Relation between extensive extreme precipitation in Poland and atmospheric circulation

The basic aim of this study was to find relations between the dates of occurrence and characteristics of extensive extreme daily (24-h) precipitation totals (EEDPTs) and pressure systems. The analysis was conducted on the basis of precipitation data from the multi-year period 1956-1980 and the Grosswetterlagen classification of circulation situations. EEDPTs were taken to embrace those cases of maximum annual daily precipitation totals that were registered on the same day at a minimum of 75 precipitation stations. In the years 1956-1980 there were 209 such events. The hypothesis about the effect of a circulation situation on the probability of occurrence of an EEDPT was verified in quantitative terms, the reference being both the entire multi-year period and the seasonal variation in the occurrence of precipitation of this type. Next, circulation situations were compared in terms of amount-related parameters of EEDPTs (mean precipitation, coefficient of variation), their spatial features (perimeter, area), and precipitation volume. The analyses performed show a statistically significant dependence between the atmospheric circulation and extensive extreme precipitation. It was demonstrated that there were circulation situations during which EEDPTs occurred much more often or much more rarely than over the entire multi-year period under study. Also identified was the connection of an atmospheric circulation with the mean amount, coefficient of variation and volume of extensive extreme precipitation

Forecasting model of Corylus, Alnus, and Betula pollen concentration levels using spatiotemporal correlation properties of pollen count

The aim of the study was to create and evaluate models for predicting high levels of daily pollen concentration of Corylus, Alnus, and Betula using a spatiotemporal correlation of pollen count. For each taxon, a high pollen count level was established according to the first allergy symptoms during exposure. The dataset was divided into a training set and a test set, using a stratified random split. For each taxon and city, the model was built using a random forest method. Corylus models performed poorly. However, the study revealed the possibility of predicting with substantial accuracy the occurrence of days with high pollen concentrations of Alnus and Betula using past pollen count data from monitoring sites. These results can be used for building (1) simpler models, which require data only from aerobiological monitoring sites, and (2) combined meteorological and aerobiological models for predicting high levels of pollen concentration

Influence of relief and land cover on the distribution of values of the land surface temperature in upper Parsęta river area

The primary research problem presented in the article is verification of the thesis on the influence of relief and land cover type on the spatial variability of the land surface temperature (LST) distribution in the area including the river catchment area of upper Parsęta. The paper presents the use of thermal channels from two Landsat ETM+ scenes pictures, Corine Land Cover database from 2000 as well as the DTED-2 digital elevation model. Two ETM+ thermal bands processing algorithms were used for calculation of the land surface temperature: Qin et al. (2001) and Jiménez-Muňoz et al. (2003). Conducted statistical tests show significant differences of the land surface temperature values between particular land cover forms as well as types of relief. LST maps can be applied in topoclimatology eg. to detail and verify the in situ measurements

Analysis of the spatial and spatial-temporal structure of maximum daily precipitation in Poland in the years 1956-1980

Jednym z wyników prognoz wykonywanych z zastosowaniem globalnych i regionalnych modeli klimatycznych jest odkrycie wysokiego prawdopodobieństwa wzrostu częstości oraz natężenia ekstremalnych opadów. Poznanie prawidłowości ich powtarzalności i zasięgu przestrzennego ma oczywiście bardzo duże znaczenie gospodarcze i społeczne. Dlatego, niezależnie od wprowadzania nowych technik pomiarowych należy dokonywać analizy i reinterpretacji archiwalnych danych, korzystając z możliwości stwarzanych przez rozwój GIS. Głównym celem opracowania jest analiza prawidłowości przestrzennej i czasowej zmienności miesięcznych oraz rocznych maksymalnych dobowych sum opadów (MSDO) z lat 1956-1980, z obszaru Polski. W pracy wykorzystano nowe w geografii polskiej metody geostatystyczne. Do publikacji dołączono dysk DVD ze źródłową bazą danych i najważniejszymi wynikami w postaci numerycznej i kartograficznej.The main goal of the work was to analyse regularities underlying spatial and temporal variations in monthly and annual maximum daily precipitation totals (MDPTs) in the years 1956- 1980 from the area of Poland. The MDPT field in Poland is usually the sum of the outcomes of three types of processes operating at various spatial scales: local (<10-20 km), regional (50-150 km), and supra-regional (>200 km). The parameters characterising the spatial structure of MDPTs display a marked seasonal cyclicity and variability depending on the precipitation level. In multiannual period, the changes found to occur in the elements of the spatial structure, show that the hypothesis - as to a potential effect of changes in the spatial structure of extreme precipitation events on their point-registered frequency - is a promising research perspective and should continue to be tested. Based on variation in the level and gradient of the probability of occurrence of annual MDPTs in various rainfall-amount classes seasonal subdivision was done. Dates of occurrence of annual MDPTs differ markedly regionally. Many of the newly found regularities need a deeper genetic interpretation, which is hard, if not impossible, to conduct without additional data and a wider context of their analysis

Poisson kriging as a tool for social problems analysis - Poznań case study

Analiza przestrzenna danych społecznych wymaga niejednokrotnie odfiltrowania wpływu nierealnych, odstających danych. Celem pracy jest omówienie podstaw teoretycznych bardzo efektywnej, a mało znanej metody do tego służącej ‒ krigingu Poissona. Ilustrację praktyczną jej zalet przedstawiono na przykładzie identyfikacji obszarów występowania różnych kategorii problemów społecznych na obszarze Poznania.Planning of social policy it is complicated and multidimensional issue, especially in complex urban structures characteristic for big cities. However econometric indicators of spatial dependence provide us some information about spatial autocorrelation, their do not show the differences in local variability. Geostatistics is an answer for this challenge. This method is not only helpful in more accurate determination of the most important problems but it also enables identification of their location, scale and possible reasons. This paper presents possibilities given by Poisson Kriging for analysis of social problems in urban space. Its was applied in Poznań for identification of neighbourhoods or local communities (related to the basic administrative units called „osiedla”) in which concentration of people needing social help is bigger than population distribution might it suggest. The data used in the analysis was taken from urban centre helping families in difficult social situation (MOPR). They concerns people who received financial support in 2008. The basic information taken into account was their place of residence and the reason for which they received financial aid. MOPR distinguish 13 categories of social problems needing support, including poverty, chronic diseases, alcoholism and domestic violence. 9 473 persons received financial aid in the analysed period of time. Taking into account their families it give us at least 18 264 people struggling with social problems – 3,3% of the city population (545 000 inhabitants). In order to receive comparable measure of issues analysed in urban space, the number of people needing social support must be compared with the population distribution. Thus, information about place of residence of people who receives financial aid was aggregated to bigger areas – 731 regular polygons for which the number of city inhabitants was know. Side length of single polygon was 500 meters. In each polygon data needed also to be age-adjusted. It is very sophisticated task, therefore special script dedicated for ArcGIS was created. The age-adjusted data aggregated in the polygons were bases for main spatial analysis. Application of Poisson Kriging resulted in more precise identification of areas affected by the major social problems in Poznań. Presence of autocorrelation was noticeable in case of majority of analysed social problems. The most common ranges of autocorrelation were 1‒1,2 km (which is similar to the spatial range of single local communities) and 6–6,5 km (the range of single neighbourhoods). Analysis showed that there are some neighbourhoods in Poznań where occurrence of social problems is significantly higher than mean occurrence for the whole city. Presented method enabled smoothing of unreliable, extremely high relative risks values but without loss of the local variability