ALBERT

Description: Biofilms, consisting of microorganisms and their secreted extracellular polymeric substances (EPS), serve as “ecosystem engineers” stabilizing sedimentary environments. Natural sediment bed provides an excellent substratum for biofilm growth. The porous structure and rich nutrients allow the EPS matrix to spread deeper into the bed. A series of laboratory-controlled experiments were conducted to investigate sediment colonization of Bacillus subtilis and the penetration of EPS into the sediment bed with incubation time. In addition to EPS accumulation on the bed surface, EPS also penetrated downwards. However, EPS distribution developed strong vertical heterogeneity with a much higher content in the surface layer than in the bottom layer. Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) images of vertical layers also displayed different micro-morphological properties of sediment-EPS matrix. In addition, colloidal and bound EPS exhibited distinctive distribution patterns. After the full incubation, the bio-sedimentary beds were eroded to test the variation of bed stability induced by biological effects. This research provides an important reference for the prediction of sediment transport, and hence deepens the understanding of the biologically mediated sediment system and broadens the scope of the burgeoning research field of “biomorphodynamics”.

Description: Wave activities in the solar wind are an important topic and magnetic clouds (MCs) are a common phenomenon in interplanetary space, though waves activities associated with MCs have not been well documented. Based on a survey of 120 MCs observed by STEREO spacecraft during the years 2007−2013, this work studies electromagnetic cyclotron waves (ECWs) near the proton cyclotron frequency in and around MCs. For total 7807 ECW events, 24% of them occurred in the regions within MCs while 76% occurred in the regions around MCs. Statistics indicate that ECWs around MCs have higher frequencies, wider bandwidths, and stronger powers relative to the waves in MCs. More ECWs, on the other hand, tend to be related to a plasma with higher temperature, lower density, and larger velocity. In particular, it is found that there exist positive power-law correlations between plasma betas and the wave frequencies, bandwidths, and powers. The results imply that the plasma beta should play an important role in determining the properties of ECWs, which is consistent with previous theory studies and the recent simulation results.

Description: Extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) are ubiquitous on tidal flats but their impact on sediment erosion has not been fully understood. Laboratory-controlled sediment beds were incubated with Bacillus subtilis for 5, 10, 16 and 22 days before the erosion experiments, to study the temporal and spatial variations in sediment stability caused by the bacterial secreted EPS. We found the bio-sedimentary systems showed different erosional behaviour related to biofilm maturity and EPS distribution. In the first stage (5 days), the bio-sedimentary bed was more easily eroded than the clean sediment. With increasing growth period, bound EPS became more widely distributed over the vertical profile resulting in bed stabilisation. After 22 days, the bound EPS was highly concentrated within a surface biofilm, but a relatively high content also extended to a depth of 5 mm and then decayed sharply with depth. The biofilm increased the critical shear stress of the bed and furthermore, it enabled the bed to withstand threshold conditions for an increased period of time as the biofilm degraded before eroding. After the loss of biofilm protection, the high EPS content in the sub-layers continued to stabilise the sediment (hindered erosion) by binding individual grains, as visualized by electron microscopy. Consequently, the bed strength did not immediately revert to the abiotic condition but progressively adjusted, reflecting the depth profile of the EPS. Our experiments highlight the need to treat the EPS-sediment conditioning as a bed-age associated and depth-dependent variable that should be included in the next generation of sediment transport models.

Description: The nature of turbulence, dissipation, and heating in plasma media has been an attractive and challenge problem in space physics as well as in basic plasma physics. A wide continuous spectrum of Alfvénic turbulence from large MHD-scale Alfvén waves (AWs) in the inertial turbulence regime to small kinetic-scale kinetic AWs (KAWs) in the dissipation turbulence regime is a typical paradigm of plasma turbulence. The incorporation of current remote observations of AWs in the solar atmosphere, in situ satellite measurements of Alfvénic turbulence in the solar wind, and experimental investigations of KAWs on large plasma devices in laboratory provides a chance synthetically to study the physics nature of plasma turbulence, dissipation, and heating. A session entitled “ Nature of Turbulence, Dissipation, and Heating in Space Plasmas: From Alfvén Waves to Kinetic Alfvén Waves ” was held as a part of the 12th AOGS (Asia Oceania Geosciences Society) Annual Meeting, which took place in Singapore between 2 and 7 August 2015. This special section is organized based on the session.

Description: Electromagnetic cyclotron waves (ECWs) near the proton cyclotron frequency are common wave activities in the solar wind and have attracted much attention in resent years. This paper investigates 82,809 ECWs based on magnetic field data from the STEREO-A mission between 2007 and 2013. Results show that ECWs may last for just a few seconds or incessantly for several tens of minutes. The time fraction of ECW storms among all solar wind is about 0.9%; the storms are obtained with the duration threshold of 10 minutes, amplitude criterion of 0.032 nT, and time separation limit of 3 minutes for combination of intermittent ECWs. Most of ECWs have their amplitudes less than 1 nT, while some ECWs have large amplitudes comparable to the ambient magnetic field. The distributions of the durations and amplitudes of these ECWs are characterized by power law spectra, respectively, with spectrum indexes around 4. Statistically, there seems to be a tendency that ECWs with a longer duration will have a larger amplitude. Observed ECW properties are time-dependent, and the median frequency of left-hand (LH) ECWs can be lower than that of right-hand (RH) ECWs in some months in the spacecraft frame. The percentage of LH ECWs varies in a large range with respect to months; it is much low (26%) in a month, though it frequently exceeds 50% in other months. Characteristics of ECWs with concurrent polarizations are also researched. The present study should be of importance for a more complete picture of ECWs in the solar wind.

Description: Small interplanetary magnetic flux ropes (SIMFRs) are commonly observed by spacecraft at 1 AU, and their origin still remains disputed. We investigated the counterstreaming suprathermal electron (CSE) signatures of 106 SIMFRs measured by Wind during 1995–2005. We found that 79 (75%) of the 106 flux ropes contain CSEs, and the percentages of counterstreaming vary from 8% to 98%, with a mean value of 51%. CSEs are often observed in magnetic clouds (MCs), and this indicates these MCs are still attached to the Sun at both ends. CSEs are also related to heliospheric current sheets (HCSs) and the Earth's bow shock. We divided the SIMFRs into two categories, as follows: The first category is far from HCSs, and the second category is in the vicinity of HCSs. The first category has 57 SIMFRs, and only 7 of 57 ropes have no CSEs. This ratio is similar to that of MCs. The second category has 49 SIMFRs, however, 20 of the 49 events have no CSEs. This ratio is larger than that of MCs. These two categories have different origins. One category originates from the solar corona, and most ropes are still connected to the Sun at both ends. The other category is formed near HCSs in the interplanetary space.

Description: The impact of sandwich foehn on air pollution in Urumqi, a gap town located on the northern leeside of the Tianshan Mountains of China, is analyzed. The results show that during days with high pollution, the boundary layer over the city and the down-valley area can be divided into a three-layer structure, with the southeasterly foehn sandwiched between the northwesterly winds on top and the cold-air surface pool beneath. The southeasterly foehn at heights between 480 and 2,100 m results in a very stable boundary layer structure. In combination with the decoupling between the foehn flow and cold air pool, such boundary layer structure prevents vertical mixing of atmospheric pollutants. In the up-valley area from the northern leeside flank to the southern urban area, the ground-based foehn confronts the thermally driven valley breeze and forms a “mini-front,” which moves northwards in the morning and retreats southwards in the afternoon. Although the mini-front disappears in the early evening, the wind shear of the mountain breeze between the southern suburb and downtown areas is still remarkable, which is favorable for a convergence line to persist around the city all day long. In this case, air pollutants emitted from the up-valley and down-valley areas are transported toward the urban area. Therefore, the air pollutants accumulate daily, leading to the frequent occurrence of heavy pollution events in Urumqi. This indicates that the sandwich foehn plays a critical role in the formation of heavy air pollution events in Urumqi.

Description: The ecological situation of the Tarim River basin in China seriously declined since the early 1950's, mainly due to a strong increase in water abstraction for irrigation purposes. In order to restore the ecological system and support sustainable development of the Tarim River basin region in China, more hydrological studies are demanded to properly understand the processes of the watershed and efficiently manage the water resources. Such studies are, however, complicated due to the limited data availability, especially in the mountainous headwater regions of the Tarim River basin. This study investigated the usefulness of remote sensing (RS) data in order to overcome that lack of data in the spatially distributed hydrological modelling of the basin. Complementary to the conventional station based (SB) data, the RS products that are directly used in this study include precipitation, evapotranspiration and leaf area index (LAI). They are derived from raw image data of the Chinese Fengyun meteorological satellite and from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS). The MODIS land surface temperature was used to calculate the atmospheric temperature lapse rate to describe the temperature dependency on topographical variations. Moreover, MODIS based snow cover images were used to obtain model initial conditions and as validation reference for the snow model component. Comparison of model results based on RS input versus conventional SB input exhibited similar results in terms of high and low river runoff extremes, cumulative runoff volumes in both runoff and snow melting seasons, and spatial and temporal variability of snow cover. During summer time, when the snow cover shrinks in the permanent glacier region, it was found that the model resolution influences the model results dramatically; hence showing the importance of detailed (RS based) spatially distributed input data. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.