Rainfall over Oman and its teleconnection with El Niño Southern Oscillation

The Sultanate of Oman is located in the south-eastern part of the Arabian Peninsula and covers the larger part of the southern coasts of the Arabian Peninsula in both arid and semi-arid environments except for the southern part which is swept by the monsoon affecting the Arabian Sea during the period from June to September. The summer rainfall over Oman shows year-to-year variability, and this is caused by oceanic and atmospheric influences. In the present study, we tried to explore the influence of El Niño on the rainfall over Oman using different data sets. The empirical orthogonal function (EOF) technique employed to the zonal wind at 850 hPa for the 30-year period shows that the second and third modes of EOF are showing high variability over the Oman regions. The corresponding PCs were subjected to FFT analysis, and it showed a peak about 5–6 years. In addition to this, the zonal wind over the Oman regions is correlated with the global zonal wind and found a significant correlation (1 % significant level). It has already been proved that the wind and rainfall during summer monsoon is in phase. Moreover, the spectral analysis of rainfall at Masirah station and the Niño3.4 index show the similar mode of variability indicating a direct relationship. The correlation between rainfall and the Niño3.4 index is also showing a positive significant value, and therefore, it can be concluded that the El Niño in the Pacific favours rainfall over the Oman region.     

Dynamics of disk galaxies (invited review)

Astrophysics and Space Science - In order to detect the gravitational effect of the dark corona component of disk galaxies, it is necessary to have surface photometry and rotation data that extend...     

A Challenging Solar Eruptive Event of 18 November 2003 and the Causes of the 20 November Geomagnetic Superstorm. III. Catastrophe of the Eruptive Filament at a Magnetic Null Point and Formation of an Opposite-Handedness CME

Our analysis in Papers I and II (Grechnev et al., Solar Phys. 289, 289, 2014b and Solar Phys. 289, 1279, 2014c) of the 18 November 2003 solar event responsible for the 20 November geomagnetic superstorm has revealed a complex chain of eruptions. In particular, the eruptive filament encountered a topological discontinuity located near the solar disk center at a height of about 100 Mm, bifurcated, and transformed into a large cloud, which did not leave the Sun. Concurrently, an additional CME presumably erupted close to the bifurcation region. The conjectures about the responsibility of this compact CME for the superstorm and its disconnection from the Sun are confirmed in Paper IV (Grechnev et al., Solar Phys. submitted, 2014a), which concludes about its probable spheromak-like structure. The present article confirms the presence of a magnetic null point near the bifurcation region and addresses the origin of the magnetic helicity of the interplanetary magnetic clouds and their connection to the Sun. We find that the orientation of a magnetic dipole constituted by dimmed regions with the opposite magnetic polarities away from the parent active region corresponded to the direction of the axial field in the magnetic cloud, while the pre-eruptive filament mismatched it. To combine all of the listed findings, we propose an intrinsically three-dimensional scheme, in which a spheromak-like eruption originates via the interaction of the initially unconnected magnetic fluxes of the eruptive filament and pre-existing ones in the corona. Through a chain of magnetic reconnections their positive mutual helicity was transformed into the self-helicity of the spheromak-like magnetic cloud.     

Chloritoid, and the Isochemical Character of Barrow's Zones

It is argued that despite poverty of outcrop the apparent restrictionof chloritoid to a wedge-shaped area at the north-eastern extremityof Barrow's zones is real. Two possible interpretations of thisrestriction are considered: (a) That the chloritoid producingreaction (as yet unidentified) was characterized by a lowerP/T than that of the reaction muscovite+ chlorite+chloritoid+quartz staurolite+biotite+H²O, whereby, with increasing grade, chloritoidgives way to staurolite. A pressure gradient increasing fromnorth-east to south-west (postulated on separate grounds, Chinner,1966) would then result in the convergence of the chloritoidand staurolite isograds towards the south-west, and the eventualsuppression of the chloritoid isograd to give the wedge-shapedoutcrop actually found, (b) The lack of low-grade hydrous assemblagesaluminous enough to give chloritoid or staurolite with increasinggrade suggests that the low-grade limit of chloritoid (and,to the south-west, of staurolite) may not be an isograd, buta chemical boundary. Such a boundary could either be metasedimentary,or metasomatic, representing an alkali gradient of the typestudied by Orville, in which, essentially, potassium and waterreleased within the high-grade metamorphic zones have migratedto low-grade zones to form more micaceous assemblages. The widespreadexistence of ‘shimmer aggregate‘ muscovite alterationof aluminous minerals in thesillimanite, kyanite, and staurolitezones provides evidence of potassium transfer during the waneof metamorphic temperatures on a scale comparable to that which,during the main metamorphic imprint, would have been requiredto mask the development of peraluminous assemblages in the chlorite,biotite, and garnet zones.     

Petrogenesis of plio-quaternary intra-plate continental alkaline lavas from the İskenderun Gulf (Southern Turkey): Evidence for metasomatized lithospheric mantle

The Quaternary alkaline volcanic field of Southern Turkey is characterized by intra-continental plate-type magmatic products, exposed to the north of the ?skenderun Gulf along a NE-SW trending East Anatolian Fault, to the west of its intersection with the N–S trending Dead Sea Fault zone. The ?skenderun Gulf alkaline rocks are mostly silica-undersaturated with normative nepheline and olivine and are mostly classified as basanites and alkaline basalts with their low-silica contents ranging between 43 and 48?wt.% SiO₂. They display Ocean Island Basalt (OIB)–type trace element patterns characterized by enrichments in large-ion-lithophile elements (LILE) and light rare earth element (LREE), and have (La/Yb)_N?=?8.8–17.7 and (Hf/Sm)_N?=?0.9–1.6 similar to those of basaltic rocks found in intraplate suites. The basanitic rocks have limited variations Sr-Nd isotopic ratios (⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr?=?0.70307–0.70324, ¹⁴³Nd/¹⁴⁴Nd?=?0.512918–0.521947), whereas the alkali basalts display more evolved Sr-Nd isotopic ratios (⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr?=?0.70346-0.70365, ¹⁴³Nd/¹⁴⁴Nd?=?0.512887–0.521896). The ?skenderun Gulf alkaline rocks also display limited Pb isotopic variations with ²⁰⁶Pb/²⁰⁴Pb?=?18.75–19.09 ²⁰⁷Pb/²⁰⁴Pb?=?15.61–15.66 and²⁰⁸Pb/²⁰⁴Pb?=?38.65–39.02, indicating that they originated from an enriched lithospheric mantle source. Calculated fractionation vectors indicate that clinopyroxene and olivine are the main fractionating mineral phases. Similarly, based on Sr-Nd isotopic ratios, the assimilation and fractional crystallization (AFC) modeling shows that the alkali basalts were affected by AFC processes (r?=?0.2) and were slightly contaminated by the upper crustal material.The high TiO₂ contents, enrichments in Ba and Nb, and depletions in Rb can likely be explained by the existence of amphibole in the mantle source, which might, in turn, indicate that the source mantle has been affected by metasomatic processes. The modeling based on relative abundances of trace elements suggests involvement of amphibole-bearing peridotite as the source material. ?skenderun Gulf alkaline rocks can thus be interpreted as the products of variable extent of mixing between melts from both amphibole-bearing peridotite and dry peridotite.     

Floating and fixed artificial habitats: Spatial and temporal patterns of benthic communities in a coral reef environment

While natural marine habitats with motion capabilities, e.g., kelps and seaweeds, have been studied alongside their associated fouling communities, little is known of the effect of motion on the communities of floating artificial habitats such as buoys, rafts, and pontoons, particularly in tropical systems. Hydrodynamic features greatly differ between floating and fixed artificial substrata, which in turn affect the structure of their associated communities. This study tested the hypothesis that floating and fixed artificial installations in a tropical reef system (Eilat, Red Sea) would support different benthic communities throughout space and time. Specifically, we examined differences in communities recruited onto settlement plates between floating and fixed installations deployed at three different sites, along a two-year monitoring period. The three sites exhibited distinct differences in species assemblages between the monitoring dates (6, 12, 18 and 24 months post deployment), mainly between the first and the last two dates. The average level of dissimilarity between floating and fixed installations increased over time at all sites. Over 50% of the dissimilarity between the floating and fixed installations resulted from five taxonomic groups i.e., bryozoans, bivalves, barnacles, sponges, including the amount of bare space on the settlement plates. The contribution of these groups to the dissimilarity changed both temporally within each site, and spatially among sites. The observed differences were related to the hydrodynamic characteristics of floating and fixed habitats, interacting with biotic features such as predation, successional processes and seasonality; and abiotic features including small-scale spatial changes, light, and position in the water column.     

Climate and human health: synthesizing environmental complexity and uncertainty

Broad relationships between weather and human health have long been recognized, and there is currently a large body of research examining the impacts of climate change on human health. Much of the literature in this area examines climate–health relationships at global or regional levels, incorporating mostly generalized responses of pathogens and vectors to broad changes in climate. Far less research has been done to understand the direct and indirect climate-mediated processes involved at finer scales. Thus, some studies simplify the role of climate and may over- or under-estimate the potential response, while others have begun to highlight the subtle and complex role for climate that is contingent on other relevant processes occurring in natural and social environments. These fundamental processes need to be understood to determine the effects of past, current and future climate variation and change on human health. We summarize the principal climate variables and climate-dependent processes that are believed to impact human health across a representative set of diseases, along with key uncertainties in these relationships.