Topographic Characteristics for the Geomorphologic Zones in the Northwestern Edge of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau

Based on geomorphologic and digital elevation model(DEM) data, the topographic characteristics of the northwestern edge of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau are analyzed. Five representative peaks are first determined according to the topographic profile maps for the ridge and piedmont lines, and then the topographic gradient characteristics are analyzed according to the representative topographic profile acquisition method.Based on the geomorphologic database data, the regions between the ridge and the piedmont lines are divided into four geomorphologic zones; and the topographic characteristics are finally analyzed for the different geomorphologic zones regions using the DEM data. The research results show that from the piedmont to the ridge, there exist four geomorphologic zones: arid, fluvial, periglacial and glacial. The arid has the lowest elevation, topographic gradient, relief and slope characteristics. The fluvial has lower elevation and the highest topographic gradient, but with lower relief and slope characteristics. With higher elevation, the periglcial has lower topographic gradient, but the highest relief and slope characteristics. The glacial has the highest elevation with higher topographic gradient, relief and slope characteristics.

Pinch Point Calculations and Its Implications on Robust Distillation Design

Rising energy costs and growing environmental awareness motivate a critical revision of the design of distillation units. Systematic design techniques, such as the rectification body, column profile map, and temperature collocation methods, require exact knowledge of all pinch points in a particular system, because these stationary points delineate the possible composition trajectories realizable in separation columns. This paper demonstrates novel methods for rigorously determining all pinch points for the constant relative volatility, ideal and non-ideal systems. Constant relative volatility and ideal solution systems are transformed into one-dimensional polynomial and nonlinear functions, regardless of the number of the components. A deflation method is proposed to locate all zeros in ideal and non-ideal zeotropic problems. For more challenging non-ideal problems, a novel hybrid sequential niche algorithm is used to solve hard azeotropic problems successfully. Finally, the design implications of these pinch point locations are investigated to show how new separation configurations can be devised. Methodically the paper points out the use of rigorous pinch point computations in conjunction with continuous composition profiles for robust distillation design.

Comparison of Suomi-NPP OMPS total column ozone with Brewer and Dobson spectrophotometers measurements

The objective of this study is to evaluate the accuracy of the daily nadir total column ozone products derived from the nadir mapper instrument on the Ozone Mapping and Profiler Suite （OMPS） flying onboard the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership satellite （S- NPP） launched as a part of the Joint Polar Satellite System （JPSS） program between NOAA and NASA. Since NOAA is already operationally processing OMPS nadir total ozone products, evaluations were made in this study on the total column ozone research products generated by NASA＇s science team, utilizing the latest version of their Backscatter Ultraviolet （BUV） retrieval algorithms, to provide insight into the performance of the operation system. Comparisons were made with globally distributed ground-based Brewer and Dobson spectrophotometer total column ozone measurements. Linear regressions show fair agreement between OMPS and ground-based total column ozone measurements with a root-mean-square error （RMSE） of approximately 3% （10 DU）. The comparison results indicate that the OMPS total column ozone data are 0.59% higher than the Brewer measurements with a standard deviation of 2.82% while 1.09% higher than the Dobson measurements with a standard deviation of 3.27%. Additionally, the variability of relative differences between OMPS and ground total column ozone were analyzed as a function of latitude, time, viewing geometry, and total column ozone value. Results show a 2% bias over most latitudes and viewing conditions when total column ozone value varies between 220 DU and 450 DU.