Low-Cost IoT Enabled Embedded System for Measurement of Environmental Pollutants

In today’s world, with ever-changing pollutants and their concentrations, the designing of low-cost meteorological systems is unavoidable for assessing environmental parameters. Wireless instrumentation is an effective way of measuring the physical quantities as it can measure and transmit the data to the targeted location at high speed. In the present work, an IoT-enabled embedded system was developed to measure the concentration of carbon dioxide, ozone, and the presence of smoke. The ARM microcontroller reads the sensor data and processes the information to calculate the pollutant parameters. The measured data is displayed on the LCD, mobile phone, and a computer simultaneously using wireless technology. With Embedded C, the Keil compiler was used to develop the interfacing software for the designed system. Portability, user-friendliness, and reliability are the significant advantages of the device compared with the conventional systems, and it can be widely used as an inexpensive solution for the monitoring of environmental conditions.

The Relationship Between The Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation and The Urucuia Aquifer System Recharge

This study investigates and detects links between the precipitation characteristics with meteorological systems and teleconnections around the Urucuia Aquifer System (UAS). Several studies show the influence of meteorological systems and teleconnections on the volume and intensity of precipitation in South America, mainly the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO), the El Niño South Oscillation (ENSO), and the Pacific Decadal Oscillations (PDO). Then, the precipitation series’ statistical characterization impacted the aquifer system’s recharge from 1973 to 2006. Monthly and annual series were analyzed and tested the correlation analysis with the indexes of the AMO, PDO, and ENSO. Finally, the series of maximum daily rainfall on the UAS was determined, and the 15 largest events were chosen to analyze the retroactive trajectories of air masses and thus try to estimate which atmospheric systems was acting and their origin. It concluded that the total annual precipitation data indicated a decreasing linear trend and that external climatic phenomena can influence precipitation characteristics. The correlation with the AMO index revealed a potential teleconectivity between climate circulation patterns with average annual precipitation over the UAS (p-value ≤ 0.03). Moreover, the analysing of precipitation trajectories observed a greater amount of specific humidity in the atmosphere during the AMO negative period concerning the AMO positive period. Also, the negative AMO phase’s trajectories had higher latitudes closer to the Intertropical Convergence Zone, as opposed to the positive AMO phase, where the trajectory altitudes were lower and closer to the Capricorn tropic.

Summer dry events on synoptic and intraseasonal timescales in the Southeast Region of Brazil

Dry events occurring in the Southeast Region of Brazil (SEB) during the summer (rainfall season) have been in evidence in the last years, mainly due to previous extreme events in the 2013/14 and 2014/15 seasons. Drought analyses are usually carried out with monthly data. Here our methodology addresses the issue with daily data in order to generate a thorough analysis. Dry events were evaluated for different homogeneous precipitation sub-regions within the SEB, over 37 December-February (DJF) seasons and with two different timescales of duration: synoptic (5-9 days) and intraseasonal (≥10 days). Two main distinct dynamic patterns were found for dry events in southern and central-northern parts of SEB, respectively, but no major differences were identified for the different timescales of occurrence. Southern events were characterized by a stationary ridge acting over the whole southern South America, making the transient systems approximation to southern SEB difficult. At the same time, this pattern showed a northern-shifted South Atlantic Convergence Zone (SACZ) configuration. In the central-northern events, a high pressure centered between the South and Southeast regions of Brazil was associated with the dryness conditions. An anomalous southward shift of meteorological systems characteristic of the South American summer was also verified for these events. Over the South Atlantic, an opposite SST anomaly configuration was identified between southern and central-northern events.

Assessing the Tropical South Atlantic atmosphere thermodynamics under distinct Sea Surface Temperature patterns

Northeast Brazil (NEB) is a susceptible region to the occurrence of extreme rainfall events. Sea surface temperature (SST) is used as an indicator for predicting intense weather events in this region. The westernmost Tropical South Atlantic region, also called Southern Atlantic Warm Pool (SAWP), is characterized by a source of heat and humidity which creates atmospheric instability for the NEB. In June 2010 the eastern coast of NEB (ENEB)was influenced by heavy rainfall, causing flash floods and landslides. On the other hand, 2012 marked the beginning of a period of droughts that affected the whole NEB area. The SAWP temperature in turn recorded anomalous values ​​of + 1ºC (-0.5ºC) in 2010 (2012), respectively, although in June 2012 intense rainfall was recorded in ENEB, even with intense negative SST anomalies. With the Coupled-Ocean-Atmosphere-Wave and Sediment Transport (COAWST) model, simulations were made to characterize 2010 and 2012 atmospheric conditions, modifying the SST input data in both situations. The goal of this work is to assess the meteorological systems that occurred in 2010 and 2012 using observational, reanalysis, and simulated data, as well as to identify changes in atmospheric instability patterns, which are under influences of different SST conditions. We performed four cases, including: a) SST measured in 2010 with 2010 atmospheric conditions; b) SST measured in 2012 with weather conditions of 2010; c) SST measured in 2012 with 2012 weather conditions; d) measured in2010 with atmospheric conditions from 2012. The results showed that SAWP temperature significantly influenced the instability of meteorological systems. The impacts were more significant in the lower layer of the atmosphere, especially in the variables that lead to low-level instabilities. Also, it was observed that warmer atmospheric conditions favor the ocean environment to remain warmer, maintaining the unstable conditions over SAWP.

Lightning to wind-turbines during snowstorm Filomena over Catalonia

<p>Winter storm Filomena battered the Iberian Peninsula on the 9-10<sup>th</sup> January 2021, covering the eastern half of Spain with a huge amount of snow. Apart from the historical snowfall (e.g. Madrid 40-50 cm), lightning has been recorded during this winter episode. Most of the lighting was oversea, associated with the surface low in southern Spain. Still, some scattered lightning was also recorded in other regions of the Iberian Peninsula like Galicia, Asturias, Extremadura, Valencia and Catalonia.</p><p>This study focuses on the just over a dozen of stokes that hit southern Catalonia. Interestingly, inland lightning took place on the evening of the 9<sup>th</sup> January although NWP models showed no convection conditions over land, the sounding was stable and CAPE was found only far away over sea.</p><p>A closer look at the lightning spots showed wind turbines in the close vicinity of all CG stokes. To check the veracity of these winter lightning, data has been gathered from two independent Lightning Location Systems.</p><p>By means of data from different meteorological systems from the Meteorological Service of Catalonia (weather radar, automatic weather stations), the meteorological conditions during the lightning occurrence are analysed.</p><p>Since lightning only occurred on wind turbines, the effect of rotation may be a key factor on the triggering of lightning from wind-turbines, because the rotation might enhance the electric field at the tips of the blades because they are less shielded by the space charge produced by themselves.</p>

Precipitation Nowcasting with Weather Radar Images and Deep Learning in São Paulo, Brasil

Precipitation nowcasting can predict and alert for any possibility of abrupt weather changes which may cause both human and material risks. Most of the conventional nowcasting methods extrapolate weather radar echoes, but precipitation nowcasting is still a challenge, mainly due to rapid changes in meteorological systems and time required for numerical simulations. Recently video prediction deep learning (VPDL) algorithms have been applied in precipitation nowcasting. In this study, we use the VPDL PredRNN++ and sequences of radar reflectivity images to predict the future sequence of reflectivity images for up to 1-h lead time for São Paulo, Brazil. We also verify the feasibility for the continuous use of the VPDL model, providing the meteorologist with trends and forecasts in precipitation edges regardless of the weather event occurring. The results obtained confirm the potential of the VPDL model as an additional tool to assist nowcasting. Even though meteorological systems that trigger natural disasters vary by location, a general solution can contribute as a tool to assist decision-makers and consequently issue efficient alerts.

Monitoring Neptune's atmosphere with small and large telescopes: results for 2019

<p>Neptune’s atmosphere is highly dynamic with atmospheric systems observable as bands and discrete cloud systems that evolve in time scales of days, weeks and years. Most of them are observed as tropospheric clouds and elevated hazes that appear highly contrasted in observations obtained in hydrogen and methane absorption bands in the red and near-infrared spectrum of the planet. Given the small size of Neptune as observed from Earth (2.3 arcsec), it is difficult to characterize most of these clouds. Basic questions such as if they are convective storms, vortices or clouds detached from atmospheric waves or bands can be difficult for an specific feature in a given observation [1]. Only Adaptive Optics or lucky-imaging instruments in 8-m telescopes or larger, and HST, can provide suitable data, but the difficulty to access enough observational time in these facilities suggests that a combination of data from several observing programs can help. Smaller telescopes can also play an important role since they can be used to follow the main cloud systems and cover the gaps between observations obtained by the larger telescopes. This can provide the life-time or drift rates of the largest meteorological systems allowing to compare observations of the same features observed months apart in the largest telescopes.</p> <p>During the last few years we have combined observations obtained from a variety of telescopes to study the major cloud systems and understand their life-time and evolution [2, 3], including those of “companion” clouds linked to rare dark vortices that are only observable in blue wavelengths from space [2, 4, 5]. In this work we present our data for 2019 which consists of the following observations:</p> <ul> <li>HST observations from the Outer Planets Atmospheres Legacy program (OPAL).</li> <li>Several sets from Keck and Lick telescopes from different programs including some relatively frequent observations from the TWILIGHT program.</li> <li>GTC observations with the HiperCam instrument doing lucky-imaging.</li> <li>Calar Alto 2.2m telescope with the PlanetCam lucky-imaging instrument.</li> <li>One single observation from Gemini while testing an AO system.</li> <li>Additional observations from the Pic du Midi 1.05 m telescope.</li> <li>Images provided by amateur astronomers and available through the PVOL [6] database.</li> </ul> <p>The combination of these data suggests more variability and less cloud activity in 2019 than in previous years with a lower number of features in the data sets obtained with smaller telescopes. We provide the identification of particular meteorological systems over late summer 2019 and present drift rates of different mid-latitude features in the south hemisphere that are close but separated enough to the Voyager zonal winds to deserve attention. Other cloud systems in the south polar region and north tropics seem to follow the Voyager wind profile.</p> <p>Future punctual observations achievable with new observational facilities such as the JWST will benefit from the evolutionary time-lines of the major cloud systems of Neptune and their drift rates in the atmosphere provided by similar future campaigns.</p> <p><strong>References</strong></p> <p>[1] Hueso and Sánchez-Lavega, Atmospheric Dynamics and Vertical Structure of Uranus and Neptune's weather layers. Space Science Reviews, 2019.</p> <p>[2] Hueso et al., Neptune long-lived atmospheric features in 2013-2015 from small (28-cm) to large (10-m) telescopes. Icarus, 2017.</p> <p>[3] Molter et al., Analysis of Neptune's 2017 Bright Equatorial Storm, Icarus, 2019.</p> <p>[4] Wong et al., A New Dark vortex on Neptune, The Astronomical Journal, 2018.</p> <p>[5] Hsu et al., Lifetimes and Occurrence Rates of Dark Vortices on Neptune from 25 Years of Hubble Space Telescope Images, The Astronomical Journal, 2018.</p> <p>[6] Hueso et al., The Planetary Virtual Observatory and Laboratory (PVOL) and its integration into the Virtual European Solar and Planetary Access (VESPA), Planetary Space Science, 2018.</p>

Estudo das componentes do balanço hidrológico durante episódios de ZCAS

The South Atlantic Convergence Zone (SACZ) is one of the meteorological systems that plays a strong role in the rainfall regime in many regions of Brazil. This work aims to analyze the daytime cycle of the components of the hydrological balance during events of SACZ. Through the hourly data from the atmospheric reanalysis of Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications, Version 2 (MERRA2) the variables evapotranspiration, precipitation, convergence of moisture flow and variation of moisture storage in the atmosphere with time during the periods were analyzed. from dawn, morning, afternoon and night throughout the region of the SACZ and therefore, specifically in the region of the Amazon and Southeast Brazil. The analysis of the regions separately shows that even during the night there is convective activity and divergence of water vapor in the Amazon, which allows the flow of steam to be transported to the southeast even during night periods. Over the Southeast region it is possible to verify that during the night the convergence of atmospheric humidity can explain almost entirely the precipitation during the night. During the hours of the day, much of the precipitation can be explained by the increase in evapotranspiration over the Southeast.

Evaluation of a Physics-Based Tropical Cyclone Rainfall Model for Risk Assessment

Heavy rainfall generated by landfalling tropical cyclones (TCs) can cause extreme flooding. A physics-based TC rainfall model (TCRM) has been developed and coupled with a TC climatology model to study TC rainfall climatology. In this study, we evaluate TCRM with rainfall observations made by satellite (of North Atlantic TCs from 1999 to 2018) and radar (of 36 U.S. landfalling TCs); we also examine the influence on the rainfall estimation of the key input to TCRM—the wind profile. We found that TCRM can simulate relatively well the rainfall from TCs that have a coherent and compact structure and limited interaction with other meteorological systems. The model can simulate the total rainfall from TCs well, although it often overestimates rainfall in the inner core of TCs, slightly underestimates rainfall in the outer regions, and renders a less asymmetric rainfall structure than the observations. It can capture rainfall distribution in coastal areas relatively well but may underestimate rainfall maximums in mountainous regions and has less capability to accurately simulate TC rainfall in higher latitudes. Also, it can capture the interannual variability of TC rainfall and averaged features of the time series of TC rainfall but cannot accurately reproduce the probability distribution of short-term (1 h) rainfall. Among the tested theoretical wind profile inputs to TCRM, a complete wind profile that accurately describes the wind structure in both the inner ascending and outer descending regions of the storm is found to perform the best in accurately generating various rainfall metrics.