China’s Recent Progresses in Polar Climate Change and Its Interactions with the Global Climate System

During the recent four decades since 1980,a series of modern climate satellites were launched,allowing for the measurement and record-keeping of multiple climate parameters,especially over the polar regions where traditional observations are difficult to obtain.China has been actively engaging in polar expeditions.Many observations were conducted during this period,accompanied by improved Earth climate models,leading to a series of insightful understandings concerning Arctic and Antarctic climate changes.Here,we review the recent progress China has made concerning Arctic and Antarctic climate change research over the past decade.The Arctic temperature increase is much higher than the global-mean warming rate,associated with a rapid decline in sea ice,a phenomenon called the Arctic Amplification.The Antarctic climate changes showed a zonally asymmetric pattern over the past four decades,with most of the fastest changes occurring over West Antarctica and the Antarctic Peninsula.The Arctic and Antarctic climate changes were driven by anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and ozone loss,while tropical-polar teleconnections play important roles in driving the regional climate changes and extreme events over the polar regions.Polar climate changes may also feedback to the entire Earth climate system.The adjustment of the circulation in both the troposphere and the stratosphere contributed to the interactions between the polar climate changes and lower latitudes.Climate change has also driven rapid Arctic and Southern ocean acidification.Chinese researchers have made a series of advances in understanding these processes,as reviewed in this paper.

Specialty optical fibers for advanced sensing applications

Optical fiber technology has changed the world by enabling extraordinary growth in world-wide communications and sensing.The rapid development and wide deployment of optical fiber sensors are driven by their excellent sensing performance with outstanding flexibility,functionality,and versatility.Notably,the research on specialty optical fibers is playing a critical role in enabling and proliferating the optical fiber sensing applications.This paper overviews recent developments in specialty optical fibers and their sensing applications.The specialty optical fibers are reviewed based on their innovations in special structures,special materials,and technologies to realize lab in/on a fiber.An overview of sensing applications in various fields is presented.The prospects and emerging research areas of specialty optical fibers are also discussed.

Characteristics of extratropical cyclone variability in the Northern Hemisphere and their response to rapid changes in Arctic sea ice

Extratropical cyclones are critical weather systems that affect large-scale weather and climate changes at mid-high latitudes.However,prior research shows that there are still great difficulties in predicting extratropical cyclones for occurrence,frequency,and position.In this study,mean sea level pressure(MSLP)data from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts(ECMWF)reanalysis(ERA5)are used to calculate the variance statistics of the MSLP to reveal extratropical cyclone activity(ECA).Based on the analysis of the change characteristics of ECA in the Northern Hemisphere,the intrinsic link between ECA in the Northern Hemisphere and Arctic sea ice is explored.The results show that the maximum ECA mainly occurs in winter over the mid-high latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere.The maximum ECA changes in the North Pacific and the North Atlantic,which are the largest variations in the Northern Hemisphere,are independent of each other,and their mechanisms may be different.Furthermore,MSLP is a significant physical variable that affects ECA.The North Atlantic Oscillation(NAO)and North Pacific Index(NPI)are significant indices that impact ECA in the North Atlantic and North Pacific,respectively.The innovation of this paper is to explore the relationship between the activity of extratropical cyclones in the Northern Hemisphere and the abnormal changes in Arctic sea ice for the first time.The mechanism is that the abnormal changes in summer-autumn and winter Arctic sea ice lead to the phase transition of the NPI and NAO,respectively,and then cause the occurrence of ECA in the North Pacific and North Atlantic,respectively.Arctic sea ice plays a crucial role in the ECA in the Northern Hemisphere by influencing the polar vortex and westerly jets.This is the first exploration of ECAs in the Northern Hemisphere using Arctic sea ice,which can provide some references for the in-depth study and prediction of ECAs in the Northern Hemisphere.

Highly sensitive and miniature microfiber-based ultrasound sensor for photoacoustic tomography

A microfiber with large evanescent field encapsulated in PDMS is proposed and demonstrated for ultrasound sensing.The compact size and large evanescent field of microfiber provide an excellent platform for the interaction between optical signal and ultrasound wave,exhibiting a high sensitivity of 3.5 mV/kPa,which is approximately 10 times higher than the single-mode fiber sensor.Meanwhile,a phase feedback stabilization module is introduced into the coherent demodulation system for long-term stable measurement.In addition,a photoacoustic tomography experiment with the microfiber ultrasound sensor is implemented to verify the excellent performance on imaging,with the depth of 12 mm,the highest lateral resolution of 65μm and axial resolution of 250μm,respectively.The highly sensitive microfiber ultrasound sensor provides a competitive alternative for various applications,such as industrial non-destructive testing,biomedical ultrasound and photoacoustic imaging.

Ultra-high resolution strain sensor network assisted with an LS-SVM based hysteresis model

Optical fiber sensor network has attracted considerable research interests for geoscience applications.However,the sensor capacity and ultra-low frequency noise limits the sensing performance for geoscience data acquisition.To achieve a high-resolution and lager sensing capacity,a strain sensor network is proposed based on phase-sensitive op-tical time domain reflectometer(φ-OTDR)technology and special packaged fiber with scatter enhanced points(SEPs)ar-ray.Specifically,an extra identical fiber with SEPs array which is free of strain is used as the reference fiber,for com-pensating the ultra-low frequency noise in theφ-OTDR system induced by laser source frequency shift and environment temperature change.Moreover,a hysteresis operator based least square support vector machine(LS-SVM)model is in-troduced to reduce the compensation residual error generated from the thermal hysteresis nonlinearity between the sensing fiber and reference fiber.In the experiment,the strain sensor network possesses a sensing capacity with 55 sensor elements.The phase bias drift with frequency below 0.1 Hz is effectively compensated by LS-SVM based hyster-esis model,and the signal to noise ratio(SNR)of a strain vibration at 0.01 Hz greatly increases by 24 dB compared to that of the sensing fiber for direct compensation.The proposed strain sensor network proves a high dynamic resolution of 10.5 pε·Hz-1/2 above 10 Hz,and ultra-low frequency sensing resolution of 166 pεat 0.001 Hz.It is the first reported a large sensing capacity strain sensor network with sub-nεsensing resolution in mHz frequency range,to the best of our knowledge.

Albedo of Coastal Landfast Sea Ice in Prydz Bay,Antarctica:Observations and Parameterization

The snow/sea-ice albedo was measured over coastal landfast sea ice in Prydz Bay, East Antarctica（off Zhongshan Station）during the austral spring and summer of 2010 and 2011. The variation of the observed albedo was a combination of a gradual seasonal transition from spring to summer and abrupt changes resulting from synoptic events, including snowfall, blowing snow, and overcast skies. The measured albedo ranged from 0.94 over thick fresh snow to 0.36 over melting sea ice. It was found that snow thickness was the most important factor influencing the albedo variation, while synoptic events and overcast skies could increase the albedo by about 0.18 and 0.06, respectively. The in-situ measured albedo and related physical parameters（e.g., snow thickness, ice thickness, surface temperature, and air temperature） were then used to evaluate four different snow/ice albedo parameterizations used in a variety of climate models. The parameterized albedos showed substantial discrepancies compared to the observed albedo, particularly during the summer melt period, even though more complex parameterizations yielded more realistic variations than simple ones. A modified parameterization was developed,which further considered synoptic events, cloud cover, and the local landfast sea-ice surface characteristics. The resulting parameterized albedo showed very good agreement with the observed albedo.

Impact of Assimilation of Radiosonde and UAV Observations from the Southern Ocean in the Polar WRF Model

Weather forecasting in the Southern Ocean and Antarctica is a challenge above all due to the rarity of observations to be assimilated in numerical weather prediction(NWP)models.As observations are expensive and logistically challenging,it is important to evaluate the benefit that additional observations could bring to NWP.Atmospheric soundings applying unmanned aerial vehicles(UAVs)have a large potential to supplement conventional radiosonde sounding observations.Here,we applied UAV and radiosonde sounding observations from an RV Polarstern cruise in the ice-covered Weddell Sea in austral winter 2013 to evaluate the impact of their assimilation in the Polar version of the Weather Research and Forecasting(Polar WRF)model.Our experiments revealed small to moderate impacts of radiosonde and UAV data assimilation.In any case,the assimilation of sounding data from both radiosondes and UAVs improved the analyses of air temperature,wind speed,and humidity at the observation site for most of the time.Further,the impact on the results of 5-day-long Polar WRF experiments was often felt over distances of at least 300 km from the observation site.All experiments succeeded in capturing the main features of the evolution of near-surface variables,but the effects of data assimilation varied between different cases.Due to the limited vertical extent of the UAV observations,the impact of their assimilation was limited to the lowermost 1?2-km layer,and assimilation of radiosonde data was more beneficial for modeled sea level pressure and near-surface wind speed.

Modeling calving process of glacier with dilated polyhedral discrete element method

Mass loss caused by glacier calving is one of the direct contributors to global sea level rise.Reliable calving laws are required for accurate modelling of ice sheet mass balance.Both continuous and discontinuous methods have been used for glacial calving simulations.In this study,the discrete element method(DEM)based on dilated polyhedral elements is introduced to simulate the calving process of a tidewater glacier.Dilated polyhedrons can be obtained from the Minkowski sum of a sphere and a core polyhedron.These elements can be utilized to generate a continuum ice material,where the interaction force between adjacent elements is modeled by constructing bonds at the joints of the common faces.A hybrid fracture model considering fracture energy is introduced.The viscous creep behavior of glaciers on long-term scales is not considered.By applying buoyancy and gravity to the modelled glacier,DEM results show that the calving process is caused by cracks which are initialized at the top of the glacier and spread to the bottom.The results demonstrate the feasibility of using the dilated polyhedral DEM method in glacier simulations,additionally allowing the fragment size of the breaking fragments to be counted.The relationship between crack propagation and internal stress in the glacier is analyzed during calving process.Through the analysis of the Mises stress and the normal stress between the elements,it is found that geometric changes caused by the glacier calving lead to the redistribution of the stress.The tensile stress between the elements is the main influencing factor of glacier ice failure.In addition,the element shape,glacier base friction and buoyancy are studied,the results show that the glacier model based on the dilated polyhedral DEM is sensitive to the above conditions.

UV-Inscribed Optical Fiber Gratings in Mid-IR Range and Their Laser Applications

We have UV-inscribed fiber Bragg gratings （FBGs）, long-period gratings （LPGs） and tilted fiber gratings （TFGs） into mid-IR 2μm range using three common optical fiber grating fabrication techniques （two-beam holographic, phase mask and point-by-point）. The fabricated FBGs have been evaluated for thermal and strain response. It has been revealed that the FBG devices with responses in mid-IR range are much more sensitive to temperature than that in near-IR range. To explore the unique cladding mode coupling function, we have investigated the thermal and refractive index sensitivities of LPGs and identified that the coupled cladding modes in mid-IR range are also much more sensitive to temperature and surrounding medium refractive index change. The 45° tilted fiber gratings （45°-TFGs） as polarizing devices in mid-IR have been investigated for their polarization extinction characteristics. As efficient reflection filters and in-cavity polarizers, the mid-IR FBGs and 45°-TFGs have been employed in fiber laser cavity to realize multi-wavelength 2μm Tm-doped CW and mode locked fiber lasers, respectively.

Improving the observation and prediction capabilities for Arctic marine environment: from the perspective of Arctic Shipping

In recent decades,Arctic climate is warming at a rate of almost twice the global average(Osborne et al.,2018).The surface atmosphere and oceanic temperatures over Arctic Ocean increase leads to the rapid retreat of sea ice.The extension and thickness of sea ice in the Arctic,as well as the multi-year ice coverage,have decreased significantly.For example,the September sea ice extent in the Arctic,which is the end of the summer melt season,decreases at a rate of larger than 11%per decade(Polyakov et al.,2012).

Phase-tailored assembly and encoding of dissipative soliton molecules

Self-assembly of particle-like dissipative solitons,in the presence of mutual interactions,emphasizes the vibrant concept of soliton molecules in varieties of laser resonators.Controllable manipulation of the molecular patterns,held by the degrees of freedom of internal motions,still remains challenging to explore more efficient and subtle tailoring approaches for the increasing demands.Here,we report a new phase-tailored quaternary encoding format based on the controllable internal assembly of dissipative soliton molecules.Artificial manipulation of the energy exchange of soliton-molecular elements stimulates the deterministic harnessing of the assemblies of internal dynamics.Self-assembled soliton molecules are tailored into four phase-defined regimes,thus constituting the phase-tailored quaternary encoding format.Such phase-tailored streams are endowed with great robustness and are resistant to significant timing jitter.All these results experimentally demonstrate the programmable phase tailoring and exemplify the application of the phase-tailored quaternary encoding,prospectively promoting high-capacity all-optical storage.

300 km ultralong fiber optic DAS system based on optimally designed bidirectional EDFA relays

Optical fiber distributed acoustic sensing(DAS)based on phase-sensitive optical time domain reflectometry(φ-OTDR)is in great demand in many long-distance application fields,such as railway and pipeline safety monitoring.However,the DAS measurement distance is limited by the transmission loss of optical fiber and ultralow backscattering power.In this paper,a DAS system based on multispan relay amplification is proposed,where the bidirectional erbium-doped fiber amplifier(EDFA)is designed as a relay module to amplify both the probe light and the backscattering light.In the theoretical noise model,the parameters of our system are carefully analyzed and optimized for a longer sensing distance,including the extinction ratio(ER),span number,span length,and gain of erbium-doped fiber amplifiers.The numerical simulation shows that a bidirectional EDFA relay DAS system can detect signals over 2500 km,as long as the span number is set to be more than 100.To verify the effectiveness of the scheme,a six-span coherent-detection-based DAS system with an optimal design was established,where the cascaded acoustic-optic modulators(AOMs)were used for a high ER of 104 dB.The results demonstrate that the signal at the far end of 300.2 km can be detected and recovered,achieving a high signal-to-noise ratio of 59.6 dB and a high strain resolution of 51.8■at 50 Hz with a 20 m spatial resolution.This is,to the best of our knowledge,a superior DAS sensing distance with such a high strain resolution.

The variability of surface radiation fluxes over landfast sea ice near Zhongshan station,east Antarctica during austral spring

Surface radiative fluxes over landfast sea ice off Zhongshan station have been measured in austral spring for five springs between 2010 and 2015.Downward and upward solar radiation vary diurnally with maximum amplitudes of 473 and 290 W m^(−2),respectively.The maximum and minimum long-wave radiation values of the mean diurnal cycle are 218 and 210 W m^(−2)for downward radiation,277 and 259 W m^(−2)for upward radiation and 125 and−52 W m^(−2)for net radiation.The albedo has a U-shaped mean diurnal cycle with a minimum of 0.64 at noon.Sea ice thickness is in the growth phase for most spring days,but can be disturbed by synoptic processes.The surface temperature largely determines the occurrence of ice melting.Surface downward and upward long-wave radiation show synoptic oscillations with a 5–8 day period and intraseasonal variability with a 12–45 day period.The amplitudes of the diurnal,synoptic and intraseasonal variability show some differences during the five austral springs considered here.The intraseasonal and synoptic variability of downward and upward long-wave radiation are associated with the variability of cloud cover and surface temperature induced by the atmospheric circulation.

Wearable Alignment‑Free Microfber‑Based Sensor Chip for Precise Vital Signs Monitoring and Cardiovascular Assessment

Continuous pulse wave signals monitoring is the essential basis for clinical cardiovascular diagnosis and treatment.Recent researches show the majority of current electronic pulse sensors usually face challenges in electrical safety concern,poor durability and demanding precision in position alignment.Thus,a highly sensitive,inherently electrical safe,robust and alignment-free device is highly desired.Here,we present a wearable alignment-free microfber-based sensor chip(AFMSC)for precise vital signs monitoring and cardiovascular health assessment.The AFMSC comprises an optical micro/nano fber sensor(MNF)and a fexible soft liquid sac while the MNF sensor is used to perceive the physiological signals and the liquid sac is used to eliminate the misalignment.The real-time and accurate monitoring of the pulse signals was realized by tracking the optical power variation of transmitted light from MNF.Then,the cardiovascular vital signs extracted from radial artery pulse signals were used to evaluate cardiovascular health condition and the results were in accordance with human physiological characteristics.Moreover,the pulse signals from diferent arterial area,the respiration signals from chest and the radial pulse signals before and after exercise were detected and analyzed.The non-invasive,continuous and accurate monitoring of cardiovascular health based on the reported wearable and alignment-free device is promising in both ftness monitoring and medical diagnostics for cardiovascular disease prevention and diagnosis.

Real-time dynamics of soliton triplets in fiber lasers

The evolution of soliton molecules emphasizes the complex soliton dynamics akin to matter molecules.Beyond the simplest soliton molecule-a soliton pair constituted by two bound pulses-soliton molecules with more constituents have more degrees of freedom because of the temporal pulse separations and relative phases.Here we detailedly characterize the transient dynamics of soliton triplets in fiber lasers by using the dispersive Fourier transform measurement.A particular form of leading,central,and tailing pulses is constructed to shed new light on more intriguing scenarios and fuel the molecular analogy.Especially the vibrating dynamics of the central and tailing pulses are captured near the regime of equally spaced soliton triplets,which is reminiscent of the recurrent timing jitters within multi-pulse structures.Further insights enable acess into a universal form of unequally spaced soliton triplets interpreted as 2+1 soliton molecules.Different binding strengths of intramo-lecular and intermolecular bonds are validated with respect to the diverse internal motions involved in this soliton triplet molcule.All these findings unveil the transient dynamics with more degrees of freedom as well as highlight the possible application for all-optical bit storage.

Optical Microfber Neuron for Finger Motion Perception

To achieve dexterous motion controlling of robot,the sensors that function like human neurons for motion perception are essential.In this work,a silica microfber probe-based optical neuron(MPON)for robot fnger motion detection is proposed.The silica microfber probe was fabricated by snapping a biconical silica optical microfber that drawn from the standard optical fbre.Then it was embedded into thin polydimethylsiloxane(PDMS)to detect and recognize motions of robotic fnger.Specifcally,a PDMS-Tefon-Microfber-Tefon-PDMS composite structure was prepared to protect the waveguide structure of silica microfber probe and avoid the environmental pollution.With the help of this composite structure,the proposed MPON achieved the accurate measurement of bending angle with large range and fast response.The repeatability and stability of MPON were also investigated.Additionally,diferent fnger motions were successfully distinguished through observing the output power variation of MPON.The proposed MPON could serve as the perceptron of robot hand,which could be applied in dexterous gesture control even human machine interaction.

Study on polarization spectrum and annealing properties of 45°-tilted fiber gratings

We have investigated the whole polarization-extinction-ratio (PER) spectrum and annealing properties of 45°-tilted fiber gratings (45°-TFGs). Experimental results show the PER spectrum of 45°-TFGs is a Gaussianlike profile and covers a 540 nm bandwidth from 1260 to 1800 nm, in which the bandwidth with PER greater than 10 dB is over 250 nm. The output polarization distribution of 45°-TFGs was analyzed by employing a bulk linear polarizer, and the results show a perfect figure "8”, which indicates that the 45°-TFG is a type of linear polarizer. Moreover, the annealing property of 45°-TFGs was measured up to 700℃, in which the PER of the grating started to decrease at 300℃ and reached the minimum at 700℃. Based on these results, the 45°-TFGs can be used as an ultra-wide bandwidth in-fiber polarizing device.

Fiber up-taper assisted Mach-Zehnder interferometer for high sensitive temperature sensing

A new in-line Mach-Zehnder interferometer （MZI） sensor consisting of a stub of multi-mode fiber and an up-taper was proposed and demonstrated. Temperature measurement can be carried out by detecting wavelength shift. Dependency of sensitivity on interferometer length and dip wavelength was discussed. Experimental results showed a maximum temperature sensitivity of 113.6pm/℃ can be achieved, which is superior to most fiber temperature sensors based on in-line MZIs within the range from 20℃ to 80℃, also a good mechanical strength can be obtained. The proposed sensor is a good candidate for temperature measurement, due to the advantages of simple structure, easy fabrication, cost- effective and high sensitivity.