oil futures returns. Next, significant temperature shock has effect on both the conditional mean and volatility of natural gas and heating oil prices. The results indicate that expected inventory surprises significantly and negatively affects the far-month natural gas futures returns. Moreover, volatility of natural gas futures returns is higher on Thursdays and that of near-month heating oil futures returns is higher on Wednesdays than other days. Finally, it is found that storage announcement for natural gas significantly affects near-month and far-month natural gas futures returns. Furthermore, both natural gas and heating oil futures returns are affected more by the weighted average temperature reported by multiple weather reporting stations than that reported by a single weather reporting station. PMID:25133233

  12. Satellite navigation—Amazing technology but insidious risk: Why everyone needs to understand space weather

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hapgood, Mike

    2017-04-01

    Global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) are one of the technological wonders of the modern world. Popularly known as satellite navigation, these systems have provided global access to precision location and timing services and have thereby stimulated advances in industry and consumer services, including all forms of transport, telecommunications, financial trading, and even the synchronization of power grids. But this wonderful technology is at risk from natural phenomena in the form of space weather. GNSS signals experience a slight delay as they pass through the ionosphere. This delay varies with space weather conditions and is the most significant source of error for GNSS. Scientific efforts to correct these errors have stimulated billions of dollars of investment in systems that provide accurate correction data for suitably equipped GNSS receivers in a growing number of regions around the world. This accuracy is essential for GNSS use by aircraft and ships. Space weather also provides a further occasional but severe risk to GNSS: an extreme space weather event may deny access to GNSS as ionospheric scintillation scrambles the radio signals from satellites, and rapid ionospheric changes outstrip the ability of error correction systems to supply accurate corrections. It is vital that GNSS users have a backup for such occasions, even if it is only to hunker down and weather the storm.

  13. Extreme weather events and infectious disease outbreaks.

    Science.gov (United States)

    McMichael, Anthony J

    2015-01-01

    Human-driven climatic changes will fundamentally influence patterns of human health, including infectious disease clusters and epidemics following extreme weather events. Extreme weather events are projected to increase further with the advance of human-driven climate change. Both recent and historical experiences indicate that infectious disease outbreaks very often follow extreme weather events, as microbes, vectors and reservoir animal hosts exploit the disrupted social and environmental conditions of extreme weather events. This review article examines infectious disease risks associated with extreme weather events; it draws on recent experiences including Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the 2010 Pakistan mega-floods, and historical examples from previous centuries of epidemics and 'pestilence' associated with extreme weather disasters and climatic changes. A fuller understanding of climatic change, the precursors and triggers of extreme weather events and health consequences is needed in order to anticipate and respond to the infectious disease risks associated with human-driven climate change. Post-event risks to human health can be constrained, nonetheless, by reducing background rates of persistent infection, preparatory action such as coordinated disease surveillance and vaccination coverage, and strengthened disaster response. In the face of changing climate and weather conditions, it is critically important to think in ecological terms about the determinants of health, disease and death in human populations.

  14. Colon-targeted delivery of piceatannol enhances anti-colitic effects of the natural product: potential molecular mechanisms for therapeutic enhancement

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yum S

    2015-08-01

    Full Text Available Soohwan Yum, Seongkeun Jeong, Sunyoung Lee, Joon Nam, Wooseong Kim, Jin-Wook Yoo, Min-Soo Kim, Bok Luel Lee, Yunjin Jung College of Pharmacy, Pusan National University, Busan, Republic of Korea Abstract: Piceatannol (PCT, an anti-colitic natural product, undergoes extensive Phase II hepatic metabolism, resulting in very low bioavailability. We investigated whether colon-targeted delivery of PCT could enhance anti-colitic effects and how therapeutic enhancement occurred at the molecular level. Molecular effects of PCT were examined in human colon carcinoma cells and inflamed colons. The anti-colitic effects of PCT in a colon-targeted capsule (colon-targeted PCT were compared with PCT in a gelatin capsule (conventional PCT in a trinitrobenzene sulfonic acid-induced rat colitis model. Colon-targeted PCT elicited greatly enhanced recovery of the colonic inflammation. In HCT116 cells, PCT inhibited nuclear factor kappaB while activating anti-colitic transcription factors, nuclear factor-erythroid 2 (NF-E2 p45-related factor 2, and hypoxia-inducible factor-1. Colon-targeted PCT, but not conventional PCT, modulated production of the target gene products of the transcription factors in the inflamed colonic tissues. Rectal administration of PCT, which simulates the therapeutic action of colon-targeted PCT, also ameliorated rat colitis and reproduced the molecular effects in the inflamed colonic tissues. Colon-targeted delivery increased therapeutic efficacy of PCT against colitis, likely resulting from multitargeted effects exerted by colon-targeted PCT. The drug delivery technique may be useful for therapeutic optimization of anti-colitic lead compounds including natural products. Keywords: piceatannol, colitis, colon-targeted delivery, multitarget, polypharmacology

  15. A Two-Dimensional Gridded Solar Forecasting System using Situation-Dependent Blending of Multiple Weather Models

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lu, S.; Hwang, Y.; Shao, X.; Hamann, H.

    2015-12-01

    Previously, we reported the application of a "weather situation" dependent multi-model blending approach to improve the forecast accuracy of solar irradiance and other atmospheric parameters. The approach uses machine-learning techniques to classify "weather situations" by a set of atmospheric parameters. The "weather situation" classification is location-dependent and each "weather situation" has characteristic forecast errors from a set of individual input numerical weather prediction (NWP) models. The input models are thus corrected or combined differently for different "weather situations" to minimize the overall forecast error. While the original implementation of the model-blending is applicable to only point-like locations having historical data of both measurements and forecasts, here we extend the approach to provide two-dimensional (2D) gridded forecasts. An experimental 2D forecasting system has been set up to provide gridded forecasts of solar irradiance (global horizontal irradiance), temperature, wind speed, and humidity for the contiguous United States (CONUS). Validation results show around 30% enhancement of 0 to 48 hour ahead solar irradiance forecast accuracy compared to the best input NWP model. The forecasting system may be leveraged by other site- or region-specific solar energy forecast products. To enable the 2D forecasting system, historical solar irradiance measurements from around 1,600 selected sites of the remote automated weather stations (RAWS) network have been employed. The CONUS was divided into smaller sub-regions, each containing a group of 10 to 20 RAWS sites. A group of sites, as classified by statistical analysis, have similar "weather patterns", i.e. the NWPs have similar "weather situation" dependent forecast errors for all sites in a group. The model-blending trained by the historical data from a group of sites is then applied for all locations in the corresponding sub-region. We discuss some key techniques developed for

  16. Impact of bacterial and fungal processes on {sup 14}C-hexadecane mineralisation in weathered hydrocarbon contaminated soil

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Adetutu, Eric M.; Ball, Andy S. [School of Biological Sciences, Flinders University, Adelaide, South Australia, 5001 (Australia); Weber, John; Aleer, Samuel; Dandie, Catherine E. [Centre for Environmental Risk Assessment and Remediation (CERAR), University of South Australia, Mawson Lakes Campus, Adelaide, South Australia, 5095 (Australia); Cooperative Research Centre for Contamination Assessment and Remediation of the Environment (CRC CARE), Mawson Lakes, Adelaide, South Australia, 5095 (Australia); Juhasz, Albert L., E-mail: Albert.Juhasz@unisa.edu.au [Centre for Environmental Risk Assessment and Remediation (CERAR), University of South Australia, Mawson Lakes Campus, Adelaide, South Australia, 5095 (Australia); Cooperative Research Centre for Contamination Assessment and Remediation of the Environment (CRC CARE), Mawson Lakes, Adelaide, South Australia, 5095 (Australia)

    2012-01-01

    In this study, the impact of bacterial and fungal processes on {sup 14}C-hexadecane mineralisation was investigated in weathered hydrocarbon contaminated soil. The extent of {sup 14}C-hexadecane mineralisation varied depending on the bioremediation strategy employed. Under enhanced natural attenuation conditions, {sup 14}C-hexadecane mineralisation after 98 days was 8.5 {+-} 3.7% compared to < 1.2% without nitrogen and phosphorus additions. {sup 14}C-hexadecane mineralisation was further enhanced through Tween 80 amendments (28.9 {+-} 2.4%) which also promoted the growth of a Phanerochaete chyrsosporium fungal mat. Although fungal growth in weathered hydrocarbon contaminated soil could be promoted through supplementing additional carbon sources (Tween 80, sawdust, compost, pea straw), fungal {sup 14}C-hexadecane mineralisation was negligible when sodium azide was added to soil microcosms to inhibit bacterial activity. In contrast, when fungal activity was inhibited through nystatin additions, {sup 14}C-hexadecane mineralisation ranged from 6.5 {+-} 0.2 to 35.8 {+-} 3.8% after 98 days depending on the supplied amendment. Bacteria inhibition with sodium azide resulted in a reduction in bacterial diversity (33-37%) compared to microcosms supplemented with nystatin or microcosms without inhibitory supplements. However, alkB bacterial groups were undetected in sodium azide supplemented microcosms, highlighting the important role of this bacterial group in {sup 14}C-hexadecane mineralisation. - Highlights: Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer The roles of different microbial groups in hydrocarbon mineralisation was assessed. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Inhibiting fungal growth did not affect {sup 14}C-hexadecane mineralisation. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Inhibiting bacterial growth resulted in negligible {sup 14}C-hexadecane mineralisation. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer alkB bacterial groups were undetected in sodium azide supplemented microcosms. Black

  17. Cost-Loss Analysis of Ensemble Solar Wind Forecasting: Space Weather Use of Terrestrial Weather Tools

    Science.gov (United States)

    Henley, E. M.; Pope, E. C. D.

    2017-12-01

    This commentary concerns recent work on solar wind forecasting by Owens and Riley (2017). The approach taken makes effective use of tools commonly used in terrestrial weather—notably, via use of a simple model—generation of an "ensemble" forecast, and application of a "cost-loss" analysis to the resulting probabilistic information, to explore the benefit of this forecast to users with different risk appetites. This commentary aims to highlight these useful techniques to the wider space weather audience and to briefly discuss the general context of application of terrestrial weather approaches to space weather.

  18. Final Report: Caustic Waste-Soil Weathering Reactions and Their Impacts on Trace Contaminant Migration and Sequestration

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    O'Day, Peggy A.; Chorover, J.; Mueller, K.T.; Serne, R.J.

    2006-01-01

    The principal goal of this project was to assess the molecular nature and stability of radionuclide (137-Cs, 90-Sr, and 129-I) immobilization during weathering reactions in bulk Hanford sediments and their high surface area clay mineral constituents. We focused on the unique aqueous geochemical conditions that are representative of waste-impacted locations in the Hanford site vadose zone: high ionic strength, high pH and high Al concentrations. The specific objectives of the work were to (i) measure the coupling of clay mineral weathering and contaminant uptake kinetics of Cs+, Sr2+ and I-; (ii) determine the molecular structure of contaminant binding sites and their change with weathering time during and after exposure to synthetic tank waste leachate (STWL); (iii) establish the stability of neoformed weathering products and their sequestered contaminants upon exposure of the solids to more ''natural'' soil solutions (i.e., after removal of the caustic waste source); and (iv) integrate macroscopic, microscopic and spectroscopic data to distinguish labile from non-labile contaminant binding environments, including their dependence on system composition and weathering time. During this funding period, we completed a large set of bench-scale collaborative experiments and product characterization aimed at elucidating the coupling between mineral transformation reactions and contaminant sequestration/stabilization. Our experiments included three representative Hanford sediments: course and fine sediments collected from the Hanford Formation and Ringold Silt, in addition to investigations with specimen clay minerals illite, vermiculite, smectite and kaolinite. These experiments combined macroscopic measurements of element release, contaminant uptake and subsequent neoformed mineral dissolution behavior, with detailed studies of solid phase products using SEM and TEM microscopy, NMR, XAS and FTIR spectroscopy. Our studies have shown direct coupling between mineral

  19. Boulders, biology and buildings: Why weathering is vital to geomorphology (Ralph Alger Bagnold Medal Lecture)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Viles, Heather A.

    2015-04-01

    range of settings including rocky coasts. The concept of bioprotection has also been explored within the context of weathering in deserts and other environments. Practical applications of geomorphological knowledge on weathering (including biogeomorphic aspects) have burgeoned in recent years. In conceptual terms, non-linear dynamical systems ideas have been applied to stone deterioration and the concept of durability, and biogeomorphic disturbance ideas expanded to investigate the impact of climate change on biota growing on stone heritage. The concept of bioprotection has been applied fruitfully to heritage conservation practice. Empirical investigations, for example of cavernous weathering on limestone buildings and green algal growths on sandstone structures, illustrate the application of new methods. Future research should enhance the vitality of weathering studies, through making better use of innovative technologies and improving cross-disciplinary research.

  20. A study on the integrity and authentication of weather observation data using Identity Based Encryption.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Seo, Jung Woo; Lee, Sang Jin

    2016-01-01

    Weather information provides a safe working environment by contributing to the economic activity of the nation, and plays role of the prevention of natural disasters, which can cause large scaled casualties and damage of property. Especially during times of war, weather information plays a more important role than strategy, tactics and information about trends of the enemy. Also, it plays an essential role for the taking off and landing of fighter jet and the sailing of warships. If weather information, which plays a major role in national security and economy, gets misused for cyber terrorism resulting false weather information, it could be a huge threat for national security and the economy. We propose a plan to safely transmit the measured value from meteorological sensors through a meteorological telecommunication network in order to guarantee the confidentiality and integrity of the data despite cyber-attacks. Also, such a plan allows one to produce reliable weather forecasts by performing mutual authentication through authentication devices. To make sure of this, one can apply an Identity Based Signature to ensure the integrity of measured data, and transmit the encrypted weather information with mutual authentication about the authentication devices. There are merits of this research: It is not necessary to manage authentication certificates unlike the Public Key Infrastructure methodology, and it provides a powerful security measure with the capability to be realized in a small scale computing environment, such as the meteorological observation system due to the low burden on managing keys.

  1. Federal Aviation Administration weather program to improve aviation safety

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wedan, R. W.

    1983-01-01

    The implementation of the National Airspace System (NAS) will improve safety services to aviation. These services include collision avoidance, improved landing systems and better weather data acquisition and dissemination. The program to improve the quality of weather information includes the following: Radar Remote Weather Display System; Flight Service Automation System; Automatic Weather Observation System; Center Weather Processor, and Next Generation Weather Radar Development.

  2. Natural oils as skin permeation enhancers for transdermal delivery of olanzapine: in vitro and in vivo evaluation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Aggarwal, Geeta; Dhawan, Sanju; HariKumar, S L

    2012-03-01

    The feasibility of development of transdermal delivery system of olanzapine utilizing natural oils as permeation enhancers was investigated. Penetration enhancing potential of corn (maize) oil, groundnut oil and jojoba oil on in vitro permeation of olanzapine across rat skin was studied. The magnitude of flux enhancement factor with corn oil, groundnut oil and jojoba oil was 7.06, 5.31 and 1.9 respectively at 5mg/ml concentration in solvent system. On the basis of in vitro permeation studies, eudragit based matrix type transdermal patches of olanzapine were fabricated using optimized concentrations of natural oils as permeation enhancers. All transdermal patches were found to be uniform with respect to physical characteristics. The interaction studies carried out by comparing the results of ultraviolet, HPLC and FTIR analyses for the pure drug, polymers and mixture of drug and polymers indicated no chemical interaction between the drug and excipients. Corn oil containing unsaturated fatty acids was found to be promising natural permeation enhancer for transdermal delivery of olanzapine with greatest cumulative amount of drug permeated (1010.68 μg/cm²/h) up to 24 h and caused no skin irritation. The fabricated transdermal patches were found to be stable. The pharmacokinetic characteristics of the final optimized matrix patch (T2) were determined after transdermal application to rabbits. The calculated relative bioavailability of TDDS was 113.6 % as compared to oral administration of olanzapine. The therapeutic effectiveness of optimized transdermal system was confirmed by tranquillizing activity in rotarod and grip mice model.

  3. Weatherization Works--Summary of Findings from the Retrospective Evaluation of the U.S. DOE's Weatherization Assistance Program

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Tonn, Bruce Edward [Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States); Carroll, David [APPRISE, Inc., Princeton, NJ (United States); Pigg, Scott [Energy Center of Wisconsin, Madison, WI (United States); Blasnik, Michael [Blasnik & Associates, Roslindale, MA (United States); Dalhoff, Greg [Dalhoff & Associates, Verona, WI (United States); Berger, Jacqueline [APPRISE, Inc., Princeton, NJ (United States); Rose, Erin M [Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States); Hawkins, Beth A. [Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States); Eisenberg, Joel Fred [Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States); Ucar, Ferit [APPRISE, Inc., Princeton, NJ (United States); Bensch, Ingo [Energy Center of Wisconsin, Madison, WI (United States); Cowan, Claire [Energy Center of Wisconsin, Madison, WI (United States)

    2015-10-01

    This report presents a summary of the studies and analyses that compose the retrospective evaluation of the U.S. Department of Energy s low-income Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP). WAP provides grants to Grantees (i.e., states) that then provide grants to Subgrantees (i.e., local weatherization agencies) to weatherize low-income homes. This evaluation focused on the WAP Program Year 2008. The retrospective evaluation produced twenty separate reports, including this summary. Four separate reports address the energy savings, energy cost savings, and cost effectiveness of WAP across four housing types: single family, mobile home, small multifamily, and large multifamily. Other reports address the environmental emissions, macroeconomic, and health and household-related benefits attributable to WAP, and characterize the program, its recipients, and those eligible for the program. Major field studies are also summarized, including a major indoor air quality study and a follow-up ventilation study, an in-depth in-field assessment of weatherization work and quality, and a study that assesses reasons for variations in energy savings across homes. Results of surveys of weatherization staff, occupants, occupants satisfaction with weatherization services provided, and weatherization trainees are summarized. Lastly, this report summarizes a set of fifteen case studies of high-performing and unique local weatherization agencies.

  4. Maintaining a Local Data Integration System in Support of Weather Forecast Operations

    Science.gov (United States)

    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

  5. Analysis of farmers’ adaptation to weather extremes in West African Sudan Savanna

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    David Boansi

    2017-06-01

    Full Text Available There have been recent incidences of weather extremes in the West African Sudan Savanna and farmers have responded through implementation of relevant adaptation strategies. For a deeper insight into farmers’ adaptation to climatic shocks, this study documents farmers’ perception of recent changes in the local climate, and identifies factors that influence the number and choice of strategies implemented. Interdependencies among strategies are explored and joint and marginal probabilities of adoption estimated. Upper East Ghana and Southwest Burkina Faso are used as the case study regions. These regions were selected due to extreme reliance of inhabitants on agriculture for sustenance, and their recent exposure to weather extremes. Through estimation of a Poisson regression and multivariate probit model to identify the major factors that influence the number and choice of strategies adopted, we discover that, limited access to credit, markets, and extension services, smaller cropland area, and low level of mechanization could impede effective adaptation to weather extremes. To enhance farmers’ adaptive capacity, policy makers and various stakeholders need to contribute towards improving farmers’ access to credit, markets, and extension services, and implement measures to promote mechanization.

  6. Onset and ending of the late Palaeozoic ice age triggered by tectonically paced rock weathering

    Science.gov (United States)

    Goddéris, Yves; Donnadieu, Yannick; Carretier, Sébastien; Aretz, Markus; Dera, Guillaume; Macouin, Mélina; Regard, Vincent

    2017-04-01

    The onset of the late Palaeozoic ice age about 340 million years ago has been attributed to a decrease in atmospheric CO2 concentrations associated with expansion of land plants, as plants both enhance silicate rock weathering--which consumes CO2--and increase the storage of organic carbon on land. However, plant expansion and carbon uptake substantially predate glaciation. Here we use climate and carbon cycle simulations to investigate the potential effects of the uplift of the equatorial Hercynian mountains and the assembly of Pangaea on the late Palaeozoic carbon cycle. In our simulations, mountain uplift during the Late Carboniferous caused an increase in physical weathering that removed the thick soil cover that had inhibited silicate weathering. The resulting increase in chemical weathering was sufficient to cause atmospheric CO2 concentrations to fall below the levels required to initiate glaciation. During the Permian, the lowering of the mountains led to a re-establishment of thick soils, whilst the assembly of Pangaea promoted arid conditions in continental interiors that were unfavourable for silicate weathering. These changes allowed CO2 concentrations to rise to levels sufficient to terminate the glacial event. Based on our simulations, we suggest that tectonically influenced carbon cycle changes during the late Palaeozoic were sufficient to initiate and terminate the late Palaeozoic ice age.

  7. Impact of Tactical and Strategic Weather Avoidance on Separation Assurance

    Science.gov (United States)

    Refai, Mohamad S.; Windhorst, Robert

    2011-01-01

    The ability to keep flights away from weather hazards while maintaining aircraft-to-aircraft separation is critically important. The Advanced Airspace Concept is an automation concept that implements a ground-based strategic conflict resolution algorithm for management of aircraft separation. The impact of dynamic and uncertain weather avoidance on this concept is investigated. A strategic weather rerouting system is integrated with the Advanced Airspace Concept, which also provides a tactical weather avoidance algorithm, in a fast time simulation of the Air Transportation System. Strategic weather rerouting is used to plan routes around weather in the 20 minute to two-hour time horizon. To address forecast uncertainty, flight routes are revised at 15 minute intervals. Tactical weather avoidance is used for short term trajectory adjustments (30 minute planning horizon) that are updated every minute to address any weather conflicts (instances where aircraft are predicted to pass through weather cells) that are left unresolved by strategic weather rerouting. The fast time simulation is used to assess the impact of tactical weather avoidance on the performance of automated conflict resolution as well as the impact of strategic weather rerouting on both conflict resolution and tactical weather avoidance. The results demonstrate that both tactical weather avoidance and strategic weather rerouting increase the algorithm complexity required to find aircraft conflict resolutions. Results also demonstrate that tactical weather avoidance is prone to higher airborne delay than strategic weather rerouting. Adding strategic weather rerouting to tactical weather avoidance reduces total airborne delays for the reported scenario by 18% and reduces the number of remaining weather violations by 13%. Finally, two features are identified that have proven important for strategic weather rerouting to realize these benefits; namely, the ability to revise reroutes and the use of maneuvers

  8. Weather is not significantly correlated with destination-specific transport-related physical activity among adults: A large-scale temporally matched analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Durand, Casey P; Zhang, Kai; Salvo, Deborah

    2017-08-01

    Weather is an element of the natural environment that could have a significant effect on physical activity. Existing research, however, indicates only modest correlations between measures of weather and physical activity. This prior work has been limited by a failure to use time-matched weather and physical activity data, or has not adequately examined the different domains of physical activity (transport, leisure, occupational, etc.). Our objective was to identify the correlation between weather variables and destination-specific transport-related physical activity in adults. Data were sourced from the California Household Travel Survey, collected in 2012-3. Weather variables included: relative humidity, temperature, wind speed, and precipitation. Transport-related physical activity (walking) was sourced from participant-recorded travel diaries. Three-part hurdle models were used to analyze the data. Results indicate statistically or substantively insignificant correlations between the weather variables and transport-related physical activity for all destination types. These results provide the strongest evidence to date that transport-related physical activity may occur relatively independently of weather conditions. The knowledge that weather conditions do not seem to be a significant barrier to this domain of activity may potentially expand the universe of geographic locations that are amenable to environmental and programmatic interventions to increase transport-related walking. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  9. Using Music to Communicate Weather and Climate

    Science.gov (United States)

    Williams, P.; Aplin, K. L.; Brown, S.

    2017-12-01

    Depictions of weather and other atmospheric phenomena are common throughout the arts. Unlike in the visual arts, however, there has been little study of meteorological inspiration in music. This presentation will discuss the frequencies with which different weather types have been depicted in music over time, covering the period from the seventeenth century to the present day. Beginning with classical orchestral music, we find that composers were generally influenced by their own country's climate in the type of weather they chose to represent. Depictions of weather vary from explicit mimicry using traditional and specialized orchestral instruments, through to subtle suggestions. Pieces depicting stormy weather tend to be in minor keys, whereas pieces depicting fair weather tend to be in major keys. As befits the national stereotype, British composers seem disproportionately keen to depict the UK's variable weather patterns and stormy coastline. Moving onto modern popular music, we have identified and analyzed over 750 songs referring to different weather types. We find that lyrical references to bad weather peaked in songs written during the stormy 1950s and 60s, when there were many hurricanes, before declining in the relatively calm 1970s and 80s. This finding again suggests a causal link between song-writers' meteorological environments and compositional outputs. Composers and song-writers have a unique ability to emotionally connect their listeners to the environment. This ability could be exploited to communicate environmental science to a broader audience. Our work provides a catalogue of cultural responses to weather before (and during the early stages of) climate change. The effects of global warming may influence musical expression in future, in which case our work will provide a baseline for comparison.

  10. Chromium isotope fractionation during oxidative weathering of a modern basaltic weathering profile

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    D'Arcy, Joan Mary; Døssing, Lasse Nørbye; Frei, Robert

    Chromium can be used as a tracer of redox sensitive environmental processes. In soils Cr (III) is inert, immobile and resides predominantly in minerals, clays and oxides. Cr (VI) is toxic, soluble and mobile and is usually lost from the soil to local run off. Chromium isotopes have been shown...... to fractionate under both reducing and oxidizing conditions [1, 2]. Recent studies on d53Cr isotopes in laterite soils show that oxidative weathering of Cr-bearing rocks is accompanied by an isotopic fractionation, where by the lighter isotopes are retained in the residual soil and the heavier isotope...... is enriched in local runoff [1]. This study aims to quantify the stable Cr isotope composition of two modern basaltic weathering profiles, to help better understand the processes that oxidize inert Cr (III) to toxic Cr (VI). We sampled basaltic weathering profiles and associated river waters from areas of two...

  11. Space Weather Research: Indian perspective

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bhardwaj, Anil; Pant, Tarun Kumar; Choudhary, R. K.; Nandy, Dibyendu; Manoharan, P. K.

    2016-12-01

    Space weather, just like its meteorological counterpart, is of extreme importance when it comes to its impact on terrestrial near- and far-space environments. In recent years, space weather research has acquired an important place as a thrust area of research having implications both in space science and technology. The presence of satellites and other technological systems from different nations in near-Earth space necessitates that one must have a comprehensive understanding not only of the origin and evolution of space weather processes but also of their impact on technology and terrestrial upper atmosphere. To address this aspect, nations across the globe including India have been investing in research concerning Sun, solar processes and their evolution from solar interior into the interplanetary space, and their impact on Earth's magnetosphere-ionosphere-thermosphere system. In India, over the years, a substantial amount of work has been done in each of these areas by various agencies/institutions. In fact, India has been, and continues to be, at the forefront of space research and has ambitious future programs concerning these areas encompassing space weather. This review aims at providing a glimpse of this Indian perspective on space weather research to the reader and presenting an up-to-date status of the same.

  12. Space Weather and Real-Time Monitoring

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    S Watari

    2009-04-01

    Full Text Available Recent advance of information and communications technology enables to collect a large amount of ground-based and space-based observation data in real-time. The real-time data realize nowcast of space weather. This paper reports a history of space weather by the International Space Environment Service (ISES in association with the International Geophysical Year (IGY and importance of real-time monitoring in space weather.

  13. ASSIMILATION OF DOPPLER RADAR DATA INTO NUMERICAL WEATHER MODELS

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Chiswell, S.; Buckley, R.

    2009-01-15

    During the year 2008, the United States National Weather Service (NWS) completed an eight fold increase in sampling capability for weather radars to 250 m resolution. This increase is expected to improve warning lead times by detecting small scale features sooner with increased reliability; however, current NWS operational model domains utilize grid spacing an order of magnitude larger than the radar data resolution, and therefore the added resolution of radar data is not fully exploited. The assimilation of radar reflectivity and velocity data into high resolution numerical weather model forecasts where grid spacing is comparable to the radar data resolution was investigated under a Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) 'quick hit' grant to determine the impact of improved data resolution on model predictions with specific initial proof of concept application to daily Savannah River Site operations and emergency response. Development of software to process NWS radar reflectivity and radial velocity data was undertaken for assimilation of observations into numerical models. Data values within the radar data volume undergo automated quality control (QC) analysis routines developed in support of this project to eliminate empty/missing data points, decrease anomalous propagation values, and determine error thresholds by utilizing the calculated variances among data values. The Weather Research and Forecasting model (WRF) three dimensional variational data assimilation package (WRF-3DVAR) was used to incorporate the QC'ed radar data into input and boundary conditions. The lack of observational data in the vicinity of SRS available to NWS operational models signifies an important data void where radar observations can provide significant input. These observations greatly enhance the knowledge of storm structures and the environmental conditions which influence their development. As the increase in computational power and availability has

  14. A fresh look at weather impact on peak electricity demand and energy use of buildings using 30-year actual weather data

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hong, Tianzhen; Chang, Wen-Kuei; Lin, Hung-Wen

    2013-01-01

    Highlights: • Weather has a significant impact on both the peak electricity demand and energy use. • Weather impact varies with building type, building efficiency level, and location. • Simulated results using TMY3 weather data can under or over estimate those of AMY. • It is crucial to assess performance of buildings using long-term actual weather data. • Findings enable building stakeholders to make better decisions on weather impact. - Abstract: Buildings consume more than one third of the world’s total primary energy. Weather plays a unique and significant role as it directly affects the thermal loads and thus energy performance of buildings. The traditional simulated energy performance using Typical Meteorological Year (TMY) weather data represents the building performance for a typical year, but not necessarily the average or typical long-term performance as buildings with different energy systems and designs respond differently to weather changes. Furthermore, the single-year TMY simulations do not provide a range of results that capture yearly variations due to changing weather, which is important for building energy management, and for performing risk assessments of energy efficiency investments. This paper employs large-scale building simulation (a total of 3162 runs) to study the weather impact on peak electricity demand and energy use with the 30-year (1980–2009) Actual Meteorological Year (AMY) weather data for three types of office buildings at two design efficiency levels, across all 17 ASHRAE climate zones. The simulated results using the AMY data are compared to those from the TMY3 data to determine and analyze the differences. Besides further demonstration, as done by other studies, that actual weather has a significant impact on both the peak electricity demand and energy use of buildings, the main findings from the current study include: (1) annual weather variation has a greater impact on the peak electricity demand than it does

  15. Radiation Protection Research: Radon in the Indoor Environment and enhanced natural radioactivity

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Paridaens, J.

    2000-01-01

    The objectives of R and D on epidemiological studies concerning radon related to health risks at SCK-CEN is to (1) to apply new techniques for retrospective radon measurements in real field conditions and to assess radon decay product exposure by combining these techniques; and (2) to increase capabilities in mapping and surveying sites possibly or likely contaminated with enhanced levels of natural radiation. Progress and main achievements in 1999 are reported on

  16. 44 CFR 15.3 - Access to Mt. Weather.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... 44 Emergency Management and Assistance 1 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Access to Mt. Weather. 15.3... HOMELAND SECURITY GENERAL CONDUCT AT THE MT. WEATHER EMERGENCY ASSISTANCE CENTER AND AT THE NATIONAL EMERGENCY TRAINING CENTER § 15.3 Access to Mt. Weather. Mt. Weather contains classified material and areas...

  17. Summary of Natural Hazard Statistics for 2017 in the United States

    Science.gov (United States)

    Summary of Natural Hazard Statistics for 2017 in the United States This National Weather Service (NWS) report ... and the National Climatic Data Center compiled this Summary of U.S. Natural Hazard Statistics from Storm Data, ...

  18. Terminal weather information management

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lee, Alfred T.

    1990-01-01

    Since the mid-1960's, microburst/windshear events have caused at least 30 aircraft accidents and incidents and have killed more than 600 people in the United States alone. This study evaluated alternative means of alerting an airline crew to the presence of microburst/windshear events in the terminal area. Of particular interest was the relative effectiveness of conventional and data link ground-to-air transmissions of ground-based radar and low-level windshear sensing information on microburst/windshear avoidance. The Advanced Concepts Flight Simulator located at Ames Research Center was employed in a line oriented simulation of a scheduled round-trip airline flight from Salt Lake City to Denver Stapleton Airport. Actual weather en route and in the terminal area was simulated using recorded data. The microburst/windshear incident of July 11, 1988 was re-created for the Denver area operations. Six experienced airline crews currently flying scheduled routes were employed as test subjects for each of three groups: (1) A baseline group which received alerts via conventional air traffic control (ATC) tower transmissions; (2) An experimental group which received alerts/events displayed visually and aurally in the cockpit six miles (approx. 2 min.) from the microburst event; and (3) An additional experimental group received displayed alerts/events 23 linear miles (approx. 7 min.) from the microburst event. Analyses of crew communications and decision times showed a marked improvement in both situation awareness and decision-making with visually displayed ground-based radar information. Substantial reductions in the variability of decision times among crews in the visual display groups were also found. These findings suggest that crew performance will be enhanced and individual differences among crews due to differences in training and prior experience are significantly reduced by providing real-time, graphic display of terminal weather hazards.

  19. The role of sulfur-oxidizing bacteria Thiobacillus thiooxidans in pyrite weathering

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Sasaki, K.; Tsunekawa, M.; Ohtsuka, T.; Konno, H.

    1998-01-01

    The paper investigates the role of the sulfur-oxidizing bacteria Thiobacillus thiooxidans in pyrite weathering in order to clarify the effects of the bacteria on the dissolution behavior of pyrite and the formation of secondary minerals using Raman spectroscopy and powder X-ray diffraction (XRD) in addition to solution analysis. It was found that T. thiooxidans, when present with the iron-oxidizing bacteria Thiobacillus ferrooxidans, enhanced the dissolution of Fe and S species for pyrite, whereas T. thiooxidans alone did not oxidize pyrite. Enhancement of the consumption of elemental sulfur and regeneration of Fe(II) ions were also observed with T. thiooxidans together with T. ferrooxidans, while this did not occur with T. ferrooxidans alone

  20. The Challenge of Weather Prediction

    Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

    Home; Journals; Resonance – Journal of Science Education; Volume 2; Issue 3. The Challenge of Weather Prediction Old and Modern Ways of Weather Forecasting. B N Goswami. Series Article Volume 2 Issue 3 March 1997 pp 8-15. Fulltext. Click here to view fulltext PDF. Permanent link:

  1. Predictable weathering of puparial hydrocarbons of necrophagous flies for determining the postmortem interval: a field experiment using Chrysomya rufifacies.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhu, Guang-Hui; Jia, Zheng-Jun; Yu, Xiao-Jun; Wu, Ku-Sheng; Chen, Lu-Shi; Lv, Jun-Yao; Eric Benbow, M

    2017-05-01

    Preadult development of necrophagous flies is commonly recognized as an accurate method for estimating the minimum postmortem interval (PMImin). However, once the PMImin exceeds the duration of preadult development, the method is less accurate. Recently, fly puparial hydrocarbons were found to significantly change with weathering time in the field, indicating their potential use for PMImin estimates. However, additional studies are required to demonstrate how the weathering varies among species. In this study, the puparia of Chrysomya rufifacies were placed in the field to experience natural weathering to characterize hydrocarbon composition change over time. We found that weathering of the puparial hydrocarbons was regular and highly predictable in the field. For most of the hydrocarbons, the abundance decreased significantly and could be modeled using a modified exponent function. In addition, the weathering rate was significantly correlated with the hydrocarbon classes. The weathering rate of 2-methyl alkanes was significantly lower than that of alkenes and internal methyl alkanes, and alkenes were higher than the other two classes. For mono-methyl alkanes, the rate was significantly and positively associated with carbon chain length and branch position. These results indicate that puparial hydrocarbon weathering is highly predictable and can be used for estimating long-term PMImin.

  2. Development and Application of Syndromic Surveillance for Severe Weather Events Following Hurricane Sandy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tsai, Stella; Hamby, Teresa; Chu, Alvin; Gleason, Jessie A; Goodrow, Gabrielle M; Gu, Hui; Lifshitz, Edward; Fagliano, Jerald A

    2016-06-01

    Following Hurricane Superstorm Sandy, the New Jersey Department of Health (NJDOH) developed indicators to enhance syndromic surveillance for extreme weather events in EpiCenter, an online system that collects and analyzes real-time chief complaint emergency department (ED) data and classifies each visit by indicator or syndrome. These severe weather indicators were finalized by using 2 steps: (1) key word inclusion by review of chief complaints from cases where diagnostic codes met selection criteria and (2) key word exclusion by evaluating cases with key words of interest that lacked selected diagnostic codes. Graphs compared 1-month, 3-month, and 1-year periods of 8 Hurricane Sandy-related severe weather event indicators against the same period in the following year. Spikes in overall ED visits were observed immediately after the hurricane for carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning, the 3 disrupted outpatient medical care indicators, asthma, and methadone-related substance use. Zip code level scan statistics indicated clusters of CO poisoning and increased medicine refill needs during the 2 weeks after Hurricane Sandy. CO poisoning clusters were identified in areas with power outages of 4 days or longer. This endeavor gave the NJDOH a clearer picture of the effects of Hurricane Sandy and yielded valuable state preparation information to monitor the effects of future severe weather events. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2016;10:463-471).

  3. Single-Sided Natural Ventilation through a Velux Roof Window

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Li, Zhigang; Nielsen, Peter Vilhelm; Fransson, J.

    2004-01-01

    This paper investigates the single-sided natural ventilation through a VELUX centre pivot roof window under natural weather conditions. The aim of the investigation is to develop an empirical formulation for air flow rate through a roof window based on CFD and tracer gas decay measurement methods...

  4. Space weather effects and commerical airlines

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jones, J.; Bentley, R.; Hunter, R.; Taylor, G.; Thomas, D.

    Space Weather (SW) phenomena can effect many areas of commercial airline operations including avionics, communications and GPS navigation systems. Of particular importance at present is the recently introduced EU legislation requiring the monitoring of aircrew radiation exposure, including any variations at aircraft altitudes due to solar activity. The Mullard Space Science Laboratory is collaborating with Virgin Atlantic Airways, the Civil Aviation Authority and the National Physical Laboratory on a 3- year project to monitor the levels of cosmic radiation on long-haul flights. The study will determine whether computer models currently used to predict radiation exposure of aircrew are adequate. It also aims to determine whether solar or geomagnetic activity can cause significant modifications to the doses. This presentation will begin by showing some of the preliminary results obtained so far. As an example, we present a comparison of flight doses measured following the 14t h July 2000 X - class flare that was accompanied by a major Solar Particle Event (SPE). The results highlight the importance of a range of external factors that can strongly influence how SPEs may effect the measured dose at aircraft altitudes. At present, any SPE contributions in the airlines' dose records can only be poorly estimated retrospectively. Ideally, it would be better to try to avoid operating during these possibly significant radiation - enhancing events by utilising SW information (alerts, warnings, etc.). However, doing so poses many difficult operational problems for such a heavily regulated international industry, in terms of safety, security and procedures. Therefore, the use of timely SW information, which is still very unreliable, in a similar manner to terrestrial weather will require agreement from the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and International Air Transport Association (IATA) to Air Traffic Control and Aviation Regulatory Authority's. This

  5. Weatherization Beyond the Numbers: Case Studies of Fifteen High-performing Weatherization Agencies - Conducted May 2011 through July 2012

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Tonn, Bruce Edward [Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States); Rose, Erin M. [Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States); Hawkins, Beth A. [Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)

    2014-09-01

    The report presents fifteen individual case studies of high-performing and unique local weatherization agencies. This research was one component of the retrospective evaluation of the U.S. Department of Energy s Weatherization Assistance Program. The agencies were chosen to represent a range of contexts and approaches to weatherization. For example, the set of agencies includes a mix of urban and rural agencies, those that mainly use in-house crews to weatherize homes versus those that use contractor crews, and a mix of locations, from very cold climates to moderate to hot humid and dry climates. The case studies were mainly based on site visits to the agencies that encompassed interviews with program directors, weatherization crews, and recipients of weatherization. This information was supplemented by secondary materials. The cases document the diversity of contexts and challenges faced by the agencies and how they operate on a day-by-day basis. The cases also high common themes found throughout the agencies, such as their focus on mission and respect for their clients.

  6. 49 CFR 192.231 - Protection from weather.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... 49 Transportation 3 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Protection from weather. 192.231 Section 192.231 Transportation Other Regulations Relating to Transportation (Continued) PIPELINE AND HAZARDOUS MATERIALS SAFETY... weather. The welding operation must be protected from weather conditions that would impair the quality of...

  7. Reducing prediction uncertainty of weather controlled systems

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Doeswijk, T.G.

    2007-01-01

    In closed agricultural systems the weather acts both as a disturbance and as a resource. By using weather forecasts in control strategies the effects of disturbances can be minimized whereas the resources can be utilized. In this situation weather forecast uncertainty and model based control are

  8. Simulation of three lanes one-way freeway in low visibility weather by possible traffic accidents

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pang, Ming-bao; Zheng, Sha-sha; Cai, Zhang-hui

    2015-09-01

    The aim of this work is to investigate the traffic impact of low visibility weather on a freeway including the fraction of real vehicle rear-end accidents and road traffic capacity. Based on symmetric two-lane Nagel-Schreckenberg (STNS) model, a cellular automaton model of three-lane freeway mainline with the real occurrence of rear-end accidents in low visibility weather, which considers delayed reaction time and deceleration restriction, was established with access to real-time traffic information of intelligent transportation system (ITS). The characteristics of traffic flow in different visibility weather were discussed via the simulation experiments. The results indicate that incoming flow control (decreasing upstream traffic volume) and inputting variable speed limits (VSL) signal are effective in accident reducing and road actual traffic volume's enhancing. According to different visibility and traffic demand the appropriate control strategies should be adopted in order to not only decrease the probability of vehicle accidents but also avoid congestion.

  9. An Analytical Approach for Performance Enhancement of FSO Communication System Using Array of Receivers in Adverse Weather Conditions

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nagpal, Shaina; Gupta, Amit

    2017-08-01

    Free Space Optics (FSO) link exploits the tremendous network capacity and is capable of offering wireless communications similar to communications through optical fibres. However, FSO link is extremely weather dependent and the major effect on FSO links is due to adverse weather conditions like fog and snow. In this paper, an FSO link is designed using an array of receivers. The disparity of the link for very high attenuation conditions due to fog and snow is analysed using aperture averaging technique. Further effect of aperture averaging technique is investigated by comparing the systems using aperture averaging technique with systems not using aperture averaging technique. The performance of proposed model of FSO link has been evaluated in terms of Q factor, bit error rate (BER) and eye diagram.

  10. [Effect of weather on odontogenic abscesses].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nissen, G; Schmidseder, R

    1978-11-01

    An increased frequency of odontogenous abcesses was observed on certain days in the course of routine clinical practice. We therefore investigated the possibility of a statistically significant weather-related odontogenous soft-tissue purulence originating from chronic apical periodontitis. Medical reports of patients treated between 1970 and 1977 were used. Our study indicated that the frequency of odontogenous abcesses was significantly higher with cyclonic weather conditions, i.e., weather with low barometric pressure.

  11. Ionospheric research for space weather service support

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stanislawska, Iwona; Gulyaeva, Tamara; Dziak-Jankowska, Beata

    2016-07-01

    Knowledge of the behavior of the ionosphere is very important for space weather services. A wide variety of ground based and satellite existing and future systems (communications, radar, surveillance, intelligence gathering, satellite operation, etc) is affected by the ionosphere. There are the needs for reliable and efficient support for such systems against natural hazard and minimalization of the risk failure. The joint research Project on the 'Ionospheric Weather' of IZMIRAN and SRC PAS is aimed to provide on-line the ionospheric parameters characterizing the space weather in the ionosphere. It is devoted to science, techniques and to more application oriented areas of ionospheric investigation in order to support space weather services. The studies based on data mining philosophy increasing the knowledge of ionospheric physical properties, modelling capabilities and gain applications of various procedures in ionospheric monitoring and forecasting were concerned. In the framework of the joint Project the novel techniques for data analysis, the original system of the ionospheric disturbance indices and their implementation for the ionosphere and the ionospheric radio wave propagation are developed since 1997. Data of ionosonde measurements and results of their forecasting for the ionospheric observatories network, the regional maps and global ionospheric maps of total electron content from the navigational satellite system (GNSS) observations, the global maps of the F2 layer peak parameters (foF2, hmF2) and W-index of the ionospheric variability are provided at the web pages of SRC PAS and IZMIRAN. The data processing systems include analysis and forecast of geomagnetic indices ap and kp and new eta index applied for the ionosphere forecasting. For the first time in the world the new products of the W-index maps analysis are provided in Catalogues of the ionospheric storms and sub-storms and their association with the global geomagnetic Dst storms is

  12. WRF-Fire: coupled weather-wildland fire modeling with the weather research and forecasting model

    Science.gov (United States)

    Janice L. Coen; Marques Cameron; John Michalakes; Edward G. Patton; Philip J. Riggan; Kara M. Yedinak

    2012-01-01

    A wildland fire behavior module (WRF-Fire) was integrated into the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) public domain numerical weather prediction model. The fire module is a surface fire behavior model that is two-way coupled with the atmospheric model. Near-surface winds from the atmospheric model are interpolated to a finer fire grid and used, with fuel properties...

  13. Efficient Ways to Learn Weather Radar Polarimetry

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cao, Qing; Yeary, M. B.; Zhang, Guifu

    2012-01-01

    The U.S. weather radar network is currently being upgraded with dual-polarization capability. Weather radar polarimetry is an interdisciplinary area of engineering and meteorology. This paper presents efficient ways to learn weather radar polarimetry through several basic and practical topics. These topics include: 1) hydrometeor scattering model…

  14. Enhancing STEM coursework at MSIs through the AMS Climate Studies Diversity Project

    Science.gov (United States)

    Abshire, W. E.; Mills, E. W.; Slough, S. W.; Brey, J. A.; Geer, I. W.; Nugnes, K. A.

    2017-12-01

    The AMS Education Program celebrates a successful completion to its AMS Climate Studies Diversity Project. The project was funded for 6 years (2011-2017) through the National Science Foundation (NSF). It introduced and enhanced geoscience and/or sustainability-focused course components at minority-serving institutions (MSIs) across the U.S., many of which are signatories to the President's Climate Leadership Commitments, administered by Second Nature, and/or members of the Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation. The Project introduced AMS Climate Studies curriculum to approximately 130 faculty representing 113 MSIs. Each year a cohort of, on average, 25 faculty attended a course implementation workshop where they were immersed in the course materials, received presentations from high-level speakers, and trained as change agents for their local institutions. This workshop was held in the Washington, DC area in collaboration with Second Nature, NOAA, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Howard University, and other local climate educational and research institutions. Following, faculty introduced and enhanced geoscience curricula on their local campuses with AMS Climate Studies course materials, thereby bringing change from within. Faculty were then invited to the following AMS Annual Meeting to report on their AMS Climate Studies course implementation progress, reconnect with their colleagues, and learn new science presented at the meeting. A longitudinal survey was administered to all Climate Diversity Project faculty participants who attended the course implementation workshops. The survey goals were to assess the effectiveness of the Project in helping faculty implement/enhance their institutional climate science offering, share best practices in offering AMS Climate Studies, and analyze the usefulness of course materials. Results will be presented during this presentation. The AMS Climate Studies Diversity Project builds on highly successful, NSF

  15. Deep Soil Carbon in the Critical Zone: Amount and Nature of Carbon in Weathered Bedrock, and its Implication for Soil Carbon Inventory

    Science.gov (United States)

    Moreland, K. C.; Tian, Z.; Berhe, A. A.; O'Geen, A. T.

    2017-12-01

    Globally, soils store more carbon (C) than the vegetation and the atmosphere combined. Up to 60-80% of the C stored in soils is found in below 30cm soil depth, but there is little data on C storage in weathered bedrock or saprolite. Deep soil organic matter (SOM) can be a mixture of new and old SOM; that is rendered relatively stable due to burial, aggregation, its disconnection from decomposers, and chemical association that organic matter forms with soil minerals. The limited data available on deep SOM dynamics suggests that stock, distribution, and composition of deep SOM are strongly correlated to climate. The overall objective of this research is to investigate how climate regulates OM storage, composition, stability, and stabilization mechanisms. Expecting that the amount of OM stored in deep soil and the stability are a function of soil thickness and availability of weathering products (i.e. reactive minerals), the stock and stability of deep SOM is expected to follow a similar relationship with climate, as does the intensity of weathering. This research is conducted in the NSF funded Southern Sierra Critical Zone Observatories that is located along a climosequence, the western slopes of the Sierra Naevada Mountains of California. Here we will present results derived from characterization of soils and weathered bedrock using elemental and stable isotope elemental analysis, and Fourier Transformed Infrared Spectroscopy to determine OM concentration and functional group level composition of bulk SOM. Our findings show that adding in subsoil and weathered bedrock C stocks increases estimates of soil C stock by 1/3rd to 2/3rd.

  16. Weatherization Innovation Pilot Program (WIPP): Technical Assistance Summary

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Hollander, A.

    2014-09-01

    The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) Weatherization and Intergovernmental Programs Office (WIPO) launched the Weatherization Innovation Pilot Program (WIPP) to accelerate innovations in whole-house weatherization and advance DOE's goal of increasing the energy efficiency and health and safety of low-income residences without the utilization of additional taxpayer funding. Sixteen WIPP grantees were awarded a total of $30 million in Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP) funds in September 2010. These projects focused on: including nontraditional partners in weatherization service delivery; leveraging significant non-federal funding; and improving the effectiveness of low-income weatherization through the use of new materials, technologies, behavior-change models, and processes.

  17. Activities of NICT space weather project

    Science.gov (United States)

    Murata, Ken T.; Nagatsuma, Tsutomu; Watari, Shinichi; Shinagawa, Hiroyuki; Ishii, Mamoru

    NICT (National Institute of Information and Communications Technology) has been in charge of space weather forecast service in Japan for more than 20 years. The main target region of the space weather is the geo-space in the vicinity of the Earth where human activities are dominant. In the geo-space, serious damages of satellites, international space stations and astronauts take place caused by energetic particles or electromagnetic disturbances: the origin of the causes is dynamically changing of solar activities. Positioning systems via GPS satellites are also im-portant recently. Since the most significant effect of positioning error comes from disturbances of the ionosphere, it is crucial to estimate time-dependent modulation of the electron density profiles in the ionosphere. NICT is one of the 13 members of the ISES (International Space Environment Service), which is an international assembly of space weather forecast centers under the UNESCO. With help of geo-space environment data exchanging among the member nations, NICT operates daily space weather forecast service every day to provide informa-tion on forecasts of solar flare, geomagnetic disturbances, solar proton event, and radio-wave propagation conditions in the ionosphere. The space weather forecast at NICT is conducted based on the three methodologies: observations, simulations and informatics (OSI model). For real-time or quasi real-time reporting of space weather, we conduct our original observations: Hiraiso solar observatory to monitor the solar activity (solar flare, coronal mass ejection, and so on), domestic ionosonde network, magnetometer HF radar observations in far-east Siberia, and south-east Asia low-latitude ionosonde network (SEALION). Real-time observation data to monitor solar and solar-wind activities are obtained through antennae at NICT from ACE and STEREO satellites. We have a middle-class super-computer (NEC SX-8R) to maintain real-time computer simulations for solar and solar

  18. Detecting Weather Radar Clutter by Information Fusion With Satellite Images and Numerical Weather Prediction Model Output

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Bøvith, Thomas; Nielsen, Allan Aasbjerg; Hansen, Lars Kai

    2006-01-01

    A method for detecting clutter in weather radar images by information fusion is presented. Radar data, satellite images, and output from a numerical weather prediction model are combined and the radar echoes are classified using supervised classification. The presented method uses indirect...... information on precipitation in the atmosphere from Meteosat-8 multispectral images and near-surface temperature estimates from the DMI-HIRLAM-S05 numerical weather prediction model. Alternatively, an operational nowcasting product called 'Precipitating Clouds' based on Meteosat-8 input is used. A scale...

  19. 46 CFR 44.01-13 - Heavy weather plan.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... 46 Shipping 2 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Heavy weather plan. 44.01-13 Section 44.01-13 Shipping... VOYAGES Administration § 44.01-13 Heavy weather plan. (a) Each heavy weather plan under § 44.01-12(b) must... Inspection. Approval of a heavy weather plan is limited to the current hurricane season. (b) The cognizant...

  20. Changes in the chemical composition of the light crude by short-term weathering

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Luo, X.; Ma, Q.M.

    2006-01-01

    In the event of an oil spill, it is important to unambiguously identify the oil and link it to the known source in order to determine environmental impact and legal liability. The fate and behaviour of spilled oil depends on several physical, chemical and biological factors such as evaporation, dissolution, microbial degradation and photooxidation. The chemical composition of the spilled oil changes with weathering. The changes can have a significant effect on the oil's toxicity and can add to the difficulty of identifying spilled oil. This paper presents the results of changes in chemical composition of light crude oil by weathering under natural environmental conditions. Oil samples were analyzed on a gas chromatograph equipped with a mass selective detector. Light crude oil was obtained from the oil cabin of a tanker which spilled oil near the Dalian Sea near China in April 2005. It was shown that the saturated hydrocarbons of light crude oil distribute between n-C 8 and n-C 23 . The most abundant n-alkanes are found in the n-C 10 to n-C 16 . The main chemical compositions of the light crude oil are the n-alkanes and the isoprenoids. The aromatic compounds are subordinate chemical compositions of the light crude oil. A simulated weathering experiment showed that less than n-C 12 of the n-alkanes, toluene, 1,3-dimethyl benzene is lost after 1 day of weathering. The n-C 13 , n-C 14 , naphthalene and 2-methyl-naphthalene are lost on the fifth day of weathering. N-C 15 alkane composition indicates some weatherproof capability. The ratios of n-C 17 /pristine and n-C 18 /phytane were unchanged and useful in identifying the source of the light crude oil during the first 8-day weathering period. By the twenty-first day of weathering, the chemical composition underwent extreme alteration, and the source of the pollution could not be determined by the ratios of pristine/phytane. 12 refs., 3 tabs., 7 figs

  1. Pyrite oxidation under simulated acid rain weathering conditions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zheng, Kai; Li, Heping; Wang, Luying; Wen, Xiaoying; Liu, Qingyou

    2017-09-01

    We investigated the electrochemical corrosion behavior of pyrite in simulated acid rain with different acidities and at different temperatures. The cyclic voltammetry, polarization curve, and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy results showed that pyrite has the same electrochemical interaction mechanism under different simulated acid rain conditions, regardless of acidity or environmental temperature. Either stronger acid rain acidity or higher environmental temperature can accelerate pyrite corrosion. Compared with acid rain having a pH of 5.6 at 25 °C, the prompt efficiency of pyrite weathering reached 104.29% as the acid rain pH decreased to 3.6, and it reached 125.31% as environmental temperature increased to 45 °C. Increasing acidity dramatically decreases the charge transfer resistance, and increasing temperature dramatically decreases the passivation film resistance, when other conditions are held constant. Acid rain always causes lower acidity mine drainage, and stronger acidity or high environmental temperatures cause serious acid drainage. The natural parameters of latitude, elevation, and season have considerable influence on pyrite weathering, because temperature is an important influencing factor. These experimental results are of direct significance for the assessment and management of sulfide mineral acid drainage in regions receiving acid rain.

  2. Towards a National Space Weather Predictive Capability

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fox, N. J.; Ryschkewitsch, M. G.; Merkin, V. G.; Stephens, G. K.; Gjerloev, J. W.; Barnes, R. J.; Anderson, B. J.; Paxton, L. J.; Ukhorskiy, A. Y.; Kelly, M. A.; Berger, T. E.; Bonadonna, L. C. M. F.; Hesse, M.; Sharma, S.

    2015-12-01

    National needs in the area of space weather informational and predictive tools are growing rapidly. Adverse conditions in the space environment can cause disruption of satellite operations, communications, navigation, and electric power distribution grids, leading to a variety of socio-economic losses and impacts on our security. Future space exploration and most modern human endeavors will require major advances in physical understanding and improved transition of space research to operations. At present, only a small fraction of the latest research and development results from NASA, NOAA, NSF and DoD investments are being used to improve space weather forecasting and to develop operational tools. The power of modern research and space weather model development needs to be better utilized to enable comprehensive, timely, and accurate operational space weather tools. The mere production of space weather information is not sufficient to address the needs of those who are affected by space weather. A coordinated effort is required to support research-to-applications transition efforts and to develop the tools required those who rely on this information. In this presentation we will review the space weather system developed for the Van Allen Probes mission, together with other datasets, tools and models that have resulted from research by scientists at JHU/APL. We will look at how these, and results from future missions such as Solar Probe Plus, could be applied to support space weather applications in coordination with other community assets and capabilities.

  3. Mercury's Weather-Beaten Surface: Understanding Mercury in the Context of Lunar and Asteroidal Space Weathering Studies

    Science.gov (United States)

    Domingue, Deborah L.; Chapman, Clark. R.; Killen, Rosemary M.; Zurbuchen, Thomas H.; Gilbert, Jason A.; Sarantos, Menelaos; Benna, Mehdi; Slavin, James A.; Schriver, David; Travnicek, Pavel M.; hide

    2014-01-01

    Mercury's regolith, derived from the crustal bedrock, has been altered by a set of space weathering processes. Before we can interpret crustal composition, it is necessary to understand the nature of these surface alterations. The processes that space weather the surface are the same as those that form Mercury's exosphere (micrometeoroid flux and solar wind interactions) and are moderated by the local space environment and the presence of a global magnetic field. To comprehend how space weathering acts on Mercury's regolith, an understanding is needed of how contributing processes act as an interactive system. As no direct information (e.g., from returned samples) is available about how the system of space weathering affects Mercury's regolith, we use as a basis for comparison the current understanding of these same processes on lunar and asteroidal regoliths as well as laboratory simulations. These comparisons suggest that Mercury's regolith is overturned more frequently (though the characteristic surface time for a grain is unknown even relative to the lunar case), more than an order of magnitude more melt and vapor per unit time and unit area is produced by impact processes than on the Moon (creating a higher glass content via grain coatings and agglutinates), the degree of surface irradiation is comparable to or greater than that on the Moon, and photon irradiation is up to an order of magnitude greater (creating amorphous grain rims, chemically reducing the upper layers of grains to produce nanometer scale particles of metallic iron, and depleting surface grains in volatile elements and alkali metals). The processes that chemically reduce the surface and produce nanometer-scale particles on Mercury are suggested to be more effective than similar processes on the Moon. Estimated abundances of nanometer-scale particles can account for Mercury's dark surface relative to that of the Moon without requiring macroscopic grains of opaque minerals. The presence of

  4. Newspaper Clippings and Articles (Weather-related)

    Data.gov (United States)

    National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — Weather-related newspaper articles and photos, almost exclusively from Baltimore, MD and nearby areas. Includes storm damage, rainfall reports, and weather's affect...

  5. Fire Danger and Fire Weather Records

    Data.gov (United States)

    National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — The National Weather Service (formerly Weather Bureau) and Forest Service developed a program to track meteorological conditions conducive to forest fires, resulting...

  6. SIGWX Charts - High Level Significant Weather

    Data.gov (United States)

    National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — High level significant weather (SIGWX) forecasts are provided for the en-route portion of international flights. NOAA's National Weather Service Aviation Center...

  7. The weather and Climate: emergent laws and multifractal cascades

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lovejoy, S.

    2016-12-01

    In the atmosphere, nonlinear terms are typically about a trillion times larger than linear ones; we anticipate the emergence of high level turbulence laws. The classical turbulence laws were restricted to homogeneous and isotropic systems; to apply them to the atmosphere they must be generalized to account for strong anisotropy (especially stratification) and variability (intermittency). Over the last 30 years, using scaling symmetry principles and multifractal cascades, this has been done. While hitherto they were believed applicable only up to ≈ 100 m, (generalized) turbulence laws now anisotropic and multifractal, they cover spatial scales up planetary in extent and in time well beyond weather scales to include the climate. These higher level laws are stochastic in nature and provide the theoretical basis both for stochastic parametrizations as well as stochastic forecasting. In the time domain the emergent laws for fluctuations DT (for example in temperature T) have means T > ≈ DtH i.e. they are scaling (power laws) in the time interval Dt. We find find exponents H>0 (fluctuations increase with scale) up to ≈ Dt ≈10 days (the lifetime of planetary scale structures, the analogous transition in the ocean is at Dt ≈ 1 year on Mars it is Dt ≈ 2 sols). At larger Dt, there is a transition to a new "macroweather" regime with H≈30 years (anthropocene; larger in the pre-industrial epoch), new climate processes begin to dominate, leading to H>0. "The climate is what you expect, the weather is what you get": the climate is thought to be a kind of "average weather". However this "expected" behavior is macroweather, not the climate. On the contrary, the climate is the new even lower frequency regime at scales Dt> 30 yrs and it has statistical properties very similar to the weather. At these scales, "macroweather is what you expect, the climate is what you get". The scaling in the macroweather regime implies that there is a long-term memory. We show how the

  8. A Simple Exploration of Complexity at the Climate-Weather-Social-Conflict Nexus

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shaw, M.

    2017-12-01

    The conceptualization, exploration, and prediction of interplay between climate, weather, important resources, and social and economic - so political - human behavior is cast, and analyzed, in terms familiar from statistical physics and nonlinear dynamics. A simple threshold toy model is presented which emulates human tendencies to either actively engage in responses deriving, in part, from environmental circumstances or to maintain some semblance of status quo, formulated based on efforts drawn from the sociophysics literature - more specifically vis a vis a model akin to spin glass depictions of human behavior - with threshold/switching of individual and collective dynamics influenced by relatively more detailed weather and land surface model (hydrological) analyses via a land data assimilation system (a custom rendition of the NASA GSFC Land Information System). Parameters relevant to human systems' - e.g., individual and collective switching - sensitivity to hydroclimatology are explored towards investigation of overall system behavior; i.e., fixed points/equilibria, oscillations, and bifurcations of systems composed of human interactions and responses to climate and weather through, e.g., agriculture. We discuss implications in terms of conceivable impacts of climate change and associated natural disasters on socioeconomics, politics, and power transfer, drawing from relatively recent literature concerning human conflict.

  9. Research on enhancement of natural circulation capability in lead–bismuth alloy cooled reactor by using gas-lift pump

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Zuo, Juanli, E-mail: Jenyzuo@163.com; Tian, Wenxi, E-mail: wxtian@mail.xjtu.edu.cn; Chen, Ronghua, E-mail: ronghua.chen@stu.xjtu.edu.cn; Qiu, Suizheng; Su, Guanghui, E-mail: ghsu@mail.xjtu.edu.cn

    2013-10-15

    Highlights: • The gas-lift pump has been adopted to enhance the natural circulation capability. • LENAC code is developed in my study. • The calculation results by LENAC code show good agreement with experiment results. • Gas mass flow rate, bubble diameter, rising pipe length are important parameters. -- Abstract: The gas-lift pump has been adopted to enhance the natural circulation capability in the type of lead–bismuth alloy cooled reactors such as Accelerator Driven System (ADS) and Liquid–metal Fast Reactor (LMFR). The natural circulation ability and the system safety are obviously influenced by the two phase flow characteristics of liquid metal–inert gas. In this study, LENAC (LEad bismuth alloy NAtural Circulation capability) code has been developed to evaluate the natural circulation capability of lead–bismuth cooled ADS with gas-lift pump. The drift flow theory, void fraction prediction model and friction pressure drop prediction model have been incorporated into LENAC code. The calculation results by LENAC code show good agreement with experiment results of CIRCulation Experiment (CIRCE) facility. The effects of the gas mass flow rate, void fraction, gas quality, bubble diameter and the rising pipe height or the potential difference between heat exchanger and reactor core on natural circulation capability of gas-lift pump have been analyzed. The results showed that in bubbly flow pattern, for a fixed value of gas mass flow rate, the natural circulation capability increased with the decrease of the bubble diameter. In the bubbly flow, slug flow, churn flow and annular flow pattern, with the gas mass flow rate increasing, the natural circulation capability initially increased and then declined. And the flow parameters influenced the thermal hydraulic characteristics of the reactor core significantly. The present work is helpful for revealing the law of enhancing the natural circulation capability by gas-lift pump, and providing theoretical

  10. Fostering research aptitude among high school students through space weather competition

    Science.gov (United States)

    Abdullah, M.; Majid, R. A.; Bais, B.; Bahri, N. S.; Asillam, M. F.

    2018-01-01

    Cultivating research culture at an early stage is important for capacity building in a community. The high school level is the appropriate stage for research to be introduced because of students' competitive nature. Participation in the space weather competition is one of the ways in which research aptitude can be fostered in high school students in Malaysia. Accordingly, this paper presents how research elements were introduced to the students at the high school level through their participation in the space weather competition. The competition required the students to build a system to detect the presence of solar flares by utilizing VLF signals reflected from the ionosphere. The space weather competition started off with proposal writing for the space weather related project where the students were required to execute extensive literature review on the given topic. Additionally, the students were also required to conduct the experiments and analyse the data. Results obtained from data analysis were then validated by the students through various other observations that they had to carry out. At the end of the competition, students were expected to write a comprehensive technical report. Through this competition, the students learnt how to conduct research in accordance to the guidelines provided through the step by step approach exposed to them. Ultimately, this project revealed that the students were able to conduct research on their own with minimal guidance and that participation in the competition not only generated enjoyment in learning but also their interest in science and research.

  11. Multi-spectrum-based enhanced synthetic vision system for aircraft DVE operations

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kashyap, Sudesh K.; Naidu, V. P. S.; Shanthakumar, N.

    2016-04-01

    This paper focus on R&D being carried out at CSIR-NAL on Enhanced Synthetic Vision System (ESVS) for Indian regional transport aircraft to enhance all weather operational capabilities with safety and pilot Situation Awareness (SA) improvements. Flight simulator has been developed to study ESVS related technologies and to develop ESVS operational concepts for all weather approach and landing and to provide quantitative and qualitative information that could be used to develop criteria for all-weather approach and landing at regional airports in India. Enhanced Vision System (EVS) hardware prototype with long wave Infrared sensor and low light CMOS camera is used to carry out few field trials on ground vehicle at airport runway at different visibility conditions. Data acquisition and playback system has been developed to capture EVS sensor data (image) in time synch with test vehicle inertial navigation data during EVS field experiments and to playback the experimental data on ESVS flight simulator for ESVS research and concept studies. Efforts are on to conduct EVS flight experiments on CSIR-NAL research aircraft HANSA in Degraded Visual Environment (DVE).

  12. Weatherization Assistance Program Fact Sheet

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    None

    2018-02-01

    The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Weatherization Assistance Program reduces energy costs for low-income households by increasing the energy e ciency of their homes, while ensuring their health and safety. The Program supports 8,500 jobs and provides weatherization services to approximately 35,000 homes every year using DOE funds.

  13. Urban weather data and building models for the inclusion of the urban heat island effect in building performance simulation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Palme, M; Inostroza, L; Villacreses, G; Lobato, A; Carrasco, C

    2017-10-01

    This data article presents files supporting calculation for urban heat island (UHI) inclusion in building performance simulation (BPS). Methodology is used in the research article "From urban climate to energy consumption. Enhancing building performance simulation by including the urban heat island effect" (Palme et al., 2017) [1]. In this research, a Geographical Information System (GIS) study is done in order to statistically represent the most important urban scenarios of four South-American cities (Guayaquil, Lima, Antofagasta and Valparaíso). Then, a Principal Component Analysis (PCA) is done to obtain reference Urban Tissues Categories (UTC) to be used in urban weather simulation. The urban weather files are generated by using the Urban Weather Generator (UWG) software (version 4.1 beta). Finally, BPS is run out with the Transient System Simulation (TRNSYS) software (version 17). In this data paper, four sets of data are presented: 1) PCA data (excel) to explain how to group different urban samples in representative UTC; 2) UWG data (text) to reproduce the Urban Weather Generation for the UTC used in the four cities (4 UTC in Lima, Guayaquil, Antofagasta and 5 UTC in Valparaíso); 3) weather data (text) with the resulting rural and urban weather; 4) BPS models (text) data containing the TRNSYS models (four building models).

  14. Ethno-meteorology and scientific weather forecasting: Small farmers and scientists’ perspectives on climate variability in the Okavango Delta, Botswana

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Oluwatoyin Dare Kolawole

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available Recent trends in abrupt weather changes continue to pose a challenge to agricultural production most especially in sub-Saharan Africa. The paper specifically addresses the questions on how local farmers read and predict the weather; and how they can collaborate with weather scientists in devising adaptation strategies for climate variability (CV in the Okavango Delta of Botswana. Recent trends in agriculture-related weather variables available from country’s climate services, as well as in freely available satellite rainfall products were analysed. The utility of a seasonal hydrological forecasting system for the study area in the context of supporting farmer’s information needs were assessed. Through a multi-stage sampling procedure, a total of 592 households heads in 8 rural communities in the Okavango Delta were selected and interviewed using open and close-ended interview schedules. Also, 19 scientists were purposively selected and interviewed using questionnaires. Key informant interviews, focus group and knowledge validation workshops were used to generate qualitative information from both farmers and scientists. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used in summarising the data. Analysis of satellite rainfall products indicated that there was a consistent increase in total annual rainfall throughout the region in the last 10 years, accompanied by an increase in number of rain days, and reduction of duration of dry spells. However, there is a progressive increase in the region’s temperatures leading to increase in potential evaporation. Findings from social surveys show that farmers’ age, education level, number of years engaged in farming, sources of weather information, knowledge of weather forecasting and decision on farming practices either had a significant relationship or correlation with their perceptions about the nature of both local [ethno-meteorological] and scientific weather knowledge. Nonetheless, there was a

  15. Space Weather Influence on Relative Motion Control using the Touchless Electrostatic Tractor

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hogan, Erik A.; Schaub, Hanspeter

    2016-09-01

    With recent interest in the use of electrostatic forces for contactless tugging and attitude control of noncooperative objects for orbital servicing and active debris mitigation, the need for a method of remote charge control arises. In this paper, the use of a directed electron beam for remote charge control is considered in conjunction with the relative motion control. A tug vehicle emits an electron beam onto a deputy object, charging it negatively. At the same time, the tug is charged positively due to beam emission, resulting in an attractive electrostatic force. The relative position feedback control between the tug and the passive debris object is studied subject to the charging being created through an electron beam. Employing the nominal variations of the GEO space weather conditions across longitude slots, two electrostatic tugging strategies are considered. First, the electron beam current is adjusted throughout the orbit in order to maximize this resulting electrostatic force. This open-loop control strategy compensates for changes in the nominally expected local space weather environment in the GEO region to adjust for fluctuations in the local plasma return currents. Second, the performance impact of using a fixed electron beam current on the electrostatic tractor is studied if the same natural space weather variations are assumed. The fixed electron beam current shows a minor performance penalty (<5 %) while providing a much simpler implementation that does not require any knowledge of local space weather conditions.

  16. Designing and Implementing Weather Generators as Web Services

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rassarin Chinnachodteeranun

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available Climate and weather realizations are essential inputs for simulating crop growth and yields to analyze the risks associated with future conditions. To simplify the procedure of generating weather realizations and make them available over the Internet, we implemented novel mechanisms for providing weather generators as web services, as well as a mechanism for sharing identical weather realizations given a climatological information. A web service for preparing long-term climate data was implemented based on an international standard, Sensor Observation Service (SOS. The weather generator services, which are the core components of the framework, analyze climatological data, and can take seasonal climate forecasts as inputs for generating weather realizations. The generated weather realizations are encoded in a standard format, which are ready for use to crop modeling. All outputs are generated in SOS standard, which broadens the extent of data sharing and interoperability with other sectoral applications, e.g., water resources management. These services facilitate the development of other applications requiring input weather realizations, as these can be obtained easily by just calling the service. The workload of analysts related to data preparation and handling of legacy weather generator programs can be reduced. The architectural design and implementation presented here can be used as a prototype for constructing further services on top of an interoperable sensor network system.

  17. Implementation of bayesian model averaging on the weather data forecasting applications utilizing open weather map

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rahmat, R. F.; Nasution, F. R.; Seniman; Syahputra, M. F.; Sitompul, O. S.

    2018-02-01

    Weather is condition of air in a certain region at a relatively short period of time, measured with various parameters such as; temperature, air preasure, wind velocity, humidity and another phenomenons in the atmosphere. In fact, extreme weather due to global warming would lead to drought, flood, hurricane and other forms of weather occasion, which directly affects social andeconomic activities. Hence, a forecasting technique is to predict weather with distinctive output, particullary mapping process based on GIS with information about current weather status in certain cordinates of each region with capability to forecast for seven days afterward. Data used in this research are retrieved in real time from the server openweathermap and BMKG. In order to obtain a low error rate and high accuracy of forecasting, the authors use Bayesian Model Averaging (BMA) method. The result shows that the BMA method has good accuracy. Forecasting error value is calculated by mean square error shows (MSE). The error value emerges at minumum temperature rated at 0.28 and maximum temperature rated at 0.15. Meanwhile, the error value of minimum humidity rates at 0.38 and the error value of maximum humidity rates at 0.04. Afterall, the forecasting error rate of wind speed is at 0.076. The lower the forecasting error rate, the more optimized the accuracy is.

  18. NOAA Weather and Climate Toolkit (WCT)

    Data.gov (United States)

    National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — The NOAA Weather and Climate Toolkit is an application that provides simple visualization and data export of weather and climatological data archived at NCDC. The...

  19. EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION ON THE EFFECT OF NATURAL TROPICAL WEATHER ON INTERFACIAL BONDING PERFORMANCE OF CFRP-CONCRETE BONDING SYSTEM

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    MOHD H. MOHD HASHIM

    2016-04-01

    Full Text Available The existing reinforced concrete structures may require rehabilitation and strengthening to overcome deficiencies due to defect and environmental deterioration. Fibre Reinforced Polymer (FRP-concrete bonding systems can provide solution for the deficiencies, but the durability of the bonded joint needs to be investigated for reliable structural performance. In this research the interfacial bonding behaviour of CFRP-concrete system under tropical climate exposure is main interest. A 300 mm concrete prism was bonded with CFRP plate on its two sides and exposed for 3, 6, and 9 months to laboratory environment, continuous natural weather, and wet-dry exposure in 3.5% saltwater solution at room and 40 °C temperature. The prisms were subjected to tension and compression load under bonding test to measure the strain and determine stress distribution and shear stress transfer behaviour. The results of the bonding test showed that load transfer was fairly linear and uniform at lower load level and changed to non-linear and non- uniform at higher load level. The force transfers causes the shear stress distribution being shifted along the bonded length. The combination of climate effects may have provided better curing of the bonded joints, but longer duration of exposure may be required to weaken the bond strength. Nevertheless, CFRP-concrete bonding system was only minimally affected under the tropical climate and salt solution.

  20. Space weather monitoring with neutron monitor measurements

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Steigies, Christian [Christian-Albrechts-Universitaet zu Kiel (Germany)

    2013-07-01

    Space Weather affects many areas of the modern society, advance knowledge about space weather events is important to protect personnel and infrastructure. Cosmic Rays (CR) measurements by ground-based Neutron Monitors are influenced by Coronal Mass Ejections (CME), the intensity of the ever present Cosmic Rays is reduced in a Forbush decrease (Fd). In the case of very energetic CMEs, the measured intensity can be significantly increased in a Ground Level Enhancement (GLE). By detecting the anisotropy of the CR environment, a CME can be detected hours before it arrives at Earth. During a GLE the high-energy particles from the Sun can be detected before the more abundant lower energy particles arrive at Earth, thus allowing to take protective measures. Since the beginning of the Neutron Monitor Database (NMDB) project, which has been started in 2008 with funding from the European Commission, real-time data from Neutron Monitors around the world has been made available through one web-portal. We have more than doubled the number of stations providing data since the start of the project to now over 30 stations. The effectiveness of the ALERT applications which are based on NMDB data has been shown by the recent GLE71. We present different applications through which the measurements and different data products are accessible.