Time variations of cosmic-ray helium isotopes with BESS-Polar I

The Balloon-borne Experiment with a Superconducting Spectrometer (BESS) is configured with a solenoidal superconducting magnet and a suite of precision particle detectors, including time-of-flight hodoscopes based on plastic scintillators, a silica-aerogel Cherenkov detector, and a high resolution tracking system with a central jet-type drift chamber. The charges of incident particles are determined from energy losses in the scintillators. Their magnetic rigidities (momentum/charge) are measured by reconstructing each particle trajectory in the magnetic field, and their velocities are obtained by using the time-of-flight system. Together, these measurements can accurately identify helium isotopes among the incoming cosmic-ray helium nuclei up to energies in the GeV per nucleon region. The BESS-Polar I instrument flew for 8.5 days over Antarctica from December 13th to December 21st, 2004. Its long-duration flight and large geometric acceptance allow the time variations of isotopic fluxes to be studied for the first time. The time variations of helium isotope fluxes are presented here for rigidities from 1.2 to 2.5 GV and results are compared to previously reported proton data and neutron monitor data.     

Fronts and thermohaline structure of the Brazil–Malvinas Confluence System

Fronts and thermohaline structure of the Brazil–Malvinas Confluence System (BMCS) are studied from climatic data, “Marathon Exp. Leg.8, 1984” data, and Sea surface temperature (SST) data base “ds277-Reynolds” (1981–2000). The South Atlantic Central Water (SACW) is divided in two main types: tropical (TW) and subtropical water (ST). Water masses, Fronts, Inter-Frontal and Frontal Zones are analysed and classified: (a) the water masses: Tropical Low-Salinity Water, Tropical Surface Water, Tropical Tropospheric Water, Subtropical Low-Salinity Water, Subtropical Surface Water, Subtropical Tropospheric Water. T,S characteristics of intermediate, deep and bottom water defined by different authors are confirmed and completed; (b) the Inter-Frontal Zones: Tropical/Brazil Current Zone, Subtropical Zone and Subantarctic Zone; (c) the Frontal Zones: Subtropical, Subantarctic and Polar, and (d) the Fronts: Subtropical Front of the Brazil Current, Principal Subtropical Front, North Subtropical Front, Subtropical Surface Front, South Subtropical Front, Subantarctic Surface Front, Subantarctic Front and Polar Front. Several stable T–S relationships are found below the friction layer and at the Fronts. The maximum gradient of the oceanographic characteristics occurs at the Brazil Current Front, which can be any of the subtropical Fronts, depending on season. Minimum mean depth of the pycnocline coincides with the Fronts of the BMCS, indicating the paths of low-salinity shelf waters into the open ocean. In the work it is shown how to recover the horizontal and vertical thermohaline structure of waters from satellite data RSMAS SST.     

ANALYTICAL VARIATIONAL METHOD OF SOLUTION FOR STRESS CONCENTRATION FACTORS OF FINITE PLATES WITH A PIN HOLE

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Forecasting of DST variations from polar cap indices using neural networks

The 15-min averaged polar cap (PC) index was used as an input parameter for the Dst variation forecasting. The PC index is known to describe well the principal features of the solar wind as well as the total energy input to the magnetosphere. This allowed us to design a neural network able to forecast the Dst variations from 1 to 4 h ahead. 1998 PC and Dst data sets were used for training and testing and 1997 data sets was used for validation proposes. From the 15 moderate and strong geomagnetic storms observed during 1997, nine were successfully forecasted. In three cases the observed minimum Dst value was less than the predicted one, and only in three cases the neural network was not able to reproduce the features of the geomagnetic storm.     

北纬30°N中间层和低热层大气平均风中频雷达观测

利用武汉(30.5°N,114.4°W)中频雷达在2001年1月1日至3月18日、2002年2月5日至3月18日、2002年10月18日至12月31日期间,日本Yamagawa(31.2°N,130.6°W)中频雷达在1997年1月1日至10月17日期间的数据,分析北纬30°N地区上空60-98km高度的中间层、低热层大气平均风的变化规律,结果表明平均纬向风和经向风都具有明显的季节变化.平均纬向风在冬季基本为西风,随高度增加,西风减弱,甚至在上部会出现微弱的东风;夏季中间层表现为强烈的东风,低热层则为西风,风向转换高度在80km附近;春季和秋季为转换季节,在春季出现舌状东风结构.80km附近的平均经向风场在冬季以南风为主,在夏季则以北风为主.不同年份的平均风场存在年际变化性,但其气候变化特点非常相似.中频雷达观测结果与HWM93模式结果的气候变化特点符合很好,与其他纬度的平均纬向风气候变化特点基本类似.     

中国中部低层大气行星波无线电探空仪的观测研究

通过分析武汉、宜昌和恩施气象局无线电探空仪2001-2003年的观测数据,研究了中国中部地区对流层和低平流层中行星波的特性.通过Lomb-Scargle(L-S)的周期图方法发现了周期为准16天和周期为准10天的谱分量占据着主导地位.观察发现,较大振幅的行星波振荡主要集中在5-15 km之间.准16天行星波沿纬圈向西传播,对应的纬圈波数大约为2,水平波长约为17 324.8 km,传播相速度约为-12.5 m·s-1(东向为正),通过计算准16天行星波在10 km以下相位随高度的改变可以得到其垂直波长大约为25-30 km,而在对波层顶附近其相位几乎没有发生改变,呈现出静态波特性.准10天行星波沿纬圈向东传播,对应的纬圈波数大约为4,水平波长约为8627.3 km,传播相速度约为10.0 m·s-1,垂直波长约为22-40 km.      

Longitudinal variations of geomagnetic and ionospheric parameters in the Northern Hemisphere during magnetic storms according to multi-instrument observations

We present a joint analysis of longitude-temporal variations of ionospheric and geomagnetic parameters at middle and high latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere during the two severe magnetic storms in March and June 2015 by using data from the chains of magnetometers, ionosondes and GPS/GLONASS receivers. We identify the fixed longitudinal zones where the variability of the magnetic field is consistently high or low under quiet and disturbed geomagnetic conditions. The revealed longitudinal structure of the geomagnetic field variability in quiet geomagnetic conditions is caused by the discrepancy of the geographic and magnetic poles and by the spatial anomalies of different scales in the main magnetic field of the Earth. Variations of ionospheric parameters are shown to exhibit a pronounced longitudinal inhomogeneity with changing geomagnetic conditions. This inhomogeneity is associated with the longitudinal features of background and disturbed structure of the geomagnetic field. During the recovery phase of a storm, important role in dynamics of the mid-latitude ionosphere may belong to wave-like thermospheric disturbances of molecular gas, propagating westward for several days. Therefore, it is necessary to extend the time interval for studying the ionospheric effects of strong magnetic storms by a few days after the end of the magnetospheric source influence, while the disturbed regions in the thermosphere continues moving westward and causes the electron density decrease along the trajectories of propagation.     

GPS-only gravity field recovery with GOCE,CHAMP, and GRACE

Gravity missions such as the Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) are equipped with onboard Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers for precise orbit determination (POD), instrument time-tagging, and the extraction of the long wavelength part of the Earth’s gravity field. The very low orbital altitude of the GOCE satellite and the availability of dense 1 s GPS tracking data are ideal characteristics to exploit the contribution of GPS high-low Satellite-to-Satellite Tracking (hl-SST) to gravity field determination. We present gravity field solutions based on about 8 months of GOCE GPS hl-SST data from 2009 and compare the results with those obtained from the CHAllenging Minisatellite Payload (CHAMP) and Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment (GRACE) missions. The very low orbital altitude of GOCE significantly improves gravity field recovery from GPS hl-SST data above degree 20, but not for the degrees below 20, where the quality of the spherical harmonic coefficients remains essentially unchanged. Despite the limited time span of GOCE data used, the gravity field of the Earth can be resolved up to about degree 115 using GPS data only. Empirically determined phase center variations (PCVs) of the GOCE onboard GPS helix antenna are, however, mandatory to achieve this performance.     

Some aspects of the low latitude geomagnetic response under different solar wind conditions*

We review some aspects of low latitudes (L≤2) geomagnetic field variations associated with magnetospheric pulsations as well as with continuous and impulsive variations of the solar wind (SW) pressure. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

New flare model using recent measurements of the solar ultraviolet irradiance

The solar photon output from the Sun, which was once thought to be constant, varies considerably over time scales from seconds during solar flares to years due to the solar cycle. This is especially true in the wavelengths shorter than 190 nm. These variations cause significant deviations in the Earth and space environment on similar time scales, which then affects many things including satellite drag, radio communications, atmospheric densities and composition of particular atoms, molecules, and ions of Earth and other planets, as well as the accuracy in the Global Positioning System (GPS). The Flare Irradiance Spectral Model (FISM) is an empirical model that estimates the solar irradiance at wavelengths from 0.1 to 190 nm at 1 nm resolution with a time cadence of 60 s. This is a high enough temporal resolution to model variations due to solar flares, for which few accurate measurements at these wavelengths exist. This model also captures variations on the longer time scales of solar rotation (days) and solar cycle (years). Daily average proxies used are the 0–4 nm irradiance, the Mg II c/w, F10.7, as well as the 1 nm bins centered at 30.5 nm, 121.5 (Lyman Alpha), and 36.5 nm. The GOES 0.1–0.8 nm irradiance is used as the flare proxy. The FISM algorithms are given, and results and comparisons are shown that demonstrate the FISM estimations agree within the stated uncertainties to the various measurements of the solar Vacuum Ultraviolet (VUV) irradiance.