Review of the CALIMAS Team Contributions to European Space Agency's Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity Mission Calibration and Validation

Camps, Adriano ... et al.-- 38 pages, 22 figuresThis work summarizes the activities carried out by the SMOS (Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity) Barcelona Expert Center (SMOS-BEC) team in conjunction with the CIALE/Universidad de Salamanca team, within the framework of the European Space Agency (ESA) CALIMAS project in preparation for the SMOS mission and during its first year of operation. Under these activities several studies were performed, ranging from Level 1 (calibration and image reconstruction) to Level 4 (land pixel disaggregation techniques, by means of data fusion with higher resolution data from optical/infrared sensors). Validation of SMOS salinity products by means of surface drifters developed ad-hoc, and soil moisture products over the REMEDHUS site (Zamora, Spain) are also presented. Results of other preparatory activities carried out to improve the performance of eventual SMOS follow-on missions are presented, including GNSS-R to infer the sea state correction needed for improved ocean salinity retrievals and land surface parameters. Results from CALIMAS show a satisfactory performance of the MIRAS instrument, the accuracy and efficiency of the algorithms implemented in the ground data processors, and explore the limits of spatial resolution of soil moisture products using data fusion, as well as the feasibility of GNSS-R techniques for sea state determination and soil moisture monitoringThis work has been performed under research grants TEC2005-06863-C02-01/TCM, ESP2005-06823-C05, ESP2007-65667-C04, AYA2008-05906-C02-01/ESP and AYA2010-22062-C05 from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, and a EURYI 2004 award from the European Science FoundationPeer Reviewe

Experimental and theoretical study of the elliptic instability in a rotating stratified flow

The combined effects of Coriolis force and buoyancy effects on the dynamics of a weakly elliptical bounded vortex are treated theoretically as well as experimentally. As predicted theoretically, stratification and rotation have antagonist contributions to the stability of an elliptical vortex. Thus if the stratification is strong enough (Nb>Omega_c, Nb and Omega_c being respectively the Brunt-Väisälä frequency and the rotation rate of the flow in a frame rotating with the elliptical deformation at angular velocity Omega_t), we have observed that only anticyclones (such that |Wa|<Omega_c with Wa=2(Omega_c+Omega_t)) are unstable, whereas the cyclones are always stable. In addition if the stratification is weak, instability areas over change. These instability thresholds found theoretically have been observed experimentally with a good accuracy and the measured growth rate are in a good agreement with those predicted by a linear stability analysis in the limit of small deformation

Deformidad de Gibbus no tuberculosa tratada con implante cubierto con nanopartículas de plata. Presentación de un caso

Se conoce como enfermedad de Gibbus al colapso de la porción anterior de uno o más cuerpos vertebrales que provoca una cifosis segmentaria de ángulo agudo. En general, este tipo de deformidades son producto de infecciones tuberculosas. Uno de los principales problemas que trae apareado esta deformidad es la compresión medular. En el caso presentado, el paciente sufrió esta enfermedad como consecuencia de una infección no tuberculosa, con cifosis angular pososteomielitis, tratado con doble vía de abordaje, utilizando implantes recubiertos con nanopartículas de plata. Los resultados clínico-radiológicos fueron muy satisfactorios. Este caso presenta la conjugación de dos temas poco frecuentes en la medicina actual; por un lado, un tipo de deformidad de la columna que, rara vez, se debe a una infección no tuberculosa y, por otro lado, el implante utilizado, recubierto con nanopartículas de plata que, pese a las controversias, ofrece una nueva posibilidad de tratamiento para pacientes con un riesgo aumentado de infección asociada a implantes, y resulta de interés que sea reconocido por los cirujanos ortopedistas, puesto que existe evidencia suficiente para afirmar su capacidad para reducir la formación de biopelículas

Analysis of the Role of Tariff Concessions in East Asia

While there are many studies focusing on the impacts of various trade policy agreements across the world in the recent years, there is not much focus in the literature on the extent to which these agreements are implemented later, in terms of the aspects agreed upon therein. In this paper, we firstly identify the past achievements of the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) in East Asian regions in terms of tariff removals and suggest future rooms for further economic benefits from trade liberalization in the region. Secondly, we provide the tariff concession dataset in the GTAP Data Base, which distinguishes the tariff removals agreed in these EPAs in East Asia but not implemented yet, from the existing overall tariffs in the benchmark year. As the standard GTAP Data Base only incorporates enforced tariff reductions through the base year applied tariffs, to analyse future trade integration, it might be worth it to integer commitments that are not yet implemented. We do that at the HS6 levels for East Asian EPAs that allows us to compare the economic impacts of partial versus complete implementation of the trade liberalization agreed in East Asian EPAs. Our results suggest that taking those commitments into account economically matters and that such satellite dataset might be taken as actual baseline for future policy simulations.JEL Classification Codes: D58, F13, F14, F15, F17The earlier version of this study was presented at the 18th Annual Conference on Global Economic Analysis on 17-19 June, 2015 in Melbourne

Climate change initiative+ (CCI+) phase 1 sea surface salinity: Product validation and intercomparison report (PVIR)

The purpose of this document (D4.1 Product Validation and Intercomparison Report, PVIR, document version v3.0) is to describe the results of the validation of the Sea Surface Salinity (SSS) products obtained during the ESA CCI+ SSS project when compared with other data sources. The PVIR is a requirement of the Statement of Work (Task 3 SoW ref. ESA-CCI-PRGM-EOPS-SW-17- 0032). The PVIR contains a list of all reference datasets used for validation of each SSS product. This report contains an assessment of both the level 4 and level 3 (ascending, descending and combined ascending plus descending) products for weekly and monthly time periods. The products are based on a temporal optimal interpolation of SSS data measured by SMOS, Aquarius-SAC and SMAP satellite missions. All products are gridded on an equal area EASE-2 grid with a grid resolution of ~25 km

Satellite and in situ sampling mismatches: Consequences for the estimation of satellite sea surface salinity uncertainties

Validation of satellite sea surface salinity (SSS) products is typically based on comparisons with in-situ measurements at a few meters’ depth, which are mostly done at a single location and time. The difference in term of spatio-temporal resolution between the in-situ near-surface salinity and the two-dimensional satellite SSS results in a sampling mismatch uncertainty. The Climate Change Initiative (CCI) project has merged SSS from three satellite missions. Using an optimal interpolation, weekly and monthly SSS and their uncertainties are estimated at a 50 km spatial resolution over the global ocean. Over the 2016–2018 period, the mean uncertainty on weekly CCI SSS is 0.13, whereas the standard deviation of weekly CCI minus in-situ Argo salinities is 0.24. Using SSS from a high-resolution model reanalysis, we estimate the expected uncertainty due to the CCI versus Argo sampling mismatch. Most of the largest spatial variability of the satellite minus Argo salinity is observed in regions with large estimated sampling mismatch. A quantitative validation is performed by considering the statistical distribution of the CCI minus Argo salinity normalized by the sampling and retrieval uncertainties. This quantity should follow a Gaussian distribution with a standard deviation of 1, if all uncertainty contributions are properly taken into account. We find that (1) the observed differences between Argo and CCI data in dynamical regions (river plumes, fronts) are mainly due to the sampling mismatch; (2) overall, the uncertainties are well estimated in CCI version 3, much improved compared to CCI version 2. There are a few dynamical regions where discrepancies remain and where the satellite SSS, their associated uncertainties and the sampling mismatch estimates should be further validated

Agriculture in the Trans-Pacific Partnership

The Trans-Pacific Partnership is a trade and investment agreement under negotiation by 12 countries in the Pacific Rim. This report assesses this partnership's potential impacts on the region's agriculture in 2025