Biostratonomisch-Malakologische Beobachtungen zur QuartÄrgeschichte der Südrussisch-Pontischen Saumtiefe

Zusammenfassung Die nördlichen pontischen Gestade sind durch eine Reihe erdgeschichtlich junger Gebilde wie die Limane mit ihren Nehrungen, die Salzseeketten und Schillriffe vor den übrigen Küsten des Schwarzen Meeres ausgezeichnet. Die zu ihrer Entstehungsgeschichte herangezogenen Bodenbewegungen werden strukturell als zugehörig dem tektonisch vorgebildeten und einheitlichen Streifen einer Saumtiefe vor der endgültig abgesunkenen Vortiefe des Pontus aufgefa\t. Der Existenznachweis und die zeitliche Festlegung der postdiluvialen im PleistozÄn wurzelnden Krustenbewegungen wird durch die eingehende Behandlung einer subfossilen Molluskenfauna versucht. Sie ist für die ausführlicher beschriebene Riesennehrung des Arabat an der Asowschen Westküste neu, und wird mit mehreren teilweise bekannten, teils auch unpublizierten Faunen parallelisiert. Die Befunde erlauben weitere Rückschlüsse auf tektonische, klimatische und hydrographische VerÄnderungen des südrussischen QuartÄrs und werden an den bisherigen Ergebnissen geprüft.Als Anhang folgen einzelne biostratonomische Beobachtungen aus dem im ersten Teil erdgeschichtlich zusammenhÄngend behandelten südrussischen Gebiet und seiner Umgebung. Wellenfurchen aus einem Odessaer Liman werden abgebildet. Verschiedenste bionomische Typen von Thanatocönosen werden kurz beschrieben, an rezenten seien genannt: Brackwasser (Salzseen, Kaspimeer), Land (Steppe, Krimgebirge), Flu\ (Wolga), an fossilen werden Flachseebeobachtungen aus dem südrussischen Sarmat im Anschlu\ an Ähnliche jüngst bekannt gewordene aus rumÄnischen ponto-sarmatischen Ablagerungen behandelt.     

Observations of flow structure in a small forested valley system

Summary Features of the mean flow structure in a small valley system in the Rosalian mountain range are discussed using data from a wind measurement network. Tethered balloon measurements during periods of clear sky form the basic dataset for the analysis of drainage winds and temperature inversions. During periods of weak ambient winds the existence of a pure thermally driven nocturnal valley wind system is shown. With strong ambient winds opposing the drainage flow, a reduced drainage height but the same jet maximum as with weak ambient winds is found. On the other hand with aiding flow the drainage winds are suppressed and flow reversal can occur. This strong valley flow interaction with the ambient wind indicates considerable dynamic influence on the evolution of drainage winds and on the breakup of temperature inversion structure for small valleys.With 15 Figures     

Sulfidinhalt,orientierte Verwachsungen und Trachtwechsel am Schwerspat von Christian Levin

Ohne ZusammenfassungHerrn Professor Dr.O. H. Erdmannsdörffer zur Vollendung des 75. Lebensjahres zugeeignet.     

Responsibility, opportunity, and vision for higher education in urban and regional carbon management

This is a summary of the conversation among scholars attending the special session on "Responsibility, Opportunity, and Vision for Higher Education in Urban and Regional Carbon Management" at the First International Conference on Carbon Management at Urban and Regional Levels: Connecting Development Decisions to Global Issues in Mexico City Sept. 4–8, 2006. It includes The Declaration for Carbon Management Education, agreed upon by the participants. Obstacles to such a vision were discussed along with exemplar models of transdisciplinary curricula and suggestions for scholarship.     

Saturn's vertical and latitudinal cloud structure 1991-2004 from HST imaging in 30 filters

We analyzed 134 images of Saturn taken by the Hubble Space Telescope between 1991 and 2004. The images cover wavelengths between 231 and 2370 nm in 30 filters. We combined some 10 million calibrated reflectivity measurements into 18,000 center-to-limb curves. We used the method of principal component analysis to find the main latitudinal and temporal variations in Saturn's atmosphere and their spectral characteristics. The first principal variation is a strong latitudinal variation of the aerosol optical depth in the upper troposphere. This structure shifts with Saturn's seasons, but the structure on small scales of latitude stays constant. The second principal variation is a variable optical depth of stratospheric aerosols. The optical depth is large at the poles and small at mid- and low latitudes with a steep gradient in-between. This structure remains essentially constant in time. The third principal variation is a variation in the tropospheric aerosol size, which has only shallow gradients with latitude, but large seasonal variations. Thus, aerosol sizes and their phase functions inferred at a particular season are not representative of Saturn's atmosphere at other seasons. Aerosols are largest in the summer and smallest in the winter. The fourth principal variation is a feature of the tropospheric aerosols with irregular latitudinal structure and fast variability, on the time scale of months. Spherical aerosols do not display the spectral characteristic of that feature. We suspect that variations in the shape of aerosols may play a role. We found a spectral feature of the imaginary index of aerosols, which darkens them near 400 nm wavelength. While we can describe Saturn's variations quite accurately, our presented model of Saturn's average atmosphere is still uncertain due to possible systematic offsets in methane absorption data and limitations of the knowledge about the shape of aerosols. In order to compare our results with those from comparable investigations, which used less than 30 filters, we fit models to spectral subsets of our data. We found very different best-fitting models, depending on the subset of filters, indicating a high sensitivity of results on the spectral sampling.     

MJO change with A1B global warming estimated by the 40-km ECHAM5

This study estimates MJO change under the A1B greenhouse gas emission scenario using the ECHAM5 AGCM whose coupled version (ECHAM5/MPI-OM) has simulated best MJO variance among fourteen CGCMs. The model has a horizontal resolution at T319 (about 40 km) and is forced by the monthly evolving SST derived from the ECHAM5/MPI-OM at a lower resolution of T63 (about 200 km). Two runs are carried out covering the last 21 years of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The NCEP/NCAR Reanalysis products and observed precipitation are used to validate the simulated MJO during the twentieth century, based on which the twenty-first century MJO change is compared and predicted. The validation indicates that the previously reported MJO variances in the T63 coupled version are reproduced by the 40-km ECHAM5. More aspects of MJO, such as the eastward propagation, structure, and dominant frequency and zonal wavenumber in power spectrum, are simulated reasonably well. The magnitude in power, however, is still low so that the signal is marginally detectable and embedded in the over-reddened background. Under the A1B scenario, the T63 ECHAM5/MPI-OM projected an over 3 K warmer tropical sea surface that forces the 40-km ECHAM to produce wetter tropics. The enhanced precipitation variance shows more spectral enhancement in background than in most wavebands. The zonal winds associated with MJO, however, are strengthened in the lower troposphere but weakened in the upper. On the one hand, the 850-hPa zonal wind has power nearly doubled in 30–60-days bands, demonstrating relatively clearer enhancement than the precipitation in MJO with the warming. A 1-tailed Student’s t test suggests that most of the MJO changes in variance and power spectra are statically significant. Subject to a 20–100-days band-pass filtering of that wind, an EOF analysis indicates that the two leading components in the twentieth-century run have a close structure to but smaller percentage of explained-to-total variance than those in observations; the A1B warming slightly increases the explained percentage and alters the structure. An MJO index formed by the two leading principal components discloses nearly doubling in the number of prominent MJO events with a peak phase occurring in February and March. A composite MJO life cycle of these events favors the frictional moisture convergence mechanism in maintaining the MJO and the nonlinear wind-induced surface heat exchange (WISHE) mechanism also appears in the A1B warming case. On the other hand, the Slingo index based on the 300-hPa zonal wind discloses that the upper-level MJO tends to be suppressed by the A1B warming, although the loose relationship with ENSO remains unchanged. Possible cause for the different change of MJO in the lower and upper troposphere is discussed.     

Jupiter's White Oval turns red

Jupiter's remaining White Oval changed color in late 2005 and became noticeably red in early 2006, as reported by amateur observers. We present wind and color analyses from high spatial resolution images taken with the Hubble Space Telescope Advanced Camera for Surveys in April 2006. These images suggest that the recent color change was tied to a strengthening of this storm, as implied by increased vorticity, causing it to become more like the Great Red Spot. From a historical perspective, the current activity may be consistent with the generation of new anticyclones at this latitude in the coming months and years.     

A simple hypoplastic constitutive model for sand

The paper presents a hypoplastic constitutive model for the three-dimensional non-linear stress–strain and dilatant volume change behaviour of sand. The model is developed without recourse to the concept in elastoplasticity theory such as yield surface, plastic potential and decomposition into elastic and plastic parts. Benefited from the non-linear tensorial functions available from the representation theorem the model possesses simple mathematical formulation and contains only four material parameters, which can be easily identified with triaxial compression tests. Comparison of the predictions with the experimental results shows that the model is capable of capturing the salient behaviour of sand under monotonic loading and is applicable to both drained and undrained conditions.