Retrieval of Atmospheric Horizontal Visibility by Statistical Regression from NOAA/AVHRR Satellite Data

Based on the atmospheric horizontal visibility data from forty-seven observational stations along the eastern coast of China near the Taiwan Strait and simultaneous NOAA/AVHRR multichannel satellite data during January 2001 to December 2002, the spectral characters associated with visibility were investigated. Successful retrieval of visibility from multichannel NOAA/AVHRR data was performed using the principal component regression （PCR） method. A sample of retrieved visibility distribution was discussed with a sea fog process. The correlation coefficient between the observed and retrieved visibility was about 0.82, which is far higher than the 99.9% confidence level by statistical test. The rate of successful retrieval is 94.98% of the 458 cases during 2001 2002. The error distribution showed that high visibilities were usually under-estimated and low visibilities were over-estimated and the relative error between the observed and retrieved visibilities was about 21.4%.

Comparison Between Computer Simulation of Transport and Diffusion of Cloud Seeding Material Within Stratiform Cloud and the NOAA-14 Satellite Cloud Track

A precipitation enhancement operation using an aircraft was conducted from 1415 to 1549 LST 14 March 2000 in Shaanxi Province. The NOAA-14 satellite data received at 1535 LST soon after the cloud seeding shows that a vivid cloud track appears on the satellite image. The length, average width and maximum width of the cloud track are 301 km, 8.3 and 11 km, respectively. Using a three-dimensional numerical model of transport and diffusion of seeding material within stratiform clouds, the spatial concentration distribution characteristics of seeding material at different times, especially at the satellite receiving time, are simulated. The model results at the satellite receiving time are compared with the features of the cloud track. The transported position of the cloud seeding material coincides with the position of the track. The width, shape and extent of diffusion of the cloud seeding material are similar to that of the cloud track. The spatial variation of width is consistent with that of the track. The simulated length of each segment of the seeding line accords with the length of every segment of the track. Each segment of the cloud track corresponds to the transport and diffusion of each segment of the seeding line. These results suggest that the cloud track is the direct physical reflection of cloud seeding at the cloud top. The comparison demonstrates that the numerical model of transport and diffusion can simulate the main characteristics of transport and diffusion of seeding material, and the simulated results are sound and trustworthy. The area, volume, vidth, depth, and lateral diffusive rate corresponding to concentrations 1, 4, and 10 L-1are simulated in order to understand the variations of influencing range.

Research on the Extraction of OLR Anomaly Prior to Ms 7.5 Sand Point,Alaska Earthquake based on IPI Method

Based on the understanding that the seismic fault system is a nonlinear complex system,Rundle(1995)introduced the nonlinear threshold system used in meteorology to analyze the ocean-atmosphere interface and the El Ni?o Southern Oscillation into the study of seismic activity changes,and then proposed the PI method(Rundle et al.,2000a,b).Wu et al.(2011)modified the Pattern Informatics Method named MPI to extract the ionospheric anomaly by using data from DEMETER satellites which is suitable for 1–3 months short-term prediction.