On the separability of the North Atlantic oscillation and Arctic oscillation

We address the issue of whether the Arctic (AO), and North Atlantic oscillations (NAO) are inseparable, forming an annular mode in the Northern Hemisphere atmospheric circulation. This annular mode is the leading empirical orthogonal function of hemispheric sea level pressure (SLP) data, explaining the largest amount of its variability. We examine whether the NAO and AO are inseparable spatial modes of the atmospheric circulation using rotated principal component analysis (RPCA), a methodology that identifies simple and unique patterns of spatial dataset variability. RPCA of the spring, summer, and autumn SLP fields from 1946-1998 reveal NAO and AO-like patterns, occurring as separate regional teleconnections forming the first and second principal components respectively. The RPCA-based NAO dipole pattern is like that observed in many prior studies, while the AO-like pattern exhibits high SLP variability over the Kara and Laptev seas. During winter however, and in annual analyses, a distinct AO-like pattern is not obtained and the two patterns may be inseparable using commonly accepted RPCA methods. The RPCA-based AO-like mode is significantly linked to north-central Siberian seasonal air temperatures and to the prevailing direction of motion of the underlying Arctic Ocean in summer, suggesting that the non-winter AO-like pattern, as a stand alone teleconnection separate from the NAO, contributes significantly to high-latitude climate and ocean variability. The winter NAO/AO inseparability is discussed as a possible effect of a shared winter storm track between the northeastern Atlantic and the Arctic.     

Mean flow-transient perturbation interaction in the Southern Hemisphere: a simulation using a variable-resolution GCM

The ability of an atmospheric general circulation model to reproduce fundamental features of the wintertime extratropical Southern Hemisphere (SH) circulation is evaluated with emphasis on the daily variability of the SH mean flow and the mean flow-transient perturbations interaction. Two 10-year simulations using a new version of the LMDZ GCM with a stretched grid scheme centered at 45 °S and forced by climatological SST are performed: a high (144Ꮡ) and low (64Ꭹ) horizontal resolution runs. The performance of both simulations was determined by comparing several simulated fields (zonal wind, temperature, kinetic energy, transient eddy momentum and heat fluxes, Eliassen-Palm fluxes, Eady growth rate and baroclinic conversion term) against the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecast reanalyses (ERA). High and low-resolution simulations are similar in many respects; in particular, both experiments reproduce the main patterns of the southern extratropical large-scale circulation satisfactorily. Increasing resolution does not improve universally some spurious aspects of the low resolution simulation (e.g. the cold bias in the high polar troposphere, the debilitated subtropical jet, the low baroclinic conversion rate). Those aspects present little sensitivity to the model resolution. The interaction between transient eddies and zonal mean flow are examined. The low-resolution experiment is able to qualitatively represent the acceleration/deceleration of the mean flow by transient perturbations, south/north of 30 °S with an accuracy similar to that of the high-resolution experiment. Although both experiments represent the baroclinic structure of the mean flow satisfactorily, the model underestimates some transient properties due to the underestimation of the baroclinic conversion term in middle latitudes. Such misrepresentation does not improve with increasing resolution and is related to the relatively weak meridional temperature gradient and the inadequate geographical distribution of the eddy heat fluxes. In particular, the eddy kinetic energy is always underestimated. Eddy kinetic energy does not improve convincingly with increasing resolution, suggesting that the adequate representation of the storm tracks is highly influenced by the physical parametrizations.     

The Production of Methanol by Flowering Plants and the Global Cycle of Methanol

Methanol has been recognised as an important constituent of the background atmosphere, but little is known about its overall cycle in the biosphere/atmosphere system. A model is proposed for the production and emission to the atmosphere of methanol by flowering plants based on plant structure and metabolic properties, particularly the demethylation of pectin in the primary cell walls. This model provides a framework to extend seven sets of measurements of methanol emission rates to the global terrestrial biosphere. A global rate of release of methanol from plants to the atmosphere of 100 Tg y^–1 is calculated. A separate model of the global cycle of methanol is constructed involving emissions from plant growth and decay, atmospheric and oceanic chemical production, biomass burning and industrial production. Removal processes occur through hydroxyl radical attack in the atmosphere, in clouds and oceans, and wet and dry deposition. The model successfully reproduces the methanol concentrations in the continental boundary-layer and the free atmosphere, including the inter-hemispheric gradient in the free atmosphere. The model demonstrates a new concept in global biogeochemistry, the coupling of plant cell growth with the global atmospheric concentration of methanol. The model indicates that the ocean provides a storage reservoir capable of holding at least 66 times more methanol than the atmosphere. The ocean surface layer reservoir essentially buffers the atmospheric concentration of methanol, providing a physically based smoothing mechanism with a time constant of the order of one year.     

Elemental particle size distributions. Measured and estimated dry deposition in Sfax region (Tunisia)

Mass size distribution of the crustal elements (Al, Ca, Fe, Mg, Si, Ti), anthropogenic elements (Zn, Mn, Cr, Cu, K, P, Pb) and sea elements (Na, Cl) were obtained from measurements carried out with an inertial cascade impactor in Sfax. A fitting procedure by data inversion was applied to those data. This procedure yields accurate size distributions of aerosols in the diameter range 0.1–25 μm in two different sites. In a coastal industrial site, the mass distribution of the aerosol showed a bimodal structure; and in urban area, the lower particle mode cannot be observed. The elemental dry deposition flux was calculated as a function of particle size. The element flux size distribution increased rapidly with particle size. The modelling results indicate that the majority of the crustal and anthropogenic elements flux (>90%) was due to particles larger than 3 μm in diameter.     

Variability of the photospheric radiation of active K-M dwarfs and their X-ray luminosities

Variability of the photospheric radiation of 40 (dKe-dMe) dwarfs in the solar neighborhood due to variations in the spottedness of their surfaces is analyzed based on the behavior of their mean annual brightnesses over long time intervals. The amplitudes and characteristic time scales of the variations of the mean annual brightness are taken to be indicators of photospheric activity and were used to infer the levels of photospheric activity in the stars studied. The influence of axial rotation on the development of cyclic activity in young red dwarfs and F-M main-sequence stars is analyzed. The durations and amplitudes of the photospheric variability of rapidly rotating (dK0e-dK5e) stars testifies to a higher level of photospheric activity among red dwarfs and solar-type stars. The X-ray luminosities of these stars grow with the amplitude of the variations of the mean annual brightness. However, this is not typical of rapidly rotating M dwarfs, for which the X-ray emission varies by more than two orders of magnitude, although their degrees of spottedness are all virtually the same. A linear relationship between the X-ray and bolometric luminosities is observed for young (dKe-dMe) stars, with their ratios log(L _x/L _bol) being about ?3. These properties can be used to determine whether a red dwarf is a young star or is already on the main sequence.     

Spatial structure of the old open cluster NGC 2420

The spatial structure of the intermediate and outer regions of the old open cluster NGC 2420 is analyzed using data from the catalog of Paparó. The differential and integrated distributions of the projected [ΔF(r) and F(r)] and spatial [Δf(r) and f(r)] stellar densities are obtained for various subsystems of cluster stars using Kholopov’s star-count method. Analysis of these curves shows that: (1) the cluster has at least three distinct spatial zones with different stellar-density gradients, (2) the each cluster subsystem has a layered structure, and (3) the spatial structure of the cluster changes systematically in the transition to subsystems containing fainter main-sequence stars. Empirical relations describing the structure of the cluster are also derived. Similar structural features can also be found in other globular and open clusters.