Spatio-Temporal Scanning and Statistical Test of the Accelerating Moment Release (AMR) Model Using Australian Earthquake Data

The Accelerating Moment Release (AMR) preceding earthquakes with magnitude above 5 in Australia that occurred during the last 20 years was analyzed to test the Critical Point Hypothesis. Twelve earthquakes in the catalog were chosen based on a criterion for the number of nearby events. Results show that seven sequences with numerous events recorded leading up to the main earthquake exhibited accelerating moment release. Two occurred near in time and space to other earthquakes preceded by AM R. The remaining three sequences had very few events in the catalog so the lack of AMR detected in the analysis may be related to catalog incompleteness. Spatio-temporal scanning of AMR parameters shows that 80% of the areas in which AMR occurred experienced large events. In areas of similar background seismicity with no large events, 10 out of 12 cases exhibit no AMR, and two others are false alarms where AMR was observed but no large event followed. The relationship between AMR and Load-Unload Response Ratio (LURR) was studied. Both methods predict similar critical region sizes, however, the critical point time using AMR is slightly earlier than the time of the critical point LURR anomaly.

Linear spatio-temporal instability analysis of ice growth under a falling water film

A linear spatio-temporal stability analysis is conducted for the ice growth under a falling water film along an inclined ice plane. The full system of linear stability equations is solved by using the Chebyshev collocation method. By plotting the boundary curve between the linear absolute and convective instabilities (AI/CI) of the ice mode in the parameter plane of the Reynolds number and incline angle, it is found that the linear absolute instability exists and occurs above a minimum Reynolds number and below a maximum inclined angle. Furthermore, by plotting the critical Reynolds number curves with respect to the inclined angle for the downstream and upstream branches, the convectively unstable region is determined and divided into three parts, one of which has both downstream and upstream convectively unstable wavepackets and the other two have only downstream or upstream convectively unstable wavepacket. Finally, the effect of the Stefan number and the thickness of the ice layer on the AI/CI boundary curve is investigated.

Spatio-temporal changes in annual accumulated temperature in China and the effects on cropping systems, 1980s to 2000

Change in thermal conditions can substantially affect crop growth, cropping systems, agricultural production and land use. In the present study, we used annual accumulated temperatures > 10 degrees C (AAT10) as an indicator to investigate the spatio-temporal changes in thermal conditions across China from the late 1980s to 2000, with a spatial resolution of 1 x 1 km. We also investigated the effects of the spatio-temporal changes on cultivated land use and cropping systems. We found that AAT10 has increased on a national scale since the late 1980s, Particularly, 3.16 x 10(5) km(2) of land moved from the spring wheat zone (AAT10: 1600 to 3400 degrees C) to the winter wheat zone (AAT10: 3400 to 4500 degrees C). Changes in thermal conditions had large influences on cultivated land area and cropping systems. The areas of cultivated land have increased in regions with increasing AAT10, and the cropping rotation index has increased since the late 1980s. Single cropping was replaced by 3 crops in 2 years in many regions, and areas of winter wheat cultivation were shifted northward in some areas, such as in the eastern Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and in western Liaoning and Jilin Provinces.

Analysis of spatio-temporal dynamic pattern and driving forces of urban land in China in 1990s using TM images and GIS

China has witnessed fast urban growth in the recent decade. This study analyzes spatio-temporal characteristics of urban expansion in China using satellite images and regionalization methods. Landsat TM images at three time periods, 1990/1991, 1995/1996, and 1999/2000, are interpreted to get 1:100000 vector land use datasets. The study calculates the urban land percentage and urban land expansion index of every 1 km(2) cell throughout China. The study divides China into 27 urban regions to conceive dynamic patterns of urban land changes. Urban development was achieving momentum in the western region, expanding more noticeably than in the previous five years, and seeing an increased growth percentage. Land use dynamic changes reflect the strong impacts of economic growth environments and macro-urban development policies. The paper helps to distinguish the influences of newly market-oriented forces from traditional administrative controls on China's urban expansion. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Spatio-temporal patterns and driving forces of urban land expansion in china during the economic reform era

Along with its economic reform, China has experienced a rapid urbanization. This study mapped urban land expansion in China using high-resolution Landsat Thematic Mapper and Enhanced Thematic Mapper data of 1989/1990, 1995/1996 and 1999/2000 and analyzed its expansion modes and the driving forces underlying this process during 1990-2000. Our results show that China's urban land increased by 817 thousand hectares, of which 80.8% occurred during 1990-1995 and 19.2% during 1995-2000. It was also found that China's urban expansion had high spatial and temporal differences, such as four expansion modes, concentric, leapfrog, linear and multi-nuclei, and their combinations coexisted and expanded urban land area in the second 5 y was much less than that of the first 5 y. Case studies of the 13 mega cities showed that urban expansion had been largely driven by demographic change, economic growth, and changes in land use policies and regulations.

Spatial and temporal variations in pH and total alkalinity at the beginning of the rainy season in the Changjiang Estuary, China

The results of field observation carried out in May 2003 were used to examine pH and total alkalinity behaviors in the Changjiang Estuary. It was showed that PH and total alkalinity took on clear spatial variations in values with the minima in the low salinity region. Like salinity, transect distributions of PH and total alkalinity (TA) in a downriver direction had a sharp gradient each. These gradients appeared in such a sequence that the TA gradient was earlier than salinity and PH gradients, and the salinity gradient was earlier than the PH gradient. These distribution characteristics seemed to be strongly influenced by the mixing process of freshwater and seawater, for both PH and total alkalinity had significant linear relationships with salinity and temperature. For PH, phytoplankton activities also had a significant impact upon its spatial distribution. During a period of 48 h, PH and total alkalinity changed within wide ranges for every layer of the two anchor stations, namely, Stas 13 and 20, which were located at the mixed water mass and seawater mass, respectively. For both Stas 13 and 20, PH and TA fluctuation of every layer could be very wide during a 4 h period. As a whole, the data of the two anchor stations showed that neither variations in salinity and temperature nor phytoplankton activities were the main factors strongly influencing the total alkalinity temporal variability on a small time scale. The data of Sta. 20 implied that both salinity variation and phytoplankton activities had a significant influence on PH temporal variability, but the same conclusion could not be drawn from the data of Sta. 13.

Thermocapillary Flows In Liquid Bridges Of Molten Tin With Small Aspect Ratios

Numerical simulations were conducted to study thermocapillary flows in short half-zone liquid bridges of molten tin with Prandtl number Pr = 0.009, under ramped temperature difference. The spatio-temporal structures in the thermocapillary flows in short half-zone liquid bridges with aspect ratios As = 0.6, 0.8, and 1.0 were investigated. The first critical Marangoni numbers were compared with those predicted by linear stability analyses (LSA). The second critical Marangoni numbers for As = 0.6 and 0.8 were found to be larger than that for As = 1.0. The time evolutions of the thermocapillary flows exhibited unusual features such as a change in the azimuthal wave number during the three-dimensional stationary (non-oscillating) flow regime, a change in the oscillation mode during the three-dimensional oscillatory flow regime, and the decreasing and then increasing of amplitudes in a single oscillation mode. The effects of the ramping rate of the temperature difference on the flow modes and critical conditions were studied as well. In this paper, the experimental observability of the critical conditions was also discussed. (C) 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The degree of predictability of earthquakes in several regions of China: statistical analysis of historical data

The stress release model, a stochastic version of the elastic-rebound theory, is applied to the historical earthquake data from three strong earthquake-prone regions of China, including North China, Southwest China, and the Taiwan seismic regions. The results show that the seismicity along a plate boundary (Taiwan) is more active than in intraplate regions (North and Southwest China). The degree of predictability or regularity of seismic events in these seismic regions, based on both the Akaike information criterion (AIC) and fitted sensitivity parameters, follows the order Taiwan, Southwest China, and North China, which is further identified by numerical simulations. (c) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Proper orthogonal decomposition of oscillatory Marangoni flow in half-zone liquid bridges of low-Pr fluids

Proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) using method of snapshots was performed on three different types of oscillatory Marangoni flows in half-zone liquid bridges of low-Pr fluid (Pr = 0.01). For each oscillation type, a series of characteristic modes (eigenfunctions) have been extracted from the velocity and temperature disturbances, and the POD provided spatial structures of the eigenfunctions, their oscillation frequencies, amplitudes, and phase shifts between them. The present analyses revealed the common features of the characteristic modes for different oscillation modes: four major velocity eigenfunctions captured more than 99% of the velocity fluctuation energy form two pairs, one of which is the most energetic. Different from the velocity disturbance, one of the major temperature eigenfunctions makes the dominant contribution to the temperature fluctuation energy. On the other hand, within the most energetic velocity eigenfuction pair, the two eigenfunctions have similar spatial structures and were tightly coupled to oscillate with the same frequency, and it was determined that the spatial structures and phase shifts of the eigenfunctions produced the different oscillatory disturbances. The interaction of other major modes only enriches the secondary spatio-temporal structures of the oscillatory disturbances. Moreover, the present analyses imply that the oscillatory disturbance, which is hydrodynamic in nature, primarily originates from the interior of the liquid bridge. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Conical emission of Ti : sapphire femtosecond laser pulses propagating in water

Conical emission is investigated for Ti:sapphire femtosecond laser pulses propagating in water. The colored rings can be observed in the forward direction due to the constructive and destructive interference of transverse wavevector, which are induced by the spatio-temporal gradient of the free-electron density. With increasing input laser energy, due to filamentation and pulse splitting induced by the plasma created by multiphoton excitation of electrons from the valence band to the conduction band, the on-axis spectrum of the conical emission is widely broadened and strongly modulated with respect to input laser spectrum, and finally remains fairly constant at higher laser energy due to intensity clamping in the filaments.

内蒙古锡林河流域草原群落土壤呼吸的时空变异及其影响因子研究

　　土壤呼吸是全球碳循环中的一个重要环节，其对全球碳平衡的影响是近年来人们关注的焦点之一。探讨碳素的失汇(missing sink)问题，对陆地生态系统土壤呼吸的研究是必不可少的。环境因子与土壤呼吸之间的关系可以用于将土壤呼吸从“chamber”水平的测量放大到整个生态系统或更大尺度。而温度、水分和植被状况都是对土壤呼吸有重要影响的因子，随着全球气候的变化，这些因子也会发生相应的改变，在这种情况下，它们极有可能与土壤CO2排放之间形成正反馈。温带草原是主要的陆地生态系统类型之一，目前非常缺乏有关土壤呼吸的研究资料。因此，在2001年生长季，我们在内蒙古锡林河流域南部集水区设定了一条东西长约160km、南北宽约30km的样带，从中选择了11个不同的植物群落，采用碱液吸收法周期性地对这些群落的土壤呼吸速率进行同步测定，并对土壤呼吸的时空动态及其与温度、土壤水分和植被状况之间的关系进行了研究。现将主要研究结果概述如下： 　　①锡林河流域南部集水区的土壤呼吸表现出明显的季节变化和空间变异。温度是影响土壤呼吸季节变化的主要因子之一，指数模型能够较好地揭示各群落土壤呼吸对温度变化的响应，但低温时模型的拟合效果更好。各群落土壤呼吸的季节动态与温度变化不完全同步，表明温度并不是影响土壤呼吸的唯一因子 。 　　②土壤呼吸的温度敏感性在各群落之间存在着一定的差异。春小麦群落的Q10值高于草原群落，说明不同的土地利用方式会影响到土壤呼吸对温度变化的敏感程度。水分对土壤呼吸的温度敏感性有重要影响，秩相关分析的结果表明，土壤水分与Q10值之间存在着显著的正相关关系。此外，依据不同土壤层次的温度得出的Q10值各不相同，基于变化幅度大的浅层土壤温度和气温得出的Q10值较小，而根据变化幅度小的深层土壤温度得出的Q10值较大。 　　③水分对各群落的土壤呼吸也有较大影响，但其影响程度有一定的季节差异，生长旺季水分对土壤呼吸的影响显著高于其它季节。从各群落的具体情况来看，水分对土壤呼吸的影响明显受制于群落的水分供应状况。水分供应状况比较好的和水分变化幅度小的群落中，土壤呼吸与水分之间没有显著的函数关系，而水分相对欠缺的群落则存有显著的线性关系。消除温度的影响后，这种线性关系显著增强。土壤水分含量较低的芨芨草群落中，土壤呼吸与表层水分之间的关系也不明显，这与芨芨草根系分布较深，能够利用土壤中较深层次的水分有关。 　　④土壤呼吸季节变化与植被之间的关系与各群落内水分状况以及植被对水分的利用机制有关。所有群落土壤呼吸速率随着绿色活体生物量的增长有上升趋势，且在水分供应充足的群落和植被较为耐旱或能够利用深层土壤水的群落中，这二者之间呈显著或极显著的指数关系，其它群落中相关关系不够显著。由于植被立枯量大小反映了水热的综合状况，所以群落的土壤呼吸速率随立枯量的增长呈下降趋势，二者之间的关系也可以用指数方程来表示。 　　⑤土壤呼吸在锡林河流域南部的空间变异主要受水分和植被状况的影响。总体来看，土壤水分含量高、地上生物量（包括绿色活体生物量）大或地上净第一性生产力高的草地群落，其土壤呼吸速率也较高。基础呼吸速率对于改进土壤呼吸模型在时间和空间上的预测精度有重要意义。我们的研究结果表明，在平均温度低、水分状况好、地上和地下生物量大、地上净第一性生产力高的地方，基础土壤呼吸速率也相应较高。

内蒙古锡林河流域草原植物和群落热值的时空变异研究

第一部分：内蒙古锡林河流域草原植物种群和群落热值的时空变异研究 热值的研究是评价生态系统能量固定、传输和转化的基础，也是评价植物光合作用效率和植物营养值的有用参数。同种植物热值会随着植物部位、光照、养分条件、季节、土壤类型和气候条件的不同而发生变化。不同的种类和类群之间热值也存在差异。本项研究以内蒙古锡林河流域中段草原植物群落为对象，研究了植物种群和群落热值的时空变异规律。 对内蒙古羊草草原群落不同植物种群热值的时问动态研究结果表明，42种植物地上部分的热值在13.16土1.14 kJ.g-l和18.14土0.53 kJ.g-1之间变动，所有物种的平均热值为16.90土0,84 kJ.g-1，种间变异系数4.9%。小叶锦鸡儿(Caraganamicrophylla)具有最高的热值。禾草的平均热值高于杂草。根据生活型和生长型，草本物种被进一步分组，热值从高到低的排列顺序为：高禾草>豆科植物>矮禾草>其余杂草>半灌木>一二年生植物。 主要植物种群地下部分热值的分布范围为15.05-16.41 kJ.g-1。其中根茎型草地下部分热值较高。不同种类植物地下部分热值差异并不与地上部分一致。根茎型禾草地上、地下部分热值差异较小，而须根型植物差异较大。不同种群的植物地上部分热值随植物物候期的不同而波动，其变化规律是与植物种群本身的生物学特性相联系的。不同植物种群热值的年际波动规律有所不同，羊草(Leymuschinensis)、大针茅(Stipa grandis)和洽草(Koeloria cristata)的年际热值波动相关显著，但与生长季降水量和生长季累积日照时数之间无明显相关性。在某种程度上，植物热值的种内变化反映了植物生长状况的差异。 42种植物的热值和它们在群落中的相对生物量存在显著正相关关系。表现为优势种(17.74 kJ.g-1)>伴生种(17.24 kJ．g-l)>偶见种(16.65 kJ.g-1)。高热值的植物更具竞争力，在群落中通常占据优势地位，而低热值的植物竞争力通常较弱，构成草原群落的伴生种或偶见种。 以内蒙古锡林河流域3个草原群落类型（羊草典型草原，大针茅典型草原，羊草草甸草原）的放牧退化梯度系列（包括未退化，轻度退化，中度退化和重度退化4个强度）为研究对象，对主要植物种群和群落热值随草原类型和退化梯度的空间变异规律及热值与其他群落和土壤性质的相关性进行了研究。 结果表明，研究区出现的60个植物种平均热值为17.25土0.92 kJ.g-1，变异系数5.4%．热值大于18.00 kJ.g-1的高能植物包括3种优势高禾草(羊草、大针茅和羽茅(A. sibiricum))和一些有毒植物，热值小于17.00 kJ.g-1的低能值植物包括多数一年生杂草;热值在17.00-18.00 kJ.g-1之间的中能值植物包括大多数多年生杂草和矮禾草。 按照生活型分类，灌木的热值最高，多年生禾草显著高于一二年生植物，半灌木和多年生杂草介于二者之间。按照水分生态类型分类，旱生植物、中旱生、旱中生和中生植物之间在热值上没有明显差异。不同科之间热值存在显著差异，禾本科、豆科、菊科植物热值较高，藜科植物平均热值最低。 二因素方差分析结果表明，主要优势物种热值在不同草原类型之间存在显著差异，表现为羊草草甸草原>羊草典型草原>大针茅典型草原。对于大多数优势禾草，热值没有随退化梯度发生明显变化，洽草(K. cristata)、冰草(A．ctistatum)和所有优势杂草随退化程度的增强热值趋于下降。对于大多数优势物种，热值随不同草原类型的空间变异大于放牧退化所导致的空间变异。 不同草原类型的群落热值为羊草草甸草原>羊草典型草原>大针茅典型草原，群落平均热值表现出随退化强度的增加而下降的趋势，这主要归因于沿退化梯度不同物种构成比例的变化，即随退化程度的加剧，高能值植物在群落中的比例下降。其次是特定物种热值随退化梯度的变化。在同一草原区，放牧对群落热值的影响大于立地条件之间的差异。 群落和主要物种热值均表现出与某些群落特征和土壤性质的相关性。 关键词：内蒙古，锡林河流域，羊草草原;物种和群落热值，时空变异，退化梯度，草原类型，土壤性质 第二部分内蒙古羊草草原17年刈割演替过程中功能群组成动态及其对群落净初级生产力稳定性的影响 基于17年的野外实验数据，研究了内蒙古羊草草原群落刈割演替过程中的功能群组成动态，探索功能群组成变化与群落净初级生产力(ANPP)之间的关系，分析结构参数怎样影响功能参数。结果显示：在17年的割草演替过程中，群落的结构与功能均发生了变化。随着羊草群落刈割演替的进行，群落的功能群组成发生了显著变化，根茎禾草在群落中的优势地位相继被一二年生植物，高丛生禾草，矮丛生禾草所取代。到17年末，群落变成根茎禾草，矮丛生禾草，高丛生禾草共同建群的群落。在对照群落中ANPP与年降水量显著相关，但在刈割群落中二者则不相关。年降水量解释对照群落ANPP变异的62%，而连年的刈割干扰则是刈割群落中ANPP动态的主要驱动因子。群落净初级生产则显出对刈割干扰的抵抗能力，在刈割干扰的前几年，依靠群落内功能群组成的不断调节，保持相对稳定的水平，当刈割进行5年之后，群落结构的变化积累到一定程度，净初级生产迅速下降到一个较低的水平，此后依靠群落结构的不断调节来维持这一功能水平。因此，群落结构是以渐变的方式改变的，而群落功能的下降则是以跃变的形式完成的。群落依赖于结构的不断调整来保持功能的相对稳定，但结构变化到一定程度也会导致功能的衰退。 关键词：内蒙古，羊草草原;刈割演替;功能群组成;净初级生产;群落;稳定性