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  • American Geophysical Union  (6,179)
  • American Meteorological Society
  • International Union of Crystallography (IUCr)
  • 2005-2009  (8,147)
  • 1995-1999
  • 1985-1989
  • 2008  (8,147)
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  • 2005-2009  (8,147)
  • 1995-1999
  • 1985-1989
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  • 1
    Publication Date: 2020-12-14
    Description: Stromboli volcano is famous in the scientific literature for its persistent state of activity, which began about 1500 years ago and consists of continuous degassing and mild intermittent explosions (normal Strombolian activity). Rare lava emissions and sporadic more violent explosive episodes (paroxysms) also occur. Since its formation, the present-day activity has been dominated by the emission of two basaltic magmas, differing chiefly in their crystal and volatile contents, whose characteristics have remained constant until now. The normal Strombolian activity and lava effusions are fed by a crystal-rich, degassed magma, stored within the uppermost part of the plumbing system, whereas highly vesicular, crystal-poor light-colored pumices are produced during paroxysms testifying to the ascent of volatile-rich magma batches from deeper portions of the magmatic system. Mineralogical, geochemical, and isotopic data, together with data on the volatile contents of magmas, are presented here with the aim of discussing (1) the relationships between the different magma batches erupted at Stromboli, (2) the mechanisms of their crystallization and transfer, (3) the plumbing system and triggering mechanisms of Strombolian eruptions.
    Description: Unpublished
    Description: 20
    Description: 3.5. Geologia e storia dei sistemi vulcanici
    Description: 4.3. TTC - Scenari di pericolosità vulcanica
    Description: reserved
    Keywords: Stromboli volcano ; Basaltic explosive activity ; Basaltic pumice ; Plumbing system ; 04. Solid Earth::04.04. Geology::04.04.05. Mineralogy and petrology ; 04. Solid Earth::04.08. Volcanology::04.08.03. Magmas
    Repository Name: Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV)
    Type: book chapter
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  • 2
    Publication Date: 2020-12-14
    Description: Observations of very low amounts of precipitable water vapor (PWV) by means of the Ground-Based Millimeter wave Spectrometer (GBMS) are discussed. Low amounts of column water vapor (between 0.5 and 4 mm) are typical of high mountain sites and polar regions, especially during winter, and are difficult to measure accurately because of the lack of sensitivity of conventional instruments to such low PWV contents. The technique used involves the measurement of atmospheric opacity in the range between 230 and 280 GHz with a spectral resolution of 4 GHz, followed by the conversion to precipitable water vapor using a linear relationship. We present the intercomparison of this data set with simultaneous PWV observations obtained with Vaisala RS92k radiosondes, a Raman lidar, and an IR Fourier transform spectrometer. These sets of measurements were carried out during the primary field campaign of the Earth Cooling by Water vapor Radiation (ECOWAR) project which took place at Breuil-Cervinia (45.9N, 7.6E, elevation 1990 m) and Plateau Rosa (45.9N, 7.7E, elevation 3490 m), Italy, from 3 to 16 March 2007. GBMS PWV measurements show a good agreement with the other three data sets exhibiting a mean difference between observations of 9%. The considerable number of data points available for the GBMS versus lidar PWV correlation allows an additional analysis which indicates negligible systematic differences between the two data sets.
    Description: Published
    Description: D14314
    Description: 1.8. Osservazioni di geofisica ambientale
    Description: JCR Journal
    Description: reserved
    Keywords: millimeter wave spectroscopy ; column water vapor ; 01. Atmosphere::01.01. Atmosphere::01.01.01. Composition and Structure
    Repository Name: Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV)
    Type: article
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  • 3
    Publication Date: 2021-01-27
    Description: Northern Victoria Land is located at the boundary between an extended, presumably hot, region (West Antarctic Rift System) and the thick, possibly cold, East Antarctic craton. The style and timing of Tertiary deformation along with relationships with the magmatic activity are still unclear, and contrasting models have been proposed. We performed structural and morphotectonic analyses at the NE termination of northern Victoria Land in the Admiralty Mountains area, where the relationship between topography, tectonics, and magmatism is expected to be well pronounced. We found evidence of two subsequent episodes of faulting, occurring concurrently with the Neogene McMurdo volcanism. The first episode is associated with dextral transtension, and it is overprinted by extensional tectonics during the emplacement of large shield alkaline volcanoes. Upper mantle seismic tomography shows that the extensional regime is limited to regions overlying a low-velocity anomaly. We interpret this anomaly to be of thermal origin, and have tested the role of largescale upwelling on lithosphere deformation in the area. The results of this integrated analysis suggest that the morphotectonic setting of the region and the magmatism is likely the result of upwelling flow at the boundary between the cold cratonic and the hot stretched province (WARS), at work until recent time in this portion of the northern Victoria Land.
    Description: Published
    Description: TC4015
    Description: 3.3. Geodinamica e struttura dell'interno della Terra
    Description: JCR Journal
    Description: partially_open
    Keywords: Antarctica ; Admiralty Mountains ; Extensional Tectonics ; Mantle Upwelling ; Seismic Tomography ; 04. Solid Earth::04.07. Tectonophysics::04.07.02. Geodynamics
    Repository Name: Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV)
    Type: article
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  • 4
    Publication Date: 2021-01-27
    Description: We report the first combined measurements of the composition and flux of gas emitted from Nyiragongo volcano by ground-based remote-sensing techniques. Ultraviolet spectroscopic measurements made in May/June 2005 and January 2006 indicate average SO2 emission rates of 38 kg s−1 and 23 kg s−1, respectively. Open-path Fourier transform infrared spectroscopic measurements obtained in May/June 2005, January 2006, and June 2007 indicate average molar proportions of 70, 24, 4.6, 0.87, 0.26, 0.11, and 0.0016% for H2O, CO2, SO2, CO, HCl, HF, and OCS, respectively. The composition of the plume was remarkably similar in 2005, 2006, and 2007, with little temporal variation in proportions of CO2, SO2, and CO, in particular, on the scale of seconds or days or even between the three field campaigns that span a period of 24 months. This stability persisted despite a wide range of degassing behaviors on the surface of the summit crater's lava lake (including discrete strombolian bursts and lava fountains) and variations in the SO2 emission rate. We explain these observations by a regime of steady state degassing in which bubbles nucleate and ascend in chemical equilibrium with the convecting magma. Short-term (seconds to minutes) temporal fluctuations in the SO2–HCl–HF composition were observed, and these are attributed to shallow degassing processes.
    Description: Published
    Description: Q02017
    Description: 1.2. TTC - Sorveglianza geochimica delle aree vulcaniche attive
    Description: JCR Journal
    Description: reserved
    Keywords: Nyiragongo ; volcanic gas emissions ; FTIR ; DOAS ; remote sensing ; spectroscopy ; 04. Solid Earth::04.08. Volcanology::04.08.01. Gases ; 04. Solid Earth::04.08. Volcanology::04.08.06. Volcano monitoring
    Repository Name: Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV)
    Type: article
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  • 5
    Publication Date: 2021-06-01
    Description: Five non-eddy-resolving oceanic general circulation models driven by atmospheric fluxes derived from the NCEP reanalysis are used to investigate the link between the Gulf Stream (GS) variability, the atmospheric circulation, and the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC). Despite the limited model resolution, the temperature at the 200-m depth along the mean GS axis behaves similarly in most models to that observed, and it is also well correlated with the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), indicating that a northward (southward) GS shift lags a positive (negative) NAO phase by 0–2 yr. The northward shift is accompanied by an increase in the GS transport, and conversely the southward shift with a decrease in the GS transport. Two dominant time scales appear in the response of the GS transport to the NAO forcing: a fast time scale (less than 1 month) for the barotropic component, and a slower one (about 2 yr) for the baroclinic component. In addition, the two components are weakly coupled. The GS response seems broadly consistent with a linear adjustment to the changes in the wind stress curl, and evidence for baroclinic Rossby wave propagation is found in the southern part of the subtropical gyre. However, the GS shifts are also affected by basin-scale changes in the oceanic conditions, and they are well correlated in most models with the changes in the AMOC. A larger AMOC is found when the GS is stronger and displaced northward, and a higher correlation is found when the observed changes of the GS position are used in the comparison. The relation between the GS and the AMOC could be explained by the inherent coupling between the thermohaline and the wind-driven circulation, or by the NAO variability driving them on similar time scales in the models.
    Description: This research was supported by the PREDICATE project of the European Community, and for M. Bentsen by the Research Council of Norway through RegClim, NOClim, and the Programme of Supercomputing.
    Description: Published
    Description: 2119–2135
    Description: 3.7. Dinamica del clima e dell'oceano
    Description: JCR Journal
    Description: reserved
    Keywords: ocean modelling ; gulf stream variability ; 03. Hydrosphere::03.01. General::03.01.03. Global climate models
    Repository Name: Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV)
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  • 6
    Publication Date: 2021-07-14
    Description: From 25 November to 2 December 2006, the first active seismic tomography experiment at Stromboli volcano was carried out with the cooperation of four Italian research institutions. Researchers on board the R/V Urania of the Italian National Council of Research (CNR), which was equipped with a battery of four 210- cubic- inch generated injection air guns (GI guns), fired more than 1500 offshore shots along profiles and rings around the volcano.
    Description: DPC/INGV agreement 2004-2006
    Description: Published
    Description: 269-270
    Description: 1.4. TTC - Sorveglianza sismologica delle aree vulcaniche attive
    Description: 1.5. TTC - Sorveglianza dell'attività eruttiva dei vulcani
    Description: 3.6. Fisica del vulcanismo
    Description: N/A or not JCR
    Description: reserved
    Keywords: Stromboli ; seismic tomography ; air-gun ; 04. Solid Earth::04.06. Seismology::04.06.07. Tomography and anisotropy ; 04. Solid Earth::04.06. Seismology::04.06.08. Volcano seismology ; 04. Solid Earth::04.06. Seismology::04.06.10. Instruments and techniques ; 04. Solid Earth::04.08. Volcanology::04.08.06. Volcano monitoring
    Repository Name: Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV)
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  • 7
    Publication Date: 2017-04-04
    Description: We calculated the impact on Southern Italy of a large set of tsunamis resulting from earthquakes generated by major fault zones of the Mediterranean Sea. Our approach merges updated knowledge on the regional tectonic setting and scenario-like calculations of expected tsunami impact. We selected three potential source zones located at short, intermediate and large distance from our target coastlines: the Southern Tyrrhenian thrust belt; the Tell-Atlas thrust belt; and the western Hellenic Arc. For each zone we determined a Maximum Credible Earthquake and described the geometry, kinematics and size of its associated Typical Fault. We then let the Typical Fault float along strike of its parent source zone and simulated all tsunamis it could trigger. Simulations are based on the solution of the nonlinear shallow water equations through a finite-difference technique. For each run we calculated the wave fields at desired simulation times and the maximum water elevation field, then produced travel-time maps and maximum wave-height profiles along the target coastlines. The results show a highly variable impact for tsunamis generated by the different source zones. For example, a large Hellenic Arc earthquake will produce a much higher tsunami wave (up to 5 m) than those of the other two source zones (up to 1.5 m). This implies that tsunami scenarios for Mediterranean Sea countries must necessarily be computed at the scale of the entire basin. Our work represents a pilot study for constructing a basin-wide tsunami scenario database to be used for tsunami hazard assessment and early warning.
    Description: Italian Civil Defense; Project “Development of new technologies for the protection of the Italian territory from natural hazards” funded by the Italian Ministry of University and Research
    Description: Published
    Description: B01301
    Description: 3.1. Fisica dei terremoti
    Description: 3.2. Tettonica attiva
    Description: 4.2. TTC - Scenari e mappe di pericolosità sismica
    Description: JCR Journal
    Description: partially_open
    Keywords: Tsunamis ; Mediterranean Sea ; Seismotectonics ; 03. Hydrosphere::03.01. General::03.01.01. Analytical and numerical modeling ; 04. Solid Earth::04.04. Geology::04.04.01. Earthquake geology and paleoseismology ; 04. Solid Earth::04.06. Seismology::04.06.03. Earthquake source and dynamics
    Repository Name: Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV)
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  • 8
    Publication Date: 2017-04-04
    Description: In this paper results from the application of an ocean data assimilation (ODA) system, combining a multivariate reduced-order optimal interpolator (OI) scheme with a global ocean general circulation model (OGCM), are described. The present ODA system, designed to assimilate in situ temperature and salinity observations, has been used to produce ocean reanalyses for the 1962–2001 period. The impact of assimilating observed hydrographic data on the ocean mean state and temporal variability is evaluated. A special focus of this work is on the ODA system skill in reproducing a realistic ocean salinity state. Results from a hierarchy of different salinity reanalyses, using varying combinations of assimilated data and background error covariance structures, are described. The impact of the space and time resolution of the background error covariance parameterization on salinity is addressed.
    Description: This work has been funded by the ENACT Project (Contract EVK2-CT2001-00117) for A. Bellucci and P. Di Pietro, and partially by the ENSEMBLES Project (Contract GOCE-CT-2003-505539) for A. Bellucci.
    Description: Published
    Description: 3785-3807
    Description: 3.7. Dinamica del clima e dell'oceano
    Description: JCR Journal
    Description: reserved
    Keywords: ocean modelling ; data assimilation ; reanalysis ; upper ocean variability ; temperature ; Salinity ; 03. Hydrosphere::03.01. General::03.01.04. Ocean data assimilation and reanalysis
    Repository Name: Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV)
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  • 9
    Publication Date: 2017-04-04
    Description: Morphostructural data derived from Lidar (Light detection and ranging) surveys carried out on Mount Etna in 2005 and 2007 are compared with earlier aerophotogrammetric surveys in 1986 and 1998. These data render an unprecedentedly clear and quantitative image of morphostructural and volumetric changes that have affected the summit area of the volcano in the past two decades and permit the production of a new topographic map. The computed volume gain during the 1986–2007 period amounts to 112 ± 12 106 m3, at a mean annual rate of 5.3 106 m3. The comparison of the various surveys furthermore emphasizes the levels of accuracy and resolution of the different techniques applied. The Lidar technology used in 2007 allows production of high-precision maps in near-real-time, facilitating work concerning environmental hazards such as numerical simulations of, e.g., lava flows.
    Description: Published
    Description: L09305
    Description: 1.5. TTC - Sorveglianza dell'attività eruttiva dei vulcani
    Description: 1.10. TTC - Telerilevamento
    Description: JCR Journal
    Description: partially_open
    Keywords: Lidar ; Etna ; morphostructural changes ; lava flows ; 04. Solid Earth::04.08. Volcanology::04.08.99. General or miscellaneous
    Repository Name: Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV)
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  • 10
    Publication Date: 2017-04-04
    Description: The soil CO2 flux on Mt. Etna as recorded by the ETNAGAS network (an automatic system for measuring soil CO2 flux and meteorological parameters) started to increase strongly about 5 months prior to the onset of the 2004–2005 eruption and decreased a few months before the end of the eruption. Time delays in the occurrences of anomalies in soil CO2 flux at different sites in the geochemical network constrain the relationship between soil CO2 flux distributions and the tectonic framework of Etna volcano. The anomalies observed before the 2004–2005 eruption support the intrusion of new undegassed magma into the upper feeding system of the volcano (〈20 km below sea level). Magma subsequently rose slowly in the volcano conduits, thereby triggering the onset of the 2004–2005 eruption. The time delays in the occurrences of anomalies in combination with spectral analysis indicate the importance of tectonic and volcanotectonic structures in driving the ascent of deep gases within the crust. Moreover, greatest amplitude pulsations of the low-frequency components of the CO2 flux signals were correlated with the paroxystic activities of the 2004–2005 eruption. This study confirms that CO2 flux variation is a useful indicator for volcanic activity in the surveillance of the Mt. Etna and similar basaltic volcanoes.
    Description: Dipartimento Protezione Civile Ministero degli Interni
    Description: Published
    Description: B09206
    Description: 1.5. TTC - Sorveglianza dell'attività eruttiva dei vulcani
    Description: JCR Journal
    Description: reserved
    Keywords: CO2 flux ; Continuous monitoring of soil CO2 flux ; 04. Solid Earth::04.04. Geology::04.04.12. Fluid Geochemistry ; 04. Solid Earth::04.07. Tectonophysics::04.07.07. Tectonics ; 04. Solid Earth::04.08. Volcanology::04.08.01. Gases ; 04. Solid Earth::04.08. Volcanology::04.08.06. Volcano monitoring ; 05. General::05.02. Data dissemination::05.02.03. Volcanic eruptions
    Repository Name: Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV)
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  • 11
    Publication Date: 2017-04-04
    Description: Stromboli is a 3000-m-high, conical island-arc volcano rising to 900 m above sea level. It is the most active volcano of the Aeolian Archipelago in the Tyrrhenian Sea (Italy). In the last 13 Kr four large-volume (1 km3) flank collapses have played an important role in shaping the northwestern flank (Sciara del Fuoco- SdF) of the volcano. These flank collapses have the potential to cause hazardous tsunamis in the Aeolian islands and farther afield along the Italian coast. In addition, smaller volume, much more frequent partial collapses of the SdF have been shown to be tsunami generating, potentially hazardous events One such partial collapse occurred on 30/12/2002, on the north-western flank of the island. The resulting landslide generated a 10-m-high tsunami that impacted the island. Multibeam bathymetry, side-scan sonar and seabed visual observations reveal that 25-30 x 106 m3 of sediments were deposited on the offshore from the Sciara del Fuoco landslide. Sediment samples have led to the recognition of a proximal coarse-grained landslide deposit on the volcano slope and a distal, cogenetic, sandy turbidite 24 km from the Stromboli shoreline. The proximal landslide deposit consists of two contiguous facies: (1) a chaotic, coarse grained (meter- to centimetre-sized clasts) deposit and (2) a sand deposit containing a lower, cross bedded sand layer and an upper structureless, pebbly sand bed, capped by seafloor ripple bedforms. The ubiquitous sand facies develops laterally with and over the coarse-grained deposits. Distally, a capping 2-3 cm-thick sand layer, not present in a pre-landslide September 2002 core, is interpreted as the finer grained turbidite equivalent of the proximal deposits. Characteristics of the SdF landslide deposits suggest that they derive from cohesionless, sandy-matrix, density flows. Flow rheology resulted in segregation of the density flow into sand-rich and clast-rich regions. Our results show that a range of density flow transitions, based principally on particle concentration and grain-size partitioning of cohesionless parent flows, can be identified in the proximal and distaldeposits of this relatively small-scale landslide event on Stromboli.
    Description: Unpublished
    Description: 23
    Description: 2.3. TTC - Laboratori di chimica e fisica delle rocce
    Description: 3.5. Geologia e storia dei sistemi vulcanici
    Description: 4.3. TTC - Scenari di pericolosità vulcanica
    Description: open
    Keywords: Stromboli ; flank collapse ; tsunami ; submarine landslide deposits ; 04. Solid Earth::04.04. Geology::04.04.04. Marine geology ; 04. Solid Earth::04.04. Geology::04.04.08. Sediments: dating, processes, transport ; 04. Solid Earth::04.08. Volcanology::04.08.08. Volcanic risk
    Repository Name: Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV)
    Type: book chapter
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  • 12
    Publication Date: 2017-04-04
    Description: In this study, we compute the effect of stress change due to previous historical earthquakes on the probability of occurrence of future earthquakes on neighboring faults. Following a methodology developed in the last decade, we start from the estimate of the probability of occurrence in the next 50 years for a characteristic earthquake on known seismogenic structures, based on a time-dependent renewal model. Then a physical model for the Coulomb stress change caused by previous earthquakes on these structures is applied. The influence of this stress change on the occurrence rate of characteristic earthquakes is computed, taking into account both permanent (clock advance) and temporary (rate-and-state) perturbations. We apply this method to the computation of earthquake hazard of the main seismogenic structures recognized in the Central and Southern Apennines region, for which both historical and paleoseismological data are available. This study provides the opportunity of reviewing the problems connected with the estimate of the parameters of a renewal model in case of characteristic earthquakes characterized by return times longer than the time spanned by the available catalogues and the applicability of the concept of characteristic earthquake itself. The results show that the estimated effect of earthquake interaction in this region is small compared with the uncertainties affecting the statistical model used for the basic time-dependent hazard assessment.
    Description: Published
    Description: B08313
    Description: 3.1. Fisica dei terremoti
    Description: 3.2. Tettonica attiva
    Description: 4.2. TTC - Scenari e mappe di pericolosità sismica
    Description: JCR Journal
    Description: reserved
    Keywords: Stress interaction, occurrence probability, characteristic earthquakes ; 01. Atmosphere::01.02. Ionosphere::01.02.03. Forecasts ; 04. Solid Earth::04.04. Geology::04.04.01. Earthquake geology and paleoseismology ; 04. Solid Earth::04.04. Geology::04.04.06. Rheology, friction, and structure of fault zones ; 04. Solid Earth::04.06. Seismology::04.06.02. Earthquake interactions and probability ; 04. Solid Earth::04.06. Seismology::04.06.03. Earthquake source and dynamics
    Repository Name: Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV)
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  • 13
    Publication Date: 2017-04-04
    Description: The effect of horizontal resolution on tropical variability is investigated within the modified SINTEX model, SINTEX-F, developed jointly at INGV, IPSL and at the Frontier Research System. The horizontal resolutions T30 and T106 are investigated in terms of the coupling characteristics, frequency and variability of the tropical ocean-atmosphere interactions. It appears that the T106 resolution is generally beneficial even if it does not eliminate all the major systematic errors of the coupled model. There is an excessive shift west of the cold tongue and ENSO variability, and high resolution has also a somewhat negative impact to the variability in the East Indian Ocean. A dominant two-year peak for the NINO3 variabilty in the T30 model is moderated in the T106 as it shifts to longer time scale. At high resolution new processes come into play, as the coupling of tropical instability waves, the resolution of coastal flows at the Pacific Mexican coasts and improved coastal forcing along the coast of South America. The delayed oscillator seems the main mechanism that generates the interannual variability in both models, but the models realize it in different ways. In the T30 model it is confined close to the equator, involving relatively fast equatorial and near-equatorial modes, in the high resolution, it involves a wider latitudinal region and slower waves. It is speculated that the extent of the region that is involved in the interannual variability may be linked to the time scale of the variability itself.
    Description: This research was partially supported by the Italy–USA Cooperation Program of the Italian Ministry of Environment and by the EU projects ENSEMBLES and DYNAMITE.
    Description: Published
    Description: 730-750
    Description: 3.7. Dinamica del clima e dell'oceano
    Description: JCR Journal
    Description: reserved
    Keywords: coupled models ; tropical variability ; ENSO system ; 03. Hydrosphere::03.01. General::03.01.03. Global climate models
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  • 14
    Publication Date: 2017-04-04
    Description: We image the rupture history of the 2007 Niigata-ken Chuestu-oki (Japan) earthquake by a nonlinear joint inversion of strong motion and GPS data, retrieving peak slip velocity, rupture time, rise time and slip direction. The inferred rupture model contains two asperities; a small patch near the nucleation and a larger one located 10÷15 km to the south-west. The maximum slip ranges between 2.0 and 2.5 m and the total seismic moment is 1.6×1019 Nm. The inferred rupture history is characterized by rupture acceleration and directivity effects, which are stable features of the inverted models. These features as well as the source-to-receiver geometry are discussed to interpret the high peak ground motions observed (PGA is 1200 gals) at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant (KKNPP), situated on the hanging-wall of the causative fault. Despite the evident source effects, predicted PGV underestimates the observed values at KKNPP by nearly a factor of 10.
    Description: Published
    Description: L16306
    Description: 3.1. Fisica dei terremoti
    Description: JCR Journal
    Description: partially_open
    Keywords: rupture process ; inversion ; 04. Solid Earth::04.06. Seismology::04.06.03. Earthquake source and dynamics
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  • 15
    Publication Date: 2017-04-04
    Description: The eruption of Stromboli 2002-03, thanks to its complex scenario (flank instability, tsunami, necessity to rapidly upgrade monitoring networks) has provided an important opportunity to verify the response of the national system of civil protection to volcanic emergencies. In particular, it has tested and validated the model of collaboration, in use by Italian law, between the Department of Civil Protection and the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology. This synergy has enabled a better understanding and ability to tackle the eruptive crisis from its first stages, as well as implement monitoring systems both dependably and swiftly. In this work, the numerous first monitoring tasks carried out during the critical initial stages of the eruption are described, and the activities and planned action are reported over the course of the eruption that has made Stromboli one of the best monitored volcanoes not only in Italy but throughout the world.
    Description: Published
    Description: 387-398
    Description: 1.5. TTC - Sorveglianza dell'attività eruttiva dei vulcani
    Description: open
    Keywords: eruptive crisis management ; Stromboli volcano ; 05. General::05.02. Data dissemination::05.02.03. Volcanic eruptions
    Repository Name: Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV)
    Type: book chapter
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  • 16
    Publication Date: 2017-04-04
    Description: The 2002–2003 effusive eruption of Stromboli volcano represents an excellent opportunity to investigate the transition from effusive to explosive activity at an open-conduit basaltic system, when activity migrated from effusive vents, at the base of the craters, to summit explosions. The transition is investigated here through the analysis of very long period seismicity, delay times between infrasonic and thermal onsets of explosions, and SO2 flux recorded during a 1-year period. The synergy of the multiple geophysical observations points to a magma-driven migration of the magma column. Here the increased magma supply at the eruption onset lead to opening of effusive fissures, which draining the magma in the shallow conduit caused the decrease of the magma level. The decrease of the magma supply at the end of the effusion lead to sealing of effusive fissures, upraise of the magma level within the conduit, and reestablishment of explosive activity from the summit vents.
    Description: Unpublished
    Description: 11
    Description: 1.2. TTC - Sorveglianza geochimica delle aree vulcaniche attive
    Description: 1.10. TTC - Telerilevamento
    Description: 3.6. Fisica del vulcanismo
    Description: reserved
    Keywords: Stromboli ; SO2 Flux ; Magma column ; Infrasound ; 04. Solid Earth::04.08. Volcanology::04.08.01. Gases ; 04. Solid Earth::04.08. Volcanology::04.08.06. Volcano monitoring
    Repository Name: Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV)
    Type: book chapter
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  • 17
    Publication Date: 2017-04-03
    Description: We assess the quality of the version 2.2 (v2.2) HNO3 measurements from the Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) on the Earth Observing System Aura satellite. The MLS HNO3 product has been greatly improved over that in the previous version (v1.5), with smoother profiles, much more realistic behavior at the lowest retrieval levels, and correction of a high bias caused by an error in one of the spectroscopy files used in v1.5 processing. The v2.2 HNO3 data are scientifically useful over the range 215 to 3.2 hPa, with single-profile precision of 0.7 ppbv throughout. Vertical resolution is 3–4 km in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere, degrading to 5 km in the middle and upper stratosphere. The impact of various sources of systematic uncertainty has been quantified through a comprehensive set of retrieval simulations. In aggregate, systematic uncertainties are estimated to induce in the v2.2 HNO3 measurements biases that vary with altitude between ±0.5 and ±2 ppbv and multiplicative errors of ±5–15% throughout the stratosphere, rising to ±30% at 215 hPa. Consistent with this uncertainty analysis, comparisons with correlative data sets show that relative to HNO3 measurements from ground-based, balloon-borne, and satellite instruments operating in both the infrared and microwave regions of the spectrum, MLS v2.2 HNO3 mixing ratios are uniformly low by 10–30% throughout most of the stratosphere. Comparisons with in situ measurements made from the DC-8 and WB-57 aircraft in the upper troposphere and lowermost stratosphere indicate that the MLS HNO3 values are low in this region as well, but are useful for scientific studies (with appropriate averaging).
    Description: Published
    Description: D24S40
    Description: 1.7. Osservazioni di alta e media atmosfera
    Description: JCR Journal
    Description: reserved
    Keywords: satellite validation ; stratospheric HNO3 ; 01. Atmosphere::01.01. Atmosphere::01.01.01. Composition and Structure
    Repository Name: Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV)
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  • 18
    Publication Date: 2017-04-04
    Description: Repeated phenomena of flank instability accompanied the 28 December 2002 to 21 July 2003 eruption of Stromboli volcano. The major episodes were two tsunamigenic landslides on 30 December 2002, 2 d after the volcano unrest. After 30 December, sliding processes remodeled the area affected by slope instability.We propose analyses of 565 sliding episodes taking place from December 2002 to February 2003.We try to shed light on their main seismic features and links with the ongoing seismic and volcanic activity using variogram analysis as well. A characterization of the seismic signals in the time and frequency domains is presented for 185 sliding episodes. Their frequency content is between 1 Hz and 7 Hz. On the basis of the dominant peaks and shape of the spectrum, we identify three subclasses of signals, one of which has significant energy below 2 Hz. Low-frequency signatures were also found in the seismic records of the landslides of 30 December, which affected the aerial and submarine northwestern flank of the volcano. Accordingly, we surmise that spectral analysis might provide evidence of sliding phenomena with submarine runouts.We find no evidence of sliding processes induced by earthquakes. Additionally, a negative statistical correlation between sliding episodes and explosion quakes is highlighted by variogram analysis. Variograms indicate a persistent behavior, memory, of the flank instability from 5 to 10 d.We interpret the climax in the occurrence rate of the sliding processes between 24 and 29 January 2003 as the result of favorable conditions to slope instability due to the emplacement of NW-SE aligned, dike-fed vents located near the scarp of the landslide area. Afterward, the stabilizing effect of the lava flows over the northwestern flank of the volcano limited erosive phenomena to the unstable, loose slope not covered by lava.
    Description: This work was supported financially by Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia and Dipartimento per la Protezione Civile, project INGV-DPC V4/02.
    Description: Published
    Description: Q04022
    Description: 1.4. TTC - Sorveglianza sismologica delle aree vulcaniche attive
    Description: 1.5. TTC - Sorveglianza dell'attività eruttiva dei vulcani
    Description: 3.6. Fisica del vulcanismo
    Description: JCR Journal
    Description: reserved
    Keywords: rockfalls ; seismicity ; volcanoes ; volcano collapses ; Stromboli ; 04. Solid Earth::04.06. Seismology::04.06.99. General or miscellaneous ; 04. Solid Earth::04.06. Seismology::04.06.08. Volcano seismology ; 04. Solid Earth::04.07. Tectonophysics::04.07.99. General or miscellaneous ; 04. Solid Earth::04.08. Volcanology::04.08.99. General or miscellaneous ; 04. Solid Earth::04.08. Volcanology::04.08.06. Volcano monitoring ; 04. Solid Earth::04.08. Volcanology::04.08.07. Instruments and techniques ; 05. General::05.02. Data dissemination::05.02.03. Volcanic eruptions
    Repository Name: Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV)
    Type: article
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  • 19
    Publication Date: 2017-04-04
    Description: We model the spatial and temporal pattern of seismicity during a sequence of moderate-magnitude normal faulting earthquakes, which struck in 1997 the Umbria-Marche sector of Northern Apennines (Italy), by applying the Dieterich (1994) rate- and state-dependent constitutive approach. The goal is to investigate the rate of earthquake production caused by repeated coseismic stress changes computed through a 3-D elastic dislocation model in a homogeneous half-space. The reference seismicity rate is assumed time independent, and it is estimated by smoothing the seismicity that occurred in the previous decade without declustering. We propose an analytical relation for deriving the stressing rate directly from the reference seismicity rate. This allows us to perform a tuning of the constitutive parameter As (where A accounts for the direct effect of friction in the rate- and state-dependent model and s is the effective normal stress) into the Dieterich model through a maximum likelihood method, which yields for this seismic sequence a best fitting value equal to 0.04 MPa. Our computations show that, although seven out of eight main shocks are located in areas of increased rate of earthquake production, numerous aftershocks are located in seismicity shadows. Our simulations point out that the adopted value of As strongly affects the pattern of both seismicity shadow and areas of enhanced rate of earthquake production. We conclude that solely accounting for static stress changes caused by the main shocks of this seismic sequence is not sufficient to forecast the complex spatial and temporal evolution of seismicity.
    Description: Published
    Description: B11301
    Description: 3.1. Fisica dei terremoti
    Description: JCR Journal
    Description: reserved
    Keywords: rate-and-state ; Umbria-Marche 1997-98 ; 04. Solid Earth::04.06. Seismology::04.06.02. Earthquake interactions and probability
    Repository Name: Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV)
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  • 20
    Publication Date: 2017-04-04
    Description: scaling of seismic sources of the Central Apennines (Italy) is investigated using broadband seismograms from the Colfiorito sequence (4〈=Mw〈=6 ). Our results are not consistent with self-similar scaling, and can be described by the following relationship: M0~fc^-(3_epsilon), where epsilon=1.7+-0.3 . We speculate that dynamic fault lubrication by fluid pressurization may be responsible for such extreme behavior, and use our results for the calibration of a weak-motion-based predictive relationship for the ground motion ( Mw〈=4.1) up to Mw~6 for this region.
    Description: Published
    Description: L17303
    Description: 3.1. Fisica dei terremoti
    Description: JCR Journal
    Description: reserved
    Keywords: Self-similarity ; 04. Solid Earth::04.06. Seismology::04.06.03. Earthquake source and dynamics
    Repository Name: Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV)
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  • 21
    Publication Date: 2017-04-04
    Description: We applied the Multi-GAS technique to measure compositions of the volcanic plumes continuously discharged from summit craters of Voragine, Northeast and Bocca Nuova at Mount Etna, in an attempt to estimate compositions of the source volcanic gases. The estimated CO2/SO2 and H2O/CO2 ratios of the volcanic gases show a large variation ranging from 0.6 to 30 and from 1 to 18, respectively. This variability overlaps with the compositional range of dissolved volatiles in melt inclusions and their coexisting bubbles in a magma chamber and can be caused by the low-pressure degassing of a magma with variable bubble content ranging from 0.3 to 15 wt.%. The variable bubble content in the magma is likely a result of supply of deep-derived CO2-rich gas phase to the chamber and subsequent bubble-magma differentiation by bubble ascent in the magma chamber. In contrast, the variation of volcanic gas composition can also be caused by changes of degassing pressure (gas–magma separation pressure), ranging from 0 to 100 MPa, as a result of changes in the depth of the top of the convecting magma in volcanic conduits. Both mechanisms can cause similar compositional variations. However, the two mechanisms will result in contrasting correlations between the SO2 emission rates and the gas compositions that can be examined by parallel observations of the emission rates and compositions in the future.
    Description: Published
    Description: B09203
    Description: 1.2. TTC - Sorveglianza geochimica delle aree vulcaniche attive
    Description: 4.5. Degassamento naturale
    Description: JCR Journal
    Description: reserved
    Keywords: Plume ; gas ; 04. Solid Earth::04.08. Volcanology::04.08.01. Gases ; 04. Solid Earth::04.08. Volcanology::04.08.06. Volcano monitoring
    Repository Name: Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV)
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  • 22
    Publication Date: 2017-04-04
    Description: The shallow intrusive processes that occurred during 2002–2003 Etna eruption, as well as the complex interaction between the magma intrusive events and the tectonic response of the volcano’s eastern flank, are investigated with numerical deformation modeling and the estimation of changes in the static Coulomb stress. Ground deformation and volcanologic evidence clearly indicate a composite mechanism of intrusion on both the southern and northeastern flanks of the volcano. Geodetic data inversions have been based on a homogeneous elastic half-space model, although geological data and seismic tomography indicate that Mt. Etna is elastically inhomogeneous and that rigidity layering and heterogeneities are likely to affect the magnitude and pattern of the deformation field. To account for topographic effects, as well as a complicated distribution of material properties, we use the finite element method (FEM) to provide a more realistic model. The presence of medium heterogeneity strongly affects the amplitudes of the static stress changes. Seismicity matches well the areas of positive increase in the static stress caused by the intrusive events along the southern and northeastern flanks. The changes in the state of stress generated by the southern dike produce an extensional stress field that favors magma propagation along the north-east Rift. The highest seismic releases were associated with the activation of two fault systems, the Timpe Fault System and the Pernicana Fault. The static stress changes resolved onto these faults indicate that the magma intrusions on the southern and northeastern flanks encouraged these seismogenic structures to slip.
    Description: Published
    Description: B10206
    Description: 3.6. Fisica del vulcanismo
    Description: JCR Journal
    Description: reserved
    Keywords: numerical modeling ; ground defromation ; static stress changes ; volcano activity ; 04. Solid Earth::04.03. Geodesy::04.03.08. Theory and Models
    Repository Name: Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV)
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  • 23
    Publication Date: 2017-04-04
    Description: We report the first measurements of volcanic gases with an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). The data were collected at La Fossa crater, Vulcano, Italy, during April 2007, with a helicopter UAV of 3 kg payload, carrying an ultraviolet spectrometer for remotely sensing the SO2 flux (8.5 Mg d 1), and an infrared spectrometer, and electrochemical sensor assembly for measuring the plume CO2/SO2 ratio; by multiplying these data we compute a CO2 flux of 170 Mg d 1. Given the deeper exsolution of carbon dioxide from magma, and its lower solubility in hydro-thermal systems, relative to SO2, the ability to remotely measure CO2 fluxes is significant, with promise to provide more profound geochemical insights, and earlier eruption forecasts, than possible with SO2 fluxes alone: the most ubiquitous current source of remotely sensed volcanic gas data.
    Description: Published
    Description: L06303
    Description: 1.2. TTC - Sorveglianza geochimica delle aree vulcaniche attive
    Description: JCR Journal
    Description: reserved
    Keywords: Plume measurements ; carbon dioxide fluxes ; 04. Solid Earth::04.04. Geology::04.04.12. Fluid Geochemistry ; 04. Solid Earth::04.08. Volcanology::04.08.01. Gases ; 04. Solid Earth::04.08. Volcanology::04.08.06. Volcano monitoring ; 04. Solid Earth::04.08. Volcanology::04.08.07. Instruments and techniques
    Repository Name: Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV)
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  • 24
    Publication Date: 2017-04-04
    Description: We infer the slip distribution and average rupture velocity of the magnitude MW 8.4 September 12, 2007, southern Sumatra earthquake from available tide-gauge records of the ensuing tsunami. We select 9 waveforms recorded along the west coast of Sumatra and in the Indian Ocean. Slip distribution and rupture velocity are determined simultaneously by means of a non linear inversion method. We find high slip values (∼10 m) into a patch 100 km long and 50 km large, between 20 and 30 km of depth, about 100 km north-west from the epicenter. We conclude this earthquake did not rupture the whole area of the 1833 event, indicating some slip has still to occurr. Our estimate of rupture velocity is of 2.1±0.4 km/sec. The relatively large depth of the main slip patch is the likely explanation for the low damaging observed tsunami.
    Description: Published
    Description: L02310
    Description: 3.1. Fisica dei terremoti
    Description: JCR Journal
    Description: partially_open
    Keywords: Sumatra ; tsunami ; 04. Solid Earth::04.06. Seismology::04.06.03. Earthquake source and dynamics
    Repository Name: Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV)
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  • 25
    Publication Date: 2017-04-04
    Description: Photogrammetric surveys were performed between 5 January and 26 July 2003 for monitoring the NW flank of the Sciara del Fuoco (SdF) during the eruption of Stromboli that started on 28 December 2002. The collected data were used both for controlling morphological changes after the major landslide that occurred on 30 December 2002 and lava flow field evolution until the end of the eruption (22 July 2003). The latter objective was achieved by a quantitative analysis which allowed to estimate the total lava volume (12.51 × 106 m3) emplaced on the SdF slope corresponding to an eruption rate of about 0.69 m3/s. Thanks to the availability of multitemporal data set, which made this event the first well-documented and regularly surveyed Stromboli eruption, the cumulative volume and effusion rate trends were derived. A model for interpreting the behavior of the 2002–2003 Stromboli effusive eruption is also proposed: being the vents located very close to the volcano summit, a typical summit (terminal) basaltic lava flow eruption was expected; on the contrary, the observed effusion rate trend showed an initial peak followed by an exponential decline typical of flank (lateral) eruptions of basaltic volcanoes. We recognized in this trend a transition from a terminal (open conduit system) to a lateral (pressurized dike system) lava discharge followed by a longer period in which the elastic strain energy from the subvolcanic reservoir controlled the effusion rate; this effect counterbalanced the lava cooling at dike tip that tends to close the eruptive fissure causing the eruption end.
    Description: Published
    Description: 1.5. TTC - Sorveglianza dell'attività eruttiva dei vulcani
    Description: reserved
    Keywords: Stromboli ; Digital photogrammetry survey ; lava disharge mechanism ; morphological changes ; 04. Solid Earth::04.08. Volcanology::04.08.06. Volcano monitoring
    Repository Name: Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV)
    Type: book chapter
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  • 26
    Publication Date: 2017-04-04
    Description: Long time series of fumarolic compositions at Campi Flegrei (Italy), Mammoth Mountain (California), Panarea (Italy) and Nisyros (Greece) show rapid increases, up to orders of magnitude, of the CO2/CH4 ratio systematically with the occurrence of volcanic unrest periods. These easily detected anomalies originate with the arrival of CH4-poor magmatic fluids in the shallower levels of the volcanoes. The data suggest that volcanoes are characterized by magmatic activity at depth also in periods of apparent quiescence. The activity is constituted by the pulsing release of large amount of fluids which either cause unrest periods (seismicity and ground deformation) or possibly could precede volcanic eruption. This type of volcanic activity can be monitored trough the classical geophysical techniques together with the systematic sampling and analysis of fumaroles.
    Description: In press
    Description: 4.5. Degassamento naturale
    Description: JCR Journal
    Description: reserved
    Keywords: fumarole ; magma degassing ; 04. Solid Earth::04.04. Geology::04.04.12. Fluid Geochemistry
    Repository Name: Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV)
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  • 27
    Publication Date: 2017-04-04
    Description: It has been shown that the initial portion of P and S wave signals can provide information about the final earthquake magnitude in a wide magnitude range. This observation opens the perspective for the real-time determination of source parameters. In this paper we describe a probabilistic evolutionary approach for the real-time magnitude estimation which can have a potential use in earthquake early warning. The technique is based on empirical prediction laws correlating the low-frequency peak ground displacement measured in a few seconds after the P and/or S phase arrival and the final event magnitude. The evidence for such a correlation has been found through the analysis of 256 shallow crustal events in the magnitude range Mjma 4–7.1 located over the entire Japanese archipelago. The peak displacement measured in a 2-s window from the first P phase arrival correlates with magnitude in the range M = [4–6.5]. While a possible saturation effect above M ’ 6.5 is observed, it is less evident in an enlarged window of 4 s. The scaling of S peaks with magnitude is instead also observed at smaller time lapses (i.e., 1 s) after the first S arrival. The different scaling of P and S peaks with magnitude when measured in a 2-s window is explained in terms of different imaged rupture surface by the early portion of the body wave signals. We developed a technique to estimate the probability density function (PDF) of magnitude, at each time step after the event origin. The predicted magnitude value corresponds to the maximum of PDF, while its uncertainty is given by the 95% confidence bound. The method has been applied to the 2007 (Mjma = 6.9) Noto Hanto and 1995 (Mjma = 7.3) Kobe earthquakes. The results of this study can be summarized as follows: (1) The probabilistic algorithm founded on the predictive model of peak displacement versus final magnitude is able to provide a fast and robust estimation of the final magnitude. (2) The information available after a few seconds from the first detection of the P phase at the network can be used to predict the peak ground motion at a given regional target with uncertainties which are comparable to those derived from the attenuation law. (3) The near-source S phase data can be used jointly with P data for regional early warning purposes, thus increasing the accuracy and reliability of magnitude estimation.
    Description: Published
    Description: B12302
    Description: 4.1. Metodologie sismologiche per l'ingegneria sismica
    Description: JCR Journal
    Description: reserved
    Keywords: Bayesian approach ; P and S wave ; 04. Solid Earth::04.06. Seismology::04.06.01. Earthquake faults: properties and evolution
    Repository Name: Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV)
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  • 28
    Publication Date: 2017-04-04
    Description: The 2002–2003 Etna eruption is studied through earthquake distributions and surface fracturing. In September 2002, earthquake-induced surface rupture (sinistral offset 0.48 m) occurred along the E-W striking Pernicana Fault (PF), on the NE flank. In late October, a flank eruption accompanied further ( 0.77 m) surface rupturing, reaching a total sinistral offset of 1.25 m; the deformation then propagated for 18 km eastwards to the coastline (sinistral offset 0.03 m) and southwards, along the NW-SE striking Timpe (dextral offset 0.04 m) and, later, Trecastagni faults (dextral offset 0.035 m). Seismicity (〈4 km bsl) on the E flank accompanied surface fracturing: fault plane solutions indicate an overall ESEWNWextension direction, consistent with ESE slip of the E flank also revealed by ground fractures. A three-stage model of flank slip is proposed: inception (September earthquake), climax (accelerated slip and eruption) and propagation (E and S migration of the deformation).
    Description: Published
    Description: 2286
    Description: 1.5. TTC - Sorveglianza dell'attività eruttiva dei vulcani
    Description: 3.2. Tettonica attiva
    Description: 3.5. Geologia e storia dei sistemi vulcanici
    Description: 3.6. Fisica del vulcanismo
    Description: 4.3. TTC - Scenari di pericolosità vulcanica
    Description: JCR Journal
    Description: reserved
    Keywords: volcano seismology ; surface fracturing ; flank slip ; eruption ; Etna ; 04. Solid Earth::04.01. Earth Interior::04.01.99. General or miscellaneous ; 04. Solid Earth::04.01. Earth Interior::04.01.02. Geological and geophysical evidences of deep processes ; 04. Solid Earth::04.02. Exploration geophysics::04.02.99. General or miscellaneous ; 04. Solid Earth::04.04. Geology::04.04.99. General or miscellaneous ; 04. Solid Earth::04.04. Geology::04.04.09. Structural geology ; 04. Solid Earth::04.06. Seismology::04.06.99. General or miscellaneous ; 04. Solid Earth::04.06. Seismology::04.06.01. Earthquake faults: properties and evolution ; 04. Solid Earth::04.06. Seismology::04.06.02. Earthquake interactions and probability ; 04. Solid Earth::04.06. Seismology::04.06.08. Volcano seismology ; 04. Solid Earth::04.06. Seismology::04.06.11. Seismic risk ; 04. Solid Earth::04.07. Tectonophysics::04.07.99. General or miscellaneous ; 04. Solid Earth::04.07. Tectonophysics::04.07.02. Geodynamics ; 04. Solid Earth::04.07. Tectonophysics::04.07.05. Stress ; 04. Solid Earth::04.07. Tectonophysics::04.07.07. Tectonics ; 04. Solid Earth::04.08. Volcanology::04.08.99. General or miscellaneous ; 04. Solid Earth::04.08. Volcanology::04.08.03. Magmas ; 04. Solid Earth::04.08. Volcanology::04.08.05. Volcanic rocks ; 04. Solid Earth::04.08. Volcanology::04.08.06. Volcano monitoring ; 04. Solid Earth::04.08. Volcanology::04.08.08. Volcanic risk ; 05. General::05.02. Data dissemination::05.02.03. Volcanic eruptions
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  • 29
    Publication Date: 2017-04-04
    Description: Teleseismic receiver functions from a seismic experiment in a small area of the northern Apennines, Italy, reveal strong crustal structure variations across the mountain chain. Receiver functions imaging and full waveform inversion technique are used to constrain the S-wave velocity profile in the crust and to reconstruct the geometry of the main seismic discontinuities at depth. We highlight the presence of the main mode-converting discontinuities in the study area. Most importantly, we identify the crust-mantle transition which is represented, almost everywhere in the study area, by a sharp S-wave velocity increase (over 4 km/s) at depth between 35 and 40 km. However, farther west, the S-wave velocity reaches values typical for the sub-crustal mantle at about 54 km depth, possibly marking the locus where the subducting Adriatic plate starts to dip into the mantle. Here the presence of a shallower discontinuity at about 36 km depth, with S-velocity values around 4 km/s, can be interpreted as the Moho signature of the overriding Tyrrhenian plate.
    Description: Published
    Description: L12304
    Description: 3.3. Geodinamica e struttura dell'interno della Terra
    Description: JCR Journal
    Description: reserved
    Keywords: receiver functions ; northern Apennines ; 04. Solid Earth::04.06. Seismology::04.06.09. Waves and wave analysis
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  • 30
    Publication Date: 2017-04-04
    Description: During the onset of 2008 volcanic crisis at Mt Etna, the near-real time magnetic data provided a continuous updating of the volcano activity state on the northern flank. On the morning of 13th May 2008, significant local magnetic field changes marked the resumption of the eruptive activity characterized by the opening of a fracture field on the northern flank, and an eruptive fissure in the Valle del Bove. In agreement with the northward propagation of seismic events, magnetic signals at 5 stations in the summit area revealed a nearly NNW-SSE oriented magmatic intrusion, which started at about 9:00 GMT, propagated northward for about 2 km, and stopped at 14:00 GMT before reaching the North-East Rift. Magnetic variations, with amplitude ranging between 1.8 nT and -6.5 nT, are consistent with those calculated from piezomagnetic models, where stress-induced changes in rock magnetization are produced by the magmatic intrusion.
    Description: Published
    Description: L22301
    Description: 2.6. TTC - Laboratorio di gravimetria, magnetismo ed elettromagnetismo in aree attive
    Description: JCR Journal
    Description: partially_open
    Keywords: Mt Etna ; volcano monitoring ; piezomagnetic field ; magmatic intrusion ; 04. Solid Earth::04.08. Volcanology::04.08.06. Volcano monitoring
    Repository Name: Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV)
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  • 31
    Publication Date: 2017-04-04
    Description: On two occasions, sudden gravity changes occurred simultaneously at two summit Etna’s stations, during local low-magnitude earthquakes. A systematic coupling between earthquakes inducing comparable maximum acceleration and displacement at the observation points and gravity steps is missing, implying (a) the non-instrumental nature of the steps and (b) the need for particular underlying conditions for the triggering mechanism(s) to activate. We review some of the volcanological processes that could induce fast underground mass redistributions, resulting in gravity changes at the surface. These processes involve bubbles and crystals present in the magma and require particular conditions in order to be effective as mass-redistributing processes. The gravity steps could be a geophysical evidence of the dynamical stress transfer between tectonic and magmatic systems at a local scale. Given the implications that these transfers may have on the volcanic activity, routine volcano monitoring should include the observation of fast gravity changes.
    Description: In press
    Description: 3.6. Fisica del vulcanismo
    Description: JCR Journal
    Description: open
    Keywords: gravity changes ; volcano ; 04. Solid Earth::04.01. Earth Interior::04.01.02. Geological and geophysical evidences of deep processes ; 04. Solid Earth::04.03. Geodesy::04.03.05. Gravity variations ; 04. Solid Earth::04.08. Volcanology::04.08.06. Volcano monitoring
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  • 32
    Publication Date: 2017-04-04
    Description: On August 25th 2007 a tsunami detector installed onboard the multi-parameter observatory GEOSTAR was successfully deployed at 3200 b. s. l. in the Gulf of Cadiz, Portugal. This activity is within the NEAREST EC Project (http://nearest.bo.ismar.cnr.it/ ). Among other deliverables, the NEAREST project will produce and test the basic parts of an operational prototype of a near field tsunami warning system. This system includes an onshore warning centre, based on the geophysical monitoring networks which are already operating, and a tsunami detector deployed on board GEOSTAR at the sea bottom. On land the warning centre is in charge of collecting, integrating, and evaluating data recorded at sea. At the sea bottom data is recorded and processed by an advanced type of tsunami detector which includes: a pressure sensor, a seismometer and two accelerometers. The detector communicates acoustically with a surface buoy in two-way mode. The buoy is equipped with meteo station, GPS and tiltmeter and is connected to a shore station via satellite link. The prototype is designed to operate in tsunami generation areas for detection-warning purpose as well as for scientific measurements. The tsunami detector sends a near real time automatic alert message when a seismic or pressure threshold are exceeded. Pressure signals are processed by the tsunami detection algorithm and the water pressure perturbation caused by the seafloor motion is taken into account. The algorithm is designed to detect small tsunami waves, less than one centimetre, in a very noisy environment. Our objective is to combine a novel approach to the tsunami warning problem, with a study of the coupling between the water column perturbations and sea floor motion, together with the long term monitoring of geophysical, geochemical and oceanographic parameters.
    Description: Published
    Description: San Francisco, CA, USA
    Description: 1.8. Osservazioni di geofisica ambientale
    Description: open
    Keywords: Tsunamis and storm surges ; Seismic instruments and networks ; 04. Solid Earth::04.06. Seismology::04.06.99. General or miscellaneous
    Repository Name: Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV)
    Type: Poster session
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  • 33
    Publication Date: 2017-04-04
    Description: The 5 April 2003 explosive eruption at Stromboli emplaced typical basaltic scoria, pumice, and lithic blocks. This paper reports a detailed set of mineralogical, geochemical, and isotopic data on the juvenile ejecta and fresh subvolcanic blocks, including micro-Sr isotope analyses and major and dissolved volatile element contents in olivine-hosted melt inclusions. The juvenile ejecta have compositions similar to those of their analogs from previous paroxysms; the 2003 pumice, however, does not contain stable high-MgO olivine, usually typical of large-scale paroxysms and has lower compatible element contents. Texture, composition, and Sr isotope disequilibrium of crystals in pumice indicate that most of them are inherited from the shallow crystal-rich magma and/or crystal mush. The most primitive magma is recorded as rare melt inclusion in olivine Fo85–86. It has a typical S/Cl (1.1) and a total volatile content of 3.1 wt % from which the total fluid pressure was evaluated ≥240 MPa. Hence, moderate pressure conditions can be envisaged for the mechanism triggering the April 2003 paroxysm. The subvolcanic blocks are shoshonitic basalts with 45–50 vol % of phenocrysts (plagioclase + clinopyroxene + olivine). The late-stage crystallization of the crystal-rich magma lead to the formation of Na-sanidine with plagioclase An60–25 + olivine Fo68–49 + Timagnetite ± apatite ± phlogopite ± ilmenite assemblage. Mineralogy, chemistry, and Sr–Nd isotopic signatures of the subvolcanic blocks indicate they represent the slowly cooled equivalents of batches of crystal-rich basaltic magma stored in the uppermost subvolcanic feeding system. Cooling might be facilitated by short breaks in the summit crater activity.
    Description: Unpublished
    Description: 17
    Description: 2.3. TTC - Laboratori di chimica e fisica delle rocce
    Description: 3.5. Geologia e storia dei sistemi vulcanici
    Description: open
    Keywords: Stromboli volcano ; Paroxysmal activity ; Basaltic pumice ; Volatile content ; Mineralogy ; Geochemistry ; Sr isotope ; 04. Solid Earth::04.04. Geology::04.04.05. Mineralogy and petrology ; 04. Solid Earth::04.04. Geology::04.04.07. Rock geochemistry ; 04. Solid Earth::04.08. Volcanology::04.08.08. Volcanic risk
    Repository Name: Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV)
    Type: book chapter
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  • 34
    Publication Date: 2017-04-04
    Description: Two-dimensional cross sections of the sulphur dioxide (SO2) distribution in the volcanic gas plume of Mt. Etna were reconstructed using tomographic techniques. The data for these projections were generated by a network of five automated scanning spectrometers, positioned on the flanks of the volcano. These measure slant-column amounts of SO2 at 105 different angles, every four minutes. Stable wind conditions allow the plume to be monitored on 82% of days. A time-series of plume cross sections was computed, revealing the potential of this method to track variations in plume position and structure on timescales of minutes to hours, a result of potential importance for air traffic and civil defence in case of eruption, when copious amounts of fine ash can be transported.
    Description: Published
    Description: L17811
    Description: 1.2. TTC - Sorveglianza geochimica delle aree vulcaniche attive
    Description: JCR Journal
    Description: reserved
    Keywords: tomography ; SO2 ; DOAS ; 04. Solid Earth::04.08. Volcanology::04.08.01. Gases ; 04. Solid Earth::04.08. Volcanology::04.08.06. Volcano monitoring ; 04. Solid Earth::04.08. Volcanology::04.08.07. Instruments and techniques
    Repository Name: Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV)
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  • 35
    Publication Date: 2017-04-04
    Description: To investigate the kinematics of the Adriatic region we integrate continuous and episodic GPS measurements and ${M_w} 〉 4.5$ earthquake slip vectors selected from the Regional Centroid Moment Tensor (RCMT) catalogue. Coherent motion of GPS sites in the Po Valley, in Apulia and in the Hyblean Plateau allows us to estimate geodetically constrained angular velocities for these regions. The predictions of the GPS-inferred angular velocities are compared with the earthquake slip vectors, showing that the seismically-expressed deformation at the microplate boundaries is consistent with the observed geodetic motion. The remarkable consistency between geodetic, seismological and geological evidence of active tectonics, suggests that active deformation in the Central Adriatic is controlled by the relative motion between the Adria and Apulia microplates. The microplates angular rotation rates are then compared with the rotation rates calculated with a simple block model supporting the hypotheses (1) that Apulia forms a single microplate with the Ionian Sea and possibly with the Hyblean region and (2) that Adria and Apulia rotate in such a way as to accommodate the Eurasia-Nubia relative motion. We suggest that the present-day microplate configuration follows a recent fragmentation of the Adriatic promontory that during the Neogene rigidly transferred the Africa motion to the orogenic belts that now surround the Adriatic region.
    Description: Published
    Description: B12413
    Description: 3.2. Tettonica attiva
    Description: JCR Journal
    Description: reserved
    Keywords: Adria ; GPS ; 04. Solid Earth::04.03. Geodesy::04.03.01. Crustal deformations
    Repository Name: Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV)
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  • 36
    facet.materialart.
    Unknown
    American Geophysical Union
    Publication Date: 2017-04-04
    Description: From inspection of a large set of Japanese events, we investigate the scaling of the early radiated energy, inferred from the squared velocity integral (IV2) with the final magnitude of the event. We found that the energy can only discriminate whether the event has a magnitude larger or smaller than 5.8, and in the latter case it can allow for realtime magnitude estimation. However, by normalizing IV2 for the rupture area, the initial slip scales with the magnitude between 4 〈 M 〈 7 following the expected scaling laws. We show that the ratio between the squared peak displacement and IV2 is a proxy for the slip following the same scaling but it can be directly derived from the data, without any assumption on the rupture area. The scaling relationship between initial slip and magnitude can be used for early warning applications, when integrated in a probabilistic, evolutionary approach. Citation: Festa, G., A. Zollo, and M. Lancieri (2008), Earthquake magnitude estimation from early radiated energy, Geophys. Res. Lett., 35, L22307, doi:10.1029/ 2008GL035576.
    Description: Published
    Description: L22307
    Description: 4.1. Metodologie sismologiche per l'ingegneria sismica
    Description: JCR Journal
    Description: reserved
    Keywords: Early Warning ; Rupture initiation ; Seimic Source ; Magnitude estimation ; 04. Solid Earth::04.06. Seismology::04.06.01. Earthquake faults: properties and evolution
    Repository Name: Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV)
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  • 37
    Publication Date: 2017-04-04
    Description: [1] We reconstruct the subsurface geology in a region of the northern Apennines (central Italy) where a protracted extensional sequence occurred in 1997–1998 with maximum magnitude M = 6.0. Our study is mainly based on the interpretation of three reprocessed seismic reflection profiles crossing the epicentral area, which constrain the subsurface geometry to a depth of about 12 km where most of the shallow seismicity occurs. Comparing the subsurface setting with accurately determined earthquake locations, we find that the seismicity is located entirely within the sedimentary cover and does not penetrate the underlying basement. This is explained by considering that the sedimentary cover is rather thick and composed of relatively strong lithologies (platform carbonates and evaporites), while the upper part of the basement consists of weak phyllites and siliciclastic rocks. This weak horizon is also evidenced by the low-Vp values measured in deep wells of the region. Its effect is to decouple the sedimentary cover from the crystalline basement, where only microseismicity occurs. Our study indicates that local structure and stratigraphy can significantly influence the distribution of seismicity within the upper crust, particularly in complex geological environments such as thrust-and-fold belts.
    Description: Published
    Description: TC1010
    Description: 3.2. Tettonica attiva
    Description: JCR Journal
    Description: reserved
    Keywords: seismogenic layers, northern apennines ; B/D transition ; umbria-marche apennines ; 04. Solid Earth::04.04. Geology::04.04.06. Rheology, friction, and structure of fault zones
    Repository Name: Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV)
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  • 38
    Publication Date: 2020-02-24
    Description: Stromboli’s 5 April 2003 explosion sent an ash plume to 4 km and blocks to 2 km, representing one of the most powerful events over the last 100 years. A thermal sensor 450 m east of the vent and a helicopter-flown thermal camera captured the event dynamics allowing detailed reconstruction. This review links previous studies providing a complete collation and clarification of the actual event chronology, while showing how relatively inexpensive thermal sensors can be used to provide great insight into processes that cannot be observed from locations outside of the eruption cloud. The eruption progressed through four phases, comprised 29 discrete explosions and lasted 373 s. The opening phase (phase 1) comprised ~30 s of precursory ash emission, with stronger emission beginning after 17 s. This was abruptly terminated by the main blast of phase 2 which comprised emission of a rapidly expanding ash cloud followed, after 0.4 s, by a powerful jet with velocities of up to 320 m/s. A second explosive phase (phase 3) began 38 s later and involved ascent of a phoenix cloud and explosive emission above a lateral vent lasting 75 s. This was followed by a 175-s-long phase of weaker, pulsed emission. The eruption was terminated by a series of three explosions (phase 4) sending ash to ~600 m at velocities of 27-45 m/s and lasting 87 s. Together these results have shown that a low energy opening phase was followed by the highest energy phase. Each phase itself comprised groups of discrete explosions, with energy of the explosions diminishing during the two final phases.
    Description: Published
    Description: 1.5. TTC - Sorveglianza dell'attività eruttiva dei vulcani
    Description: open
    Keywords: Thermal imaging ; Stromboli ; 04. Solid Earth::04.08. Volcanology::04.08.06. Volcano monitoring
    Repository Name: Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV)
    Type: book chapter
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  • 39
    Publication Date: 2020-02-24
    Description: Regular surveys with a PM695 FLIR thermal imaging camera from both the ground and from helicopter were conducted on Stromboli from October 2001. These measurements allow us to (i) examine changes in morphology of the summit craters produced by paroxystic explosions and (ii) track the increasing level of magma within the conduits of Stromboli that preceded and led to the 2002/03 effusive eruption. Two geophysical surveys in May and September/October 2002 demonstrated a clear increasing trend in the amplitude of VLP events, consistent with the presence of a higher magma column above the VLP source region. The observed increase in magma level was probably induced by an increase in the pressure of the magma feeding system at Stromboli, controlled by regional tectonic stress. The increased magma level induced strain on the uppermost part of the crater terrace, allowing an increase in soil permeability and therefore CO2 and Radon degassing. Eventually this stress caused the northeast flank of the craters to fracture, allowing lava to flood out at high effusion rates on 28th December. Regular surveys with the thermal imaging camera, combined with geophysical monitoring, are an invaluable addition to the armory of volcanologists attempting to follow the evolution of activity on active volcanoes.
    Description: Published
    Description: 1.5. TTC - Sorveglianza dell'attività eruttiva dei vulcani
    Description: open
    Keywords: Thermal imaging ; Stromboli ; 04. Solid Earth::04.08. Volcanology::04.08.06. Volcano monitoring
    Repository Name: Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV)
    Type: book chapter
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  • 40
    Publication Date: 2020-02-24
    Description: abstract - A global network of superconducting gravimeters (SGs) is compiling significant data for a range of important studies spamming a number of disciplines concerned with the Earth's gravity, tides, environment, and geodetics. .......
    Description: Published
    Description: 121-126
    Description: 1.8. Osservazioni di geofisica ambientale
    Description: N/A or not JCR
    Description: open
    Keywords: Gravity ; Gravimeters ; Geodynamics ; Tides ; 04. Solid Earth::04.02. Exploration geophysics::04.02.02. Gravity methods
    Repository Name: Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV)
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  • 41
    Publication Date: 2020-02-24
    Description: At 18:20 of 28 December 2002 an eruptive vent opened on the NE flank of the Sciara del Fuoco at 600 m asl, marking the onset of the 2002-2003 eruptive crisis of Stromboli volcano. The first eruptive hours were characterized by mild spattering and effusive activity from the new vent and the summit vent at crater 1. Gravitational instability processes also determined the partial collapse of NE walls of the summit cone (crater 1). Pyroclastic material partly accumulated on the NE part of the Sciara, and partly flowed down slope and reached the sea at Spiaggia dei Gabbiani forming a ~ 4m-thick, reddish avalanche, that was soon covered by a lava flow emitted in the following hours (Lodato et al., 2007). In this paper, we describe the first hours of activity trough eyewitnesses’ reports, geophysical monitoring, field and laboratory studies and of the erupted pyroclastic material and lava flows. Daily temperature measurements were carried out on the avalanche deposit formed by the flow of scoria along the Sciara, using a handheld thermal camera mainly during helicopter surveys. A fast cooling rate was typical of the deposit surface, and a slow cooling rate was representative of its inner portion.
    Description: Published
    Description: 1.5. TTC - Sorveglianza dell'attività eruttiva dei vulcani
    Description: open
    Keywords: Thermal imaging ; Stromboli ; 04. Solid Earth::04.08. Volcanology::04.08.06. Volcano monitoring
    Repository Name: Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV)
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  • 42
    Publication Date: 2020-02-24
    Description: On 28 December 2002, an effusive flank eruption started at Stromboli volcano (Aeolian Islands, 15 Italy). This lasted until 22 July 2003 and produced two lava flow fields that were emplaced onto the 16 steep slopes of Sciara del Fuoco. The first flow field was fed by a vent that opened at 500 m 17 elevation and was active between 30 December 2002 and 15 February 2003. The second was 18 supplied by a vent at 670 m and was emplaced mainly between 15 February and 22 July 2003. Here 19 we review the lava flow field emplacement based on daily thermal and visual surveys. The variable 20 slopes on which the lava flowed yielded an uncommon flow field morphology. This resulted in a 21 lava shield in the proximal area where flow stacking and inflation caused piling up of lava due to the 22 relatively flat ground. The proximal area was characterized by a complex network of tumuli and 23 tube-fed flows associated. The medial-distal lava flow field was emplaced on an extremely steep 24 zone. This area showed persistent flow front crumbling, producing a debris field on which emplaced 25 lava flows formed lava channels with excavated debris levées. This eruption provided an exceptional 26 opportunity to examine the evolution of lava flow fields emplaced on steep slopes, and proved the 27 usefulness of thermal imagers for safe and efficient monitoring of the active lava flows. In addition, thermal monitoring allowed calculation of quantitative parameters, such as effusion rate, allowing constraint of the time varying nature of supply to this eruption.
    Description: Published
    Description: 1.5. TTC - Sorveglianza dell'attività eruttiva dei vulcani
    Description: open
    Keywords: thermal imaging ; stromboli ; 04. Solid Earth::04.08. Volcanology::04.08.06. Volcano monitoring
    Repository Name: Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV)
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  • 43
    Publication Date: 2020-02-24
    Description: Measurements of 220Rn and 222Rn activity and of CO2 flux in soil and fumaroles were carried out on Mount Etna volcano in 2005–2006, both in its summit area and along active faults on its flanks. We observe an empirical relationship between (220Rn/222Rn) and CO2 efflux. The higher the flux of CO2, the lower the ratio between 220Rn and 222Rn. Deep sources of gas are characterized by high 222Rn activity and high CO2 efflux, whereas shallow sources are indicated by high 220Rn activity and relatively low CO2 efflux. Excess 220Rn highlights sites of ongoing shallow rock fracturing that could be affected by collapse, as in the case of the rim of an active vent. Depletion both in 220Rn and in CO2 seems to be representative of residual degassing along recently active eruptive vents.
    Description: This work was funded by the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (S.G., M.N.) and by the Dipartimento per la Protezione Civile (Italy), projects V3_6/28-Etna (M.N.) and V5/08-Diffuse degassing in Italy (S.G.), and NSF EAR 063824101 (K.W.W.S.).
    Description: Published
    Description: Q10001
    Description: 1.2. TTC - Sorveglianza geochimica delle aree vulcaniche attive
    Description: 4.5. Degassamento naturale
    Description: JCR Journal
    Description: reserved
    Keywords: radon ; thoron ; carbon dioxide ; rock stress ; gas transport ; Mount Etna ; 04. Solid Earth::04.08. Volcanology::04.08.99. General or miscellaneous ; 04. Solid Earth::04.08. Volcanology::04.08.06. Volcano monitoring ; 05. General::05.02. Data dissemination::05.02.01. Geochemical data
    Repository Name: Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV)
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  • 44
    Publication Date: 2018-02-01
    Description: This paper reviews the published geochemical variations observed during the 2002–2003 eruption at Stromboli volcano. At the end of 2002, a new eruption began at Stromboli with a lava flow that lasted until the end of July 2003. On 5 April 2003 an explosive paroxysm occurred with the ejection of bombs that reached the village of Ginostra, about 4 km from the craters. During the eruption, specific variations in chemical composition of ground waters and summit fumaroles were recorded before the explosion, most of them for the first time. The water pH decreased significantly (0.5 units) and the dissolved CO2 increased in two thermal wells (Cusolito and Zurro) located near Stromboli harbor from March until 5 April. Peaks in the dissolved He were also observed at all the sampling sites. All of these changes in the thermal aquifer suggested a pressurization of the system due to the degassing of a volatile-rich magma at depth. In the summit area the SO2/HCl and SO2/HF ratios in the plume increased suddenly between 1 and 3 April due to the degassing of an S-rich magma that was approaching the shallow levels of the plumbing system, and this was involved in the explosion that occurred a few days later. This eruption was the first at Stromboli to be analyzed using geochemical models. The variations observed in the basal aquifer and in the summit area occurred on very different timescales: a few weeks and few days, respectively.
    Description: Published
    Description: 347-358
    Description: 2V. Struttura e sistema di alimentazione dei vulcani
    Description: open
    Keywords: paroxysm ; geochemical observations ; monitoring ; plume ; thermal aquifer ; 04. Solid Earth::04.08. Volcanology::04.08.06. Volcano monitoring
    Repository Name: Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV)
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  • 45
    facet.materialart.
    Unknown
    American Geophysical Union
    In:  EPIC3American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2008, American Geophysical Union, 2008A(abstra)
    Publication Date: 2019-12-03
    Description: Multi-year data from four Antarctic automatic weather stations show that clear-sky snow albedo ranges from 0.77 to 0.88, varying in time and space. The broadband albedo of a snowpack under clear-sky conditions is largely determined by snow grain size, solar zenith angle, and the vertical composition of the atmosphere -- but it is not obvious which process contributes what. A model that describes broadband radiative transfer in both the atmosphere and the snowpack is used to show that the observed variations in clear-sky snow albedo is dominated by strong spatial and temporal variation in snow grain size. Average values of snow grain size range from 22 μm on the Antarctic plateau to 64 μm on the ice shelves, whereas maximum values (December, January) are 40--150% higher. The seasonal cycle in solar zenith angle explains at most 0.02 of albedo variation at a location, whereas spatial variation in the atmospheric optical thickness leads to a 0.01 difference between plateau and ice shelf albedos. The most critical success factor for this method is the quality of the radiation observations, which is most notably affected by the horizontal tilt of either the radiation sensors or the snow surface. In order to tie model and observations together, we carried out an experiment at Summit, Greenland, where we simultaneously measured albedos and snow grain sizes, about which results will be presented.
    Repository Name: EPIC Alfred Wegener Institut
    Type: Article , notRev
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  • 46
    facet.materialart.
    Unknown
    American Meteorological Society
    In:  EPIC3Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology, American Meteorological Society, 25(2), pp. 149-166, ISSN: 0739-0572
    Publication Date: 2019-07-17
    Description: The accuracy of all types of Vaisala radiosondes and two types of Snow White chilled-mirror hygrosondes was assessed in an intensive in situ comparison with reference hygrometers. Fourteen nighttime reference comparisons were performed to determine a working reference for the radiosonde comparisons. These showed that the night version of the Snow White agreed best with the references [i.e., the NOAA frost-point hygrometer (FPH) and University of Colorado cryogenic frost-point hygrometer (CFH)], but that the daytime version had severe problems with contamination in the humid upper troposphere. Since the RS92 performance was superior to the other radiosondes and to the day version of the Snow White, it was selected to be the working reference. According to the reference comparison, the RS92 has no bias in the mid- and lower troposphere, with deviations 〈±5% in relative humidity (RH). In the upper troposphere, the RS92 has a 5% RH wet bias, which is partly due to the RS92 time lag error and the termination of the heating cycle. It was shown that the time lag effects relating to Vaisala radiosondes can be corrected. Because these were nighttime comparisons, they can be considered to be free from solar radiation effects. Neither the radiosondes nor the Snow White succeeded in reproducing reference class hygrometer profiles in the stratosphere. According to the 29 radiosonde intercomparisons, the RS92 and the modified RS90 (FN) had the best mutual agreement and no bias. The disagreement is largest (〈±10% RH) at low temperatures (T ≪ −30°C), where the FN underestimated (overestimated) in high (low) ambient RH. In comparison with the RS92, the RS90 had a semilinearly increasing wet bias with decreasing temperature, where the bias was 10% RH at −60°C. The RS80-A suffers from a large temperature-dependent dry bias in high RH conditions, being over 30% RH at −60°C and 5% RH near 0°C. The RS80-A dry bias can be almost totally removed with the correction algorithm by Leiterer et al., which was chosen as the best available. The other approach tested tends to overcorrect in high RH conditions when T 〈 −50°C. For T 〉 −30°C it is ineffective and does not correct the RS80-A dry bias in high ambient RH.
    Repository Name: EPIC Alfred Wegener Institut
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  • 47
    Publication Date: 2022-05-25
    Description: This paper is not subject to U.S. copyright. The definitive version was published in Geochemistry Geophysics Geosystems 9 (2008): Q07008, doi:10.1029/2008GC002081.
    Description: Relating pore-space gas hydrate saturation to sonic velocity data is important for remotely estimating gas hydrate concentration in sediment. In the present study, sonic velocities of gas hydrate–bearing sands are modeled using a three-phase Biot-type theory in which sand, gas hydrate, and pore fluid form three homogeneous, interwoven frameworks. This theory is developed using well log compressional and shear wave velocity data from the Mallik 5L-38 permafrost gas hydrate research well in Canada and applied to well log data from hydrate-bearing sands in the Alaskan permafrost, Gulf of Mexico, and northern Cascadia margin. Velocity-based gas hydrate saturation estimates are in good agreement with Nuclear Magneto Resonance and resistivity log estimates over the complete range of observed gas hydrate saturations.
    Keywords: Methane hydrate ; Seismic velocity ; Hydrate assessment
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
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  • 48
    Publication Date: 2022-05-04
    Description: Tectonic activity in convergent plate boundaries commonly involves backward migration (rollback) of narrow subducting slabs and segmentation of subduction zones through slab tearing. Here we investigate this process in the Italian region by integrating seismic tomography data with spatiotemporal analysis of magmatic rocks and kinematic reconstructions. Seismic tomography results show gaps within the subducting lithosphere,which are interpreted as deep (100–500 km) subvertical tear faults. The development of such tear faults is consistent with proposed kinematic reconstructions, inwhich different rates of subduction rollback affected different parts of the subduction zone. We further suggest a possible link between the development of tear faults and the occurrence of regional magmatic activity with transitional geochemical signatures between arc type and OIB type, associated with slab tearing and slab breakoff.We conclude that lithospheric-scale tear faults play a fundamental role in the destruction of subduction zones. As such, they should be incorporated into reconstructions of ancient convergent margins, where tear faults are possibly represented by continental lineaments linked with magmatism and mineralization.
    Description: Published
    Description: TC2008
    Description: 3.3. Geodinamica e struttura dell'interno della Terra
    Description: JCR Journal
    Description: reserved
    Keywords: SLAB ; TEAR FAULTS ; 04. Solid Earth::04.07. Tectonophysics::04.07.06. Subduction related processes
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  • 49
    Publication Date: 2022-05-26
    Description: This paper is not subject to U.S. copyright. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research 113 (2008): B07102, doi:10.1029/2007JB005351.
    Description: Physical property measurements of sediment cores containing natural gas hydrate are typically performed on material exposed, at least briefly, to non-in situ conditions during recovery. To examine the effects of a brief excursion from the gas-hydrate stability field, as can occur when pressure cores are transferred to pressurized storage vessels, we measured physical properties on laboratory-formed sand packs containing methane hydrate and methane pore gas. After depressurizing samples to atmospheric pressure, we repressurized them into the methane-hydrate stability field and remeasured their physical properties. Thermal conductivity, shear strength, acoustic compressional and shear wave amplitudes, and speeds of the original and depressurized/repressurized samples are compared. X–ray computed tomography images track how the gas-hydrate distribution changes in the hydrate-cemented sands owing to the depressurizaton/repressurization process. Because depressurization-induced property changes can be substantial and are not easily predicted, particularly in water-saturated, hydrate-bearing sediment, maintaining pressure and temperature conditions throughout the core recovery and measurement process is critical for using laboratory measurements to estimate in situ properties.
    Description: U. S. Geological Survey contributions were supported by the Gas Hydrate Project of the U. S. Geological Survey’s Coastal and Marine Geology Program, in addition to Department of Energy contract DE-AI21-92MC29214. CT scanning at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory was artfully performed by L. Tomutsa and supported by the Assistant Secretary for Fossil Energy, Office of Oil and Natural Gas, through the National Energy Technology Laboratory of the U. S. Department of Energy under contract DE-AC02-05CH11231.
    Keywords: Gas hydrate ; Physical properties ; Pressure core
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
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  • 50
    Publication Date: 2023-01-16
    Description: The 5 April 2003 eruption of Stromboli volcano (Italy) was the most violent in the past 50 years. It was also the best documented due to the accurate geophysical monitoring of the ongoing effusive eruption. Detailed field studies carried out a few hours to a few months after the event provided further information that were coupled with visual documentation to reconstruct the explosive dynamics. The eruption consisted of an 8-min-long explosive event preceded by a short-lived precursory activity that evolved into the impulsive ejection of gas and pyroclasts. Meter-sized ballistic blocks were launched to altitudes of up to 1400 m above the craters falling on the volcano flanks and on the village of Ginostra, about 2 km far from the vent. The vertical jet of gas and pyroclasts above the craters fed a convective plume that reached a height of 4 km. The calculated erupted mass yielded values of 1.1–1.4 × 108 kg. Later explosions generated a scoria flow deposit, with an estimated mass of 1.0–1.3 × 107 kg. Final, waning ash explosions closet the event. The juvenile fraction consisted of an almost aphyric, highly vesicular pumice mingled with a shallow-derived, crystal-rich, moderately vesicular scoria. Resuming of the lava emission a few hours after the paroxysm indicate that the shallow magmatic system was not significantly modified during the explosions. Combination of volume data with duration of eruptive phases allowed us to estimate the eruptive intensity: during the climactic explosive event, the mass discharge rate was between 106 and 107 kg/s, whereas during the pyroclastic flow activity, it was 2.8–3.6 × 105 kg/s. Strong similarities with other historical paroxysms at Stromboli suggest similar explosion dynamics.
    Description: Unpublished
    Description: 3.5. Geologia e storia dei sistemi vulcanici
    Description: 4.3. TTC - Scenari di pericolosità vulcanica
    Description: open
    Keywords: Stromboli ; paroxysm ; explosive dynamics ; pyroclastic deposits ; ballistic ejecta ; 04. Solid Earth::04.08. Volcanology::04.08.05. Volcanic rocks ; 04. Solid Earth::04.08. Volcanology::04.08.08. Volcanic risk
    Repository Name: Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV)
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  • 51
    Publication Date: 2008-11-01
    Description: Advances in computer power, new forecasting challenges, and new diagnostic techniques have brought about changes in the way atmospheric development and vertical motion are diagnosed in an operational setting. Many of these changes, such as improved model skill, model resolution, and ensemble forecasting, have arguably been detrimental to the ability of forecasters to understand and respond to the evolving atmosphere. The use of nondivergent wind in place of geostrophic wind would be a step in the right direction, but the advantages of potential vorticity suggest that its widespread adoption as a diagnostic tool on the west side of the Atlantic is overdue. Ertel potential vorticity (PV), when scaled to be compatible with pseudopotential vorticity, is generally similar to pseudopotential vorticity, so forecasters accustomed to quasigeostrophic reasoning through the height tendency equation can transfer some of their intuition into the Ertel-PV framework. Indeed, many of the differences between pseudopotential vorticity and Ertel potential vorticity are consequences of the choice of definition of quasigeostrophic PV and are not fundamental to the quasigeostrophic system. Thus, at its core, PV thinking is consistent with commonly used quasigeostrophic diagnostic techniques.
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  • 52
    Publication Date: 2008-11-01
    Description: Synoptic and mesoscale meteorology underwent a revolution in the 1940s and 1950s with the widespread deployment of novel weather observations, such as the radiosonde network and the advent of weather radar. These observations provoked a rapid increase in our understanding of the structure and dynamics of the atmosphere by pioneering analysts such as Fred Sanders. The authors argue that we may be approaching an analogous revolution in our ability to study the structure and dynamics of atmospheric phenomena with the advent of probabilistic objective analyses. These probabilistic analyses provide not only best estimates of the state of the atmosphere (e.g., the expected value) and the uncertainty about this state (e.g., the variance), but also the relationships between all locations and all variables at that instant in time. Up until now, these relationships have been determined by sampling in time by, for example, case studies, composites, and time-series analysis. Here the authors propose a new approach, ensemble synoptic analysis, which exploits the information contained in probabilistic samples of analyses at one or more instants in time. One source of probabilistic analyses is ensemble-based state-estimation methods, such as ensemble-based Kalman filters. Analyses from such a filter may be used to study atmospheric phenomena and the relationships between fields and locations at one or more instants in time. After a brief overview of a research-based ensemble Kalman filter, illustrative examples of ensemble synoptic analysis are given for an extratropical cyclone, including relationships between the cyclone minimum sea level pressure and other synoptic features, statistically determined operators for potential-vorticity inversion, and ensemble-based sensitivity analysis.
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  • 53
    Publication Date: 2008-11-01
    Description: The pioneering large-scale studies of cyclone frequency, location, and intensity conducted by Fred Sanders prompt similar questions about lesser-studied anticyclone development. The results of a climatology of closed anticyclones (CAs) at 200, 500, and 850 hPa, with an emphasis on the subtropics and midlatitudes, is presented to assess the seasonally varying distribution and hemispheric differences of these features. To construct the CA climatology, a counting program was applied to twice-daily 2.5° NCEP–NCAR reanalysis 200-, 500-, and 850-hPa geopotential height fields for the period 1950–2003. Stationary CAs, defined as those CAs that were located at a particular location for consecutive time periods, were counted only once. The climatology results show that 200-hPa CAs occur preferentially during summer over subtropical continental regions, while 500-hPa CAs occur preferentially over subtropical oceans in all seasons and over subtropical continents in summer. Conversely, 850-hPa CAs occur preferentially over oceanic regions beneath upper-level midocean troughs, and are most prominent in the Northern Hemisphere, and over midlatitude continents in winter. Three case studies of objectively identified CAs that produced heal waves over the United States, Europe, and Australia in 1995, 2003, and 2004, respectively, are presented to supplement the climatological results. The case studies, examining the subset of CAs than can produce heat waves, illustrate how climatologically hot continental tropical air masses produced over arid and semiarid regions of the subtropics and lower midlatitudes can become abnormally hot in conjunction with dynamically driven upper-level ridge amplification. Subsequently, these abnormally hot air masses are advected downstream away from their source regions in conjunction with transient disturbances embedded in anomalously strong westerly jets.
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  • 54
    Publication Date: 2008-11-01
    Description: Oklahoma Mesonetwork data are used to illustrate important atmospheric features that are not well shown by the usual synoptic data. For example, some shifts of wind from south to north that are shown as cold fronts on synoptic charts are not cold fronts by any plausible definition. As previously discussed by Fred Sanders and others, such errors in analysis can be reduced by knowledge of the wide variety of weather phenomena that actually exists, and by more attention to temperatures at the earth's surface as revealed by conventional synoptic data. Mesoscale data for four cases reinforce previous discussions of the ephemeral nature of fronts and deficiencies in the usual analyses of cold fronts. One type of misanalyzed case involves post-cold-frontal boundary layer air that is warmer than the prefrontal air. A second type is usually nocturnal, with a rise of local temperature during disruption of an inversion and a wind shift with later cooling that accompanies advection of a climatological gradient of temperature.
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  • 55
    Publication Date: 2008-11-01
    Description: The advent of the polar front theory of cyclones in Norway early in the last century held that the development of fronts and air masses is central to understanding midlatitude weather phenomena. While work on fronts continues to this day, the concept of air masses has been largely forgotten, superseded by the idea of a continuum. The Norwegians placed equal emphasis on the thermodynamics of airmass formation and on the dynamical processes that moved air masses around; today, almost all the emphasis is on dynamics, with little published literature on diabatic processes acting on a large scale. In this essay, the author argues that a lack of understanding of large-scale diabatic processes leads to an incomplete picture of the atmosphere and contributes to systematic errors in medium- and long-range weather forecasts. At the same time, modern concepts centered around potential vorticity conservation and inversion lead one to a redefinition of the term "air mass" that may have some utility in conceptualizing atmospheric physics and in weather forecasting.
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  • 56
    Publication Date: 2008-11-01
    Description: Historically, the atmospheric sciences have tended to treat problems of weather and climate separately. The real physical system, however, is a continuum, with short-term (minutes to days) “weather” fluctuations influencing climate variations and change, and, conversely, more slowly varying aspects of the system (typical time scales of a season or longer) affecting the weather that is experienced. While this past approach has served important purposes, it is becoming increasingly apparent that in order to make progress in addressing many socially important problems, an improved understanding of the connections between weather and climate is required. This overview summarizes the progress over the last few decades in the understanding of the phenomena and mechanisms linking weather and climate variations. The principal emphasis is on developments in understanding key phenomena and processes that bridge the time scales between synoptic-scale weather variability (periods of approximately 1 week) and climate variations of a season or longer. Advances in the ability to identify synoptic features, improve physical understanding, and develop forecast skill within this time range are reviewed, focusing on a subset of major, recurrent phenomena that impact extratropical wintertime weather and climate variations over the Pacific–North American region. While progress has been impressive, research has also illuminated areas where future gains are possible. This article concludes with suggestions on near-term directions for advancing the understanding and capabilities to predict the connections between weather and climate variations.
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  • 57
    Publication Date: 2008-11-01
    Description: Fred Sanders' career extended over 55 yr, touching upon many of the revolutionary transformations in the field of meteorology during that period. In this paper, his contributions to the transformation of synoptic meteorology, his research into the nature of explosive cyclogenesis, and related advances in the ability to predict these storms are reviewed. In addition to this review, the current status of forecasting oceanic cyclones 4.5 days in advance is presented, illustrating the progress that has been made and the challenges that persist, especially for forecasting those extreme extratropical cyclones that are marked by surface wind speeds exceeding hurricane force. Last, Fred Sanders' participation in a forecast for the historic 1947 snowstorm (that produced snowfall amounts in the New York City area that set records at that time) is reviewed along with an attempt to use today's operational global model to simulate this storm using data that were available at the time. The study reveals the predictive limitations involved with this case based on the scarcity of upper-air data in 1947, while confirming Fred Sanders' forecasting skills when dealing with these types of major storm events, even as a young aviation forecaster at New York's LaGuardia Airport.
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  • 58
    Publication Date: 2008-11-01
    Description: A case study of a double dryline on 22 May 2002 is presented. Mobile, 3-mm-wavelength Doppler radars from the University of Massachusetts and the University of Wyoming (Wyoming cloud radar) were used to collect very fine resolution vertical-velocity data in the vicinity of each of the moisture gradients associated with the drylines. Very narrow (50–100 m wide) channels of strong upward vertical velocity (up to 8 m s–1) were measured in the convergence zone of the easternmost dryline, larger in magnitude than reported with previous drylines. Distinct areas of descending motion were evident to the east and west of both drylines. Radar data are interpreted in the context of other observational platforms available during the International H2O Project (IHOP-2002). a variational ground-based mobile radar data processing technique was developed and applied to pseudo-dual-Doppler data collected during a rolling range-height indicator deployment. It was found that there was a secondary (vertical) circulation normal to the easternmost moisture gradient; the circulation comprised an easterly component near-surface flow to the east, a strong upward vertical component in the convergence zone, a westerly return, flow above the convective boundary layer, and numerous regions of descending motion, the most prominent approximately 3–5 km to the east of the surface convergence zone.
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  • 59
    Publication Date: 2008-11-01
    Description: Fred Sanders' teaching and research contributions in the area of quasigeostrophic theory are highlighted in this paper. The application of these contributions is made to the topic of extreme cold-season precipitation events in the Saint Lawrence valley in the northeastern United States and southern Quebec. This research focuses on analyses of Saint Lawrence valley heavy precipitation events. Synoptic- and planetary-scale circulation anomaly precursors are typically identified several days prior to these events. These precursors include transient upper-level troughs, strong moisture transports into the region, and anomalously large precipitable water amounts. The physical insight of Fred Sanders' work is used in the analysis of these composite results. Further details of this insight are provided in analyses of one case of heavy precipitation.
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  • 60
    Publication Date: 2008-11-01
    Description: Sanders designed a barotropic tropical cyclone (TC) track prediction model for the North Atlantic TC basin that became known as the Sanders barotropic (SANBAR) model. It predicted the streamfunction of the deeplayer mean winds (tropical circulation vertically averaged from 1000 to 100 hPa) that represents the vertically averaged tropical circulations. Originally, the wind input for the operational objective analysis (OA) consisted of winds measured by radiosondes and 44 bogus winds provided by analysis at the National Hurricane Center (NHC), which corresponded to the vertically averaged flow over sparsely observed tropical, subtropical, and midlatitude oceanic regions. The model covered a fixed regional area and had a grid size of ~ 154 km. It estimated the initial storm motion solely on the basis of the large-scale flow from the OA, not taking into account the observed storm motion. During 1970, the SANBAR model became the first dynamical TC track model to be run operationally at NHC. Track forecasts of SANBAR were verified from the 1971 TC season when track model verifications began at NHC until its retirement after the 1989 Atlantic TC season. The average annual SANBAR forecast track errors were verified relative to Climatology and Persistence (CLIPER), the standard no-skill track forecast. Comparison with CLIPER determines the skill of track forecast methods. Verifications are presented for two different versions of the SANBAR model system used operationally during 1973–84 and 1985–89. In homogeneous comparisons (i.e., includes only forecasts for the same initial times) for the former period, SANBAR's track forecasts were slightly better than CLIPER at 24–48-h forecast intervals; however, from 1985 to 1989 the average SANBAR track forecast errors from 24–72 h were ~10% more skillful than homogeneous CLIPER track forecasts.
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  • 61
    Publication Date: 2008-11-01
    Description: In the last decade, Fred Sanders was often critical of current surface analysis techniques. This led to his promoting the use of surface potential temperatures to distinguish between fronts, baroclinic troughs, and non-frontal baroclinic zones, and to the development of a climatology of surface baroclinic zones. In this paper, criticisms of current surface analysis techniques and the usefulness of surface potential temperature analyses are discussed. Case examples are used to compare potential temperature analyses and current National Centers for Environmental Prediction analyses. The 1-yr climatology of Sanders and Hoffman is reconstructed using a composite technique. Annual and seasonal mean potential temperature analyses over the continental United States, southern Canada, northern Mexico, and adjacent coastal waters are presented. In addition, gridpoint frequencies of moderate and strong potential temperature gradients are calculated. The results of the mean potential temperature analyses show that moderate and strong surface baroclinic zones are favored along the coastlines and the slopes of the North American cordillera. Additional subsynoptic details, not found in Sanders and Hoffman, are identified. The availability of the composite results allows for the calculation of potential temperature gradient anomalies. It is shown that these anomalies can be used to identify significant frontal baroclinic zones that are associated with weak potential temperature gradients. Together the results and reviews in this paper show that surface potential temperature analyses are a valuable forecasting and analysis tool allowing analysts to distinguish and identify fronts, baroclinic troughs, and nonfrontal baroclinic zones.
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  • 62
    Publication Date: 2008-11-01
    Description: The nature of the different types of surface boundaries that appear in the southern plains of the United States during the convectively active season is reviewed. The following boundaries are discussed: fronts, the dryline, troughs, and outflow boundaries, The boundaries are related to their environment and to local topography. The role these boundaries might play in the initiation of convective storms is emphasized. The various types of boundary-related vertical circulations and their dynamics are discussed. In particular, quasigeostrophic and semigeostrophic dynamics, and the dynamics of solenoidal circulations, density currents, boundary layers, and gravity waves are considered. Miscellaneous topics pertinent to convective storms and their relationship to surface boundaries such as along-the-boundary variability, boundary collisions, and the role of vertical shear are also discussed. Although some cases of storm initiation along surface boundaries have been well documented using research datasets collected during comprehensive field experiments, much of what we know is based only on empirical forecasting and nowcasting experience. It is suggested that many problems relating to convective-storm formation need to be explored in detail using real datasets with new observing systems and techniques, in conjunction with numerical simulation studies, and through climatological studies.
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  • 63
    Publication Date: 2008-11-01
    Description: This paper begins with a review of basic surface frontogenesis concepts with an emphasis on fronts located over sloping terrain adjacent to mountain barriers and fronts located in large-scale baroclinic zones close to coastlines. The impact of cold-air damming and differential diabatic heating and cooling on frontogenesis is considered through two detailed case studies of intense surface fronts. The first case, from 17 to 18 April 2002, featured the westward passage of a cold (side-door) front across coastal eastern New England in which 15°–20°C temperature decreases were observed in less than one hour. The second case, from 28 February to 4 March 1972, featured a long-lived front that affected most of the United States from the Rockies to the Atlantic coast and was noteworthy for a 50°C temperature contrast between Kansas and southern Manitoba, Canada. In the April 2002 case most of New England was initially covered by an unusually warm, dry air mass. Dynamical anticyclogenesis over eastern Canada set the stage for a favorable pressure gradient to allow chilly marine air to approach coastal New England from the east. Diabatic cooling over the chilly (5°–8°C) waters of the Gulf of Maine allowed surface pressures to remain relatively high offshore while diabatic heating over the land (31°–33°C temperatures) enabled surface pressures to fall relative to over the ocean. The resulting higher pressures offshore resulted in an onshore cold push. Frontal intensity was likely enhanced prior to leaf out and grass green-up as virtually all of the available insolation went into sensible heating. The large-scale environment in the February–March 1972 case favored the accumulation of bitterly cold arctic air in Canada. Frontal formation occurred over northern Montana and North Dakota as the arctic air moved slowly southward in conjunction with surface pressure rises east of the Canadian Rockies. The arctic air accelerated southward subsequent to lee cyclogenesis–induced pressure falls ahead of an upstream trough that crossed the Rockies. The southward acceleration of the arctic air was also facilitated by dynamic anticyclogenesis in southern Canada beneath a poleward jet-entrance region. Frontal intensity varied diurnally in response to differential diabatic heating. Three types of cyclogenesis events were observed over the lifetime of the event: 1) low-amplitude frontal waves with no upper-level support, 2) low-amplitude frontal waves that formed in a jet-entrance region, and 3) cyclones that formed ahead of advancing upper-level troughs. All cyclones were either nondeveloping or weak developments despite extreme baroclinicity, likely the result of large atmospheric static stability in the arctic frontal zone and unfavorable alongfront stretching deformation. Significant frontal–mountain interactions were observed over the Rockies and the Appalachians.
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  • 64
    Publication Date: 2008-11-01
    Description: Over 50 yr have passed since the publication of Sanders' 1955 study, the first quantitative study of the structure and dynamics of a surface cold front. The purpose of this chapter is to reexamine some of the results of that study in light of modern methods of numerical weather prediction and diagnosis. A simulation with a resolution as high as 6-km horizontal grid spacing was performed with the fifth-generation-Pennsylvania State University-National Center for Atmospheric Research (PSU-NCAR) Mesoscale Model (MM5), given initial and lateral boundary conditions from the National Centers for Environmental Precipitation-National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCEP-NCAR) reanalysis project data from 17 to 18 April 1953. The MM5 produced a reasonable simulation af the front, albeit its strength was not as intense and its movement was not as fast as was analyzed by Sanders. The vertical structure of the front differed from that analyzed by Sanders in several significant ways. First, the strongest horizontal temperature gradient associated with the cold front in the simulation occurred above a surface-based inversion, not at the earth's surface. Second, the ascent plume at the leading edge of the front was deeper and more intense than that analyzed by Sanders. The reason was an elevated mixed layer that had moved over the surface cold front in the simulation, allowing a much deeper vertical circulation than was analyzed by Sanders. This structure is similar to that of Australian cold fronts with their deep, well-mixed, prefrontal surface layer. These two differences between the model simulation and the analysis by Sanders may be because upper-air data from Fort Worth, Texas, was unavailable to Sanders. Third, the elevated mixed layer also meant that isentropes along the leading edge of the front extended vertically. Fourth, the field of frontogenesis of the horizontal temperature gradient calculated from the three-dimensional wind differed in that the magnitude of the maximum of the deformation term was larger than the magnitude of the maximum of the tilting term in the simulation, in contrast to Sanders' analysis and other previously published cases. These two discrepancies may be attributable to the limited horizontal resolution of the data that Sanders used in constructing his cross section. Last, a deficiency of the model simulation was that the postfrontal surface superadiabatic layer in the model did not match the observed well-mixed boundary layer. This result raises the question of the origin of the well-mixed postfrontal boundary layer behind cold fronts. To address this question, an additional model simulation without surface fluxes was performed, producing a well-mixed, not superadiabatic, layer. This result suggests that surface fluxes were not necessary for the development of the well-mixed layer, in agreement with previous research. Analysis of this event also amplifies two research themes that Sanders returned to later in his career, First, a prefrontal wind shift occurred in both the observations and model simulation at stations in western Oklahoma. This prefrontal wind shift was caused by a lee cyclone departing the leeward slopes of the Rockies slightly equatorward of the cold front, rather than along the front as was the case farther eastward. Sanders' later research showed how the occurrence of these prefrontal wind shifts leads to the weakening of fronts. Second, this study shows the advantage of using surface potential temperature, rather than surface temperature, for determining the locations of the surface fronts on sloping terrain.
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  • 65
    Publication Date: 2008-11-01
    Description: Today, even with state-of-the-art observational, data assimilation, and modeling systems run routinely on supercomputers, there are often surprises in the prediction of snowstorms, especially the “big ones,” affecting coastal regions of the mid-Atlantic and northeastern United States. Little did the author know that lessons from Fred Sanders' synoptic meteorology class at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1967) would later (late 1980s) inspire him to pursue practical issues of predictability in the context of the development of ensemble prediction systems, strategies, and applications for providing information on the inevitable case-dependent uncertainties in forecasts. This paper is a brief qualitative and somewhat colloquial overview, based upon this author's personal involvement and experiences, intended to highlight some basic aspects of the source and nature of uncertainties in forecasts and to illustrate the sort of value added information ensembles can provide in dealing with uncertainties in predictions of East Coast snowstorms.
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  • 66
    Publication Date: 2008-11-01
    Description: One characteristic of Fred Sanders' research is his ability to take a topic that is believed to be well understood by the research community and show that interesting research problems still exist. Among Sanders' considerable contributions to synoptic meteorology, those concerned with surface cold fronts have been especially influential. After a brief historical review of fronts and frontal analysis, this chapter presents three stages in Sanders' career when he performed research on the structure, dynamics, and analysis of surface cold fronts. First, his 1955 paper, "An investigation of the structure and dynamics of an intense surface frontal zone," was the first study to discuss quantitatively the dynamics of a surface cold front. In the 1960s, Sanders and his students further examined the structure of cold fronts, resulting in the unpublished 1967 report to the National Science Foundation, "Frontal structure and the dynamics of frontogenesis." For a third lime in his career, Sanders published several papers (1995–2005) revisiting the structure and dynamics of cold fronts. His 1967 and 1995–2005 work raises the question of the origin and dynamics of the surface pressure trough and/or wind shift that sometimes precedes the temperature gradient (hereafter called a prefrontal trough or prefrontal wind shift, respectively). Sanders showed that the relationship between this prefrontal feature and the temperature gradient is fundamental to the strength of the front. When the wind shift is coincident with the temperature gradient, frontogenesis (strengthening of the front) results; when the wind shift lies ahead of the temperature gradient, frontolysis (weakening of the front) results. a number of proposed mechanisms for the formation of prefrontal troughs and prefrontal wind shifts exist. Consequently, much research remains to be performed on these topics.
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  • 67
    Publication Date: 2008-12-15
    Description: Multilag singular value decomposition (MLSVD) analysis is developed and applied to diagnosing the impact of interannual variations of outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) on tropical stratospheric temperature changes. MLSVD is designed to analyze simultaneously variations at multiple levels and for a large number of temporal lags and leads. The two dominant MLSVDs are strongly related to El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO). The associated patterns of tropical OLR are similar to the canonical ENSO SST patterns with strong negative sign regions stretching along the equator in the eastern and central Pacific. These dominant modes are strongly linked to temperature perturbations at a wide range of lags. At the lowest analyzed level (200 hPa) and zero lag positive temperatures anomalies are in the region of low OLR. In the lower stratosphere near 100 hPa, strong negative temperature perturbations replace the positive values of the lowest level. Higher in the stratosphere near 20 hPa, equatorial temperature perturbations are again positive, but with a more zonally elongated spatial pattern. Overall, the equatorial temperature anomalies propagate slowly to the east, at a speed strongly related to ocean–atmosphere coupling of less than 1 m s−1, and vertically and westward into the stratosphere by Rossby waves with a speed in the range of 30 m s−1.
    Print ISSN: 0894-8755
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  • 68
    Publication Date: 2008-12-15
    Description: The authors present initial results of a new pan-European and international storminess since 1800 as interpreted from European and North Atlantic barometric pressure variability (SENABAR) project. This first stage analyzes results of a new daily pressure variability index, dp(abs)24, from long-running meteorological stations in Denmark, the Faroe Islands, Greenland, Iceland, the United Kingdom, and Ireland, some with data from as far back as the 1830s. It is shown that dp(abs)24 is significantly related to wind speed and is therefore a good measure of Atlantic and Northwest European storminess and climatic variations. The authors investigate the temporal and spatial consistency of dp(abs)24, the connection between annual and seasonal dp(abs)24 and the North Atlantic Oscillation Index (NAOI), as well as dp(abs)24 links with historical storm records. The results show periods of relatively high dp(abs)24 and enhanced storminess around 1900 and the early to mid-1990s, and a relatively quiescent period from about 1930 to the early 1960s, in keeping with earlier studies. There is little evidence that the mid- to late nineteenth century was less stormy than the present, and there is no sign of a sustained enhanced storminess signal associated with “global warming.” The results mark the first step of a project intending to improve on earlier work by linking barometric pressure data from a wide network of stations with new gridded pressure and reanalysis datasets, GCMs, and the NAOI. This work aims to provide much improved spatial and temporal coverage of changes in European, Atlantic, and global storminess.
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  • 69
    Publication Date: 2008-12-15
    Description: Although climate models have steadily improved their ability to reproduce the observed climate, over the years there has been little change to the wide range of sensitivities exhibited by different models to a doubling of atmospheric CO2 concentrations. Stochastic optimization is used to mimic how six independent climate model development efforts might use the same atmospheric general circulation model, set of observational constraints, and model skill criteria to choose different settings for parameters thought to be important sources of uncertainty related to clouds and convection. Each optimized model improved its skill with respect to observations selected as targets of model development. Of particular note were the improvements seen in reproducing observed extreme rainfall rates over the tropical Pacific, which was not specifically targeted during the optimization process. As compared to the default model sensitivity of 2.4°C, the ensemble of optimized model configurations had a larger and narrower range of sensitivities around 3°C but with different regional responses related to the uncertain choice in optimized parameter settings. These results suggest current generation models, if similarly optimized, may become more convergent in their measure of global sensitivity to greenhouse gas forcing. However, this exploration of the possible sources of modeling and observational uncertainty is not exhaustive. The optimization process illustrates an objective means for selecting an ensemble of plausible climate model configurations that quantify a portion of the uncertainty in the climate model development process.
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  • 70
    Publication Date: 2008-12-01
    Description: This paper examines the controls on global precipitation that are evident in the transient experiments conducted using coupled climate models collected for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report (AR4). The change in precipitation, water vapor, clouds, and radiative heating of the atmosphere evident in the 1% increase in carbon dioxide until doubled (1pctto2x) scenario is examined. As noted in other studies, the ensemble-mean changes in water vapor as carbon dioxide is doubled occur at a rate similar to that predicted by the Clausius–Clapeyron relationship. The ratio of global changes in precipitation to global changes in water vapor offers some insight on how readily increased water vapor is converted into precipitation in modeled climate change. This ratio ɛ is introduced in this paper as a gross indicator of the global precipitation efficiency under global warming. The main findings of this paper are threefold. First, increases in the global precipitation track increase atmospheric radiative energy loss and the ratio of precipitation sensitivity to water vapor sensitivity is primarily determined by changes to this atmospheric column energy loss. A reference limit to this ratio is introduced as the rate at which the emission of radiation from the clear-sky atmosphere increases as water vapor increases. It is shown that the derived efficiency based on the simple ratio of precipitation to water vapor sensitivities of models in fact closely matches the sensitivity derived from simple energy balance arguments involving changes to water vapor emission alone. Second, although the rate of increase of clear-sky emission is the dominant factor in the change to the energy balance of the atmosphere, there are two important and offsetting processes that contribute to ɛ in the model simulations studied: One involves a negative feedback through cloud radiative heating that acts to reduce the efficiency; the other is the global reduction in sensible heating that counteracts the effects of the cloud feedback and increases the efficiency. These counteracting feedbacks only apply on the global scale. Third, the negative cloud radiative heating feedback occurs through reductions of cloud amount in the middle troposphere, defined as the layer between 680 and 440 hPa, and by slight global cloud decreases in the lower troposphere. These changes act in a manner to expose the warmer atmosphere below to high clouds, thus resulting in a net warming of the atmospheric column by clouds and a negative feedback on the precipitation.
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  • 71
    Publication Date: 2008-12-01
    Description: Observations show snowpack has declined across much of the western United States over the period 1950–99. This reduction has important social and economic implications, as water retained in the snowpack from winter storms forms an important part of the hydrological cycle and water supply in the region. A formal model-based detection and attribution (D–A) study of these reductions is performed. The detection variable is the ratio of 1 April snow water equivalent (SWE) to water-year-to-date precipitation (P), chosen to reduce the effect of P variability on the results. Estimates of natural internal climate variability are obtained from 1600 years of two control simulations performed with fully coupled ocean–atmosphere climate models. Estimates of the SWE/P response to anthropogenic greenhouse gases, ozone, and some aerosols are taken from multiple-member ensembles of perturbation experiments run with two models. The D–A shows the observations and anthropogenically forced models have greater SWE/P reductions than can be explained by natural internal climate variability alone. Model-estimated effects of changes in solar and volcanic forcing likewise do not explain the SWE/P reductions. The mean model estimate is that about half of the SWE/P reductions observed in the west from 1950 to 1999 are the result of climate changes forced by anthropogenic greenhouse gases, ozone, and aerosols.
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  • 72
    Publication Date: 2008-12-01
    Description: The possible role that tropical Pacific SSTs played in driving the megadroughts over North America during the medieval period is addressed. Fossil coral records from the Palmyra Atoll are used to derive tropical Pacific SSTs for the period from a.d. 1320 to a.d. 1462 and show overall colder conditions as well as extended multidecadal La Niña–like states. The reconstructed SSTs are used to force a 16-member ensemble of atmosphere GCM simulations, each with different initial conditions, with the atmosphere coupled to a mixed layer ocean outside of the tropical Pacific. Model results are verified against North American tree ring reconstructions of the Palmer Drought Severity Index. A singular value decomposition analysis is performed using the soil moisture anomaly simulated by another 16-member ensemble of simulations forced by global observed SSTs for 1856–2004 and tree ring reconstructions of the Palmer Drought Severity Index for the same period. This relationship is used to transfer the modeled medieval soil moisture anomaly (relative to the modern simulation) into a model-estimated Palmer Drought Severity Index. The model-estimated Palmer Drought Severity Index reproduces many aspects of both the interannual and decadal variations of the tree ring reconstructions, in addition to an overall drier climate that is drier than the tree ring records suggest. The model-estimated Palmer Drought Severity Index simulates two previously identified “megadroughts,” a.d. 1360–1400 and a.d. 1430–60, with a realistic spatial pattern and amplitude. In contrast, the model fails to produce a period of more normal conditions in the early fifteenth century that separated these two megadroughts. The dynamical link between tropical SSTs and the North American megadroughts is akin to that operating in modern droughts. The model results are used to argue that the tropical Pacific played an active role in driving the megadroughts. However, the match between simulated and reconstructed hydroclimate is such that it is likely that both the coral-reconstructed SST anomalies contain significant errors and that SST anomalies in other basins also played a role in driving hydroclimate variations over North America during the late medieval period.
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  • 73
    Publication Date: 2008-12-15
    Description: The regularized expectation maximization (RegEM) method has been used in recent studies to derive climate field reconstructions of Northern Hemisphere temperatures during the last millennium. Original pseudoproxy experiments that tested RegEM [with ridge regression regularization (RegEM-Ridge)] standardized the input data in a way that improved the performance of the reconstruction method, but included data from the reconstruction interval for estimates of the mean and standard deviation of the climate field—information that is not available in real-world reconstruction problems. When standardizations are confined to the calibration interval only, pseudoproxy reconstructions performed with RegEM-Ridge suffer from warm biases and variance losses. Only cursory explanations of this so-called standardization sensitivity of RegEM-Ridge have been published, but they have suggested that the selection of the regularization (ridge) parameter by means of minimizing the generalized cross validation (GCV) function is the source of the effect. The origin of the standardization sensitivity is more thoroughly investigated herein and is shown not to be associated with the selection of the ridge parameter; sets of derived reconstructions reveal that GCV-selected ridge parameters are minimally different for reconstructions standardized either over both the reconstruction and calibration interval or over the calibration interval only. While GCV may select ridge parameters that are different from those that precisely minimize the error in pseudoproxy reconstructions, RegEM reconstructions performed with truly optimized ridge parameters are not significantly different from those that use GCV-selected ridge parameters. The true source of the standardization sensitivity is attributable to the inclusion or exclusion of additional information provided by the reconstruction interval, namely, the mean and standard deviation fields computed for the complete modeled dataset. These fields are significantly different from those for the calibration period alone because of the violation of a standard EM assumption that missing values are missing at random in typical paleoreconstruction problems; climate data are predominantly missing in the preinstrumental period when the mean climate was significantly colder than the mean of the instrumental period. The origin of the standardization sensitivity therefore is not associated specifically with RegEM-Ridge, and more recent attempts to regularize the EM algorithm using truncated total least squares could theoretically also be susceptible to the problems affecting RegEM-Ridge. Nevertheless, the principal failure of RegEM-Ridge arises because of a poor initial estimate of the mean field, and therefore leaves open the possibility that alternative methods may perform better.
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  • 74
    Publication Date: 2008-12-15
    Description: Climatological surface wind speed probability density functions (PDFs) estimated from observations are characterized and used to evaluate, for the first time, contemporaneous wind PDFs predicted by a GCM. The observations include NASA’s global Quick Scatterometer (QuikSCAT) dataset, the NCEP/Department of Energy Global Reanalysis 2 (NCEP-2) 6-hourly reanalysis, and the Tropical Atmosphere Ocean (TAO)/Triangle Trans-Ocean Buoy Network (TRITON) moored buoy data, all from 2000 to 2005. Wind speed mean, 90th percentile, standard deviation, and Weibull shape parameter climatologies are constructed from these data. New features that emerge from the analysis include the identification of a stationary pattern to the wind speed variance in the equatorial Pacific. Interestingly, a distinct wind speed shape anomaly migrates with the ITCZ across this stationary background. The GCM despite its coarser spatial and temporal resolution predicts wind speed PDFs in general agreement with observations. Relative to QuikSCAT, the NCAR Community Atmosphere Model, version 3 (CAM3) GCM has a globally averaged positive mean wind speed bias of about 0.2 m s−1 originating primarily within the trades and Southern Hemisphere storm track. Global standard deviation biases are largest in the winter hemisphere storm tracks. The largest shape biases occur along the equatorial peripheries of the Northern Hemisphere and southern Indian Ocean anticyclones. Year-round negative shape and mean wind speed biases persist along the ITCZ. The GCM’s overactive tropical convection and slight subtropical anticyclone displacement contribute to positive mean speed, standard deviation, and shape trade biases. Surface heat and energy fluxes depend nonlinearly on wind speed magnitude, are sensitive to the tails of the wind distribution, and hence vary significantly on spatiotemporal scales not resolved by GCMs. Limited computing resources force the use of coarse-resolution GCMs, which do not resolve finer-scale wind speed fluctuations. Rather, surface fluxes are determined from the mean wind speed computed by averaging spatially and temporally over subgrid-scale features. Some surface flux routines account for gustiness during low mean winds resulting from thermally driven convection. The authors hypothesize that GCMs systematically underestimate surface momentum flux nonlinearities and that this biases surface wind predictions most in regions of strong winds with high variability. To test this, climate simulations that account for surface fluxes due to subgrid-scale GCM winds are performed. This significantly improves climatological surface wind speed statistics, particularly in the Southern Hemisphere storm track, consistent with the hypothesis. These wind speed improvements can be attributed to a reduction in GCM sea level pressure biases throughout the globe.
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  • 75
    Publication Date: 2008-12-15
    Description: Via its impact on surface fluxes, subseasonal variability in soil moisture has the potential to feed back on regional atmospheric circulations, and thereby rainfall. An understanding of this feedback mechanism in the climate system has been hindered by the lack of observations at an appropriate scale. In this study, passive microwave data at 10.65 GHz from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite are used to identify soil moisture variability during the West African monsoon. A simple model of surface sensible heat flux is developed from these data and is used, alongside atmospheric analyses from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF), to provide a new interpretation of monsoon variability on time scales of the order of 15 days. During active monsoon periods, the data indicate extensive areas of wet soil in the Sahel. The impact of the resulting weak surface heat fluxes is consistent in space and time with low-level variations in atmospheric heating and vorticity, as depicted in the ECMWF analyses. The surface-induced vorticity structure is similar to previously documented intraseasonal variations in the monsoon flow, notably a westward-propagating vortex at low levels. In those earlier studies, the variability in low-level flow was considered to be the critical factor in producing intraseasonal fluctuations in rainfall. The current analysis shows that this vortex can be regarded as an effect of the rainfall (via surface hydrology) as well as a cause.
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  • 76
    Publication Date: 2008-12-01
    Description: A previous study by Mikolajewicz suggested that the wind stress feedback stabilizes the Atlantic thermohaline circulation. This result was obtained under modern climate conditions, for which the presence of the massive continental ice sheets characteristic of glacial times is missing. Here a coupled ocean–atmosphere–sea ice model of intermediate complexity, set up in an idealized spherical sector geometry of the Atlantic basin, is used to show that, under glacial climate conditions, wind stress feedback actually reduces the stability of the meridional overturning circulation (MOC). The analysis reveals that the influence of the wind stress feedback on the glacial MOC response to an external source of freshwater applied at high northern latitudes is controlled by the following two distinct processes: 1) the interactions between the wind field and the sea ice export in the Northern Hemisphere (NH), and 2) the northward Ekman transport in the tropics and upward Ekman pumping in the core of the NH subpolar gyre. The former dominates the response of the coupled system; it delays the recovery of the MOC, and in some cases even stabilizes collapsed MOC states achieved during the hosing period. The latter plays a minor role and mitigates the impact of the former process by reducing the upper-ocean freshening in deep-water formation regions. Hence, the wind stress feedback delays the recovery of the glacial MOC, which is the opposite of what occurs under modern climate conditions. Close to the critical transition threshold beyond which the circulation collapses, the glacial MOC appears to be very sensitive to changes in surface wind stress forcing and exhibits, in the aftermath of the freshwater pulse, a nonlinear dependence upon the wind stress feedback magnitude: a complete and irreversible MOC shutdown occurs only for intermediate wind stress feedback magnitudes. This behavior results from the competitive effects of processes 1 and 2 on the midlatitude upper-ocean salinity during the shutdown phase of the MOC. The mechanisms presented here may be relevant to the large meltwater pulses that punctuated the last glacial period.
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  • 77
    Publication Date: 2008-12-15
    Description: This work presents a description of the 1979–2002 tropical Atlantic (TA) SST variability modes coupled to the anomalous West African (WA) rainfall during the monsoon season. The time-evolving SST patterns, with an impact on WA rainfall variability, are analyzed using a new methodology based on maximum covariance analysis. The enhanced Climate Prediction Center (CPC) Merged Analysis of Precipitation (CMAP) dataset, which includes measures over the ocean, gives a complete picture of the interannual WA rainfall patterns for the Sahel dry period. The leading TA SST pattern, related to the Atlantic El Niño, is coupled to anomalous precipitation over the coast of the Gulf of Guinea, which corresponds to the second WA rainfall principal component. The thermodynamics and dynamics involved in the generation, development, and damping of this mode are studied and compared with previous works. The SST mode starts at the Angola/Benguela region and is caused by alongshore wind anomalies. It then propagates westward via Rossby waves and damps because of latent heat flux anomalies and Kelvin wave eastward propagation from an off-equatorial forcing. The second SST mode includes the Mediterranean and the Atlantic Ocean, showing how the Mediterranean SST anomalies are those that are directly associated with the Sahelian rainfall. The global signature of the TA SST patterns is analyzed, adding new insights about the Pacific–Atlantic link in relation to WA rainfall during this period. Also, this global picture suggests that the Mediterranean SST anomalies are a fingerprint of large-scale forcing. This work updates the results given by other authors, whose studies are based on different datasets dating back to the 1950s, including both the wet and the dry Sahel periods.
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  • 78
    Publication Date: 2008-12-15
    Description: The impact of coupled air–sea feedbacks on the simulation of tropical intraseasonal variability is investigated in this study using the National Centers for Environmental Prediction Climate Forecast System. The simulation of tropical intraseasonal variability in a freely coupled simulation is compared with two simulations of the atmospheric component of the model. In one experiment, the uncoupled model is forced with the daily sea surface temperature (SST) from the coupled run. In the other, the uncoupled model is forced with climatological SST from the coupled run. Results indicate that the overall intraseasonal variability of precipitation is reduced in the coupled simulation compared to the uncoupled simulation forced by daily SST. Additionally, air–sea coupling is responsible for differences in the simulation of the tropical intraseasonal oscillation between the coupled and uncoupled models, specifically in terms of organization and propagation in the western Pacific. The differences between the coupled and uncoupled simulations are due to the fact that the relationships between precipitation and SST and latent heat flux and SST are much stronger in the coupled model than in the uncoupled model. Additionally, these relationships are delayed by about 5 days in the uncoupled model compared to the coupled model. As demonstrated by the uncoupled simulation forced with climatological SST, some of the intraseasonal oscillation can be simulated by internal atmospheric dynamics. However, the intraseasonally varying SST appears to be important to the amplitude and propagation of the oscillation beyond the Maritime Continent.
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  • 79
    Publication Date: 2008-12-01
    Description: Large changes in the hydrology of the western United States have been observed since the mid-twentieth century. These include a reduction in the amount of precipitation arriving as snow, a decline in snowpack at low and midelevations, and a shift toward earlier arrival of both snowmelt and the centroid (center of mass) of streamflows. To project future water supply reliability, it is crucial to obtain a better understanding of the underlying cause or causes for these changes. A regional warming is often posited as the cause of these changes without formal testing of different competitive explanations for the warming. In this study, a rigorous detection and attribution analysis is performed to determine the causes of the late winter/early spring changes in hydrologically relevant temperature variables over mountain ranges of the western United States. Natural internal climate variability, as estimated from two long control climate model simulations, is insufficient to explain the rapid increase in daily minimum and maximum temperatures, the sharp decline in frost days, and the rise in degree-days above 0°C (a simple proxy for temperature-driven snowmelt). These observed changes are also inconsistent with the model-predicted responses to variability in solar irradiance and volcanic activity. The observations are consistent with climate simulations that include the combined effects of anthropogenic greenhouse gases and aerosols. It is found that, for each temperature variable considered, an anthropogenic signal is identifiable in observational fields. The results are robust to uncertainties in model-estimated fingerprints and natural variability noise, to the choice of statistical downscaling method, and to various processing options in the detection and attribution method.
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  • 80
    Publication Date: 2008-12-01
    Description: In this study, the method of self-organizing maps (SOMs) is used with NCEP–NCAR reanalysis data to advance the continuum perspective of Northern Hemisphere teleconnection patterns and to shed light on the secular eastward shift of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) that began in the late 1970s. A 20-pattern SOM analysis of daily, wintertime, Northern Hemisphere sea level pressure reveals a continuum of patterns that correspond closely with well-known teleconnection patterns. This analysis also reveals that interdecadal variability of the hemispheric sea level pressure field may be understood in terms of changes in the frequency distribution within the continuum of sea level pressure patterns described by the SOM. Based on the continuum perspective illustrated with the SOM, the above secular shift of the NAO may be understood as a change in dominance from westward-displaced, negative NAO-like patterns to eastward-displaced, positive NAO-like patterns, though westward- and eastward-displaced NAO-like patterns existed during all time periods and for both phases.
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  • 81
    Publication Date: 2008-12-15
    Description: It is generally agreed that changing climate variability, and the associated change in climate extremes, may have a greater impact on environmentally vulnerable regions than a changing mean. This research investigates rainfall variability, rainfall extremes, and their associations with atmospheric and oceanic circulations over southern Africa, a region that is considered particularly vulnerable to extreme events because of numerous environmental, social, and economic pressures. Because rainfall variability is a function of scale, high-resolution data are needed to identify extreme events. Thus, this research uses remotely sensed rainfall data and climate model experiments at high spatial and temporal resolution, with the overall aim being to investigate the ways in which sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies influence rainfall extremes over southern Africa. Extreme rainfall identification is achieved by the high-resolution microwave/infrared rainfall algorithm dataset. This comprises satellite-derived daily rainfall from 1993 to 2002 and covers southern Africa at a spatial resolution of 0.1° latitude–longitude. Extremes are extracted and used with reanalysis data to study possible circulation anomalies associated with extreme rainfall. Anomalously cold SSTs in the central South Atlantic and warm SSTs off the coast of southwestern Africa seem to be statistically related to rainfall extremes. Further, through a number of idealized climate model experiments, it would appear that both decreasing SSTs in the central South Atlantic and increasing SSTs off the coast of southwestern Africa lead to a demonstrable increase in daily rainfall and rainfall extremes over southern Africa, via local effects such as increased convection and remote effects such as an adjustment of the Walker-type circulation.
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  • 82
    Publication Date: 2008-12-15
    Description: The structure and variability of convectively coupled Kelvin waves during the boreal summer are explored using satellite-observed brightness temperature data and ECMWF reanalyses. Kelvin wave activity is most prominent between the central and eastern Pacific, across Africa, and the Indian Ocean. Composite analysis shows that over sub-Saharan Africa Kelvin wave convection is peaked north of the equator, while the dynamical fields tend to be symmetric with respect to the equator. Convectively coupled Kelvin waves propagate faster over the Pacific and western Atlantic (∼24 m s−1), and slow down over tropical Africa (∼14 m s−1), consistent with stronger coupling between the dynamics and convection over tropical Africa. The Kelvin waves observed over Africa generally propagate into the region from anywhere between the eastern Pacific and the Atlantic, and decay over the eastern Indian Ocean basin. Results show marked interannual variability of Kelvin wave activity over Africa. Anomalously high Kelvin wave variance tends to occur during dry years, while low variance occurs during wet years. African Kelvin wave activity is positively correlated with SST anomalies in the equatorial east Pacific. The same warm SST anomalies that are favorable for enhanced Kelvin wave activity suppress the mean rainfall over tropical Africa via a more slowly varying teleconnection and associated subsidence. A brief analysis of an intense Kelvin wave in August 1987 (a dry year) shows a clear impact of the wave on convective development and daily rainfall over tropical Africa. This Kelvin wave was also associated with a series of easterly wave initiations over tropical Africa.
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  • 83
    Publication Date: 2008-12-01
    Description: The geographic-dependence characteristics of the energy spectrum of the boreal summer intraseasonal oscillation (BSISO; May–October) over the Indo–western Pacific region were analyzed using 25-yr (1979–2003) observational data. The BSISO energy spectrum distribution exhibits a distinctive regional characteristic. The stationary and eastward-propagating modes are most pronounced at the equator (5°S–5°N), while the westward-propagating modes are dominant in the off-equatorial region (10°–20°N). While the eastward intraseasonal oscillation (ISO) spectrum agglomerates on the 30–60-day period and zonal wavenumber 1, the westward mode covers wider spatial (wavenumber) and temporal (period) range. Along the Arabian Sea, Bay of Bengal, and South China Sea (SCS) latitudes, the dominant wavenumber 1 mode is the eastward (westward) propagation at the 30–60-day (10–20 day) period; for zonal wavenumber 2, the dominant mode is the westward propagation at both the 30–60-day and 10–20-day periods. Compared to the absolute amplitude of both zonal and meridional mode energy spectrum, northward propagation is the most predominant mode in boreal summer over the Indo–western Pacific regions. The strongest northward-propagating BSISO signal appears in the eastern tropical Indian Ocean. The variation of BSISO differs significantly in the El Niño and La Niña developing and decaying phases. During the El Niño (La Niña) developing summer, the eastward propagation is enhanced (weakened) at the equator, while the northward propagation is also strengthened (weakened) over the western Pacific (east of 140°E). During the El Niño (La Niña) decaying summer, the eastward propagation weakens (strengthens) at the equator, opposite to that in the developing summer; the westward propagation off the equator and the northward propagation over SCS and the western Pacific are suppressed (enhanced). The amplitude of the BSISO variation is stronger in the decaying summer than that in the developing summer. This asymmetry in BSISO variations is primarily attributed to the asymmetry of the background mean flow change associated with the developing and decaying phases of ENSO.
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  • 84
    Publication Date: 2008-12-15
    Description: The ways in which deep convection over the tropical Atlantic affects the midlatitude climate variability through meridional circulation, planetary wave teleconnection, and wave–mean flow interaction is examined for the 1979–2002 period, by following the North Atlantic anomalous rainfall evolution from summer to late winter. In this way, the first two covariability modes between anomalous summer tropical Atlantic sea surface temperature (SST) and anomalous summer–late-winter precipitation over the North Atlantic basin are analyzed using the same methodology of extended maximum covariance analysis developed for Part I. This work updates the results given by other authors, whose studies are based on different datasets dating back to the 1950s. To this end, the Climate Prediction Center (CPC) Merged Analysis of Precipitation (CMAP) dataset, which includes measures over the ocean, is used to give a complete picture of the interannual rainfall patterns for the last decades. The first mode, which accounts for more than 40% of the squared covariance fraction (SCF), involves SST anomalies related to the equatorial mode or Atlantic Niño. Its atmospheric response shows variations of the Atlantic Hadley and Ferrel circulations, reinforcing the direct and indirect circulation cells, respectively, displacements of the Atlantic Walker circulation, and the excitation of Rossby waves, which are trapped in the North African–Asian jet. The second mode, which accounts for 15% of the SCF, is associated with the summer horseshoe and winter tripole SST patterns. The related atmospheric circulation anomalies include direct thermal forcing (altering the local Hadley cell), perturbations in the ITCZ, and wavelike responses from the Caribbean region. The method used in this work highlights the seasonal dependence of the modes, in contrast to previous work that neglects to take into account the month-to-month evolution of these modes. The results add new and valuable information to the understanding of these modes from the important period back to the 1980s.
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  • 85
    Publication Date: 2008-11-15
    Description: This paper examines nine analyses of global ocean 0-/700-m temperature and heat content during the 43-yr period of warming, 1960–2002. Among the analyses are two that are independent of any numerical model, six that rely on sequential data assimilation, including an ocean general circulation model, and one that uses four-dimensional variational data assimilation (4DVAR), including an ocean general circulation model and its adjoint. Most analyses show gradual warming of the global ocean with an ensemble trend of 0.77 × 108 J m−2 (10 yr)−1 (=0.24 W m−2) as the result of rapid warming in the early 1970s and again beginning around 1990. One proposed explanation for these variations is the effect of volcanic eruptions in 1963 and 1982. Examination of this hypothesis suggests that while there is an oceanic signal, it is insufficient to explain the observed heat content variations. A second potential cause of decadal variations in global heat content is the uncorrelated contribution of heat content variations in individual ocean basins. The subtropical North Atlantic is warming at twice the global average, with accelerated warming in the 1960s and again beginning in the late 1980s and extending through the end of the record. The Barents Sea region of the Arctic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico have also warmed, while the western subpolar North Atlantic has cooled. Heat content variability in the North Pacific differs significantly from the North Atlantic. There the spatial and temporal patterns are consistent with the decadal variability previously identified through observational and modeling studies examining SST and surface winds. In the Southern Hemisphere large heat content anomalies are evident, and while there is substantial disagreement among analyses on average the band of latitudes at 30°–60°S contribute significantly to the global warming trend. Thus, the uncorrelated contributions of heat content variations in the individual basins are a major contributor to global heat content variations. A third potential contributor to global heat content variations is the effect of time-dependent bias in the set of historical observations. This last possibility is examined by comparing the analyses to the unbiased salinity–temperature–depth dataset and finding a very substantial warm bias in all analyses in the 1970s relative to the latter decades. This warm bias may well explain the rapid increase in analysis heat content in the early 1970s, but not the more recent increase, which began in the early 1990s. Finally, this study provides information about the similarities and differences between analyses that are independent of a model and those that use sequential assimilation and 4DVAR. The comparisons provide considerable encouragement for the use of the sequential analyses for climate research despite the presence of erroneous variability (also present in the no-model analyses) resulting from instrument bias. The strengths and weaknesses of each analysis need to be considered for a given application.
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  • 86
    Publication Date: 2008-11-15
    Description: Intraseasonal equatorial Kelvin wave activity (IEKW) at a low frequency in the Pacific is investigated using the Simple Ocean Data Assimilation (SODA) oceanic reanalyses. A vertical and horizontal mode decomposition of SODA variability allows estimation of the Kelvin wave amplitude according to the most energetic baroclinic modes. A wavenumber–frequency analysis is then performed on the time series to derive indices of modulation of the IEKW at various frequency bands. The results indicate that the IEKW activity undergoes a significant modulation that projects onto baroclinic modes and is not related in a straightforward manner to the low-frequency climate variability in the Pacific. Linear model experiments corroborate that part of the modulation of the IEKW is tightly linked to change in oceanic mean state rather than to the low-frequency change of atmospheric equatorial variability.
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  • 87
    Publication Date: 2008-11-15
    Description: The Arctic region has exhibited dramatic changes in recent times. Many of these are intimately tied up with synoptic activity, but little research has been undertaken on how the characteristics of Arctic cyclones have changed. This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of Arctic (here defined as the domain north of 70°N) cyclones diagnosed with the Melbourne University cyclone tracking scheme applied to the 40-yr ECMWF Re-Analysis (ERA-40) and the NCEP–NCAR (NCEP1) and NCEP–Department of Energy (DOE) Atmospheric Model Intercomparison Project (AMIP)-II (NCEP2) reanalysis sets (the last two extending to the end of 2006). A wide variety of cyclone characteristics is presented as befits these complex features. In winter the highest density of cyclones is found between Norway and Svalbard and to the east to the Barents and Kara Seas, and significant numbers are found in the central Arctic. In summer the greatest frequencies are found in the central Arctic. The total number of cyclones identified in the ERA-40 record exceeds those in the two NCEP compilations. The mean size of cyclones shows similar maxima in the central Arctic in both winter and summer. By contrast, the greatest mean system depth in winter (in excess of 8 hPa) is found to the southeast of Greenland, although average depths exceed 6 hPa over a considerable portion of the basin. In summer the deepest cyclones are found in the central portion of the Arctic. The analysis shows that the total number of cyclones in winter exceeds that in summer, a result in contrast to earlier studies. This difference comes about primarily due to the greater numbers of “open strong” systems in winter in all reanalyses. Cyclones in this category are associated with very active synoptic situations; it is of importance that they be included in cyclone counts but would not be considered in many cyclone identification schemes. Since 1979 neither the ERA-40 nor the NCEP2 sets show significant trends in any of the cyclone variables considered. However, over the entire record starting in 1958 the NCEP1 reanalysis exhibits a significant increase in summer cyclone frequency (due mainly to the increase in closed strong systems). Both NCEP1 and ERA-40 also reveal significant increases in the number of summer closed strong cyclones, as well as in their mean depth and intensity in that season. Interannual variations in Arctic cyclone numbers are closely related to the Arctic Oscillation (AO) index in the full reanalyses records. An even stronger relationship is found between the AO and the number of deep cyclones. These relationships have still held in the last decade when the AO has returned to more normal values but the summer and fall sea ice extent has continued to decrease.
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  • 88
    Publication Date: 2008-11-01
    Description: The Indian summer monsoon rainfall has complex, regionally heterogeneous, interannual variations with huge socioeconomic impacts, but the underlying mechanisms remain uncertain. The upwelling along the Somalia and Oman coasts starts in late spring, peaks during the summer monsoon, and strongly cools the sea surface temperature (SST) in the western Arabian Sea. They restrict the westward extent of the Indian Ocean warm pool, which is the main moisture source for the monsoon rainfall. Thus, variations of the Somalia–Oman upwelling can have significant impacts on the moisture transport toward India. Here the authors use both observations and an advanced coupled atmosphere–ocean general circulation model to show that a decrease in upwelling strengthens monsoon rainfall along the west coast of India by increasing the SST along the Somalia–Oman coasts, and thus local evaporation and water vapor transport toward the Indian Western Ghats (mountains). Further observational analysis reveals that such decreases in upwelling are caused by anomalously weak southwesterly winds in late spring over the Arabian Sea that are due to warm SST/increased precipitation anomalies over the Seychelles–Chagos thermocline ridge of the southwestern Indian Ocean (and vice versa for years with strong upwelling/weak west Indian summer monsoon rainfall). The latter SST/precipitation anomalies are often related to El Niño conditions and the strength of the Indonesian–Australian monsoon during the previous winter. This sheds new light on the ability to forecast the poorly predicted Indian monsoon rainfall on a regional scale, helped by a proper ocean observing/forecasting system in the western tropical Indian Ocean.
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  • 89
    Publication Date: 2008-09-15
    Description: Long-term trends in the heat content of the Southern Hemisphere ocean are evaluated by comparing temperature profiles collected during the 1990s with profiles collected starting in the 1930s. Data are drawn both from ship-based hydrographic surveys and from autonomous floats. Results show that the upper 1000 m of the Southern Hemisphere ocean has warmed substantially during this time period at all depths. Warming is concentrated within the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC). On a global scale, this warming trend implies that the ocean has gained heat from the atmosphere over the last 50 to 70 years. Although the data do not preclude the possibility that the Southern Ocean has warmed as a result of increased heat fluxes, either into the ocean or within the ocean, in general the strong trend in the Southern Ocean appears regionally consistent with a poleward migration of the ACC, possibly driven by long-term poleward shifts in the winds of the region, as represented by the southern annular mode.
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  • 90
    Publication Date: 2008-09-15
    Description: Analysis of the monthly NCEP–NCAR reanalysis data and station data reveals a teleconnection pattern (NAULEA) that links climate changes over the North Atlantic and Eurasia. The NAULEA pattern has five action centers. It extends from the North Atlantic to northwestern Europe, and then stretches eastward to the Urals, with its eastern end over North China. Certain climate changes over East Asia, such as the cooling changes in both the upper troposphere and surface in the last few decades of the twentieth century, can be attributed to the NAULEA pattern anomalies and traced upstream to the North Atlantic. The NAULEA pattern is suggested to be another NAO-related teleconnection pattern. Compared with the pattern with the Asian jet waveguide path, which leads to temperature anomalies over northeastern Asia, the NAULEA pattern with a high-latitude path exerts stronger influences on the climate of southwestern China.
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  • 91
    Publication Date: 2008-09-01
    Description: This study examines the interdecadal variability of the tropical cyclone (TC) tracks over the western North Pacific (WNP) during the 1960–2005 period. An empirical orthogonal function analysis of the 10-yr Gaussian-filtered annual frequency of TC occurrence shows three leading modes of TC occurrence patterns. The first mode is related to the variation of TC activity in the areas near Japan and its east. The second mode is characterized by a northeast–southwest dipole of TC occurrence anomalies along the southeast coast of China and an east–west dipole near Japan and its east. The third mode is similar to the second mode, except for the absence of the east–west dipole. These patterns are shown to be related to the decadal changes in the prevailing TC tracks. Two characteristic flow patterns related to the first and third modes of TC occurrence pattern are identified. The first pattern is characterized by a north–south dipole of 500-hPa geopotential anomalies over the WNP. Such a pattern may affect the strength and westward extension of the subtropical high and the midlevel steering flow and hence the TC occurrence pattern. The Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO) is found to display a similar dipole-like structure. The decadal variability of TC tracks may therefore be partly attributed to the PDO signal. The second characteristic pattern shows a series of anomalous midlevel atmospheric circulations extending from the sea east of Japan to the south coast of China, which may explain the other part of the decadal variations.
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  • 92
    Publication Date: 2008-09-15
    Description: The partitioning of the earth radiation budget (ERB) between its atmosphere and surface components is of crucial interest in climate studies as it has a significant role in the oceanic and atmospheric general circulation. An analysis of the present-day climate simulation of the surface radiation budget in the atmospheric component of the new Hadley Centre Global Environmental Model version 1 (HadGEM1) is presented, and the simulations are assessed by comparing the results with fluxes derived from satellite data from the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) and ground measurements from the Baseline Surface Radiation Network (BSRN). Comparisons against radiative fluxes from satellite and ground observations show that the model tends to overestimate the surface incoming solar radiation (Ss,d). The model simulates Ss,d very well over the polar regions. Consistency in the comparisons against BSRN and ISCCP-FD suggests that the ISCCP-FD database is a good test for the performance of the surface downwelling solar radiation in climate model simulations. Overall, the simulation of downward longwave radiation is closer to observations than its shortwave counterpart. The model underestimates the downward longwave radiation with respect to BSRN measurements by 6.0 W m−2. Comparisons of land surface albedo from the model and estimates from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) show that HadGEM1 overestimates the land surface albedo over deserts and over midlatitude landmasses in the Northern Hemisphere in January. Analysis of the seasonal cycle of the land surface albedo in different regions shows that the amplitude and phase of the seasonal cycle are not well represented in the model, although a more extensive validation needs to be carried out. Two decades of coupled model simulations of the twentieth-century climate are used to look into the model’s simulation of global dimming/brightening. The model results are in line with the conclusions of the studies that suggest that global dimming is far from being a uniform phenomenon across the globe.
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  • 93
    Publication Date: 2008-09-01
    Description: Defining the intensity of the East Asian summer monsoon (EASM) has been extremely controversial. This paper elaborates on the meanings of 25 existing EASM indices in terms of two observed major modes of interannual variation in the precipitation and circulation anomalies for the 1979–2006 period. The existing indices can be classified into five categories: the east–west thermal contrast, north–south thermal contrast, shear vorticity of zonal winds, southwesterly monsoon, and South China Sea monsoon. The last four types of indices reflect various aspects of the leading mode of interannual variability of the EASM rainfall and circulations, which correspond to the decaying El Niño, while the first category reflects the second mode that corresponds to the developing El Niño. The authors recommend that the EASM strength can be represented by the principal component of the leading mode of the interannual variability, which provides a unified index for the majority of the existing indices. This new index is extremely robust, captures a large portion (50%) of the total variance of the precipitation and three-dimensional circulation, and has unique advantages over all the existing indices. The authors also recommend a simple index, the reversed Wang and Fan index, which is nearly identical to the leading principal component of the EASM and greatly facilitates real-time monitoring. The proposed index highlights the significance of the mei-yu/baiu/changma rainfall in gauging the strength of the EASM. The mei-yu, which is produced in the primary rain-bearing system, the East Asian (EA) subtropical front, better represents the variability of the EASM circulation system. This new index reverses the traditional Chinese meaning of a strong EASM, which corresponds to a deficient mei-yu that is associated with an abnormal northward extension of southerly over northern China. The new definition is consistent with the meaning used in other monsoon regions worldwide, where abundant rainfall within the major local rain-bearing monsoon system is considered to be a strong monsoon.
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  • 94
    Publication Date: 2008-09-15
    Description: The authors quantitatively describe the changes in the characteristics of ice phenology including the flow rate and freeze/breakup dates of the Yellow River based on observations of the past 50 yr. In both the upper and lower reaches of the Yellow River, increasing temperature delays the freeze date and advances the breakup date, thus decreasing the number of freeze days and the expanse of river freeze. From 1968 to 2001, the freeze duration has shortened significantly by 38 days at Bayangaole and 25 days at Sanhuhe, respectively. From the early 1950s to the early 2000s, the changes in freeze and breakup dates have shortened the freeze duration in the lower reach of the Yellow River by 12 days. The flow rate has reduced from 500 to 260 m3 s−1, and the expanse of river freeze has also decreased significantly by about 310 km. In addition, in the lower reach of the river, the location of earliest ice breakup has shifted downstream significantly in the last 50 yr, although the location of earliest freeze exhibits little change.
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  • 95
    Publication Date: 2008-09-01
    Description: Links are examined between time-averaged cloud radiative properties, particularly the longwave and shortwave components of cloud radiative forcing (CRF), and properties of the long-term averages of atmospheric soundings, in particular upper-tropospheric humidity (UTH), lower-tropospheric precipitable water (PW), and static stability (SS). The joint distributions of moisture measures and the composite or conditional mean CRF for different moisture and stability combinations are computed. This expands on previous studies that have examined cloud properties versus vertical velocity and surface temperature. These computations are done for satellite observations and for three representative coupled climate models from major modeling centers. Aside from mean biases reported previously, several departures are identified between the modeled and observed joint distributions that are qualitative and significant. Namely, the joint distribution of PW and UTH is very compact in observations but less so in models, cloud forcings are tightly related to PW in the data but to UTH in the models, and strong negative net CRF in marine stratocumulus regions occurs only for high SS and low UTH in the data but violates one or both of these restrictions in each of the models. All three errors are preliminarily interpreted as symptoms of inadequate dependence of model convective development on ambient humidity above the boundary layer. In any case, the character of the errors suggests utility for model testing and future development. A set of scalar metrics for quantifying some of the problems is presented; these metrics can be easily applied to standard model output. Finally, an examination of doubled-CO2 simulations suggests that the errors noted here are significantly affecting cloud feedback in at least some models. For example, in one model a strong negative feedback is found from clouds forming in model conditions that never occur in the observations.
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  • 96
    Publication Date: 2008-05-15
    Description: The response of air temperatures to widespread irrigation may represent an important component of past and/or future regional climate changes. The quantitative impact of irrigation on daily minimum and maximum temperatures (Tmin and Tmax) in California was estimated using historical time series of county irrigated areas from agricultural censuses and daily climate observations from the U.S. Historical Climatology Network. Regression analysis of temperature and irrigation changes for stations within irrigated areas revealed a highly significant (p 〈 0.01) effect of irrigation on June–August average Tmax, with no significant effects on Tmin (p 〉 0.3). The mean estimate for Tmax was a substantial 5.0°C cooling for 100% irrigation cover, with a 95% confidence interval of 2.0°–7.9°C. As a result of small changes in Tmin compared to Tmax, the diurnal temperature range (DTR) decreased significantly in both spring and summer months. Effects on percentiles of Tmax within summer months were not statistically distinguishable, suggesting that irrigation’s impact is similar on warm and cool days in California. Finally, average trends for stations within irrigated areas were compared to those from nonirrigated stations to evaluate the robustness of conclusions from previous studies based on pairwise comparisons of irrigated and nonirrigated sites. Stronger negative Tmax trends in irrigated sites were consistent with the inferred effects of irrigation on Tmax. However, Tmin trends were significantly more positive for nonirrigated sites despite the apparent lack of effects of irrigation on Tmin from the analysis within irrigated sites. Together with evidence of increases in urban areas near nonirrigated sites, this finding indicates an important effect of urbanization on Tmin in California that had previously been attributed to irrigation. The results therefore demonstrate that simple pairwise comparisons between stations in a complex region such as California can lead to misinterpretation of historical climate trends and the effects of land use changes.
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  • 97
    Publication Date: 2008-06-01
    Description: The northward-propagating intraseasonal (30–40 day) oscillation (NPISO) between active and break monsoon phases exerts a critical control on summer-season rainfall totals over India. Advances in diagnosing these events and comprehending the physical mechanisms behind them may hold the potential for improving their predictability. While previous studies have attempted to extract active and break events from reanalysis data to elucidate a composite life cycle, those studies have relied on first isolating the intraseasonal variability in the record (e.g., through bandpass filtering, removing harmonics, or empirical orthogonal function analysis). Additionally, the underlying physical processes that previous studies have proposed have varied, both among themselves and with studies using general circulation models. A simple index is defined for diagnosing NPISO events in observations and reanalysis, based on lag correlations between outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) over India and over the equatorial Indian Ocean. This index is the first to use unfiltered OLR observations and so does not specifically isolate intraseasonal periods. A composite NPISO life cycle based on this index is similar to previous composites in OLR and surface winds, demonstrating that the dominance of the intraseasonal variability in the monsoon climate system eliminates the need for more complex methods (e.g., time filtering or EOF analysis) to identify the NPISO. This study is also among the first to examine the NPISO using a long-period record of high-resolution sea surface temperatures (SSTs) from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Microwave Imager. Application of this index to those SSTs demonstrates that SST anomalies exist in near quadrature with convection, as suggested by recent coupled model studies. Analysis of the phase relationships between atmospheric fields and SSTs indicates that the atmosphere likely forced the SST anomalies. The results of this lag-correlation analysis suggest that the oscillation serves as its own most reliable—and perhaps only—predictor, and that signals preceding an NPISO event appear first over the Indian subcontinent, not the equatorial Indian Ocean where the events originate.
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  • 98
    Publication Date: 2008-05-15
    Description: Meridional structure and transports of energy in the atmosphere, ocean, and land are evaluated holistically for the mean and annual cycle zonal averages over the ocean, land, and global domains, with discussion and assessment of uncertainty. At the top of the atmosphere (TOA), adjusted radiances from the Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) and Clouds and Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES) are used along with estimates of energy storage and transport from two global reanalysis datasets for the atmosphere. Three ocean temperature datasets are used to assess changes in the ocean heat content (OE) and their relationship to the net upward surface energy flux over ocean (FoS), which is derived from the residual of the TOA and atmospheric energy budgets. The surface flux over land is from a stand-alone simulation of the Community Land Model forced by observed fields. In the extratropics, absorbed solar radiation (ASR) achieves a maximum in summer with peak values near the solstices. Outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) maxima also occur in summer but lag ASR by 1–2 months, consistent with temperature maxima over land. In the tropics, however, OLR relates to high cloud variations and peaks late in the dry monsoon season, while the OLR minima in summer coincide with deep convection in the monsoon trough at the height of the rainy season. Most of the difference between the TOA radiation and atmospheric energy storage tendency is made up by a large heat flux into the ocean in summer and out of the ocean in winter. In the Northern Hemisphere, the transport of energy from ocean to land regions is substantial in winter, and modest in summer. In the Southern Hemisphere extratropics, land − ocean differences play only a small role and the main energy transport by the atmosphere and ocean is poleward. There is reasonably good agreement between FoS and observed changes in OE, except for south of 40°S, where differences among several ocean datasets point to that region as the main source of errors in achieving an overall energy balance. The winter hemisphere atmospheric circulation is the dominant contributor to poleward energy transports outside of the tropics [6–7 PW (1 petawatt = 1015 W)], with summer transports being relatively weak (∼3 PW)—slightly more in the Southern Hemisphere and slightly less in the Northern Hemisphere. Ocean transports outside of the tropics are found to be small (
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  • 99
    Publication Date: 2008-05-15
    Description: The physical reality of the Arctic Oscillation (AO; or northern annular mode) is considered. The data used are mainly the monthly mean sea level pressure (SLP). A schematic figure is first presented to illustrate the relationship between the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO)–Pacific–North American Oscillation (PNA) system and the AO–negative correlation mode between the Atlantic and the Pacific (AO–NCM) system. Although the NAO–PNA (apparent AO–NCM) and true AO–NCM systems give rise to the same EOFs, the probability density functions for the time coefficients of the two leading modes are different. Therefore, the discrimination of the two systems is possible. Several pieces of evidence indicate that, in the real world, the NAO–PNA and the AO–NCM are located on almost the same plane in phase space. This means that the NAO–PNA and AO–NCM systems have the same variations on the plane in common, implying that when the NAO–PNA system is real, the AO–NCM is unlikely to be real. Simple independent component analysis is carried out to distinguish between the true and apparent AO–NCM systems, indicating that the NAO and PNA are independent oscillations, that is, true ones. The analysis is extended to the winter mean SLP field, for which the EOF shows the NAO–PNA but not the AO–NCM. This may be due to the fact that the winter mean NAO and PNA patterns have little spatial correlation. Calculations using randomly selected samples also indicate that when the NAO and PNA patterns have little spatial correlation, the AO never appears as EOF1. All the preceding results show that almost all characteristics of the AO–NCM can be explained from those of the NAO–PNA. Hence it is concluded that the AO, which is extracted by EOF analysis from the temporarily independent but spatially overlapping variations of the NAO and PNA, is almost apparent.
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  • 100
    Publication Date: 2008-05-01
    Description: Clouds have an important controlling influence on the radiation balance, and hence surface melting, over the Greenland ice sheet and need to be classified to derive reliable albedo estimates from visible imagery. Little is known, however, about the true cloud cover characteristics for the largest island on Earth, Greenland. Here, an attempt is made to address this knowledge gap by examining cloud characteristics, as determined by three complementary satellites sensors: the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR), the Along Track Scanning Radiometer-2 (ATSR-2), and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS). The first provides a multidecadal time series of clouds, albedo, and surface temperature, and is available, in the form of the extended AVHRR Polar Pathfinder dataset (APP-x), as a homogeneous, consistent dataset from 1982 until 2004. APP-x data, however, are also the most challenging to cloud classify over snow-covered terrain, due to the limited spectral capabilities of the instrument. ATSR-2 permits identification and classification using stereophotogrammetric techniques and MODIS has enhanced spectral sampling in the visible and thermal infrared but over more limited time periods. The spatial cloud fractions from the three sensors are compared and show good agreement in terms of both magnitude and spatial pattern. The cloud fractions, and inferred patterns of accumulation, are then assessed from three commonly used reanalysis datasets: NCEP–NCAR, the second NCEP–Department of Energy (DOE) Atmospheric Model Intercomparison Project (AMIP-II), and the 40-yr ECMWF Re-Analysis (ERA-40). Poor agreement between the reanalysis datasets is found. NCEP–DOE AMIP-II produces a cloud fraction similar to that observed by the satellites. NCEP–NCAR and ERA-40, however, bear little similarity to the cloud fractions derived from the satellite observations. This suggests that they may produce poor accumulation estimates over the ice sheet and poor estimates of radiation balance. Using these reanalysis data to force a mass balance model of the ice sheet, without appropriate downscaling and correction for the substantial biases present, may, therefore, produce substantial errors in surface melt rate estimates.
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