A combined numerical–empirical method to calculate finite-time Lyapunov exponents from experimental time series with application to vessel capsizing     

Leigh McCue  Armin Troesch 《Ocean Engineering》2006,33(13):1796-1813

This paper presents a method to calculate finite-time Lyapunov exponents (FTLEs) for experimental time series using numerical simulation to approximate the local Jacobian of the system at each time step. This combined numerical–experimental approach to the calculation of FTLE is applicable to any physical system which can be numerically approximated. By way of example, the method is applied to the problem of vessel capsize.  相似文献   

Evolution of the spin of Venus   总被引：1，自引：0，他引：1  

J. McCue  J. R. Dormand 《Earth, Moon, and Planets》1993,63(3):209-225

Evolutionary sequences of the Venusian sidereal rotation period, and of its obliquity, under the action of solar gravitational torques on the body of the planet and on its atmosphere are here presented. They show that Venus initial configuration in the early history of the solar system may well have been of rotation period between 33 and 48 days with an angle of obliquity of about 170°.  相似文献   

How a wet tropical rainforest copes with repeated volcanic destruction     

Leigh C.F. Jago  William E. Boyd 《Quaternary Research》2005,64(3):399-406

The Holocene Period for the province of West New Britain, Papua New Guinea, is characterised by periodic catastrophic volcanism. The region is mantled in dense wet tropical rainforest, and has been occupied by people since the Pleistocene. Analyses of peat from two nearby sites within a lowland rainforest environment provide us with a macro-level landscape account of the periodic destruction and recovery of the coastal forests during seven periods of volcanic activity in the latter part (2900 yr ago to present) of the Holocene. Radiocarbon dating shows the very close correlation of the peat and tephra layers at both sites, yet the pollen analysis reveals different vegetation communities. These initial results allow us to begin identifying the processes of recovery, and to recognise different ecological pressures placed on vegetation at these neighbouring sites. Evidence of hydrological changes are observed beginning with a marine incursion recorded at Garu Site 3 1360 ¹⁴C yr B.P. The distinct differences in the vegetation re-establishment and community regeneration rates suggest the greater level of disturbance at Garu Site 1 could be related to the depth of the ashfall, although the proximity of a known human settlement may also be a contributing factor. Of note, palynologically, we found that the fern spore flora is particularly rich and believe it will be useful for ecological interpretation.  相似文献   

AMS Radiocarbon Age of the Upper Mississippi Valley Roxana Silt     

David S. Leigh  James C. Knox 《Quaternary Research》1993,39(3)

Accelerator mass spectrometer radiocarbon ages of the Roxana Silt (loess) along the Upper Mississippi Valley of Wisconsin and Minnesota indicate that loess sedimentation of the Roxana Silt occurred between about 55,000 and 27,000 ¹⁴ C yr B.P. However, due to local environmental controls, the basal age at any given site may range from 55,000 to 35,000 ¹⁴C yr B.P. The radiocarbon ages presented here are in agreement with previous radiocarbon ages for the Roxana Silt in its type area of west-central Illinois, but indicate that long-term sedimentation rates along the bluffline of the Upper Mississippi Valley were very slow (4-8 cm/1000 yr) compared to long-term sedimentation rates along the bluffline of the type area (40-70 cm/1000 yr). Comparison of radiocarbon ages for midcontinent middle Wisconsinan loess deposits indicates that sedimentation along the Mississippi River valley may have preceded loess sedimentation along the Missouri River valley by as much as 20,000 yr or that basal ages for middle Wisconsinan loess along the Missouri Valley are erroneously young. The bracketing ages for the Upper Mississippi Valley Roxana Silt indicate that the Mississippi River valley was receiving outwash sedimentation between 55,000 and 27,000 ¹⁴C yr B.P.  相似文献   

Development of a rainwater harvesting system for increasing soil moisture in arid rangelands of Pakistan     

Sheikh Suleman  M. Karl Wood  Bashir Hussain Shah  Leigh Murray   《Journal of Arid Environments》1995,31(4)

  相似文献   

Hailstorm Loss Modelling and Risk Assessment in the Sydney Region,Australia   总被引：2，自引：0，他引：2  

Leigh  R.  Kuhnel  I. 《Natural Hazards》2001,24(2):171-185

This paper summarises work undertaken at the Natural Hazards ResearchCentre with regard to the compilation, climatological analysis and lossmodelling application of hailstorm data for the greater Sydney region. Itdiscusses the results from two associated research areas: ENSO-relatedclimatological analysis of hailstorm data, and insurance sector orientedrisk assessment of hail losses in the Sydney basin. The two complementaryprojects led to the development of HailAUS, the first hail loss model for amajor urban area in Australia. The hazard occurrence module of the hailloss model is based on a comprehensive, good quality hail data set, whoseinterannual variability has previously been analysed with regard to the ENSOsignal. The paper presents the major results of the local hail data climatology,and outlines the structure of the hail loss model. The important practicalapplications that result from the collection and analysis of good qualityclimatological data are noted.  相似文献   

Jovian temperature and cloud variability during the 2009-2010 fade of the South Equatorial Belt     

Leigh N. Fletcher  G.S. Orton  A.A. Simon-Miller  M.H. Wong  P.G.J. Irwin  P.A. Yanamandra-Fisher 《Icarus》2011,213(2):564-580

Mid-infrared 7-20 μm imaging of Jupiter from ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT/VISIR) demonstrate that the increased albedo of Jupiter’s South Equatorial Belt (SEB) during the ‘fade’ (whitening) event of 2009-2010 was correlated with changes to atmospheric temperature and aerosol opacity. The opacity of the tropospheric condensation cloud deck at pressures less than 800 mbar increased by 80% between May 2008 and July 2010, making the SEB (7-17°S) as opaque in the thermal infrared as the adjacent equatorial zone. After the cessation of discrete convective activity within the SEB in May 2009, a cool band of high aerosol opacity (the SEB zone at 11-15°S) was observed separating the cloud-free northern and southern SEB components. The cooling of the SEBZ (with peak-to-peak contrasts of 1.0 ± 0.5 K), as well as the increased aerosol opacity at 4.8 and 8.6 μm, preceded the visible whitening of the belt by several months. A chain of five warm, cloud-free ‘brown barges’ (subsiding airmasses) were observed regularly in the SEB between June 2009 and June 2010, by which time they too had been obscured by the enhanced aerosol opacity of the SEB, although the underlying warm circulation was still present in July 2010. Upper tropospheric temperatures (150-300 mbar) remained largely unchanged during the fade, but the cool SEBZ formation was detected at deeper levels (p > 300 mbar) within the convectively-unstable region of the troposphere. The SEBZ formation caused the meridional temperature gradient of the SEB to decrease between 2008 and 2010, reducing the vertical thermal windshear on the zonal jets bounding the SEB. The southern SEB had fully faded by July 2010 and was characterised by short-wave undulations at 19-20°S. The northern SEB persisted as a narrow grey lane of cloud-free conditions throughout the fade process.The cool temperatures and enhanced aerosol opacity of the SEBZ after July 2009 are consistent with an upward flux of volatiles (e.g., ammonia-laden air) and enhanced condensation, obscuring the blue-absorbing chromophore and whitening the SEB by April 2010. These changes occurred within cloud decks in the convective troposphere, and not in the radiatively-controlled upper troposphere. NH₃ ice coatings on aerosols at p < 800 mbar are plausible sources of the suppressed 4.8 and 8.6-μm emission, although differences in the spatial distribution of opacity at these two wavelengths suggest that enhanced attenuation by a deeper cloud (p > 800 mbar) also occurred during the fade. Revival of the dark SEB coloration in the coming months will ultimately require sublimation of these ices by subsidence and warming of volatile-depleted air.  相似文献   

Estimating present day extreme water level exceedance probabilities around the coastline of Australia: tropical cyclone-induced storm surges   总被引：2，自引：0，他引：2  

Ivan D. Haigh  Leigh R. MacPherson  Matthew S. Mason  E. M. S. Wijeratne  Charitha B. Pattiaratchi  Ryan P. Crompton  Steve George 《Climate Dynamics》2014,42(1-2):139-157

The incidence of major storm surges in the last decade have dramatically emphasized the immense destructive capabilities of extreme water level events, particularly when driven by severe tropical cyclones. Given this risk, it is vitally important that the exceedance probabilities of extreme water levels are accurately evaluated to inform risk-based flood and erosion management, engineering and for future land-use planning and to ensure the risk of catastrophic structural failures due to under-design or expensive wastes due to over-design are minimised. Australia has a long history of coastal flooding from tropical cyclones. Using a novel integration of two modeling techniques, this paper provides the first estimates of present day extreme water level exceedance probabilities around the whole coastline of Australia, and the first estimates that combine the influence of astronomical tides, storm surges generated by both extra-tropical and tropical cyclones, and seasonal and inter-annual variations in mean sea level. Initially, an analysis of tide gauge records has been used to assess the characteristics of tropical cyclone-induced surges around Australia. However, given the dearth (temporal and spatial) of information around much of the coastline, and therefore the inability of these gauge records to adequately describe the regional climatology, an observationally based stochastic tropical cyclone model has been developed to synthetically extend the tropical cyclone record to 10,000 years. Wind and pressure fields derived for these synthetically generated events have then been used to drive a hydrodynamic model of the Australian continental shelf region with annual maximum water levels extracted to estimate exceedance probabilities around the coastline. To validate this methodology, selected historic storm surge events have been simulated and resultant storm surges compared with gauge records. Tropical cyclone induced exceedance probabilities have been combined with estimates derived from a 61-year water level hindcast described in a companion paper to give a single estimate of present day extreme water level probabilities around the whole coastline of Australia. Results of this work are freely available to coastal engineers, managers and researchers via a web-based tool (www.sealevelrise.info). The described methodology could be applied to other regions of the world, like the US east coast, that are subject to both extra-tropical and tropical cyclones.  相似文献   

Exoplanet atmospheres with EChO: spectral retrievals using EChOSim     

Joanna K. Barstow  Neil E. Bowles  Suzanne Aigrain  Leigh N. Fletcher  Patrick G. J. Irwin  Ryan Varley  Enzo Pascale 《Experimental Astronomy》2015,40(2-3):545-561

We demonstrate the effectiveness of the Exoplanet Characterisation Observatory mission concept for constraining the atmospheric properties of hot and warm gas giants and super Earths. Synthetic primary and secondary transit spectra for a range of planets are passed through EChOSim [13] to obtain the expected level of noise for different observational scenarios; these are then used as inputs for the NEMESIS atmospheric retrieval code and the retrieved atmospheric properties (temperature structure, composition and cloud properties) compared with the known input values, following the method of [1]. To correctly retrieve the temperature structure and composition of the atmosphere to within 2 σ, we find that we require: a single transit or eclipse of a hot Jupiter orbiting a sun-like (G2) star at 35 pc to constrain the terminator and dayside atmospheres; 20 transits or eclipses of a warm Jupiter orbiting a similar star; 10 transits/eclipses of a hot Neptune orbiting an M dwarf at 6 pc; and 30 transits or eclipses of a GJ1214b-like planet.  相似文献   

Limits on the 2.2-μm contrast ratio of the close-orbiting planet HD 189733b     

J. R. Barnes  Travis S. Barman  L. Prato  D. Segransan  H. R. A. Jones  C. J. Leigh  A. Collier Cameron  D. J. Pinfield 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2007,382(1):473-480

We obtained 238 spectra of the close-orbiting extrasolar giant planet HD 189733b with resolution   R ∼ 15 000  during one night of observations with the Near-Infrared High-Resolution Spectrograph (NIRSPEC), at the Keck II Telescope. We have searched for planetary absorption signatures in the  2.0–2.4 μm  region where H₂O and CO are expected to be the dominant atmospheric opacities. We employ a phase-dependent orbital model and tomographic techniques to search for the planetary absorption signatures in the combined stellar and planetary spectra. Because potential absorption signatures are hidden in the noise of each single exposure, we use a model list of lines to apply a spectral deconvolution. The resulting mean profile possesses a signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) that is 20 times greater than that found in individual lines. Our spectral time series thus yields spectral signatures with a mean S/N = 2720. We are unable to detect a planetary signature at a contrast ratio of  log₁₀( F _p/ F _*) =−3.40  , with 63.8 per cent confidence. Our findings are not consistent with model predictions which nevertheless give a good fit to mid-infrared observations of HD 189733b. The 1σ result is a factor of 1.7 times less than the predicted 2.185-μm planet/star flux ratio of  log₁₀( F _p/ F _*) ∼−3.16  .  相似文献