120 research outputs found
Geological setting as an important factor in mangrove plantation site selection in the Red Sea
pp. 107-12
Mapping orangutan habitat and agricultural areas using Landsat OLI imagery augmented with unmanned aircraft system aerial photography
Conservation of the Sumatran orangutans’ (Pongo abelii) habitat is threatened by change in land use/land cover (LULCC), due to the logging of its native primary forest habitat, and the primary forest conversion to oil palm, rubber tree, and coffee plantations. Frequent LULCC monitoring is vital to rapid conservation interventions. Due to the costs of high-resolution satellite imagery, researchers are forced to rely on cost-free sources (e.g. Landsat), those, however, provide images at a moderate-to-low resolution (e.g. 15–250 m), permitting identification only general LULC classes, and limit the detection of small-scale deforestation or degradation. Here, we combine Landsat imagery with very high-resolution imagery obtained from an unmanned aircraft system (UAS). The UAS imagery was used as ‘drone truthing’ data to train image classification algorithms. Our results show that UAS data can successfully be used to help discriminate similar land-cover/use classes (oil palm plantation vs. reforestation vs. logged forest) with consistently high identification of over 75% on the generated thematic map, where the oil palm detection rate was as high as 89%. Because UAS is employed increasingly in conservation projects, this approach can be used in a large variety of them to improve land-cover classification or aid-specific mapping needs
Determination of water stress with spectral reflectance on sweet corn (Zea mays L.) using classification tree (CT) analysis
Abstract Water stress is one of the most important growth limiting factors in crop production. Several methods have been used to detect and evaluate the effect of water stress on plants. The use of remote sensing is deemed particularly and practically suitable for assessing water stress and implementing appropriate management strategies because it presents unique advantages of repeatability, accuracy, and cost-effectiveness over the ground-based surveys for water stress detection. The objectives of this study were to 1) determine the effect of water stress on sweet corn (Zea mays L.) using spectral indices and chlorophyll readings and 2) evaluate the reflectance spectra using the classification tree (CT) method for distinguishing water stress levels/severity. Spectral measurements and chlorophyll readings were taken on sweet corn exposed to four levels of water stress with 0, 33, 66 and 100 % of pot capacity (PC) before and after each watering time. The results demonstrated that reflectance in the red portion (600-700 nm) of the electromagnetic spectrum decreased and increased in the near infrared (NIR) region (700-900 nm) with the increasing field capacity of water level. Reflectance measured before the irrigation was generally higher than after irrigation in the NIR region and lower in the red region. However, when the four levels of PC and before or after irrigation only were compared, reflectance spectra indicated that water stressed corn plants absorbed less light in the visible and more light in the NIR regions of the spectrum than the less water stressed and unstressed plants. There was a similar trend to reflectance behaviour of water stress levels using chlorophyll readings that decreased over time. The CT analysis revealed that water stress can be assessed and differentiated using chlorophyll readings and reflectance data when transformed into spectral vegetation indices
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New SOA Treatments Within the Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM): Strong Production and Sinks Govern Atmospheric SOA Distributions and Radiative Forcing
Secondary organic aerosols (SOA) are large contributors to fine particle mass loading and number concentration and interact with clouds and radiation. Several processes affect the formation, chemical transformation, and removal of SOA in the atmosphere. For computational efficiency, global models use simplified SOA treatments, which often do not capture the dynamics of SOA formation. Here we test more complex SOA treatments within the global Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM) to investigate how simulated SOA spatial distributions respond to some of the important but uncertain processes affecting SOA formation, removal, and lifetime. We evaluate model predictions with a suite of surface, aircraft, and satellite observations that span the globe and the full troposphere. Simulations indicate that both a strong production (achieved here by multigenerational aging of SOA precursors that includes moderate functionalization) and a strong sink of SOA (especially in the middle upper troposphere, achieved here by adding particle-phase photolysis) are needed to reproduce the vertical distribution of organic aerosol (OA) measured during several aircraft field campaigns; without this sink, the simulated middle upper tropospheric OA is too large. Our results show that variations in SOA chemistry formulations change SOA wet removal lifetime by a factor of 3 due to changes in horizontal and vertical distributions of SOA. In all the SOA chemistry formulations tested here, an efficient chemical sink, that is, particle-phase photolysis, was needed to reproduce the aircraft measurements of OA at high altitudes. Globally, SOA removal rates by photolysis are equal to the wet removal sink, and photolysis decreases SOA lifetimes from 10 to ~3 days. A recent review of multiple field studies found no increase in net OA formation over and downwind biomass burning regions, so we also tested an alternative, empirical SOA treatment that increases primary organic aerosol (POA) emissions near source region and converts POA to SOA with an aging time scale of 1 day. Although this empirical treatment performs surprisingly well in simulating OA loadings near the surface, it overestimates OA loadings in the middle and upper troposphere compared to aircraft measurements, likely due to strong convective transport to high altitudes where wet removal is weak. The default improved model formulation (multigenerational aging with moderate fragmentation and photolysis) performs much better than the empirical treatment in these regions. Differences in SOA treatments greatly affect the SOA direct radiative effect, which ranges from -0.65 (moderate fragmentation and photolysis) to -2 W m-2 (moderate fragmentation without photolysis). Notably, most SOA formulations predict similar global indirect forcing of SOA calculated as the difference in cloud forcing between present-day and preindustrial simulations. © 2020. The Authors
Localized precipitation and runoff on Mars
We use the Mars Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (MRAMS) to simulate lake
storms on Mars, finding that intense localized precipitation will occur for
lake size >=10^3 km^2. Mars has a low-density atmosphere, so deep convection
can be triggered by small amounts of latent heat release. In our reference
simulation, the buoyant plume lifts vapor above condensation level, forming a
20km-high optically-thick cloud. Ice grains grow to 200 microns radius and fall
near (or in) the lake at mean rates up to 1.5 mm/hr water equivalent (maximum
rates up to 6 mm/hr water equivalent). Because atmospheric temperatures outside
the surface layer are always well below 273K, supersaturation and condensation
begin at low altitudes above lakes on Mars. In contrast to Earth lake-effect
storms, lake storms on Mars involve continuous precipitation, and their
vertical velocities and plume heights exceed those of tropical thunderstorms on
Earth. Convection does not reach above the planetary boundary layer for lakes
O(10^2) mbar. Instead, vapor is
advected downwind with little cloud formation. Precipitation occurs as snow,
and the daytime radiative forcing at the land surface due to plume vapor and
storm clouds is too small to melt snow directly (<+10 W/m^2). However, if
orbital conditions are favorable, then the snow may be seasonally unstable to
melting and produce runoff to form channels. We calculate the probability of
melting by running thermal models over all possible orbital conditions and
weighting their outcomes by probabilities given by Laskar et al., 2004. We
determine that for an equatorial vapor source, sunlight 15% fainter than at
present, and snowpack with albedo 0.28 (0.35), melting may occur with 4%(0.1%)
probability. This rises to 56%(12%) if the ancient greenhouse effect was
modestly (6K) greater than today.Comment: Submitted to JGR Planet
Planetary Candidates Observed by Kepler VI: Planet Sample from Q1-Q16 (47 Months)
\We present the sixth catalog of Kepler candidate planets based on nearly 4
years of high precision photometry. This catalog builds on the legacy of
previous catalogs released by the Kepler project and includes 1493 new Kepler
Objects of Interest (KOIs) of which 554 are planet candidates, and 131 of these
candidates have best fit radii <1.5 R_earth. This brings the total number of
KOIs and planet candidates to 7305 and 4173 respectively. We suspect that many
of these new candidates at the low signal-to-noise limit may be false alarms
created by instrumental noise, and discuss our efforts to identify such
objects. We re-evaluate all previously published KOIs with orbital periods of
>50 days to provide a consistently vetted sample that can be used to improve
planet occurrence rate calculations. We discuss the performance of our planet
detection algorithms, and the consistency of our vetting products. The full
catalog is publicly available at the NASA Exoplanet Archive.Comment: 18 pages, to be published in the Astrophysical Journal Supplement
Serie
Comparison of Culture and Molecular Identification of Bacteria in Chronic Wounds
Clinical diagnostics of chronic polymicrobial infections, such as those found in chronic wounds, represent a diagnostic challenge for both culture and molecular methods. In the current retrospective study, the results of aerobic bacterial cultures and culture-free bacterial identification using DNA analyses were compared. A total of 168 chronic wounds were studied. The majority of bacteria identified with culture testing were also identified with molecular testing, but the majority of bacteria identified with the molecular testing were not identified with culture testing. Seventeen (17) different bacterial taxa were identified with culture, and 338 different bacterial taxa were identified with molecular testing. This study demonstrates the increased sensitivity that molecular microbial identification can have over culture methodologies, and previous studies suggest that molecular bacterial identification can improve the clinical outcomes of patients with chronic wounds
Bacterial and Archaea Community Present in the Pine Barrens Forest of Long Island, NY: Unusually High Percentage of Ammonia Oxidizing Bacteria
Of the few preserved areas in the northeast of United States, the soil in the Pine Barrens Forests presents a harsh environment for the microorganisms to grow and survive. In the current study we report the use of clustering methods to scientifically select the sampling locations that would represent the entire forest and also report the microbial diversity present in various horizons of the soil. Sixty six sampling locations were selected across the forest and soils were collected from three horizons (sampling depths). The three horizons were 0–10 cm (Horizon O); 11–25 cm (Horizon A) and 26–40 cm (Horizon B). Based on the total microbial substrate utilization pattern and K-means clustering analysis, the soil in the Pine Barrens Forest can be classified into four distinct clusters at each of the three horizons. One soil sample from each of the four clusters were selected and archaeal and bacterial populations within the soil studied using pyrosequencing method. The results show the microbial communities present in each of these clusters are different. Within the microbial communities present, microorganisms involved in nitrogen cycle occupy a major fraction of microbial community in the soil. High level of diversity was observed for nitrogen fixing bacteria. In contrast, Nitrosovibrio and Nitrosocaldus spp are the single bacterial and archaeal population respectively carrying out ammonia oxidation in the soil
LSST Science Book, Version 2.0
A survey that can cover the sky in optical bands over wide fields to faint
magnitudes with a fast cadence will enable many of the exciting science
opportunities of the next decade. The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST)
will have an effective aperture of 6.7 meters and an imaging camera with field
of view of 9.6 deg^2, and will be devoted to a ten-year imaging survey over
20,000 deg^2 south of +15 deg. Each pointing will be imaged 2000 times with
fifteen second exposures in six broad bands from 0.35 to 1.1 microns, to a
total point-source depth of r~27.5. The LSST Science Book describes the basic
parameters of the LSST hardware, software, and observing plans. The book
discusses educational and outreach opportunities, then goes on to describe a
broad range of science that LSST will revolutionize: mapping the inner and
outer Solar System, stellar populations in the Milky Way and nearby galaxies,
the structure of the Milky Way disk and halo and other objects in the Local
Volume, transient and variable objects both at low and high redshift, and the
properties of normal and active galaxies at low and high redshift. It then
turns to far-field cosmological topics, exploring properties of supernovae to
z~1, strong and weak lensing, the large-scale distribution of galaxies and
baryon oscillations, and how these different probes may be combined to
constrain cosmological models and the physics of dark energy.Comment: 596 pages. Also available at full resolution at
http://www.lsst.org/lsst/sciboo
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