Clouds and Earth Radiant Energy System (CERES), a review: Past,present and future

The Clouds and Earth Radiant Energy System (CERES) project’s objectives are to measure the reflected solar radiance (shortwave) and Earth-emitted (longwave) radiances and from these measurements to compute the shortwave and longwave radiation fluxes at the top of the atmosphere (TOA) and the surface and radiation divergence within the atmosphere. The fluxes at TOA are to be retrieved to an accuracy of 2%. Improved bidirectional reflectance distribution functions (BRDFs) have been developed to compute the fluxes at TOA from the measured radiances with errors reduced from ERBE by a factor of two or more. Instruments aboard the Terra and Aqua spacecraft provide sampling at four local times. In order to further reduce temporal sampling errors, data are used from the geostationary meteorological satellites to account for changes of scenes between observations by the CERES radiometers.     

Telemetry,telecommand and safety sub-systems for scientific ballooning from Hyderabad

Highly sophisticated balloon-borne scientific payloads have stringent requirement on the telemetry and command system. The development and fabrication of the on-board TT&C package for telemetry, tracking, command, safety and ranging for these experiments is done in-house at the National Balloon Facility (NBF) at Hyderabad. In the last few years, we have made major improvements both in the ground station and the on-board sub-systems, thereby improving the data quality, data handling speed and the general flight control along with aviation safety. The new system has telemetry data rate up to 1 Mbps. A reduction in weight, power and cost of the reengineered on-board integrated package has also lead to the ease of operation during field tests prior to launch and at remote recovery sites. In this paper, we describe the details of the new control package, its flight performance and our plans for portable S-band telemetry and telecommand system to cater to the balloon flights from Antarctic station and long duration balloon flights.     

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).     

Geomagnetic activity driven by solar wind turbulence

Within the framework of the solar wind—magnetosphere coupled system, intense perturbations in the solar wind, causing geomagnetic storms and substorms, have been widely studied by means of the so-called coupling parameters. However, remarkable variations in the geomagnetic field occur even in absence of such perturbations. In those conditions, solar wind MHD turbulence might have a role. Recent results have shown that solar wind turbulence can be described not only as a mixture of inward and outward stochastic Alfvénic fluctuations, but includes also advected structures, dominated by an excess of magnetic energy.     

The effects of the solar magnetic polarity and the solar wind velocity on Bz-component of the interplanetary magnetic field

We have studied the effect of both solar magnetic polarity and the solar wind velocity on the Bz-component of the interplanetary magnetic field, IMFBz, for the minimum activity of the solar cycles 21, 22, 23 and 24. We made a statistical study of IMFBz in the first section which is considered as an extension of Lyatsky et al. (2003). They made a statistical study of IMFBz for two periods of minimum solar activity 22 and 23 related to 1985–1987 and 1995–1997 when the solar magnetic field had opposite polarity. Our results seem to be consistent with the results obtained by Lyatsky et al. (2003). We found that there is a dependence of IMFBz on the IMFBx and the solar magnetic polarity for the minimum periods of the selected four solar cycles. In addition, we found that there is a dependence of IMFBz on the solar wind velocity.     

Subsidence rate monitoring of Aghajari oil field based on Differential SAR Interferometry

Land subsidence, due to natural or anthropogenic processes, causes significant costs in both economic and structural aspects. That part of subsidence observed most is the result of human activities, which relates to underground exploitation. Since the gradual surface deformation is a consequence of hydrocarbon reservoirs extraction, the process of displacement monitoring is amongst the petroleum industry priorities. Nowadays, Differential SAR Interferometry, in which satellite images are utilized for elevation change detection and analysis – in a millimetre scale, has proved to be a more real-time and cost-effective technology in contrast to the traditional surveying method. In this study, surface displacements in Aghajari oil field, i.e. one of the most industrious Iranian hydrocarbon sites, are being examined using radar observations. As in a number of interferograms, the production wells inspection reveals that surface deformation signals develop likely due to extraction in a period of several months. In other words, different subsidence or uplift rates and deformation styles occur locally depending on the geological conditions and excavation rates in place.     

Testing baseline stability of some neutron monitors in Europe,Africa, and Asia

For six decades, the global network of neutron monitors (NMs) has provided a continuous stream of very valuable data to the heliophysics community, leading to many insights into the myriad modes of charged particle transport in the tangled magnetic fields that permeate the 3D heliosphere. Earlier, Ahluwalia and Ygbuhay (2012) reported on the drifts in some high latitude NM counting rates in the American zone. We continue our enquiry by testing the stability of the counting rate baselines of some NMs operating in Europe, Africa, and Asia. The data from these detectors have been extremely valuable for the short-term time variation studies, but caution is advised in using the data for long-term studies from NMs with baselines that are drifting for cause(s) unknown.     

Solid nanomembrane manufacture using ion-plasma action

A process of manufacture of porous membranes made of aluminum foil (Al 99.99%) by the method of electrochemical anodic oxidation followed by a continuous barrier layer removal with ion-plasma irradiation is described. The membranes having a 8 mm diameter made from AL2O3 with a thickness from 2 to 5 microns thick with a regular channel arrangement are obtained. A possibility to change the channel diameter in the range of 20?C100 nm by adjusting voltage and temperature during the oxidation is shown. We present the experimental dependencies of aluminum and aluminum oxide sputtering coefficients on the energy and incidence angle of xenon ions within the energy range of 100??400 eV.     

The Magnetic Electron Ion Spectrometer (MagEIS) Instruments Aboard the Radiation Belt Storm Probes (RBSP) Spacecraft

This paper describes the Magnetic Electron Ion Spectrometer (MagEIS) instruments aboard the RBSP spacecraft from an instrumentation and engineering point of view. There are four magnetic spectrometers aboard each of the two spacecraft, one low-energy unit (20–240 keV), two medium-energy units (80–1200 keV), and a high-energy unit (800–4800 keV). The high unit also contains a proton telescope (55 keV–20 MeV). The magnetic spectrometers focus electrons within a selected energy pass band upon a focal plane of several silicon detectors where pulse-height analysis is used to determine if the energy of the incident electron is appropriate for the electron momentum selected by the magnet. Thus each event is a two-parameter analysis, an approach leading to a greatly reduced background. The physics of these instruments are described in detail followed by the engineering implementation. The data outputs are described, and examples of the calibration results and early flight data presented.