# Geoscience Letters

## List of Papers (Total 112)

#### From written records to seismic parameters: the case of the 6 April 1667 Dalmatia earthquake

On Wednesday 6 April 1667, an earthquake occurred, and severely affected a large area of the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea, also known as southern Dalmatia, in today Croatia, and part of Montenegro. This paper summarizes the seismological data existing today on this large earthquake, with special attention to how such data were gathered by means of investigating hitherto not...

#### Reverse relationship between drought of mid-latitudes in East Asia and Northwest Pacific tropical cyclone genesis frequency in summer

This study found that there is a significant negative correlation between summer drought in Korea, China and Japan and the frequency of tropical cyclone (TC) in the subtropical western North Pacific (SWNP) using effective drought index (EDI). The frequency of TCs that affect Korea is low (high) in a year of summer drought (non-drought). As a case study, in 1994 when there is...

#### Role of gravity waves in vertical coupling during sudden stratospheric warmings

Gravity waves are primarily generated in the lower atmosphere, and can reach thermospheric heights in the course of their propagation. This paper reviews the recent progress in understanding the role of gravity waves in vertical coupling during sudden stratospheric warmings. Modeling of gravity wave effects is briefly reviewed, and the recent developments in the field are...

#### Infrasound and seismic detections associated with the 7 September 2015 Bangkok fireball

A bright fireball was reported at 01:43:35 UTC on September 7, 2015 at a height of $$\sim$$30 km above 14.5$$^{\circ }$$N, 98.9$$^{\circ }$$E near Bangkok, Thailand. It had a TNT yield equivalent of 3.9 kilotons (kt), making it the largest fireball detected in South–East Asia since the $$\sim$$50 kt 2009 Sumatra bolide. Infrasonic signals were observed at four infrasound arrays...

#### Assessment of GNSS-based height data of multiple ships for measuring and forecasting great tsunamis

Ship height positioning by the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) was investigated for measuring and forecasting great tsunamis. We first examined GNSS height-positioning data of a navigating vessel. If we use the kinematic precise point positioning (PPP) method, tsunamis greater than 10−1 m will be detected by ship height positioning. Based on Automatic Identification...

#### Impact and mitigation of space weather effects on GNSS receiver performance

It is well known that Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) signals suffer from a number of vulnerabilities, out of which a potential severe vulnerability is the effect of space weather. Space weather effects on the signals transmitted by GNSS include the effect of ionospheric perturbations and solar radio bursts. Intense solar radio bursts occurring in the L-band can impact...

#### A brief history of solar-terrestrial physics in Australia

Solar-terrestrial physics research in Australia began in 1792 when de Rossel measured the southern hemisphere geomagnetic field at Recherche Bay on the southern tip of Tasmania, proving the field magnitude and direction varied with latitude. This was the time when the French and British were competing to chart and explore the new world. From the early twentieth century Australian...

#### Pickup ion-mediated plasma physics of the outer heliosphere and very local interstellar medium

Observations of plasma and turbulence in the outer heliosphere (the distant supersonic solar wind and the subsonic solar wind beyond the heliospheric termination shock) made by the Voyager Interstellar Mission and the energetic neutral atom observations made by the IBEX spacecraft have revealed that the underlying plasma in the outer heliosphere and very local interstellar medium...

#### The vortex moving toward Taiwan and the influence of the central mountain range

Surface friction is important to a vortex moving toward Taiwan but was ignored in several previous studies. The change of the potential vorticity comes from friction in the shallow-water equation, hence, it was applied to study the westbound vortex influenced by the central mountain range (CMR) blocking and surface friction, which is defined as friction coefficient multiplied by...

#### The Indo-Pacific Warm Pool: critical to world oceanography and world climate

The Indo-Pacific Warm Pool holds a unique place on the globe. It is a large area [>30 × 106 km2] that is characterised by permanent surface temperature >28 °C and is therefore called the ‘heat engine’ of the globe. High convective clouds which can reach altitudes up to 15 km generate much latent heat in the process of convection and this area is therefore called the ‘steam engine...

#### Historical findings of the Russian physical oceanographers in the Indian Ocean

This is a review paper related to three findings of Russian physical oceanographers in the Indian Ocean. Observations in the Indian Ocean were used to investigate mesoscale eddies, subsurface equatorial undercurrent, and internal tidal waves near the Mascarene Ridge. Two surveys with measurements of temperature and salinity profiles in the Arabian Sea in 1967 made possible...

#### The fast development of solar terrestrial sciences in Taiwan

In Taiwan, research and education of solar terrestrial sciences began with a ground-based ionosonde operated by Ministry of Communications in 1952 and courses of ionospheric physics and space physics offered by National Central University (NCU) in 1959, respectively. Since 1990, to enhance both research and education, the Institute of Space Science at NCU has been setting up and...

#### Recent progress toward reducing the uncertainty in tropical low cloud feedback and climate sensitivity: a review

Equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) to doubling of atmospheric CO2 concentration is a key index for understanding the Earth’s climate history and prediction of future climate changes. Tropical low cloud feedback, the predominant factor for uncertainty in modeled ECS, diverges both in sign and magnitude among climate models. Despite its importance, the uncertainty in ECS and low...

#### A GCM with cloud microphysics and its MJO simulation

The present study examines the Madden and Julian oscillation (MJO) appearing in a general circulation model (GCM) with full representation of cloud microphysics at 50 km horizontal resolution, and the MJO is compared with those of GCMs with conventional convective parameterizations. The present coarse-resolution GCM requires modifications of several parameters of cloud...

#### The first scientific description of aurora borealis: the 10 September 1580 event in Transylvania, recorded by Marcello Squarcialupi

The first scientific treatise on aurora borealis was published by Marcello Squarcialupi, an Italian medical doctor working in the court of the Hungarian Prince of Transylvania. His book, De coelo ardore, described the aurora of 10 September 1580 in great detail, providing exact data from his personal observations on the time, direction, shape, colour, and variability. He invoked...

#### Introduction to the special issue on history development of solar terrestrial sciences including auroral sub-storms

Solar terrestrial (ST) sciences started centuries ago and branched into different disciplines. Starting with naked eye to highly sophisticated novel experimental techniques, observations have revealed the secrets of the Sun, heliosphere, magnetosphere, plasmasphere, and ionosphere-atmosphere components of the ST system. Theories and theoretical models have been developed for the...

#### Global view of sea-ice production in polynyas and its linkage to dense/bottom water formation

Global overturning circulation is driven by density differences. Saline water rejected during sea-ice formation in polynyas is the main source of dense water, and thus sea-ice production is a key factor in the overturning circulation. Due to difficulties associated with in situ observation, sea-ice production and its interannual variability have not been well understood until...

#### Relation of the auroral substorm to the substorm current wedge

The auroral substorm is an organized sequence of events seen in the aurora near midnight. It is a manifestation of the magnetospheric substorm which is a disturbance of the magnetosphere brought about by the solar wind transfer of magnetic flux from the dayside to the tail lobes and its return through the plasma sheet to the dayside. The most dramatic feature of the auroral...

#### Electrodynamics of ionospheric weather over low latitudes

The dynamic state of the ionosphere at low latitudes is largely controlled by electric fields originating from dynamo actions by atmospheric waves propagating from below and the solar wind-magnetosphere interaction from above. These electric fields cause structuring of the ionosphere in wide ranging spatial and temporal scales that impact on space-based communication and...

#### The importance of ground magnetic data in specifying the state of magnetosphere–ionosphere coupling: a personal view

In the history of geomagnetism, geoelectricity and space science including solar terrestrial physics, ground magnetic records have been demonstrated to be a powerful tool for monitoring the levels of overall geomagnetic activity. For example, the Kp and ap indices having perhaps the long-history geomagnetic indices have and are being used as space weather parameters, where “p...

#### Synthetic versus long-term natural records of tropical cyclone storm surges: problems and issues

The majority of risk assessments of tropical cyclone storm surge and inundations are based on the generation of synthetic times series from short historical records. The accuracy of these synthetic time series in terms of the frequency of the most extreme magnitude events is difficult to test using this methodology alone. Comparisons with other approaches such as...

#### History and development of coronal mass ejections as a key player in solar terrestrial relationship

Coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are relatively a recently discovered phenomenon—in 1971, some 15 years into the Space Era. It took another two decades to realize that CMEs are the most important players in solar terrestrial relationship as the root cause of severe weather in Earth’s space environment. CMEs are now counted among the major natural hazards because they cause large...

#### Classifying Pacific islands

An earth-science-based classification of islands within the Pacific Basin resulted from the preparation of a database describing the location, area, and type of 1779 islands, where island type is determined as a function of the prevailing lithology and maximum elevation of each island, with an island defined as a discrete landmass composed of a contiguous land area ≥1 ha (0.01...

#### Modifications of the ionosphere prior to large earthquakes: report from the Ionosphere Precursor Study Group

The current status of ionospheric precursor studies associated with large earthquakes (EQ) is summarized in this report. It is a joint endeavor of the “Ionosphere Precursor Study Task Group,” which was formed with the support of the Mitsubishi Foundation in 2014–2015. The group promotes the study of ionosphere precursors (IP) to EQs and aims to prepare for a future EQ dedicated...