Aspects of petrochemical pollution in coastal Louisiana, USA     

Iqbal J  Portier RJ  Gisclair D 《Marine pollution bulletin》2007,54(6):792-797

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Determining Titan surface topography from Cassini SAR data     

Bryan W. Stiles  Scott Hensley  David M. Bates  Alex Hayes  Ralph D. Lorenz  Philip S. Callahan  William T.K. Johnson  Jonathan I. Lunine  Michael Janssen  Richard D. West  the Cassini RADAR Team 《Icarus》2009,202(2):584-598

A technique, referred to as SARTopo, has been developed for obtaining surface height estimates with 10 km horizontal resolution and 75 m vertical resolution of the surface of Titan along each Cassini Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) swath. We describe the technique and present maps of the co-located data sets. A global map and regional maps of Xanadu and the northern hemisphere hydrocarbon lakes district are included in the results. A strength of the technique is that it provides topographic information co-located with SAR imagery. Having a topographic context vastly improves the interpretability of the SAR imagery and is essential for understanding Titan.SARTopo is capable of estimating surface heights for most of the SAR-imaged surface of Titan. Currently nearly 30% of the surface is within 100 km of a SARTopo height profile. Other competing techniques provide orders of magnitude less coverage.We validate the SARTopo technique through comparison with known geomorphological features such as mountain ranges and craters, and by comparison with co-located nadir altimetry, including a 3000 km strip that had been observed by SAR a month earlier. In this area, the SARTopo and nadir altimetry data sets are co-located tightly (within 5-10 km for one 500 km section), have similar resolution, and as expected agree closely in surface height. Furthermore the region contains prominent high spatial resolution topography, so it provides an excellent test of the resolution and precision of both techniques.  相似文献   

Origin and structure of the Galactic disc(s)     

Ralph Schönrich  James Binney 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2009,399(3):1145-1156

We examine the chemical and dynamical structure in the solar neighbourhood of a model Galaxy that is the endpoint of a simulation of the chemical evolution of the Milky Way in the presence of radial mixing of stars and gas. Although the simulation's star formation rate declines monotonically from its unique peak and no merger or tidal event ever takes place, the model replicates all known properties of a thick disc, as well as matching special features of the local stellar population such as a metal-poor extension of the thin disc that has high rotational velocity. We divide the disc by chemistry and relate this dissection to observationally more convenient kinematic selection criteria. We conclude that the observed chemistry of the Galactic disc does not provide convincing evidence for a violent origin of the thick disc, as has been widely claimed.  相似文献   

The influence of sea-surface temperatures on Eastern North Pacific tropical cyclone activity     

Trisha U. Ralph  William A. Gough 《Theoretical and Applied Climatology》2009,95(3-4):257-264

The influence of sea-surface temperatures on six measures of tropical cyclone activity in the Eastern North Pacific is examined using historical sea-surface temperature and tropical cyclone data spanning from 1971 to 2002. Relationships are evaluated using methods of trend analysis, extreme year analysis, and bivariate correlation. Results suggest that in order to understand the climatological factors affecting topical cyclone activity in the Eastern North Pacific, the main development region must be divided into two sub-regions of development to the east and west of 112°W longitude. Increasing trends of sea-surface temperature are not accompanied by increasing trends in tropical cyclone activity. In the western development region, sea-surface temperatures are significantly correlated with all measures of tropical cyclone activity during extreme years. In this region, sea-surface temperatures are on average below the threshold for tropical cyclone development. In the Eastern development region, the only significant correlation with sea-surface temperatures is for the more intense measures of hurricane activity. In this region, sea-surface temperatures are on average above the threshold for cyclone formation. This leads to the hypothesis that the proximity to the cyclone formation temperature threshold in the WDR enhances the sensitivity of tropical cyclone activity to SSTs. This may have application to other tropical cyclone basins such as the North Atlantic.  相似文献   

A 3 km atmospheric boundary layer on Titan indicated by dune spacing and Huygens data     

Ralph D. Lorenz  Phillipe Claudin  Jani Radebaugh 《Icarus》2010,205(2):719-721

Some 20% of Titan’s surface is covered in large linear dunes that resemble in morphology, size and spacing (1-3 km) those seen on Earth. Although gravity, atmospheric density and sand composition are very different on these two worlds, this coincident size scale suggests that the controlling parameter limiting the growth of giant dunes, namely the boundary layer thickness (Andreotti et al., 2009). Nature, 457, 1120-1123], is similar. We show that a ∼3 km boundary layer thickness is supported by Huygens descent data and is consistent with results from Global Circulation Models taking the distinctive thermal inertia and albedo of the dune sands into account. While the boundary layer thickness on Earth controlling dunes can vary by an order of magnitude depending on the proximity of oceans, which have very different thermal properties from dry land, the relative invariance of dune spacing on Titan is consistent with relatively uniform thermal properties near the dunes and no prominent variation with latitude is seen.  相似文献   

Threshold of wave generation on Titan’s lakes and seas: Effect of viscosity and implications for Cassini observations   总被引：1，自引：0，他引：1  

Ralph D. Lorenz  Claire Newman  Jonathan I. Lunine 《Icarus》2010,207(2):932-937

Motivated by radar and near-infrared data indicating that Titan’s polar lakes are extremely smooth, we consider the conditions under which a lake surface will be ruffled by wind to form capillary waves. We evaluate laboratory data on wind generation and derive, without scaling for surface tension effects, a threshold for pure methane/ethane of ∼0.5-1 m/s. However, we compute the physical properties of predicted Titan lake compositions using the National Institute for Standards Technology (NIST) code and note that dissolved amounts of C3 and C4 compounds are likely to make Titan lakes much more viscous than pure ethane or methane, even without allowing for suspended particulates which would increase the viscosity further. Wind tunnel experiments show a strong dependence of capillary wave growth on liquid viscosity, and this effect may explain the apparent absence so far of waves, contrary to prior expectations that generation of gravity waves by wind should be easy on Titan. On the other hand, we note that winds over Titan lakes predicted with the TitanWRF Global Circulation Model indicate radar observations so far have in any case been when winds have been low (∼0.5-0.7 m/s), possibly below the wave generation threshold, while peak winds during summer may reach 1-2 m/s. Thus observations of Titan’s northern lakes during the coming years by the Cassini Solstice mission offer the highest probability of observing wind-roughening of lake surfaces, while observations of Ontario Lacus in the south will likely continue to show it to be flat and smooth.  相似文献   

Penetrometry of granular and moist planetary surface materials: Application to the Huygens landing site on Titan     

Karl R. Atkinson  John C. Zarnecki  Martin C. Towner  Timothy J. Ringrose  Axel Hagermann  Andrew J. Ball  Mark R. Leese  Gunter Kargl  Mark D. Paton  Ralph D. Lorenz  Simon F. Green 《Icarus》2010,210(2):843-851

The Huygens probe landed on the then unknown surface of Titan in January 2005. A small, protruding penetrometer, part of the Surface Science Package (SSP), was pushed into the surface material measuring the mechanical resistance of the ground as the probe impacted the landing site. We present laboratory penetrometry into room temperature surface analogue materials using a replica penetrometer to investigate further the nature of Titan’s surface and examine the sensor’s capabilities. The results are then compared to the flight instrument’s signature and suggest the Titan surface substrate material consists of sand-sized particles with a mean grain size ～2 mm. A possible thin 7 mm coating with mechanical properties similar to terrestrial snow may overlie this substrate, although due to the limited data we are unable to detect any further layering or grading within the near-surface material. The unusual weakening with depth of the signature returned from Titan has, to date, only been reproduced using a damp sand target that becomes progressively wetter with depth, and supports the suggestion that the surface may consist of a damp and cohesive material with interstitial liquid contained between its grains. Comparison with terrestrial analogues highlights the unusual nature of the landing site material.  相似文献   

The formation of star clusters – II. 3D simulations of magnetohydrodynamic turbulence in molecular clouds     

David A. Tilley  Ralph E. Pudritz 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2007,382(1):73-94

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Interaction of jets with the ISM of radio galaxies     

Ralph S. Sutherland  Geoffrey V. Bicknell 《Astrophysics and Space Science》2007,311(1-3):293-303

We present three dimensional simulations of the interaction of a light hypersonic jet with an inhomogeneous thermal and turbulently supported disk in an elliptical galaxy. These simulations are applicable to the GPS/CSS phase of some extragalactic radio sources. We identify four generic phases in the evolution of such a jet with the interstellar medium. The first is a “flood and channel” phase, dominated by complex jet interactions with the dense cloudy medium close to the nucleus. This is characterized by high pressure jet gas finding changing weak points in the ISM and flowing through channels that form and reform over time. A spherical, energy driven, bubble phase ensues, wherein the bubble is larger than the disk scale, but the jet remains fully disrupted close to the nucleus, so that the jet flux is thermalised and generates a smooth isotropic energy-driven bubble. In the subsequent, rapid, jet break-out phase the jet breaks free of the last obstructing dense clouds, becomes collimated and pierces the more or less spherical bubble. In the final classical phase, the jet propagates in a momentum-dominated fashion similar to jets in single component hot haloes, leading to the classical jet–cocoon–bow-shock structure.  相似文献   

Compaction of Coarse-Grained Sediments: I. G.V. Chilingarian and K.H. Wolf, Editors. Elsevier, Amsterdam, 1975, 552 pp., Dfl. 130.00     

Ralph E. Grim 《Journal of Geochemical Exploration》1976,5(1-2)

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