SHEBA flux–profile relationships in the stable atmospheric boundary layer

Measurements of atmospheric turbulence made during the Surface Heat Budget of the Arctic Ocean Experiment (SHEBA) are used to examine the profile stability functions of momentum, φ _m , and sensible heat, φ _h , in the stably stratified boundary layer over the Arctic pack ice. Turbulent fluxes and mean meteorological data that cover different surface conditions and a wide range of stability conditions were continuously measured and reported hourly at five levels on a 20-m main tower for 11 months. The comprehensive dataset collected during SHEBA allows studying φ _m and φ _h in detail and includes ample data for the very stable case. New parameterizations for φ _m (ζ) and φ _h (ζ) in stable conditions are proposed to describe the SHEBA data; these cover the entire range of the stability parameter ζ = z/L from neutral to very stable conditions, where L is the Obukhov length and z is the measurement height. In the limit of very strong stability, φ _m follows a ζ ^1/3 dependence, whereas φ _h initially increases with increasing ζ, reaches a maximum at ζ ≈ 10, and then tends to level off with increasing ζ. The effects of self-correlation, which occur in plots of φ _m and φ _h versus ζ, are reduced by using an independent bin-averaging method instead of conventional averaging.     

Stable Boundary-Layer Scaling Regimes: The Sheba Data

Turbulent and mean meteorological data collected at five levels on a 20-m tower over the Arctic pack ice during the Surface Heat Budget of the Arctic Ocean experiment (SHEBA) are analyzed to examine different regimes of the stable boundary layer (SBL). Eleven months of measurements during SHEBA cover a wide range of stability conditions, from the weakly unstable regime to very stable stratification. Scaling arguments and our analysis show that the SBL can be classified into four major regimes: (i) surface-layer scaling regime (weakly stable case), (ii) transition regime, (iii) turbulent Ekman layer, and (iv) intermittently turbulent Ekman layer (supercritical stable regime). These four regimes may be considered as the basic states of the traditional SBL. Sometimes these regimes, especially the last two, can be markedly perturbed by gravity waves, detached elevated turbulence (‘upside down SBL’), and inertial oscillations. Traditional Monin–Obukhov similarity theory works well in the weakly stable regime. In the transition regime, Businger–Dyer formulations work if scaling variables are re-defined in terms of local fluxes, although stability function estimates expressed in these terms include more scatter compared to the surface-layer scaling. As stability increases, the near-surface turbulence is affected by the turning effects of the Coriolis force (the turbulent Ekman layer). In this regime, the surface layer, where the turbulence is continuous, may be very shallow (< 5 m). Turbulent transfer near the critical Richardson number is characterized by small but still significant heat flux and negligible stress. The supercritical stable regime, where the Richardson number exceeds a critical value, is associated with collapsed turbulence and the strong influence of the earth’s rotation even near the surface. In the limit of very strong stability, the stress is no longer a primary scaling parameter.     

Magnetic minerals in sediments at the Cretaceous/Paleogene boundary (the Gams Section,Eastern Alps)

The paper presents results of detailed magnetomineralogical and microprobe studies of sediments at the Cretaceous/Paleogene (K/T) boundary in two epicontinental sections in the Eastern Alps (Austria), where deposits, including the K/T boundary, outcrop along the Gams River and its tributaries. K/T boundary layers in these sections are similar in the set of such magnetic minerals as iron hydroxides, ferrospinels, hemoilmenite, titanomagnetite, magnetite, hematite, and metallic iron. However, the boundary layer in the Gams-1 section is distinguished by the presence of metallic nickel and its alloy with iron and by the absence of iron sulfides, whereas nickel has not been discovered in the Gams-2 section, which, however, contains iron sulfides of the pyrite type. Therefore, these minerals occur locally. It is suggested that enrichment in iron hydroxides of a common origin can be regarded as a global phenomenon inherent in the K/T boundary and unrelated to an impact event.     

Turbulent measurements in the stable atmospheric boundary layer during SHEBA: ten years after

This paper surveys results of the comprehensive turbulent measurements in the stable boundary layer (SBL) made over the Arctic pack ice during the Surface Heat Budget of the Arctic Ocean experiment (SHEBA) in the Beaufort Gyre from October 1997 through September 1998. Turbulent fluxes and mean meteorological data were continuously measured and reported hourly at five levels on a 20-m main SHEBA tower. Eleven months of measurements during SHEBA cover a wide range of stability conditions, from the weakly unstable regime to very stable stratification, and allow studying the SBL in detail. A brief overview of the SBL regimes, the flux-profile relationships, the turbulent Prandtl number, and other parameters obtained during SHEBA is given. The traditional Monin—Obukhov approach, z-less scaling, and gradient-based scaling are evaluated and discussed based on the data from SHEBA.     

Laboratory determination of thermal diffusion constants for N2/N2 in air at temperatures from −60 to 0°C for reconstruction of magnitudes of abrupt climate changes using the ice core fossil-air paleothermometer

Rapid temperature change causes fractionation of isotopic gaseous species in air in firn (snow) by thermal diffusion, producing a signal that is preserved in trapped air bubbles as the snow forms ice. Using a model of heat penetration and gas diffusion in the firn, as well as the values of appropriate thermal diffusion constants, it is possible to reconstruct the magnitude of a particular paleoclimate change. Isotopic nitrogen in air serves as a convenient tracer for such paleoreconstruction, because the ratio ²⁹N₂/²⁸N₂ has stayed extremely constant in the atmosphere for ≥10⁶ years. However, prior to this work no data were available for thermal diffusion of ²⁹N₂/²⁸N₂ in air, but only in pure N₂. We devised a laboratory experiment allowing fractionation of gases by thermal diffusion in a small, tightly controlled temperature difference. A mass spectrometer was employed in measuring the resulting fractionations yielding measurement precision greater than was attainable by earlier thermal diffusion investigators.Our laboratory experiments indicate that the value of the thermal diffusion sensitivity (Ω) for ²⁹N₂/²⁸N₂ in air is +(14.7 ± 0.5) × 10⁻³ per mil/°C when the average temperature is -30.0°C. The corresponding value for ²⁹N₂/²⁸N₂ in pure N₂ that we find is +(15.3 ± 0.4) × 10⁻³ per mil/°C at -30.6°C, in agreement with the previously available literature data within their large range of uncertainty. We find that an empirical equation, Ω = (8.656/T_K − 1232/T K2) ± 3% per mil/°C, describes the slight variation of the sensitivity values for ²⁹N₂/²⁸N₂ in air with temperature in the range of -60 to 0°C. A separate set of experiments also described in this paper rules out adsorption as a candidate for producing additional temperature change-driven fractionation of ²⁹N₂/²⁸N₂ in the firn air. The combined newly obtained data constitute a calibration of the fossil-air paleothermometer with respect to isotopic nitrogen and will serve to improve the estimates of the magnitudes of past abrupt climate changes recorded in ice cores.     

Absorption in the 21-cm Line in Primordial Matter Density Fluctuations at the Stage of Their Nonlinear Compression

The mechanisms of absorption formation in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) spectrum at the frequency of the 21-cm line of the transition between the ground-state hyperfine sublevels of the hydrogen atom are analyzed. We show that a strong nonlinearity at the compression stage of primordial matter density fluctuations can give rise to a significant (in depth) absorption even before the explosions of the first stars. In this case, the main effect is due to the heating of matter in a certain narrow range of temperatures under cloud compression. We consider a steady-state radiative transfer in the 21-cm line in a medium that represents a contracting primordial matter density fluctuation at a given redshift z modeled by a homogeneous spherically symmetric cloud in the state of collapse with an adiabatic change in the gas temperature. For a sequence of cloud states with different degrees of compression we have calculated the frequency profiles of the line in the flux of radiation emerging from the cloud. In the initial state we specify the cloud radius r₀, while the gas density is assumed to be equal to the mean cosmological density for a given redshift. We show that for a separate cloud at z = 20, r₀ = 1 kpc, and a degree of radius compression of 1.9 the absorption depth in the line center can reach 0.9 K. When averaged over an ensemble of clouds, the central frequency of the line and its width are determined by the details of the fluctuation evolution dynamics.

     

Transfer of Polarized Radiation: Nonlinear Integral Equations for I-Matrices in the General Case and for Resonance Scattering in a Weak Magnetic Field

General equations of the Wiener-Hopf type for a matrix source function with nonsymmetrical kernel matrices are considered in the form of continuous superpositions of exponentials. Certain problems in the transfer of polarized radiation reduce to equations of this kind. In general there are two different H-matrices in the theory (which are a generalization of the Ambartsumian-Chandrasekhar scalar H-function), generated by an initial equation of the Wiener-Hopf type and its analog, but with the kernel matrix and the unknown matrix of the source function being transposed. In addition there are two corresponding I-matrices, actually consisting of Laplace transforms of the matrix source functions, through which the Stokes vector of the escaping radiation is directly determined. In the problem of diffuse reflection from a half-space, the I-matrices are expressed in terms of a product of these two H-matrices, and for the latter there is a system of nonlinear equations which is a generalization of the corresponding Ambartsumian-Chandrasekhar scalar equation. In the problem of the emission of partially polarized radiation from a half-space containing uniformly distributed internal sources we have obtained a system of two nonlinear equations for the I-matrices directly. In the special case of a symmetrical kernel matrix, this system of two equations reduces to one equation. It is shown that in the case of resonance scattering in a weak magnetic field (the Hanle effect) in the approximation of complete frequency redistribution, the system of two nonlinear equations for the I-matrices (of dimension 6×6) also reduces to one nonlinear equation, although the kernel matrix for the main integral equation for the matrix source function () is not symmetrical. For this case we have found a matrix generalization of the so-called law, consisting of an equation of the type (0)Â ^T (0) = (where T denotes transposition) at the boundary of a half-space containing uniformly distributed primary sources of partially polarized radiation.