As rain drops change the radiation and scattering characteristic of the oceans and the atmosphere, the wind speed measuring by spaceborne remote sensors under rainy conditions remains challenging for years. On the basis of a microwave radiometer (RM) loaded on HY-2 satellite, the sensitivity of some brightness temperature (TB) channels to a rain rate and the wind speed are analyzed. Consequently, two TB combinations which show minor sensitivity to rain are obtained. Meanwhile, the sensitivity of the TB combination to the wind speed is even better to the original TB channel. On the basis of these TB combinations, a wind speed retrieval algorithm is developed and compared with WindSat all-weather wind speed product, HY-2 RM original wind speed product and buoy in situ data. The wind speed retrieval accuracy is better than 2 m/s for rainy conditions, which is evidently superior to HY-2 RM original product. The applicability of this new algorithm is testified for the wind speed measuring in rainy weather with HY-2 RM.

The difference analysis of physical-mechanical properties of muddy sediments is made in the central South Yellow Sea and the Zhe-Min (Zhejiang Province to Fujian Province of China) coastal area. The results show that sediments in the two regions are both dominated by mud. There are perfect negative power function correlations between the water content and the density, the compression coefficient and the compression modulus; a good positive power function correlation between the liquid limit and the plastic limit, a perfect positive linear correlation between the water content and the void ratio, and a perfect polynomial function correlation between the miniature vane shear strength and the pocket penetration resistance. In general, compared with sediments in the Zhe-Min coastal area, sediments in the central South Yellow Sea possess high water content, high void ratio, low density, high plasticity, high compressibility, low shear strength. The causes of the differences between physical-mechanical properties of sediments are analyzed from the topographic features, material sources, hydrodynamic conditions, deposition rate, and material composition. Compared with the Zhe-Min coastal area, the central South Yellow Sea is far from the Mainland and low-lying; has poor hydrodynamic condition; the materials diffused to the area are less and dominated by fine clay, have the high content of smectite and organic matters. These factors lead to sediments of the central South Yellow Sea has the higher water content, the higher plasticity, the lower density, and the lower strength than sediments in the Zhe-Min coastal area.

As a case study, refined iron (Fe) speciation and quantitative characterization of the reductive reactivity of Fe (III) oxides are combined to investigate Fe diagenetic processes in a core sediment from the eutrophic Jiaozhou Bay. The results show that a combination of the two methods can trace Fe transformation in more detail and offer nuanced information on Fe diagenesis from multiple perspectives. This methodology may be used to enhance our understanding of the complex biogeochemical cycling of Fe and sulfur in other studies. Microbial iron reduction (MIR) plays an important role in Fe(III) reduction over the upper sediments, while a chemical reduction by reaction with dissolved sulfide is the main process at a deeper (> 12 cm) layer. The most bioavailable amorphous Fe(III) oxides [Fe(III)_am] are the main source of the MIR, followed by poorly crystalline Fe(III) oxides [Fe(III)_pc)] and magnetite. Well crystalline Fe(III) oxides [Fe (III)_wc] have barely participated in Fe diagenesis. The importance of the MIR over the upper layer may be a combined result of the high availability of highly reactive Fe oxides and low availability of labile organic matter, and the latter is also the ultimate factor limiting sulfate reduction and sulfide accumulation in the sediments. Microbially reducible Fe(III) [MR-Fe(III)], which is quantified by kinetics of Fe(II)-oxide reduction, mainly consists of the most reactive Fe(III)_am and less reactive Fe(III)_pc. The bulk reactivity of the MR-Fe(III) pool is equivalent to aged ferrihydrite, and shows down-core decrease due to preferential reduction of highly reactive phases of Fe oxides.

Hydrothermal plumes released from the eruption of sea floor hydrothermal fluids contain large amounts of ore-forming materials. They precipitate within certain distances from the hydrothermal vent. Six surficial sediment samples from the Southwest Indian Ridge (SWIR) were analyzed by a portable X-ray fluorescence (PXRF) analyzer on board to find a favorable method fast and efficient enough for sea floor sulfide sediment geochemical exploration. These sediments were sampled near, at a moderate distance from, or far away from hydrothermal vents. The results demonstrate that the PXRF is effective in determining the enrichment characteristics of the ore-forming elements in the calcareous sediments from the mid-ocean ridge. Sediment samples (>40 mesh) have high levels of elemental copper, zinc, iron, and manganese, and levels of these elements in sediments finer than 40 mesh are lower and relatively stable. This may be due to relatively high levels of basalt debris/glass in the coarse sediments, which are consistent with the results obtained by microscopic observation. The results also show clear zoning of elements copper, zinc, arsenic, iron, and manganese in the surficial sediments around the hydrothermal vent. Sediments near the vent show relatively high content of the ore-forming elements and either high ratios of copper to iron content and zinc to iron content or high ratios of copper to manganese content and zinc to manganese content. These findings show that the content of the ore-forming elements in the sediments around hydrothermal vents are mainly influenced by the distance of sediments to the vent, rather than grain size. In this way, the PXRF analysis of surface sediment geochemistry is found to satisfy the requirements of recognition geochemical anomaly in mid-ocean ridge sediments. Sediments with diameters finer than 40 mesh should be used as analytical samples in the geochemical exploration for hydrothermal vents on mid-oceanic ridges. The results concerning copper, zinc, arsenic, iron, and manganese and their ratio features can be used as indicators in sediment geochemical exploration of seafloor sulfides.

Oil spills pose a major threat to ocean ecosystems and their health. Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) sensors can detect oil spills on the sea surface. These oil spills appear as dark spots in SAR images. However, dark formations can be caused by a number of phenomena. It is aimed to distinguishing oil spills or look-alike objects. A novel method based on a bidimensional empirical mode decomposition is proposed. The selected dark formations are first decomposed into several bidimensional intrinsic mode functions and the residue. Subsequently, 64 dimension feature sets are calculated using the Hilbert spectral analysis and five new features are extracted with a relief algorithm. Mahalanobis distances are then used for classification. Three data sets containing oil spills or look-alikes are used to test the accuracy rate of the method. The accuracy rate is more than 90%. The experimental results demonstrate that the novel method can detect oil spills validly and accurately.

Several remotely sensed sea surface salinity (SSS) retrievals with various resolutions from the soil moisture and ocean salinity (SMOS) and Aquarius/SAC-D missions are applied as inputs for retrieving salinity profiles (S) using multilinear regressions. The performance is evaluated using a total root mean square (RMS) error, different error sources, and the feature resolutions of the retrieved S fields. In the mixed layer of the salinity, the SSS-S regression coefficients are uniformly large. The SSS inputs yield smaller RMS errors in the retrieved S with respect to Argo profiles as their spatial or temporal resolution decreases. The projected SSS errors are dominant, and the retrieved S values are more accurate than those of climatology in the tropics except for the tropical Atlantic, where the regression errors are abnormally large. Below that level, because of the influence of a sea level anomaly, the areas of high-accuracy S values shift to higher latitudes except in the high-latitude southern oceans, where the projected SSS errors are abnormally large. A spectral analysis suggests that the CATDS-0.25° results are much noisier and that the BEC-L4-0.25° results are much smoother than those of the other retrievals. Aquarius-CAP-1° generates the smallest RMS errors, and Aquarius-V2-1° performs well in depicting large-scale phenomena. BEC-L3-0.25°, which has small RMS errors and remarkable mesoscale energy, is the best fit for portraying mesoscale features in the SSS and retrieved S fields. The current priority for retrieving S is to improve the reliability of satellite SSS especially at middle and high latitudes, by developing advanced algorithms, combining both sensors, or weighing between accuracy and resolutions.

The weather research and forecasting (WRF) model is a new generation mesoscale numerical model with a fine grid resolution (2 km), making it ideal to simulate the macro- and micro-physical processes and latent heating within Typhoon Molave (2009). Simulations based on a single-moment, six-class microphysical scheme are shown to be reasonable, following verification of results for the typhoon track, wind intensity, precipitation pattern, as well as inner-core thermodynamic and dynamic structures. After calculating latent heating rate, it is concluded that the total latent heat is mainly derived from condensation below the zero degree isotherm, and from deposition above this isotherm. It is revealed that cloud microphysical processes related to graupel are the most important contributors to the total latent heat. Other important latent heat contributors in the simulated Typhoon Molave are condensation of cloud water, deposition of cloud ice, deposition of snow, initiation of cloud ice crystals, deposition of graupel, accretion of cloud water by graupel, evaporation of cloud water and rainwater, sublimation of snow, sublimation of graupel, melting of graupel, and sublimation of cloud ice. In essence, the simulated latent heat profile is similar to ones recorded by the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission, although specific values differ slightly.

Bayesian and restricted maximum likelihood (REML) approaches were used to estimate the genetic parameters in a cultured turbot Scophthalmus maximus stock. The data set consisted of harvest body weight from 2 462 progenies (17 months old) from 28 families that were produced through artificial insemination using 39 parent fish. An animal model was applied to partition each weight value into a fixed effect, an additive genetic effect, and a residual effect. The average body weight of each family, which was measured at 110 days post-hatching, was considered as a covariate. For Bayesian analysis, heritability and breeding values were estimated using both the posterior mean and mode from the joint posterior conditional distribution. The results revealed that for additive genetic variance, the posterior mean estimate ($\sigma _a^2$=9 320) was highest but with the smallest residual variance, REML estimates ($\sigma _a^2$=8 088) came second and the posterior mode estimate ($\sigma _a^2$=7 849) was lowest. The corresponding three heritability estimates followed the same trend as additive genetic variance and they were all high. The Pearson correlations between each pair of the three estimates of breeding values were all high, particularly that between the posterior mean and REML estimates (0.996 9). These results reveal that the differences between Bayesian and REML methods in terms of estimation of heritability and breeding values were small. This study provides another feasible method of genetic parameter estimation in selective breeding programs of turbot.

A three-dimensional time-domain potential flow model with second-order nonlinearity was applied to simulate the wave resonance in a gap between two side-by-side rectangular barges. In the model, the velocity potential was decomposed into the incident potential and unknown scattered potential which was obtained by solving the boundary integral equation. The fourth-order predict-correct method was applied to enforce the free surface conditions in the time integration. The influence of the wave direction on the first and second-order gap surface elevations was investigated. The results reveal that the incident wave angle does not affect the resonant wave frequency and the maximum surface elevation at resonance always occurs at the middle location along the gap. However, the corresponding maximum wave surface elevation at resonance varies with the incident wave angle. The location of the maximum wave elevation shifts either upstream or downstream along the gap, depending on the relative magnitude of incident wave frequency to the resonant frequency.

Methane seepage is the signal of the deep hydrocarbon reservoir. The determination of seepage is significant to the exploration of petroleum, gas and gas hydrate. The seepage habits microbial and macrofaunal life which is fueled by the hydrocarbons, the metabolic byproducts facilitate the precipitation of authigenic minerals. The study of methane seepage is also important to understand the oceanographic condition and local ecosystem. The seepage could be active or quiescent at different times. The geophysical surveys and the geochemical determinations reveal the existence of seepage. Among these methods, only geochemical determination could expose message of the dormant seepages. The active seepage demonstrates high porewater methane concentration with rapid SO₄^2– depleted, low H₂S and dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC), higher rates of sulfate reduction (SR) and anaerobic oxidation of methane (AOM). The quiescent seepage typically develops authigenic carbonates with specific biomarkers, with extremely depleted ¹³C in gas, DIC and carbonates and with enriched ³⁴S sulfate and depleted ³⁴S pyrite. The origin of methane, minerals precipitation, the scenario of seepage and the possible method of immigration could be determined by the integration of solutes concentration, mineral composition and isotopic fractionation of carbon, sulfur. Numerical models with the integrated results provide useful insight into the nature and intensity of methane seepage occurring in the sediment and paleo-oceanographic conditions. Unfortunately, the intensive investigation of a specific area with dormant seep is still limit. Most seepage and modeling studies are site-specific and little attempt has been made to extrapolate the results to larger scales. Further research is thus needed to foster our understanding of the methane seepage.