567 research outputs found
Pure rotational-Raman channels of the Esrange lidar for temperature and particle extinction measurements in the troposphere and lower stratosphere
The Department of Meteorology at Stockholm University operates the Esrange Rayleigh/Raman lidar at Esrange (68° N, 21° E) near the Swedish city of Kiruna. This paper describes the design and first measurements of the new pure rotational-Raman channel of the Esrange lidar. The Esrange lidar uses a pulsed Nd:YAG solid-state laser operating at 532 nm as light source with a repetition rate of 20 Hz and a pulse energy of 350 mJ. The minimum vertical resolution is 150 m and the integration time for one profile is 5000 shots. The newly implemented channel allows for measurements of atmospheric temperature at altitudes below 35 km and is currently optimized for temperature measurements between 180 and 200 K. This corresponds to conditions in the lower Arctic stratosphere during winter. In addition to the temperature measurements, the aerosol extinction coefficient and the aerosol backscatter coefficient at 532 nm can be measured independently. Our filter-based design minimizes the systematic error in the obtained temperature profile to less than 0.51 K. By combining rotational-Raman measurements (5–35 km height) and the integration technique (30–80 km height), the Esrange lidar is now capable of measuring atmospheric temperature profiles from the upper troposphere up to the mesosphere. With the improved setup, the system can be used to validate current lidar-based polar stratospheric cloud classification schemes. The new capability of the instrument measuring temperature and aerosol extinction furthermore enables studies of the thermal structure and variability of the upper troposphere/lower stratosphere. Although several lidars are operated at polar latitudes, there are few instruments that are capable of measuring temperature profiles in the troposphere, stratosphere, and mesosphere, as well as aerosols extinction in the troposphere and lower stratosphere with daylight capability
Renormalization flow in extreme value statistics
The renormalization group transformation for extreme value statistics of
independent, identically distributed variables, recently introduced to describe
finite size effects, is presented here in terms of a partial differential
equation (PDE). This yields a flow in function space and gives rise to the
known family of Fisher-Tippett limit distributions as fixed points, together
with the universal eigenfunctions around them. The PDE turns out to handle
correctly distributions even having discontinuities. Remarkably, the PDE admits
exact solutions in terms of eigenfunctions even farther from the fixed points.
In particular, such are unstable manifolds emanating from and returning to the
Gumbel fixed point, when the running eigenvalue and the perturbation strength
parameter obey a pair of coupled ordinary differential equations. Exact
renormalization trajectories corresponding to linear combinations of
eigenfunctions can also be given, and it is shown that such are all solutions
of the PDE. Explicit formulas for some invariant manifolds in the Fr\'echet and
Weibull cases are also presented. Finally, the similarity between
renormalization flows for extreme value statistics and the central limit
problem is stressed, whence follows the equivalence of the formulas for Weibull
distributions and the moment generating function of symmetric L\'evy stable
distributions.Comment: 21 pages, 9 figures. Several typos and an upload error corrected.
Accepted for publication in JSTA
Observations of the mesospheric semi-annual oscillation (MSAO) in water vapour by Odin/SMR
International audienceMesospheric water vapour measurements taken by the SMR instrument onboard the Odin satellite between 2002 and 2006 have been analysed with focus on the mesospheric semi-annual circulation in the tropical and subtropical region. This analysis provides the first complete picture of mesospheric SAO in water vapour, covering altitudes above 80 km where the only previous study based on UARS/HALOE data was limited. Our analysis shows a clear semi-annual variation in the water vapour distribution in the entire altitude range between 65 km and 100 km in the equatorial area. Maxima occur near the equinoxes below 75 km and around the solstices above 80 km. The phase reversal occurs in the small layer in-between, consistent with the downward propagation of the mesospheric SAO in the zonal wind in this altitude range. The SAO amplitude exhibits a double peak structure, with maxima at about 75 km and 81 km. The observed amplitudes show higher values than the UARS/HALOE amplitudes. The upper peak amplitude remains relatively constant with latitude. The lower peak amplitude decreases towards higher latitudes, but recovers in the Southern Hemisphere subtropics. On the other hand, the annual variation is much more prominent in the northern hemispheric subtropics. Furthermore, higher volume mixing ratios during summer and lower values during winter are observed in the Northern Hemisphere subtropics, as compared to the corresponding latitude range in the Southern Hemisphere
Extremal driving as a mechanism for generating long-term memory
It is argued that systems whose elements are renewed according to an extremal
criterion can generally be expected to exhibit long-term memory. This is
verified for the minimal extremally driven model, which is first defined and
then solved for all system sizes N\geq2 and times t\geq0, yielding exact
expressions for the persistence R(t)=[1+t/(N-1)]^{-1} and the two-time
correlation function C(t_{\rm w}+t,t_{\rm w})=(1-1/N)(N+t_{\rm w})/(N+t_{\rm
w}+t-1). The existence of long-term memory is inferred from the scaling of
C(t_{\rm w}+t,t_{\rm w})\sim f(t/t_{\rm w}), denoting {\em aging}. Finally, we
suggest ways of investigating the robustness of this mechanism when competing
processes are present.Comment: 5 pages, no figures; requires IOP style files. To appear as a J.
Phys. A. lette
Role of disorder in the size-scaling of material strength
We study the sample size dependence of the strength of disordered materials
with a flaw, by numerical simulations of lattice models for fracture. We find a
crossover between a regime controlled by the fluctuations due to disorder and
another controlled by stress-concentrations, ruled by continuum fracture
mechanics. The results are formulated in terms of a scaling law involving a
statistical fracture process zone. Its existence and scaling properties are
only revealed by sampling over many configurations of the disorder. The scaling
law is in good agreement with experimental results obtained from notched paper
samples.Comment: 4 pages 5 figure
Maximum relative height of one-dimensional interfaces : from Rayleigh to Airy distribution
We introduce an alternative definition of the relative height h^\kappa(x) of
a one-dimensional fluctuating interface indexed by a continuously varying real
paramater 0 \leq \kappa \leq 1. It interpolates between the height relative to
the initial value (i.e. in x=0) when \kappa = 0 and the height relative to the
spatially averaged height for \kappa = 1. We compute exactly the distribution
P^\kappa(h_m,L) of the maximum h_m of these relative heights for systems of
finite size L and periodic boundary conditions. One finds that it takes the
scaling form P^\kappa(h_m,L) = L^{-1/2} f^\kappa (h_m L^{-1/2}) where the
scaling function f^\kappa(x) interpolates between the Rayleigh distribution for
\kappa=0 and the Airy distribution for \kappa=1, the latter being the
probability distribution of the area under a Brownian excursion over the unit
interval. For arbitrary \kappa, one finds that it is related to, albeit
different from, the distribution of the area restricted to the interval [0,
\kappa] under a Brownian excursion over the unit interval.Comment: 25 pages, 4 figure
Generalised extreme value statistics and sum of correlated variables
We show that generalised extreme value statistics -the statistics of the k-th
largest value among a large set of random variables- can be mapped onto a
problem of random sums. This allows us to identify classes of non-identical and
(generally) correlated random variables with a sum distributed according to one
of the three (k-dependent) asymptotic distributions of extreme value
statistics, namely the Gumbel, Frechet and Weibull distributions. These
classes, as well as the limit distributions, are naturally extended to real
values of k, thus providing a clear interpretation to the onset of Gumbel
distributions with non-integer index k in the statistics of global observables.
This is one of the very few known generalisations of the central limit theorem
to non-independent random variables. Finally, in the context of a simple
physical model, we relate the index k to the ratio of the correlation length to
the system size, which remains finite in strongly correlated systems.Comment: To appear in J.Phys.
Statistics of leaders and lead changes in growing networks
We investigate various aspects of the statistics of leaders in growing
network models defined by stochastic attachment rules. The leader is the node
with highest degree at a given time (or the node which reached that degree
first if there are co-leaders). This comprehensive study includes the full
distribution of the degree of the leader, its identity, the number of
co-leaders, as well as several observables characterizing the whole history of
lead changes: number of lead changes, number of distinct leaders, lead
persistence probability. We successively consider the following network models:
uniform attachment, linear attachment (the Barabasi-Albert model), and
generalized preferential attachment with initial attractiveness.Comment: 28 pages, 14 figures, 1 tabl
Extreme statistics for time series: Distribution of the maximum relative to the initial value
The extreme statistics of time signals is studied when the maximum is
measured from the initial value. In the case of independent, identically
distributed (iid) variables, we classify the limiting distribution of the
maximum according to the properties of the parent distribution from which the
variables are drawn. Then we turn to correlated periodic Gaussian signals with
a 1/f^alpha power spectrum and study the distribution of the maximum relative
height with respect to the initial height (MRH_I). The exact MRH_I distribution
is derived for alpha=0 (iid variables), alpha=2 (random walk), alpha=4 (random
acceleration), and alpha=infinity (single sinusoidal mode). For other,
intermediate values of alpha, the distribution is determined from simulations.
We find that the MRH_I distribution is markedly different from the previously
studied distribution of the maximum height relative to the average height for
all alpha. The two main distinguishing features of the MRH_I distribution are
the much larger weight for small relative heights and the divergence at zero
height for alpha>3. We also demonstrate that the boundary conditions affect the
shape of the distribution by presenting exact results for some non-periodic
boundary conditions. Finally, we show that, for signals arising from
time-translationally invariant distributions, the density of near extreme
states is the same as the MRH_I distribution. This is used in developing a
scaling theory for the threshold singularities of the two distributions.Comment: 29 pages, 4 figure
Extreme events driven glassy behaviour in granular media
Motivated by recent experiments on the approach to jamming of a weakly forced
granular medium using an immersed torsion oscillator [Nature 413 (2001) 407],
we propose a simple model which relates the microscopic dynamics to macroscopic
rearrangements and accounts for the following experimental facts: (1) the
control parameter is the spatial amplitude of the perturbation and not its
reduced peak acceleration; (2) a Vogel-Fulcher-Tammann-like form for the
relaxation time. The model draws a parallel between macroscopic rearrangements
in the system and extreme events whose probability of occurrence (and thus the
typical relaxation time) is estimated using extreme-value statistics. The range
of validity of this description in terms of the control parameter is discussed
as well as the existence of other regimes.Comment: 7 pages, to appear in Europhys. Let
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