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The spectra of Hale-Bopp were acquired in mid-1996 at R > 3.5 AU. Strong silicate emission is present in all the spectra. The shape of the feature is very similar to that seen in comet P/Halley. This is the first time that a strong silicate feature has been detected in a comet beyond 2 AU.
A substantial percentage of the world's population lives in areas vulnerable to the negative effects of future volcanic activity. This is especially true in Mexico, where within the Trans Mexican Volcanic Belt (TMVB) one half of the country's 90 million inhabitants live. The TMVB is a 1 000 by 200 km area, dotted with hundreds of volcanoes and volcanic centers. Most of the area has been poorly studied, and the volcanic history is largely unknown. Our approach is to combine interpretations of satellite images, field work and mapping, laboratory analysis, and age dating to elucidate the volcanic history and evaluate the potential eruptive hazards. Hazards evaluations are done in the form of risk maps.
The microstrip reflectarray antenna, being in the form of a flat reflector, has recently been investigated by several antenna researchers. This antenna, when compared to the conventional parabolic reflector, not only has the potential advantages of achieving smaller mass, smaller volume, simpler deployment mechanism, but also has the capability of scanning its main beam to larger angles from the broadside direction. Without any power divider and its associated large insertion loss, a phased reflectarray may not need the high cost T/R modules and can still remain to be an efficient array antenna.
Radar interferometric observations both from spaceborne and airborne platforms have been used to generate accurate topographic maps, measure milimeter level displacements from earthquakes and volcanoes, and for making land cover classification and land cover change maps. Interferometric observations have two basic measurements, interferometric phase, which depends upon the path difference between the two antennas and the correlation. One of the key questions concerning interferometric observations of vegetated regions is where in the canopy does the interferometric phase measure the height. Results for two methods of extracting tree heights and other vegetation parameters based upon the amount of volumetric decorrelation will be presented.
An understanding of the flow dynamics of an ice sheet's outlet glaciers and ice streams requires knowledge of their flow velocity and strain rates (i.e., velocity gradients). Prior to the recent advent of satellite radar interferometry, it was not possible to measure detailed ice-flow velocity over the vast featureless areas that comprise most of the ice sheets. Since the launch of ERS-1, the use of satellite radar interferometry data for making densly sampled ice-flow velocity measurements has been firmly established by several studies. We have combined data from nonparallel orbits with surface slope information to make vector ice-flow measurements for the Ryder Glacier, Greenland. Our results for the Ryder are promising and indicate that repeat-pass interferometric data can be used to make vector measurements of ice velocity.
We have detected a dramatic short-term speedup of the Ryder Glacier, Greenland, using satellite radar interferometry. The accelerated flow represents a substantial, though short-lived, change in the ice discharge from the basin. We use the term.
Io is the most volcanically active body in the solar system. Presently the Galileo spacecraft is orbiting Jupiter and carrying out an Io volcano watch. The NIMS (Near Infrared Mapping Spectrometer) instrument on board will yield both compositional and thermal data of volcanic units on Io, and will hopefully answer some long-standing questions as to the nature of volcanism on Io.
The Wide Field Infrared Explorer (WIRE) is a Small Explorer (SMEX) satellite scheduled for launch in 1998 which will carry out a sky survey of at least 100 square degrees in the wavelength regions of 9-15(micro)m and 21-27(micro)m with spatial resolution of approximately 20 arcsec and sensitivity exceeding 0.6mJy. At this sensitivity level WIRE observations can be seriously affected by the confusion noise contribution from the infrared cirrus emission, so the WIRE survey must be planned with some knowledge of the expected level of cirrus confusion. Production of a cirrus confusion noise map with 0.5 degree resolution based on the spatial power spectral density of the cirrus emission in the IRAS ISSA data is in progess using the method described by Gauthier, et al. Spectrally resolved power spectra density data is obtained from the ISSA maps with a wavelet transform technique.
It has been demonstrated that current-generation global ocean general circulation models (OGCM) are able to simulate large-scale sea level variations fairly well. In this study, a GFDL/MOM-based OGCM was used to investigate its sensitivity to different wind forcing. Simulations of global sea level using wind forcing from the ERS-1 Scatterometer and the NMC operational analysis were compared to the observations made by the TOPEX/Poseidon (T/P) radar altimeter for a two-year period. The result of the study has demonstrated the sensitivity of the OGCM to the quality of wind forcing, as well as the synergistic use of two spaceborne sensors in advancing the study of wind-driven ocean dynamics.
Exceeding all expectations of measurement precision and accuracy, the US/France TOPEX/Poseidon satellite mission is now in its 5th year. Returning more than 98 percent of the altimetric data, the measured global geocentric height of the sea surface has provided unprecedented opportunities to address a host of scientific problems ranging from the dynamics of ocean circulation to the distribution of internal tidal energy. Scientific highlights of this longest-running altimetric satellite mission include improvements in our understanding of the dynamics and thermodynamics of the large-scale ocean variability, such as, the properties of planetary waves; the energetics of basin-wide gyres; the heat budget of the ocean; and the ocean's response to wind forcing. For the first time, oceanographers have quantitative descriptions of a dynamic variable of the physical state of the global oceans available in near-real-time.
The second-degree zonal tide raising potential, which is responsible for tidal changes in the Earth's rotation rate and length-of-day, is symmetric about the polar axis and hence can excite the Earth's polar motion only through its action upon nonaxisymmetric features of the Earth such as the oceans. Ocean tidal excitation of polar motion in the diurnal and semidiurnal tidal bands has been previously detected and extensively examined. Here, the detection of ocean tidal excitation of polar motion in the long-period tidal band, specifically at the Mf' (13.63-day) and Mf (13.66-day) tidal frequencies, is reported.
Recent information from glacio-geomorphologists, when coupled to new glacio-sedimentary dating of the grounded ice sheet in the Ross Embayment at the last glacial maximum, leads to the conclusion that global geophysical models might require some revision. We investigate such new models and the possible implications for observable geodetic signatures, such as rebound-driven temporal variations in the Earth's low-order gravity field and in vertical crustal motions.
Coastal upwelling of subsurface nutrient-rich water occurs along the eastern boundary of the ocean basins and leads to high primary production and fish catches. In this study satellite observations are used to compare the seasonal cycle in wind forcing and in the oceanic and biological response of the major coastal upwelling regions associated with the Canary, Benguela, California, and Humboldt Currents.
Spatially resolved NIR images and spectra of Venus obtained in 1983 revealed high-contrast emission features on the night side of the planet at wavelengths near 1.74 and 2.3 (micro)m. Subsequent observational and modeling studies confirmed that this radiation originates as thermal emission from the hot lower atmosphere (25-40 km).
There is a myth that all solar effects can be parameterized by the sun spot number. This is not true. For example, the level of geomagnetic activity during this century was not proportional to the sunspot number. Instead there is a large systematic increase in geomagnetic activity, not reflected in the sunspot number. This increase occurred gradually over at least 60 years. The 11 year solar cycle variation was superimposed on this systematic increase. Here we show that this systematic increase in activity is well correlated to the simultaneous increase in terrestrial temperature that occurred during the first half of this century. We discuss these findings in terms of mechanisms by which geomagnetics can be coupled to climate. These mechanisms include possible changes in weather patterns and cloud cover due to increased cosmic ray fluxes, or to increased fluxes of high energy electrons. We suggest that this systematic increase in geomagnetic activity contributed (along with anthropogenic effects and possible changes in solar irradiance) to the changes in climate recorded during this period.
A particularily challenging image processing application is the real time scene acquisition and object discrimination. It requires spatio-temporal recognition of point and resolved objects at high speeds with parallel processing algorithms. Neural network paradigms provide fine grain parallism and, when implemented in hardware, offer orders of magnitude speed up. However, neural networks implemented on a VLSI chip are planer architectures capable of efficient processing of linear vector signals rather than 2-D images. Therefore, for processing of images, a 3-D stack of neural-net ICs receiving planar inputs and consuming minimal power are required. Details of the circuits with chip architectures will be described with need to develop ultralow-power electronics. Further, use of the architecture in a system for high-speed processing will be illustrated.
Ulysses has accumulated five years of interplanetary solar wind plasma and IMF measurements. These data cover from 1 to approximately 5 AU and all the heliographic latitudes. Based on these data, we perform an extensive search for the slow-mode shocks. We find a considerable number of discontinuities that have large magnetic field magnitude changes and also large field normal components.
A standalone search engine is described along with a database of ion-molecule kinetics. The engine is available for either Macintosh or IBM/PC computers. The engine will search a supplied database of ion-molecule kinetics data for two body reactions and positive ions. The database includes data found in various publications and reference works written by the author. Currently that database has over 10 600 reaction entries and uses over 1 000 referenced citations. Searches of the database can be by either reactants or products and either ions or neutrals. Narrowing searches can be made on up to three specifications. Reports of the searches are either viewed on the screen or printed. The reports also include the short list of references cited.