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Clouds cover substantial parts of the Earth's surface and they are one of the most essential components of the global climate system impacting the Earth's radiation balance as well as the water cycle redistributing water around the globe as precipitation. Therefore, continuous observation of clouds is of primary interest in climate and hydrological studies. This work documents the first efforts in Italy in remote sensing clouds and precipitation using a combination of K- and W-band (24 and 94 GHz, respectively) radar profilers. Such a dual-frequency radar configuration has not been widely used yet, but it could catch on in the near future given its lower initial cost and ease of deployment for commercially available systems at 24 GHz, with respect to more established configurations. A field campaign running at the Casale Calore observatory at the University of L'Aquila, Italy, nestled in the Apennine mountain range is described. The campaign features are preceded by a review of the literature and the underpinning theoretical background that might help newcomers, especially in the Italian community, to approach cloud and precipitation remote sensing. This activity takes place in interesting time for radar sensing clouds and precipitation, stimulated both by the launch of the ESA/JAXA EarthCARE satellite missions scheduled in 2024, which will have on-board, among other instruments, a W-band Doppler cloud radar and the proposal of new missions using cloud radars currently undergoing their feasibility studies (e.g., WIVERN and AOS in Europe and Canada, and U.S., respectively).

Ground-based radar precipitation products typically need adjustment with rain gauge accumulations to achieve a reasonable accuracy. This is certainly the case for the pan-European radar precipitation products. The density of (near) real-time rain gauge accumulations from official networks is often relatively low. Crowdsourced rain gauge networks have a much higher density than conventional ones and are a potentially interesting (complementary) source to merge with radar precipitation accumulations. Here, a 1-year personal weather station (PWS) rain gauge dataset of ∼ 5 min accumulations is obtained from the private company Netatmo over the period 1 September 2019–31 August 2020, which is subjected to quality control using neighbouring PWSs and, after aggregating to 1 h accumulations, using unadjusted radar data. The PWS 1 h gauge accumulations are employed to spatially adjust OPERA radar accumulations, covering 78 % of geographical Europe. The performance of the merged dataset is evaluated against daily and disaggregated 1 h gauge accumulations from weather stations in the European Climate Assessment & Dataset (ECA&D). Results are contrasted to those from an unadjusted OPERA-based radar dataset and from EURADCLIM. The severe average underestimation for daily precipitation of ∼ 28 % from the unadjusted radar dataset diminishes to ∼ 3 % for the merged radar–PWS dataset. A station-based spatial verification shows that the relative bias in 1 h precipitation is still quite variable and suggests stronger underestimations for colder climates. A dedicated evaluation with scatter density plots reveals that the performance is indeed less good for lower temperatures, which points to limitations in observing solid precipitation by PWS gauges. The outcome of this study confirms the potential of crowdsourcing to improve radar precipitation products in (near) real time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the implementation and validation of the torus mapping, a method to dealias radial wind observations by meteorological radars is presented. We apply the procedure to data from the Operational program for exchange of weather radar information (OPERA) over central part of Europe for the whole year 2021. The quality of the resulting radar winds is assessed by a comparison to colocated radiosonde and aircraft observations and also through analysis of first guess departures using a regional numerical weather prediction model. Performance of quality control on dealiased radial wind data is also evaluated.We show that the torus mapping method is a robust procedure on data with a sufficiently low amount of measurement noise. It produces datasets of comparable quality for a wide range of Nyquist velocity values and has potential for operational applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of nocturnal bird migration brings observational challenges because of reduced visibility and observability of birds at night. Remote sensing tools, especially radars, have long been the preferred choice of scientists to study nocturnal migrations. A major downside of these remote sensing tools is the lack of species-level information. With technological advances in recent decades and with improved accessibility and affordability of acoustic tools, sound recordings have steeply increased in popularity. In Europe, there is no exhaustive qualitative and quantitative evaluation of the content of such acoustic databases and therefore the value for migration science and migration-related applications, such as bird collision hazard assessments, is mostly unknown. In the present work we compared migration schedules estimated from citizen science data with quantitative temporal occurrence of species in four years of acoustic recordings. Furthermore, we contrasted acoustic recordings with citizen science observations and weather radar data from one spring and one autumn season to assess the qualitative and quantitative yield of acoustic recordings for migration-related research and applications. Migration intensity estimated from weather radar data correlated best at low levels with acoustic records including all species in spring while in autumn passerine species showed stronger correlation than the entire species composition. Our findings identify a minor number of species whose call records may be eligible for applications derived from acoustics. Especially the highly vocal species Song thrush and Redwing showed relatively good correlations with radar and citizen science migration schedules. Most long-distance passerine migrants and many other migrants were not captured by acoustics and an estimated seasonal average of about 50% of nocturnally migrating passerine populations remained undetected. Overall, the ability of acoustic records to act as a proxy of overall migration dynamics is highly dependent on the migration period and species involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European climatological high-resolution gauge-adjusted radar precipitation dataset, EURADCLIM, addresses the need for an accurate (sub-)daily precipitation product covering 78% of Europe at high spatial resolution. A climatological dataset of 1-h and 24-h precipitation accumulations on a 2-km grid is derived for the period 2013 through 2020. The starting point is the European Meteorological Network (EUMETNET) Operational Program on the Exchange of weather RAdar Information (OPERA) gridded radar dataset of 15-min instantaneous surface rain rates, which is based on data from, on average, 138 ground-based weather radars. First, methods are applied to further remove non-meteorological echoes from these composites by applying two statistical methods and a satellite-based cloud type mask. Second, the radar composites are merged with the European Climate Assessment & Dataset (ECA&D) with potentially ~7700 rain gauges from National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHS) in order to substantially improve its quality. Characteristics of the radar, rain gauge and satellite datasets are presented, as well as a detailed account of the applied algorithms. The clutter removal algorithms are effective, while removing few precipitation echoes. The usefulness of EURADCLIM for quantitative precipitation estimation (QPE) is confirmed by comparing against rain gauge accumulations employing scatter density plots, statistical metrics, and a spatial verification. These show a strong improvement with respect to the original OPERA product. The potential of EURADCLIM to derive pan-European precipitation climatologies and to evaluate extreme precipitation events is shown. Specific attention is given to remaining artefacts in and limitations of EURADCLIM. Finally, it is recommended to further improve EURADCLIM by applying algorithms to 3D instead of 2D radar data, and by obtaining more rain gauge data for the radar-gauge merging. The EURADCLIM 1-h and 24-h precipitation datasets are publicly available at https://doi.org/10.21944/7ypj-wn68 (Overeem et al., 2022a) and https://doi.org/10.21944/1a54-gg96 (Overeem et al., 2022b). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Weather radar networks have great potential for continuous and long-term monitoring of aerial biodiversity of birds, bats, and insects. Biological data from weather radars can support ecological research, inform conservation policy development and implementation, and increase the public's interest in natural phenomena such as migration. Weather radars are already used to study animal migration, quantify changes in populations, and reduce aerial conflicts between birds and aircraft. Yet efforts to establish a framework for the broad utilization of operational weather radar for biodiversity monitoring are at risk without suitable data policies and infrastructure in place. In Europe, communities of meteorologists and ecologists have made joint efforts toward sharing and standardizing continent-wide weather radar data. These efforts are now at risk as new meteorological data exchange policies render data useless for biodiversity monitoring. In several other parts of the world, weather radar data are not even available for ecological research. We urge policy makers, funding agencies, and meteorological organizations across the world to recognize the full potential of weather radar data. We propose several actions that would ensure the continued capability of weather radar networks worldwide to act as powerful tools for biodiversity monitoring and research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Clinical research with remote monitoring technologies (RMTs) has multiple advantages over standard paper-pencil tests, but also raises several ethical concerns. While several studies have addressed the issue of governance of big data in clinical research from the legal or ethical perspectives, the viewpoint of local research ethics committee (REC) members is underrepresented in the current literature. The aim of this study is therefore to find which specific ethical challenges are raised by RECs in the context of a large European study on remote monitoring in all syndromic stages of Alzheimer's disease, and what gaps remain., Methods: Documents describing the REC review process at 10 sites in 9 European countries from the project Remote Assessment of Disease and Relapse-Alzheimer's Disease (RADAR-AD) were collected and translated. Main themes emerging in the documents were identified using a qualitative analysis approach., Results: Four main themes emerged after analysis: data management, participant's wellbeing, methodological issues, and the issue of defining the regulatory category of RMTs. Review processes differed across sites: process duration varied from 71 to 423 days, some RECs did not raise any issues, whereas others raised up to 35 concerns, and the approval of a data protection officer was needed in half of the sites., Discussion: The differences in the ethics review process of the same study protocol across different local settings suggest that a multi-site study would benefit from a harmonization in research ethics governance processes. More specifically, some best practices could be included in ethical reviews across institutional and national contexts, such as the opinion of an institutional data protection officer, patient advisory board reviews of the protocol and plans for how ethical reflection is embedded within the study., Competing Interests: The authors have read the journal’s policy and have the following competing interests: IK is a paid medical advisor for digital healthcare technology companies Five Lives SAS and Cognetivity Ltd., outside the submitted work. CA has received honoraria as speaker from F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd, Zambon, Nutricia, Schwabe Farma Ibérica S.A.U, outside of the submitted work. CA is a member of the Board of Directors of the Lewy Body Dementia Association, outside the submitted work. DA has received research support and/or honoraria from Astra-Zeneca, H. Lundbeck, Novartis Pharmaceuticals, Biogen, and GE Health, and served as paid consultant for H. Lundbeck, Eisai, Heptares, Mentis Cura, and Roche Diagnostics, outside the submitted work. MB is an employee of the Ace Alzheimer Center and an advisory board member for Grifols, Roche, Eli Lilly, Araclon Biotech, Merck, Zambon, Biogen, Novo Nordisk, Bioiberica, Eisai, Servier, and Schwabe Pharma, outside the submitted work. This does not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials. All other authors have declared that no competing interests exist. There are no patents, products in development or marketed products associated with this research to declare., (Copyright: © 2023 Muurling et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

A chronological synopsis of the history of the technology used in experimental and testing work relating to artillery pieces is presented. The period covered is from the mid-seventeenth century up to the Cold War era of the mid-twentieth century. Although the focus is on the development of ballistics measurement in Britain, there are important links to related work in continental Europe. The locus for much of what is described is the Royal Artillery proof and experimental range at Shoeburyness and the key individuals and groups of men and women who worked there. There are longitudinal connections between the very earliest technologies of mechanical chronometry, with paper screens and paper-based calculations, and the later technology where timings, screens and calculations had all become electronic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ash dieback, acute oak decline (AOD), and Xylella Fastidiosa are emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) that have spread rapidly in European forests during the last decade. Quarantine measurements have mostly failed to repress the outbreaks and millions of trees have already been infected. Identifying infected trees in a nondestructive manner is of high importance for monitoring, managing, and preventing EIDs. The aim of this article is to examine the capabilities of ground penetrating radar (GPR) on evaluating the internal structure of tree trunks and detecting tree decay associated with EIDs. Traditionally used processing schemes tuned for GPR line acquisitions are modified accordingly to be compatible with the new measurement configurations. In particular, a detection framework is presented based on a modified Kirchhoff and a reverse-time migration. Both of the aforementioned methodologies are compatible with measurements taken along closed irregular curves assuming a homogeneous permittivity distribution. To that extent, prior to migration, a novel focal criterion is used that estimates the bulk permittivity of the host medium from the measured B-scans. The suggested detection scheme is successfully tested on both numerical and laboratory measurements, indicating that GPR has the potential to become a coherent and practical tool for detecting tree decay associated with EIDs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nocturnal avian migration flyways remain an elusive concept, as we have largely lacked methods to map their full extent. We used the network of European weather radars to investigate nocturnal bird movements at the scale of the European flyway. We mapped the main migration directions and showed the intensity of movement across part of Europe by extracting biological information from 70 weather radar stations from northern Scandinavia to Portugal, during the autumn migration season of 2016. On average, over the 20 nights and all sites, 389 birds passed per 1 km transect per hour. The night with highest migration intensity showed an average of 1621 birds km–1 h–1 passing the radar stations, but there was considerable geographical and temporal variation in migration intensity. The highest intensity of migration was seen in central France. The overall migration directions showed strong southwest components. Migration dynamics were strongly related to synoptic wind conditions. A wind‐related mass migration event occurred immediately after a change in wind conditions, but quickly diminished even when supporting winds continued to prevail. This first continental‐scale study using the European network of weather radars demonstrates the wealth of information available and its potential for investigating large‐scale bird movements, with consequences for ecosystem function, nutrient transfer, human and livestock health, and civil and military aviation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Precipitation is arguably one of the most relevant surface variables impacting human lives on the planet, but global-coverage, high-resolution and good-quality observations are not readily available. In particular, gridded observational datasets are much needed for model development and forecast quality assessment. Here we compare the quality of four types of gridded precipitation products over Europe, namely: a rain-gauge interpolation; a satellite-derived product; a radar composite; and a reanalysis. Each product has its own strengths and weaknesses, and since each precipitation estimate uses different measuring techniques, we can employ a triangulation method to estimate the error variance of each product with respect to the unknown true values. Results show that: a) the satellite product has limited quality over Europe and may be problematic to use in quantitative forecast evaluation and diagnostics; b) the radar composite has spurious features that need to be considered when used in verification; c) all products struggle in topographically complex areas; d) the rain-gauge interpolation is not free of errors, despite rain gauges being often treated as ground truth in the literature; and e) the reanalysis dataset produces in some cases the best available estimates, in particular over the European near-coastal waters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The annual, seasonal, and diurnal spatiotemporal heavy convective precipitation patterns over a pan-European domain are analyzed in this study using a combination of datasets, including the Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) (IMERG) precipitation rate product, E-OBS ground-based precipitation gauge data, European climatological gauge-adjusted radar precipitation dataset (EURADCLIM), Operational Programme for the Exchange of Weather Radar Information (OPERA) ground-based radar-derived precipitation rates, and fifth major global reanalysis produced by ECMWF (ERA5) total and convective precipitation products. Arrival Time Difference Network (ATDnet) lightning data are used in conjunction with IMERG and EURADCLIM precipitation rates, with an imposed threshold of 10 mm h−1 to classify precipitation as convective. Annually, the largest convective precipitation accumulations are over the European seas and coastlines. In summer, convective precipitation is more common over the European continent, though relatively large accumulations exist over the northern coastal waters and the southern seas, with a seasonal localized maximum over the northern Adriatic Sea. Activity shifts southward to the Mediterranean and its coastlines in autumn and winter, with maxima over the Ionian Sea, the eastern Adriatic Sea, and the adjacent coastline. Over the continent, 1%–10% of the total precipitation accumulated is classified as convective, increasing to 10%–40% over the surrounding seas. In contrast, 30%–50% of ERA5 precipitation accumulations over land is produced by the convective parameterization scheme and 40%–60% over the seas; however, only 1% of ERA5 convective precipitation accumulations are from rain rates exceeding 10 mm h−1. Regional analyses indicate that convective precipitation rates over the inland mountains follow diurnal heating, though little to no diurnal pattern exists in convective precipitation rates over the seas and coastal mountains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A review of track detection algorithms across different research fields. • Technical description of the initiation, maintenance and termination of a radar track in the BIRALES radar. • Presentation of a new track detection strategy that is used for the detection of orbital debris using a bi-static continuous-wave radar. • Performance evaluation of this new track detection method on synthetic data. The world's economy has become heavily dependent on the services provided by satellites. With the exponential increase in satellite launches, the population of defunct or inactive hardware in space has grown substantially. This is especially true in sensitive orbits such as the Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO) regimes. These objects, collectively known as orbital debris, can reach speeds of up to 28 000km h−1 in LEO. At these orbital speeds, even the smallest of objects can pose a considerable threat to operational satellites or astronauts. This makes the monitoring, and detection, of these objects of the utmost importance. This work describes the latest detection strategy used in one of Europe's largest Space Situational Awareness (SSA) installation; the BIstatic RAdar for LEo Survey (BIRALES) space debris radar. We present a novel bottom-up approach that makes use of single-linkage clustering to identify faint radar streaks in spectrogram data. Tests on synthetic data have shown that the detection strategy presented in this study obtains a higher detection rate when it is compared against existing methods. Unlike other approaches, this detection strategy, using the Multi-beam streak detection strategy (MSDS) algorithm, was still able to recall 90% of the track information at an Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) of 2dB. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impact of tick-borne diseases caused by pathogens such as Anaplasma phagocytophilum, Neoehrlichia mikurensis, Borrelia miyamotoi, Rickettsia helvetica and Babesia species on public health is largely unknown. Data on the prevalence of these pathogens in Ixodes ricinus ticks from seven countries within the North Sea Region in Europe as well as the types and availability of diagnostic tests and the main clinical features of their corresponding diseases is reported and discussed. Raised awareness is needed to discover cases of these under-recognized types of tick-borne disease, which should provide valuable insights into these diseases and their clinical significance., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest None, (Copyright © 2023. Published by Elsevier GmbH.)

Large parts of the continents are continuously scanned by terrestrial weather radars to monitor precipitation and wind conditions. These systems also monitor the mass movements of bird, bat, and insect migration, but it is still unknown how many of these systems perform with regard to detection and quantification of migration intensities of the different groups. In this study that was undertaken within five regions across Europe and the Middle East we examined to what extent bird migration intensities derived from different weather radars are comparable between each other and relate to intensities measured by local small‐scaled radars, some of them specifically developed to monitor birds. Good correspondence was found for the relative day‐to‐day pattern in migration intensities among most radar systems that were compared. Absolute intensities varied between different systems and regions. The findings of this study can be used to infer about absolute bird migration intensities measured by different radar systems and consequently help resolving methodological issues regarding the estimation of migrant numbers in the Western‐Palearctic region. It further depicts a scientific basis for the future monitoring of migratory bird populations across a large spatio‐temporal scale, predicting their movements and studying its consequences on ecological systems and human lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The quality of OPERA radar precipitation composites is assessed during 2015–2017. • SYNOP gauges records over Europe are used as reference and to adjust OPERA rainfall. • 3 years analysis shows improvement in the radar composites after rain gauge adjustment. • The daily monitoring shows gradual improvements of the OPERA composite itself. • Adjusted OPERA composites are useful for pan-European flash flood hazard assessment. Monitoring continental precipitation over Europe with high resolution (2 km, 15 min) has been possible since the operational production of the OPERA composites from the European weather radar networks. The OPERA data are the essential input to a hazard assessment tool for identifying localized rainfall-induced flash floods at European scale, and their quality determines the performance of the tool. This paper analyses the OPERA data quality during the warm seasons of 2015–2017 by comparing the estimated rainfall accumulations with the SYNOP rain gauge records over Europe. To compensate the OPERA underestimation, a simple spatially-variable bias adjustment method has been applied. The long-term comparison between the OPERA and gauge point daily rainfall accumulations at the gauge locations shows the benefit of the bias adjustment. Additionally, the daily monitoring shows gradual improvement of the OPERA data year by year. The impact of the quality of the OPERA data for effective flash flood identification is demonstrated for the case of the flash floods that occurred from 29 May to 3 June 2016 in central Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study gives a summary of lessons learned during the absolute calibration of the airborne, high-power Ka-band cloud radar HAMP MIRA on board the German research aircraft HALO. The first part covers the internal calibration of the instrument where individual instrument components are characterized in the laboratory. In the second part, the internal calibration is validated with external reference sources like the ocean surface backscatter and different air- and spaceborne cloud radar instruments. A key component of this work was the characterization of the spectral response and the transfer function of the receiver. In a wide dynamic range of 70 dB , the receiver response turned out to be very linear (residual 0.05 dB). Using different attenuator settings, it covers a wide input range from -105 to -5 dBm. This characterization gave valuable new insights into the receiver sensitivity and additional attenuations which led to a major improvement of the absolute calibration. The comparison of the measured and the previously estimated total receiver noise power (-95.3 vs. -98.2 dBm) revealed an underestimation of 2.9 dB. This underestimation could be traced back to a larger receiver noise bandwidth of 7.5 MHz (instead of 5 MHz) and a slightly higher noise figure (1.1 dB). Measurements confirmed the previously assumed antenna gain (50.0 dBi) with no obvious asymmetries or increased side lobes. The calibration used for previous campaigns, however, did not account for a 1.5 dB two-way attenuation by additional waveguides in the airplane installation. Laboratory measurements also revealed a 2 dB higher two-way attenuation by the belly pod caused by small deviations during manufacturing. In total, effective reflectivities measured during previous campaigns had to be corrected by +7.6 dB. To validate this internal calibration, the well-defined ocean surface backscatter was used as a calibration reference. With the new absolute calibration, the ocean surface backscatter measured by HAMP MIRA agrees very well (<1 dB) with modeled values and values measured by the GPM satellite. As a further cross-check, flight experiments over Europe and the tropical North Atlantic were conducted. To that end, a joint flight of HALO and the French Falcon 20 aircraft, which was equipped with the RASTA cloud radar at 94 GHz and an underflight of the spaceborne CloudSat at 94 GHz were performed. The intercomparison revealed lower reflectivities (-1.4 dB) for RASTA but slightly higher reflectivities (+1.0 dB) for CloudSat. With effective reflectivities between RASTA and CloudSat and the good agreement with GPM, the accuracy of the absolute calibration is estimated to be around 1 dB. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Functional decline in Alzheimer's disease (AD) is typically measured using single-time point subjective rating scales, which rely on direct observation or (caregiver) recall. Remote monitoring technologies (RMTs), such as smartphone applications, wearables, and home-based sensors, can change these periodic subjective assessments to more frequent, or even continuous, objective monitoring. The aim of the RADAR-AD study is to assess the accuracy and validity of RMTs in measuring functional decline in a real-world environment across preclinical-to-moderate stages of AD compared to standard clinical rating scales., Methods: This study includes three tiers. For the main study, we will include participants (n = 220) with preclinical AD, prodromal AD, mild-to-moderate AD, and healthy controls, classified by MMSE and CDR score, from clinical sites equally distributed over 13 European countries. Participants will undergo extensive neuropsychological testing and physical examination. The RMT assessments, performed over an 8-week period, include walk tests, financial management tasks, an augmented reality game, two activity trackers, and two smartphone applications installed on the participants' phone. In the first sub-study, fixed sensors will be installed in the homes of a representative sub-sample of 40 participants. In the second sub-study, 10 participants will stay in a smart home for 1 week. The primary outcome of this study is the difference in functional domain profiles assessed using RMTs between the four study groups. The four participant groups will be compared for each RMT outcome measure separately. Each RMT outcome will be compared to a standard clinical test which measures the same functional or cognitive domain. Finally, multivariate prediction models will be developed. Data collection and privacy are important aspects of the project, which will be managed using the RADAR-base data platform running on specifically designed biomedical research computing infrastructure., Results: First results are expected to be disseminated in 2022., Conclusion: Our study is well placed to evaluate the clinical utility of RMT assessments. Leveraging modern-day technology may deliver new and improved methods for accurately monitoring functional decline in all stages of AD. It is greatly anticipated that these methods could lead to objective and real-life functional endpoints with increased sensitivity to pharmacological agent signal detection.

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Elysium Planitia includes several outflow channels that were likely carved by aqueous erosion and subsequently infilled by younger lava flows, making Elysium Planitia the youngest volcanic terrain on Mars. Studying this region is critical for constraining the recent hydrological and thermal evolution of the planet. Here, we investigate the lava flow areas, thicknesses, and volumes in Elysium Planitia using Context (CTX) camera images in combination with SHAllow RADar (SHARAD) sounder data. Compiling 1,777 reflectors over an area of 9,126,790 km2 allows us to reconstruct the subsurface landscape evolution over time. Our findings show that Elysium Planitia is composed of material from about 40 episodes of effusive volcanic activity. We report volumes for individual eruptions of 4,000 ± 1,600 km3 infilling Athabasca Valles, 12,200 ± 2,500 km3 in Marte Vallis, and 16,000 ± 4,000 km3 in Rahway Valles for the major flow units and volumes as small as 100 ± 50 km3 in Cerberus Plains. The surface morphologies and inferred dielectric properties of lobe interfaces suggests that the regions consists of basaltic lava. The region also experienced multiple aqueous flooding events. Although, we found evidence of past lava–water interactions, present‐day ground‐ice (if present) is likely limited to local patches. Further, the pre‐eruption landscape reveals that the aqueously carved Marte Vallis is more areal extensive, but shallower than previously suggested, with a likely paleo‐flow direction from northwest to southeast. The channel is most likely sourced from a segment in the northwestern portion of Cerberus Fossae, and is now buried by multiple Late Amazonian lavas with the same lava flow direction. Plain Language Summary: Elysium Planitia on Mars has a fascinating history of water and lava flows that shaped its landscape. It is the youngest volcanic terrain on the planet, and studying it helps us to better understand Mars' past as well as recent hydrological and volcanic history. We examined this region by using spacecraft images and radar data to constrain areas, thicknesses, and volumes. An area almost as large as Europe was investigated. The study revealed the products of more than 40 volcanic events, with one of the largest flows infilling Athabasca Valles with a volume of 4,000 km3. The surface appearance and material properties suggest that Elysium Planitia is composed of basalt, the most common type of lava on Earth. The area also experienced several large floods of water, and there is evidence that lava and water interacted in the past. However, while there could be ice in the ground today, it likely occurs in small patches. The study also provides new insights into the Marte Vallis outflow channel. It seems to be larger, but not as deep as previously thought, with water flowing from northwest to southeast and fed from a fissure in the northwest. Marte Vallis was later covered by several lava layers. Key Points: We performed detailed surface and subsurface mapping of the entire Elysium Planitia region to constrain lava areas, thicknesses, and volumesElysium Planitia is composed of the products of about 40 effusive eruptions including large flood lava flows and lava shieldsResults indicate that there is no singular direction in dike propagation [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent release of European Ground Motion Service (EGMS) products implemented under the responsibility of the Copernicus Land Monitoring Service (CLMS) guarantees free and accessible Europe-wide ground motion data for ground deformation analysis at the local and regional scales. The need for value-adding services and tools for optimal dissemination of radar data from the Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellite mission urges the scientific community to find efficient solutions. A desktop R-based application with a user-friendly interface capable of automatically downloading and transforming EGMS products delivered as large.csv tiles, equivalent to a radar burst into geospatial databases, is presented here. EGMStream is a self-contained desktop app that enables users to systematically store, customize, and convert ground movement data into geospatial databases, burst per burst or for an area of interest directly selectable on the app interface. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As powerful economic and cultural centers, fortified sites played an important role in early medieval society. In Central Europe, early medieval fortified site research has been an essential topic for several generations. However, gradual changes in the landscape are a threat to these cultural heritage monuments. The main task of this paper was to compare the previous results from archaeological excavations with new data acquired by geophysical methods. The presented study is based on the three methods widely used in archaeology: magnetometry, ground-penetrating radar, and electrical resistivity tomography. New surveys provide information about the internal structure and the state of preservation of the fortifications in a non-destructive way. Comparison of the results encourages the evaluation of archaeological excavation and helps determine the suitability and effectiveness of geophysical methods in specific natural conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Low-level wind shear, i.e., sudden changes in wind speed and/or wind direction up to altitudes of 1600 ft (500 m) above-ground is a hazardous meteorological phenomenon in aviation. It may radically change the aerodynamic circumstances of the flight, particularly during landing and take-off and consequently, it may threaten human lives and the health of passengers, people at the airport and its surrounding areas. The Bratislava Airport, the site of this case study, is one of the few airports worldwide and the first in Central Europe that is equipped with a Doppler lidar system, a perspective remote sensing tool for detecting low-level wind shear. The main objective of this paper was to assess the weather events collected over a period of one year with the occurrences of low-level wind shear situations, such as vertical discontinuities in the wind field, frontal passages and gust fronts to increase the level of flight safety and protect human lives and health. The lidar data were processed by a computer algorithm with the main focus on potential wind shear alerts and microburst alerts, guided by the recommendations of the International Civil Aviation Organisation. In parallel, the selected weather events were analyzed by the nearby located meteorological radar to utilize the strengths of both approaches. Additionally, an evaluation of the lidar capability to scan dynamics of aerosol content above the airport is presented.

Airspace is a key but not well-understood habitat for many animal species. Enormous amounts of insects and birds use the airspace to forage, disperse, and migrate. Despite numerous studies on migration, the year-round flight activities of both birds and insects are still poorly studied. We used a 2 year dataset from a vertical-looking radar in Central Europe and developed an iterative hypothesis-testing algorithm to investigate the general temporal pattern of migratory and local movements. We estimated at least 3 million bird and 20 million insect passages over a 1 km transect annually. Most surprisingly, peak non-directional bird movement intensities during summer were of the same magnitude as seasonal directional movement peaks. Birds showed clear peaks in seasonally directional movements during day and night, coinciding well with the main migration period documented in this region. Directional insect movements occurred throughout the year, paralleling non-directional movements. In spring and summer, insect movements were non-directional; in autumn, their movements concentrated toward the southwest, similar to birds. Notably, the nocturnal movements of insects did not appear until April, while directional movements mainly occurred in autumn. This simple monitoring reveals how little we still know about the movement of biomass through airspace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inundation is one of the major natural hazards in Europe. The evaluation of the flood hazard and risk is not straightforward mainly due to the monitoring system that is poor or not uniformly distributed in the territory. The ESA Earth Observation Program, including a series of satellites, Sentinels, for the operative observation of the natural phenomenon, e.g. the inundations, can potentially reduce the gap. Sentinel-1 (SAR: synthetic aperture radar) and Sentinel-2 (optical) have been demonstrated to be suitable for mapping flooded areas, but despite the medium–high spatial and temporal resolution of the sensors, the mapping of inundated territories is often partial or missing. The objective of this study is to evaluate through a synthetic study the effectiveness of Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 in the systematic assessment of floods in Europe, where the flood events have durations ranging from some hours to a few days. To reach the target, we analysed 10 years of river discharge data over almost 2000 sites in Europe, and we extracted flood events over some established thresholds as proxies of riverine inundations. Based on the revisit time of the satellite constellations and cloud coverage, we derived the percentage of potential inundation events that Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 could be able to observe. Results show that assuming the configuration of a constellation of two satellites for each mission and considering the ascending and descending orbit, on average 58 % of flood events are potentially observable by Sentinel-1 and only 28 % by Sentinel-2 due to the cloud coverage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knotweeds were introduced into Europe in the 19th century and soon after became aggressive invaders. While R. japonica and R. sachalinensis arrived from Asia, their hybrid Reynoutria × bohemica is believed to originate from the introduced range. Revised material shows that R. × bohemica has occurred in Europe since at least 1872, but was frequently misidentified as one of the parents. For that reason, the hybrid was detected relatively late in many European countries, meaning that it was silently spreading throughout the region for a long time. The present study was conducted in Croatia, where the parental species have been recorded since the 19th century, the hybrid, however, not being recognized until very recently, although it has probably been present for decades. As a result, the current knowledge of the distribution of knotweeds in Croatia is mostly erroneous. We revised specimens from Croatian herbaria and performed an extensive field survey across the whole of the territory of Croatia to collect new data. In this paper, we present accurate distribution maps of the three taxa, produced after a thorough revision, showing a result remarkably different to that previously known. In contrast to previously recorded distributions, we found that R. × bohemica is by far the most widespread, R. japonica is occasional, and R. sachalinensis is extremely rare. R. × bohemica, unlike its parents, occurs in Mediterranean Croatia as well. Compared to R. × bohemica, R. japonica occurs more frequently along watercourses. Taking into account that the studied taxa have different behaviour, ecological preferences, spreading ability and consequently different invasiveness, they should be analysed separately in any attempt to explain, manage and/or limit their spread. Therefore, the accuracy of their past and future identification is of major importance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Operational Program on the Exchange of Weather Radar Information (OPERA) has co-ordinated radar co-operation among national weather services in Europe for more than 20 years. It has introduced its own, manufacturer-independent data model, runs its own data center, and produces Pan-European radar composites. The applications using this data vary from data assimilation to flood warnings and the monitoring of animal migration. It has used several approaches to provide a homogeneous combination of disparate raw data and to indicate the reliability of its products. In particular, if a pixel shows no precipitation, it is important to know if that pixel is dry or if the measurement was missing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the main drivers of biodiversity loss in Europe's agricultural landscapes has been a research priority in the last decades. One of the most important factors promoting biodiversity in farmed landscapes is habitat heterogeneity, which has often proved crucial for avian species and communities. Birds are highly sensitive to environmental changes and make use of a broad range of ecological niches, thus being exceptionally sensitive to the loss of habitat heterogeneity. Remote sensing data are particularly suited to quantify habitat heterogeneity at fine scales over relatively large extents, allowing to consider how different measures of heterogeneity may affect biotic communities at a regional scale. Here, we used airborne LiDAR (Light Detection And Ranging) and satellite multispectral data to derive vegetation canopy height and primary productivity for 118 sites in complex agricultural landscapes in a region in the Central Alps. We computed different bird diversity indices and classified bird species into guilds according to specific traits to analyse the relationship between avian communities and different facets of habitat heterogeneity. Results confirmed that habitat heterogeneity is essential in shaping rich and diverse bird communities, and it is particularly important for several farmland birds. By comparing the effects of canopy height, primary productivity, and specific vegetation features (e.g., cover of grassland, shrub, and tree layers), we showed how different habitat characteristics as well as landscape heterogeneity affected bird richness, diversity, functional entropy, and trait patterns. Landscape and height heterogeneity, estimated by NDVI and LiDAR Rao's Q indices, strongly influenced all response variables, for example, high NDVI values promoted species diversity and ground-understory nesters, and shrub layer was important for ground-understory nesters and forest specialists. Finally, we provide recommendations for conservation practices and mitigation measures to improve bird diversity in agricultural landscapes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Medical data from family doctors are of great importance to health care researchers but seem to be locked in German practices and, thus, are underused in research. The RADAR project (Routine Anonymized Data for Advanced Health Services Research) aims at designing, implementing and piloting a generic research architecture, technical software solutions as well as procedures and workflows to unlock data from family doctor's practices. A long-term medical data repository for research taking legal requirements into account is established. Thereby, RADAR helps closing the gap between the European countries and to contribute data from primary care in Germany.Methods: The RADAR project comprises three phases: (1) analysis phase, (2) design phase, and (3) pilot. First, interdisciplinary workshops were held to list prerequisites and requirements. Second, an architecture diagram with building blocks and functions, and an ordered list of process steps (workflow) for data capture and storage were designed. Third, technical components and workflows were piloted. The pilot was extended by a data integration workflow using patient-reported outcomes (paper-based questionnaires).Results: The analysis phase resulted in listing 17 essential prerequisites and guiding requirements for data management compliant with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Based on this list existing approaches to fulfil the RADAR tasks were evaluated-for example, re-using BDT interface for data exchange and Trusted Third Party-approach for consent management and record linkage. Consented data sets of 100 patients were successfully exported, separated into person-identifying and medical data, pseudonymised and saved. Record linkage and data integration workflows for patient-reported outcomes in the RADAR research database were successfully piloted for 63 responders.Conclusion: The RADAR project successfully developed a generic architecture together with a technical framework of tools, interfaces, and workflows for a complete infrastructure for practicable and secure processing of patient data from family doctors. All technical components and workflows can be reused for further research projects. Additionally, a Trusted Third Party-approach can be used as core element to implement data privacy protection in such heterogeneous family doctor's settings. Optimisations identified comprise a fully-electronic consent recording using tablet computers, which is part of the project's extension phase. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Monitoring ground deformation at national and regional level with millimetre-scale precision, nowadays, is possible by using Advanced Differential Interferometric SAR (A-DInSAR) techniques. This study concerns the results of the European Ground Motion Service (EGMS), part of the Copernicus Land Monitoring Service, which detects and measures land displacement at European scale. This Service provides reliable and consistent information regarding natural ground motion phenomena such as landslides and subsidence. The ground motion is derived from Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) time-series analysis of Sentinel-1A/B data. These data, which provide full coverage of Europe from two different observation geometries (ascending and descending) every six days, are processed at full resolution. The paper is focused on the exploitation of the basic product of EGMS for both regional and local purposes. Analysing the slope and aspect of the deformation field is the novelty of this investigation. In particular, the focus is put on the generation of wide-area differential deformation maps. Such maps indicate the gradient of the deformation field. The obtained information is not only beneficial for monitoring anthropogenic phenomena but also vital for urban management and planning. Most of the significant damages to manmade structures and infrastructures are associated with high deformation gradient values. Thus, monitoring the temporal and spatial variations of deformation gradient is essential for dynamic analysis, early-warning, and risk assessment in urban areas. Although EGMS productions are prepared for monitoring at regional level, their resolutions are high enough to investigate at local level. Therefore, this paper considers the local deformations that affect single structures or infrastructures. Local differences in such deformation can indicate damages in the corresponding structures and infrastructures. We illustrate these types of analysis to generate differential deformation maps using datasets available at CTTC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Winter cereals, including wheat, rye, barley, and triticale, are important food crops, and it is crucial to identify the distribution of winter cereals for monitoring crop growth and predicting yield. The production and plating area of winter cereals in Europe both contribute 12.57% to the total global cereal production and plating area in 2020. However, the distribution maps of winter cereals with high spatial resolution are scarce in Europe. Here, we first used synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data from Sentinel-1 A/B, in the Interferometric Wide (IW) swath mode, to distinguish rapeseed and winter cereals; we then used a time-weighted dynamic time warping (TWDTW) method to discriminate winter cereals from other crops by comparing the similarity of seasonal changes in the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) from Landsat and Sentinel-2 images. We generated winter cereal maps for 2016–2020 that cover 32 European countries with 30 m spatial resolution. Validation using field samples obtained from the Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform show that the producer's and user's accuracies are 91% ± 7.8% and 89% ± 10.3%, respectively, averaged over 32 countries in Europe. The winter cereal map agrees well with agricultural census data for planted winter cereal areas at municipal and country levels, with the averaged coefficient of determination R2 as 0.77 ± 0.15 for 2016–2019. In addition, our method can identify the distribution of winter cereals two months before harvest, with an overall accuracy of 88.4%, indicating that TWDTW is an effective method for timely crop growth monitoring and identification at the continent level. The winter cereal maps in Europe are available via an open-data repository. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main problem with counting vehicles in rest areas in Europe and America is the overflowing of parking lots in the rest areas. Thus it is impossible to count parked vehicles with traditional, direct methods, which use cameras and Lidar (light detection and ranging) to detect the presence of vehicles in individual parking spots. The solution to this problem may be an indirect method which uses cameras to count the vehicles entering and leaving the rest area and which sorts the vehicles into categories. This article introduces a method for determining car park occupancy in rest areas using indirect measurement and evaluates the uncertainty of this method for determining the occupancy. This indirect method counts the vehicles entering and leaving the car park and sorts the vehicles into categories. The difference between the number of vehicles that entered and the number of vehicles that left in a given time gives the number of vehicles occupying the car park, i.e., the parking space demand for a given time. This demand will vary over time. In order to register the vehicles entering and leaving, mains-free supply video cameras were installed next to the entrance and exit. The counting and categorizing could be conducted organoleptically, semi-automatically, or using an image computer analysis using artificial intelligence networks. Because the difference between the number of vehicles entering and leaving is calculated over a long period, a relative error (regarding car park capacity) might be grave even when the counting errors are minor. The authors will show how the certainty of this indirect counting method can be improved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The indications for conservative "best medical treatment" (BMT) versus additional renal artery stenting are a matter of ongoing debate. The RADAR study aimed to evaluate the impact of percutaneous renal artery stenting on the impaired renal function in patients with hemodynamically significant atherosclerotic renal artery stenosis (RAS).Methods: RADAR is an international, prospective, randomized (1:1) controlled study comparing BMT alone versus BMT plus renal artery stenting in patients with duplex sonographic hemodynamically relevant RAS. Follow-up assessments were at 2, 6, and 12 months and at 3 years. The primary endpoint was change in estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) at 12 months.Results: Due to slow enrollment, RADAR was terminated early after inclusion of 86 of the scheduled 300 patients (28.7%). Change in eGFR between baseline and 12 months was 4.3 ± 15.4 ml/min/1.73 m2 (stent group) and 3.0 ± 14.9 ml/min/1.73 m2 (BMT group), p > 0.999. Clinical event rates were low with a 12-month composite of cardiac death, stroke, myocardial infarction, and hospitalization for congestive heart failure of 2.9% in the stent and 5.3% in the BMT group, p = 0.526, and a 3-year composite of 14.8% and 12.0%, p = 0.982. At 3 years, target vessel (re-)vascularization occurred in one patient (3.0%) in the stent group and in 8 patients (29.4%) in the BMT group.Conclusion: In RADAR, outcomes of renal artery stenting were similar to BMT. These results have to be interpreted with the caveat that the study did not reach its statistically based sample size.Trial Registration: Clinicaltrials.gov, NCT00640406. Registered on 17 March 2008. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aerosphere is utilized by billions of birds, moving for different reasons and from short to great distances spanning tens of thousands of kilometres. The aerosphere, however, is also utilized by aviation which leads to increasing conflicts in and around airfields as well as en‐route. Collisions between birds and aircraft cost billions of euros annually and, in some cases, result in the loss of human lives. Simultaneously, aviation has diverse negative impacts on wildlife. During avian migration, due to the sheer numbers of birds in the air, the risk of bird strikes becomes particularly acute for low‐flying aircraft, especially during military training flights. Over the last few decades, air forces across Europe and the Middle East have been developing solutions that integrate ecological research and aviation policy to reduce mutual negative interactions between birds and aircraft. In this paper we 1) provide a brief overview of the systems currently used in military aviation to monitor bird migration movements in the aerosphere, 2) provide a brief overview of the impact of bird strikes on military low‐level operations, and 3) estimate the effectiveness of migration monitoring systems in bird strike avoidance. We compare systems from the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Poland and Israel, which are all areas that Palearctic migrants cross twice a year in huge numbers. We show that the en‐route bird strikes have decreased considerably in countries where avoidance systems have been implemented, and that consequently bird strikes are on average 45% less frequent in countries with implemented avoidance systems in place. We conclude by showing the roles of operational weather radar networks, forecast models and international and interdisciplinary collaboration to create safer skies for aviation and birds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Po Plain (Italy) is one of the most densely populated and productive regions of Europe, characterized by a flourishing economy (also linked to strategic subsurface resources) and several world cultural and natural heritage sites. The coupling of social-economic interests with geological hazards (i.e., seismic, subsidence and flooding hazards) in this area requires accurate knowledge of the subsurface geology, active geological processes, and impact of human activities on natural environments to mitigate the potential natural and anthropic risks. Most data unveiling the subsurface geology of this region were produced by the hydrocarbon exploration industry. Po Plain hosts indeed many hydrocarbon fields that were discovered since the early 1950s giving rise to the subsurface exploration through extensive seismic reflection surveys and drilling of numerous deep wells. In this work, geological-geophysical data from 160 deep wells drilled for hydrocarbon exploration/exploitation purposes in the Po Plain and in the facing northern Adriatic Sea have been collected and digitized along with several published geological cross-sections and maps. These data have been used to reconstruct the overall subsurface 3D architecture and to extract the physical properties of the subsurface geological units. The digitized data are suitable to be imported into geo-software environments so to derive the geophysical-mechanical properties of the geological units for a wealth of applied and scientific studies such as geomechanical, geophysical and seismological studies. The integrated dataset may represent a useful tool in defining strategies to ensure the safety of the urbanized areas and human activities and to reduce natural and anthropic risks that may affect this crucial region of Europe. Nowadays, such issues are particularly relevant for the underground industry development related to the increasing interest on possible CO2 and hydrogen underground storage, which can play a fundamental role in the energy transition process towards the decarbonisation goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using airborne drones to monitor water quality in inland, transitional or coastal surface waters is an emerging research field. Airborne drones can fly under clouds at preferred times, capturing data at cm resolution, filling a significant gap between existing in situ, airborne and satellite remote sensing capabilities. Suitable drones and lightweight cameras are readily available on the market, whereas deriving water quality products from the captured image is not straightforward; vignetting effects, georeferencing, the dynamic nature and high light absorption efficiency of water, sun glint and sky glint effects require careful data processing. This paper presents the data processing workflow behind MapEO water, an end-to-end cloud-based solution that deals with the complexities of observing water surfaces and retrieves water-leaving reflectance and water quality products like turbidity and chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) concentration. MapEO water supports common camera types and performs a geometric and radiometric correction and subsequent conversion to reflectance and water quality products. This study shows validation results of water-leaving reflectance, turbidity and Chl-a maps derived using DJI Phantom 4 pro and MicaSense cameras for several lakes across Europe. Coefficients of determination values of 0.71 and 0.93 are obtained for turbidity and Chl-a, respectively. We conclude that airborne drone data has major potential to be embedded in operational monitoring programmes and can form useful links between satellite and in situ observations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The estimation of the soil organic carbon (SOC) content plays an important role for carbon sequestration in the context of climate change, food security and soil degradation. Reflectance spectroscopy has proven to be a promising technique for SOC quantification in the laboratory and increasingly from air- and spaceborne platforms, where hyperspectral imagery provides great potential for mapping SOC on larger scales with regular updates. When applied on larger scales, soil prediction accuracy decreases due to the inhomogeneity of samples. In this paper, we examined if spectral clustering of the LUCAS EU-wide topsoil database is successful without using other covariates than the spectral database and can improve SOC model performance compared to a reference model that was calibrated on the whole database without clustering. Different clustering methodologies were tested, including a k-means clustering based on principal component analysis or based on spectral feature variables, combined with partial least squares regression (PLSR) models, and a clustering based on a local PLSR approach which builds a different multivariate model for each sample to be predicted. Furthermore, in order to allow for subsequent application to hyperspectral remote sensing data, atmospheric water wavelengths were removed from the analyses. The local PLSR approach achieved best results and was additionally applied to LUCAS spectra resampled to the upcoming hyperspectral EnMAP sensor which led to good results: R2 = 0.66, RMSEP = 5.78 g kg−1 and RPIQ = 1.93. The k-means clustering approach showed slightly better results than the reference model. Overall, our results showed similar performances for SOC prediction models compared to other approaches using PLSR with a larger spectral range and other soil parameters as covariates. This study shows that (i) it is possible to transfer the local PLSR approach onto a wavelengths reduced spectral library and to predict estimations of SOC at low-cost with reasonable accuracy based on large scale soil databases; and (ii) that the local regression approach is a valuable tool for SOC prediction models based solely on spectral data without the use of other soil covariates. Unlabelled Image • Reduced need for ground truth data by large-scale spectral clustering and modelling • Adapting existing approaches in preparation for future spaceborne SOC estimation • Comparison of clustering approaches with reference models on complete LUCAS data • Local PLSR outperforms other approaches and reference model in SOC quantification [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a detailed study on snow cover on six different glaciers in southern Spitsbergen, Svalbard: Amundsenisen, Flatbreen, Hansbreen, Nannbreen, Storbreen and Werenskioldbreen. Fieldwork was carried out in April–May 2013, at the end of the accumulation season, to determine large-scale spatial distribution patterns of snow cover on glaciers surrounding the Hornsund Fjord. Snow depth was measured using an 800 MHz ground-penetrating radar (GPR). In addition, the structure of the snowpack was determined by digging snow pits and collecting snow cores from different glacier facies. These samples were subsequently analysed against circulation types and meteorological data from selected sites. In particular, snow patterns were compared against rain-on-snow events. The mean snow depth measures ranged from 1.90 m (Werenskioldbreen) to 3.80 m (Amundsenisen), whereas the accumulation gradient ranged from 15 cm 100 m−1(Storbreen) to 74 cm 100 m−1(Nannbreen). These results followed previous observations, suggesting a decrease in snow accumulation from coastal areas towards the island’s interior. The estimated snow water equivalent values were lower than those measured in the 1990s and during 2010 (Hansbreen:c.−48%), with the exception of Amundsenisen (c.+17%). The relatively high densities found in the snowpack did not compensate for the shallow snow depths measured, which can be ascribed to low precipitation totals and an increased frequency of rain events during the winter months. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge of the spatial–temporal variation of rain fields is required for the planning and optimization of wide-area high-frequency terrestrial and satellite communication networks. This article presents data and a method for characterizing multi-resolution statistical/dynamic parameters describing the spatial–temporal variation of rain fields across ocean climate in North-Western Europe. The data are derived from the NIMROD network of rain radars. The characterizing parameters include 1) statistical distribution of point 1 min rainfall rates, 2) spatial and temporal correlation functions of rainfall rate, and 3) the probability of rain/no rain. The main contributions of this article are the assessment of the impact of varying spatial and temporal integration lengths on these parameters, their dependencies on the integration volumes and area sizes, and the model for both temporal and spatial correlation parameters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the surface concentration of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) inferred from the Sentinel-5 Precursor Tropospheric Monitoring Instrument (S5P/TROPOMI) NO2 tropospheric column densities over Central Europe for two time periods, summer 2019 and winter 2019–2020. Simulations of the NO2 tropospheric vertical column densities and surface concentrations from the Long-Term Ozone Simulation–European Operational Smog (LOTOS-EUROS) chemical transport model are also applied in the methodology. More than two hundred in situ air quality monitoring stations, reporting to the European Environment Agency (EEA) air quality database, are used to carry out comparisons with the model simulations and the spaceborne inferred surface concentrations. Stations are separated into seven types (urban traffic, suburban traffic, urban background, suburban background, rural background, suburban industrial and rural industrial) in order to examine the strengths and shortcomings of the different air quality markers, namely the NO2 vertical column densities and NO2 surface concentrations. S5P/TROPOMI NO2 surface concentrations are inferred by multiplying the fraction of the satellite and model NO2 vertical column densities with the model surface concentrations. The estimated inferred TROPOMI NO2 surface concentrations are examined further with the altering of three influencing factors: the model vertical leveling scheme, the versions of the TROPOMI NO2 data and the air mass factors applied to the satellite and model NO2 vertical column densities. Overall, the inferred TROPOMI NO2 surface concentrations show a better correlation with the in situ measurements for both time periods and all station types, especially for the industrial stations (R > 0.6) in winter. The calculated correlation for background stations is moderate for both periods (R~0.5 in summer and R > 0.5 in winter), whereas for traffic stations it improves in the winter (from 0.20 to 0.50). After the implementation of the air mass factors from the local model, the bias is significantly reduced for most of the station types, especially in winter for the background stations, ranging from +0.49% for the urban background to +10.37% for the rural background stations. The mean relative bias in winter between the inferred S5P/TROPOMI NO2 surface concentrations and the ground-based measurements for industrial stations is about −15%, whereas for traffic urban stations it is approximately −25%. In summer, biases are generally higher for all station types, especially for the traffic stations (~−75%), ranging from −54% to −30% for the background and industrial stations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: Vegetation structure is a key determinant of animal diversity and species distributions. The introduction of Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) has enabled the collection of massive amounts of point cloud data for quantifying habitat structure at fine resolution. Here, we review the current use of LiDAR‐derived vegetation metrics in diversity and distribution research of birds, a key group for understanding animal–habitat relationships. Location: Global. Methods: We review 50 relevant papers and quantify where, in which habitats, at which spatial scales and with what kind of LiDAR data current studies make use of LiDAR metrics. We also harmonize and categorize LiDAR metrics and quantify their current use and effectiveness. Results: Most studies have been conducted at local extents in temperate forests of North America and Europe. Rasterization is currently the main method to derive LiDAR metrics, usually from airborne laser scanning data with low point densities (<10 points/m2) and small footprints (<1 m diameter). Our metric harmonization suggests that 40% of the currently used metric names are redundant. A categorization scheme allowed to group all metric names into 18 out of 24 theoretically possible classes, defined by vegetation part (total vegetation, single trees, canopy, understorey, and other single layers as well as multi‐layer) and structural type (cover, height, horizontal variability and vertical variability). Metrics related to canopy cover, canopy height and canopy vertical variability are currently most often used, but not always effective. Main conclusions: Light Detection and Ranging metrics play an important role in understanding animal space use. Our review and the developed categorization scheme may facilitate future studies in the selection, prioritization and ecological interpretation of LiDAR metrics. The increasing availability of airborne and spaceborne LiDAR data and the development of voxel‐based and object‐based approaches will further allow novel ecological applications, also for open habitats and other vertebrate and invertebrate taxa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The world is shifting -- from a global pandemic to a full-blown military conflict in Europe that questions the international order we've known since World War 2. Both phenomena have greatly impacted businesses worldwide in their own way: Uprooting our assumptions, contributing to inflation, and disrupting supply chains. The shift is also impacting the world of corporate financing and liquidity. High prices on the one hand and tightening monetary policy on the other, are increasing the risk for customer payment default and higher DSO. When political and economic instability meet the office of the credit and risk manager, they need to be ready to navigate the fault lines in finance. In this article, we will explore how current geopolitical escalations, supply chain disruptions and inflation impact corporate finance and what credit and risk managers can do to control the impact on their business. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Six C-band weather radars located in Europe (Finland, Netherlands, and Switzerland) have been used to monitor the slowly varying solar emission, which is an oscillation with an amplitude of several decibels and a period of approximately 27 days. It is caused by the fact that the number of active regions that enhance the solar radio emission with respect to the quiet component, as seen from Earth, varies because of the Sun’s rotation about its axis. The analysis is based on solar signals contained in the polar volume data produced during the operational weather scan strategy. This paper presents hundreds of daily comparisons between radar estimates and the Sun’s reference signal, during the current active Sun period (year 2014). The Sun’s reference values are accurately measured by the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory (DRAO) at S-band and converted to C-band using a standard DRAO formula. Vertical and horizontal polarization receivers are able to capture the monthly oscillation of the solar microwave signal: the standard deviation of the log-transformed ratio between radars and the DRAO reference ranges from 0.26 to 0.4 dB. A larger coefficient (and a different value for the quiet Sun component) in the standard formula improves the agreement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Europe, floods are among the natural catastrophes that cause the largest economic damage. This article explores the potential of two distinct types of multivariate flood damage models: 'depth-damage' models and 'rainfall-damage' models. We use survey data of 346 Flemish households that were victim of pluvial floods complemented with rainfall data from both rain gauges and weather radars. In the econometrical analysis, a Tobit estimation technique is used to deal with the issue of zero damage observations. The results show that in the 'depthdamage' models flood depth has a significant impact on the damage. In the 'rainfall- damage' models there is a significant impact of rainfall accumulation on the damage when using the gauge rainfall data as predictor, but not when using the radar rainfall data. Finally, non-hazard indicators are found to be important for explaining pluvial flood damage in both 'depth-damage' and 'rainfall-damage' models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many insects depend on high-altitude, migratory movements during part of their life cycle. The daily timing of these migratory movements is not random, e.g. many insect species show peak migratory flight activity at dawn, noon or dusk. These insects provide essential ecosystem services such as pollination but also contribute to crop damage. Quantifying the diel timing of their migratory flight and its geographical and seasonal variation, are hence key towards effective conservation and pest management. Vertical-looking radars provide continuous and automated measurements of insect migration, but large-scale application has not been possible because of limited availability of suitable devices. Here, we quantify patterns in diel flight periodicity of migratory insects between 50 and 500 m above ground level during March-October 2021 using a network of 17 vertical-looking radars across Europe. Independent of the overall daily migratory movements and location, peak migratory movements occur around noon, during crepuscular evening and occasionally the morning. Relative daily proportions of insect migration intensity and traffic during the diel phases of crepuscular-morning, day, crepuscular-evening and night remain largely equal throughout May-September and across Europe. These findings highlight, extend, and generalize previous regional-scale findings on diel migratory insect movement patterns to the whole of temperate Europe. This article is part of the theme issue 'Towards a toolkit for global insect biodiversity monitoring'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) ionospheric tomography is a typical ill-posed problem. Joint inversion with external observation data is one of the effective ways to mitigate the problem. In this article, by fusing 3-D multisource ionospheric data, and improving the stochastic model, an improved GNSS tomographic algorithm MFCIT [computerized ionospheric tomography (CIT) using mapping function] is presented. The accuracy of the algorithm is validated by selected data under different geomagnetic and solar conditions acquired in Europe. The results show that the estimated, statistically significant uncertainty for each of the layers is about 0.50–3.0TECU, with the largest absolute error within 6.0TECU. The advantage of the MFCIT is that it is based on the Kalman filter, which enables efficient near real-time 3-D monitoring of ionosphere. The temporal resolution can reach ~1 min level. Here, we apply the ionospheric tomography inversion to the magnetic storm on January 7, 2015, in the European region, and quantified the evolution of the storm. The results show that the difference of the core region between the MFCIT and CODE GIM is less than 1TECU. More importantly, during the initial phase of the storm, when the ionospheric disturbance is not evident in the single layer CODE GIM model, the MFCIT shows obvious positive disturbances in the upper ionosphere, although there is no disturbance in the F2 layer. The MFCIT further tracks the evolution of the magnetic storm that the ionospheric disturbance expands from the upper to the lower ionosphere layers, and at UT12:00, the disturbance continues to spread to the F2 layer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Featured Application: The engineering properties obtainable during the construction of road pavement layers using reactive stabilising agents are traditionally determined using a trail-and-error approach based on material indicator tests, some developed more than a century ago. These tests inhibit the limitations associated with an empirically derived test or method, often leading to costly failures. The introduction of proven and applicable nanotechnologies to treat or stabilise granular material for use in pavement layers could result in the rejection of these technologies if not based on the understanding of the basic chemistry of both the stabilising agent and the mineralogy of the granular materials. This article gives a basic explanation of elementary chemistry that will affect the physical engineering properties (stresses and strains) that can be expected using available, proven and cost-effective nanotechnologies to improve granular materials for use in a pavement structure. Nanoscale organofunctional silanes have been developed, tested and successfully applied to protect stone buildings in Europe against climatic effects since the 1860s. The same nanotechnologies can also be used in pavement engineering to create strong chemical bonds between a stabilising agent and granular material. The attachment of the organofunctional silane to a material also changes the surface of the material to become hydrophobic, thereby considerably reducing future chemical weathering. These properties allow naturally available materials to be used in any pavement layer at a low risk. In the built environment, scientists soon determined that the successful use of an organo-silane depends on the type and condition of the stone to be treated. The same principles apply to the implementation of applicable nanotechnologies in pavement engineering. Understanding the basic chemistry, determining the properties of the stabilising agent and the organofunctional modifying agent and the chemical interaction with the primary and secondary minerals of the material are essential for the successful application of these technologies in pavement engineering. This paper explains some basic chemistry, which fundamentally influences engineering outputs that can be achieved using New-age (Nano) Modified Emulsions (NME) stabilising agents with naturally available granular materials in all road pavement layers below the surfacing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses how Shosana Zuboff's critical theory of surveillance capitalism may help to understand and underpin responsible practice and innovation in mobile journalism. Zuboff conceptualizes surveillance capitalism as a new economic logic made possible by ICT and its architecture for extracting and trading data products of user behavior and preferences. Surveillance is, through these new technologies, built into the fabric of our economic system and, according to Zuboff, appears as deeply anti-democratic and a threat to human sovereignty, dignity, and autonomy. In Europe, the framework of responsible research and innovation is promoted as an approach and a meta-concept that should inform practice and policy for research and innovation to align with societal values and democratic principles. Within this approach, ICT is framed as a risk technology. As innovation in mobile journalism is inextricably tied to the technologies and infrastructure of smartphones and social media platforms, the apparent question would be how we can envision responsible innovation in this area. Zuboff provides a critical perspective to study how this architecture of surveillance impedes the practice of mobile journalism. While the wide adoption of smartphones as a key tool for both producing and consuming news has great potential for innovation, it can also feed behavioral data into the supply chain of surveillance capitalism. We discuss how potentially harmful implications can be met on an individual and organizational level to contribute to a more responsible adoption of mobile technologies in journalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]