XMM-Newton study of soft excess X-ray emission in clusters of galaxies

We discuss the detection of soft excess X-ray emission in a sample of 19 clusters of galaxies observed by XMM-Newton. In 6/19 clusters evidence for a soft X-ray excess is found. Four of these clusters show soft X-ray and O VII line emission from gas with a temperature of 0.2 keV. The centroid of this oxygen line is consistent with the redshift of the cluster. The intensity and spatial extend of the soft excess agrees with previous PSPC measurements. These observations are interpreted as emission from warm-hot intergalactic medium filaments, with density enhancements near the cluster centers, consistent with theoretical predictions. In the other two soft excess clusters a non-thermal origin is consistent with the data.     

Uncertainties in estimates of the risks of late effects from space radiation.

Methods used to project risks in low-Earth orbit are of questionable merit for exploration missions because of the limited radiobiology data and knowledge of galactic cosmic ray (GCR) heavy ions, which causes estimates of the risk of late effects to be highly uncertain. Risk projections involve a product of many biological and physical factors, each of which has a differential range of uncertainty due to lack of data and knowledge. Using the linear-additivity model for radiation risks, we use Monte-Carlo sampling from subjective uncertainty distributions in each factor to obtain an estimate of the overall uncertainty in risk projections. The resulting methodology is applied to several human space exploration mission scenarios including a deep space outpost and Mars missions of duration of 360, 660, and 1000 days. The major results are the quantification of the uncertainties in current risk estimates, the identification of factors that dominate risk projection uncertainties, and the development of a method to quantify candidate approaches to reduce uncertainties or mitigate risks. The large uncertainties in GCR risk projections lead to probability distributions of risk that mask any potential risk reduction using the "optimization" of shielding materials or configurations. In contrast, the design of shielding optimization approaches for solar particle events and trapped protons can be made at this time and promising technologies can be shown to have merit using our approach. The methods used also make it possible to express risk management objectives in terms of quantitative metrics, e.g., the number of days in space without exceeding a given risk level within well-defined confidence limits.     

A demonstration of the potential of Cryosat-2 to contribute to mesoscale observation

Cryosat-2 was designed for its primary scientific objectives, i.e. for cryosphere science. As far as oceanography is concerned, various mission design choices make it less accurate than missions designed to comply with ocean surface topography requirements such as Jason-2 or ENVISAT. Cryosat-2-specific errors are equivalent to more than 50% of the sea surface height variability over 40% of the oceans. Cryosat-2’s sampling pattern is also suboptimal for mesoscale observation because the satellite tracks from any consecutive period of 2 to 20 days (e.g. the most recent and most valuable data for near real time mesoscale observation) are aggregated in 500 km wide bands which are interleaved with 500 km wide observation gaps.     

Improved predictions of equatorial TEC for real time applications

It is important to use models developed specifically for the equatorial ionospheric estimation for real-time applications, particularly in Satellite Navigation. This work demonstrates a methodology for improved predictions of VTEC in real time using the model developed for the equatorial ionosphere by the authors. This work has been done using TEC data of the low solar activity period of 2005 obtained using dual frequency GPS receivers installed under the GAGAN project of ISRO. For the purpose, the model is first used in conjunction with Kriging technique. Improvement in accuracy is observed when compared with the estimations from the model alone using the measurements as true reference. Further improvement is obtained by Bayesian combination of these estimates with independent Neural Network based predictions. Statistical performance of improvement is provided. An improvement of ∼1 m in confidence level of estimation of VTEC is obtained.     

Satellite and ground detection of very dense smoke clouds produced on the islands of the Paraná river delta that affected a large region in Central Argentina

Intense fires were produced on the Paraná river delta islands, Argentina, during most part of 2008, by a combination of an exceptionally dry period and the farmers’ use of a fire land-cleaning technique. In April 2008, those fires significantly affected the nearby regions and their inhabitants, from Rosario city to Buenos Aires mega-city. In this work we present satellite as well as ground Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) at 550 nm data obtained during the propagation of pollution clouds to the central zone of Argentina. The highest value (1.18) was registered at Buenos Aires by atmospheric remote sensing, using the satellite instrument MODIS/Terra on April 18th 2008 at 10:35 local time (= UT − 3 h). On the same day, ground air quality detectors also measured in this city the highest Total Suspended Particle (TSP) value of the month, 2.02 mg/m³. The AOD(550) daily variation at Rosario Astronomical Observatory, which is located near the Paraná riverside, was derived by combining solar ultraviolet erythemal irradiance data (measured with a YES biometre) with model calculations. On April 25th 2008, from 12:00 to 15:30 local time, a rather high and constant AOD(550) value was registered, with a mean value of (0.90 ± 0.21). Cities located on the side of the Rosario–Buenos Aires highway (San Nicolás, Baradero and San Pedro) were also affected, showing a mean AOD(550) between the Rosario and Buenos Aires values. The particulate matter was collected with gridded samplers placed on the Paraná river islands as well as at the Rosario Observatory. They were analysed with a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and mainly showed a biological origin. Even if normally large particles travel small distances from the source, organic aerosol in the range of 40–100 μm and complex asymmetric structures were registered several kilometres away from the aerosol sources on the islands. Another event of intense UV index attenuation (98.6%) occurred on September 18th 2008, due to very dense smoke clouds that extended over the Rosario area for several hours. The clouds were driven away from the fires by East–northeast and East–southeast winds. The minimum value of this index measured around noon allows to derive a maximum AOD(550)_max = (3.65 ± 0.90) at 12:45 local time. Soot clouds extended over the Paraná river, transporting Burned Biomass Debris (BBD) that deposited on Rosario. In particular, burned leaves and small branches with dimensions of 1–20 cm were collected. The mean (BBD) particles deposited on the ground from 7:00 to 19:00 local time were (0.92 ± 0.20) BBD/(m² h).     

Mechanism of error propagation from the subdaily Universal Time model into the celestial pole offsets estimated by VLBI

Within the analysis of space geodetic observations, errors of the applied subdaily Earth rotation model can induce systematic effects in different estimated parameters. In this paper, we focus on the impact of the subdaily Universal Time (UT1) model on the celestial pole offsets (CPO) estimated from very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) observations. We provide a mechanism that describes the error propagation from the subdaily UT1 into the daily CPO.In typical 24-h VLBI sessions the observed quasars are well distributed over the sky. But the observations, if looked at from the Earth-fixed frame, are not homogeneously distributed. The amount of observations performed in different terrestrial directions shows an irregularity which can be roughly compared to the case where the observations are collected in only one Earth-fixed direction. This peculiarity leads to artefacts in VLBI solutions, producing a correlation between the subdaily variations in UT1 and the position of the celestial pole. As a result errors in diurnal terms of the subdaily UT1 model are partly compensated by the estimated CPO. We compute for each 24-h VLBI session from 1990 until 2011 the theoretical response of the CPO to an error in the subdaily UT1 by setting up a least-squares adjustment model and using as input the coordinates of the observed quasars and observation epochs. Then real observed response of the estimated CPO derived from the VLBI session solutions is compared to the predicted one. A very good agreement between the CPO values estimated from VLBI and the predicted values was achieved. The presented model of error propagation from the subdaily UT1 into the daily CPO allows to predict and explain the behaviour of CPO estimates of VLBI solutions computed with different subdaily Earth rotation models, what can be helpful for testing the accuracy of different subdaily tidal models.     

Degradation monitoring in Silvo-pastoral systems: A case study of the Mediterranean region of Turkey

To identify policies that will promote positive effects and mitigate negative ones of grazing is a major challenge in the Silvo-pastoral system. This paper presents the role of examining land-cover change trajectories by remote sensing imagery in grazing policy monitoring. The study was conducted for Duzlercami forest ecosystem located in the Mediterranean geographical region of Turkey and administrated by the General Directorate of Forestry (GDF) of the Ministry of Forestry and Water Affairs. Time series land-cover datasets from Landsat images between 1988 and 2016 were collected and classified. To link the conversions among trajectories and grazing policy, class level landscape metrics derived from the classified images were used. To validate the approach, yearly grazing-plans managed by GDF and populations of livestock were used. Results of this research have indicated that even though there is a yearly grazing plan, overgrazing can happen on the pilot site, and it can be easily identified by the destruction of woody vegetation. The notable correlation (r²?=?0.89) between degraded woody vegetation and cattle population has occurred in the last 30?years in the landscape, and Landsat imagery can effectively support the grazing policy mapping and monitoring.     

How do interplanetary shock impact angles control the size of the geoeffective magnetosphere?

In this paper, we investigate temporal and spatial magnetosphere response to the impact of interplanetary (IP) shocks with different inclinations and speeds on the Earth’s magnetosphere. A data set with more than 500 IP shocks is used to identify positive sudden impulse (SI⁺) events as expressed by the SuperMAG partial ring current index. The SI⁺ rise time (RT), defined as the time interval between compression onset and maximum SI⁺ signature, is obtained for each event. We use RT and a model suggested by Takeuchi et al. (2002) to calculate the geoeffective magnetospheric distance (GMD) in the shock propagation direction as a function of shock impact angle and speed for each event. GMD is a generalization of the geoeffective magnetosphere length (GML) suggested by Takeuchi et al. (2002), defined from the subsolar point along the X line toward the tail. We estimate statistical GMD and GML values which are then reported for the first time. We also show that, similarly to well-known results for RT, the highest correlation coefficient for the GMD and impact angle is found for shocks with high speeds and small impact angles, and the faster and more frontal the shock, the smaller the GMD. This result indicates that the magnetospheric response depends heavily on shock impact angle. With these results, we argue that the prediction and forecasting of space weather events, such as those caused by coronal mass ejections, will not be accurately accomplished if the disturbances’ angles of impact are not considered as an important parameter within model and observation scheme capabilities.     

Investigating the Coronal Mass Ejections associated with DH type-II radio bursts and solar flares during the ascending phase of the solar cycle 24

We studied a set of 74 CMEs, with shedding the light on the halo-CMEs (HCMEs), that are associated with decametric – hectometric (DH) type-II radio bursts (1–16?MHz) and solar flares during the period 2008–2014. The events were classified into 3 groups (disk, intermediate, and limb events) based on their longitudinal distribution.We found that the events are mostly distributed around 15.32° and 15.97° at the northern and southern solar hemispheres, respectively. We found that there is a clear dependence between the longitude and the CME’s width, speed, acceleration, mass, and kinetic energy. For the CMEs’ widths, most of the events were HCMEs (～62%), while the partial HCMEs comprised ～35% and the rest of events were CMEs with widths less than 120°. For the CMEs’ speeds, masses, and kinetic energies, the mean values showed a direct proportionality with the longitude, in which the limb events had the highest speeds, the largest masses, and the highest kinetic energies. The mean peak flux of the solar flares for different longitudes was comparable, but the disk flares were more energetic. The intermediate flares were considered as gradual flares since they tended to last longer, while the limb flares were considered as impulsive flares since they tended to last shorter.A weak correlation (R?=?0.32) between the kinetic energy of the CMEs and the duration of the associated flares has been noticed, while there was a good correlation (R?=?0.76) between the kinetic energy of the CMEs and the peak flux of the associated flares. We found a fair correlation (R?=?0.58) between the kinetic energy of the CMEs and the duration of the associated DH type-II radio bursts.