scholarly journals First data on cetacean strandings and in situ observations along the Algerian coast

2021 ◽  
pp. 37-44
Author(s):  
Assia Henda-Benrekaa ◽  
Riadh Moulaï

Data on cetaceans within the pelagic ecosystem remains scarce in the Algerian basin. This is linked to a lack of investigations stemming from the difficulty of quantitative population evaluation through oceanographic surveys and/or strandings statistics. In this context, we considered that it is appropriate to focus on data acquisition from offshore observations as well as setting up a network for monitoring strandings on sites scattered along the Algerian coast. During 10 oceanographic surveys conducted in two Algerian coasts sectors (eastern and central) we observed a total of 245 delphinids corresponding to 8 species that had an irregular distribution. We also identified 83 individuals belonging to five species that stranded between 2007 and 2017.

Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (8) ◽  
pp. 2183
Author(s):  
Yong Li ◽  
Liqiao Tian ◽  
Wenkai Li ◽  
Jian Li ◽  
Anna Wei ◽  
...  

Integrated and intelligent in situ observations are important for the remote sensing monitoring of dynamic water environments. To meet the field investigation requirements of ocean color remote sensing, we developed a water color remote sensing-oriented unmanned surface vehicle (WC-USV), which consisted of an unmanned surface vehicle platform with ground control station, data acquisition, and transmission modules. The WC-USV was designed with functions, such as remote controlling, status monitoring, automatic obstacle avoidance, and water and meteorological parameter measurement acquisition, transmission, and processing. The key data acquisition module consisted of four parts: A floating optical buoy (FOBY) for collecting remote sensing reflectance ( R r s ) via the skylight-blocked approach; a water sample autocollection system that can collect 12 1-L bottles for analysis in the laboratory; a water quality measurement system for obtaining water parameters, including Chlorophyll-a (Chl-a), turbidity, and water temperature, among others; and meteorological sensors for measuring wind speed and direction, air pressure, temperature, and humidity. Field experiments were conducted to validate the performance of the WC-USV on 23–28 March 2018 in the Honghu Lake, which is the seventh largest freshwater lake in China. The tests proved the following: (1) The WC-USV performed well in terms of autonomous navigation and obstacle avoidance; (2) the mounted FOBY-derived R r s showed good precision in terms of the quality assurance score (QAS), which was higher than 0.98; (3) the Chl-a and suspended matters (SPM) as ocean color parameters measured by the WC-USV were highly consistent with laboratory analysis results, with determination coefficients (R2) of 0.71 and 0.77, respectively; and (4) meteorological parameters could be continuously and stably measured by WC-USV. Results demonstrated the feasibility and practicability of the WC-USV for automatic in situ observations. The USV provided a new way of thinking for the future development of intelligent automation of the aquatic remote sensing ground verification system. It could be a good option to conduct field investigations for ocean color remote sensing and provide an alternative for highly polluted and/or shallow high-risk waters which large vessels have difficulty reaching.


Author(s):  
T. Marieb ◽  
J. C. Bravman ◽  
P. Flinn ◽  
D. Gardner ◽  
M. Madden

Electromigration and stress voiding have been active areas of research in the microelectronics industry for many years. While accelerated testing of these phenomena has been performed for the last 25 years[1-2], only recently has the introduction of high voltage scanning electron microscopy (HVSEM) made possible in situ testing of realistic, passivated, full thickness samples at high resolution.With a combination of in situ HVSEM and post-testing transmission electron microscopy (TEM) , electromigration void nucleation sites in both normal polycrystalline and near-bamboo pure Al were investigated. The effect of the microstructure of the lines on the void motion was also studied.The HVSEM used was a slightly modified JEOL 1200 EX II scanning TEM with a backscatter electron detector placed above the sample[3]. To observe electromigration in situ the sample was heated and the line had current supplied to it to accelerate the voiding process. After testing lines were prepared for TEM by employing the plan-view wedge technique [6].


2021 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sze Hoon Gan ◽  
Zarinah Waheed ◽  
Fung Chen Chung ◽  
Davies Austin Spiji ◽  
Leony Sikim ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (7) ◽  
pp. 1250
Author(s):  
Yanxing Hu ◽  
Tao Che ◽  
Liyun Dai ◽  
Lin Xiao

In this study, a machine learning algorithm was introduced to fuse gridded snow depth datasets. The input variables of the machine learning method included geolocation (latitude and longitude), topographic data (elevation), gridded snow depth datasets and in situ observations. A total of 29,565 in situ observations were used to train and optimize the machine learning algorithm. A total of five gridded snow depth datasets—Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for the Earth Observing System (AMSR-E) snow depth, Global Snow Monitoring for Climate Research (GlobSnow) snow depth, Long time series of daily snow depth over the Northern Hemisphere (NHSD) snow depth, ERA-Interim snow depth and Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications, version 2 (MERRA-2) snow depth—were used as input variables. The first three snow depth datasets are retrieved from passive microwave brightness temperature or assimilation with in situ observations, while the last two are snow depth datasets obtained from meteorological reanalysis data with a land surface model and data assimilation system. Then, three machine learning methods, i.e., Artificial Neural Networks (ANN), Support Vector Regression (SVR), and Random Forest Regression (RFR), were used to produce a fused snow depth dataset from 2002 to 2004. The RFR model performed best and was thus used to produce a new snow depth product from the fusion of the five snow depth datasets and auxiliary data over the Northern Hemisphere from 2002 to 2011. The fused snow-depth product was verified at five well-known snow observation sites. The R2 of Sodankylä, Old Aspen, and Reynolds Mountains East were 0.88, 0.69, and 0.63, respectively. At the Swamp Angel Study Plot and Weissfluhjoch observation sites, which have an average snow depth exceeding 200 cm, the fused snow depth did not perform well. The spatial patterns of the average snow depth were analyzed seasonally, and the average snow depths of autumn, winter, and spring were 5.7, 25.8, and 21.5 cm, respectively. In the future, random forest regression will be used to produce a long time series of a fused snow depth dataset over the Northern Hemisphere or other specific regions.


Polar Biology ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philipp Neitzel ◽  
Aino Hosia ◽  
Uwe Piatkowski ◽  
Henk-Jan Hoving

AbstractObservations of the diversity, distribution and abundance of pelagic fauna are absent for many ocean regions in the Atlantic, but baseline data are required to detect changes in communities as a result of climate change. Gelatinous fauna are increasingly recognized as vital players in oceanic food webs, but sampling these delicate organisms in nets is challenging. Underwater (in situ) observations have provided unprecedented insights into mesopelagic communities in particular for abundance and distribution of gelatinous fauna. In September 2018, we performed horizontal video transects (50–1200 m) using the pelagic in situ observation system during a research cruise in the southern Norwegian Sea. Annotation of the video recordings resulted in 12 abundant and 7 rare taxa. Chaetognaths, the trachymedusaAglantha digitaleand appendicularians were the three most abundant taxa. The high numbers of fishes and crustaceans in the upper 100 m was likely the result of vertical migration. Gelatinous zooplankton included ctenophores (lobate ctenophores,Beroespp.,Euplokamissp., and an undescribed cydippid) as well as calycophoran and physonect siphonophores. We discuss the distributions of these fauna, some of which represent the first record for the Norwegian Sea.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Jiangling Li ◽  
Feifei Lai ◽  
Mei Leng ◽  
Qingcai Liu ◽  
Jian Yang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 2188
Author(s):  
Salvatore Marullo ◽  
Jaime Pitarch ◽  
Marco Bellacicco ◽  
Alcide Giorgio di Sarra ◽  
Daniela Meloni ◽  
...  

Air–sea heat fluxes are essential climate variables, required for understanding air–sea interactions, local, regional and global climate, the hydrological cycle and atmospheric and oceanic circulation. In situ measurements of fluxes over the ocean are sparse and model reanalysis and satellite data can provide estimates at different scales. The accuracy of such estimates is therefore essential to obtain a reliable description of the occurring phenomena and changes. In this work, air–sea radiative fluxes derived from the SEVIRI sensor onboard the MSG satellite and from ERA5 reanalysis have been compared to direct high quality measurements performed over a complete annual cycle at the ENEA oceanographic observatory, near the island of Lampedusa in the Central Mediterranean Sea. Our analysis reveals that satellite derived products overestimate in situ direct observations of the downwelling short-wave (bias of 6.1 W/m2) and longwave (bias of 6.6 W/m2) irradiances. ERA5 reanalysis data show a negligible positive bias (+1.0 W/m2) for the shortwave irradiance and a large negative bias (−17 W/m2) for the longwave irradiance with respect to in situ observations. ERA5 meteorological variables, which are needed to calculate the air–sea heat flux using bulk formulae, have been compared with in situ measurements made at the oceanographic observatory. The two meteorological datasets show a very good agreement, with some underestimate of the wind speed by ERA5 for high wind conditions. We investigated the impact of different determinations of heat fluxes on the near surface sea temperature (1 m depth), as determined by calculations with a one-dimensional numerical model, the General Ocean Turbulence Model (GOTM). The sensitivity of the model to the different forcing was measured in terms of differences with respect to in situ temperature measurements made during the period under investigation. All simulations reproduced the true seasonal cycle and all high frequency variabilities. The best results on the overall seasonal cycle were obtained when using meteorological variables in the bulk formulae formulations used by the model itself. The derived overall annual net heat flux values were between +1.6 and 40.4 W/m2, depending on the used dataset. The large variability obtained with different datasets suggests that current determinations of the heat flux components and, in particular, of the longwave irradiance, need to be improved. The ENEA oceanographic observatory provides a complete, long-term, high resolution time series of high quality in situ observations. In the future, more similar sites worldwide will be needed for model and satellite validations and to improve the determination of the air–sea exchange and the understanding of related processes.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chunlüe Zhou ◽  
Yanyi He ◽  
Kaicun Wang

Abstract. Reanalyses have been widely used because they add value to the routine observations by generating physically/dynamically consistent and spatiotemporally complete atmospheric fields. Existing studies have extensively discussed their temporal suitability in global change study. This study moves forward on their suitability for regional climate change study where land–atmosphere interactions play a more important role. Here, surface air temperature (Ta) from 12 current reanalysis products were investigated, focusing on spatial patterns of Ta trends, using homogenized Ta from 1979 to 2010 at ~ 2200 meteorological stations in China. Results show that ~ 80 % of the Ta mean differences between reanalyses and in-situ observations are attributed to station and model-grid elevation differences, denoting good skill in Ta climatology and rebutting the previously reported Ta biases. However, the Ta trend biases in reanalyses display spatial divergence (standard deviation = 0.15–0.30 °C/decade at 1° × 1° grids). The simulated Ta trend biases correlate well with those of precipitation frequency, surface incident solar radiation (Rs), and atmospheric downward longwave radiation (Ld) among the reanalyses (r = −0.83, 0.80 and 0.77, p 


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