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Solar activity is one of the main external forcing factors driving the Earth’s climate system to change. The snow cover over the Tibetan Plateau is an important physical factor affecting the East Asian climate. At present, insufficient research on the connection between solar activity and snow cover over the Tibetan Plateau has been carried out. Using Solar Radio Flux (SRF), Solar Sunspot Number (SSN), and Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) data, this paper calculated the correlation coefficients with snow indices over the Tibetan Plateau, such as winter and spring snow depth (WSD/SSD) and snow day number (WSDN/SSDN). These snow indices are obtained from the daily gauge snow data in the Tibetan Plateau. Through correlation analyses, it is found that there are significant synchronous or lag correlations between snow indices and solar parameters on multi-time scales. In particular, the Spring Snow Day Number (SSDN) is of significant synchronous or lag correlation with SRF, SSN, and TSI on multi-time scales. It is further found that SSDN over the Tibetan Plateau has more stable positive correlations with SRF by using the 21-year running mean and cross spectrum analyses. Therefore, SSDN can be ascertained to be the most sensitive snow index to the solar activity compared with other snow indices. Moreover, its influence on summer precipitation of China is strongly regulated by solar activity. In high solar activity years (HSAY), the significant correlated area of summer precipitation in China to SSDN is located further north than that in low solar activity years (LSAY). Such impact by solar activity is also remarkable after excluding the impact of ENSO (i.e., El Niño–Southern Oscillation) events. These results provide support for the application of snow indices in summer rainfall prediction in China.

This study was conducted to investigate the effects of a traditional Chinese herbal medicine complex (TCHMC) on the productive performance of periparturient dairy cows. Eighteen non-lactating pregnant Holstein dairy cows with similar body conditions with 1 to 2 parity were randomly divided into three groups (

On 5th May, 2007, a Mw6.1 earthquake occurred in the Ali region, China. In this study, ascending and descending tracks of ASAR images collected by Envisat satellite are employed to derive the precise coseismic surface displacements, then nonlinear MPSO algorithm and linear least-square method with elastic half-space dislocation model are used to estimate the fault geometry and coseismic slip distribution. Our model suggests that the distributed slip mode can fit the observations very well. The earthquake fault is a normal fault with a strike of 158°, a dip of 43° and dipping to southwest. The slip mainly occurs within 7~12 km along the orientation, with a maximum slip of 0.3 m at a depth of 9 km. The determined geodetic moment is 1.24×1018 Nm, which is consistent with seismological results.

We report a new horizontal Global Positioning System velocity field in the Chinese mainland from the data analysis of about 2000 GPS sites observed in 2009, 2011 and 2013 through three campaigns of the CMONOC project. Assuming the crustal block to characterize their kinematic behaviors, we estimate parameters of 22 crustal blocks to fit the GPS-derived velocity by using GIPSY software. We restrict us to compare two competing models in which the rigid blocks and the deforming blocks are involved. Our modeling suggests that the most crustal blocks characterized by coherent movement and internal strain may be better in describing the kinematics of crustal deformation in the Chinese mainland.

Investigations of the well-known paleontological and archaeological site of Tangzigou in western Yunnan Province in 2003 and 2006 yielded plentiful mammalian remains and a large number of stone and bone artifacts. Among the mammalian remains were those of many micromammals representing modern taxa of Scandentia, Insectivora, and Rodentia. The micromammal assemblage is dominated by rodents, which constitute 92% of the total number of identifiable elements. Murids are the most common elements, followed by rhizomyids, sciurids, and hystricids. The Tangzigou deposits appear to have been created over a period of 200–300 years in the early to middle Holocene, judging from the tight cluster of AMS radiocarbon dates between 9000 and 8745 BP. Based on the known habitat preferences of the living species, most of the Tangzigou micromammals were arboreal or dwellers of the forest floor. The micromammal assemblage thus indicates that subtropical forest including bamboo dominated the environment around Tangzigou. The assemblage is remarkable for the near absence of very small micromammal species such as small mice. This bias appears to have been introduced by humans who collected the larger-bodied species of micromammals for food. This interpretation is supported by the presence of a large number of burned elements, especially dentaries. The analysis of the larger mammals also showed that Tangzigou was a place where prehistoric people gathered to butcher the hunted/scavenged animals.

Two subfossil partial skeletons of male giant pandas (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) were recovered, along with remains of 16 other mammalian species, from a natural sinkhole on Jiangdong Mountain (south-...

On the basis of the dislocation theory and gravity observation, a joint inversion model is presented with a fitting factor λ scaling amplitudes between the gravity and GPS observation data. The test results show that the new joint model is better than that taking the scale factor λ as a constant from the inversion result of MSE (mean square error). In addition, the random cost method used in the inversion algorithm is revised and improved, which shows that the improved random cost method can easily get the local minimum value and greatly decrease the iteration steps.

Combining the dense GPS and gravity observation data in Sichuan-Yunnan area, where there are the relatively complete active tectonic zones and seismic data, this paper applies the geodesy and geophysical inversion technique and the advanced numerical simulation to the synthesis study of geodesy inversion to find the dynamic process of tectonic movement and deformation in the area and finally to investigate the kinematics characteristic of the geological structure of different layer and different scale. This paper discusses the kinematics, dynamics model about the crustal movement of active blocks in Sichuan-Yunnan area and its adjacent areas.

We have determined approximate average rates of deformation in the Qinghai-Tibet plateau and its margins from the GPS data for last 10 years and the moment tensors from earthquakes between 1900 and 1999. We also determined the strain rate (seismic strain rate) associated with the seismic deformation using 254M ω ≥5.0 earthquakes, and estimated the shortening and extension rates for every block in the area as well. We also estimated the strain rate (geodetic strain rate) by 80 GPS sites’ velocity vectors and analyzed characteristic of kinematics by two kinds of strain rates and discussed earthquake potential in the area. As a result, the deformation rates from seismic moment tensors and from GPS velocities are basically agreed with each other. It is feasible to analyze seismic risk by comparing geodetic strain rate with seismic strain rate based on the opinion that strain energy will be released through earthquake. It is concluded that there is no strong earthquake potential (>M7) in the Qinghai-Tibet plateau and its margins, but there is earthquake potential (>M5) in middle Tibet in a few years.