coarse bed load transport in an alluvial gravel bed stream dupuyer creek montana coarse bed load was sampled in a gravel cobble bed stream during two major floods in the snowmelt runoff season the channel is characterized by high rates of bank erosion and therefore high rates of sediment supply and bed load flux peak discharge reached four times bank full and bed load was sampled at flows 0 7 1 7 times bank full a large aperture bed load sampler 1 m by 0 45 m captured the largest particles in motion and specifically targeted the coarse bed load size distribution by using a relatively large mesh 32 mm or d25 of streambed surface size distribution bed load flux was highly variable with a peak value of 0 85 kg s m for the coarse fraction above 38 mm bed load size distribution and maximum particle size was related to flow strength entrainment was size selective for particles d70 and larger 88 155 mm while particles in the range d30 d70 35 88 mm ceased to move at essentially the same flow bed load flux was size selective in that coarse fractions of the streambed surface were under represented in or absent from the bed load painted tracer particles revealed that the streambed surface in the riffles could remain stable even during high rates of bed load transport these observations suggest that a large proportion of bed load sediments was sourced from outside the riffles repeat surveys confirmed major scour and fill in pools up to 0 75 m and bank erosion 2 m which together contributed large volumes of sediment to the bed load copyright 2007 john wiley sons ltd

surface based transport model for mixed size sediment we present a transport model for mixed sand gravel sediments fractional transport rates are referenced to the size distribution of the bed surface rather than subsurface making the model completely explicit and capable of predicting transient conditions the model is developed using a new data set of 48 coupled observations of flow transport and bed surface grain size using five different sediments the model incorporates a hiding function that resolves discrepancies observed among earlier hiding functions the model uses the full size distribution of the bed surface including sand and incorporates a nonlinear effect of sand content on gravel transport rate not included in previous models the model shares some common elements with two previous surface based transport models but differs in using the full surface size distribution and in that it is directly developed from a relatively comprehensive data set with unambiguous measurement of surface grain size over a range of flow transport rate and sediments

sediment trapping characteristics of a pit trap and the helley smith sampler in a cobble gravel bed river 1 although designed for granule gravels the helley smith hs bed load sampler is often used in streams with much coarser beds to compare magnitudes and grain size distributions of sediment samples collected by a pit trap and a standard hs sampler we conducted 22 sampling events over a wide range of flows during a snowmelt freshet in a stream with a coarse gravel bed each sampling event consisted of three simultaneous measurements one made with a pit trap installed in the bed one with a hs sampler placed on the bed directly beside the pit trap hs i and one with a hs sampler placed on the downstream rim of the pit trap hs p we summed the catches of the pit trap and hs p to estimate actual bed load transport the pit trap and hs i catches were then compared to the summed sample the pit trap yielded a remarkably consistent positively skewed sigmoidal distribution of catch efficiency for all 22 measurements with near 100 efficiency for material larger than 2 8 mm the hs i sampler was more variable in its catch and trapping efficiency exhibiting low trapping efficiency for midrange material 0 71 to 16 mm but high efficiency for finer material the results cast doubt on the accuracy of bed load data sets collected by helley smith samplers in coarse gravel channels

tropical atlantic biases in ccsm4 abstractthis paper focuses on diagnosing biases in the seasonal climate of the tropical atlantic in the twentieth century simulation of the community climate system model version 4 ccsm4 the biases appear in both atmospheric and oceanic components mean sea level pressure is erroneously high by a few millibars in the subtropical highs and erroneously low in the polar lows similar to ccsm3 as a result surface winds in the tropics are 1 m s 1 too strong excess winds cause excess cooling and depressed ssts north of the equator however south of the equator sst is erroneously high due to the presence of additional warming effects the region of highest sst bias is close to southern africa near the mean latitude of the angola benguela front abf comparison of ccsm4 to ocean simulations of various resolutions suggests that insufficient horizontal resolution leads to the insufficient northward transport of cool water along this coast and an erroneous southward stretching of the abf a similar proble

discussion of inception of sediment transport on steep slopes by richard j s whitehouse richard l soulsby and jesper s damgaard the authors present in an interesting but not very original way a relationship for the critical shear stress on flow over a steep slope the resulting equation is given with 21 which they consider to be compatible with intuitive expectation with two independent data sets they show in fig 4 a reasonable good agreement the discusser was also concerned with this problem an equation of the form of 16 was presented by graf 1991 and compared with laboratory and field data also addressed in this research was the fact that flow on steep slopes is often but not always of small flow depth and over large grain sized material the dimensionless critical shear stress was then related to the relative roughness d50 h the authors might be interested in investigating this parameter in a recent review article by graf 1999 on the contribution of schoklitsch to the hydraulics of sediment transport it is shown that the authors 21 was presented already in 1914 this relation was obtained with a simple force balance consideration

atmosphere ocean mechanisms of climate anomalies in the angola tropical atlantic sector abstract interannual variations in the large scale atmospheric and oceanic fields over the tropical atlantic are studied in relation to rainfall anomalies on the angola coast departure patterns are constructed by stratification with respect to extremely dry and wet years and by correlation with rainfall in angola which is concentrated in march april the analysis suggests a causality chain of atmospheric oceanic anomalies variations of westward wind stress on the western equatorial atlantic constitute an early link in this chain the annual cycle is characterized by a relaxation of the wind stress from september november to february march anomalous seasonal relaxation of easterly wind stress over the western equatorial atlantic remotely forces the sea surface temperature sst departures in the eastern south atlantic a large relaxation being followed by positive sst departures sea surface temperature modulates the rainfall over downstream angola by controlling the atmospheric moisture and stability

long term bedload mobility in gravel bed rivers using iron slag as a tracer abstract bedload dispersion is evaluated in gravel bed rivers using slag elements from ironworks established along rivers in the ardenne region between the fourteenth and the nineteenth centuries large quantities of slag were dumped close to these rivers or even directly into the channels for centuries slag elements were dispersed in the bedload and transported by floods of varying importance consequently slag may be considered as a reliable tracer to analyze bedload dispersion over several centuries the size of slag elements was studied along 16 ardenne rivers the longitudinal size trend of the largest slag particles allows the effective competence of these rivers to be determined between 19 and 129 mm for rivers where specific stream power for the bankfull discharge ranges between 20 and 134 w m a direct relationship doesn t exist between these two parameters as the size of slag elements must be considered with regard to the d 50 of the bed selective transport was analyzed directly downstream of the input sites the sorting distance varies from river to river and depends on the velocity of the coarse elements introduced into the river since the inception of the iron industry downstream of two metallurgic sites the slag propagation fronts were located as the periods of activity at these sites are known from historical studies the virtual velocity of bedload movement in these rivers was estimated to be 2 4 km century

a further study of the tropical western hemisphere warm pool abstract variability of the tropical western hemisphere warm pool whwp of water warmer than 28 5 c which extends seasonally over parts of the eastern north pacific the gulf of mexico the caribbean and the western tropical north atlantic tna was previously studied by wang and enfield using the da silva data from 1945 93 using additional datasets of the ncep ncar reanalysis field and the ncep sst from 1950 99 and the levitus climatological subsurface temperature the present paper confirms and extends the previous study of wang and enfield the whwp alternates with northern south america as the seasonal heating source for the walker and hadley circulations in the western hemisphere during the boreal winter a strong hadley cell emanates northward from the amazon heat source with subsidence over the subtropical north atlantic north of 20 n sustaining a strong north atlantic anticyclone and associated northeast ne trade winds over its southern limb in the tna this circulation including the ne

why the itcz is mostly north of the equator abstract although the distribution of sunshine is symmetrical about the equator the earth s climate is not climatic asymmetries are prominent in the eastern tropical pacific and atlantic oceans where the regions of maximum sea surface temperature convective cloud cover and rainfall are north of the equator this is the result of two sets of factors interactions between the ocean and atmosphere that are capable of converting symmetry into asymmetry and the geometries of the continents that determine in which longitudes the interactions are effective and in which hemisphere the warmest waters and the intertropical convergence zone are located the ocean atmosphere interactions are most effective where the thermocline is shallow because the winds can readily affect sea surface temperatures in such regions the thermocline happens to shoal in the eastern equatorial pacific and atlantic but not in the eastern indian ocean because easterly trade winds prevail over the tropical atlantic and pacific wher

mobility of bed material in harris creek 1 the mobility of bed material is investigated in a small gravel bed river in which the bed is weakly bimodal in texture and relatively stable the bed surface remained intact throughout the freshet and scour was limited to small areas of the bed observations of bedload caught in pit traps and displacement of magnetically tagged particles during two spring freshets permit analysis of the mobility of each size fraction fractional transport rates plot up to three orders of magnitude below the reference transport rate suggested in the literature at low flows no size fraction was fully mobile at intermediate flows shear stress 27 pa sand was fully mobile while larger material remained partially mobile at high flows 43 pa the division between the full and partial mobility regimes occurred around 16 mm which remains finer than the median size of the subsurface material the largest material scarcely moves at mean annual flood magnetic tracers confirmed results obtained from the pit traps three distinct zones of mobility can be defined in fractional transport plots partial mobility full mobility and overpassing suspended critical shear stress for incipient motion varied over an order of magnitude a qualitatively similar result for bimodal sediment was reported by wilcock and mcardell 1993 incipient motion analysis based on the largest grain observed to move yielded an upper envelope implying transport similarity for sizes found on the bed surface and a lower envelope that corresponds with our nonsimilar entrainment criterion

effective discharge in rocky mountain headwater streams summary whereas effective discharge q eff in mountain streams is commonly associated with a moderate flow such as bankfull discharge q bf this study found that the maximum discharge q max and not bankfull discharge is the channel forming or effective flow for gravel transport in plane bed streams where partial bed mobility causes steep gravel transport rating curves q eff may approach bankfull flow in some step pool channels where gravel moves over a static cobble boulder bed our conclusions are based on magnitude frequency analyses conducted at 41 gauged rocky mountain headwater streams because these gauged streams lacked gravel transport data as is typical comparable streams with measured transport rates were used to develop scaling relations for rating curve exponents with stream and watershed characteristics those scaling relations were then used to estimate the steepness of gravel rating curves at the 41 gauged but unsampled sites the measured flow frequency distributions were characterized by two fitted power functions the steepness of the flow frequency distributions and the estimated steepness of gravel transport relations were combined in magnitude frequency analyses to compute q eff

marginal bed load transport in a gravel bed stream sagehen creek california marginal bed load transport describes the condition when relatively few bed particles are moving at any time bed particles resting in the shallowest bed pockets will move when the dimensionless shear stress exceeds a value of about 0 020 as increases the number of bed particles moving increases significant motion of bed particles i e when a substantial fraction of the bed particles are moving occurs when exceeds a value of about 0 060 thus marginal bed load transport occurs over the domain 0 020 0 060 marginal bed load transport rates and associated hydraulic characteristics of sagehen creek a small mountain gravel bed stream were measured on 55 days at discharges ranging from slightly less than one half of the bank full discharge to more than 4 times the bank full discharge dimensionless shear stress varied from 0 032 to 0 042 and bed particles as large as the 80th percentile of the bed surface were transported the relation between reference dimensionless shear stress and relative particle protrusion for sagehen creek was determined by varying ri to obtain the best fit of the parker bed load function to the measured transport rates during the period of record water years 1954 1991 the mean annual quantity of bed load transported past the sagehen creek gage was 24 7 tons forty seven percent of all bed load transported during the 38 years of record occurred in just 6 years during 10 of the 38 years of record essentially no bed load was transported the median diameter of bed load was 26 mm compared to 58 mm in the surface bed material

evidence of remote forcing in the equatorial atlantic ocean abstract an analysis of sea surface temperature sst and surface winds in selected areas of the tropical atlantic indicates that the nonseasonal variability of sst in the eastern equatorial atlantic gulf of guinea is highly correlated with the nonseasonal variability of the zonal wind stress in the western equatorial atlantic a negative positive anomaly of the zonal wind stress near the north brazilian coast is followed by a positive negative sst anomaly in the gulf of guinea about one month later furthermore the correlation between the local wind stress anomaly and sst anomaly in the gulf of guinea is considerably smaller these preliminary results indicate that remote forcing in the western equatorial atlantic ocean is an important factor affecting the eastern equatorial atlantic sea surface temperature recent equatorial theories are consistent with these observations

velocity distribution and bed roughness in high gradient streams a model for the velocity field over a poorly sorted bed is derived herein and applied to flow in steep streams with coarse gravel beds in such streams large clasts often are comparable in size to stream depth and act as obstacles to the flow the effect of these obstacles on a flow is estimated by partitioning total stress proportional to the depth slope product into a purely fluid component and a form drag component associated with flow around the obstacles an eddy viscosity closure is used with a length scale dependent on both distance from the boundary and wake dimension resulting velocity profiles agree well with profiles measured by marchand et al 1984 in nine mountain streams in colorado model runs for a range of conditions reveal that the velocity distribution depends primarily on d84z and flow depth h d84z is the length of the vertically oriented axis of clasts at the 84th percentile of the grain size distribution calculated values of mean velocity normalized by shear velocity are well represented by a simple log linear relationship in terms of relative roughness d84 h

an equatorial extratropical dipole structure of the atlantic nino abstractequatorial atlantic variability is dominated by the atlantic nino peaking during the boreal summer studies have shown robust links of the atlantic nino to fluctuations of the st helena subtropical anticyclone and benguela nino events furthermore the occurrence of opposite sea surface temperature sst anomalies in the eastern equatorial and southwestern extratropical south atlantic ocean sao also peaking in boreal summer has recently been identified and termed the sao dipole saod however the extent to which and how the atlantic nino and saod are related remain unclear here an analysis of historical observations reveals the atlantic nino as a possible intrinsic equatorial arm of the saod specifically the observed sporadic equatorial warming characteristic of the atlantic nino 0 4 k is consistently linked to southwestern cooling 0 4 k of the atlantic ocean during the boreal summer heat budget calculations show that the saod is largely driven by the surface net heat flux anoma

stabilizing self organized structures in gravel bed stream channels field and experimental observations stable reticulate structures which we call stone cells have been observed in cobble gravel channel beds with low bed material transport rates experiments show that such structures develop simultaneously with the armor layer during an extended period when flows do not exceed the shields threshold by more than 2 times so that bed material transport is low they are constructed by particles moving from less stable positions into more stable configurations against each other intermediate developments include clusters and stone lines they reduce sediment transport by orders of magnitude and are evidently a major stability promoting mechanism in gravel channels the timescale for their development suggests that the boundaries of many gravel bed channels are not in equilibrium with recent competent flows but reflect the history of recent dominant flows

downstream changes in the channel geometry of a large gravel bed river 1 field data obtained on a nearly contiguous segment of the colorado river in western colorado and eastern utah are used to examine the mechanisms driving downstream changes in channel geometry measurements characterizing the bank full hydraulic geometry bed material grain size and average channel gradient were made at closely spaced intervals in 10 alluvial and quasi alluvial reaches covering 260 km of the river these data indicate that changes in surface and subsurface grain sizes are small in relation to the change in channel slope over the full length of the study area the median grain size of the surface sediment decreases by a factor of a little more than 2 whereas the average channel slope decreases by a factor of about 5 the decreases in slope and median grain size are offset by a large increase in bank full depth relative to width such that the bank full shields stress b is constant downstream for the reach as a whole b averages 0 049 which is roughly 50 higher than the threshold for bed load transport

land atmosphere ocean interactions in the southeastern atlantic interannual variability land atmosphere ocean interactions in the southeastern south atlantic and their connections to interannual variability are examined using a regional climate model coupled with an intermediate level ocean model in austral summer zonal displacements of the south atlantic subtropical high sash can induce variations of mixed layer currents in the benguela upwelling region through surface wind stress curl anomalies near the namibian coast and an eastward shifted sash is related to the first pacific south american mode when the sash is meridionally displaced mixed layer vertically integrated ekman transport anomalies are mainly a response to the change of alongshore surface wind stress the latitudinal shift of the sash tends to dampen the anomalous alongshore wind by modulating the land sea thermal contrast while opposed by oceanic diffusion although the position of the sash is closely linked to the phase of el nino southern oscillation enso and the southern annular mode sam in austral summer an overall relationship between benguela upwelling strength and enso or sam is absent during austral winter variations of the mixed layer ekman transport in the benguela upwelling region are connected to the strength of the sash through its impact on both coastal wind stress curl and alongshore surface wind stress compared with austral summer low level cloud cover change plays a more important role although wintertime sea surface temperature fluctuations in the equatorial atlantic are strong and may act to influence variability over the northern benguela area the surface heat budget analysis suggests that local air sea interactions dominate

dune migration in a steep coarse bedded stream during 1986 and 1987 migrating bed forms composed of coarse sand and fine gravel d50 1 8 to 9 1 mm were documented in the north fork toutle river at kid valley washington at flow velocities ranging from 1 6 to 3 4 m s 1 and depths of 0 8 to 2 2 m the bed forms predominantly lower regime dunes were studied with a sonic depth sounder transducer suspended in the river at a stationary point twelve temporal depth sounding records were collected during storm runoff and nearly steady average streamflow with record durations ranging from 37 to 261 min waveform height was defined by dune front heights which ranged from 12 to 70 cm a weak correlation between flow depth and the standard deviation of bed elevation was noted dune front counts and spectral analyses of the temporal records showed that dune crests passed the observation point every 2 to 5 min dunes were often superposed on larger bed forms with wave periods between 10 and 30 min gradual changes in waveform height and periodicity occurred over several hours during storm runoff the processes of dune growth and decay were both time dependent and affected by changes in streamflow rates of migration for typical dunes were estimated to be 3 cm s 1 and dune wavelengths were estimated to be 6 to 7 m

response of bed surface patchiness to reductions in sediment supply 1 river beds are often arranged into patches of similar grain size and sorting patches can be distinguished into free patches which are zones of sorted material that move freely such as bed load sheets forced patches which are areas of sorting forced by topographic controls and fixed patches of bed material rendered immobile through localized coarsening that remain fairly persistent through time two sets of flume experiments one using bimodal sand rich sediment and the other using unimodal sand free sediment are used to explore how fixed and free patches respond to stepwise reductions in sediment supply at high sediment supply migrating bed load sheets formed even in unimodal sand free sediment yet grain interactions visibly played a central role in their formation in both sets of experiments reductions in supply led to the development of fixed coarse patches which expanded at the expense of finer more mobile patches narrowing the zone of active bed load transport and leading to the eventual disappearance of migrating bed load sheets reductions in sediment supply decreased the migration rate of bed load sheets and increased the spacing between successive sheets one dimensional morphodynamic models of river channel beds generally are not designed to capture the observed variability but should be capable of capturing the time averaged character of the channel when applied to our experiments a 1 d morphodynamic model rte bookagdegnormgravmixpw xls predicted the bed load flux well but overpredicted slope changes and was unable to predict the substantial variability in bed load flux and load grain size because of the migration of mobile patches our results suggest that 1 the distribution of free and fixed patches is primarily a function of sediment supply 2 the dynamics of bed load sheets are primarily scaled by sediment supply 3 channels with reduced sediment supply may inherently be unable to transport sediment uniformly across their width and 4 cross stream variability in shear stress and grain size can produce potentially large errors in width averaged sediment flux calculations

defining phases of bedload transport using piecewise regression differences in the transport rate and size of bedload exist for varying levels of flow in coarse grained channels for gravel bed rivers at least two phases of bedload transport with notably differing qualities have been described in the literature phase i consists primarily of sand and small gravel moving at relatively low rates over a stable channel surface transport rates during phase ii are considerably greater than phase i and more coarse grains are moved including material from both the channel surface and subsurface transition from phase i to phase ii indicates initiation and transport of grains comprising the coarse surface layer common in steep mountain channels while the existence of different phases of transport is generally acknowledged the threshold between them is often poorly defined we present the results of the application of a piecewise regression analysis to data on bedload transport collected at 12 gravel bed channels in colorado and wyoming usa the piecewise regression recognizes the existence of different linear relationships over different ranges of discharge the inflection where the fitted functions intersect is interpreted as the point of transition from phase i to phase ii transport this is termed breakpoint a comparison of grain sizes moved during the two phases shows that coarse gravel is rarely trapped in the samplers during phase i transport indicating negligible movement of grains in this size range gravel larger than about d16 of the channel surface is more consistently trapped during phase ii transport the persistence of coarse gravel in bedload samples provides good evidence that conditions suitable for coarse grain transport have been reached even though the size of the sediment approaches the size limits of the sampler 76 mm in all cases a relative breakpoint rbr was defined by the ratio between the discharge at the breakpoint and the 1 5 year flow a surrogate for bankfull discharge expressed as a percentage the median value of rbr was about 80 percent suggesting that phase ii begins at about 80 percent of the bankfull discharge though the observed values of rbr ranged from about 60 to 100 percent variation in this value appears to be independent of drainage area median grain size sorting of bed materials and channel gradient at least for the range of parameters measured in 12 gravel bed channels data archive http dx doi org 10 2737 rds 2007 0003

evolution of interannual warm and cold events in the southeast atlantic ocean extreme warm episodes in the southeast atlantic ocean known as benguela ninos have devastating envi ronmental impacts and have been shown to be remotely forced to place these extreme events into perspective the investigation is here extended to minor warm events as well as to cold episodes to this end different sets of observations have been combined with outputs from a numerical simulation of the tropical atlantic for the period 1982 99 it is shown that both warm and cold surface events develop regularly in the same specific region along the coast of angola and namibia some cold events compete in magnitude with major warm episodes local sea air heat flux exchanges do not seem to precondition the sea surface in the angola benguela region prior to the arrival of an event most warm and cold episodes are large scale events despite their limited surface signature they appear to be generated by wind anomalies in the western and central equatorial atlantic in the same way as benguela ninos seasonal fluctuations of the depth and shape of the tropical thermocline seem partly to control the way subsurface anomalies eventually impact the surface during austral summer surface anomalies create an identifiable pool centered near 158s whereas in winter they show an elongated pattern along the coast stretching toward the equator local upwelling or downwelling favorable wind regimes as well as local net heat fluxes may modulate the surface expression of events

unequal mobility of gravel and sand in weakly bimodal river sediments bed load was trapped during flood events over a 20 month period at the lower end of the allt dubhaig a small river in scotland with rapid downstream fining of gravel bed material on a slowly aggrading concave long profile the channel bed near the trap is predominantly gravel with a secondary sand mode total transport in each event depended mainly on peak shear stress rather than duration over a threshold bed load was mainly sand in smaller events bimodal in intermediate events and mainly gravel in the biggest floods mean and maximum grain diameter both increased with peak shear stress but in different ways analysis of fractional transport rates and maximum grain size in relation to peak shear stress suggests that gravel transport is slightly size selective but sand transport is close to equal mobility the slight selectivity in gravel transport is consistent with previous field studies of near equilibrium unimodal beds and supports assumptions made in the numerical model of hoey and ferguson 1994 which successfully simulates the observed amount of downstream fining over the 2 5 km upstream of the bed load trap

analysis of flow competence in an alluvial gravel bed stream dupuyer creek montana 1 critical shear stress and unit discharge flow competence models were tested against coarse bed load data from dupuyer creek montana united states maximum particle sizes sampled dmax and d50 to d90 percentiles in the bed load grain size distribution were well correlated with both shear stress and unit discharge bed load grain sizes became coarser with increasing flow strength for the dmax curve shields dimensionless parameter for the surface d50 was estimated at 0 044 and the exponent for relative particle size di d50 was 0 59 in the unit discharge criterion the critical flow to entrain the surface d50 was poorly predicted flow competence relationships based on dmax are prone to the influence of outliers and sample mass variability the mean of the three largest particles dmax 3 is more sensitive to changes in flow strength than the d50 to d90 bed load grain sizes and may represent a good compromise

the non layering of gravel streambeds under ephemeral flood regimes abstract the two layer format common to perennial streambeds in which a relatively coarse armour overlies a finer subarmour develops as a function of both the ingress and subsequent near surface winnowing of interstitial material and the selective non entrainment or slower transport velocity of coarse clasts ephemeral streams appear to lack such vertical layering or are characterized by weak layer development some of this may be due to the degree of mixing associated with the scour and fill process however continuous monitoring of bedload discharge in the nahal yatir in the northern negev desert reveals that sediment transport rates are extremely high so that the chance of armour layer development through selective non entrainment is much reduced indeed a comparison of the bedload and bed material size distributions confirms a high degree of similarity and hints at equal mobility regardless of clast size the monitoring programme also indicates that the bed becomes highly mobile at comparatively modest fluid shear so that practically all floods are associated with high transport rates consequently the winnowing that might be brought about by low transport rate events does not occur even within a single event winnowing is precluded by the rapid nature of flow recession that is so characteristic of flash floods the high degree of bed material mobility is attributable in part to the lack of strength that would otherwise be a corollary of armour development however it also highlights the divergent nature of the feedback loops that govern the relationship between flow and channel deposit in ephemeral and perennial systems

fast sst error growth in the southeast pacific ocean comparison between high and low resolution ccsm4 retrospective forecasts sea surface temperature errors that develop after 1 week are investigated as a function of resolution using retrospective forecasts from the community climate system model one version resolves the ocean and atmosphere to approximately 1 while the second version resolves the ocean to 0 1 and the atmosphere to 0 5 the forecasts are initialized on january 1 from 1982 to 2003 the spatial pattern of the pacific basin sea surface temperatures errors after 1 week is mostly similar at both resolutions with the exception of the coast of south america the coastal ocean surface cools within the higher resolution simulations but warms within the lower resolution simulations the difference in the ocean surface temperature is instead attributed to differing changes in the upwelling coastal upwelling increases within the higher resolution simulation increasing the lower tropospheric stability and encouraging the cloud cover in contrast the upwelling decreases within the lower resolution simulations at 27 s allowing the ocean surface to warm in spite of cooling from the atmosphere in both simulations the northward winds and surface currents weaken because the south pacific sea level pressure high moves westward the increased oceanic upwelling in the high resolution simulation is instead attributed to an increase in the westward zonal currents the high resolution model resolves the narrow humboldt current while the low resolution model does not this study demonstrates that the processes responsible for sst errors in eastern upwelling boundary current regions change when the oceanic grid spacing becomes fine enough to allow resolution of the oceanic boundary currents

a field comparison of three pressure difference bedload samplers abstract the movement of bedload over a cross section is often sampled using a pressure difference bedload sampler such as the helley smith whereas several types are in use no one device has gained universal acceptance as the standard for use in all types of streams moreover evidence suggests that similar devices may collect substantially different amounts of bedload because of only slight modifications in design in this study sample weights collected by three types of pressure difference samplers are compared to determine whether differences are statistically significant or whether sampler performance is so irregular and overlapping that one might regard them as being the same the results confirm that the weights of samples collected by the devices are significantly different generally the us blh 84 collected less material the sheetmetal helley smith collected more material and the original helley smith was intermediate these tendencies were consistent at two sites where bedload was measured the implication of these results is that measured transport rates will vary depending on the sampler used and therefore they are not directly comparable without some mode of calibration to place this finding in a larger context sediment rating curves determined from weights of samples and measurements of flow were integrated over available flow records and used to estimate annual yield three estimates of annual yield one for each device were then compared with measures of annual accumulation from a weir pond below one of the collection sites the results indicate that despite differences between the devices data obtained with pressure difference samplers estimated annual accumulations of sediment reasonably well predicted accumulations were within 40 50 of the measured yield for two samplers whereas the third sampler predicted within 80

equal mobility of gravel in streams the remains of the day 1 the concept of equal mobility of gravel transport is 2 decades old the weak form of the hypothesis states that in order to transport the coarse half of the mean annual gravel load through a river reach at a rate equal to the fine half the coarser material must be overrepresented on the bed surface giving rise to a mobile bed armor the degree of mobile bed armoring necessary to accomplish this diminishes with increasing bed shear stress the strong form of the hypothesis states that the grain size distribution of the gravel portion of the bed load should be similar to that of the substrate and finer than that of the surface layer here the hypothesis is subjected to a rigorous test in the laboratory under controlled conditions which are nevertheless chosen to be as representative as possible of actual field conditions the grain size distributions used in the experiment included both model gravel and model sand at the end of the experiment the entire surface layer and a significant depth of substrate were removed from an entire reach of the channel and sieved the results of the experiment confirmed the weak form of equal mobility the surface layer was significantly coarsened compared with the bed load even when the sand was excluded from the size distributions the strong form of equal mobility was also supported by the experiment in that the size distribution of the gravel substrate was nearly identical to the size distribution of the gravel portion of the load the gravel substrate was however slightly but measurably coarser than the gravel load a tendency that has been observed in the field in cases for which the strong form is not satisfied

an experimental investigation of the effect of bedslope and grain pivot angle on the threshold of marine gravel transport abstract a theoretical model developed by dyer 1986 for the effect of bedslope on bed shear stress for transport threshold crit under unidirectional flows is tested in a series of laboratory experiments data are presented from 230 laboratory threshold experiments for 1 cm glass spheres with two situation of grain pivot angle on bedslopes ranging from 10 to 15 the experimental results support the dyer model and indicate that for rhombohedral bed packing it can be developed to include the effect of grain pivot angle at threshold

size selective entrainment of bed load in gravel bed streams entrainment of mixed size gravel bed material was studied in nine reaches of three high power streams in scotland and norway paired measurements of at a point shear stress estimated from velocity profiles and bed load transport by hand held sampler were made they extended to very high values 400 n m 2 3 5 kg m x s x analyses of maximum bed load diameter mean bed load diameter transport rates of individual size fractions and tracer pebble movements all show some dependence of threshold shear stress for entrainment on absolute particle size despite strong relative size effects precise equal mobility of all sizes was approached in the data set with the highest shear stresses and transport rates size selective transport in the streams studied is also indicated by clear downstream and downbar reductions in surface sediment size over distances too short for abrasion to be significant

grain sorting in gravel bed streams and the choice of particle sizes for flow competence evaluations flow competence assessments of floods have been based on the largest particle sizes transported and yield either the mean flow stress mean velocity or discharge per unit flow width the use of extreme particle sizes has potential problems in that they may have been transported by debris flows rather than by the flood it may be difficult to locate the largest particles within the flood deposits and there are questions concerning how representative one or a few large particles might be of the transported sediments and therefore of the flood hydraulics such problems would be eliminated for the most part if competence evaluations are based on median grain sizes of transported sediments or perhaps on some coarse percentile that is established by a reasonable number of grains in order to examine such issues the gravel transport data of milhous from oak creek oregon and of carling from great eggleshope beck england have been analysed in terms of changing grain size percentiles with varying flow stresses a comparison between these two data sets is of added interest because the bed material in oak creek is segregated into well developed pavement and subpavement layers while such a layering of bed materials is largely absent in great eggleshope beck the analyses show that the trend of increasing sizes of the largest particles in the bedload samples diameter dm with increasing flow stresses is consistent with similar dependencies based on sieve percentiles ranging from the medians d50 to the 95th percentiles d95 this indicates that the largest particles are an integral part of the overall distributions of bedload grain sizes and respond to changing flow hydraulics along with the rest of the size distribution in oak creek the median grain size shows the largest change with increasing flow stresses followed by d60 and so on to d95 which shows the smallest change the variations in dm continue this trend and are similar to those for d95 this systematic variation of grain size percentiles in oak creek is consistent with changes in the overall distributions which tend to be symmetrical and gaussian for low discharges but become skewed rosin distributions for high discharges in contrast in great eggleshope beck the several percentiles and dm show the same rate of shift to coarser sizes as flow stresses increase this results in part from differences in sampling techniques wherein the bedload samples from great eggleshope beck represent a complete flood event while shorterterm samples at a specific flow stage were obtained in oak creek as a result of the integrated sampling in great eggleshope beck the bedload grain size distributions are more complex commonly with a bimodal pattern however after accounting for differences in sampling schemes in the two streams contrasting patterns in changing grain size distributions remain and these are concluded to reflect grain sorting differences as the bedload grain size distributions approach the distributions of the bed materials it is surprising that if criteria commonly employed to demonstrate the equal mobility of different grain sizes are used in the comparison then great eggleshope beck is far closer to this condition in spite of its minimal development of a pavement it is concluded that the respective shapes of the bed material grain size distributions in particular their degrees of skewness are more important to the observed sorting patterns than are the effects of a pavement layer regulating grain entrapment to produce an equal mobility of different grain sizes therefore the comparison has established that flow competence relationships will differ from one stream to another depending on the pattern of grain sorting which is a function of the bedmaterial grain size distribution

a comparison between shields threshold criterion and the movement of loosely packed gravel in a tidal channel observations of the threshold of movement of loosely packed gravel in a tidal current are described for gravel with equivalent spherical diameters d in the range 0 2 d 5 0cm the critical friction velocity u c corresponding to the initiation of sediment transport is given by u c 7 0 d0 2 at large values of d within the quoted range the value u c is significantly lower than would be obtained by a shields experiment u c d0 5 by comparing our values of u c with those obtained under well controlled laboratory conditions the discrepancy with shields is shown to be due to the open spacing between and exposure of individual pebbles on the seabed by comparing our results with those from upland gravel streams and flume experiments it is suggested that shields assumed an excessively large water depth to particle size ratio as a constraint within which the critical sediment entrainment number 0c is valid

flume study of the effect of relative depth on the incipient motion of coarse uniform sediments an experimental study of the incipient motion of coarse uniform sediments was undertaken in an 8 m long by 0 3 m wide tilting flume the concept of critical shear stress for the initial motion of streambeds has been linked to the probability of sediment entrainment through the intensity of sediment transport the experiments have revealed that critical flow conditions for uniform sediment motion are dependent not only on the grain size but also on the ratio of flow depth to grain diameter a revised shields diagram relating critical stress grain reynolds number and depth to grain size ratio has been derived this has implications for the calculation of sediment transport rates design of stable alluvial channels and physical hydraulic modeling

evaluation of long term bedload virtual velocity in gravel bed rivers ardenne belgium abstract in many gravel bed rivers bed material transfer has been interrupted or perturbed by anthropogenic activities currently restoration projects are being conducted in many countries in order to re establish bedload continuity however until now few studies have provided indications of the velocity of bed material over the long term at least decade to century time scale in the context of river restoration projects e g weir removal addition of spawning gravel these data are nevertheless crucial to predict the downstream propagation of the geomorphological and biological benefits e g supply transport equilibrium morphological and substratum diversity in our study pit tag tracers were used in eight medium sized gravel bed rivers ardenne region belgium to propose a flow competence relationship based on specific stream power on the one hand and to determine the long term virtual velocity of the bed material corresponding to the median diameter d 50 of the surface layer of riffles on the other hand after each flow event that exceeded the threshold for sediment entrainment tagged particles were sought and located even when they were buried in the subsurface layer afterwards all of the data were used to estimate the virtual velocity of the bed material over the long term using three approaches finally the results were compared with long term transport estimations based on iron slag dispersed by the rivers since the end of the middle ages

channel morphology gradient profiles and bed stresses during flood in a step pool channel abstract the stability of a step pool channel is investigated on the basis of measurements during a median annual flood the study reaches range in gradient from 5 to 10 and the flow was 3 m3 s 1 in an 8 m wide channel the estimated shear stress based on the channel gradient was 102 pa which implies that the channel ought to move half meter class boulders calculations of the shear stress using flow resistance equations yield values of about 30 pa these figures imply that the largest boulders in the channel could be moved in fact the channel is stable the effective stress remains well below the threshold to move the large structure forming boulders the steps are stable structures that result from interlocking of the larger stones they are semi randomly located depending on the location of keystones that are deposited in the channel by debris flows or fall out of the banks the high variation in step pool wavelength step height residual pool depth and pool length is indicative of the random nature of step location and structure along a reach there is no convincing evidence that special conditions govern their formation

tropical atlantic sea surface temperature variability and its relation to el nino southern oscillation past analyses of tropical atlantic sea surface temperature variability have suggested a dipole behavior between the northern and southern tropics across the intertropical convergence zone itcz by analyzing an improved 43 year 1950 1992 record of sst smith et al 1996 and other data derived from the comprehensive ocean atmosphere data set coads it is shown that the regions north and south of the itcz are statistically independent of each other at the seasonal to interannual timescales dominating the data confirming the conclusions of houghton and tourre 1992 some dipole behavior does develop weakly during the boreal spring season when there is a tendency for sst anomaly west of angola to be opposite of that in the tropical north atlantic it is further shown that tropical atlantic sst variability is corre lated with pacific e1 nifio southern oscillation enso variability in several regions the ma jor region affected is the north atlantic area of ne trades west of 40ow along 10on 20on and extending into the caribbean there about 50 80 of the anomalous sst variability is associ ated with the pacific enso with atlantic warmings occurring 4 5 months after the mature phases of pacific warm events an analysis of local surface flux fields derived from coads data shows that the enso related atlantic warmings occur as a result of reductions in the surface ne trade wind speeds which in turn reduce latent and sensible heat losses over the region in ques tion as well as cooling due to entrainment this enso connection is best developed during the boreal spring following the most frequent season of maximum enso anomalies in the pacific a region of secondary covariability with enso occurs along the northern edge of the mean itcz position and appears to be associated with northward migrations of the itcz when the north at lantic warmings occur although easterly winds are intensified in the western equatorial atlantic in response to pacific warm events they do not produce strong local changes in sst contrary to expectations from studies based on equatorial dynamics these teleconnected wind anomalies do not give rise to significant correlations of sst in the gulf of guinea with the pacific enso as the teleconnection sequence matures strong se trades at low southern latitudes follow the de velopment of the north atlantic sst anomaly and precede by several months the appearance of weak negative sst anomalies off angola and stronger positive anomalies extending eastward from southern brazil along 15o 30os

geomorphology and endangered fish habitats of the upper colorado river 2 linking sediment transport to habitat maintenance alluvial reaches of the colorado river near grand junction colorado provide important habitat for the endangered colorado squawfish this paper examines recent changes in the geomorphology of the colorado river and addresses the question of what can be done to improve existing fish habitats observations of channel change during periods of above average runoff from 1993 through 1995 indicate minor scour and fill of the main channel but more significant scour and enlargement of side channel and backwater habitats and flushing of fine sediment from the bed modeled relations between discharge and dimensionless shear stress indicate that the threshold of bed load transport 0 03 occurs at about half the bank full discharge these flows are exceeded about 26 days per year on average the bank full discharge produces an average of 0 047 and is exceeded about 8 days per year the width and depth of the channel thus appear to be set by a discharge that produces an average boundary shear stress of 1 5 times greater than the critical shear stress the effective discharge is slightly less than the bank full discharge and approximately 80 of the total sediment load is carried by the highest 10 of all discharges

on the triggering of benguela ninos remote equatorial versus local influences 1 the relative importance of remote and local influences in the development of benguela ninos is examined using observations and a coupled general circulation model capable of simulating interannual variability in the tropical atlantic while previous studies have emphasized the role of equatorially excited kelvin waves the present study finds that meridional wind anomalies along the southwest african coast contribute substantially both observations and model output indicate that sea surface temperatures along the southwest african coast respond rapidly to changes in meridional wind stress these wind anomalies form part of a basin scale weakening of the subtropical anticyclone that extends to the equator as the weakening begins three months before the peak of the event it might have some predictive potential results also indicate that the close correlation between benguela and atlantic ninos in observations might result from the large spatially coherent wind stress anomalies associated with the weakened anticyclone

determination of bedload transport using naturally magnetic tracers first experiences at squaw creek gallatin county montana pebbles and cobbles constitute an important part of the sediment discharge of many streams data on the movement of this coarse bedload is important to a variety of studies including analysis of total sediment yield resevoir filling rates bridge erosion and trout spawning habitat despite the importance of knowledge regarding coarse bedload transport measurement remains difficult and unreliable a new detector has been constructed which records the movement of naturally magnetic pebbles and cobbles the detector was installed at a log sill in the bed of squaw creek gallatin county montana to evaluate the detector under natural conditions during a flood in may 1981 the detector recorded the passage of magnetic particles larger than 32 mm extrapolation of the data allows estimation of total bedload transport based on the composition of an unvegetated gravel bar upstream of the detector and on measurements of turbidity during the flood bedload accounted for approximately 66 of the solid material leaving the drainage basin since many coarse bed streams probably contain material as magnetic as the andesitic rocks in squaw creek the procedure should be widely applicable

temporal variations in bedload transport rates associated with the migration of bedforms temporal variations in bedload transport rates that occur at a variety of timescales even under steady flow conditions are accepted as an inherent component of the bedload transport process rarely however has the cause of such variations been explained clearly we consider three data sets obtained from laboratory experiments that refer to measurements of bedload transport made with continuously recording bedload traps each data set is characterized by a predominant low frequency oscillation on which additional higher frequency oscillations generally are superimposed the period of these oscillations as isolated through the use of spectral analysts ranged between 0 47 and 168 minutes and was associated unequivocally with the migration of bedforms such as ripples dunes and bars the extent to which such oscillatory behaviour may be recognized in a data set depends on the duration of sampling and the length of the sampling time with respect to the period of a given bedform several theoretical probability distribution functions have been developed to describe the frequency distributions of relative bedload transport rates that are associated with the migration of bedforms einstein 1937b hamamori 1962 carey and hubbell 1986 these distribution functions were derived without reference to a sampling interval we present a modification of hamamori s 1962 probability distribution function generated by monte carlo simulation which permits one to specify the sampling interval in relation to the length of a bedform comparisons between the simulated and observed frequency distributions that were undertaken on the basis of the data described herein are good significant at the 90 per cent confidence level finally the implications that temporal variability which is associated with the migration of bedforms have for the accurate determination of bedload transport rates are considered

a systematic analysis of eight decades of incipient motion studies with special reference to gravel bedded rivers data compiled from eight decades of incipient motion studies were used to calculate dimensionless critical shear stress values of the median grain size t c 50 calculated t c 50 values were stratified by initial motion definition median grain size type surface subsurface or laboratory mixture relative roughness and flow regime a traditional shields plot constructed from data that represent initial motion of the bed surface material reveals systematic methodological biases of incipient motion definition t c 50 values determined from reference bed load transport rates and from visual observation of grain motion define subparallel shields curves with the latter generally underlying the former values derived from competence functions define a separate but poorly developed field while theoretical values predict a wide range of generally higher stresses that likely represent instantaneous rather than time averaged critical shear stresses the available data indicate that for high critical boundary reynolds numbers and low relative roughnesses typical of gravel bedded rivers reference based and visually based studies have t c50 ranges of 0 052 0 086 and 0 030 0 073 respectively the apparent lack of a universal t 50 for gravel bedded rivers warrants great care in choosing defendable t c50 values for particular applications

surface based fractional transport rates mobilization thresholds and partial transport of a sand gravel sediment twenty eight coupled observations of flow transport and bed surface grain size distribution were made in a laboratory flume using a wide range of flows and a sediment with a very poorly sorted bimodal grain size distribution these observations permit the transport rates of individual size fractions to be scaled by the proportion of each size immediately available for transport on the bed surface the key to our observations is the use of a sediment in which each size fraction has been painted a different color which permits reliable repeatable and nondestructive measurement of the bed surface grain size distribution from photographs of the bed surface at a given flow the fractional transport rates may be divided into two parts a finer grained portion within which fractional transport rates are a function only of their proportion on the bed surface and total transport rate and a coarser grained portion for which fractional transport rates also depend on the proportion of individual grains within a fraction that remain essentially immobile throughout the experimental run we define the latter condition as one of partial transport and observe that the grain size separating partial and fully mobilized transport consistently increases with flow strength complete mobilization of a size fraction occurs at roughly twice the shear stress necessary for incipient motion of that fraction zones of partial and full mobility are quite distinct when fractional transport rates are scaled by the bed surface grain size distribution although a region of partial transport is evident when these data and other experimental and field observations are scaled by the bulk grain size distribution of the sediment bed critical shear stresses for the incipient motion of individual fractions in our experimental sediment vary over an order of magnitude a result strongly in contrast to many earlier observations but consistent with our observations of incipient motion in sediments with bimodal grain size distributions

bed load bias comparison of measurements obtained using two 76 and 152 mm helley smith samplers in a gravel bed river 1 we assess how the size of the helley smith hs bed load sampler nozzle affects the accuracy of bed load sampling semitheoretical considerations show that the larger grains resident on the streambed can influence the sample either by blocking the sampler entrance or by causing the sampler to rest in a perched position probabilities for interference can be derived from the distribution of grain sizes but they do not capture the actual complexity of the influence of the bed on sampler performance we therefore make an empirical comparison of sediment trapped by hs samplers with 76 and 152 mm intakes during floods in the gravel bed lower ebro river most bed load rates appeared higher when sampled with the hs152 the largest clasts collected by the hs76 also tend to be smaller than those obtained with the hs152 at the same flow analyzing paired bed load samples we find the probability of a bed load sample collected with the hs152 to be biased is around 43 in the conditions of the present study whereas 65 of samples were biased when obtained with the hs76 the analysis emphasizes the influence of bed material texture over sampler performance and demonstrates that the use of samplers with intake size much larger than bed grain size i e 5d will increase the accuracy of bed load grain size distributions and the precision of annual load estimates in gravel bed rivers

a model of two phase bedload transport in an oregon coast range stream a descriptive model for bed material routing in small sand and gravel bedded channels with sequences of pools and armoured riffles was developed aspects of the model are demonstrated at flynn creek a 202 ha third order drainage in the oregon coast range assuming that channel geometry sediment transport competence and the availability of sediments for transport are all non uniform in the downstream direction the model described bedload transport as occurring in two phases phase i involves the transport of fine predominantly sand sized bed materials over stable gravel armoured riffles phase ii occurs at higher flows that can entrain riffle armour and transport riffle sediments in addition to phase i sediments phase i bedload transport was sampled during three moderate flow events a power function related phase i bedload transport to water discharge the relationship was consistent between storms and between two successive years phase ii bedload transport sampled during a 1 8 yr return period streamflow event in february 1979 proved non uniform in a downstream direction and unsteady over time at a given stream discharge transport rates closely correlated with the rapid scour and redeposition of the riffle at the bedload sampling cross section transport peaks corresponded to scour and transport decreased greatly during deposition the transport of large 12 5 mm diam bed material increased up to 12 fold during riffle scour

bed load texture in an alpine gravel bed river the spatial and temporal variations in bed load texture measured in a gravel bed river with a helley smith sampler are compared with its bed material texture most measurements were undertaken at low excess shear stress with low bed load discharge over an armored bed cross sectionally averaged fractional bed load discharge increases with water discharge but the explanation of the variance in fractional discharge is low 20 40 cross sectional distribution of shear velocity explains in part the spatial variation in bed load texture because local hydraulic parameters are weak predictors of fractional bed load discharge for the granule pebble range at nonequilibrium conditions it reinforces the hypothesis that this size range which comprises the bulk of bed load derives from upstream sources temporal variations in the cross sectional distribution of bed load texture are shown to depend on variations in bed topography and local shear stress we demonstrate that the dominance of granule pebble fractions is in part related to the hiding behavior of smaller fractions

physical processes associated with the tropical atlantic sst gradient during the anomalous evolution in the southeastern ocean abstract this work is focused on the evolution of the dominant air sea coupled mode in the equatorial and southeastern tropical atlantic and the associated physical processes it is shown that in june august jja the evolution of the dominant mode is mainly dynamically driven and displays a coherent warming or cooling pattern extending from the angola coast toward the equator in the gulf of guinea for anomalies peaking in jja the warming cooling is initiated near the angola coast in march may it is suggested that sst anomalies along the coast and near the equator are physically connected the air sea interaction along the coast may be a major factor in triggering the development of sst anomalies near the equator which is intensified by local positive feedbacks that may include bjerknes and ekman processes in return the warming or cooling near the equator weaken the sst anomalies along the coast by changing the direction of anomalous wind slow westward rossby wave propagation may also play a role

atlantic climate variability and its associated atmospheric circulation cells abstract phenomena important for atlantic climate variability include the atlantic zonal equatorial mode the tropical atlantic meridional gradient mode and the north atlantic oscillation nao these climate phenomena and their associated atmospheric circulation cells are described and discussed using the ncep ncar reanalysis field and the ncep sea surface temperature sst from january 1950 to december 1999 atmospheric divergent wind and vertical motion are used for the identification of atmospheric circulation cells during the peak phase of the atlantic equatorial mode the atlantic walker circulation weakens and extends eastward which results in surface westerly wind anomalies in the equatorial western atlantic these westerly wind anomalies are partly responsible for warming in the equatorial eastern atlantic that occurs in the second half of the year the atlantic equatorial mode involves a positive ocean atmosphere feedback associated with the atlantic walker circulation similar to the pacific

experiments on surface structure and partial sediment transport on a gravel bed eight flume experiments were conducted to study the development of bed surface texture and structure in the presence of partial bed material transport the experiments have two phases a no feed degradational phase followed by a feeding phase a surface structure of irregular reticulate stone nets and clusters was developed before sediment feeding commenced bed load transport equaled or slightly exceeded the fed supply except at the highest feed rate the bed structure was maintained but bed surface texture fined with increasing sediment load the two phenomena may coexist because the largest grains on the bed moved only very sporadically the actual sediment transport rates were much less than the expected rate calculated from the ratio of bed surface grain size to transported grain size the difference reflects the increase in bed stability introduced by the bed structure between 17 and 47 of the bed shear stress is estimated to be carried by the structure 4 being absorbed by the load while the bed grains carried the balance of the stress bed material transport is exceedingly sensitive to bed surface structure and grain size which raises concerns about the realizable precision of grain size measurements and characterization of the structure

influence of turbulence on bed load sediment transport this paper summarizes the results of an experimental study on the influence of an external turbulence field on the bed load sediment transport in an open channel the external turbulence was generated by 1 a horizontal pipe placed halfway through the depth ih 2 a series of grids with a clearance of about one third of the depth from the bed and extending over a finite length of the flume and 3 a series of grids with a clearance in the range 0 1 1 0 ih from the bed but extending over the entire length of the flume two kinds of experiments were conducted plane bed experiments and ripple covered bed experiments in the former case the flow in the presence of the turbulence generator was adjusted so that the mean bed shear stress was the same as in the case without the turbulence generator in order to single out the effect of the external turbulence on the sediment transport in the ripple covered bed case the mean and turbulence quantities of the streamwise component of the velocity were measured and the shields parameter due to skin friction was determined the shields parameter together with the rms value of the streamwise velocity fluctuations was correlated with the sediment transport rate the sediment transport increases markedly with increasing turbulence level

the nahal yatir bedload database sediment dynamics in a gravel bed ephemeral stream the nahal yatir bedload transport database arises from the northern negev river sediment monitoring programme and represents the first body of bedload information to be collected during flash floods in desert gravel bed streams bedload flux was established automatically with three slot samplers of the birkbeck type this was complemented by hydraulic measurements that allow sediment transport to be rated against channel average shear stress and specific stream power bed material and bedload grain size distributions are also provided the database is given in both printed and electronic tabular format

cloud sst feedback in southeastern tropical atlantic anomalous events 1 using satellite based cloud measurements for 1984 2004 the interannual variability of the low level cloud cover over the tropical atlantic ocean in austral winter june july august jja is examined it is found that the leading pattern of the low cloud anomalies in this season is a modulation of the climatological center of the cloud cover over the southeastern tropical atlantic ocean off the angola and namibia coasts the fluctuation of cloud amount there occurs on both interannual and longer timescales the relationship between this low cloud anomalous pattern and basinwide ocean atmosphere anomalies is studied through a composite analysis based on the objectively selected major low cloud deficit and excess years for the composites we intentionally use data sets mainly based on satellite measurements for the past one to two decades to minimize the potential influences of the bias in the model based ocean atmosphere analyses the composites show that the jja anomalous cloud pattern is strongly influenced by the sea surface temperature sst anomalies of the equatorial and southeastern tropical atlantic ocean in the previous summer the anomalous surface warm events off the southwestern coast of africa near 15 s in january and february are usually initiated dynamically by remote forcing from the westerly wind anomalies over the western equatorial atlantic preceding the cloud anomalies during the next few months the warm water is spread into the southeastern tropical atlantic ocean and is conducive to deficit low cloud cover in subsequent jja the reduced low cloud cover in turn forces positive sst tendency in a larger area of the southeastern atlantic ocean by changing the amount of the local solar radiation reaching the sea surface in june and july this process moves the major center of the sst anomalies away from the coast and closer to the equator when the coastal process weakens the low cloud radiation sst feedback also plays a role in the slow westward expansion of the sst anomalies in late austral winter and spring overall the influence of the cloud fluctuation is an important component in the evolution of the southeastern tropical atlantic anomalous events

threshold of coarse sediment transport in broad and narrow natural streams the threshold of coarse sediment transport has been examined in natural streambeds in an upland pennine u k area threshold values of the total boundary shear stress t0 for a given grain size in a narrow natural stream w d 11 efficiency in the entrainment process is related not only to the overall channel geometry but also varies as a function of discharge in channels characterized by compound roughness empirical curves relating t0 and a mean grain size d5 are presented but are limited in application to streams of similar physical and hydraulic characteristics as the ones examined in this investigation considerable divergence is noted between these empirical functions and a summary empirical function for general application obtained from a published source the reasons for this divergence are discussed the influence of grain shape was found not to be important in the initiation of motion criterion this conclusion may reflect the limited range of natural grain shapes in the study streams but might reasonably apply to other field investigations of similar streams modifications of the shields and yalin diagrams are suggested for practical applications in shallow streams with poorly graded bed material the shields parameter may be regarded as an inverse function of the relative protrusion of individual grains in the shallow flow depth d5 d the increased importance of augmented drag forces in the entrainment process in shallow flows is suggested as the physical explanation for the reduced values of the shields parameter however the relationships presented should not be applied to laboratory experiments concerned with well graded sediments therefore beds with little deviation in level in which the shields parameter may be regarded as constant at high reynolds grain numbers consistent estimated field values of a threshold sediment transport parameter might be used to compare field data to threshold values derived from statistical arguments and laboratory experiments reported in the literature

on why gravel bed streams are paved bedload transport in poorly sorted gravel bed streams downstream of dams is considered bedload and typical bed material subpavement size distributions are observed to be similar it follows that the coarse half of the subpavement moves through a reach at a rate near that of the fine half since coarser grains are intrinsically less mobile than fine grains it follows that some mechanism must act to nearly equalize mobility it is hypothesized that the pavement seen in gravel bed streams at low flow is in fact in place during typical transport events capable of moving all available sizes this pavement can provide the equalizing mechanism by exposing proportionally more coarse grains to the flow field data are used to quantify this concept and to develop a predictive relation for river pavement the model indicates that pavement should be absent in most sand bed streams in agreement with observation

sediment transporting flows in headwater streams the equilibrium alluvial stream channel has a geometry that allows it to pass the water and sediment supplied from the watershed at the same time the equilibrium alluvial channel is built and maintained by the flows and sediment delivered to it a prerequisite for understanding the creation of the equilibrium channel is an understanding of the sediment conveyance and competence of the flows the channel receives this study describes the bed load transport regime as it is linked to hydrology and geomorphology in 23 headwater gravel bed streams in snowmelt dominated parts of central and northern idaho at sites drainage areas range from 1 29 to 381 km 2 stream gradients range from 0 0042 to 0 0747 and median bed surface particle sizes range from 4 to 207 mm stream architecture includes riffle pool planar and step pool beds the bed load is much finer than the surface and subsurface material suggesting selective transport of the finer sizes nonetheless the majority of the load is sand at all flow discharges progressively coarser sediment was collected as flow discharge increased and painted rock experiments documented the transport of coarser particles at higher discharges the supply of sediment to the streams appears limited as indicated by observed clockwise hysteresis in bed load transport rates during each spring snowmelt and by the coarse surface armor observed at sites flows above bankfull discharge move 37 of the bed load whereas flows between mean annual discharge and bankfull move 57 of the bed load the bed load effective discharge has a recurrence interval that averages 1 4 yr and the magnitude of effective discharge averages 80 of bankfull discharge the recurrence interval of bankfull discharge averages 2 0 yr the ratio of effective discharge to bankfull discharge is independent of basin size grain size and gradient although the ratio increases with the relative magnitude of large infrequent events

laboratory measurements of pivoting angles for applications to selective entrainment of gravel in a current important to grain entrainment by a flowing fluid is the pivoting angle of the grain about its contact point with an underlying grain a series of experiments has been undertaken to determine how this angle depends on grain shape rollability and angularity on the ratio of the size of the pivoting grain to those beneath and on factors such as imbrication the experiments involved gravel sized spheres ball bearings and marbles natural pebbles selected for their approximately triaxial ellipsoid shapes and angular crushed basalt pebbles the pivoting angles for these grains were measured on an apparatus consisting of a board which can be progressively inclined the angle of the board being equal to the pivoting angle at the instant of grain movement the pivoting angles of spheres showed reasonable agreement with a theoretically derived equation showing much better agreement than in previous studies which utilized sand sized spheres a series of measurements with spheres ranging from sand to gravel sizes reveals that the pivoting angles decrease with increasing particle size our results are therefore consistent with the earlier studies limited to sand size spheres the cause of this size dependence is unknown since moisture and electrostatic binding can be ruled out similar size dependencies are also found for the ellipsoidal pebbles and angular gravel the experiments with ellipsoidal pebbles demonstrated a strong shape dependence for the pivoting angle being a function of the ratio of the pebble s smallest to intermediate axial diameters this ratio controls the grain s ability to roll and pivot with small ratios of these diameters the pebbles tended to slide out of position whereas with ratios closer to unity circular cross section true pivoting took place and the angles were smaller experiments with flat pebbles placed in an imbricated arrangement yielded much larger angles than when the pebbles lay in a horizontal position the pivoting angle being increased approximately by the imbrication angle the angular crushed gravel also required high pivoting angles apparently due to interlocking of the grains resulting from their angularity other factors being equal the measurements of pivoting angles demonstrate that the order of increasing difficulty of entrainment is spheres ellipsoidal grains angular grains and imbricated grains the results obtained here make possible the quantitative evaluation of these shape effects on grain threshold as well as evaluation of the selective entrainment of grains from a bed of mixed sizes

partial transport in a natural gravel bed channel 1 partial transport is documented in the gravel bed channel of carnation creek using magnetically tagged stones for four flood peaks the active proportion of surface grains was used to map streambed areas into distinct units of three different levels of grain entrainment in partially mobile regions of the bed the active proportion of surface grains declines with grain size as flow increases areas of partial transport grow at the expense of inactive areas and fully active areas replace areas with partial mobility approximately 25 50 of the bed remained in a state of partial mobility during a flood with a 2 year return period indicating that inactive regions of the bed surface typically persist from year to year during a flood with a 7 year return period surface grain entrainment was nearly complete indicating that full mobilization of surface grains is not a frequent event

links between annual variations of peruvian stratocumulus clouds and of sst in the eastern equatorial pacific abstract the hypothesis that peruvian stratocumulus play an important role on both the annual mean and annual variations of sea surface temperature sst in the eastern equatorial pacific is examined the problem is addressed by performing sensitivity experiments using the university of california los angeles coupled atmosphere ocean gcm with different idealized temporal variations of stratocumulus in a region along the coast of peru the results obtained are consistent with the notion that peruvian stratocumulus are a key component of the interhemispherically asymmetric features that characterize the annual mean climate of the eastern equatorial pacific including the cold ssts off peru and the absence of a southern itcz the principal new finding of this study is that the annual variations i e deviations from the annual mean of peruvian stratocumulus are linked to the differences between the amplitude duration and westward propagation of the warm and cold phases of the equatorial cold tongue in

bedload transport in gravel bed streams field data obtained from oak creek are used to study the bedload transport in gravelbed streams a similarity approach is used to delineate a functional relationship obtained for the bedload transp

leading modes of the upper ocean temperature interannual variability along the equatorial atlantic ocean in ncep godas abstractin this work the authors analyze the physical mechanisms of interannual variability of the upper ocean temperature anomaly ota in the equatorial atlantic ocean using ocean reanalysis from the national centers for environmental prediction ncep global ocean data assimilation system the variability of equatorial atlantic ota is dominated by two leading modes the first mode is characterized by same sign variation along the thermocline with pronounced amplitude in the central and eastern equatorial atlantic this mode represents the modulation of the overall thermocline depth at the equator generated by net heat convergence in the equatorial ocean with heat content first accumulated mainly in the off equatorial northwestern atlantic in response to anomalous wind curl associated with atlantic meridional mode the second leading mode shows an opposite variation between the western and eastern atlantic this mode is mainly driven by the zonal wind stress fluctuation confined in the southwestern tr

warm events in the tropical atlantic abstract sea surface temperature in the eastern equatorial atlantic ocean undergoes anomalous warming events of 1 2 c every few years the warm anomalies reach their maximum strength in northern hemisphere summer when equatorial upwelling normally brings cold thermocline water to the surface by compositing surface observations from a 28 year record we are able to identify consistent features in anomalies of sst and winds the composites show that the sst anomalies in northern summer are confined to the eastern equatorial region with reduced zonal winds to the west and reduced northward trade winds to the east accompanying these changes in winds are enhanced convection near the equator caused by a southward shift and intensification of the intertropical convergence zone later in the year sst south of the equator becomes elevated as a result by spring of the year following the equatorial anomaly convection in the western side of the basin is much higher than normal to understand the ocean dynami

role of equatorial basin mode resonance for the seasonal variability of the angola current at 11 s abstractmultiyear moored velocity observations of the angola current near 11 s reveal a weak southward mean flow superimposed by substantial intraseasonal to seasonal variability including annual and semiannual cycles with distinct baroclinic structures in the equatorial atlantic these oscillations are associated with basin mode resonances of the fourth and second baroclinic modes respectively here the role of basin mode resonance and local forcing for the angola current seasonality is investigated a suite of linear shallow water models for the tropical atlantic is employed each model representing a single baroclinic mode forced at a specific period the annually and semiannually oscillating forcing is given by 1 an idealized zonally uniform zonal forcing restricted to the equatorial band corresponding to a remote equatorial forcing or 2 realistic spatially varying fourier components of wind stress data that include local forcing off angola particularly alongshore winds model computed modal am

dimensionless critical shear stress in gravel bed rivers this paper first compiles critical shear stress values from 26 studies of gravel bed rivers gbrs worldwide the most frequently proposed value of the shields criterion c is 0 045 but three major groups with c values ranging from 0 100 were identified second dimensionless critical shear stresses the shields criterion were evaluated for 14 gbrs 18 sites with watershed areas ranging from 12 to 3000 km2 different approaches were used to identify the initial movement of the bed material painted and pit tag pebbles sediment traps and bedload samplers the shields criterion c was estimated using the total shear stress and the grain shear stress several shear stresses were also estimated using shear velocities for bedload transport we obtained an average shields criterion c of 0 040 the values were higher in small rivers 0 050 than larger rivers 0 030 because of more significant bedform shear stresses the shields criterion c was lower when the grain shear stress was used and only reached 0 019 different values are also proposed in relation to the type of mobilization the c value for partial transport was 0 025 and exceeded 0 040 for full transport usually reached in association with discharges with a 10 year return period the values based on the results of sediment traps and a bedload sampler were greater than those obtained using tracers but these differences are smaller than those usually reported in the literature

variation in the reference shields stress for bed load transport in gravel bed streams and rivers 1 the present study examines variations in the reference shear stress for bed load transport r using coupled measurements of flow and bed load transport in 45 gravel bed streams and rivers the study streams encompass a wide range in bank full discharge 1 2600 m3 s average channel gradient 0 0003 0 05 and median surface grain size 0 027 0 21 m a bed load transport relation was formed for each site by plotting individual values of the dimensionless transport rate w versus the reach average dimensionless shear stress the reference dimensionless shear stress r was then estimated by selecting the value of corresponding to a reference transport rate of w 0 002 the results indicate that the discharge corresponding to r averages 67 of the bank full discharge with the variation independent of reach scale morphologic and sediment properties however values of r increase systematically with average channel gradient ranging from 0 025 0 035 at sites with slopes of 0 001 0 006 to values greater than 0 10 at sites with slopes greater than 0 02 a corresponding relation for the bank full dimensionless shear stress bf formulated with data from 159 sites in north america and england mirrors the relation between r and channel gradient suggesting that the bank full channel geometry of gravel and cobble bedded streams is adjusted to a relatively constant excess shear stress bf r across a wide range of slopes

the annual warm to cold phase transition in the eastern equatorial pacific diagnosis of the role of stratus cloud top cooling abstract the forcing of the march to may southerly surface wind tendency along the equatorial south american coast which leads to the annual transition of the eastern tropical pacific basin s climate from its peak warm phase in april is explored through diagnostic modeling modeling experiments with a high resolution 18 levels 2 5 30 zonal waves steady state global linear primitive equation model that produces a striking simulation of most aspects of the march to may change in the lower tropospheric circulation over the eastern tropical pacific including the notable southerly surface wind tendency have provided unique insight into the role of various physical processes the model is forced by the 3d distribution of the residually diagnosed diabatic heating and the submonthly momentum and thermal transients all obtained from the twice daily 2 5 2 5 european centre for medium range weather forecasts uninitialized analyses for 1985 95 the principal findings are the following the initia

particle size variations between bed load and bed material in natural gravel bed channels particle sizes of bed load and bed material that represent materials transported and stored over a period of years are used to investigate selective transport in 13 previously sampled natural gravel bed channels the ratio d of median particle size of bed material to the transport and frequency weighted mean of median bed load size decreases to unity with increasing drainage area bank full discharge dimensionless stream power and bed material sorting in channels with high values of d significant volumes of fine bed load are transported during discharges that are less than bank full which is commonly associated with general entrainment of the coarse pavement in many gravel bed channels this indicates transport of fine bed load over a more stable substrate of coarser bed material the apparent breakdown in equal mobility of the bed as a whole may be caused by areal segregation of poorly sorted bed material into superiorly sorted patches of varying mean size likely sources of selectively transported fine bed load include fine patches that have low entrainment thresholds and high virtual particle velocities a simple sediment budget applied to measurements from three channels indicates that velocities of material from fine patches in pools relative to velocities of average bed material are high in low order channels and decrease distally as more bed material that represents the bed as a whole is accessed for bed load by deeper annual scour

the incidence and nature of bedload transport during flood flows in coarse grained alluvial channels a continuous record reveals that the incidence of bedload in a coarse grained river channel changes from flood to flood long periods of inactivity encourage the channel bed to consolidate sufficiently so that bedload is largely confined to the recession limb of the next flood wave but when floods follow each other closely the bed material is comparatively loose and offers less resistance to entrainment in this case substantial amounts of bedload are generated on the rising limb this is confirmed by values of bed shear stress or stream power at the threshold of initial motion which can be up to five times the overall mean in the case of isolated floods or those which are the first of the season this produces a complicated relationship between flow parameters and bedload and explains some of the difficulties in establishing bedload rating curves for coarse grained channels besides this the threshold of initial motion is shown to occur at levels of bed shear stress three times those at the thresholds of final motion this adds further confusion to attempts at developing predictive bedload equations and clearly indicates at least one reason why equations currently in use are unsatisfactory bedload is shown to be characterized by a series of pulses with a mean periodicity of 1 7 hours in the absence of migrating bedforms it is speculated that this well documented pattern reflects the passage of kinematic waves of particles in a slow moving traction carpet the general pattern of bedload including pulsations is shown to occur more or less synchronously at different points across the stream channel

estimating palaeowind strength from beach deposits abstract the geological record of past wind conditions is well expressed in the coarse gravel cobble and boulder beach deposits of quaternary palaeolakes in the great basin of the western usa and elsewhere this paper describes a technique using the particle size distribution of beach deposits to reconstruct palaeowind conditions when the lakes were present the beach particle technique bpt is first developed using coarse beach deposits from the 1986 87 highstand of the great salt lake in utah combined with instrumental wind records from the same time period next the bpt is used to test the hypothesis that wind conditions were more severe than at present during the last highstand of lake lahontan 13 ka which only lasted a decade or two at most the largest 50 beach clasts were measured at nine beach sites located along the north west and south sides of antelope island in the great salt lake all of which formed in 1986 87 at these sites the largest clast sizes range from 10 to 28 cm b axis and fetch lengths range from 25 to 55 km nearshore wave height was calculated by assuming that the critical threshold velocity required to move the largest clasts represents a minimum estimate of the breaking wave velocity which is controlled by wave height shoaling transformations are undertaken to estimate deep water wave heights and ultimately wind velocity wind estimates for the nine sites using the bpt range from 6 5 to 17 4 m s 1 which is in reasonable agreement with the instrumental record from salt lake city airport the same technique was applied to eight late pleistocene beaches surrounding the carson sink sub basin of lake lahontan nevada using the bpt estimated winds for the eight sites range from 9 7 to 27 1 m s 1 the strongest winds were calculated for a cobble boulder beach with a fetch of 25 km instrumental wind records for the 1992 99 period indicate that wind events of 9 12 m s 1 are common and that the strongest significant wind event 9 m s 1 for 3 h reached an average velocity of 15 5 m s 1 based on this preliminary comparison it appears that the late pleistocene western great basin was a windier place than at present at least for a brief time

atmospheric circulation cells associated with the el nino southern oscillation abstract atmospheric circulation cells associated with the el nino southern oscillation enso are described and examined using the ncep ncar reanalysis field and the ncep sea surface temperature sst from january 1950 to december 1999 the divergent wind and pressure vertical velocity are employed for the identification of atmospheric circulation cells the warm phase of enso shows positive sst anomalies in the equatorial eastern pacific and along the east coast of asia and the west coast of north america and negative sst anomalies in the off equatorial western pacific and in the central north pacific associated with this sst anomaly distribution are variations of atmospheric zonal and meridional circulation cells over the pacific the equatorial zonal walker circulation cell is weakened consistent with previous schematic diagrams the anomalous meridional hadley circulation cell in the eastern pacific shows the air rising in the tropics flowing poleward in the upper troposphere sinking in the subt