Experimental investigations of the effect of cloud-medium modification by salt powders

The results of experimental investigations into the action of polydispersion salt powders on model cloud media are presented. The results of experiments show a considerable positive effect of the modification of convective clouds by salt powders in order to obtain additional precipitation. The introduction of polydispersion salt powder into a forming cloud medium leads to the appearance of large cloud droplets and to the droplet-spectrum broadening. This result is a positive factor for the stimulation of coagulation processes and further precipitation formation. No “overseeding” phenomenon (when, instead of the enlargement of droplets, their sizes decrease and the concentration of cloud droplets increases) is observed at rather high mass concentrations of the introduced powder.     

The comparative limnology of some New Zealand lakes

The morphometry, environmental conditions, and some physical and chemical data are given for twenty‐four New Zealand lakes: seven are in the southern part of the South Island, the others, excluding Lakes Waikaremoana and Waikareiti, are in the “thermal region” of the central North Island. These lakes form two separate groups and include the largest and deepest lakes in both islands.

The lakes in which stratification was established were found to belong to the class known as warm monomictic Two lakes, Rotorua and Rotoehu, were found to be homothermous throughout the year. Open water surface temperatures did not exceed 23°c in the North Island lakes or 19°c in the South Island, and minimum temperatures recorded were 7°c in the northern lakes and 5°c in the southern. In deep lakes the range of temperature was much less: Wakutipu had a range of 16–8.85°c.

The disappearance level of a Secchi disc varied from 18 m (Lake Taupo) to 0.8 m (Lake Rotongaio). The transparency of the water in the glacial and volcanic lakes was comparable to that of similar lakes in other parts of the world.

It was found that total ions, measured by the ion‐exchange resins reached high concentrations in lakes fed by thermal waters: Rotomahana 14.32m.e./l. By contrast Tikitapu, a seepage lake, had the low concentration of. 0.28m.e./l, and Wakatipu, a glacial fed lake, a concentration of O.58m.e./1. The pH range was 8.1–5.8, the lowest value being in Tikitapu, a volcanic lake. Slightly lower pH values were recorded in the bottom waters of lakes when stratified. Lakes were usually supersaturated with oxygen at the surface, and only a few small lakes showed a hypolimnial deficiency. Silica and phosphate were found in high concentrations in some thermal lakes but nitrogen in the forms measured, was found to be low.     

Three sipunculan species (two new) from New Zealand

Two new species of Sipuncula arc described from New Zealand; Phascolion temporariae from, the empty tubes of the polychaete Temporaria inexpectata (Mestayeri), and Phascolion tortum from the shells of four species of molluscs. Specimens of Golfingia improvisa (Theel) are also reported from the empty frustules of the foraminiferan Ammodiscoides mestayeri (Cushman) and the sandy tubes of the foraminifera Rhizammina sp. All the species were dredged at depths of 370–660 m from Taiaroa and Papanui Canyons, off the Otago Peninsula, New Zealand. The body cavity of several specimens of G. improvisa contained the larval stage of a nematode.     

Reduction of a population of Canterbury mudfish,Neochanna burrowsius (Galaxiidae), by drovight

A population of Canterbury mudfish Neochanna burrowsius (Phillipps), estimated to exceed 3000 adults in July‐December 1975, and its habitat at Clearwell in mid Canterbury, are described. A 7 month drought nearly extinguished the population; this and the subsequent return migration (in August 1976) of survivors from a stockwater race are recorded.     

Lagrangian analysis of mixing and transport of water masses in the marine bays

The Lagrangian approach to studying the mixing and transport of a passive admixture in marine bays and gulfs based on the methods of a theory of dynamic systems is developed. This approach is employed to investigate the lateral mixing and transport of waters in the Peter the Great Bay, Japan Sea, using a velocity field of the predictive numerical hydrodynamic circulation model of a synoptic scale. It is shown that the Lagrangian characteristics, such as the maximum accumulated Lyapunov exponent, the time of particle stay in the bay, particle relative displacements, and the number of cyclonic and anticyclonic rotations, allow us to describe the movement of water masses, the character of mixing, and chaos in the Bay. In integrating the advection equations forward and backward in time, maps showing a number of particle arrivals to different regions of the Bay make it possible to establish corridors through which particles leave and enter the Bay.     

Currents in the Drake Passage by the observations in October–November of 2011

The currents in the Drake Passage are studied from the ADCP and CTD data acquired in a section across the Drake Passage in October-November of 2011 and from the satellite altimeter data. A complicated pattern of currents including eight jets of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) and a system of slope and abyssal currents was found. The most interesting result is the discovery of several cyclonic and anticyclonic mesoscale eddies confined to the abyss. Some reasons explaining the generation of such eddies by the meandering of the ACC jets in the upper ocean layer are presented.     

对虾传染性肌肉坏死病研究进展

对虾传染性肌肉坏死病(infectious myonecrosis,IMN)最初于2002年8月爆发于巴西Piaui州的凡纳滨对虾(Litopenaeus vannamei)养殖场,并很快在巴西东北沿岸蔓延开来,目前已传至亚洲.2004年,经美国亚利桑那大学(University of Arizona)水产病害实验室研究,该病为一种新的对虾疾病,根据其症状,暂定名为传染性肌肉坏死病.     

Two-dimensional analysis of the semidiurnal tide in some regions of the white sea

An improved method of two-dimensional kinematical structural analysis of tides (the “method of the orbits”) is presented. This method allows us to determine the parameters of the primary tidal waves shaping the observed tidal structure. The construction of the vertical orbits for the individual tidal harmonics is performed along the horizontal coordinate axes; one of them is oriented along the so-called “reactive azimuth,” which coincides with the direction of the tidal current at the instant of the zero tidal level. In this case, the orbit parameters include information on the amplitude-phase relations of the interfering waves and allow us to determine the angle of the waves crossing. The suggested method enables us to quantitatively describe the mechanism of the tidal formation with oblique interference both close to the shore and in the open sea. We tested the new method in two local zones of the White Sea (Morzhovets Island and in the vicinity of the entrance to Kandalaksha Gulf) where the presence of rotating semidiurnal tidal currents evidences the significant role of oblique interference of tidal waves. In these zones, the developed method made it possible to perform a detailed quantitative analysis of the local tide structure caused by the M₂ tidal wave, which plays the dominant role in the White Sea. The result describes the structure of the propagation of the primary tidal waves better than the field of “pure” energy fluxes that was used earlier.     

Laboratory modeling of the propagation of periodic internal waves over bottom slopes

The experimental investigation of the run-up of periodic internal waves in a two-layer fluid on the coastal slope is performed in an open hydrochannel at the Physical Department of the Lomonosov Moscow State University. The waves are produced by a wave generator. We study the transformation of waves, the vertical structure of the field of velocities of mass transfer, and the behavior of the parameters of internal waves propagating over the sloping bottom. It is shown that the run-up and breaking of internal waves are accompanied by periodic emissions of portions of the heavier fluid from the bottom layer upward along the slope. The Stokes drift velocity changes its sign as a function of depth. Moreover, both the wave length (the horizontal distance between the neighboring crests) and the height of waves over the sloping bottom (the elevation of the crest over the slope along the vertical) decrease as the wave approaches the coast.     

Neotectonic dynamics of the marine coastal zone exemplified by the Antarctic Peninsula

The proposed concept of the “marine coastal zone” (MCZ) is substantiated with considering the role of the neotectonics in the formation and evolution of the corresponding morphologic system using the Antarctic Peninsula as an example. For this purpose, the results of the immediate geologic-geomorphologic observations are correlated with an original schematic neotectonic map compiled for the region in question. It is shown that neotectonic movements are responsible for the block structure of the coastal zone representing its most stable element, which is complicated by subsequent regional exogenic coast-forming processes with the glacial one being dominant. Other aspects of the marine coastal zone influenced by neotectonics are also considered. A new (near-polar) type of the marine coastal zone is defined.