Vegetation changes in the southern Pyrenean flank during the last millennium in relation to climate and human activities: the Montcortès lacustrine record

We report vegetation changes of the last millennium inferred from palynological analysis of a sediment core from Lake Montcortès, situated at ~1,000 m elevation in the southern pre-Pyrenean flank. The record begins in the Middle Ages (~AD 800) and ends around AD1920, with an average resolution of ~30 years. The reconstructed vegetation sequence is complex and shows the influence of both climate and humans in shaping the landscape. Pre-feudal times were characterized by the presence of well-developed conifer forests, which were intensely burned at the beginning of feudal times (AD 1000) and were replaced by cereal (rye) and hemp cultivation, as well as meadows and pastures. In the thirteenth century, a relatively short period of warming, likely corresponding to the Medieval Warm Period, was inferred from the presence of a low Mediterranean scrub community that is today restricted to <800 m elevation. This community disappeared during Little Ice Age cooling in the fifteenth century, coinciding with a decline in human activities around the lake. Forest recovery began around AD 1500, at the beginning of the Modern period, coinciding with wetter climate. Forests, however, declined again during the seventeenth century, coinciding with maximum olive and hemp cultivation. This situation was reversed in post-Modern times (nineteenth century), characterized by an intense agricultural crisis and a significant decline in population that favored forest re-expansion. Correlations with nearby Estanya Lake, situated about 350 m below, provide a regional picture of environmental change. Besides some climate forcing evident in both sequences, human activities seem to have been the main drivers of landscape and vegetation change in the southern Pyrenean flank, in agreement with conclusions from other studies in high-mountain environments.     

The three-dimensional power spectrum of dark and luminous matter from the VIRMOS-DESCART cosmic shear survey

We present the first optimal power spectrum estimation and three-dimensional deprojections for the dark and luminous matter and their cross-correlations. The results are obtained using a new optimal fast estimator, deprojected using minimum variance and Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) techniques. We show the resulting 3D power spectra for dark matter and galaxies, and their covariance for the VIRMOS-DESCART weak lensing shear and galaxy data. The survey is most sensitive to non-linear scales   k _NL∼ 1 h Mpc⁻¹  . On these scales, our 3D power spectrum of dark matter is in good agreement with the RCS 3D power spectrum found by Tegmark & Zaldarriaga. Our galaxy power is similar to that found by the 2MASS survey, and larger than that of SDSS, APM and RCS, consistent with the expected difference in galaxy population.
We find an average bias   b = 1.24 ± 0.18  for the I -selected galaxies, and a cross-correlation coefficient   r = 0.75 ± 0.23  . Together with the power spectra, these results optimally encode the entire two point information about dark matter and galaxies, including galaxy–galaxy lensing. We address some of the implications regarding galaxy haloes and mass-to-light ratios. The best-fitting 'halo' parameter   h ≡ r / b = 0.57 ± 0.16  , suggesting that dynamical masses estimated using galaxies systematically underestimate total mass.
Ongoing surveys, such as the Canada–France–Hawaii Telescope Legacy Survey, will significantly improve on the dynamic range, and future photometric redshift catalogues will allow tomography along the same principles.     

Rotation in gravitational lenses

Gravitational lensing deflects light. A single lens deflector can only shear images, but cannot induce rotations. Multiple lens planes can induce rotations. Such rotations can be observed in quadruply imaged sources, and can be used to distinguish between two proposed solutions of the flux anomaly problem: substructures in lensing galaxies versus large-scale structure. We predict the expected amount of rotation due to large-scale structure in strong lensing systems, and show how this effect can be measured using ∼mas very long baseline interferometry astrometry of quadruple lenses with extended source structures. The magnitude of rotation is around 1°. The biggest theoretical uncertainty is the power spectrum of dark matter on very small scales. This procedure can potentially be turned around to measure the dark matter power spectrum on very small scales. We list the predicted rms rotation angles for several quadruple lenses with known lens and source redshifts.     

库尔勒市大降水天气的环流背景及其中尺度触发机制分析

利用库尔勒市2005-2013年暖季逐小时降水量资料分析了当地大降水天气的发生的时间、强度特征,从天气预报的角度对大降水天气环流形势进行了分型、找出了产生大降水的中尺度触发抬升机制,建立了大降水天气的三种概念模型。研究得到库尔勒大降水影响系统包括低槽或涡东移型、南北低槽汇合型、锋区南压型以及脊前短波槽或西北气流型四类,降水触发机制分为冷锋触发类、干线触发类以及混合触发类三种。结合大降水发生前的影响系统、发生时抬升触发机制和雷暴降水天气形成的动力、水汽、不稳定条件以及大降水落区的显著特征的总结分析,归纳出包括了锋区急流类大降、低涡气旋类大降水以及低槽切变辐合线类大降水三种不同的库尔勒大降水天气概念模型。     

昆明和北京两幢建筑物表面热力效应的观测对比

利用昆明、北京两座城市内建筑物为研究对象, 对其不同朝向外墙壁面、屋顶面表面温度及壁面近旁气温进行了观测, 分析了建筑物外墙壁面表面温度及其近旁气温的垂直分布以及壁面、屋顶对周围大气的热力效应特征, 并对两座城市内建筑物的热力状况进行了比较分析。研究表明:建筑物表面温度受太阳辐射的影响要比近旁气温大得多, 一般说来, 壁面昼间是热源, 夜间是热汇; 受研究对象所在的大区域气候、人类活动等影响, 建筑物外表面的热力效应有许多异同; 建筑物屋顶面与近旁空气间的平均热通量基本为正值, 呈现较强的热源效应, 其热力效应强度与太阳辐射呈现正相关; 城市建筑物的外表面 (壁面、屋顶面) 已成为城市区域内有别于城市地面, 且对城市立体气候的形成具有不可忽视影响的热力作用面。     

Reionization: characteristic scales, topology and observability

Recently the numerical simulations of the process of reionization of the universe at z>6 have made a qualitative leap forward, reaching sufficient sizes and dynamic range to determine the characteristic scales of this process. This allowed making the first realistic predictions for a variety of observational signatures. We discuss recent results from large-scale radiative transfer and structure formation simulations on the observability of high-redshift Ly-α sources. We also briefly discuss the dependence of the characteristic scales and topology of the ionized and neutral patches on the reionization parameters.     

Precision of diffuse 21-cm lensing

We study the limits of accuracy for weak lensing maps of dark matter using diffuse 21-cm radiation from the pre-reionization epoch using simulations. We improve on previous 'optimal' quadratic lensing estimators by using shear and convergence instead of deflection angles. This is a generalization of the deflection estimator, and is more optimal for non-Gaussian sources. The cross-power spectrum of shear and convergence is an unbiased estimator of lensing power spectrum which does not require knowledge of the source four-point function. We find that non-Gaussianity provides a limit to the accuracy of weak lensing reconstruction, even if instrumental noise is reduced to zero. The best reconstruction result is equivalent to Gaussian sources with effective independent cell of side length  2.0  h ⁻¹ Mpc  . Using a source full map from z = 10 to 20, this limiting sensitivity allows mapping of dark matter at a signal-to-noise ratio greater than 1 out to l ≲ 6000, which is better than any other proposed technique for large-area weak lensing mapping.