The effect of temperature-dependent exchange coeeficients on poleward heat flux by oceanic gyres

The gravitational stability of the air overlying the sea surface is determined by the air-sea temperature difference. Air-sea exchange coeeficients have been shown to increase when the air is unstable and decrease when the air is stable. This stability dependence of the wind stress has been approximated by a linear law relating wind stress to air-sea temperature difference and it has been shown that this thermal feedback generates a warm, Gulf-Stream-like jet emerging from the western boundary current eastward into the interior. Here, the thermal correction is applied tot he wind stress and to the air-sea heat exchange coefficient to study the effects on the circulation and on the poleward heat flux. The basic dynamical model is linear, wind-driven and has an anticyclonic gyre in the southern half and an equally intense cyclonic half in the northern half basin. The thermodynamic model uses the vertically averaged, convective-diffusive heat equation. Thermal feedback leads to a compression of the anticyclonic gyre to a narrower lattitude band near the western boundary and to a warm Gulf Stream extending eastward into the interior. The redistribution of the dynamical properties in the anticyclonic gyre resembles that due to inertial processes. In the cyclonic gyre the changes are quite unlike those due to inertial effects. The main quantitative change is the poleward heat flux across the gyre boundary, which can be several times the value obtained without feedback and should be important for climate studies.     

Global force balance of region 1 current system

At times of strong solar wind forcing such as those that produce major magnetic storms, the region 1 current system dominates over the Chapman–Ferraro current system in mediating the transfer of force between the solar wind and the terrestrial system. The global force balance can be broken into two components, one involving the high-altitude part of the region 1 current system that is in contact with the solar wind (labeled here the HRS) and the other involving the low-altitude part of the region 1 current system that lies in the ionosphere (the LRS). Both communicate their J×B force to the geomagnetic dipole via a gradient in the magnetic field that they generate. In the HRS case the force acts to push the dipole away from the sun. This is the region 1 analog of the Chapman–Ferraro mechanism for transmitting the solar wind's force to the Earth. However, in the LRS case, the force (which is much stronger than in the HRS case) acts to push the dipole toward the sun, seemingly paradoxically. The LRS balances the ‘paradoxical’ sunward force on the dipole with an opposite force on the atmosphere. This paper uses MHD simulations to demonstrate the presence of both the normal force-transmitting gradient generated by the Chapman–Ferraro and the counter-Chapman–Ferraro gradient in the magnetic field generated by the region 1 current system.     

A review of: “Free oscillations of the earth”

Abstract

By E. R. Lapwood and T. Usami, Cambridge University Press, 1981. xii + 243 pp. $25 (ISBN 0 521 23563 7).     

A world model of soil carbon dioxide

Mean growing season soil PCO₂ data were obtained for 19 regions of the world in nine countries. Bivariate and multiple linear regression analysis with soil log(PCO₂) as the dependent variable and TEMP, PRECIP, log(AET), and log(PET) as the four climatic independent variables demonstrated that AET was the best independent predictor of soil PCO₂. An improved soil PCO₂-AET model was developed by assuming (1) that as AET approaches zero, soil PCO₂ approaches the atmospheric value and (2) that there is an upper limit to soil PCO₂ at very high AET. This model has the form log(PCO₂) = ?3·47 + 2·09 (1 ?e^{?0·0172 AET}) where AET is in mm. It explains 67 per cent of the initial variation in the soil PCO₂ data, predicts a soil log(PCO₂) of ? 3·47 at AET = 0, and an upper limit of 3·5 per cent (log(PCO₂) = ? 1·45) for mean growing season soil PCO₂ at AET values of 2000 mm and above. The results of this study suggest that soil PCO₂ levels in tropical areas are, on average, higher than those in temperate, alpine, and arctic regions.     

Foreword

Destructive earthquakes have caused great damage in China and the United States and collapsing buildings have caused many deaths and injuries. The field of earthquake engineering studies     

Uplift and submarine formation of some Melanesian porphyry copper deposits: Stable isotope evidence

Hydrogen and oxygen isotope analyses of sericites and kaolinites from four young porphyry copper deposits (Ok Tedi (1.2 Ma) and Yandera (6.5 Ma), Papua New Guinea; Koloula (1.5 Ma), Solomon Islands; and Waisoi (<5 Ma), Fiji) indicate that the fluids from which these minerals precipitated were of mixed magmatic and non-magmatic sources. The non-magmatic component of the fluid from the island arc deposits (Koloula, Waisoi) was ocean water.For Ok Tedi, the non-magmatic component was a meteoric water with an isotopic composition different from that of the present meteoric water in the region. The isotopic signature of the former meteoric water is consistent with a surface elevation of 200 m a.s.l. or less at the time of mineralization. The deposit was later exposed and supergene kaolinitization commenced at approximately 1200 m a.s.l. Uplift and erosion has continued to the present at which time the elevation of the exposed deposit is 1800 m a.s.l. This rate of uplift is consistent with that known from other geological evidence. If the rate of uplift were approximately constant during the last 1.2 Ma, the age of supergene enrichment can be dated at approximately 0.4 Ma B.P.Similarly, influx of meteoric water at Yandera occurred when the ground surface above the deposit was at an elevation of approximately 600 m a.s.l. The deposit's present elevation is 1600 m a.s.l. In this case a total uplift of approximately 2.2 km is indicated, with removal of 1.2 km of overburden by erosion.