Atmospheric circulation anomalies during two persistent north american droughts: 1932�C1939 and 1948�C1957

We use an early twentieth century (1908?C1958) atmospheric reanalysis, based on assimilation of surface and sea level pressure observations, to contrast atmospheric circulation during two periods of persistent drought in North America: 1932?C1939 (the ??Dust Bowl??) and 1948?C1957. Primary forcing for both droughts is believed to come from anomalous sea surface temperatures (SSTs): a warm Atlantic and a cool eastern tropical Pacific. For boreal winter (October?CMarch) in the 1950s, a stationary wave pattern originating from the tropical Pacific is present, with positive centers over the north Pacific and north Atlantic ocean basins and a negative center positioned over northwest North America and the tropical/subtropical Pacific. This wave train is largely absent for the 1930s drought; boreal winter height anomalies are organized much more zonally, with positive heights extending across northern North America. For boreal summer (April?CSeptember) during the 1930s, a strong upper level ridge is centered over the Great Plains; this feature is absent during the 1950s and appears to be linked to a weakening of the Great Plains low-level jet (GPLLJ). Subsidence anomalies are co-located over the centers of each drought: in the central Great Plains for the 1930s and in a band extending from the southwest to the southeastern United States for the 1950s. The location and intensity of this subsidence during the 1948?C1957 drought is a typical response to a cold eastern tropical Pacific, but for 1932?C1939 deviates in terms of the expected intensity, location, and spatial extent. Overall, circulation anomalies during the 1950s drought appear consistent with the expected response to the observed SST forcing. This is not the case for the 1930s, implying some other causal factor may be needed to explain the Dust Bowl drought anomalies. In addition to SST forcing, the 1930s were also characterized by massive alterations to the land surface, including regional-scale devegetation from crop failures and intensive wind erosion and dust storms. Incorporation of these land surface factors into a general circulation model greatly improves the simulation of precipitation and subsidence anomalies during this drought, relative to simulations with SST forcing alone. Even with additional forcing from the land surface, however, the model still has difficulty reproducing some of the other circulation anomalies, including weakening of the GPLLJ and strengthening of the upper level ridge during AMJJAS. This may be due to either weaknesses in the model or uncertainties in the boundary condition estimates. Still, analysis of the circulation anomalies supports the conclusion of an earlier paper (Cook et?al. in Proc Natl Acad Sci 106:4997, 2009), demonstrating that land degradation factors are consistent with the anomalous nature of the Dust Bowl drought.     

A SOAP Web Service for accessing MODIS land product subsets

Remote sensing data from satellites have provided valuable information on the state of the earth for several decades. Since March 2000, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) sensor on board NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites have been providing estimates of several land parameters useful in understanding earth system processes at global, continental, and regional scales. However, the HDF-EOS file format, specialized software needed to process the HDF-EOS files, data volume, and the high spatial and temporal resolution of MODIS data make it difficult for users wanting to extract small but valuable amounts of information from the MODIS record. To overcome this usability issue, the NASA-funded Distributed Active Archive Center (DAAC) for Biogeochemical Dynamics at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) developed a Web service that provides subsets of MODIS land products using Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP). The ORNL DAAC MODIS subsetting Web service is a standard based way of serving satellite data that exploits a fairly established and popular Internet protocol to allow users access to massive amounts of remote sensing data. The Web service provides MODIS land product subsets up to 201 × 201 km in a non-proprietary comma delimited text file format. Users can programmatically query the Web service to extract MODIS land parameters for real time data integration into models, decision support tools or connect to workflow software. Information regarding the MODIS SOAP subsetting Web service is available on the World Wide Web (WWW) at .     

Mid-twenty-first century climate change in the Central United States. Part II: Climate change processes

Ensemble regional model simulations over the central US with 30-km resolution are analyzed to investigate the physical processes of projected precipitation changes in the mid-twenty-first century under greenhouse gas forcing. An atmospheric moisture balance is constructed, and changes in the diurnal cycle are evaluated. Wetter conditions over the central US in April and May occur most strongly in the afternoon and evening, supported primarily by moisture convergence by transient eddy activity, indicating enhanced daytime convection. In June, increased rainfall over the northern Great Plains is strongest from 0000 to 0600 LT. It is supported by positive changes in stationary meridional moisture convergence related to a strengthening of the GPLLJ accompanied by an intensification of the western extension of the North Atlantic subtropical high. In the Midwest, decreased rainfall is strongest at 1500 LT and 0000 LT. Both a suppression of daytime convection as well as changes in the zonal flow in the GPLLJ exit region are important. Future drying over the northern Great Plains in summer is triggered by weakened daytime convection, and persists throughout August and September when a deficit in soil moisture develops and land–atmosphere feedbacks become increasingly important.     

Mid-twenty-first century warm season climate change in the Central United States. Part I: regional and global model predictions

A regional climate model (RCM) constrained by future anomalies averaged from atmosphere–ocean general circulation model (AOGCM) simulations is used to generate mid-twenty-first century climate change predictions at 30-km resolution over the central U.S. The predictions are compared with those from 15 AOGCM and 7 RCM dynamic downscaling simulations to identify common climate change signals. There is strong agreement among the multi-model ensemble in predicting wetter conditions in April and May over the northern Great Plains and drier conditions over the southern Great Plains in June through August for the mid-twenty-first century. Projected changes in extreme daily precipitation are statistically significant over only a limited portion of the central U.S. in the RCM constrained with future anomalies. Projected changes in monthly mean 2-m air temperature are generally consistent across the AOGCM ensemble average, North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program RCM ensemble average, and RCM constrained with future anomalies, which produce a maximum increase in August of 2.4–2.9 K over the northern and southern Great Plains and Midwest. Changes in extremes in daily 2-m air temperature from the RCM downscaled with anomalies are statistically significant over nearly the entire Great Plains and Midwest and indicate a positive shift in the warm tail of the daily 2-m temperature distribution that is larger than the positive shift in the cold tail.     

Further empirical evidence for the non-linearity of the period–luminosity relations as seen in the Large Magellanic Cloud Cepheids

Recent studies, using OGLE data for LMC Cepheids in the optical, strongly suggest that the period–luminosity (PL) relation for the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) Cepheids shows a break or non-linearity at a period of 10 d. In this paper we apply statistical tests, the chi-squared test and the F -test, to the Cepheid data from the MACHO project to test for a non-linearity of the V - and R -band PL relations at 10 d, and extend these tests to the near-infrared ( JHK -band) PL relations with 2MASS data. We correct the extinction for these data by applying an extinction map towards the LMC. The statistical test we use, the F -test, is able to take account of small numbers of data points and the nature of that data on either side of the period cut at 10 d. With our data, the results we obtained imply that the VRJH -band PL relations are non-linear around a period of 10 d, while the K -band PL relation is (marginally) consistent with a single-line regression. The choice of a period of 10 d, around which this non-linearity occurs, is consistent with the results obtained when this 'break' period is estimated from the data. We show that robust parametric (including least-squares, least absolute deviation, robust regression) and non-parametric regression methods, which restrict the influence of outliers, produce similar results. Long-period Cepheids are supplemented from the literature to increase our sample size. The photometry of these long-period Cepheids is compared with our data and no trend with period is found. Our main results remain unchanged when we supplement our data set with these long-period Cepheids. By examining our data at maximum light, we also suggest arguments as to why errors in reddening are unlikely to be responsible for our results. The non-linearity of the mean V -band PL relation as seen in both of the OGLE and the MACHO data, using different extinction maps, suggests that this non-linearity is real.     

Rare earth element geochemistry of feldspars: examples from Fe-oxide Cu-Au systems in the Olympic Cu-Au Province,South Australia

Mineralogy and Petrology - Rare earth element (REE) fractionation trends in feldspars are reported from Olympic Dam (including Wirrda Well and Phillip’s Ridge) and Cape Donington (Port...     

Glacial and deglacial climatic patterns in Australia and surrounding regions from 35 000 to 10 000 years ago reconstructed from terrestrial and near-shore proxy data

This study forms part of a wider investigation of late Quaternary environments in the Southern Hemisphere. We here review the terrestrial and near-shore proxy data from Australia, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea (PNG), New Zealand and surrounding oceans during 35–10 ka, an interval spanning the lead-up to the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), the LGM proper (21 ± 2 ka), and the ensuing deglaciation. Sites selected for detailed discussion have a continuous or near continuous sedimentary record for this time interval, a stratigraphically consistent chronology, and one or more sources of proxy climatic data. Tropical Australia, Indonesia and PNG had LGM mean annual temperatures 3–7 °C below present values and summer precipitation reduced by at least 30%, consistent with a weaker summer monsoon and a northward displacement of the Intertropical Convergence Zone. The summer monsoon was re-established in northwest Australia by 14 ka. Precipitation in northeast Australia was reduced to less than 50% of present values until warmer and wetter conditions resumed at 17–16 ka, followed by a second warmer, wetter phase at 15–14 ka. LGM temperatures were up to 8 °C lower than today in mainland southeast Australia and up to 4 °C cooler in Tasmania. Winter rainfall was much reduced throughout much of southern Australia although periodic extreme flood events are evident in the fluvial record. Glacial advances in southeast Australia are dated to 32 ± 2.5, 19.1 ± 1.6 and 16.8 ± 1.4 ka, with periglacial activity concentrated towards 23–16 ka. Deglaciation was rapid in the Snowy Mountains, which were ice-free by 15.8 ka. Minimum effective precipitation in southern Australia was from 14 to 12 ka. In New Zealand the glacial advances date to ～28, 21.5 and 19 ka, with the onset of major cooling at ～28 ka, or well before the LGM. There is no convincing evidence for a Younger Dryas cooling event in or around New Zealand, but there are signs of the Antarctic Cold Reversal in and around New Zealand and off southern Australia. There remain unresolved discrepancies between the climates inferred from pollen and those inferred from the beetle and chironomid fauna at a number of New Zealand sites. One explanation may be that pollen provides a generalised regional climatic signal in contrast to the finer local resolution offered by beetles and chironomids. Sea surface temperatures (SSTs) were up to 5 °C cooler during the LGM with rapid warming after 20 ka to attain present values by 15 ka. The increase in summer monsoonal precipitation at or before 15 ka reflects higher insolation, warmer SSTs and steeper thermal gradients between land and sea. The postglacial increase in winter rainfall in southern Australia is probably related to the southward displacement of the westerlies as SSTs around Antarctica became warmer and the winter pack ice and Antarctic Convergence Zone retreated to the south.