Pixel-based correction for Charge Transfer Inefficiency in the Hubble Space Telescope Advanced Camera for Surveys     

Richard Massey  Chris Stoughton  Alexie Leauthaud  Jason Rhodes  Anton Koekemoer  Richard Ellis  Edgar Shaghoulian 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2010,401(1):371-384

Charge Transfer Inefficiency (CTI) due to radiation damage above the Earth's atmosphere creates spurious trailing in Hubble Space Telescope ( HST ) images. Radiation damage also creates unrelated warm pixels – but these happen to be perfect for measuring CTI. We model CTI in the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS)/Wide Field Channel and construct a physically motivated correction scheme. This operates on raw data, rather than secondary science products, by returning individual electrons to pixels from which they were unintentionally dragged during readout. We apply our correction to images from the HST Cosmic Evolution Survey (COSMOS), successfully reducing the CTI trails by a factor of ∼30 everywhere in the CCD and at all flux levels. We quantify changes in galaxy photometry, astrometry and shape. The remarkable 97 per cent level of correction is more than sufficient to enable a (forthcoming) reanalysis of downstream science products and the collection of larger surveys.  相似文献   

The Nyquist frequency for time series with slight deviations from regular spacing     

Chris Koen 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2010,401(1):586-596

The paper is based on the notion that the Nyquist frequency  ν_N  is a symmetry point of the periodogram of a time series: the power spectrum at frequencies above  ν_N  is a mirror image of that below  ν_N  . Koen showed that the sum     (where   t_k   and   t _ℓ  range over the time points of observation) is zero when the frequency  ν=ν_N  . This property is used to investigate the Nyquist frequency for data which are almost regularly spaced in time. For some configurations, there are deep minima of SS at frequencies  ν_P≪ν_N  ; such  ν_P  are dubbed 'pseudo-Nyquist' frequencies: the implication is that most of the information about the frequency content of the data is available in the spectrum over  (0, ν_P)  . Systematic simulation results are presented for two configurations – small random variations in respectively the time points of observation and the lengths of the intervals between successive observations. A few real examples of CCD time series photometry obtained over several hours are also discussed.  相似文献   

Ca isotope cycling in a forested ecosystem     

Chris Holmden  Nicolas Bélanger 《Geochimica et cosmochimica acta》2010,74(3):995-7046

Reports of large Ca isotope fractionations between trees and soils prompted this study of a Boreal forest ecosystem near La Ronge, Saskatchewan, to improve understanding of this phenomenon. The results on five tree species (black spruce, trembling aspen, white spruce, jack pine, balsam poplar) confirm that nutrient Ca uptake by plants favors the light isotopes, thus driving residual Ca in plant available soil pools towards enrichment in the heavy isotopes. Substantial within-tree fraction occurs in tissues formed along the transpiration stream, with low δ⁴⁴Ca values in fine roots (2 mm), intermediate values in stemwood, and high values in foliage. Separation factors between different plant tissues are similar between species, but the initial fractionation step in the tips of the fine roots is species specific, and/or sensitive to the local soil environment. Soil water δ⁴⁴Ca values appear to increase with depth to at least 35 cm below the top of the forest floor, which is close to the deepest level of fine roots. The heavy plant fractionated signature of Ca in the finely rooted upper soils filters downward where it is retained on ion exchange sites, leached into groundwater, and discharged into surface waters.The relationship between Ca uptake by tree fine roots and the pattern of δ⁴⁴Ca enrichment with soil depth was modeled for two Ca pools: the forest floor (litter) and the underlying (upper B) mineral soil. Six study plots were investigated along two hillside toposequences trending upwards from a first order stream. We used allometric equations describing the Ca distribution in boreal tree species to calculate weighted average δ⁴⁴Ca values for the stands in each plot and estimate Ca uptake rates. The δ⁴⁴Ca value of precipitation was measured, and soil weathering signatures deduced, by acid leaching of lower B mineral soils. Steady state equations were used to derive a set of model Ca fluxes and fractionation factors for each plot. The model reproduces the increase in δ⁴⁴Ca with depth found in forest floor and upper B soil waters. Transient model runs show that the forest Ca cycle is sensitive to changes in plant Ca uptake rate, such as would occur during ontogeny or disturbance. Accordingly, secular records of δ⁴⁴Ca in tree ring cellulose have the potential to monitor changes in the forest Ca cycle through time, thus providing a new tool for evaluating natural and anthropogenic impacts on forest health. Another model run shows that by changing the size of the isotope fractionation factor and adjusting for differences in forest productivity, that the range in Ca isotope fractionation in forested ecosystems reported in the literature, thus far, is reproduced. As a quantitative tool, the Ca cycling model produces a reasonable set of relative Ca fluxes for the La Ronge site, consistent with Environment Canada’s measurements for wet deposition in the region and simulated Ca release from soil mineral weathering using the PROFILE model. But the sensitivity of the model is limited by the small range of fractionation observed in this boreal shield setting of ∼1‰, which limits accuracy. If the model were applied to a site with a greater range in δ⁴⁴Ca values among the principal Ca fluxes, it is capable of producing robust and reliable estimations of Ca fluxes that are otherwise difficult to measure in forested ecosystems.  相似文献   

Re-mapping regulatory space: The new governance of Australian dairying     

Jacqui Dibden  Chris Cocklin 《Geoforum》2010,41(3):410-422

Despite questions currently raised about the future of neoliberalism, it remains embedded within Australian agricultural policy and practice. This paper explores the strengths and limitations of mechanisms contributing to neoliberalism’s survival through a close examination of the restructuring of Australian agricultural production and governance processes under the influence of both globalising impulses and adherence to neoliberal strategies. We trace the changes in governance flowing from the dismantling of regulatory structures in the Australian dairy industry, and the creation of new forms of governance that have both facilitated this transition and dealt with its adverse, often unintended, consequences. The changing governance of Australian dairying is analysed through the lens of three arenas of governance: state, industry and place. Drought has played an important part in re-spacialising dairying and re-shaping the balance between farmers and industry, demonstrating the contingency at play in emerging governance structures. This study of processes of change within the highly export-oriented dairy sector of Australia focuses attention on resistance and on some of the messy actualities of the interplay between state, place and industry - and nature - in neoliberal agri-food governance.  相似文献   

Recent Developments in the Analysis of the Black Mat Layer and Cosmic Impact at 12.8 ka     

William C. Mahaney  Leslie Keiser  David H. Krinsley  Allen West  Randy Dirszowsky  Chris C.R. Allen  Pedro Costa 《Geografiska Annaler: Series A, Physical Geography》2014,96(1):99-111

Recent analyses of sediment samples from “black mat” sites in South America and Europe support previous interpretations of an ET impact event that reversed the Late Glacial demise of LGM ice during the Bølling Allerød warming, resulting in a resurgence of ice termed the Younger Dryas (YD) cooling episode. The breakup or impact of a cosmic vehicle at the YD boundary coincides with the onset of a 1‐kyr long interval of glacial resurgence, one of the most studied events of the Late Pleistocene. New analytical databases reveal a corpus of data indicating that the cosmic impact was a real event, most possibly a cosmic airburst from Earth's encounter with the Taurid Complex comet or unknown asteroid, an event that led to cosmic fragments exploding interhemispherically over widely dispersed areas, including the northern Andes of Venezuela and the Alps on the Italian/French frontier. While the databases in the two areas differ somewhat, the overall interpretation is that microtextural evidence in weathering rinds and in sands of associated paleosols and glaciofluvial deposits carry undeniable attributes of melted glassy carbon and Fe spherules, planar deformation features, shock‐melted and contorted quartz, occasional transition and platinum metals, and brecciated and impacted minerals of diverse lithologies. In concert with other black mat localities in the Western USA, the Netherlands, coastal France, Syria, Central Asia, Peru, Argentina and Mexico, it appears that a widespread cosmic impact by an asteroid or comet is responsible for deposition of the black mat at the onset of the YD glacial event. Whether or not the impact caused a 1‐kyr interval of glacial climate depends upon whether or not the Earth had multiple centuries‐long episodic encounters with the Taurid Complex or asteroid remnants; impact‐related changes in microclimates sustained climatic forcing sufficient to maintain positive mass balances in the reformed ice; and/or inertia in the Atlantic thermohaline circulation system persisted for 1 kyr.  相似文献   

CANNABIS: Ethnobotany and Evolution     

Chris S. Duvall 《Geographical review》2014,104(4):523-526

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Transient climate changes in a perturbed parameter ensemble of emissions-driven earth system model simulations     

James M. Murphy  Ben B. B. Booth  Chris A. Boulton  Robin T. Clark  Glen R. Harris  Jason A. Lowe  David M. H. Sexton 《Climate Dynamics》2014,43(9-10):2855-2885

We describe results from a 57-member ensemble of transient climate change simulations, featuring simultaneous perturbations to 54 parameters in the atmosphere, ocean, sulphur cycle and terrestrial ecosystem components of an earth system model (ESM). These emissions-driven simulations are compared against the CMIP3 multi-model ensemble of physical climate system models, used extensively to inform previous assessments of regional climate change, and also against emissions-driven simulations from ESMs contributed to the CMIP5 archive. Members of our earth system perturbed parameter ensemble (ESPPE) are competitive with CMIP3 and CMIP5 models in their simulations of historical climate. In particular, they perform reasonably well in comparison with HadGEM2-ES, a more sophisticated and expensive earth system model contributed to CMIP5. The ESPPE therefore provides a computationally cost-effective tool to explore interactions between earth system processes. In response to a non-intervention emissions scenario, the ESPPE simulates distributions of future regional temperature change characterised by wide ranges, and warm shifts, compared to those of CMIP3 models. These differences partly reflect the uncertain influence of global carbon cycle feedbacks in the ESPPE. In addition, the regional effects of interactions between different earth system feedbacks, particularly involving physical and ecosystem processes, shift and widen the ESPPE spread in normalised patterns of surface temperature and precipitation change in many regions. Significant differences from CMIP3 also arise from the use of parametric perturbations (rather than a multimodel ensemble) to represent model uncertainties, and this is also the case when ESPPE results are compared against parallel emissions-driven simulations from CMIP5 ESMs. When driven by an aggressive mitigation scenario, the ESPPE and HadGEM2-ES reveal significant but uncertain impacts in limiting temperature increases during the second half of the twenty-first century. Emissions-driven simulations create scope for development of errors in properties that were previously prescribed in coupled ocean–atmosphere models, such as historical CO₂ concentrations and vegetation distributions. In this context, historical intra-ensemble variations in the airborne fraction of CO₂ emissions, and in summer soil moisture in northern hemisphere continental regions, are shown to be potentially useful constraints, subject to uncertainties in the relevant observations. Our results suggest that future climate-related risks can be assessed more comprehensively by updating projection methodologies to support formal combination of emissions-driven perturbed parameter and multi-model earth system model simulations with suitable observational constraints. This would provide scenarios underpinned by a more complete representation of the chain of uncertainties from anthropogenic emissions to future climate outcomes.  相似文献   

Cloud computing and virtualization within the regional climate model and evaluation system     

Chris A. Mattmann  Duane Waliser  Jinwon Kim  Cameron Goodale  Andrew Hart  Paul Ramirez  Dan Crichton  Paul Zimdars  Maziyar Boustani  Kyo Lee  Paul Loikith  Kim Whitehall  Chris Jack  Bruce Hewitson 《Earth Science Informatics》2014,7(1):1-12

The Regional Climate Model Evaluation System (RCMES) facilitates the rapid, flexible inclusion of NASA observations into climate model evaluations. RCMES provides two fundamental components. A database (RCMED) is a scalable point-oriented cloud database used to elastically store remote sensing observations and to make them available using a space time query interface. The analysis toolkit (RCMET) is a Python-based toolkit that can be delivered as a cloud virtual machine, or as an installer package deployed using Python Buildout to users in order to allow for temporal and spatial regridding, metrics calculation (RMSE, bias, PDFs, etc.) and end-user visualization. RCMET is available to users in an “offline”, lone scientist mode based on a virtual machine dynamically constructed with model outputs and observations to evaluate; or on an institution’s computational cluster seated close to the observations and model outputs. We have leveraged RCMES within the content of the Coordinated Regional Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX) project, working with the University of Cape Town and other institutions to compare the model output to NASA remote sensing data; in addition we are also working with the North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program (NARCCAP). In this paper we explain the contribution of cloud computing to RCMES’s specifically describing studies of various cloud databases we evaluated for RCMED, and virtualization toolkits for RCMET, and their potential strengths in delivering user-created dynamic regional climate model evaluation virtual machines for our users.  相似文献   

Post-peak,fluid-mediated modification of granulite facies zircon and monazite in the Trivandrum Block,southern India     

Richard J. M. Taylor  Chris Clark  Ian C. W. Fitzsimons  M. Santosh  M. Hand  Noreen Evans  Brad McDonald 《Contributions to Mineralogy and Petrology》2014,168(2):1-17

The quarry at Kottavattom in the Trivandrum Block of southern India contains spectacular examples of fluid-assisted alteration of high-grade metamorphic rocks. Garnet-biotite gneiss has undergone a change in mineral assemblage to form submetre scale orthopyroxene-bearing patches, later retrogressed to form an amphibole-bearing lithology. These patches, often referred to as arrested or incipient charnockite, crosscut the original metamorphic foliation and are typically attributed to passage of a low aH₂O fluid through the rock. Whilst this conversion is recognised as a late stage process, little detailed chronological work exists to link it temporally to metamorphism in the region. Zircon and monazite analysed from Kottavattom not only record metamorphism in the Trivandrum Block but also show internal, lobate textures crosscutting the original zoning, consistent with fluid-aided coupled dissolution-reprecipitation during formation of the orthopyroxene-bearing patches. High-grade metamorphism at the quarry occurred between the formation of metamorphic monazite at ~585 Ma and the growth of metamorphic zircon at ~523 Ma. The fluid-assisted alteration of the garnet-biotite gneiss is poorly recorded by altered zircon with only minimal resetting of the U–Pb system, whereas monazite has in some cases undergone complete U–Pb resetting and records an age for fluid infiltration at ~495 Ma. The fluid event therefore places the formation of the altered patches at least 25 Myr after the zircon crystallisation in the garnet-biotite gneiss. The most likely fluid composition causing the modification and U–Pb resetting of zircon and monazite is locally derived hypersaline brine.  相似文献   

The 2dF galaxy redshift survey: clustering properties of radio galaxies     

Manuela Magliocchetti  Steve J. Maddox  Ed Hawkins  John A. Peacock  Joss Bland-Hawthorn  Terry Bridges  Russell Cannon  Shaun Cole  Matthew Colless  Chris Collins  Warrick Couch  Gavin Dalton  Roberto de Propris  Simon P. Driver  George Efstathiou  Richard S. Ellis  Carlos S. Frenk  Karl Glazebrook  Carole A. Jackson  Bryn Jones  Ofer Lahav  Ian Lewis  Stuart Lumsden  Peder Norberg  Bruce A. Peterson  Will Sutherland  Keith Taylor 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2004,350(4):1485-1494

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