scholarly journals Mimicking the Martian Hydrological Cycle: A Set-Up to Introduce Liquid Water in Vacuum

Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (21) ◽  
pp. 6150
Author(s):  
Jesús Manuel Sobrado
Keyword(s):  
Liquid Water ◽  
Vacuum Chamber ◽  
Hydrological Cycle ◽  
Water Cycle ◽  
Technological Development ◽  
Extreme Environment ◽  
Moss Sample ◽  
Water Condensation ◽  
Laboratory Facility ◽  
Set Up

Liquid water is well known as the life ingredient as a solvent. However, so far, it has only been found in liquid state on this planetary surface. The aim of this experiment and technological development was to test if a moss sample is capable of surviving in Martian conditions. We built a system that simulates the environmental conditions of the red planet including its hydrological cycle. This laboratory facility enables us to control the water cycle in its three phases through temperature, relative humidity, hydration, and pressure with a system that injects water droplets into a vacuum chamber. We successfully simulated the daytime and nighttime of Mars by recreating water condensation and created a layer of superficial ice that protects the sample against external radiation and minimizes the loss of humidity due to evaporation to maintain a moss sample in survival conditions in this extreme environment. We performed the simulations with the design and development of different tools that recreate Martian weather in the MARTE simulation chamber.

The Role of Higher Education in Developing Effective Support Structures for Technology Entrepreneurs

1997 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 204-210
Author(s):  
Gerry Carroll ◽  
Colette Henry
Keyword(s):  
Technical College ◽  
Technological Development ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Technology Support ◽  
Support Structure ◽  
North East ◽  
The North ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Level Institution ◽  
Support Facility

The authors examine the active role which a third-level institution in the North East of Ireland has taken in the development of a regional support structure for new and existing technology-based businesses. The specific experiences of Dundalk Regional Technical College (Dundalk RTC) are related and their response to the new RTC Act is described. The paper focuses on the technological aspect of the new regional development role and describes how the College's incubator was set up and developed into a comprehensive support facility for technology-based businesses. The main objective of the paper is to identify the key components of an effective technology support structure. The advantages of a campus-based support facility are underlined, as is the need for a comprehensive approach to regional technological development.

scholarly journals Hunting for Information in Streamflow Signatures to Improve Modelled Drainage

Water ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 110
Author(s):  
Raphael Schneider ◽  
Simon Stisen ◽  
Anker Lajer Højberg
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Agricultural Land ◽  
Hydrological Cycle ◽  
Drainage System ◽  
Water Model ◽  
Generation Process ◽  
Hydrological Models ◽  
Drainage Patterns ◽  
Drain Flow ◽  
Set Up

About half of the Danish agricultural land is drained artificially. Those drains, mostly in the form of tile drains, have a significant effect on the hydrological cycle. Consequently, the drainage system must also be represented in hydrological models that are used to simulate, for example, the transport and retention of chemicals. However, representation of drainage in large-scale hydrological models is challenging due to scale issues, lacking data on the distribution of drain infrastructure, and lacking drain flow observations. This calls for more indirect methods to inform such models. Here, we investigate the hypothesis that drain flow leaves a signal in streamflow signatures, as it represents a distinct streamflow generation process. Streamflow signatures are indices characterizing hydrological behaviour based on the hydrograph. Using machine learning regressors, we show that there is a correlation between signatures of simulated streamflow and simulated drain fraction. Based on these insights, signatures relevant to drain flow are incorporated in hydrological model calibration. A distributed coupled groundwater–surface water model of the Norsminde catchment, Denmark (145 km2) is set up. Calibration scenarios are defined with different objective functions; either using conventional stream flow metrics only, or a combination with hydrological signatures. We then evaluate the results from the different scenarios in terms of how well the models reproduce observed drain flow and spatial drainage patterns. Overall, the simulation of drain in the models is satisfactory. However, it remains challenging to find a direct link between signatures and an improvement in representation of drainage. This is likely attributable to model structural issues and lacking flexibility in model parameterization.

scholarly journals Spatial Variation and Controlling Factors of H and O Isotopes in Lancang River Water, Southwest China

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (24) ◽  
pp. 4932 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kunhua Yang ◽  
Guilin Han ◽  
Jie Zeng ◽  
Bin Liang ◽  
Rui Qu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Isotopic Composition ◽  
River Water ◽  
Hydrological Cycle ◽  
Water Cycle ◽  
Water Security ◽  
Controlling Factors ◽  
Main Stream ◽  
Wet Season ◽  
Lancang River ◽  
O Isotopes

Climate changes and other human activities have substantially altered the hydrological cycle with respect to elevation. In this study, longitudinal patterns in the stable isotopic composition (δ2H and δ18O) of Lancang River water, originating from the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau, are presented, and several controlling factors in the wet season are hypothesized. Lancang River water δ2H (−145.2‰ to −60.7‰) and δ18O (−18.51‰ to −8.49‰) were low but close to those of the Global Meteoric Water Line. In the upper reaches of the river, δ2H decreased longitudinally, potentially due to groundwater inputs and melting ground ice in the headwater zone and to an increasing proportion of glacier meltwater with decreasing elevation. In the middle reaches of the river, δ2H values increased slowly moving downstream, likely due to shifts in precipitation inputs, as evidenced by the isotopic composition of tributaries to the main stream. In the lower reaches of the river, the isotopic composition was relatively invariant, potentially related to the presence of large artificial reservoirs that increase the water resident time. The results reveal different hydrological patterns along an alpine river in central Asia associated with both natural and anthropogenic processes. Understanding the degree and type of human interference with the water cycle in this region could improve water management and water security.

scholarly journals Approaching a semiotics of exaptation: At the intersection between biological evolution and technological development

2013 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 504-527 ◽  
Author(s):  
Davide Weible
Keyword(s):  
Analytical Approach ◽  
Technological Development ◽  
Biological Evolution ◽  
Semiotic Approach ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Cultural Functions

This paper recognizes a specific correspondence between biological evolution and technological development and on this basis tries to set up a semiotic approach to the evolutionary phenomenon of exaptation. To do this, the existence of a historical-structural and pragmatic analogy between organs and tools is shown, which in turn implies on a communicative ground the dissolution of some of their traditional distinctive attributes. Finally, a philosophical-analytical approach to natural and cultural functions is applied to define three types of exaptations.

scholarly journals Hydrological Cycle Algorithm for Continuous Optimization Problems

2017 ◽  
Vol 2017 ◽  
pp. 1-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmad Wedyan ◽  
Jacqueline Whalley ◽  
Ajit Narayanan
Keyword(s):  
Optimization Problems ◽  
Hydrological Cycle ◽  
Water Cycle ◽  
Continuous Optimization ◽  
Global Solutions ◽  
Solution Quality ◽  
Local Optima ◽  
Water Based ◽  
Water Drops ◽  
Continuous Optimization Problems

A new nature-inspired optimization algorithm called the Hydrological Cycle Algorithm (HCA) is proposed based on the continuous movement of water in nature. In the HCA, a collection of water drops passes through various hydrological water cycle stages, such as flow, evaporation, condensation, and precipitation. Each stage plays an important role in generating solutions and avoiding premature convergence. The HCA shares information by direct and indirect communication among the water drops, which improves solution quality. Similarities and differences between HCA and other water-based algorithms are identified, and the implications of these differences on overall performance are discussed. A new topological representation for problems with a continuous domain is proposed. In proof-of-concept experiments, the HCA is applied on a variety of benchmarked continuous numerical functions. The results were found to be competitive in comparison to a number of other algorithms and validate the effectiveness of HCA. Also demonstrated is the ability of HCA to escape from local optima solutions and converge to global solutions. Thus, HCA provides an alternative approach to tackling various types of multimodal continuous optimization problems as well as an overall framework for water-based particle algorithms in general.

Impacts of Snow Darkening by Light-absorbing aerosols on the Water Cycle over the Western Eurasia and East Asia

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeong Sang ◽  
Maeng-Ki Kim ◽  
William K. M. Lau ◽  
Kyu-Myong Kim
Keyword(s):  
Land Surface ◽  
Moisture Transport ◽  
Hydrological Cycle ◽  
Water Cycle ◽  
Initial Conditions ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Development Program ◽  
Eurasian Continent ◽  
Absorbing Aerosols ◽  
Western Eurasia

<p><span>In this paper, we have investigated the snow darkening effects by light-absorbing aerosols on the regional changes of the water cycle over the Eurasian continent using the NASA GEOS-5 Model with aerosol tracers and a state-of-the-art snow darkening module, the Goddard SnoW Impurity Module (GOSWIM) for the land surface. Two sets of ten-member ensemble experiments for 10-years were carried out forced by prescribed sea surface temperature (2002-2011) with different atmospheric initial conditions, with and without SDE, respectively. Results show that SDE can exert a significant regional influence in partitioning the contributions of evaporative and advective processes on the hydrological cycle, during spring and summer season. Over western Eurasia, SDE-induced rainfall increase during early spring can be largely explained by the increased evaporation from snowmelt. Rainfall, however, decreases in early summer due to the reduced evaporation as well as moisture divergence and atmospheric subsidence associated with the development of an anomalous mid- to upper tropospheric anticyclonic circulation. On the other hand, in the East Asian monsoon region, moisture advection from adjacent ocean is a main contributor to rainfall increase in the melting season. Warmer land-surface caused by earlier snowmelt and subsequent drying further increases moisture transport and convergence significantly enhancing rainfall over the region. This findings suggest that the SDE may play an important role in leading to hotter and drier summer over western Eurasia, through coupled land-atmosphere interaction, while enhancing East Asian summer monsoonal precipitation via enhanced land-ocean thermal contrast and moisture transport due to SDE-induced warmer Eurasian continent.</span></p><p> </p><p>This work was supported by the Korea Meteorological Administration Research and Development Program under grant KMI2018-03410.</p>

scholarly journals Fully Automated Light Precipitation Detection from MPLNET and EARLINET Network Lidar Measurements

2020 ◽  
Vol 237 ◽  
pp. 05006
Author(s):  
Simone Lolli ◽  
Gemine Vivone ◽  
Ellsworth J. Welton ◽  
Jasper R. Lewis ◽  
James R. Campbell ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Models ◽  
Hydrological Cycle ◽  
Water Cycle ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Global Climate Models ◽  
Morphological Filters ◽  
Lidar Measurements ◽  
Life On Earth ◽  
Light Precipitation

The water cycle strongly influence life on Earth and precipitation especially modifies the atmospheric column thermodynamics through the evaporation process and serving as a proxy for latent heat modulation. For this reason, a correct light precipitation parameterization at global scale, it is of fundamental importance, bedsides improving our understanding of the hydrological cycle, to reduce the associated uncertainty of the global climate models to correctly forecast future scenarios. In this context we developed a full automatic algorithm based on morphological filters that, once operational, will make available a new rain product for the NASA Micropulse Lidar Network (MPLNET) and the European Aerosol Research Lidar Network (EARLINET) in the frame of WMO GALION Project

scholarly journals UniFHy v0.1: A community framework for the terrestrial water cycle in Python

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thibault Hallouin ◽  
Richard J. Ellis ◽  
Douglas B. Clark ◽  
Simon J. Dadson ◽  
Andrew G. Hughes ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Land Surface ◽  
Hydrological Cycle ◽  
Water Cycle ◽  
System Model ◽  
Unified Framework ◽  
Future Developments ◽  
Land System ◽  
Road Map ◽  
Terrestrial Water ◽  
Floods And Droughts

Abstract. Land surface, hydrological, and groundwater modelling communities all have expertise in simulating the hydrological processes at play in the land system, but these communities have largely remained distinct with limited collaboration between disciplines. In order to address key societal questions regarding the future availability of water resources and the intensity of extreme events such as floods and droughts in a changing climate, these communities must build on the strengths of one another. The development of a common modelling infrastructure, a framework, can contribute to stimulating cross-fertilisation between them. By allowing (parts of) their existing models to be coupled together, improved land system models can be built to better understand and simulate the terrestrial hydrological cycle. This paper presents a Python implementation of such a framework named the Unified Framework for Hydrology (unifhy). The framework aims to provide the technical infrastructure required to couple models, taking into account the specific needs of a land system model. Its conceptual design and technical capabilities are outlined first, before its usage and useful characteristics are demonstrated through case studies. The limitations of the current framework and necessary future developments are finally presented as a road map for later versions and/or other implementations of the framework.

scholarly journals The Application of Improved SWAT Model to Hydrological Cycle Study in Karst Area of South China

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (18) ◽  
pp. 5024 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wang ◽  
Shao ◽  
Su ◽  
Cui ◽  
Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Assessment Tool ◽  
Hydrological Cycle ◽  
Water Cycle ◽  
Southern China ◽  
Swat Model ◽  
Hydrologic Model ◽  
Karst Area ◽  
Karst Water ◽  
Distributed Hydrological Model ◽  
Lumped Model

In the karst area of southern China, karst water is important for supporting the sustainable production and home living for the local residents. Consequently, it is of significance to fully understand the water cycle, so as to make full use of water resources. In karst areas, epikarst and conduits are developed, participating in the hydrological cycle actively. For conventional lumped hydrologic models, it is difficult to simulate the hydrological cycle accurately. These models neglect to consider the variation of underlying surface and weather change. Meanwhile, for the original distributed hydrological model, the existence of epikarst and underground conduits as well as inadequate data information also make it difficult to achieve accurate simulation. To this end, the framework combining the advantages of lumped model–reservoir model and distributed hydrologic model–Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model is established to simulate the water cycle efficiently in a karst area. Xianghualing karst watershed in southern China was selected as the study area and the improved SWAT model was used to simulate the water cycle. Results show that the indicators of ENS and R2 in the calibration and verification periods are both above 0.8, which is evidently improved in comparison with the original model. The improved SWAT model is verified to have better efficiency in describing the hydrological cycle in a typical karst area.

scholarly journals Earth's water reservoirs in a changing climate

2020 ◽  
Vol 476 (2236) ◽  
pp. 20190458 ◽  
Author(s):  
Graeme L. Stephens ◽  
Julia M. Slingo ◽  
Eric Rignot ◽  
John T. Reager ◽  
Maria Z. Hakuba ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sea Level ◽  
Hydrological Cycle ◽  
Water Cycle ◽  
Water Reservoirs ◽  
Future Evolution ◽  
Quantitative Understanding ◽  
Global Mean Sea Level ◽  
Earth’S Climate ◽  
The Many ◽  
Different Sources

Progress towards achieving a quantitative understanding of the exchanges of water between Earth's main water reservoirs is reviewed with emphasis on advances accrued from the latest advances in Earth Observation from space. These exchanges of water between the reservoirs are a result of processes that are at the core of important physical Earth-system feedbacks, which fundamentally control the response of Earth's climate to the greenhouse gas forcing it is now experiencing, and are therefore vital to understanding the future evolution of Earth's climate. The changing nature of global mean sea level (GMSL) is the context for discussion of these exchanges. Different sources of satellite observations that are used to quantify ice mass loss and water storage over continents, how water can be tracked to its source using water isotope information and how the waters in different reservoirs influence the fluxes of water between reservoirs are described. The profound influence of Earth's hydrological cycle, including human influences on it, on the rate of GMSL rise is emphasized. The many intricate ways water cycle processes influence water exchanges between reservoirs and thus sea-level rise, including disproportionate influences by the tiniest water reservoirs, are emphasized.

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