Relationship between the aerosol concentration in the stratosphere and ionization according to the data on conductivity and nitrate content of Greenland ice

This paper studies the data on the conductivity and concentration of nitrates (ions) in an ice core from central Greenland obtained with high time resolution. The performed analysis indicates that the abrupt increase in the concentration of sulfate aerosols in the stratosphere due to additional ionization resulted from precipitation of solar cosmic ray energetic particles is one of the main factors that cause simultaneous origination of powerful peaks in the nitrate conductivity and concentration. Thus, coincidences of peaks in both studied paleoseries are manifestations of the effect that has been experimentally registered with lidar and satellite equipment for the last 25 years. This demonstrates that the relationship between the aerosol concentration and the ionization rate in the stratosphere is real and makes it possible to expand the interval where this relationship exists to more than 200 years. The possible physical mechanisms of the observed phenomenon are discussed.     

Anthropogenic pollution stimulates oxidative stress in soft tissues of mussel <Emphasis Type="Italic">Crenomytilus grayanus</Emphasis> (Dunker1853)

The digestive gland and gills of the mussel Crenomytilus grayanus extracted from three locations — (i) sampled from a clean and (ii) polluted site and (iii) transplanted from the nonpolluted to polluted site - were analysed for antioxidant enzymes (superoxide dismutase, catalase, glutathione reductase), total oxyradical scavenging capacity and levels of lipid peroxidation products (malondialdehyde, conjugated dienes and lipofuscin). Perturbation of redox status was found in both digestive gland and gill tissues of mussels living in the polluted area. As the activities of superoxide dismutase and catalase were 1.2–3 times higher, the total oxyradical scavenging capacity was lower by 20–35% and the levels of lipid peroxidation products were 2–7 times higher compared to mussels from the reference site. In transplanted mussels, the lipid peroxidation process in both tissues was significantly stimulated (the level of conjugated dienes was increased 1.7–2.5-fold; malondialdehyde and lipofuscin contents were increased 3.5–5-fold) and the total oxyradical scavenging capacity fell by 50–70%. In addition, the transplantation generally resulted in transient and variable responses of antioxidant enzymes for both tissues. Complex response-behaviour of the antioxidant enzymes strongly points to the necessity of employing a combined approach that takes into account activities of antioxidant enzymes and the total oxyradical scavenging capacity, as well as measurement of oxidative damage (e.g., lipid peroxidation) to evaluate the physiological health of molluscs.     

Variations in climate parameters at time intervals from hundreds to tens of millions of years in the past and its relation to solar activity

Unique palaeoclimatic data with annual time resolution as tree ring widths and annual varve deposits are analyzed in order to reveal periodicities in climatic processes at tens to hundreds of million years ago. The climatic periodicities thus found are compared with the solar and climatic periodicities observed at present.     

Nitrate Concentration in Greenland Ice: an Indicator of Changes in Fluxes of Solar and Galactic High-Energy Particles

Two sets of nitrate (NO₃ ^–) concentration data in Central Greenland ice, obtained through the GISP2 collaboration and by the University of Kansas, were analyzed statistically. The two records correlate well over time scales from a few years up to a century. They both contain quasi five-year, decadal and century-type time variations. A quasi five-year periodicity resulting from increases in the mean nitrate concentration before and after maximum sunspot number was confirmed. A tendency of solar proton events to occur more frequently during the rise/decline phases of the solar cycle may cause a quasi five-year variation. Century-type (60–110 yr) variability in nitrate outstrips the corresponding Gleissberg cycle in sunspots by 12–17 years and changes synchronously (correlates with zero phase shift) with the smoothed length of the solar Schwabe cycle. A significant correlation between century-type periodicities for nitrates in Greenland ice and northern Fennoscandian temperatures was established. The results show that despite a strong dependence on local meteorology, nitrate concentration in ice contains valuable information about global geophysical phenomena in the past.     

Evidence of Solar Variation in Tree-Ring-Based Climate Reconstructions

Analyses of the summer temperature anomalies in northern Fennoscandia for A.D. –1991 and mean annual temperature in the northern hemisphere for A.D. 1000–1990 (both reconstructed by means of dendrochronological methods) are performed using Fourier and wavelet approaches. It is revealed that the century-type (65–140 yr) periodicity is present in both series during most of the full time range. A comparison of the northern Fennoscandian temperature record with a variety of indicators of solar activity (direct measurements and proxies) shows that this century-scale periodicity most probably was forced by a centennial cycle of solar activity (Gleissberg cycle). Despite the fact that the connection between the centennial variation of global northern hemispheric temperature and that of the Sun's activity is weaker, a link between the two can also not be excluded. The results obtained give us new evidence of the reality of the solar–climate link over a record long-time scale (at least during the last millennium). Variable length of the century-long temperature periodicity may reflect the corresponding changes in the length of the Gleissberg solar cycle. The effects, which can obscure the Sun's influence on the global hemispheric climate, are discussed.     

Self-interacting dark matter from the hidden heterotic-string sector

It has been suggested recently that self-interacting dark matter (SIDM) fits better the observational characteristics of galaxy dynamics. We propose that the SIDM is composed from the glueballs of the hidden sector non-Abelian gauge group, while the hidden matter states exist in vector-like representation and decouple from the light spectrum. It is shown that these glueballs are semi-stable with the lifetime larger than the present age of the Universe, if their mass is 1 GeV or less. The constraint on their abundance today suggests that the energy was stored in the hidden sector soon after inflation. This imposes an upper limit on the reheating temperature. We further study the naturalness of this scenario in the context of the free-fermionic string models and point out a class of such models where the SIDM from the hidden sector is indeed plausible.     

Explosive reconnection in magnetars

The X-ray activity of anomalous X-ray pulsars and soft γ-ray repeaters may result from the heating of their magnetic corona by direct currents dissipated by magnetic reconnection. We investigate the possibility that X-ray flares and bursts observed from anomalous X-ray pulsars and soft γ-ray repeaters result from magnetospheric reconnection events initiated by development of the tearing mode in magnetically dominated relativistic plasma. We formulate equations of resistive force-free electrodynamics, discuss the relation of the latter to ideal electrodynamics, and give examples of both ideal and resistive equilibria. Resistive force-free current layers are unstable towards the development of small-scale current sheets where resistive effects become important. Thin current sheets are found to be unstable due to the development of the resistive force-free tearing mode. The growth rate of the tearing mode is intermediate between the short Alfvén time-scale  τ_A  and a long resistive time-scale  τ_R: Γ∼ 1/(τ_Rτ_A)^1/2  , similar to the case of non-relativistic non-force-free plasma. We propose that growth of the tearing mode is related to the typical rise time of flares, ∼10 ms. Finally, we discuss how reconnection may explain other magnetar phenomena and ways to test the model.     

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.     

Was the solar activity in the last 100 years abnormally high? On the quality of modern solar paleoreconstructions

A technique for verifying the currently available reconstructions of solar activity in the preinstrumental epoch (prior to 1615 AD), covering time intervals up to 10 000 years, has been developed and tested. The technique is based on investigation of the possibility of predicting the actual sunspot numbers determined by means of telescopic observations using reconstructed solar series. Testing several paleoreconstructions over time intervals as long as 10 000 years has shown that they most likely contain only qualitative information about the behavior of solar activity in the past and are not very suitable for extracting quantitative information. It is shown that the recently suggested hypothesis that the current level of solar activity is highest in the last 8000 years is only an arbitrary assumption that can be neither confirmed nor refuted at the present level of knowledge about the past of our star.