Using longwave HIRS radiances to test climate models     

Emma C. Turner  Simon F. B. Tett 《Climate Dynamics》2014,43(3-4):1103-1127

A ‘model-to-radiance’ comparison of simulated brightness temperatures from the Hadley Centre Global Environmental Model 2 with measurements from the High Resolution Infrared Radiation Sounder/4 (HIRS/4) instrument onboard the MetOp-A satellite is presented. For the all-sky, the model overestimates brightness temperatures in the atmospheric window region with the greatest biases over areas associated with deep convective cloud. In contrast to many global climate models, much smaller clear-sky biases are found indicating that model clouds are the dominating source of error. Simulated values in upper atmospheric CO₂ channels approximate observations better as a result of compensating cold biases at the poles and warm biases at lower latitudes, due to a poor representation of the Brewer Dobson circulation in the 38 level ‘low-top’ configuration of the model. Simulated all and clear-sky outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) evaluated against the Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES) and HIRS OLR products reveal good agreement, in part due to cancellation of positive and negative biases. Through physical arguments relating to the spectral energy balance within a cloud, it is suggested that broadband agreement could be the result of a balance between positive window biases and unseen negative biases originating from the water vapour rotational band in the far infrared (not sampled by HIRS).  相似文献   

The 2010/2011 Canterbury earthquakes: context and cause of injury   总被引：1，自引：1，他引：0  

David Johnston  Sarah Standring  Kevin Ronan  Michael Lindell  Thomas Wilson  Jim Cousins  Emma Aldridge  Michael Warne Ardagh  Joanne Margaret Deely  Steven Jensen  Thomas Kirsch  Richard Bissell 《Natural Hazards》2014,73(2):627-637

The aim of this study was to investigate causes of injury during the 2010/2011 Canterbury earthquakes. Data on patients injured during the Darfield (4 September 2010) and Christchurch (22 February 2011) earthquakes were sourced from the New Zealand Accident Compensation Corporation. The total injury burden was analyzed for demography, context of injury, causes of injury, and injury type. Injury context was classified as direct (shaking of the primary earthquake or aftershocks causing unavoidable injuries), action (movement of person during the primary earthquake or aftershocks causing potentially avoidable injuries), and secondary (cause of injury after shaking ceased). Nine categories of injury cause were identified. Three times as many people were injured in the Christchurch earthquake as in the Darfield earthquake (7,171 vs. 2,256). The primary shaking caused approximately two-thirds of the injuries from both quakes. Actions during the primary shaking and aftershocks led to many injuries (51.3 % Darfield and 19.4 % Christchurch). Primary direct caused the highest proportion of injuries during the daytime Christchurch quake (43.6 %). Many people were injured after shaking stopped in both events: 499 (22.1 % Darfield) and 1,881 (26.2 % Christchurch). Most of these people were injured during clean-up (320 (14.2 %) Darfield; 622 (8.7 %) Christchurch). In both earthquakes, more females than males (1,453 vs. 803 Darfield; 4,646 vs. 2,525 Christchurch) were injured (except by masonry, damaged ground, and during clean-up); trip/fall (27.9 % Darfield; 26.1 % Christchurch) was the most common cause of injury; and soft tissue injuries (74.1 % Darfield; 70.4 % Christchurch) was the most common type of injury. This study demonstrated that where people were and their actions during and after earthquakes influenced their risk of injury.  相似文献   

Using attached macroalgae to assess ecological status of British estuaries for the European Water Framework Directive     

Wilkinson M  Wood P  Wells E  Scanlan C 《Marine pollution bulletin》2007,55(1-6):136-150

The EC Water Framework Directive requires that ecological quality be assessed in transitional waters using the abundance and species composition of macroalgae. In estuaries, which form the majority of transitional waters, species composition is not a suitable measure. This arises from two features: (i) there is a continuous, natural change in species composition along the gradient of estuarine conditions which makes it difficult to know where within an estuary the species composition should be assessed, (ii) the inner estuarine macroalgal community of mat-forming species is very tolerant to both natural and anthropogenic stress and species poor which makes it insensitive to environmental variations in terms of species composition. An alternative feature is proposed based on the extent of upstream penetration of perennial fucoid algae. This proposal is founded on a series of case studies of the changes in fucoid limits, within a number of estuaries in the British Isles, consequent upon changes in pollution status over the last three decades. This also has to take into account variations of fucoid penetration owing to natural factors such as range of salinity variation and turbidity. The abundance criterion is taken to mean the absence of macroalgal blooms or "green tides", because general abundance of species is hard to quantify meaningfully in the upper estuarine mat-forming species and in the lower estuary is subject to great variation owing to the physical variability of estuary types.  相似文献   

‘Body training’: Investigating the embodied training choices of/for mothers in West London     

Emma Wainwright  Susan Buckingham  Elodie Marandet  Fiona Smith 《Geoforum》2010,41(3):489-497

Framed by the UK Government’s efforts to combat social exclusion by encouraging a shift from welfare to work through (re)training, this paper explores the types of training courses being offered to and taken by women with young children in West London. Drawing upon qualitative research, the paper explores the actual and desired uptake of ‘body training’ courses among mothers, linked, in part, to the current ‘body work’ skills gap in the local economy. The encouragement given to women and the interest they have in engaging in ‘body training’ is, we suggest, linked to the discursive construction and performance of a highly feminised and, often, maternal identity, which emphasises women’s caring role and the caring self. By probing the body/training nexus through the motivations and choices of mothers in West London the paper raises questions about gender identity and stereotyping in relation to training-for-work policies and the role of training in (re)inforcing the woman-body coupling within Western dualistic thought.  相似文献