Statistical Modeling of RPCA-FCM in Spatiotemporal Rainfall Patterns Recognition

This study was conducted to identify the spatiotemporal torrential rainfall patterns of the East Coast of Peninsular Malaysia, as it is the region most affected by the torrential rainfall of the Northeast Monsoon season. Dimension reduction, such as the classical Principal Components Analysis (PCA) coupled with the clustering approach, is often applied to reduce the dimension of the data while simultaneously performing cluster partitions. However, the classical PCA is highly insensitive to outliers, as it assigns equal weights to each set of observations. Hence, applying the classical PCA could affect the cluster partitions of the rainfall patterns. Furthermore, traditional clustering algorithms only allow each element to exclusively belong to one cluster, thus observations within overlapping clusters of the torrential rainfall datasets might not be captured effectively. In this study, a statistical model of torrential rainfall pattern recognition was proposed to alleviate these issues. Here, a Robust PCA (RPCA) based on Tukey’s biweight correlation was introduced and the optimum breakdown point to extract the number of components was identified. A breakdown point of 0.4 at 85% cumulative variance percentage efficiently extracted the number of components to avoid low-frequency variations or insignificant clusters on a spatial scale. Based on the extracted components, the rainfall patterns were further characterized based on cluster solutions attained using Fuzzy C-means clustering (FCM) to allow data elements to belong to more than one cluster, as the rainfall data structure permits this. Lastly, data generated using a Monte Carlo simulation were used to evaluate the performance of the proposed statistical modeling. It was found that the proposed RPCA-FCM performed better using RPCA-FCM compared to the classical PCA coupled with FCM in identifying the torrential rainfall patterns of Peninsular Malaysia’s East Coast.

Atmospheric boundary layer during northeast monsoon over Tamilnadu and neighbourhood - A study using TOVS data

Thermodynamic structure of atmospheric boundary layer during October - December covering southwest and northeast monsoon activities over interior Tamilnadu (ITN), coastal Tamilnadu (CTN) and adjoining Bay of Bengal (BOB) has been studied using TIROS Operational Vertical Sounder (TOVS) data of 1996-98. Heights of neutral stratified mixed layer, cloud layer and planetary boundary layer (PBL) have been estimated through available standard pressure level data. Highest PBL occurs during active northeast monsoon. Cloud layer thickness during weak northeast monsoon over interior Tamilnadu is significantly higher than that over coastal Tamilnadu and also over Bay of Bengal. Convective stability (instability) of the atmosphere in 850-700 hPa layer is associated with weak / withdrawal (active) phase of northeast monsoon. One of the plausible reasons for subdued rainfall activity during weak northeast monsoon over interior Tamilnadu could be convective instability seen over this region in 850-700 hPa layer. But the same is absent in CTN and BOB where no rainfall activity exists during weak monsoon phase. Virtual temperature lapse rate in 850-700 hPa layer exceeding (less than) 6oK/km is associated with active (weak) phase of northeast monsoon over the interior, coastal Tamilnadu and Bay of Bengal.

Some aspects of Indian northeast monsoon as derived from TOVS data

The Tiros Operational Vertical Sounder (TOVS) is a popular satellite sounding system. In this paper certain features of Indian northeast monsoon have been studied with the help of three years of TOVS data received through the satellite ground station located at the Regional Meteorological Centre, Chennai. The TOVS based latitudinal and longitudinal profiles of Outgoing Longwave Radiation (OLR) and Precipitable Water Vapour (PWV) were derived for various phases of northeast monsoon activity, over coastal and interior Tamilnadu and oceanic regions. These were consistent with the known spatial rainfall characteristics of northeast monsoon. The average vertical temperature profiles derived for the various phases of northeast monsoon for the different regions revealed that the lowest layer and upper troposphere are warmer and mid troposphere colder during active northeast monsoon compared to dry phase. The diurnal variation of OLR and PWV and the comparability of TOVS derived data with conventional upper air data and INSAT data have been briefly discussed.

On some aspects of southwest monsoon rainfall over Tamilnadu

The rainfall during southwest monsoon season over Tamilnadu is quite significant from the point of view of water storage in major reservoirs as northeast monsoon rainfall, which is about half of the annual rainfall, is not stable enough due to its large interannual variability. The southwest monsoon rainfall, on the other hand, is more stable. The north-south oriented trough over Tamilnadu and adjoining Bay togetherwith upper air cyclonic circulation/trough in lower tropospheric levels account for three fourths of significant rainfall occurrence during southwest monsoon season. Rainfall during southwest monsoon and northeast monsoon seasons was found to be independent with a small negative correlation of -0.18. This shows that the southwest monsoon rainfall may not be of much use to predict the pattern of northeast monoon rainfall over Tamilnadu.

Probability studies of rainfall and crop production in coastal Tamil Nadu

Studies are made of the probability of Occurrence of annual and seasonal rainfall, wet and dry spells on monthly basis throughout the year and on weekly basis during the northeast monsoon season for various stations in coastal Tamil Nadu. It has been observed that amount of rainfall received is more in the stations north of Alangudi and north of Tondi in the northeast and southwest monsoon seasons respectively at all the probability levels. However, the quantum of rainfall is more in stations south of Adiramapattinam during the hot weather period. Number of wet spells are more from July to September in the stations of north costal Tamil Nadu. During the northeast monsoon season also wet weeks are mainly confined to the stations of north coastal Tamil Nadu. Analysis of production figures of some rainfed crops shows more productivity (k8I1\a) in north than in south coastal Tamil Nadu.

Assessing the distribution and variation characteristics of marine primary productivity in the coastal marine area of Vietnam South Centre

Primary production (PP) of phytoplankton plays an essential role in food web dynamics, biogeochemical cycles and marine fisheries. It is used as one of the basic information for evaluating marine ecosystems. In this paper, monthly composite PP data on a 4 km x 4 km grid for the period 2003-2020 was used to evaluate the distributional characteristics of PP in the coastal marine area of Vietnam South Centre. The statistical results show that the climatological average of PP in 18 years reached 449.2 mgC/m2/day, ranged from 272.1 to 14,205.4 mgC/m2/day. The PP has seasonal and spatial variations. In time, the lowest value of PP was in spring, and the highest was in winter; in space, PP tended to decrease from shore to offshore, PP was higher in coastal areas than in the open sea areas. During the northeast monsoon season, PP increased by more than 1000 mgC/m2/day in the coastal area. Meanwhile, in the southwest monsoon season, due to the ecological influence of the upwelling phenomenon, PP increased with a value greater than 1500 mgC/m2/day, distributed along the coastline of Ninh Thuan - Binh Thuan. Primary productivity positively correlated with chlorophyll content but negatively correlated with sea surface temperature with correlation coefficients of 0.9 and -0.6, respectively. There was a weak correlation between PP and ONI with correlation coefficients of -0.23. The temporal-spatial variation of PP was affected by the ENSO (El Niño-Southern Oscillation) phenomenon, the positive phase of ENSO (El Niño conditions) corresponded to lower PP, and the negative phase of ENSO (La Niña conditions) corresponded to higher PP. The research results from this paper can be used as a reference in marine ecosystem management.

Numerical study of sediment transport in Thu-Bon estuary and coastal areas of Hoi-An City

The area of Cua-Dai estuary and the coastal areas of Hoi-An City have experienced complicated erosion and sedimentation in recent years. Along the coast of Hoi-An, erosion often occurs, whereas in the area of Cua-Dai River, there is an accretion phenomenon that obstructs the waterway navigation from Cua-Dai to Cu-Lao-Cham. Occurrence of sand dunes in the offshore location of Cua-Dai has been recorded at a number of times in recent years. Studying the process of bed morphological change due to the sediment transport in the Thu-Bon river and the influence of monsoons in the area allows to explain the above phenomenon thus an in-depth study to propose appropriate solutions. This study used the numerical model Telemac which combines the hydro-morphodynamic and wave modules. The simulation results show that the main trend of coastal currents caused by tides and waves tends to go southward, leading to coastal erosion especially in the northeast monsoon season as well as sedimentation in the estuarine area. In addition, the model also shows the crucial role of waves in shoreline erosion, with the degree of erosion in the north coast near Cua-Dai being more severe than the southern coast, through the formation of local eddy flow on the north coast.

Fourier analysis of weekly soil moisture at Pune

The wee!..l) soil moistu re data collected at Centra l Agromcl Observat ory ICA ~ M O J . PuucJuril1~ 19 5 K·P~ S9 have been subjccctcd to Fo urie r analysis. With norm al dat a the amplit udc~ For Varillll'i dc pl h ~'"U)' between 0 .76 In I . 1.2 em of wate r Iu r first harmonic and decrease sha rply \\ ith h igher order harmonic...l he •...rlucs for fourth harm onic range from 0 .0 3 to 0 ,07 em of water o nly. UUY, C\W, the highest amplit ude forthe calendar vcars 19t'4. 19S5. IIJH7 and 19S9 i'i fou nd 10 va ry between 0 . 45 10 1. .15 ern of wat er irrespective Ill'-oi l dep ths. Under normal co ndit io n.. the ma ximu m so il moistu re nca r the soi l surface 0 .5 em dep th ! occurson 15 September while at 30 em depth. the soil moi st ure ma vim um occurs on 2-4 September. a dcluy of 9 da) s.1:, lf th e four soil dep ths co nsidered in thi s study. the first . second and third har mo nics rc pr c-sent rc..pc...Iivc 1,\~.46. 2-32 .\ 4-26 & 67-S6. 6-t 4 a r-d 1 · 6 ~,~ of total var iance res pecti ve ly for eac h of th e years 19S-4. 19S5.IIJg7 a nd t9~9 and normal dura. The cha nge in 'oil mUI..ture pattern after J une and October due In occ urrence(If southwe...t and northeast monsoon i~ wctl ref lected .