Modelling the spatial and temporal distribution of rainfall: a case study in the wet and dry tropics of North East Australia     

A.K.L. Johnson 《The Australian geographer》2004,35(1):39-57

Rainfall regimes with strong spatial and temporal variation are characteristic of many coastal regions of north and eastern Australia. In coastal regions of north eastern Australia, regimes vary considerably over short distances. This occurs because of changes in local topography, including the height and orientation of mountain ranges and the direction of the coastline with respect to the prevailing moist south east air stream. Northern Australia experiences a tropical monsoon climate with rainfall occurring predominantly during the summer months. Areas with a closer proximity to the coast typically experience the heavier rainfalls. While networks of rainfall gauges have been established and continuous records are available for most of these stations from the 1890s, their low distribution density relative to the complexity of rainfall pattern they are required to represent means that there remains a poor understanding of the spatial and temporal distribution of rainfall in the wet tropics. An enhanced knowledge of rainfall distribution in both space and time has the potential to deliver significant economic and environmental benefits to managers of natural resources. This paper reports on the application of a technique for estimating mean annual and mean monthly rainfall across the Herbert River catchment of north east Australia's dry and wet tropics. The technique utilises thin plate smoothing splines to incorporate both location and elevation into estimates of rainfall distribution. We demonstrate that the method can be applied successfully at the meso scale and within the domain of routinely available data. As such, the method has broad relevance for decision making.  相似文献   

Possible Impacts of the Arctic Oscillation on the Interdecadal Variation of Summer Monsoon Rainfall in East Asia   总被引：18，自引：5，他引：18  

JU Jianhu  Lü Junmei  CAO Jie  REN Juzhang 《大气科学进展》2005,22(1):39-48

The influences of the wintertime AO (Arctic Oscillation) on the interdecadal variation of summer monsoon rainfall in East Asia were examined. An interdecadal abrupt change was found by the end of the 1970s in the variation of the AO index and the leading principal component time series of the summer rainfall in East Asia, The rainfall anomaly changed from below normal to above normal in central China, the southern part of northeastern China and the Korean peninsula around 1978. However,the opposite interdecadal variation was found in the rainfall anomaly in North China and South China.The interdecadal variation of summer rainfall is associated with the weakening of the East Asia summer monsoon circulation. It is indicated that the interdecadal variation of the AO exerts an influence on the weakening of the monsoon circulation. The recent trend in the AO toward its high-index polarity during the past two decades plays important roles in the land-sea contrast anomalies and wintertime precipitation anomaly. The mid- and high-latitude regions of the Asian continent are warming, while the low-latitude regions are cooling in winter and spring along with the AO entering its high-index polarity after the late 1970s. In the meantime, the precipitation over the Tibetan Plateau and South China is excessive, implying an increase of soil moisture. The cooling tendency of the land in the southern part of Asia will persist until summer because of the memory of soil moisture. So the warming of the Asian continent is relatively slow in summer. Moreover, the Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean which are located southward and eastward of the Asian land, are warming from winter to summer. This suggests that the contrast between the land and sea is decreased in summer. The interdecadal decrease of the land-sea heat contrast finally leads to the weakening of the East Asia summer monsoon circulation.  相似文献   

黄河三门峡水库—小浪底水库间夏季降水量年际变化及水汽形势分析     

张胜军  陈怀亮  翁永辉 《气象科技》2005,(Z1)

利用1960~1999年全国600个站月平均降水资料,对黄河三门峡水库—小浪底水库间的夏季降水总量年际变化进行了统计分析,并应用功率谱诊断方法提取了夏季各月降水的振荡周期。在此基础上,选取了黄河三门峡水库—小浪底水库间降水量多与少的年份,利用NCEP再分析资料研究了其上空的水汽变化以及水汽输送量变化。结果表明,黄河三门峡水库—小浪底水库间降水量多的年份,其上空为较为明显的水汽辐合;降水量比较少的年份,其上空为明显的水汽辐散。选取多雨年(1982年)及少雨年(1997年),结合NCEP再分析资料以及TBB资料,进一步验证了上述结论。  相似文献   

Mesoscale Diagnosis of a Torrential Rainfall Caused by a Tropical Depression     

YU Hui  LIANG Xudong  DUAN Yihong  QI Liangbo 《Acta Meteorologica Sinica》2005,19(2):226-230

On August 5, 2001, Shanghai was struck by a torrential rainfall due to the passage of a tropical depression (TD). The rainfall intensity has been the strongest in recent 50 years. In this paper, a set of mesoscale re-analyses data and the planetary boundary layer observation from a wind profiler are used to understand the possible mechanism of such a heavy rain. Results show that the outburst of a southerly jet in the lower atmosphere triggered the explosive development of cyclonically vertical vorticity in the region with steep potential temperature surfaces in front of the TD; while the cyclonic vorticity increased notably at higher levels due to the small atmospheric vertical stability of westerly currents in the vicinity of Shanghai. The simultaneous sharp development of cyclonic vorticity at different levels should be the main cause for the torrential rainfall.  相似文献   

The role of vegetation patterns in structuring runoff and sediment fluxes in drylands   总被引：4，自引：0，他引：4  

Juan Puigdefbregas 《地球表面变化过程与地形》2005,30(2):133-147

The dynamics of vegetation‐driven spatial heterogeneity (VDSH) and its function in structuring runoff and sediment fluxes have received increased attention from both geomorphological and ecological perspectives, particularly in arid regions with sparse vegetation cover. This paper reviews the recent findings in this area obtained from field evidence and numerical simulation experiments, and outlines their implications for soil erosion assessment. VDSH is often observed at two scales, individual plant clumps and stands of clumps. At the patch scale, the local outcomes of vegetated patches on soil erodibility and hydraulic soil properties are well established. They involve greater water storage capacity as well as increased organic carbon and nutrient inputs. These effects operate together with an enhanced capacity for the interception of water and windborne resources, and an increased biological activity that accelerates breakdown of plant litter and nutrient turnover rates. This suite of relationships, which often involve positive feedback mechanisms, creates vegetated patches that are increasingly different from nearby bare ground areas. By this way a mosaic builds up with bare ground and vegetated patches coupled together, respectively, as sources and sinks of water, sediments and nutrients. At the stand scale within‐storm temporal variability of rainfall intensity controls reinfiltration of overland flow and its decay with slope length. At moderate rainfall intensity, this factor interacts with the spatial structure of VDSH and the mechanism of overland flow generation. Reinfiltration is greater in small‐grained VDSH and topsoil saturation excess overland flow. Available information shows that VDSH structures of sources and sinks of water and sediments evolve dynamically with hillslope fluxes and tune their spatial configurations to them. Rainfall simulation experiments in large plots show that coarsening VDSH leads to significantly greater erosion rates even under heavy rainfall intensity because of the flow concentration and its velocity increase. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.  相似文献   

The effective number of cycles of earthquake ground motion     

Jonathan Hancock  Julian J. Bommer 《地震工程与结构动力学》2005,34(6):637-664

The seismic response of any system that accumulates damage under cyclic loading is dependent not only on the maximum amplitude of the motion but also its duration. This is explicitly recognized in methods for estimating the liquefaction potential of soil deposits. Many researchers have proposed that the effective number of cycles of the ground motion is a more robust indicator of the destructive capacity of the shaking than the duration. However, as is the case with strong‐motion duration, there is no universally accepted approach to determining the effective number of cycles of motion, and the different methods that have been proposed can give widely varying results for a particular accelerogram. Definitions of the effective number of cycles of motion are reviewed, classified and compared. Measurements are found to differ particularly for accelerograms with broad‐banded frequency content, which contain a significant number of non‐zero crossing peaks. The key seismological parameters influencing the number of cycles of motion and associated equations for predicting this quantity for future earthquakes are identified. Correlations between cycle counts and different duration measures are explored and found to be rather poor in the absence of additional parameters. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.  相似文献   

Penny-shaped fractures revisited     

V. Grechka 《Studia Geophysica et Geodaetica》2005,49(3):365-381

All methods of seismic characterization of fractured reservoirs are based on effective media theories that relate geometrical and material properties of fractures and surrounding rock to the effective stiffnesses. In exploration seismology, the first-order theory of Hudson is the most popular. It describes the effective model caused by the presence of a single set of thin, aligned vertical fractures in otherwise isotropic rock. This model is known to be transversely isotropic with a horizontal symmetry axis (HTI). Following the theory, one can invert the effective anisotropy for the crack density and type of fluid infill of fractures, the quantities of great importance for reservoir appraisal and management.Here I compute effective media numerically using the finite element method. I deliberately construct models that contain a single set of vertical, ellipsoidal, non-intersecting and non-interconnected fractures to check validity of the first-order Hudson’s theory and establish the limits of its applicability. Contrary to conventional wisdom that Hudson’s results are accurate up to crack density e ≈ 0.1, I show that they consistently overestimate the magnitudes of all effective anisotropic coefficients ε^(V), δ^(V), and γ^(V). Accuracy of theoretically derived anisotropy depends on the type of fluid infill and typically deteriorates as e grows. While the theory gives | ε^(V)|, |δ^(V)|, |γ^(V)| and close to the upper bound of the corresponding numerically obtained values for randomly distributed liquid-filled fractures, theoretical predictions of ε^(V), δ^(V) are not supported by numerical computations when the cracks are dry. This happens primarily because the first-order Hudson’s theory makes no attempt to account for fracture interaction which contributes to the final result much stronger for gas- than for liquid-filled cracks. I find that Mori-Tanaka’s theory is superior to Hudson’s for all examined crack densities and both types of fluid infill.The paper was presented at the 11th International Workshop on Seismic Anisotropy (11IWSA) held in St. John’s, Canada in 2004.  相似文献   

关于岩石圈有效弹性厚度的地质理解   总被引：4，自引：0，他引：4       下载免费PDF全文

付永涛  范守志  施小斌 《地质科学》2005,40(4):585-593

简要回顾了岩石圈均衡理论的发展及岩石圈区域均衡和挠曲理论在岩石圈动力学研究中起的作用,阐述岩石圈有效弹性厚度(Te)的概念和特征。强调Te的研究是地质学和地球物理学的紧密结合,即通过岩石圈挠曲理论和区域均衡原理,对地形和重力资料进行谱分析计算,来获取岩石圈的物理性质信息。计算的Te(和相应的挠曲刚度)是岩石圈等效的强度,与爆破地震、地震层析成像和大地电磁测深等方法观测到的岩石圈和地壳厚度不同,它们之间只有通过岩石圈的屈服刚度包络面(YSE)才能比较。大洋和大陆岩石圈YSE的理论计算,表明Te值显著小于地震学的地壳和岩石圈厚度。尤其对于大陆岩石圈,地壳厚度、热年龄和应变率均可显著影响岩石圈的强度。本文还以滇西为实例介绍了对相干值曲线计算的新认识和当前岩石圈Te研究的最新趋势。  相似文献   

Effect of suction on the mechanical behaviour of iron ore rock   总被引：1，自引：0，他引：1  

Dragan Grgic  Richard Giot  Franoise Homand  Albert Giraud 《国际地质力学数值与分析法杂志》2005,29(8):789-827

The effect of suction on the behaviour of iron ore has been studied from both physical and mechanical points of view. The porosity and the suction phenomena have been analysed using different experimental techniques. Uniaxial compressive tests on partially saturated samples have shown that the suction is responsible for strength and cohesion improvement. Considering the theory of partially saturated porous soils of Coussy and Dangla (Mécanique des sols non saturés (2002 edn). Hermès Science: 2002; 390), we have proposed a constitutive law for partially saturated iron ore. The real increase in the apparent cohesion due to the capillary attraction forces is overestimated if the yield function is written in terms of effective stresses. The effect of the capillary cohesion has been modelled with a function in the expression of the apparent cohesion of the yield function. The effect of suction on the mechanical behaviour has been represented in the effective stresses space and in the total stresses space like the Alonso model (Géotechnique 1990; 40 :405–430). Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.  相似文献   

Quantitative assessment on the influence of heavy rainfall on the crystalline schist landslide by monitoring system -case study on Zentoku landslide, Japan   总被引：2，自引：1，他引：2  

Yong Hong  Hiromasa Hiura  Kazuo Shino  Kyoji Sassa  Hiroshi Fukuoka 《Landslides》2005,2(1):31-41

On Shikoku Island, which is one of the four main islands of Japan, a large number of large-scale crystalline schist landslides have been revealed and are being monitored by an observation system. Seasonal heavy rainfall is the most active meteorological factor that can threaten the stability of this kind of site-specific landslide. In this paper, on the basis of the study of the rainfall-related behavior of a typical crystalline schist landslide, the Zentoku landslide, by analyzing the precisely and continuously observed piezometric and movement data, a method was developed to quantitatively assess the effect of heavy rainfall on a large-scale landslide. The results indicated that heavy rainfall-induced landslide displacement shows good correlation with the variation of groundwater levels. Variations of groundwater level have been simulated with the use of a tank model. The simulation using this model permits the change in water levels for future rainfall events to be predicted. By combining the predicted results with the empirical relation between displacements and water levels, rainfall-induced landslide movement during extreme rainfall events can be estimated in advance. The effect of heavy rainfall on sliding behavior can be quantified in terms of the change in displacement. Thus warning information or advisories for the local residents can be provided.  相似文献