MeteoRead: Client Software for Inserting Observed Atmospheric Data into MySQL_TMDatabase and Downloading them into Different File Format

The investigation of the tendency of climate change and its effects on ecology, economy and sociology is essential for long term policy making. The long-term measurement of the physical and chemical properties of the atmosphere with state-of-the-arts instruments provides high-quality data for these studies. The evaluated data are stored in really special file structures and formats that cannot be inserted in one common database. Moreover, the observed data usually available in ASCII format and the users sometimes need to convert them in other format. The file conversion is usually time consuming procedure and can contribute to the uncertainties. MeteoRead is a client database software that imports the observed atmospheric data e.g. wind direction, wind speed, aerosol particle concentration etc. and makes them available in different file formats, which are most commonly used in climate research. This JavaTM based program applies the Structured Query Language (SQL) functions such as table creation on a database server, data or figures insertion into the table and data selection via Graphical User Interface. The selected data can be stored in NetCDF, HDF5, DataBase or TXT file formats and the figures can be available in PNG, JPG, JPNG, PDF or GIF file formats. The program was tested on Linux and Windows platforms with different JavaTM Development Kit. The MeteoRead is planned to be developed to visualizing the annual, seasonal, monthly, daily or hourly average value of the selected data and to use the functionality of the SQL database to calculate various mathematical and statistical correlations.

Evaluation of atmospheric corrections on hyperspectral data with special reference to mineral mapping

Hyperspectral images have wide applications in the fields of geology,mineral exploration,agriculture,forestry and environmental studies etc.due to their narrow band width with numerous channels.However,these images commonly suffer from atmospheric effects,thereby limiting their use.In such a situation,atmospheric correction becomes a necessary pre-requisite for any further processing and accurate interpretation of spectra of different surface materials/objects.In the present study,two very advance atmospheric approaches i.e.QUAC and FLAASH have been applied on the hyperspectral remote sensing imagery.The spectra of vegetation,man-made structure and different minerals from the Gadag area of Karnataka,were extracted from the raw image and also from the QUAC and FLAASH corrected images.These spectra were compared among themselves and also with the existing USGS and JHU spectral library.FLAASH is rigorous atmospheric algorithm and requires various parameters to perform but it has capability to compensate the effects of atmospheric absorption.These absorption curves in any spectra play an important role in identification of the compositions.Therefore,the presence of unwanted absorption features can lead to wrong interpretation and identification of mineral composition.FLAASH also has an advantage of spectral polishing which provides smooth spectral curves which helps in accurate identification of composition of minerals.Therefore,this study recommends that FLAASH is better than QUAC for atmospheric correction and correct interpretation and identification of composition of any object or minerals.

A search for Mg-poor stars using LAMOST survey data

Most Galactic metal-poor stars exhibit enhanced α-abundances（e.g.[Mg/Fe] ～ ＋0.4） according to previous studies of stellar chemical compositions.However, a handful of metal-poor stars with large deficiencies in Mg（e.g. [Mg/Fe]～-0.2） show severe departures from this α-enhancement trend. The sub-solar[Mg/Fe] ratios of these anomalous stars indicate that they possess different chemical enrichment histories than the majority of Galactic metal-poor stars. In previous work,we presented a method to select Mg-poor metal-poor stars from low-resolution SDSS spectra based on a spectral matching technique. In this paper, a similar method is applied to low-resolution（R ～ 1800） LAMOST spectra. Stellar [Mg/Fe] abundances are determined by using stellar parameters delivered by the LAMOST Data Release2 catalog. From a sample of ～ 60 000 stars with atmospheric parameters in the range Teff = [5500, 6500] K and [Fe/H] = [-2.4, ＋0.5], we select 15 candidate Mg-poor metal-poor stars.

Evaluation of Reanalysis Data Based on the Three-dimensional High-density Sounding Data of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau

Based on the data of the third Qinghai-Tibet Plateau atmospheric science experiment from 2015 to 2017,the applicability of plateau weather systems and meteorological elements of two commonly used reanalysis data(NCEP/NCAR reanalysis data set,and ERA-Interim reanalysis data set)in the plateau was evaluated.Some conclusions are obtained as follows.Compared with EC reanalysis data,NCEP reanalysis data are more consistent with the scientific experimental data.The correlation of geopotential height is above 0.99,followed by temperature;The correlation of specific humidity is the worst.Seen from average deviation,geopotential height and temperature are both lower;for EC,the westerly and southerly winds are both weaker;for NCEP,westerly wind is weaker,while southerly wind is stronger;specific humidity is higher.From the perspective of monthly and seasonal distribution characteristics,the average deviation of geopotential height is larger in spring and summer,and that of temperature is slightly worse in late spring and early summer.In terms of wind field,EC deviation is more obvious in winter,while NCEP deviation is more obvious in late spring and early summer.Seen from spatial distribution,the deviations of geological height and temperature in the north of the plateau are smaller than those in the south of the plateau.For wind field,the westerly wind in the Qaidam Basin is weaker,and the southerly wind in the southern plateau is weaker.In vertical profile,the deviation of geopotential height at high levels is greater than that of low levels.The deviation of temperature and wind field is larger near the ground.The temperature at middle levels and the westerly wind at middle and high levels are smaller,and southerly wind is stronger for NCEP.The establishment of the three sounding stations(Gaize,Shenzha and Shiquanhe)is conducive to the discovery of plateau vortex and plateau shear line in the western plateau.The western plateau vortex and plateau shear line mostly appeared in the flood season.Most plateau weather systems were maintained within 24 h,and mainly appeared and disappeared in situ.The objective recognition rate of EC for plateau weather systems is higher than NCEP,so EC is more conducive to the diagnosis and analysis of evolution characteristics of plateau weather systems.

An ERA5 tropospheric parameters-augmented approach for improving GNSS precise point positioning

Precise Point Positioning(PPP) technology has developed into a potent instrument for geodetic positioning, ionospheric modeling, tropospheric atmospheric parameter detection, and seismic monitoring.As atmospheric reanalysis data products’ accuracy and spatiotemporal resolution have improved recently, it has become important to apply these products to obtain high-accuracy tropospheric delay parameters, like zenith tropospheric delay(ZTD) and tropospheric horizontal gradient. These tropospheric delay parameters can be applied to PPP to reduce the convergence time and to increase the accuracy in the vertical direction of the position. The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts Reanalysis 5(ERA5) atmospheric reanalysis data is the latest product with a high spatiotemporal resolution released by the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts(ECMWF). Only a few researches have evaluated the application of ERA5 data to Global Navigation Satellite System(GNSS)PPP. Therefore, this study compared and validated the ZTD products derived from ERA5 data using ZTD values provided by 290 global International GNSS Service(IGS) stations for 2016-2017. The results indicated a stable performance for ZTD, with annual average bias and RMS values of 0.23 cm and 1.09 cm,respectively. Further, GNSS observations for one week in each of the four seasons(spring: DOY 92-98;summer: DOY 199-205;autumn: DOY 275-281;and winter: DOY 22-28) from 34 multi-GNSS experiments(MGEX) stations distributed globally in 2016 were considered to evaluate the performance of ERA5-derived tropospheric delay products in GNSS PPP. The performance of ERA5-enhanced PPP was compared with that of the two standard GNSS PPP schemes(without estimated tropospheric horizontal gradient and with estimated tropospheric horizontal gradient). The results demonstrated that ERA5-enhanced GNSS PPP showed no significant improvement in the convergence times in both the Eastern(E) and Northern(N) directions, while the average convergence time over four weeks in the vertical(U)direction improved by 53.3% and 52.7%, respectively(in the case of pngm station). The average convergence times for each week in the U direction of the northern and southern hemisphere stations indicated a decrease of 16.3%, 12.6%, 9.6%, and 9.1%, and 16.9%, 9.6%, 8.9%, and 14.5%, respectively.Regarding positioning accuracy, ERA5-enhanced PPP showed an improvement of 13.3% and 16.2% over the two standard PPP schemes in the U direction, respectively. No significant improvement in the positioning performance was observed in both the E and N directions. Thus, this study demonstrated the potential application of the ERA5 tropospheric parameters-augmented approach to Beidou navigation and positioning.

Mapping Near-surface Air Temperature, Pressure, Relative Humidity and Wind Speed over China's Mainland with High Spatiotemporal Resolution

As part of a joint effort to construct an atmospheric forcing dataset for China's Mainland with high spatiotemporal reso- lution, a new approach is proposed to construct gridded near-surface temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and surface pressure with a resolution of 1 km× 1 km. The approach comprises two steps： （1） fit a partial thin-plate smoothing spline with orography and reanalysis data as explanatory variables to ground-based observations for estimating a trend surface; （2） apply a simple kriging procedure to the residual for trend surface correction. The proposed approach is applied to observations collected at approximately 700 stations over China's Mainland. The generated forcing fields are compared with the corresponding components of the National Centers for Environmental Predic- tion （NCEP） Climate Forecast System Reanalysis dataset and the Princeton meteorological forcing dataset. The comparison shows that, both within the station network and within the resolutions of the two gridded datasets, the interpolation errors of the proposed approach are markedly smaller than the two gridded datasets.

A global typical meteorological year(TMY)database on ERA5 dataset

The outdoor climate condition is one of the deterministic factors influencing building energy consumption.Building performance simulation(BPS)tools usually adopt typical meteorological year(TMY)as the outdoor climate input.Despite that many scholars and institutes have developed TMY datasets,these datasets are usually based on distinct data sources and methods.Considering the increase of international cooperation construction projects,compatible TMY dataset for different countries is in urgent need.This paper presents a global typical meteorological year(TMY)database covering 38,947 stations worldwide based on the fifth-generation atmospheric reanalysis product released by the European Center(ERA5).The data is created with Chinese Standard Weather Database(CSWD)method to reflect the average level of historical weather.The dataset is saved in a 55 GB database of compressed CSV files and a website is established where users can download their required TMY data for certain cities according to the longitude and latitude information.A systematic validation is conducted to confirm the feasibility of ERA5 as data source and validity of generated TMY data.This TMY-ERA5 dataset is fundamental and essential in building system designs of international construction projects,building performance simulation,especially for some countries lacking ground meteorological stations or missing meteorological year data in the building sector.It can be used as references for other meteorological climate studies.