Relationship between surface fields over Indian ocean and monsoon rainfall over homogeneous zones of India

The monthly mean atmospheric fields and surface parameters of NCEP/NCAR reanalysis for the period 1948-1998 have been studied to examine the characteristics of monsoon circulation features, sea surface temperature (SST), sea level pressure, surface wind stress and latent heat flux over the Indian Ocean and nearby seas during deficient, normal and excess rain years. The entire period of study has been classified into deficient, normal and excess rain years for all India as well as for each of the five homogeneous zones separately based on the observed seasonal mean rainfall. On the basis of the mean characteristics of the surface fields, the oceanic region covering the Indian Ocean and adjacent seas has been divided into four regional sectors. Using various statistical means the relation between the surface fields over the four regional sectors and the monsoon rainfall over five homogeneous zones of Indian landmass has been examined. Attempt have been made to identify some surface parameters which can be used as predictors for seasonal mean monsoon rainfall over the entire India and also over some homogeneous zones.

Variability of surface fields in different branches of monsoon

ABSTRACT. Characteristics of the surface fields. such as zonal and meridional components of pseudostress. surface pressure, latent and sensible heat fluxes, sea surface temperature (SST) and air temperature for the years 1985 and 1986, are studied using ECMWF model-analysed data and FSU data obtained from TOGA CD-ROM (1990). Three branches of monsoon. Viz. (i) Arabian Sea; (ii) Bay of Bengal and (iii) South China 1 Sea are observed in pseudostress, surface pressure and latent heat flux. However, the other three surface fieldsdo not reflect the branching phenomenon. The Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal branches depict strong signals of variability in the surface fields in association with the monsoon variability compared to the south China Sea branch. Arabian Sea branch is observed to have the strongest signals in the pseudostress and latent heat flux transfer whereas surface pressure is having the lowest value over the Bay of Bengal. Southern Indian Ocean shows significant variability in surface pressure in comparison to the three branches of monsoon. Strong positive radient of pseudostress in association with sudden increase of latent heat flux front May to June, and the pre-monsoonal pressure drop (March to April) in 1985 are the most prominent features associated with better monsoon activity. Inter-annual variability in sea surface temperature (SST) is not well marked but differences in SST amongst the three branches are significant.

Improving surface representation and consequences in NWP forecast

<p>The fields that describe surface properties, from terrain height to vegetation types can have substantial impact on NWP model forecast, especially on the model variables close to the surface. These fields can be computed from different databases. Higher resolution of the terrain height database and higher quality of input data leads to a better representation of the terrain height and other surface fields, especially as NWP models move to a higher resolution. Here we use ALARO configuration of the ALADIN System with TOUCANS turbulence scheme (prognostic TKE) with nonhydrostatic dynamics in 2km resolution over Croatia. The model domain contains Dinaric Alps mountains and Adriatic sea.  The existing operational NWP application uses fields from an old database that is insufficient to properly describe the surface in 2km grid spacing. The fields describing topography, such as terrain height, land sea mask, subgrid terrain variability including surface roughness are computed from a new database in substantially higher resolution. The new fields describing the surface characteristics are more realistic, but also substantially different from the fields used before.  However, the model, including the turbulence parametrisation, was tuned using the old database. Therefore, the subsequent model forecast was not automatically improved when the fields from the new database were used. Tuning only one parameter in a scheme is substantial work, but tuning the whole model with a large number of tuning parametres is daunting. Therefore, the computation of surface roughness and other parameters was tuned in order to improve the 10m wind forecast. Decreased surface roughness does not always lead to higher surface wind speeds and vice versa.</p>

Crystalline Silicon PERC Solar Cell with Ozonized AlOx Passivation Layer on the Rear Side

We present a method of ozonation to form the rear-side passivation layers of crystalline silicon PERC cells. In the method, a thin aluminum film was deposited on the back surface of a silicon wafer and then was oxidized into an aluminum oxide layer by gaseous ozone. Lifetimes of the wafers with such passivation layers proved to be increased with respect to those untreated, and the resultant PERC cells showed a performance improvement compared with standard cells with full back surface fields.

Modified virial theorem for highly magnetized white dwarfs

ABSTRACT Generally the virial theorem provides a relation between various components of energy integrated over a system. This helps us to understand the underlying equilibrium. Based on the virial theorem we can estimate, for example, the maximum allowed magnetic field in a star. Recent studies have proposed the existence of highly magnetized white dwarfs (B-WDs), with masses significantly higher than the Chandrasekhar limit. Surface magnetic fields of such white dwarfs could be more than $10^{9}$ G with the central magnitude several orders higher. These white dwarfs could be significantly smaller in size than their ordinary counterparts (with surface fields restricted to about $10^9$ G). In this paper, we reformulate the virial theorem for non-rotating B-WDs in which, unlike in previous formulations, the contribution of the magnetic pressure to the magnetohydrostatic balance cannot be neglected. Along with the new equation of magnetohydrostatic equilibrium, we approach the problem by invoking magnetic flux conservation and by varying the internal magnetic field with the matter density as a power law. Either of these choices is supported by previous independent work and neither violates any important physics. They are useful while there is no prior knowledge of field profile within a white dwarf. We then compute the modified gravitational, thermal, and magnetic energies and examine how the magnetic pressure influences the properties of such white dwarfs. Based on our results we predict important properties of these B-WDs, which turn out to be independent of our chosen field profiles.

Fifty Years of Dazzling, Dizzying Threads: Anniversary of Pittsburgh Pirates Debuting Double-Knits July 1970.

This article was originally accepted for presentation at the Baseball in Literature and Culture Conference at Ottawa University in Ottawa, Kansas, in April 2020 (conference cancelled due to Covid-19 outbreak) and presented virtually (via Zoom) for the 37th Sports Literature Association Conference, Virtual Edition June 19, 2020. This article commemorates the fiftieth anniversary of the Pittsburgh Pirates, when debuting in Three Rivers Stadium fifty years ago July 16, 1970, making a fashion statement in their new uniforms that would change the look of the game as much as the multi-purpose stadiums and artificial surface fields Major Leaguers played on. Their white double-knit uniforms would spark a revolution in uniform design soon to be adopted by all the Major League teams within a couple years. Their uniform’s nylon-cotton blend fabric changed the look of Major League Baseball at a time when advancements in textile technology combined with a freer spirit in graphics experimentation allowed for bold—and sometimes wild—fashion designs not seen before in professional sports. Several books along with news and commercial web sites/sources are referenced to confirm information in the article.

Multifrequency beam-based migration in inhomogeneous media using windowed Fourier transform frames

SUMMARY We consider the problem of inhomogeneous subsurface imaging using beam waves. The formulation is based on the ultra-wide-band phase-space beam summation (UWB-PS-BS) method, which is structured upon windowed Fourier transform (WFT) expansions of surface fields and sources. In this approach, the radiated field is given as a superposition of beam propagators. Here, we use the beams first for expanding the surface sources and the scattered data, and then for imaging where we use the backpropagation and cross-correlation of beams. This formulation enables a target oriented imaging approach, where we take into account only pairs of source and receiver beams that pass near a region of interest, and thus extract only the relevant data arriving from this region. It also leads to a priori sparse representation of both the beam domain data and the beam propagators. A physical cogent for the beam domain data is obtained under the Born approximation. The beam domain data can be approximated as the local interaction between the beam propagators and the medium reflectivity. Thus, one may interpret the beam domain data as a local Snell’s law reflection in the direction defined by the vector summation of the incident beam and backpropagated beam ray parameters. We demonstrate a physical model for the beam domain data and the salient features of the proposed imaging algorithm using numerical examples.