Rice paddies as a methane source

Rice fields are considered to be among the highest sources of atmospheric methane, an important source of global warming. In order to meet the projected rice needs of the increasing world population, it is estimated that the annual world's rough rice production must increase to 760 million tons (a 65% increase) in the next 30 years. This will increase methane emissions from ricefields if current technologies are kept. Methane emissions from ricefields are affected by climate, water regime, soil properties, and various cultural practices like irrigation and drainage, organic amendments, fertilization, and rice cultivars. Irrigated rice comprises 50% of the world-harvested rice area and contributes 70% to total rice production. Because of assured flooding during the growing period it is the primary source of methane. Rainfed rice emits less methane due to periods of droughts. Upland rice, being never flooded for a significant period of time, is not a significant source of methane. There is great potential to develop no regret mitigation options that are in accordance with increasing rice production.     

Outcomes and policy recommendations from the IPCC/AFOS working group on climate change response strategies and emission reductions

The most promising response strategies are

-sustainable practices in agriculture to improve productivity on existing arable land especially in developing countries to meet the food requirements of a still rising population

-sustainable practices in forestry both in tropical forests as well as in forests of temperate and boreal zones, in the latter case to achieve sufficient fast adaption to climate change.

     

Pesticide residues in birds at Lake Nakuru,Kenya

Specimens of three species of birds were collected from Lake Nakuru, Kenya, between September and October 1990. Samples of liver, kidney, muscle, fat and brain tissue were removed and analyzed for organochlorine pesticide residues. Fat was extracted and the content of three lindane (BHC/HCH) isomers (, and ), aldrin, heptachlor, heptachlorepoxide, endrin, dieldrin, DDD, DDE and DDT was determined. The samples contained varying residue levels of 12 organochlorine pesticides. No residues of 0, p'-DDD were detected. The most prevalent compounds were DDE and -BHC, found in 95.5 per cent and 66.4 per cent of the samples, respectively. The highest median residue concentration was 207 mg kg^–1×10^–3 of DDE in pelican fat tissue. White pelicanPelecanus onocrotalus, and the white-necked cormorant,Phalacrocorax carbo, showed greater concentrations of organochlorine residues than the lesser flamingo,Phoenicopterus minor. The mean DDE concentrations in pelican liver samples in 1970 and 1990 were 64 mg kg^–1×10^–3 and 274 mg kg^–1×10^–3, respectively. In cormorant liver samples the mean DDE concentration was 15 mg kg^–1×10^–3 in 1970 and 52 mg kg^–1×10^–3 in 1990. The mean DDE concentration in flamingo liver remained more or less similar at 2 mg kg^–1×10^–3 in 1970 and 1990.     

Stellar irradiance variations due to surface temperature inhomogeneities

Observations of rotational modulation of continuum brightness and photospheric and chromospheric spectral-line profiles of late-type stars indicate the presence of very inhomogeneous surface temperature distributions. We present three stellar examples (VY Ari, HR 7275, HU Vir) where time-series photometry is used to trace the evolution of spotted regions. Simultaneous spectroscopy and Doppler imaging for one of the three stars (HU Virgo, Fig. 1) makes it possible to compute the temperature distribution of the photosphere and the relative intensity distribution of parts of the chromosphere (from CaII K and H line profiles). The combination of time-series spot modeling and Doppler imaging enabled us to determine thesign and amount of differential surface rotation on HU Vir. We found a big, cool polar spot (see figure below) and a differential (surface) rotation law where higher-latitude regions rotate faster than lower-latitude regions (opposite to what we see on the Sun). Currently, this ensemble of techniques - time-series photometry and photospheric and chromospheric Doppler imaging - is only applicable to stars overactive by approximately a factor of 100 as compared to the active Sun, e.g. the evolved components in RS CVn-type binaries and some rapidly-rotating, single, pre-main sequence stars or giant stars. Stellar rotation is a fundamental parameter for (magnetic) activity. Starspots, or any other surface inhomogeneities, allow one to derive very precise stellar rotation rates and, if coupled with seismological observations of solar-type stars, could provide information on the internal angular momentum distribution in overactive late-type stars.To be published in Astronomy & Astrophysics.     

Strange quark matter and models of strange stars

In the framework of the MIT bag model we consider absolutely stable strange quark matter consisting of u, d, and s quarks and electrons. For a realistic range of parameters of the quark bag we compute the threshold density for the appearance of strange quark matter that is realized on the surface of self-sustaining strange stars. On the basis of twelve calculated equations of state we give a detailed study of the series of configurations of strange stars consistent with the best known observational data. We show that the binding energy of the models depends essentially on the quark-gluon interaction constant _c.Translated fromAstrofizika, Vol. 37, No. 3, 1994.The authors are grateful to E. V. Chubaryan and A. M. Atoyan for assistance in overcoming the information blockade. The present paper was written in the framework of area 46/101 93-353, supported by the Ministry of Higher Education and Science of the Republic of Armenia.     

Ca X line ratios in solar flares

Theoretical Ca X electron temperature sensitive emission line ratios, derived using electron excitation rates interpolated from accurateR-matrix calculations, are presented forR ₁ =I(419.74 )/I(574.02 ,),R ₂ =I(411.65 )/I(574.02 ),R ₃ =I(419.74 )/I(557.75 ), andR ₄ =I(411.65 )/I(557.75 ). A comparison of these with observational data for three solar flares, obtained by the Naval Research Laboratory's S082A slitless spectrograph on boardSkylab, reveals good agreement between theory and observation forR ₁ andR ₃ in one event, which provides limited support for the accuracy of the atomic data adopted in the analysis. However, in the other flares the observed values ofR ₁ –R ₄ are much larger than the theoretical high-temperature limits, which is probably due to blending of the 419.74 line with Civ 419.71 , and 411.65 with possibly Ciii 411.70 .     

Effect of perturbed potentials on the non-linear stability of libration pointL 4 in the restricted problem

The non-linear stability of the libration pointL ₄ in the restricted problem has been studied when there are perturbations in the potentials between the bodies. It is seen that the pointL ₄ is stable for all mass ratios in the range of linear stability except for three mass ratios depending upon the perturbing functions. The theory is applied to the following four cases:

Fine structure in a metric type IV burst: Multi-site spectrographic,polarimetric, and heliographic observations

The spectral fine structure of solar radio continua is thought to reveal wave-particle and wave-wave interactions in magnetic traps in the solar corona. We present observations of spectra, polarization, and spatial characteristics of combined emission/extinction features (zebra patterns) during a decimetric/metric type IV event on 5 June, 1990. Very high modulation depths are observed. The size and location of the sources during emission and extinction are determined for the first time. Two remarkable features are found: (1) The sources of emission stripes have finite size, up to nearly 2; during extinction stripes the brightness is reduced across the whole extent of the unperturbed continuum, which is slightly larger than 2. (2) During emission stripes the sources drift over distances up to several × 10⁴ km, with apparent velocities up to 10⁵ km s^–1. The observed features are briefly discussed with respect to interpretations based on wave-particle interactions and on the scattering of electromagnetic waves.     

The near infrared camera on the W.M. Keck telescope

The near infrared camera (NIRC) was used for a science demonstration run on the Keck telescope during 16–24 March 1993. The camera used a 256×256 InSb array manufactured by Santa Barbara Research Corporation. Observations were obtained using narrowband and broad band filters from 1 to 2.4 microns, and grisms with a spectral resolution of 0.6 percent in the J, H and K atmospheric windows. The instrument was fully background limited over the entire wavelength range. The sky background was quite low, reaching 14.3 mag/square arc sec in the broadband K _s filter. The image quality of the camera + telescope was excellent, being seeing limited in the range 0.5–0.9.The science demonstration observations of the NIRC on the Keck Telescope included observations of the most distant galaxy known, 4C41.17 at a redshift z=3.8 and the most luminous object known, the IRAS source FSC10214+4724 at a redshift z=2.29. Observations of the radio galaxy address the problem of the alignment effect in high redshift radio galaxies as well as the environments of such systems. FSC10214+4724 appears to be a merging galaxy that is at least 5×10⁸ years old.Based on observations obtained at the W.M.Keck Observatory, which is operated jointly by the California Institute of Technology and the University of CaliforniaThe W.M. Keck Observatory is operated as a scientific partnership between the California Institute of Technology and the University of California. It was made possible by the generous gift of the W.M. Keck foundation and the support of its president, Howard Keck.     

Theoretical emission line strengths for Ov compared to EUV solar observations

RecentR-matrix calculations of electron impact excitation rates in Ov are used to derive the emission line intensity ratios (in energy units) $$\begin{gathered} R_1 = I(2s2p^{ 3} P - 2p^{2 3} P)/I(2s^{2 1} S_0 - 2s2p^{ 1} P_1 ) = I(761.1\mathop A\limits^ \circ )/I(629.7\mathop A\limits^ \circ ), \hfill \\ R_2 = I(2s^{2 1} S_0 - 2s2p^{ 3} P_1 )/I(2s^{2 1} S_0 - 2s2p^{ 1} P_1 ) = I(1218.4\mathop A\limits^ \circ )/I(629.7\mathop A\limits^ \circ ), \hfill \\ \end{gathered} $$ and $$R_3 = I(2s2p^{ 1} P_1 - 2p^{2 1} S_0 )/I(2s^{2 1} S_0 - 2s2p^{ 1} P_1 ) = I(774.5\mathop A\limits^ \circ )/I(629.7\mathop A\limits^ \circ )$$ as a function of electron temperature (T _e) and density (N _e). These results are presented as plots ofR ₁ vsR ₂, andR ₁ vsR ₃, which should allowboth N _e andT _e to be deduced for the Ov line emitting region of a plasma. Electron densities derived from the (R ₁,R ₂) and (R ₁,R ₃) diagrams in conjunction with observational data for several solar features obtained with the Harvard S-055 spectrometer on boardSkylab are found to be compatible, and in good agreement with values ofN _e estimated from line ratios in species formed at similar electron temperatures to Ov. In addition, values ofT _e determined from (R ₁,R ₂) and (R ₁,R ₃) are generally close to that expected theoretically. These results provide experimental support for the accuracy of the diagnostic calculations presented in this paper, and hence the atomic data used in their derivation.