Search Results (9)

The Marine Atmospheric Boundary Layer (MABL), as a critical component of Earth’s climate system, governs the exchange of matter and energy between the ocean surface and the lower atmosphere. This study presents shipborne Doppler lidar observations conducted during 12 January to 3 February 2024, along the southeastern Chinese coast. Employing a Coherent Doppler Wind Lidar (CDWL) system onboard the R/V “Yuezhanyu” research vessel, we investigated the spatiotemporal variability of MABL characteristics through integration with ERA5 reanalysis data. The key findings reveal a significant positive correlation between MABL height and surface sensible heat flux in winter, underscoring the dominant role of sensible heat flux in boundary layer development. Through the Empirical Orthogonal Function (EOF) analysis of the ERA5 regional boundary layer height, sensible heat flux, and sea level pressure, we demonstrate MABL height over the coastal seas typically exceeds the corresponding terrestrial atmospheric boundary layer height and exhibits weak diurnal variation. The CDWL observations highlight complex wind field dynamics influenced by synoptic conditions and maritime zones. Compared to onshore regions, the MABL over offshore areas further away from land has lower wind shear changes and a more uniform wind field. Notably, the terrain of Taiwan, China, induces significant low-level jet formations within the MABL. Low-level jets and low boundary layer height promote the pollution episode observed by CDWL. This research provides new insights into MABL dynamics over East Asian marginal seas, with implications for improving boundary layer parameterization in regional climate models and advancing our understanding of coastal meteorological processes. Full article

Storm surge forecasting presents a significant challenge for coastal resilience, particularly in typhoon-prone regions such as southeastern China, where compound flooding events lead to substantial socioeconomic losses. Although artificial intelligence (AI) models have shown strong potential in storm surge prediction, their inherent “black-box” nature limits both their interpretability and operational trust. In this study, we integrate a Vision Transformer (ViT) model with an explainable AI (XAI) method—specifically, Shapley value analysis (SHAP)—to develop an interpretable, high-performance storm surge forecasting framework. The baseline ViT model demonstrates excellent predictive skill, achieving spatiotemporal correlation coefficients exceeding 0.90 over a 12 h lead time. However, it exhibits systematic underestimations in topographically complex regions, such as semi-enclosed bays (e.g., up to 0.06 m). SHAP analysis reveals that the model primarily relies on the autocorrelation of historical surge levels rather than external wind forcing—contrary to the conventional physical understanding of storm surge dynamics. Guided by these insights, we introduce the surge time difference (ΔZ/Δt) as an explicit input feature to enhance the model’s physical representation. This modification yields substantial improvements: during the critical first hour of forecasting—a key window for disaster mitigation—the RMSE is reduced from 0.01 m to 0.005 m, while the correlation coefficient increases from 0.92 to 0.98. This study bridges the gap between data-driven forecasting and physical interpretability, offering a transparent and trustworthy framework for next-generation intelligent storm surge prediction. Full article

The coupling coordination of agricultural technology innovation with food security is of great significance for high-quality agricultural development. By identifying the coupling coordination relationship between the two systems and the influencing factors, this paper aims to promote the virtuous cycle of coordinated development between regional agriculture and technology, as well as accelerate the realisation of high-quality development of Chinese agriculture. Therefore, this paper explores the spatial and temporal coupling characteristics of the two using the entropy value method, coupling coordination degree model, and exploratory spatial data analysis, and it screens for important influencing factors using the grey correlation model. The main results show that ① the coupling coordination relationship between agricultural technology innovation and food security in China is at a dissonant stage, but the value of the coupling coordination degree increases from 0.2076 to 0.3437 during the period of study, and the level of coordination gradually improves. ② The degree of coupling coordination in the provincial space exhibits a distribution pattern of “high in the east and low in the west”. The areas of high value are primarily situated in the provinces of Shandong, Jiangsu, and other provinces along the southeastern coast of China, while the areas of low value are mainly located in the provinces of Qinghai, Ningxia, and other provinces in inland northwest China. ③ The Moran’s index of provincial coupling coordination is greater than 0, showing a certain positive correlation, and there is a significant pattern of spatial aggregation. ④ The correlation coefficients between the influencing factors and the degree of coupling coordination are all greater than 0.35, indicating a moderate or high correlation, but the significance of technological support capacity and food distribution security increased over time. Full article

Inthis study, remote sensing measurements were utilized to examine the characteristics of storm surges and sea surface cooling in Chinese coastal waters caused by typhoons. Altimetric data from satellite altimeters were used to determine the magnitude, cross-shelf decaying scale, and propagating speed of storm surges from typhoons. The results were in agreement with estimates obtained from a theoretical model and tide gauge data, showing that the two storm surges propagated as continental shelf waves along the southeastern coast of China. The sea surface cooling, driven by Typhoons 1319Usagi and 1323Fitow, was analyzed using the remote sensing sea surface temperature product, named the global 1 km sea surface temperature (G1SST) dataset, revealing a considerable decrease in the temperature, with the largest decrease reaching 4.5 °C after the passage of 1319Usagi, in line with buoy estimates of 4.6 °C. It was found that 1323Fitow and 1324Danas jointly impacted the southeastern coast of China, resulting in a significant temperature drop of 4.0 °C. Our study shows that incorporating remotely sensed measurements into the study of oceanic responses to typhoons has significant benefits and complements the traditional tide gauge network and buoy data. Full article

Within the cultural integration of Indian Buddhist art and Chinese Buddhist art, standing Buddha statues carved in-the-round with thin, tight-fitting robes require special attention. Unlike other types of Buddha statues found in China, they are depicted wearing robes of a foreign style, while displaying the facial and body features of East Asians. These statues, which were excavated on the Shandong Peninsula in the last century, are believed to have been carved during the Northern Qi Dynasty (550–577). After years of academic exploration, the transmission route, transit point and reasons for their introduction into Shandong remain unclear, which are topics that this paper aims to address. According to typology analysis, the Buddha statues in question can be divided into three types, and their foreign counterparts have been identified through the iconology comparisons of Chinese and foreign Buddha statues. From this, in chronological order, the transmission route of three Buddha statue types can be inferred, namely from India to the Shandong Peninsula via the Malay Peninsula, the Mekong Delta and the southeastern coast of China. The route of contemporaneous Indian monks travelling from the east to the Northern Dynasties, as recorded in Chinese historical documents and the Buddhist Canon, verifies this conclusion. Along this route, the north-central Malay Peninsula is one of the main transit points where the Buddha statues were locally adapted and then spread further east. Full article

In the present study, genome-wide CNVs were detected in a total of 301 samples from 10 Chinese indigenous horse breeds using the Illumina Equine SNP70 Bead Array, and the candidate genes related to adaptability to high temperature and humidity in Jinjiang horses were identified and validated. We determined a total of 577 CNVs ranging in size from 1.06 Kb to 2023.07 Kb on the 31 pairs of autosomes. By aggregating the overlapping CNVs for each breed, a total of 495 CNVRs were detected in the 10 Chinese horse breeds. As many as 211 breed-specific CNVRs were determined, of which 64 were found in the Jinjiang horse population. By removing repetitive CNV regions between breeds, a total of 239 CNVRs were identified in the Chinese indigenous horse breeds including 102 losses, 133 gains and 4 of both events (losses and gains in the same region), in which 131 CNVRs were novel and only detected in the present study compared with previous studies. The total detected CNVR length was 41.74 Mb, accounting for 1.83% of the total length of equine autosomal chromosomes. The coverage of CNVRs on each chromosome varied from 0.47% to 15.68%, with the highest coverage on ECA 12, but the highest number of CNVRs was detected on ECA1 and ECA24. A total of 229 genes overlapping with CNVRs were detected in the Jinjiang horse population, which is an indigenous horse breed unique to the southeastern coast of China exhibiting adaptability to high temperature and humidity. The functional annotation of these genes showed significant relation to cellular heat acclimation and immunity. The expression levels of the candidate genes were validated by heat shock treatment of various durations on fibroblasts of horses. The results show that the expression levels of HSPA1A were significantly increased among the different heat shock durations. The expression level of NFKBIA and SOCS4 declined from the beginning of heat shock to 2 h after heat shock and then showed a gradual increase until it reached the highest value at 6 h and 10 h of heat shock, respectively. Breed-specific CNVRs of Chinese indigenous horse breeds were revealed in the present study, and the results facilitate mapping CNVs on the whole genome and also provide valuable insights into the molecular mechanisms of adaptation to high temperature and humidity in the Jinjiang horse. Full article

Timely and accurate depth estimation of a shallow waterway can improve shipping efficiency and reduce the danger of waterway transport accidents. However, waterway depth data measured during actual maritime navigation is limited, and the depth values can have large variability. Big data collected in real time by automatic identification systems (AIS) might provide a way to estimate accurate waterway depths, although these data include no direct channel depth information. We suggest a deep neural network (DNN) based model, called DDTree, for using the real-time AIS data and the data from Global Mapper to predict waterway depth for ships in an accurate and timely way. The model combines a decision tree and DNN, which is trained and tested on the AIS and Global Mapper data from the Nantong and Fangcheng ports on the southeastern and southwestern coast of China. The actual waterway depth data were used together with the AIS data as the input to DDTree. The latest data on waterway depths from the Chinese maritime agency were used to verify the results. The experiments show that the DDTree model has a prediction accuracy of 91.15%. Therefore, the DDTree model can provide an accurate prediction of waterway depth and compensate for the shortage of waterway depth monitoring means. The proposed hybrid DDTree model could improve marine situational awareness, navigation safety, and shipping efficiency, and contribute to smart navigation. Full article

The Chinese beard eel (Cirrhimuraena chinensis Kaup) is an intertidal fish and a model organism for the study of impacts caused by topological fluctuations during the Pleistocene and current intricate hydrological conditions on fauna living in the coastal areas of China. In this study, we examined the phylogeographical pattern, population genetic profile and demographical history of C. chinensis using mitochondrial DNA (cytochrome b (cyt b) and control region (CR)) from 266 individuals sampled in seven localities across the coastal area of southeastern China. The combined data indicated high levels of haplotype diversity and low levels of nucleotide diversity. Analyses of molecular variance (AMOVA) and F_ST statistics suggested the absence of a significant population structure across the Chinese coast. Neutrality tests, mismatch distributions and Bayesian skyline plots uniformly indicated a recent population expansion. The phylogeographic structure of C. chinensis may be attributed to past population expansion and long-distance pelagic larval dispersal facilitated by present-day ocean currents. Full article

In this study, total gaseous mercury (TGM) concentrations were measured on Yongheung Island off the coast of Korea between mainland Korea and Eastern China in 2013. The purpose of this study was to qualitatively evaluate the impact of local mainland Korean sources and regional Chinese sources on local TGM concentrations using multiple tools including the relationship with other pollutants, meteorological data, conditional probability function, backward trajectories, and potential source contribution function (PSCF) receptor modeling. Among the five sampling campaigns, two sampling periods were affected by both mainland Korean and regional sources, one was caused by mainland vehicle emissions, another one was significantly impacted by regional sources, and, in the remaining period, Hg volatilization from oceans was determined to be a significant source and responsible for the increase in TGM concentration. PSCF identified potential source areas located in metropolitan areas, western coal-fired power plant locations, and the southeastern industrial area of Korea as well as the Liaoning province, the largest Hg emitting province in China. In general, TGM concentrations generally showed morning peaks (07:00~12:00) and was significantly correlated with solar radiation during all sampling periods. Full article