Writing craft / writing history

The point is often made that the entry of Aboriginal art into public galleries has involved a fundamental shift in perception from the anonymous, scientific categories of ethnography to the status accorded the aesthetic art object. But in celebrating the recognition for contemporary Aboriginal art we need to be mindful that discourses of Aboriginality are constituted in and through colonial power relationships

"Jacky Jacky Was a Smart Young Fella": A study of art and Aboriginality in south east Australia 1900-1980

My study addresses the apparent gap which exists in the history of south eastern Aboriginal art, from the death of William Barak and Tommy McRae at the turn of the century, to the emergence of an urban Aboriginal art in the 1970s. An analysis of the patterns of inclusion and exclusion created by the 1929 exhibition of Australian Aboriginal Art establish the paradigm. Discourses of primitivism constructed Aborigines as a static, tradition-based society, distanced in time and space from the modern world. This selective response gave recognition to a south eastern Aboriginal heritage and the art produced in remote communities but elided evidence of a contemporary Aboriginal presence in settled Australia. Operating within the uneven power relationships of a colonial context, south eastern Aborigines experienced oppression and discrimination, but they were not dominated. The world view of the south east Aborigines of this study does not reflect an assimilation of the colonising culture. The Aborigines considered here value autonomy and independence, they maintain relationships with kin and land and an exchange modality which governs their relationships with the majority culture. My research therefore suggests many more parallels between Aborigines in settled Australia and Aborigines in remote communities than formerly acknowledged. The chronological element in my study establishes the continuity of south eastern Aboriginal art and traces the emergence of a more heightened expression of public Aboriginality in post-war Melbourne. Similarities and differences emerge within each chapter in the analysis of specific sets of art objects produced by men and women operating within particular local circumstances: in the pastoral and tourist industries, within institutions or fringe camps, in the country and the city. This study explores how Aborigines produced art for exchange as a commodity within the constraints and opportunities presented by the new social, industrial and cultural spheres of the modern world. In hindsight, it is apparent that the general movement of Aborigines from rural regions to Melbourne from the late 1930s onwards allowed Aboriginal artists to gradually negotiate entry to the infrastructures of the professional art world. Nevertheless the structurally privileged position which the city maintains over the country as a site of progress in the modern world, in conjunction with artistic hierarchies which place a higher value on the fine arts than the crafts and popular culture have contributed to the hiatus surrounding south eastern Aboriginal art and obscured its heterogeneity. The south eastern Aborigines of my study acted as historical agents and chose whether they wished to become involved in the production, marketing and response to Aboriginal art. Aborigines gained status in the process of cultural production and a more equitable entry into the capitalist economy. The exchange of art objects also acted as bridge between Aborigines and the wider community by changing prevailing attitudes. In a young settler colony primitivism fulfilled a multiplicity of ambiguous roles. There were many ways in which mainstream artists could express their fascination with Aboriginal culture through the appropriation of Aboriginal motifs and depiction of Aborigines-some of which were more constructive than others. My study focuses on several instances when south east Aborigines colonised the professional art world, intervening and collaborating to ensure their viewpoint was adequately represented. Over time, institutions adjusted their acquisition and exhibition policies to accord more closely with an Aboriginal viewpoint. Retrospectively Aborigines in the south east secured continuity with the past through their selective appropriations from mainstream Australian culture. By means of these adjustment processes Aborigines were able to exert some control over the manner in which they were incorporated within the modern Australian nation state

TUNER-compliant error estimation for MIPAS

This paper describes the error estimation for temperature and trace gas mixing ratios retrieved from the Michelson Interferometer for Passive Atmospheric Sounding (MIPAS) limb emission spectra. The following error sources are taken into account: measurement noise, propagated temperature and pointing noise, uncertainties of the abundances of spectrally interfering species, instrument line shape errors, and spectroscopic data uncertainties in terms of line intensities and broadening coefficients. Furthermore, both the direct impact of volatile as well as persistent gain calibration uncertainties, offset calibration and spectral calibration uncertainties and their impact through propagated calibration-related temperature and pointing uncertainties are considered. An error source specific to the MIPAS upper atmospheric observation mode is the propagation of the smoothing error crosstalk of the combined NO and temperature retrieval. Whenever non-local thermodynamic equilibrium modelling is used inthe retrieval, also related kinetic constants and mixing ratios of species involved in the modelling of populations of excitational states contribute to the error budget. Both generalized Gaussian error propagation and perturbation studies are used to estimate the error components. Error correlations are taken into account. Estimated uncertainties are provided for a multitude of atmospheric conditions. Some error sources were found to contribute both to the random and the systematic component of the total estimated error. The sequential nature of the MIPAS retrievals gives rise to entangled errors. These are caused by error sources that affect the uncertainty of the final data product via multiple pathways, i.e., on the one hand directly, and on the other hand via errors caused in a preceding retrieval step. These errors tend to partly compensate each other. The hard-to-quantify effect of the horizontally non-homogeneous atmosphere and unknown error correlations of spectroscopic data are considered as the major limitations of the MIPAS error estimation

TUNER-compliant error estimation for MIPAS: methodology

This paper describes the error estimation for temperature and trace gas mixing ratios retrieved from the Michelson Interferometer for Passive Atmospheric Sounding (MIPAS) limb emission spectra. The following error sources are taken into account: measurement noise, propagated temperature and pointing noise, uncertainties of the abundances of spectrally interfering species, instrument line shape errors, and spectroscopic data uncertainties in terms of line intensities and broadening coefficients. Furthermore, both the direct impact of volatile as well as persistent gain calibration uncertainties, offset calibration and spectral calibration uncertainties and their impact through propagated calibration-related temperature and pointing uncertainties are considered. An error source specific to the MIPAS upper atmospheric observation mode is the propagation of the smoothing error crosstalk of the combined NO and temperature retrieval. Whenever non-local thermodynamic equilibrium modelling is used inthe retrieval, also related kinetic constants and mixing ratios of species involved in the modelling of populations of excitational states contribute to the error budget. Both generalized Gaussian error propagation and perturbation studies are used to estimate the error components. Error correlations are taken into account. Estimated uncertainties are provided for a multitude of atmospheric conditions. Some error sources were found to contribute both to the random and the systematic component of the total estimated error. The sequential nature of the MIPAS retrievals gives rise to entangled errors. These are caused by error sources that affect the uncertainty of the final data product via multiple pathways, i.e., on the one hand directly, and on the other hand via errors caused in a preceding retrieval step. These errors tend to partly compensate each other. The hard-to-quantify effect of the horizontally non-homogeneous atmosphere and unknown error correlations of spectroscopic data are considered as the major limitations of the MIPAS error estimation

Global distribution of mean age of stratospheric air from MIPAS SF6 measurements

Global distributions of profiles of sulphur hexafluoride (SF6) have been retrieved from limb emission spectra recorded by the Michelson Interferometer for Passive Atmospheric Sounding (MIPAS) on Envisat covering the period September 2002 to March 2004. Individual SF6 profiles have a precision of 0.5 pptv below 25 km altitude and a vertical resolution of 4–6 km up to 35 km altitude. These data have been validated versus in situ observations obtained during balloon flights of a cryogenic whole-air sampler. For the tropical troposphere a trend of 0.230±0.008 pptv/yr has been derived from the MIPAS data, which is in excellent agreement with the trend from ground-based flask and in situ measurements from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Earth System Research Laboratory, Global Monitoring Division. For the data set currently available, based on at least three days of data per month, monthly 5° latitude mean values have a 1 o standard error of 1%. From the global SF6 distributions, global daily and monthly distributions of the apparent mean age of air are inferred by application of the tropical tropospheric trend derived from MIPAS data. The inferred mean ages are provided for the full globe up to 90° N/S, and have a 1 o standard error of 0.25 yr. They range between 0 (near the tropical tropopause) and 7 years (except for situations of mesospheric intrusions) and agree well with earlier observations. The seasonal variation of the mean age of stratospheric air indicates episodes of severe intrusion of mesospheric air during each Northern and Southern polar winter observed, long-lasting remnants of old, subsided polar winter air over the spring and summer poles, and a rather short period of mixing with midlatitude air and/or upward transport during fall in October/November (NH) and April/May (SH), respectively, with small latitudinal gradients, immediately before the new polar vortex starts to form. The mean age distributions further confirm that SF6 is destroyed in the mesosphere to a considerable degree. Model calculations with the Karlsruhe simulation model of the middle atmosphere (KASIMA) chemical transport model agree well with observed global distributions of the mean age only if the SF6 sink reactions in the mesosphere are included in the model