Cairo Air Pollution and Climate (CAPAC) is dedicated to the understanding of the urban energy balance inCairo, Egypt, through measurements from space and at ground stations. The in situ measurements will provide a focused insight into three carefully chosen microclimates (urban, suburban-agriculture, and suburban-desert) and provide at the sametime ground-truth data for satellite image analysis, which will expand the acquired knowledge into the spatial domain. Insitu measurements were made during a field campaign in Greater Cairo from November 2007 to February 2008. In thisstudy, the dataset of the CAPAC measurement campaign will be presented and analysed in terms of use for a remote sensingstudy. Measured variables complied with our expectations. The urban area featured a distinct nocturnal heat island. Duringthe day the choice of reference station was responsible for the magnitude of the heat island. The diurnal cycle of radiativetemperature at the suburban-desert station clearly exceeded the one at the urban station, thus the urban setting seemed tohave a better heat storage than the suburban-desert. The stations also determined the partitioning of the turbulent heat fluxes.
While in Cairo and at the suburban-desert station most of the available energy was partitioned into the sensible heat flux,the suburban-agricultural station maintained a high latent heat flux. The radiation and soil heat flux measurements provedto be applicable for comparison with remotely sensed data. However, the analysis of the turbulent heat fluxes showedthat several constraints exist: measured fluxes tend to underestimate the actual flux and directional effects complicate theinterpretation. An energy balance closure and footprint modelling is necessary to compare measured fluxes with satelliteimage retrieved products. Finally, turbulent fluxes are time averages, which is contrary to the remote sensing principle. Consequently, a direct use is problematic.

Cairo Air Pollution and Climate (CAPAC) is dedicated to the understanding of the urban energy balance in Cairo, Egypt, through measurements from space and at ground stations. The in situ measurements will provide a focussed insight into three carefully chosen microclimates (urban, suburban-agriculture, and suburban-desert) and provide at the same time ground-truth data for satellite image analysis, which will expand the acquired knowledge into the spatial domain. In situ measurements were made during a field campaign in Greater Cairo from November 2007 to February 2008. In this study, the dataset of the CAPAC measurement campaign will be presented and analysed in terms of use for a remote sensing study. Measured variables complied with our expectations. The urban area featured a distinct nocturnal heat island. During the day the choice of reference station was responsible for the magnitude of the heat island. The diurnal cycle of radiative temperature at the suburban-desert station clearly exceeded the one at the urban station, thus the urban setting seemed to have a better heat storage than the suburban-desert. The stations also determined the partitioning of the turbulent heat fluxes. While in Cairo and at the suburban-desert station most of the available energy was partitioned into the sensible heat flux, the suburban-agricultural station maintained a high latent heat flux. The radiation and soil heat flux measurements proved to be applicable for comparison with remotely sensed data. However, the analysis of the turbulent heat fluxes showed that several constraints exist: measured fluxes tend to underestimate the actual flux and directional effects complicate the interpretation. An energy balance closure and footprint modelling is necessary to compare measured fluxes with satellite image retrieved products. Finally, turbulent fluxes are time averages, which is contrary to the remote sensing principle. Consequently, a direct use is problematic. Copyright © 2010 Royal Meteorological Society

A total of 864 brown-egg laying pullets was used to study the effects of the main cereal of the diet (500 g maize or wheat/kg) and particle size of the cereal (hammer milled to pass through a 6-, 8-, and 10-mm screen) on growth performance and digestive traits from 1 to 120 d of age. Each of the six treatments was replicated six times (24 pullets per replicate). Type of cereal did not affect pullet performance at any age.From1 to 45 d of age, body weight (BW) gain was increased (P<0.001) and feed conversion ratio was improved (P<0.05) as the particle size of the cereal was reduced, but no effects were observed after this age. At 45 d of age, pullets fed maize tended (P<0.10) to have a heavier relative weight (RW, g/kg BW) of the total digestive tract and proventriculi and a higher relative length (RL, cm/kg BW) of the small intestines (SI) than pullets fed wheat. Also at this age, the RW of the digestive tract increased (P<0.05) with increases in the particle size of the cereal. At 120 d of age, dietary treatment did not affect the RW of any of the organs studied or gizzard pH but the RL of the SI was higher (P<0.05) for pullets fed wheat than for pullets fed maize. Also, the RL of the SI was reduced (P<0.05) as the particle size of the cereal increased. We conclude that 500 g wheat/kg can be included in pullet feeds from 1 to 120 d of age, and that particle size of the cereal affects pullet performance during the first 45 d of life but not thereafter. Therefore, it is recommended to grind the cereal used in this period with a screen size of no more than 8mm.