scholarly journals Opportunistically collected photographs can be used to estimate large-scale phenological trends

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shawn D. Taylor ◽  
Robert P. Guralnick

ABSTRACTPremiseResearch on large-scale patterns of phenology have utilized multiple sources of data to analyze the timing of events such as flowering, fruiting, and leaf out. In-situ observations from standardized surveys are ideal, but remain spatially sparse. Herbarium records and phenology-focused citizen science programs provide a source of historic data and spatial replication, but the sample sizes for any one season are still relatively low. A novel and rapidly growing source of broad-scale phenology data are photographs from the iNaturalist platform, but methods utilizing these data must generalize to a range of different species with varying season lengths and occurring across heterogenous areas. They must also be robust to different sample sizes and potential biases toward well travelled areas such as roads and towns.Methods/ResultsWe developed a spatially explicit model, the Weibull Grid, to estimate flowering onset across large-scales, and utilized a simulation framework to test the approach using different phenology and sampling scenarios. We found that the model is ideal when the underlying phenology is non-linear across space. We then use the Weibull Grid model to estimate flowering onset of two species using iNaturalist photographs, and compare those estimates with independent observations of greenup from the Phenocam network. The Weibull Grid model estimate consistently aligned with Phenocam greenup across four years and broad latitudes.ConclusioniNaturalist observations can considerably increase the amount of phenology observations and also provide needed spatial coverage. We showed here they can accurately describe large-scale trends as long as phenological and sampling processes are considered.

2011 ◽  
Vol 24 (13) ◽  
pp. 3272-3293 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tara J. Troy ◽  
Justin Sheffield ◽  
Eric F. Wood

Abstract Northern Eurasia has experienced significant change in its hydrology during the past century. Much of the literature has focused on documenting and understanding the trends rather than documenting the uncertainty that exists in current estimates of the mean hydroclimatology. This study quantifies the terrestrial water budget with reanalysis, hydrologic modeling, remote sensing, and in situ observations and shows there is significant uncertainty in the estimates of precipitation, evapotranspiration, runoff, and terrestrial water storage changes. The spread among the various datasets highlights the scientific community's inability to accurately characterize the hydroclimatology of this region, which is problematic because much attention has focused on hydrologic trends using these datasets. The largest relative differences among estimates exist in the terrestrial storage change, which also is the least studied variable. Seasonally, the spread in estimates relative to the mean is largest in winter, when uncertainty in cold-season processes and measurements causes large differences in the estimates. A methodology is developed that takes advantage of multiple sources of data and observed discharge to improve estimates of precipitation, evapotranspiration, and storage changes. The method also provides a framework to evaluate the errors in datasets for variables that have no large-scale in situ measurements, such as evapotranspiration.


2018 ◽  
Vol 176 ◽  
pp. 10005
Author(s):  
Arnoud Apituley ◽  
Michel Van Roozendael ◽  
Andreas Richter ◽  
Thomas Wagner ◽  
Udo Friess ◽  
...  

For the validation of space borne observations of NO2 and other trace gases from hyperspectral imagers, ground based instruments based on the MAXDOAS technique are an excellent choice, since they rely on similar retrieval techniques as the observations from orbit. To ensure proper traceability of the MAXDOAS observations, a thorough validation and intercomparison is mandatory. Advanced MAXDOAS observation and retrieval techniques enable inferring vertical structure of trace gases and aerosols. These techniques and their results need validation by e.g. lidar techniques. For the proper understanding of the results from passive remote sensing techniques, independent observations are needed that include parameters needed to understand the light paths, i.e. in-situ aerosol observations of optical and microphysical properties, and essential are in particular the vertical profiles of aerosol optical properties by (Raman) lidar. The approach used in the CINDI-2 campaign held in Cabauw in 2016 is presented in this paper and the results will be discussed in the presentation at the conference.


2018 ◽  
Vol 23 (suppl_1) ◽  
pp. e16-e16
Author(s):  
Ahmed Moussa ◽  
Audrey Larone-Juneau ◽  
Laura Fazilleau ◽  
Marie-Eve Rochon ◽  
Justine Giroux ◽  
...  

Abstract BACKGROUND Transitions to new healthcare environments can negatively impact patient care and threaten patient safety. Immersive in situ simulation conducted in newly constructed single family room (SFR) Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICUs) prior to occupancy, has been shown to be effective in testing new environments and identifying latent safety threats (LSTs). These simulations overlay human factors to identify LSTs as new and existing process and systems are implemented in the new environment OBJECTIVES We aimed to demonstrate that large-scale, immersive, in situ simulation prior to the transition to a new SFR NICU improves: 1) systems readiness, 2) staff preparedness, 3) patient safety, 4) staff comfort with simulation, and 5) staff attitude towards culture change. DESIGN/METHODS Multidisciplinary teams of neonatal healthcare providers (HCP) and parents of former NICU patients participated in large-scale, immersive in-situ simulations conducted in the new NICU prior to occupancy. One eighth of the NICU was outfitted with equipment and mannequins and staff performed in their native roles. Multidisciplinary debriefings, which included parents, were conducted immediately after simulations to identify LSTs. Through an iterative process issues were resolved and additional simulations conducted. Debriefings were documented and debriefing transcripts transcribed and LSTs classified using qualitative methods. To assess systems readiness and staff preparedness for transition into the new NICU, HCPs completed surveys prior to transition, post-simulation and post-transition. Systems readiness and staff preparedness were rated on a 5-point Likert scale. Average survey responses were analyzed using dependent samples t-tests and repeated measures ANOVAs. RESULTS One hundred eight HCPs and 24 parents participated in six half-day simulation sessions. A total of 75 LSTs were identified and were categorized into eight themes: 1) work organization, 2) orientation and parent wayfinding, 3) communication devices/systems, 4) nursing and resuscitation equipment, 5) ergonomics, 6) parent comfort; 7) work processes, and 8) interdepartmental interactions. Prior to the transition to the new NICU, 76% of the LSTs were resolved. Survey response rate was 31%, 16%, 7% for baseline, post-simulation and post-move surveys, respectively. System readiness at baseline was 1.3/5,. Post-simulation systems readiness was 3.5/5 (p = 0.0001) and post-transition was 3.9/5 (p = 0.02). Staff preparedness at baseline was 1.4/5. Staff preparedness post-simulation was 3.3/5 (p = 0.006) and post-transition was 3.9/5 (p = 0.03). CONCLUSION Large-scale, immersive in situ simulation is a feasible and effective methodology for identifying LSTs, improving systems readiness and staff preparedness in a new SFR NICU prior to occupancy. However, to optimize patient safety, identified LSTs must be mitigated prior to occupancy. Coordinating large-scale simulations is worth the time and cost investment necessary to optimize systems and ensure patient safety prior to transition to a new SFR NICU.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 228
Author(s):  
Jian Kang ◽  
Rui Jin ◽  
Xin Li ◽  
Yang Zhang

In recent decades, microwave remote sensing (RS) has been used to measure soil moisture (SM). Long-term and large-scale RS SM datasets derived from various microwave sensors have been used in environmental fields. Understanding the accuracies of RS SM products is essential for their proper applications. However, due to the mismatched spatial scale between the ground-based and RS observations, the truth at the pixel scale may not be accurately represented by ground-based observations, especially when the spatial density of in situ measurements is low. Because ground-based observations are often sparsely distributed, temporal upscaling was adopted to transform a few in situ measurements into SM values at a pixel scale of 1 km by introducing the temperature vegetation dryness index (TVDI) related to SM. The upscaled SM showed high consistency with in situ SM observations and could accurately capture rainfall events. The upscaled SM was considered as the reference data to evaluate RS SM products at different spatial scales. In regard to the validation results, in addition to the correlation coefficient (R) of the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) SM being slightly lower than that of the Climate Change Initiative (CCI) SM, SMAP had the best performance in terms of the root-mean-square error (RMSE), unbiased RMSE and bias, followed by the CCI. The Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) products were in worse agreement with the upscaled SM and were inferior to the R value of the X-band SM of the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer 2 (AMSR2). In conclusion, in the study area, the SMAP and CCI SM are more reliable, although both products were underestimated by 0.060 cm3 cm−3 and 0.077 cm3 cm−3, respectively. If the biases are corrected, then the improved SMAP with an RMSE of 0.043 cm3 cm−3 and the CCI with an RMSE of 0.039 cm3 cm−3 will hopefully reach the application requirement for an accuracy with an RMSE less than 0.040 cm3 cm−3.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sungmin O. ◽  
Rene Orth

AbstractWhile soil moisture information is essential for a wide range of hydrologic and climate applications, spatially-continuous soil moisture data is only available from satellite observations or model simulations. Here we present a global, long-term dataset of soil moisture derived through machine learning trained with in-situ measurements, SoMo.ml. We train a Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) model to extrapolate daily soil moisture dynamics in space and in time, based on in-situ data collected from more than 1,000 stations across the globe. SoMo.ml provides multi-layer soil moisture data (0–10 cm, 10–30 cm, and 30–50 cm) at 0.25° spatial and daily temporal resolution over the period 2000–2019. The performance of the resulting dataset is evaluated through cross validation and inter-comparison with existing soil moisture datasets. SoMo.ml performs especially well in terms of temporal dynamics, making it particularly useful for applications requiring time-varying soil moisture, such as anomaly detection and memory analyses. SoMo.ml complements the existing suite of modelled and satellite-based datasets given its distinct derivation, to support large-scale hydrological, meteorological, and ecological analyses.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (7) ◽  
pp. 1335
Author(s):  
Ronald Souza ◽  
Luciano Pezzi ◽  
Sebastiaan Swart ◽  
Fabrício Oliveira ◽  
Marcelo Santini

The Brazil–Malvinas Confluence (BMC) is one of the most dynamical regions of the global ocean. Its variability is dominated by the mesoscale, mainly expressed by the presence of meanders and eddies, which are understood to be local regulators of air-sea interaction processes. The objective of this work is to study the local modulation of air-sea interaction variables by the presence of either a warm (ED1) and a cold core (ED2) eddy, present in the BMC, during September to November 2013. The translation and lifespans of both eddies were determined using satellite-derived sea level anomaly (SLA) data. Time series of satellite-derived surface wind data, as well as these and other meteorological variables, retrieved from ERA5 reanalysis at the eddies’ successive positions in time, allowed us to investigate the temporal modulation of the lower atmosphere by the eddies’ presence along their translation and lifespan. The reanalysis data indicate a mean increase of 78% in sensible and 55% in latent heat fluxes along the warm eddy trajectory in comparison to the surrounding ocean of the study region. Over the cold core eddy, on the other hand, we noticed a mean reduction of 49% and 25% in sensible and latent heat fluxes, respectively, compared to the adjacent ocean. Additionally, a field campaign observed both eddies and the lower atmosphere from ship-borne observations before, during and after crossing both eddies in the study region during October 2013. The presence of the eddies was imprinted on several surface meteorological variables depending on the sea surface temperature (SST) in the eddy cores. In situ oceanographic and meteorological data, together with high frequency micrometeorological data, were also used here to demonstrate that the local, rather than the large scale forcing of the eddies on the atmosphere above, is, as expected, the principal driver of air-sea interaction when transient atmospheric systems are stable (not actively varying) in the study region. We also make use of the in situ data to show the differences (biases) between bulk heat flux estimates (used on atmospheric reanalysis products) and eddy covariance measurements (taken as “sea truth”) of both sensible and latent heat fluxes. The findings demonstrate the importance of short-term changes (minutes to hours) in both the atmosphere and the ocean in contributing to these biases. We conclude by emphasizing the importance of the mesoscale oceanographic structures in the BMC on impacting local air-sea heat fluxes and the marine atmospheric boundary layer stability, especially under large scale, high-pressure atmospheric conditions.


2004 ◽  
Vol 261-263 ◽  
pp. 1097-1102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jian Liu ◽  
Xia Ting Feng ◽  
Xiu Li Ding ◽  
Huo Ming Zhou

The time-dependent behavior of rock mass, which is generally governed by joints and shearing zones, is of great significance for engineering design and prediction of long-term deformation and stability. In situ creep test is a more effective method than laboratory test in characterizing the creep behavior of rock mass with joint or shearing zone due to the complexity of field conditions. A series of in situ creep tests on granite with joint at the shiplock area of the Three-Gorges Project and basalt with shearing zone at the right abutment of the Xiluodu Project were performed in this study. Based on the test results, the stress-displacement-time responses of the joints and basalt are analyzed, and their time-dependent constitutive model and model coefficients are given, which is crucial for the design to prevent the creep deformations of rock masses from causing the failure of the operation of the shiplock gate at the Three-Gorges Project and long-term stability of the Xiluodu arc dam.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 7
Author(s):  
Miguel R. Luaces ◽  
Jesús A. Fisteus ◽  
Luis Sánchez-Fernández ◽  
Mario Munoz-Organero ◽  
Jesús Balado ◽  
...  

Providing citizens with the ability to move around in an accessible way is a requirement for all cities today. However, modeling city infrastructures so that accessible routes can be computed is a challenge because it involves collecting information from multiple, large-scale and heterogeneous data sources. In this paper, we propose and validate the architecture of an information system that creates an accessibility data model for cities by ingesting data from different types of sources and provides an application that can be used by people with different abilities to compute accessible routes. The article describes the processes that allow building a network of pedestrian infrastructures from the OpenStreetMap information (i.e., sidewalks and pedestrian crossings), improving the network with information extracted obtained from mobile-sensed LiDAR data (i.e., ramps, steps, and pedestrian crossings), detecting obstacles using volunteered information collected from the hardware sensors of the mobile devices of the citizens (i.e., ramps and steps), and detecting accessibility problems with software sensors in social networks (i.e., Twitter). The information system is validated through its application in a case study in the city of Vigo (Spain).


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiao-Ya Zhai ◽  
Yifan Zhao ◽  
Guo-Ying Zhang ◽  
Bing-Yu Wang ◽  
Qi-Yun Mao

In the work, a direct Z-scheme AgBr/α-Ag2WO4 heterojunction was prepared by in-situ anion exchange at room temperature. The construction strategy is energy- and time-saving for large scale synthesis. The α-Ag2WO4...


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