scholarly journals Comparison and evaluation of modelled and GOME measurement derived tropospheric NO<sub>2</sub> columns over Western and Eastern Europe

2004 ◽  
Vol 4 (5) ◽  
pp. 6503-6558 ◽  
Author(s):  
I. B. Konovalov ◽  
M. Beekmann ◽  
R. Vautard ◽  
J. P. Burrows ◽  
A. Richter ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Transport Model ◽  
Simulated Data ◽  
Horizontal Resolution ◽  
Random Errors ◽  
Continental Scale ◽  
Upper Limits ◽  
Tropospheric No2 ◽  
The Mean

Abstract. We present the results of a first comparison of the tropospheric NO2 column amounts derived from the measurements of the Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment (GOME) with the simulated data from a European scale chemistry transport model (CTM) which is distinctive from existing global scale CTMs in higher horizontal resolution and more detailed description of the boundary layer processes and emissions. We employ, on the one hand, the newly developed extended version of the CHIMERE CTM, which covers both Western and Eastern Europe, and, on the other hand, the most recent version (Version 2) of GOME measurement based data-products, developed at the University of Bremen. We evaluate our model with the data of ground based monitoring of ozone and verify that it has a sufficiently high level of performance, which is expected for a state-of-the-art continental scale CTM. The major focus of the study is on a systematic statistical analysis and a comparison of spatial variability of the tropospheric NO2 columns simulated with CHIMERE and derived from GOME measurements. The analysis is performed separately for Western and Eastern Europe using the data for summer months of 1997 and 2001. In this way, we evaluate the upper limits to uncertainties of spatial distributions of the considered data. Specifically, for Western Europe, it is found that the mean relative (multiplicative) random errors of the GOME measurement derived and simulated data averaged over the summer seasons considered do not exceed 25% and 35%, respectively, and the mean absolute (additive) errors are less than 3·1014 mol/cm2. The upper limits for the multiplicative errors for Eastern Europe are shown to be smaller than those for Western Europe and do not exceed 15% and 24% for NO2 columns from GOME and CHIMERE, respectively. The relative contribution of the additive errors is found to be much larger for Eastern Europe, but their mean absolute values are less than 2·1014 mol/cm2.

scholarly journals Comparison and evaluation of modelled and GOME measurement derived tropospheric NO<sub>2</sub> columns over Western and Eastern Europe

2005 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 169-190 ◽  
Author(s):  
I. B. Konovalov ◽  
M. Beekmann ◽  
R. Vautard ◽  
J. P. Burrows ◽  
A. Richter ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Transport Model ◽  
Simulated Data ◽  
Horizontal Resolution ◽  
Random Errors ◽  
Multiplicative Character ◽  
Continental Scale ◽  
Tropospheric No2 ◽  
The Mean

Abstract. We present the results of a first comparison of the tropospheric NO2 column amounts derived from the measurements of the Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment (GOME) with the simulated data from a European scale chemistry transport model (CTM) which is distinct from existing global scale CTMs in higher horizontal resolution and more detailed description of the boundary layer processes and emissions. We employ, on the one hand, the newly developed extended version of the CHIMERE CTM, which covers both Western and Eastern Europe, and, on the other hand, the most recent version (Version 2) of GOME measurement based data-products, developed at the University of Bremen. We evaluate our model with the data from ground based monitoring of ozone and verify that it has a sufficiently high level of performance, which is expected for a state-of-the-art continental scale CTM. The major focus of the study is on a systematic statistical analysis and a comparison of spatial variability of the tropospheric NO2 columns simulated with CHIMERE and derived from GOME measurements. The analysis is performed separately for Western and Eastern Europe using the data for summer months of 1997 and 2001. In this way, we obtain useful information on the nature and magnitudes of uncertainties of spatial distributions of the considered data. Specifically, for Western Europe, it is found that the uncertainties of NO2 columns from GOME and CHIMERE are predominantly of the multiplicative character, and that the mean relative random (multiplicative) errors of the GOME measurement derived and simulated data averaged over the summer seasons considered do not exceed 23% and 32%, respectively. The mean absolute (additive) errors of both kinds of the data are estimated to be less than 3x1014mol/cm2. In Eastern Europe, the uncertainties have more complex character, and the separation between their multiplicative and additive parts is not sufficiently unambiguous. It is found, however, that the total random errors of NO2 columns from both GOME and CHIMERE over Eastern Europe are not, on the average, larger than the errors of the NO2 columns with similar magnitudes over Western Europe.

Prescribing practices in psychiatric hospitals in Eastern Europe

2011 ◽  
Vol 26 (7) ◽  
pp. 414-418 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. Jordanova ◽  
N.P. Maric ◽  
V. Alikaj ◽  
M. Bajs ◽  
T. Cavic ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Atypical Antipsychotics ◽  
Psychiatric Care ◽  
Anticholinergic Drug ◽  
Psychiatric Hospitals ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Prescribing Practices ◽  
The Mean ◽  
Clinical Records

AbstractBackgroundThere has been no evidence about the prescribing practices in psychiatric care in Eastern Europe.AimsTo examine the patterns of psychotropic prescribing in five countries of Eastern Europe.MethodWe conducted a one-day census of psychiatric treatments used in eight psychiatric hospitals in Albania, Croatia, Macedonia, Serbia and Romania. We examined clinical records and medication charts of 1304 patients.ResultsThe use of polypharmacy was frequent across all diagnostic groups. Only 6.8% of patients were on monotherapy. The mean number of prescribed drugs was 2.8 (SD 0.97) with 26.5% receiving two drugs, 42.1% receiving three drugs and 22.1% being prescribed four or more psychotropic drugs. Typical antipsychotics were prescribed to 63% and atypical antipsychotics to 40% of patients with psychosis. Older generations of antidepressants were prescribed to 29% of patients with depression. Anxiolitic drugs were prescribed to 20.4% and benzodiazepines to 68.5% of patients. One third of patients received an anticholinergic drug on a regular basis.ConclusionsOlder generation antipsychotics and antidepressants were used more frequently than in the countries of Western Europe. Psychotropic polypharmacy is a common practice. There is a need for adopting more evidence-based practice in psychiatric care in these countries.

scholarly journals Changes in the Compound Drought and Extreme Heat Occurrence in the 1961–2018 Period at the European Scale

Water ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (12) ◽  
pp. 3543
Author(s):  
Nejc Bezak ◽  
Matjaž Mikoš
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Air Temperature ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Balkan Peninsula ◽  
Extreme Heat ◽  
Extreme Weather Events ◽  
Economic Damage ◽  
Precipitation Trend ◽  
Total Precipitation ◽  
Continental Scale

Compound extreme weather events can cause large economic damage and endanger human lives. Therefore, identification of changes in such compound event frequency and magnitude is important information that could be useful for decision makers and practitioners in water management and agriculture sector. This is especially the case for dry hazards that can be significantly influenced by the increasing air temperature and can have significant impact on water availability and consumption as well as on agricultural production. This study investigated changes in the compound occurrence of drought and extreme heat at the European scale using Uncertainties in Ensembles of Regional Reanalyses (UERRA) regional reanalysis data for the 1961–2018 period. The effective drought index (EDI) and the air temperature percentile threshold were used for the identification of the compound events at the catchment scale where entire Europe was divided into more than 4000 catchments. The results revealed multiple hotspots of compound drought and extreme heat events such as parts of Western Europe, Italy, Balkan Peninsula and Northern and Eastern Europe. At the continental scale, no uniform trend pattern could be detected. However, multiple areas with either positive or negative changes were identified. A positive change was characteristic for parts of Western Europe, Italy, Balkan Peninsula, etc. In these cases, the trend was mostly driven by the decreasing total precipitation trend and was not directly affected by the increasing air temperature trend. Areas with negative changes include parts of Northern and Eastern Europe and British Isles. In these cases, the detected trend was mostly driven by an increasing total precipitation trend. However, local drivers could be different.

scholarly journals A Method for Retrieving Mean Horizontal Wind Profiles from Single-Doppler Radar Observations Contaminated by Aliasing

2004 ◽  
Vol 132 (6) ◽  
pp. 1399-1409 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jidong Gao ◽  
Kelvin K. Droegemeier ◽  
Jiandong Gong ◽  
Qin Xu
Keyword(s):  
Radial Velocity ◽  
Wind Profile ◽  
Doppler Radar ◽  
Random Noise ◽  
Simulated Data ◽  
Horizontal Wind ◽  
Random Errors ◽  
The Mean ◽  
Wind Profiles ◽  
Full Volume

The velocity–azimuth display (VAD) technique was designed to estimate the areal mean vertical profile of the horizontal wind above a ground-based Doppler radar. The method uses radial velocity observations under the assumption of a linear wind field, though it encounters difficulty when the observations are contaminated by velocity ambiguities, large noise, and when viable data exist only over a restricted azimuthal range. The method suggested in this paper uses gradients of radial velocity, rather than only the velocity itself, to derive wind profiles and thus is termed the gradient velocity–azimuth display (GVAD) technique. Both the VAD and GVAD methods are tested first on simulated data to examine their sensitivity to different type of errors in radial velocity. The retrieved mean wind profiles are shown to be insensitive to random errors in radial velocity, even at large amplitude. However, the VAD method is very sensitive to systematic errors caused by velocity ambiguities. The experiments indicate that if only 3% of a full-volume scan of radial wind data is contaminated by aliasing errors, the relative rms error in the mean wind profile retrieved by VAD can reach 50%. In contrast, GVAD is very robust to such errors. Application of GVAD to Weather Surveillance Radar-1988 Doppler (WSR-88D) data collected during the 3 May 1999 tornado outbreak show that it has the ability to obtain accurate wind profiles even when the observations contain large errors caused by velocity ambiguities and random noise.

scholarly journals Rapid Estimation of Column-Averaged CO2 Concentration Using a Correlation Algorithm

2010 ◽  
Vol 27 (12) ◽  
pp. 2002-2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Igor Polonsky ◽  
D. M. O’Brien
Keyword(s):  
Near Infrared ◽  
Simulated Data ◽  
Simple Algorithm ◽  
Co2 Concentration ◽  
Linear Interpolation ◽  
Random Errors ◽  
Correlation Algorithm ◽  
Large Ensembles ◽  
The Mean ◽  
Physical Reasons

Abstract Measurement of XCO2, the column-averaged mole fraction of CO2, using reflected sunlight in the near-infrared bands of CO2, is strongly influenced by photons that are scattered in the atmosphere because scattering can either decrease or increase the mean pathlength compared with the direct path from the sun to the surface to the satellite. A very simple algorithm that can be used to compensate for the errors introduced by scattering is presented. The algorithm is based on the observation that the apparent optical path differences in selected pairs of channels in the weak CO2 band at 1.6 μm and the O2 A band at 0.76 μm are tightly correlated for large ensembles of scattering atmospheres. The number of tightly correlated pairs of channels is many hundreds for the bands measured by NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO). The physical reasons for the correlation are that the mean photon pathlengths are comparable for the members of each pair of channels, and that the extinction profiles vary similarly with height. For atmospheres with modest scattering optical thickness (less than 0.3), the slope and the intercept of the linear correlation for any pair depends weakly on the surface reflectance, the surface pressure, and the viewing geometry. Through numerical simulations the slope and intercept may be parameterized simply in terms of these variables. Thereafter, the task of retrieving XCO2 from measured spectra may be reduced to linear interpolation in precomputed tables of slopes and intercepts. Results with simulated data for NASA’s OCO satellite are presented, and random errors and biases are investigated. Although OCO did not reach orbit, the method is applicable to any instrument that operates using similar principles [such as those on the Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite (GOSAT) and the replacement satellite OCO-2].

scholarly journals High-resolution air quality simulation over Europe with the chemistry transport model CHIMERE

2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Terrenoire ◽  
B. Bessagnet ◽  
L. Rouïl ◽  
F. Tognet ◽  
G. Pirovano ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
High Resolution ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Transport Model ◽  
Horizontal Resolution ◽  
Medium Size ◽  
Spatial Gradient ◽  
Po Valley ◽  
Coarse Particulate Matter ◽  
Emissions Modelling ◽  
Future Work

Abstract. A modified version of CHIMERE 2009, including new methodologies in emissions modelling and an urban correction, is used to perform a simulation at high resolution (0.125° × 0.0625°) over Europe for the year 2009. The model reproduces the temporal variability of NO2, O3, PM10, PM2.5 better at rural (RB) than urban (UB) background stations, with yearly correlation values for the different pollutants ranging between 0.62 and 0.77 at RB sites and between 0.52 and 0.73 at UB sites. Also, the fractional biases (FBs) show that the model performs slightly better at RB sites than at UB sites for NO2 (RB = −33.9%, UB = −53.6%), O3 (RB = 20.1%, UB = 25.2%) and PM10 (RB = −5.50%, UB = −20.1%). The difficulties for the model in reproducing NO2 concentrations can be attributed to the general underestimation of NOx emissions as well as to the adopted horizontal resolution, which represents only partially the spatial gradient of the emissions over medium-size and small cities. The overestimation of O3 by the model is related to the NO2 underestimation and the overestimated O3 concentrations of the lateral boundary conditions. At UB sites, CHIMERE reproduces PM2.5 better than PM10. This is primarily the result of an underestimation of coarse particulate matter (PM) associated with uncertainties in secondary organic aerosol (SOA) chemistry and its precursor emissions (Po valley and Mediterranean basin), dust (south of Spain) and sea salt (western Europe). The results suggest that future work should focus on the development of national bottom-up emission inventories including a better account for semi-volatile organic compounds and their conversion to SOA, the improvement of the CHIMERE urban parameterization, the introduction into CHIMERE of the coarse nitrate chemistry and an advanced parameterization accounting for windblown dust emissions.

Near-past evolution of the magnitude and intensity of European heat waves

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhuyun Ye ◽  
Jesper Christensen ◽  
Camilla Geels ◽  
Ulas Im
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Heat Waves ◽  
Model Performance ◽  
Horizontal Resolution ◽  
Northern Europe ◽  
Southern Europe ◽  
Climate Zones ◽  
Increasing Trends ◽  
North Western

&lt;p&gt;This work presents results from downscaling experiments using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) in frame of the H2020-EXHAUSTION project for the period of 1980-2010 at 20km horizontal resolution over the European domain. Two simulations were carried out driven by ERA5 input by grid nudging (WRF_ERA5) and CESM2 output using 6 waves spectral nudging (WRF_CESM2), respectively. These near-past simulations have been rigorously evaluated with observations and reanalysis data including European Climate Assessment &amp; Dataset (ECA&amp;D), EOBS, and ERA5-land for the daily mean (TG), maximum (TX), and minimum (TN) surface temperatures over the whole Europe as well as five climate zones. The WRF simulations compared reasonably well with the observations. WRF_ERA5 showed a smaller root mean square error (RMSE) and higher correlations (r), while WRF_CESM2 performed better in terms of mean and normalized mean bias (MB and NMB). WRF_CESM2 is overall reliable to be used for future simulations.&amp;#160; In terms of the 30-year trend of TG, TX, and TN, WRF_CESM2 (0.6-0.66 &amp;#176;C/10yrs) showed faster increasing trends than WRF_ERA5 (0.29-0.35 &amp;#176;C/10yrs) and observations (0.27-0.41 &amp;#176;C/10yrs). Evaluations in different climate zones show smaller bias in north-western Europe and southern Europe. In terms of temporal evolution, eastern Europe showed the highest correlations. The worst model performance has been calculated for northern Europe.&amp;#160;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In addition, the Warm Spell Duration Index (WSDI) and the Heat Wave Magnitude Index daily (HWMId) have been calculated to represent the duration and magnitude of heat waves, respectively, for both simulations and observations. Strong and significant increasing trends are shown in eastern Europe and northern Europe for both WSDI and HWMId in all cases, with the fastest trends shown in EOBS (4 days/10yrs for WSDI, and 2/10yrs for HWMId), slowest trends in ECA&amp;D (2 days/10yrs for WSDI, and 1/10yrs for HWMId), and trends in two WRF simulations are in between. No significant trends were found in southern Europe and north-western Europe in ECA&amp;D, EOBS, and WRF_ERA5 simulation, while significant increasing trends were simulated in WRF_CESM2 in these two zones. The preliminary results suggested an increasing trend in the evolution of the future heat waves over Europe with implications on both direct impacts on human health, as well as indirect impacts through changes in exposure to pollutants such as ozone and particulate matter. Various future simulations are ongoing to address the impacts of climate change on the severity of heat waves under different levels of mitigation.&lt;/p&gt;

scholarly journals Spatial patterns and characteristics of flood seasonality in Europe

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (7) ◽  
pp. 3883-3901 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Hall ◽  
Günter Blöschl
Keyword(s):  
Cluster Analysis ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Geographical Location ◽  
Water Levels ◽  
Mountainous Areas ◽  
Continental Scale ◽  
North Eastern ◽  
Seasonal Flood ◽  
The Mean ◽  
Flood Characteristics

Abstract. In Europe, floods are typically analysed within national boundaries and it is therefore not well understood how the characteristics of local floods fit into a continental perspective. To gain a better understanding at continental scale, this study analyses seasonal flood characteristics across Europe for the period 1960–2010. From a European flood database, the timing within the year of annual maximum discharges or water levels of 4105 stations is analysed. A cluster analysis is performed to identify large-scale regions with distinct flood seasons based on the monthly relative frequencies of the annual maxima. The clusters are further analysed to determine the temporal flood characteristics within each region and the Europe-wide patterns of bimodal and unimodal flood seasonality distributions. The mean annual timing of floods observed at individual stations across Europe is spatially well defined. Below 60∘ latitude, the mean timing transitions from winter floods in the west to spring floods in the east. Summer floods occurring in mountainous areas interrupt this west-to-east transition. Above 60∘ latitude, spring floods are dominant, except for coastal areas in which autumn and winter floods tend to occur. The temporal concentration of flood occurrences around the annual mean timing is highest in north-eastern Europe, with most of the floods being concentrated within 1–2 months. The cluster analysis results in six spatially consistent regions with distinct flood seasonality characteristics. The regions with winter floods in western, central, and southern Europe are assigned to Cluster 1 (∼ 36 % of the stations) and Cluster 4 (∼ 10 %) with the mean flood timing within the cluster in late January and early December respectively. In eastern Europe (Cluster 3, ∼ 24 %), the cluster average flood occurs around the end of March. The mean flood timing in northern (Cluster 5, ∼ 8 %) and north-eastern Europe (Cluster 6, ∼ 5 %) is approximately in mid-May and mid-April respectively. About 15 % of the stations (Cluster 2) are located in mountainous areas, with a mean flood timing around the end of June. Most of the stations (∼ 73 %) with more than 30 years of data exhibit a unimodal flood seasonality distribution (one or more consecutive months with high flood occurrence). Only a few stations (∼ 3 %), mainly located on the foothills of mountainous areas, have a clear bimodal flood seasonality distribution. This study suggests that, as a result of the consistent Europe-wide pattern of flood timing obtained, the geographical location of a station in Europe can give an indication of its seasonal flood characteristics and that geographical location seems to be more relevant than catchment area or catchment outlet elevation in shaping flood seasonality.

scholarly journals Analysis of the anthropogenic and biogenic NOx emissions over 2008-2017: assessment of the trends in the 30 most populated urban areas in Europe

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Audrey Fortems-Cheiney ◽  
Gregoire Broquet ◽  
Isabelle Pison ◽  
Marielle Saunois ◽  
Elise Potier ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Transport Model ◽  
Road Transport ◽  
Industrial Emissions ◽  
Public Power ◽  
The Road ◽  
Long Term Trends

&lt;p&gt;&lt;span&gt;We use the OMI-QA4ECV-v1.1 NO&lt;/span&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;span&gt;2&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;span&gt; tropospheric columns over the 10-yr 2008-2017 period to confront satellite-based trends in NO&lt;/span&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;span&gt;2&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;span&gt; concentrations to those from the state-of-the-art regional chemistry-transport model CHIMERE and to evaluate the bottom-up anthropogenic and biogenic NO&lt;/span&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;span&gt;x&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;span&gt; emissions in Europe. A focus is made for &lt;/span&gt;&lt;span&gt;the 30 &lt;/span&gt;&lt;span&gt;most populated urban areas in Europe. Over urban areas in Western Europe, except for coastal cities, OMI confirm the drop in the simulated CHIMERE NO&lt;/span&gt;&lt;sub&gt;&lt;span&gt;2&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/sub&gt;&lt;span&gt; tropospheric columns based on &lt;/span&gt;&lt;span&gt;the latest country emission official reporting. OMI does not show significant decreasing trends over Central and Eastern Europe urban areas. Increasing biogenic emissions &lt;/span&gt;&lt;span&gt;helps reconciling CHIMERE and OMI trends over urban areas in Central Europe and over rural areas, confirming the importance of accounting for non-anthropogenic emissions to assess long-term trends. Over Eastern Europe, our results question emission reductions estimated for particular sectors and in particular the road transport, public power and industrial emissions. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

scholarly journals Introduction: The economic and social aspects of the family life-cycle in traditional and modern Japan

2000 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
OSAMU SAITO
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Household Size ◽  
Low Fertility ◽  
Household Formation ◽  
Local Mode ◽  
Developmental Cycle ◽  
The Family ◽  
The Mean ◽  
The Individual

Since the publication of the seminal book of essays Household and family in past time in 1972, much research on the history of the family has concentrated on the situation in western and eastern Europe, and relied almost exclusively on census-type documents. It is, for example, established that whereas mean household size was small, the mean age at first marriage fairly high and neo-localism (the formation of an independent household on marriage) dominant in western Europe, almost the opposite applied in eastern Europe. Yet these findings do not preclude the possibility of discovering regions where in statistical terms the mean household size was not large and the proportion of complex households not particularly high, but where the neo-local mode of household formation was not the norm. Such a region could have a preference for joint families (two or more married sons co-residing with their father) with a low-fertility demographic regime, or stem families (one co-residing married son) with that of intermediate to low fertility.Traditional Japan is an example of just such a stem-family society. There the household, not the individual, was perceived as the basic social and legal unit of society. This unit was called ie and its headship, authority and property were expected to be handed down from the father to a particular son, enabling the household to follow alternating stages of ‘simple’, ‘multiple’ and ‘extended’ forms over the developmental cycle, more or less in accordance with the predictions of Lutz Berkner. As articles in the section of Laslett and Wall's Household and family on Japan have already shown, the mean household size in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Japan was not higher than that in England, but the mean age at marriage was lower than in the English population. Moreover, household formation and succession rules under the Japanese ie system were not compatible with the simple family mode.

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