A Comprehensive Study of Mass Accretion and Atmospheric Effect of Raindrop

The mass accretion of a raindrop in different layers of the atmosphere is not dealt with so far. A comprehensive brief study of the motion of raindrops through the atmosphere (i) without mass accretion, (ii) with mass accretion and (iii) finally pressure variation in the atmosphere with altitude using Bernoulli’s equation is illustrated. Acquirement of mass from moist air is mass accretion and mass accretion during the motion of raindrop through resistive medium holds an arbitrary power-law equation. Bernoulli’s equation when applied to it, the generalized first-order differential equation is reduced to a polynomial equation. Results show a single intersecting point of approximate terminal velocity 1 m/s and mass 10-06 mg as illustrated. Terminal velocity is achieved within 25 sec. There is the approximate exponential growth of terminal velocity. An increase in momentum is due to mass accretion during motion. Various conditions of no mass accretion and mass accretion show the same result while for atmospheric effect using Bernoulli’s equation the first-order differential equation reduces to a polynomial equation.

Verdant Home: Growing Elements of Architecture

<p>‘Verdant Home’ explores how the design of residential architecture can evoke the senses through the integration of the garden with the house. This research challenges the use of New Zealand native and exotic plant species as merely an addition to architecture; instead creating stimulating and efficacious verdant elements (components) as part of the architecture. Two concerns provoked investigations into this subject. Firstly, a concern for the gradually occurring loss of vegetation amongst city residences, and secondly a concern for the way in which green elements are often added to buildings, without consideration of how they could sensually transform and improve the aesthetics of space and context. The final refined solution addresses these concerns by incorporating verdant components in an advantageous way, creating a new typology of residential home for New Zealand. Modern architectural technologies allow conventionally separate garden spaces to be integrated with building forms, removing the need for separate garden spaces. These technologies provide humans with the positive environmental benefits of plants within interior spaces. This thesis builds on these benefits, providing ideas for enhancing spatial experiences within the home by merging programmatic use with the pleasurable qualities of gardens. Presented at the outset of the thesis is evidence supporting the physical and mental benefits of everyday human contact with nature. The pursuit for a way in which architecture can encompass verdant elements as integral components of the home is explored through a review of garden history and theory. This review provides specific inspiration for the creation of splendid spaces, spaces which manipulate dimension and materials, sensually practical spaces and statement spaces in the design of a residential home. Following this, buildings from various time periods and locations which innovatively incorporate vegetation are evaluated. An analysis of the New Zealand architectural context and its relationship to gardens is then completed, leading to designs which incorporate all of this research. This thesis challenges the current use of verdant elements such as: living walls, roofs and facades. Whilst these are beneficial technologies, there is potential for them to have an increased atmospheric effect on the spaces they are part of. New aesthetic possibilities are focused on through the designs, which utilise principles of historical garden design typologies to sensually integrate verdant technologies. This results in the creation of aesthetically engaging verdant home solutions.</p>

Verdant Home: Growing Elements of Architecture

<p>‘Verdant Home’ explores how the design of residential architecture can evoke the senses through the integration of the garden with the house. This research challenges the use of New Zealand native and exotic plant species as merely an addition to architecture; instead creating stimulating and efficacious verdant elements (components) as part of the architecture. Two concerns provoked investigations into this subject. Firstly, a concern for the gradually occurring loss of vegetation amongst city residences, and secondly a concern for the way in which green elements are often added to buildings, without consideration of how they could sensually transform and improve the aesthetics of space and context. The final refined solution addresses these concerns by incorporating verdant components in an advantageous way, creating a new typology of residential home for New Zealand. Modern architectural technologies allow conventionally separate garden spaces to be integrated with building forms, removing the need for separate garden spaces. These technologies provide humans with the positive environmental benefits of plants within interior spaces. This thesis builds on these benefits, providing ideas for enhancing spatial experiences within the home by merging programmatic use with the pleasurable qualities of gardens. Presented at the outset of the thesis is evidence supporting the physical and mental benefits of everyday human contact with nature. The pursuit for a way in which architecture can encompass verdant elements as integral components of the home is explored through a review of garden history and theory. This review provides specific inspiration for the creation of splendid spaces, spaces which manipulate dimension and materials, sensually practical spaces and statement spaces in the design of a residential home. Following this, buildings from various time periods and locations which innovatively incorporate vegetation are evaluated. An analysis of the New Zealand architectural context and its relationship to gardens is then completed, leading to designs which incorporate all of this research. This thesis challenges the current use of verdant elements such as: living walls, roofs and facades. Whilst these are beneficial technologies, there is potential for them to have an increased atmospheric effect on the spaces they are part of. New aesthetic possibilities are focused on through the designs, which utilise principles of historical garden design typologies to sensually integrate verdant technologies. This results in the creation of aesthetically engaging verdant home solutions.</p>

Modeling ocean-induced rapid Earth rotation variations: an update

We revisit the problem of modeling the ocean’s contribution to rapid, non-tidal Earth rotation variations at periods of 2–120 days. Estimates of oceanic angular momentum (OAM, 2007–2011) are drawn from a suite of established circulation models and new numerical simulations, whose finest configuration is on a "Image missing"$$^\circ $$ ∘ grid. We show that the OAM product by the Earth System Modeling Group at GeoForschungsZentrum Potsdam has spurious short period variance in its equatorial motion terms, rendering the series a poor choice for describing oceanic signals in polar motion on time scales of less than $$\sim $$ ∼ 2 weeks. Accounting for OAM in rotation budgets from other models typically reduces the variance of atmosphere-corrected geodetic excitation by $$\sim $$ ∼ 54% for deconvolved polar motion and by $$\sim $$ ∼ 60% for length-of-day. Use of OAM from the "Image missing"$$^\circ $$ ∘ model does provide for an additional reduction in residual variance such that the combined oceanic–atmospheric effect explains as much as 84% of the polar motion excitation at periods < 120 days. Employing statistical analysis and bottom pressure changes from daily Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment solutions, we highlight the tendency of ocean models run at a 1$$^\circ $$ ∘ grid spacing to misrepresent topographically constrained dynamics in some deep basins of the Southern Ocean, which has adverse effects on OAM estimates taken along the 90$$^\circ $$ ∘ meridian. Higher model resolution thus emerges as a sensible target for improving the oceanic component in broader efforts of Earth system modeling for geodetic purposes.

Tracking the Endogenous Dynamics of the Solfatara Volcano (Campi Flegrei, Italy) through the Analysis of Ground Thermal Image Temperatures

In the last decades, thermal infrared ground-based cameras have become effective tools to detect significant spatio-temporal anomalies in the hydrothermal/volcanic environment, possibly linked to impending eruptions. In this paper, we analyzed the temperature time-series recorded by the ground-based Thermal Infrared Radiometer permanent network of INGV-OV, installed inside the Solfatara-Pisciarelli area, the most active fluid emission zones of the Campi Flegrei caldera (Italy). We investigated the temperatures’ behavior in the interval 25 June 2016–29 May 2020, with the aim of tracking possible endogenous hydrothermal/volcanic sources. We performed the Independent Component Analysis, the time evolution estimation of the spectral power, the cross-correlation and the Changing Points’ detection. We compared the obtained patterns with the behavior of atmospheric temperature and pressure, of the time-series recorded by the thermal camera of Mt. Vesuvius, of the local seismicity moment rate and of the CO2 emission flux. We found an overall influence of exogenous, large scale atmospheric effect, which dominated in 2016–2017. Starting from 2018, a clear endogenous forcing overcame the atmospheric factor, and dominated strongly soil temperature variations until the end of the observations. This paper highlights the importance of monitoring and investigating the soil temperature in volcanic environments, as well as the atmospheric parameters.

A New Type of Atmospheric Dispersion Corrector Suitable for Wide-Field High-Resolution Imaging and Spectroscopy on Large Telescopes

Atmospheric dispersion produces spectral elongation in images formed by land-based astronomical telescopes, and this elongation increases as the telescope points away from the zenith. Atmospheric Dispersion Correctors (ADCs) produce compensating dispersion that can be adjusted to best cancel out the atmospheric effect. These correctors are generally of two basic types: Rotating Atmospheric Dispersion Correctors (R-ADCs), and Linear Atmospheric Dispersion Correctors (L-ADCs). Lately, a third type, the “Compensating Lateral ADC” (CL-ADC) has been proposed. None of these design approaches allow for large corrector systems (with elements greater than 1 m in diameter), in which the secondary spectrum is corrected to small residuals, of the order of tens’ of milliarcseconds. This paper describes a new type of large corrector (>1 m diameter elements), which can achieve the correction of the secondary spectrum to the order of 10 milliarcseconds. This correction is achieved by combining the R-ADC and CL-ADC approaches to dispersion correction. Only glass types readily available in metre diameters are required.

Design and Analysis of 1.28 Terabit/s DWDM Transmission System for Free Space Optical Communication

In this paper, the implementation of a dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) 32 × 40 Gbps (1.28 Tera bit/s) for the free-space optical (FSO) communication system is investigated. Analysis is performed for return-to-zero (RZ) and non-return-to-zero (NRZ) line codes for 1 km free space optic length. Motivation to the current analysis is to compare RZ and NRZ lines codes in the DWDM-FSO communication system and it is found that the NRZ line code is better than RZ code. A 1.28 Tb/ps wavelength division multiplexed communication system for free space optic channel workplace has been discovered in which 32 channel each of 40 Gbps data streams are combined using wavelength division multiplexed. The study includes the attenuation caused by atmospheric effect and beam divergence. Bit-error rate (BER), quality factor (Q), and eye diagram are indicator of performance evaluation. By comparing one can get a promising system to the high capacity access network with more bandwidth, cost effective and good flexibility.

Design and Analysis of 1.28 Terabit/s DWDM Transmission System for Free Space Optical Communication

In this paper, the implementation of a dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) 32 × 40 Gbps (1.28 Tera bit/s) for the free-space optical (FSO) communication system is investigated. Analysis is performed for return-to-zero (RZ) and non-return-to-zero (NRZ) line codes for 1 km free space optic length. Motivation to the current analysis is to compare RZ and NRZ lines codes in the DWDM-FSO communication system and it is found that the NRZ line code is better than RZ code. A 1.28 Tb/ps wavelength division multiplexed communication system for free space optic channel workplace has been discovered in which 32 channel each of 40 Gbps data streams are combined using wavelength division multiplexed. The study includes the attenuation caused by atmospheric effect and beam divergence. Bit-error rate (BER), quality factor (Q), and eye diagram are indicator of performance evaluation. By comparing one can get a promising system to the high capacity access network with more bandwidth, cost effective and good flexibility.

Water Vapor Tomography of the Lower Atmosphere from Multiparametric Inversion: the Mt. Etna Volcano Test Case

Space techniques based on GPS and SAR interferometry allow measuring millimetric ground deformations. Achieving such accuracy means removing atmospheric anomalies that frequently affect volcanic areas by modeling the tropospheric delays. Due to the prominent orography and the high spatial and temporal variability of weather conditions, the active volcano Mt. Etna (Italy) is particularly suitable to carry out research aimed at estimating and filtering atmospheric effects on GPS and DInSAR ground deformation measurements. The aim of this work is to improve the accuracy of the ground deformation measurements by modeling the tropospheric delays at Mt. Etna volcano. To this end, data from the monitoring network of 29 GPS permanent stations and MODIS multispectral satellite data series are used to reproduce the tropospheric delays affecting interferograms. A tomography algorithm has been developed to reproduce the wet refractivity field over Mt. Etna in 3D, starting from the slant tropospheric delays calculated by GPS in all the stations of the network. The developed algorithm has been tested on a synthetic atmospheric anomaly. The test confirms the capability of the software to faithfully reconstruct the simulated anomaly. With the aim of applying this algorithm to real cases, we introduce the water vapor content measured by the MODIS instrument on board Terra and Aqua satellites. The use of such data, although limited by cloud cover, provides a two-fold benefit: it improves the tomographic resolution and adds feedback for the GPS wet delay measurements. A cross-comparison between GPS and MODIS water vapor measurements for the first time shows a fair agreement between those indirect measurements on an entire year of data (2015). The tomography algorithm was applied on selected real cases to correct the Sentinel-1 DInSAR interferograms acquired over Mt. Etna during 2015. Indeed, the corrected interferograms show that the differential path delay reaches 0.1 m (i.e. 3 C-band fringes) in ground deformation, demonstrating how the atmospheric anomaly affects precision and reliability of DInSAR space-based techniques. The real cases show that the tomography is often able to capture the atmospheric effect at the large scale and correct interferograms, although in limited areas. Furthermore, the introduction of MODIS data significantly improves by ∼80% voxel resolution at the critical layer (1,000 m). Further improvements will be suitable for monitoring active volcanoes worldwide.

The Potential Climatic Significance of the Global Reduction in Aviation During the Pandemic

This paper argues that, in 2020, the beneficial atmospheric effect from the reduction in aviation may have been at least 7-8 times greater than that occurring from the reduction in fossil carbon dioxide emissions from all sectors. Specifically, compared to potential atmospheric effects in 2020 without the pandemic, the decrease in effective radiative forcing from reduced contrail-cirrus formation may have been in the order of 35mWm-2 in 2020, compared to a reduction of only 4-5mWm-2 from the drop in fossil CO2 emissions. Over time, pursuing a low carbon pathway generates benefits that mount up to be much more significant than 2020 effects might imply, and is essential to stabilise the climate. However, a twin-track policy focus may be needed, with more emphasis on reducing short-term climate forcing, to minimise the impacts of climate change now, and to avoid detrimental feedback events. Future policy decisions about aviation should be made in this context.