Comparison and relative quality assessment of the GLC2000, GLOBCOVER,MODIS and ECOCLIMAP land cover data sets at the African continental scale     

Armel Thibaut Kaptué Tchuenté  Jean-Louis Roujean  Steven M. De Jong 《International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation》2011

Land cover dynamics at the African continental scale is of great importance for global change studies. Actually, four satellite-derived land cover maps of Africa now available, e.g. ECOCLIMAP, GLC2000, MODIS and GLOBCOVER, are based on images acquired in the 2000s. This study aims at stressing the compliances and the discrepancies between these four land cover classifications systems. Each of them used different mapping initiatives and relies on different mapping standards, which supports the present investigation. In order to do a relative comparison of the four maps, a preamble was to reconcile their thematic legends into more aggregated categories after a projection into the same spatial resolution. Results show that the agreement between the four land cover products is between 56 and 69%. While all these land cover datasets show a reasonable agreement in terms of surface types and spatial distribution patterns, mapping of heterogeneous landscapes in the four products is not very successful. Land cover products based on remote sensing imagery can indeed significantly be improved by using smarter algorithms, better timing of image acquisition, improved class definitions. Either will help to improve the accuracy of future land cover maps at the African continental scale. Data producers may use the areas of spatial agreement for training area selection while users might need to verify the information in the areas of disagreement using additional data sources.  相似文献   

The identification of distinct patterns in California temperature trends     

Eugene C. Cordero  Wittaya Kessomkiat  John Abatzoglou  Steven A. Mauget 《Climatic change》2011,108(1-2):357-382

Regional changes in California surface temperatures over the last 80 years are analyzed using station data from the US Historical Climate Network and the National Weather Service Cooperative Network. Statistical analyses using annual and seasonal temperature data over the last 80 years show distinctly different spatial and temporal patterns in trends of maximum temperature (Tmax) compared to trends of minimum temperature (Tmin). For trends computed between 1918 and 2006, the rate of warming in Tmin is greater than that of Tmax. Trends computed since 1970 show an amplified warming rate compared to trends computed from 1918, and the rate of warming is comparable between Tmin and Tmax. This is especially true in the southern deserts, where warming trends during spring (March?CMay) are exceptionally large. While observations show coherent statewide positive trends in Tmin, trends in Tmax vary on finer spatial and temporal scales. Accompanying the observed statewide warming from 1970 to 2006, regional cooling trends in Tmax are observed during winter and summer. These signatures of regional temperature change suggest that a collection of different forcing mechanisms or feedback processes must be present to produce these responses.  相似文献   

Evolution of anthropogenic and biomass burning emissions of air pollutants at global and regional scales during the 1980�C2010 period     

Claire Granier  Bertrand Bessagnet  Tami Bond  Ariela D��Angiola  Hugo Denier van der Gon  Gregory J. Frost  Angelika Heil  Johannes W. Kaiser  Stefan Kinne  Zbigniew Klimont  Silvia Kloster  Jean-Fran?ois Lamarque  Catherine Liousse  Toshihiko Masui  Frederik Meleux  Aude Mieville  Toshimasa Ohara  Jean-Christophe Raut  Keywan Riahi  Martin G. Schultz  Steven J. Smith  Allison Thompson  John van Aardenne  Guido R. van der Werf  Detlef P. van Vuuren 《Climatic change》2011,109(1-2):163-190

Several different inventories of global and regional anthropogenic and biomass burning emissions are assessed for the 1980?C2010 period. The species considered in this study are carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide and black carbon. The inventories considered include the ACCMIP historical emissions developed in support of the simulations for the IPCC AR5 assessment. Emissions for 2005 and 2010 from the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) are also included. Large discrepancies between the global and regional emissions are identified, which shows that there is still no consensus on the best estimates for surface emissions of atmospheric compounds. At the global scale, anthropogenic emissions of CO, NO_x and SO₂ show the best agreement for most years, although agreement does not necessarily mean that uncertainty is low. The agreement is low for BC emissions, particularly in the period prior to 2000. The best consensus is for NO_x emissions for all periods and all regions, except for China, where emissions in 1980 and 1990 need to be better defined. Emissions of CO need better quantification in the USA and India for all periods; in Central Europe, the evolution of emissions during the past two decades needs to be better determined. The agreement between the different SO₂ emissions datasets is rather good for the USA, but better quantification is needed elsewhere, particularly for Central Europe, India and China. The comparisons performed in this study show that the use of RCP8.5 for the extension of the ACCMIP inventory beyond 2000 is reasonable, until more global or regional estimates become available. Concerning biomass burning emissions, most inventories agree within 50?C80%, depending on the year and season. The large differences between biomass burning inventories are due to differences in the estimates of burned areas from the different available products, as well as in the amount of biomass burned.  相似文献   

On the coupling between vegetation and the atmosphere     

Isabella M. Angelini  Michael Garstang  Robert E. Davis  Bruce Hayden  David R. Fitzjarrald  David R. Legates  Steven Greco  Stephen Macko  Vickie Connors 《Theoretical and Applied Climatology》2011,105(1-2):243-261

Recent studies suggest that vegetation can drive large-scale atmospheric circulations and substantially influence the hydrologic cycle. We present observational evidence to quantify the extent of coupling between vegetation and the overlying atmosphere. Within the context of vegetation–atmospheric interactions, we reanalyze existing climatological data from springtime leaf emergence, emissivity, dew point temperatures, and historical records of precipitation and forest coverage. We construct new rainfall transects based on a robust global climatology. Using isotopic analysis of precipitation, we find that rain in Amazonia comes primarily from large-scale weather systems coupling interior regions to the ocean and is not directly driven by local evaporation. We find that changes in vegetative cover and state influence the temperature and moisture content of the surface and atmospheric boundary layer but are not reflected in observable precipitation changes. This analysis reaffirms the view that changes in precipitation over continental reaches are a product of complex processes only partly influenced but not controlled by local water sources or vegetation.  相似文献   

High-resolution subtropical summer precipitation derived from dynamical downscaling of the NCEP/DOE reanalysis: how much small-scale information is added by a regional model?     

Young-Kwon Lim  Lydia B. Stefanova  Steven C. Chan  Siegfried D. Schubert  James J. O��Brien 《Climate Dynamics》2011,37(5-6):1061-1080

This study assesses the regional-scale summer precipitation produced by the dynamical downscaling of analyzed large-scale fields. The main goal of this study is to investigate how much the regional model adds smaller scale precipitation information that the large-scale fields do not resolve. The modeling region for this study covers the southeastern United States (Florida, Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, and North Carolina) where the summer climate is subtropical in nature, with a heavy influence of regional-scale convection. The coarse resolution (2.5° latitude/longitude) large-scale atmospheric variables from the National Center for Environmental Prediction (NCEP)/DOE reanalysis (R2) are downscaled using the NCEP/Environmental Climate Prediction Center regional spectral model (RSM) to produce precipitation at 20?km resolution for 16 summer seasons (1990?C2005). The RSM produces realistic details in the regional summer precipitation at 20?km resolution. Compared to R2, the RSM-produced monthly precipitation shows better agreement with observations. There is a reduced wet bias and a more realistic spatial pattern of the precipitation climatology compared with the interpolated R2 values. The root mean square errors of the monthly R2 precipitation are reduced over 93% (1,697) of all the grid points in the five states (1,821). The temporal correlation also improves over 92% (1,675) of all grid points such that the domain-averaged correlation increases from 0.38 (R2) to 0.55 (RSM). The RSM accurately reproduces the first two observed eigenmodes, compared with the R2 product for which the second mode is not properly reproduced. The spatial patterns for wet versus dry summer years are also successfully simulated in RSM. For shorter time scales, the RSM resolves heavy rainfall events and their frequency better than R2. Correlation and categorical classification (above/near/below average) for the monthly frequency of heavy precipitation days is also significantly improved by the RSM.  相似文献   

Investigation of Small‐Scale Preferential Flow with a Forced‐Gradient Tracer Test     

Marco Bianchi  Chunmiao Zheng  Geoffrey R. Tick  Steven M. Gorelick 《Ground water》2011,49(4):503-514

A new tracer experiment (referred to as MADE‐5) was conducted at the well‐known Macrodispersion Experiment (MADE) site to investigate the influence of small‐scale mass‐transfer and dispersion processes on well‐to‐well transport. The test was performed under dipole forced‐gradient flow conditions and concentrations were monitored in an extraction well and in two multilevel sampler (MLS) wells located at 6, 1.5, and 3.75 m from the source, respectively. The shape of the breakthrough curve (BTC) measured at the extraction well is strongly asymmetric showing a rapidly arriving peak and an extensive late‐time tail. The BTCs measured at seven different depths in the two MLSs are radically different from one another in terms of shape, arrival times, and magnitude of the concentration peaks. All of these characteristics indicate the presence of a complex network of preferential flow pathways controlling solute transport at the test site. Field‐experimental data were also used to evaluate two transport models: a stochastic advection‐dispersion model (ADM) based on conditional multivariate Gaussian realizations of the hydraulic conductivity field and a dual‐domain single‐rate (DDSR) mass‐transfer model based on a deterministic reconstruction of the aquifer heterogeneity. Unlike the stochastic ADM realizations, the DDSR accurately predicted the magnitude of the concentration peak and its arrival time (within a 1.5% error). For the multilevel BTCs between the injection and extraction wells, neither model reproduced the observed values, indicating that a high‐resolution characterization of the aquifer heterogeneity at the subdecimeter scale would be needed to fully capture 3D transport details.  相似文献   

Lessons Learned from 25 Years of Research at the MADE Site   总被引：2，自引：0，他引：2  

Chunmiao Zheng  Marco Bianchi  Steven M. Gorelick 《Ground water》2011,49(5):649-662

Field studies at well‐instrumented research sites have provided extensive data sets and important insights essential for development and testing of transport theories and mathematical models. This paper provides an overview of over 25 years of research and lessons learned at one of such field research sites on the Columbus Air Force Base in Mississippi, commonly known as the Macrodispersion Experiment (MADE) site. Since the mid‐1980s, field data from the MADE site have been used extensively by researchers around the world to explore complex contaminant transport phenomena in highly heterogeneous porous media. Results from field investigations and modeling analyses suggested that connected networks of small‐scale preferential flow paths and relative flow barriers exert dominant control on solute transport processes. The classical advection‐dispersion model was shown to inadequately represent plume‐scale transport, while the dual‐domain mass transfer model was found to reproduce the primary observed plume characteristics. The MADE site has served as a valuable natural observatory for contaminant transport studies where new observations have led to better understanding and improved models have sprung out analysis of new data.  相似文献   

Fault Roughness at Seismogenic Depths from LIDAR and Photogrammetric Analysis     

Andrea Bistacchi  W. Ashley Griffith  Steven A. F. Smith  Giulio Di Toro  Richard Jones  Stefan Nielsen 《Pure and Applied Geophysics》2011,168(12):2345-2363

Fault surface roughness is a principal factor influencing earthquake mechanics, and particularly rupture initiation, propagation, and arrest. However, little data currently exist on fault surfaces at seismogenic depths. Here, we investigate the roughness of slip surfaces from the seismogenic strike-slip Gole Larghe Fault Zone, exhumed from ca. 10 km depth. The fault zone exploited pre-existing joints and is hosted in granitoid rocks of the Adamello batholith (Italian Alps). Individual seismogenic slip surfaces generally show a first phase of cataclasite production, and a second phase with beautifully preserved pseudotachylytes of variable thickness. We determined the geometry of fault traces over almost five orders of magnitude using terrestrial laser-scanning (LIDAR, ca. 500 to <1 m scale), and 3D mosaics of high-resolution rectified digital photographs (10 m to ca. 1 mm scale). LIDAR scans and photomosaics were georeferenced in 3D using a Differential Global Positioning System, allowing detailed multiscale reconstruction of fault traces in Gocad^®. The combination of LIDAR and high-resolution photos has the advantage, compared with classical LIDAR-only surveys, that the spatial resolution of rectified photographs can be very high (up to 0.2 mm/pixel in this study), allowing for detailed outcrop characterization. Fourier power spectrum analysis of the fault traces revealed a self-affine behaviour over 3–5 orders of magnitude, with Hurst exponents ranging between 0.6 and 0.8. Parameters from Fourier analysis have been used to reconstruct synthetic 3D fault surfaces with an equivalent roughness by means of 2D Fourier synthesis. Roughness of pre-existing joints is in a typical range for this kind of structure. Roughness of faults at small scale (1 m to 1 mm) shows a clear genetic relationship with the roughness of precursor joints, and some anisotropy in the self-affine Hurst exponent. Roughness of faults at scales larger than net slip (>1–10 m) is not anisotropic and less evolved than at smaller scales. These observations are consistent with an evolution of roughness, due to fault surface processes, that takes place only at scales smaller or comparable to the observed net slip. Differences in roughness evolution between shallow and deeper faults, the latter showing evidences of seismic activity, are interpreted as the result of different weakening versus induration processes, which also result in localization versus delocalization of deformation in the fault zone. From a methodological point of view, the technique used here is advantageous over direct measurements of exposed fault surfaces in that it preserves, in cross-section, all of the structures which contribute to fault roughness, and removes any subjectivity introduced by the need to distinguish roughness of original slip surfaces from roughness induced by secondary weathering processes. Moreover, offsets can be measured by means of suitable markers and fault rocks are preserved, hence their thickness, composition and structural features can be characterised, providing an integrated dataset which sheds new light on mechanisms of roughness evolution with slip and concomitant fault rock production.  相似文献   

Principal Slip Zones in Limestone: Microstructural Characterization and Implications for the Seismic Cycle (Tre Monti Fault, Central Apennines, Italy)     

Steven A. F. Smith  Andrea Billi  Giulio Di Toro  Richard Spiess 《Pure and Applied Geophysics》2011,168(12):2365-2393

Earthquakes in central Italy, and in other areas worldwide, often nucleate within and rupture through carbonates in the upper crust. During individual earthquake ruptures, most fault displacement is thought to be accommodated by thin principal slip zones. This study presents detailed microstructural observations of the slip zones of the seismically active Tre Monti normal fault zone. All of the slip zones cut limestone, and geological constraints indicate exhumation from <2?km depth, where ambient temperatures are ?100°C. Scanning electron microscope observations suggest that the slip zones are composed of 100% calcite. The slip zones of secondary faults in the damage zone contain protocataclastic and cataclastic fabrics that are cross-cut by systematic fracture networks and stylolite dissolution surfaces. The slip zone of the principal fault has much more microstructural complexity, and contains a 2?C10?mm thick ultracataclasite that lies immediately beneath the principal slip surface. The ultracataclasite itself is internally zoned; 200?C300???m-thick ultracataclastic sub-layers record extreme localization of slip. Syn-tectonic calcite vein networks spatially associated with the sub-layers suggest fluid involvement in faulting. The ultracataclastic sub-layers preserve compelling microstructural evidence of fluidization, and also contain peculiar rounded grains consisting of a central (often angular) clast wrapped by a laminated outer cortex of ultra-fine-grained calcite. These ??clast-cortex grains?? closely resemble those produced during layer fluidization in other settings, including the basal detachments of catastrophic landslides and saturated high-velocity friction experiments on clay-bearing gouges. An overprinting foliation is present in the slip zone of the principal fault, and electron backscatter diffraction analyses indicate the presence of a weak calcite crystallographic preferred orientation (CPO) in the fine-grained matrix. The calcite c-axes are systematically inclined in the direction of shear. We suggest that fluidization of ultracataclastic sub-layers and formation of clast-cortex grains within the principal slip zone occurred at high strain rates during propagation of seismic ruptures whereas development of an overprinting CPO occurred by intergranular pressure solution during post-seismic creep. Further work is required to document the range of microstructures in localized slip zones that cross-cut different lithologies, and to compare natural slip zone microstructures with those produced in controlled deformation experiments.  相似文献   

Sensitivity of multi-gas climate policy to emission metrics     

Steven J. Smith  Joseph Karas  Jae Edmonds  Jiyong Eom  Andrew Mizrahi 《Climatic change》2013,117(4):663-675

The Global Warming Potential (GWP) index is currently used to create CO₂-equivalent emission totals for multi-gas greenhouse targets. While many alternatives have been proposed, it is not possible to uniquely define a metric that captures the different impacts of emissions of substances with widely disparate atmospheric lifetimes, which leads to a wide range of possible index values. We examine the sensitivity of emissions and climate outcomes to the value of the index used to aggregate methane emissions using a technologically detailed integrated assessment model. The methane index is varied between 4 and 70, with a central value of 21, which is the 100-year GWP value currently used in policy contexts. We find that the sensitivity to index value is, at most, 10–18 % in terms of methane emissions but only 2–3 % in terms of the maximum total radiative forcing change, with larger regional emissions differences in some cases. The choice of index also affects estimates of the cost of meeting a given end of century forcing target, with total two-gas mitigation cost increasing by 7–9 % if the index is increased, and increasing in most scenarios from 4 to 23 % if the index is lowered, with a slight (1 %) decrease in total cost in one case. We find that much of the methane abatement occurs as the induced effect of CO₂ abatement rather than explicit abatement, which is one reason why climate outcomes are relatively insensitive to the index value. We also find that the near-term climate benefit of increasing the methane index is small.  相似文献