Optical layouts of the WSO-UV spectrographs

Electron acoustic blow up solitary waves and periodic waves are studied in a classical unmagnetized plasma containing cold electron fluid, kappa distributed hot electrons and stationary ions. We obtain Korteweg-de Vries (KdV) equation for electron acoustic waves (EAWs) using the reductive perturbation technique (RPT). Applying bifurcation theory of planar dynamical systems to the obtained KdV equation, we prove the existence of electron acoustic blowup solitary and periodic wave solutions. Depending on different physical parameters, two types of exact explicit solutions of the mentioned waves are derived. Our model may be applied to explain blow up solitary and periodic wave features that may occur in the planetary magnetosphere and the plasma sheet boundary layer.     

Conductivity structure of the upper mantle in an active subduction zone

The results of deep electromagnetic soundings for the active transition ocean-continent zone at Sakhalin Island are presented. After an averaging procedure of the magnetotelluric response functions, the period range was extended up to 500 days by using the geomagnetic soundings of the Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Kakioka and Memambetsu observatory data. The existence of the asthenosphere and a high conductivity layer located at the base of the upper mantle was established by one-dimensional inverse methods. High resistivity revealed at depths of 250–450 km appears to be connected with the penetration of the cold slab into the mantle. The possible nature of a mid-mantle conductive layer and the relation of its conductances with the tectonic history are discussed.     

Polarimetric Study of the Fine Aerosol Fraction in Beijing

Measurements of aerosol optical characteris- tics were carried out with a Photoelectric Aerosol Nephelometer （PhAN） in Beijing and at Xinglong Obser- vatory, which is located 150 km northeast of Beijing. Aerosol size distributions were retrieved by means of the inverse problem solution. Mean volume size distributions of the fine aerosol fraction were unimodal with the maximum radius in the range 0.11-0.15 pm. Accumula- tion of aerosol matter in the air basin of Beijing takes place mainly due to the growth of particle size, but not their number. A simple optical method to detect aerosol nonsphericity is proposed.     

Vertical Distribution of Gelatinous Macroplankton in the North Pacific Observed by Manned Submersibles Mir-1 and Mir-2

The vertical distribution of several medusa species in the Kurile-Kamtchatka region of the Pacific Ocean is described. Animals were observed in the light cone from deep-sea submersibles Mir-1 and Mir-2 throughout the water column, from the surface to 5000–6000 m at four different sites. Bathy- and abyssopelagic species are noted along with the species living in an extremely wide depth range. A faunistic border is revealed at a depth of 3000 m. The contribution of gelatinous animals (medusae, siphonophores, salps) to the total deep-sea plankton biomass was estimated using a wire reference cube during nine dives in the highly productive areas of the northwest Pacific, eastern Pacific (California, Costa-Rica Dome), and subtropical oligotrophic areas. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Research of local immunity components as part of complex diagnostics of peripheral territories

GeoJournal - The article provides the solution to the heuristic problem of formation and practical approval of methodology for local immunity components’ research within a complex diagnostics...     

The role of the Kazakhstan orocline in the late Paleozoic amalgamation of Eurasia

After the 2005 Kashmir earthquake, we mapped surface ground fractures in Tangdhar, Uri, Rajouri and Punch sectors and liquefaction features in Jammu area lying close to the eastern side of the Line of Control (LOC) in Kashmir, India. The NW trending ground fractures occurred largely in the hanging wall zone of the southeastern extension of the causative fault in Tangdhar and Uri sectors. The principal compressive stress deduced from the earthquake induced ground fractures is oriented at N10°, whereas the causative Balakot–Bagh fault strikes 330°. The fault-plane solution indicates primarily SW thrusting of the causative fault with a component of strike–slip motion. The ground fractures reflect pronounced strike–slip together with some tensile component. The Tangdhar area showing left-lateral strike–slip motion lies on the hanging wall, and the Uri region showing right-lateral strike–slip movement is located towards the southeastern extension of the causative fault zone. The shear fractures are related to static stress that was responsible for the failure of causative fault. The tensile fractures with offsets are attributed to combination of both static and dynamic stresses, and the fractures and openings without offsets owe their origin due to dynamic stress. In Punch–Rajouri and Jammu area, which lies on the footwall, the fractures and liquefactions were generated by dynamic stress. The occurrence of liquefaction features in the out board part of the Himalayan range front near Jammu is suggestive of stress transfer  230 km southeast of the epicenter. The Balakot–Bagh Fault (BBF), the Muzaffarabad anticline, the rupture zone of causative fault and the zone of aftershocks — all are aligned in a  25 km wide belt along the NW–SE trending regional Himalayan strike of Kashmir region and lying between the MBT and the Riasi Thrust (Murree Thrust), suggesting a seismogenic zone that may propagate towards the southeast to trigger an earthquake in the eastern part of the Kashmir region.     

Bed shear stress in the southern North Sea as an important driver for suspended sediment dynamics

This paper addresses the spatial and temporal patterns of drivers for sediment dynamics in coastal areas. The basic assumption is that local processes are dominating. The focus is put on the bed shear stress in the southern part of North Sea giving the basic control for deposition–sedimentation and resuspension–erosion. The wave-induced bed shear stress is formulated using a model based on the concept that the turbulent kinetic energy associated with surface waves is a function of orbital velocity, the latter depending on the wave height and period, as well as on the water depth. Parameters of surface waves are taken from simulations with the wave spectrum model WAM (wave model). Bed shear stress associated with currents is simulated with a 3D primitive equation model, Hamburg Shelf Ocean Model. Significant wave height, bed shear stress due to waves and currents, is subjected to empirical orthogonal functions (EOF) analysis. It has been found that the EOF-1 of significant wave height represents the decrease of significant wave height over the shallows and, due to fetch limitation, along the coastlines. Higher order modes are seesaw-like and, in combination, display a basin-scale rotational pattern centred approximately in the middle of the basin. Similar types of variability is also observed in the second and third EOF of bed shear stress. Surface concentrations of suspended matter derived from MERIS satellite data are analysed and compared against statistical characteristics of bed shear stress. The results show convincingly that the horizontal distribution of sediment can, to a larger extent, be explained by the local shear stress. However, availability of resuspendable sediments on the bottom is quite important in some areas like the Dogger Bank.     

Dynamic Model of Mesoscale Eddies

Oceanic mesoscale eddies which are analogs of well known synoptic eddies (cyclones and anticyclones), are studied on the basis of the turbulence model originated by Dubovikov (Dubovikov, M.S., "Dynamical model of turbulent eddies", Int. J. Mod. Phys. B7, 4631-4645 (1993).) and further developed by Canuto and Dubovikov (Canuto, V.M. and Dubovikov, M.S., "A dynamical model for turbulence: I. General formalism", Phys. Fluids 8, 571-586 (1996a) (CD96a); Canuto, V.M. and Dubovikov, M.S., "A dynamical model for turbulence: II. Sheardriven flows", Phys. Fluids 8, 587-598 (1996b) (CD96b); Canuto, V.M., Dubovikov, M.S., Cheng, Y. and Dienstfrey, A., "A dynamical model for turbulence: III. Numerical results", Phys. Fluids 8, 599-613 (1996c)(CD96c); Canuto, V.M., Dubovikov, M.S. and Dienstfrey, A., "A dynamical model for turbulence: IV. Buoyancy-driven flows", Phys. Fluids 9, 2118-2131 (1997a) (CD97a); Canuto, V.M. and Dubovikov, M.S., "A dynamical model for turbulence: V. The effect of rotation", Phys. Fluids 9, 2132-2140 (1997b) (CD97b); Canuto, V.M., Dubovikov, M.S. and Wielaard, D.J., "A dynamical model for turbulence: VI. Two dimensional turbulence", Phys. Fluids 9, 2141-2147 (1997c) (CD97c); Canuto, V.M. and Dubovikov, M.S., "Physical regimes and dimensional structure of rotating turbulence", Phys. Rev. Lett. 78, 666-669 (1997d) (CD97d); Canuto, V.M., Dubovikov, M.S. and Dienstfrey, A., "Turbulent convection in a spectral model", Phys. Rev. Lett. 78, 662-665 (1997e) (CD97e); Canuto, V.M. and Dubovikov, M.S., "A new approach to turbulence", Int. J. Mod. Phys. 12, 3121-3152 (1997f) (CD97f); Canuto, V.M. and Dubovikov, M.S., "Two scaling regimes for rotating Raleigh-Benard convection", Phys. Rev. Letters 78, 281-284, (1998) (CD98); Canuto, V.M. and Dubovikov, M.S., "A dynamical model for turbulence: VII. The five invariants for shear driven flows", Phys. Fluids 11, 659-664 (1999a) (CD99a); Canuto, V.M., Dubovikov, M.S. and Yu, G., "A dynamical model for turbulence: VIII. IR and UV Reynolds stress spectra for shear driven flows", Phys. Fluids 11, 656-677 (1999b) (CD99b); Canuto, V.M., Dubovikov, M.S. and Yu, G., "A dynamical model for turbulence: IX. The Reynolds stress for shear driven flows", Phys. Fluids 11, 678-694 (1999c) (CD99c).). The CD model derives from general principles and does not resort to any free parameters. Yet, it successfully describes a wide variety of quite different turbulent flows. In the present work we apply CD model to the compressible ocean. The model yields mesoscale eddies generated by the baroclinic instability. The latter, in turn, arises from the nonhorizontal orientation of the surfaces of the constant potential density (isopycnals). The obtained dynamic equations for eddy fields reduce to a vertical eigen value problem, an eigen value real part yielding an eddy radius, while an imaginary part - an eddy drift velocity. The size of the eddy is about 3r_d (where r_d is the Rossby deformation radius). The eddy dynamics has the following distinctive features: (1) the large scale potential energy feeds the eddy potential energy (EPE) at scales ～ r_d , (2) from r_d EPE cascades to the smaller scales down to ～ l ₁ determined from the condition that the spectral Rossby number Ro(q) ≡ qU'(q)f^?1 becomes ～ 1 (q is two-dimensional wave number within an isopycnal surface), (3) at scales ～ l ₁ EPE transforms into eddy kinetic energy (EKE) which cascades backwards to the larger scales up to ～ r_d , where it transforms back into EPE, thereby closing the energy flux circulation in a wavenumber space, (4) dissipation of the eddy energy (EE) occurs at scales ～ l ₁ since at those scales the fluctuating component of the vertical shear is maximal and equals to the Brunt-Vaisala frequency. The latter equality is the well known condition for generating the vertical turbulence which dissipates EE. The model enables to determine all turbulence characteristics, including the horizontal (isopycnal) diffusivity κ _h in terms of the large scale mean fields. From the typical values of the latter follow estimates for the parameters of an eddy which agree well with the observational and simulational data: k_h ～ 10³m²s^?1, EKE K ～ 10³m²s^?1, r_d ～ 3 × 10⁴m, l_I ～ 10. In what concerns the bolus velocity, it contains additional terms (as compared to the model of Gent and McWilliams (Gent, P.R. and McWilliams, J.C., "Isopycnal mixing in ocean circulation models", J. Phys. Oceanogr. 20, 150-155 (1990)) which result from the eddy fields advection by a mean velocity ū. Since the latter varies with depth, it is inevitable to differ from the eddy drift velocity that produces a shearing force eroding the eddy coherent structures and, therefore, contributing negatively to EE production. This is in contrast with the positive contribution from the GM term (which is due to the baroclinic instability). In those regions where the disruptive action is stronger, there is no eddy generation.