ESA’s Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity Mission - An overview on the mission’s performance and scientific results

European Geosciences Union General Assembly 2014 (EGU2014), 27 april - 2 may 2014, Vienna, Austria.-- 1 pageThe Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission, launched on 2 November 2009, is the European Space Agency’s (ESA) second Earth Explorer Opportunity mission. The scientific objectives of the SMOS mission directly respond to the need for global observations of soil moisture and ocean salinity, two key variables used in predictive hydrological, oceanographic and atmospheric models. SMOS observations also provide information on the characterisation of ice and snow covered surfaces and the sea ice effect on ocean-atmosphere heat fluxes and dynamics, which affects large-scale processes of the Earth’s climate system. This paper will provide an overview on the various aspects of the SMOS mission, such as 1. The performance of the mission after more than 5 years in orbit: The SMOS mission has been in routine operations since May 2010, following the successful completion of the 6-months commissioning phase. The paper will summarise the technical and scientific status of the mission, including the status of the RFI detection and mitigation and its effect on the data products. SMOS has so far provided very reliable instrument operations, data processing and dissemination to users. The paper will also provide an overview on the MIRAS instrument performance, including the instrument calibration and level 1 brightness temperature data processing. 2. An overview on the SMOS data products: SMOS provides continuously level 1 (brightness temperature) and level 2 (soil moisture and ocean salinity) to its scientific user community since summer 2010. SMOS also provides brightness temperature data (level 1 data) to ECMWF in near-real time (NRT), who assimilates the data into their forecasting system. New services have been established to deliver a tailored NRT data product via the WMO’s GTS and EUMETSAT’s EUMETCast data dissemination systems to other operational agencies. This will open up new operational applications for SMOS data. Other data products are under development, responding to the requirements of the science community in particular in the area of hydrology, climate, land use and ship routing, namely a frozen soil indicator, data products for freeze/thaw periods, sea ice thickness and vegetation water content. 3. Provide an update on the overall validation approach and recent activities: SMOS data products are continuously improved and approach the scientific mission objectives. Validation activities are essential to ensure high data quality. ESA in collaboration with national agencies and institutions maintains a frame for validation activities such as reference sites, ground based observations as well as campaigns. The paper will provide an update on recent activities, such as the activities at DOME-C. 4. Summarise the collaboration with other space-borne L-band sensors, such as NASA’s Aquarius and SMAP missionsPeer Reviewe

A Model for the Prediction of Fiber Elasticity

A model is presented that enables the elastic properties of wood fibers to be estimated from the properties of its polymeric constituents, cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin. The influence of the value of the axial stiffness of the cellulose crystal is demonstrated, its proper value being discussed in comparison with experimental data on fibers. The effects on fiber stiffness of the S2 fibril angle, the fibril angles of other layers, the crystallinity, and layer thicknesses are analyzed. The manner in which the effect of a variation in yield can be simulated by a change in shape factor of the reinforcing cellulose crystals is demonstrated, the cell wall thus being considered to be a discontinuous reinforced composite

A Newly Identified Bocavirus Species in Human Stool

Viral metagenomic analysis was used to identify a previously uncharacterized parvovirus species, “HBoV2, ” whose closest phylogenetic relative is the human bocavirus (HBoV). HBoV2 has a genomic organization identical to that of HBoV but has only 78%, 67%, and 80 % identity, respectively, with the lat-ter’s NS1, NP1, and VP1/VP2 proteins. The study used poly-merase chain reaction to detect HBoV2 sequences in 5 of 98 stool samples from Pakistani children and in 3 of 699 stool samples from Edinburgh. Nearly-full-length genome se-quencing revealed the presence of 3HBoV2 genotypes and ev-idence of recombination between genotypes. Further studies are necessary to identify anatomical sites of HBoV2 replica-tion and potential associations with clinical symptoms or disease. The Parvoviridae family includes the Parvovirinae subfamily

Complete Genome Sequences of Dengue Virus Type 2 Strains from Kilifi, Kenya

Dengue infection remains poorly characterized in Africa and little is known regarding its associated viral genetic diversity. Here, we report dengue virus type 2 (DENV-2) sequence data from 10 clinical samples, including 5 complete genome sequences of the cosmopolitan genotype, obtained from febrile adults seeking outpatient care in coastal Kenya

Cellular Immune Responses and Viral Diversity in Individuals Treated during Acute and Early HIV-1 Infection

Immune responses induced during the early stages of chronic viral infections are thought to influence disease outcome. Using HIV as a model, we examined virus-specific cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs), T helper cells, and viral genetic diversity in relation to duration of infection and subsequent response to antiviral therapy. Individuals with acute HIV-1 infection treated before seroconversion had weaker CTL responses directed at fewer epitopes than persons who were treated after seroconversion. However, treatment-induced control of viremia was associated with the development of strong T helper cell responses in both groups. After 1 yr of antiviral treatment initiated in acute or early infection, all epitope-specific CTL responses persisted despite undetectable viral loads. The breadth and magnitude of CTL responses remained significantly less in treated acute infection than in treated chronic infection, but viral diversity was also significantly less with immediate therapy. We conclude that early treatment of acute HIV infection leads to a more narrowly directed CTL response, stronger T helper cell responses, and a less diverse virus population. Given the need for T helper cells to maintain effective CTL responses and the ability of virus diversification to accommodate immune escape, we hypothesize that early therapy of primary infection may be beneficial despite induction of less robust CTL responses. These data also provide rationale for therapeutic immunization aimed at broadening CTL responses in treated primary HIV infection

The ancient evolutionary history of polyomaviruses

Author Summary: Polyomaviruses are a family of DNA-based viruses that are known to infect various terrestrial vertebrates, including humans. In this report, we describe our discovery of highly divergent polyomaviruses associated with various marine fish. Searches of public deep sequencing databases unexpectedly revealed the existence of polyomavirus-like sequences in scorpion and spider datasets. Our analysis of these new sequences suggests that polyomaviruses have slowly co-evolved with individual host animal lineages through an established mechanism known as intrahost divergence. The proposed model is similar to the mechanisms through with other DNA viruses, such as papillomaviruses, are thought to have evolved. Our analysis also suggests that distantly related polyomaviruses sometimes recombine to produce new chimeric lineages. We propose a possible taxonomic scheme that can account for these inferred ancient recombination events