A possible cause of the AO polarity reversal from winter to summer in 2010 and its relation to hemispheric extreme summer weather

In 2010, the Northern Hemisphere, in particular Russia and Japan, experienced an abnormally hot summer characterized by record-breaking warm temperatures and associated with a strongly positive Arctic Oscillation (AO), that is, low pressure in the Arctic and high pressure in the midlatitudes. In contrast, the AO index the previous winter and spring (2009/2010) was record-breaking negative. The AO polarity reversal that began in summer 2010 can explain the abnormally hot summer. The winter sea surface temperatures (SST) in the North Atlantic Ocean showed a tripolar anomaly pattern—warm SST anomalies over the tropics and high latitudes and cold SST anomalies over the midlatitudes—under the influence of the negative AO. The warm SST anomalies continued into summer 2010 because of the large oceanic heat capacity. A model simulation strongly suggested that the AO-related summertime North Atlantic oceanic warm temperature anomalies remotely caused blocking highs to form over Europe, which amplified the positive summertime AO. Thus, a possible cause of the AO polarity reversal might be the “memory” of the negative winter AO in the North Atlantic Ocean, suggesting an interseasonal linkage of the AO in which the oceanic memory of a wintertime negative AO induces a positive AO in the following summer. Understanding of this interseasonal linkage may aid in the long-term prediction of such abnormal summer events.     

A model of river flow forecasting for a small forested mountain catchment

A model for quantitatively expressing the hydrological cycle in a forested mountain catchment is proposed as a HYCYMODEL. HYCYMODEL is able to predict both short- and long-term hydrographs because the model parameters remain independent of time. It shows a good applicability for ten years of continuous data at both hourly and daily intervals for the Kiryu catchment—a forested mountain basin. Since HYCYMODEL does not need hydrograph separation between storm flow and base flow, it is a particularly attractive model.     

Submarine flank eruption preceding caldera subsidence during the 2000 eruption of Miyakejima Volcano, Japan

During the early part of a seismic swarm preceding eruption and caldera formation at Miyakejima Volcano, discoloured sea surfaces were observed 1.5 km off the western coast of Miyakejima on 27 June 2000. A later survey of the area using a multi-beam side scan sonar and a remotely operated small submarine revealed four craters of 20–30 m diameter aligned east-west in a 100×10–30 m area on the seafloor, with hot water at 140°C being released from one of the centres. Each crater consists of submarine spatter overlain in part by scoria lapilli. Dredged spatter from the craters was fresh, and there was no evidence of activity of marine organisms on the spatter surface, indicating that the discoloured sea surface resulted from magmatic eruption on the seafloor. This eruption occurred when a westward-propagating seismic swarm, initiated beneath Miyakejimas summit, passed through the area. Finding new magma on the seafloor demonstrates that this seismic swarm was associated with intruding magma, moving outward from beneath Miyakejima. Submarine spatter shows flattened shapes with a brittle crust formed by cooling in water, and its composition is aphyric andesite of 54 wt% SiO₂. The spatter is similar in whole rock and mineral composition to spatter erupted in 1983. However, the wide range of Cl in melt inclusions in plagioclase of the 27 June submarine spatter shows that it is not simply a remnant of the 1983 magma, which has only high Cl melt inclusions in plagioclase. The mixed character of melt inclusions suggests involvement of a magma with low Cl melt inclusions. The magma erupted explosively on 18 August from Miyakejimas summit, considered as the second juvenile magma in this eruption, contains low Cl melt inclusions in plagioclase. Based on these observations and the eruption sequence, we present the following model: (1) A shallow magma chamber was filled with a remnant of 1983 magma that had evolved to a composition of 54–55 wt% SiO₂. (2) Injection of the 18 August magma into this chamber generated a mixed magma having a wide range of Cl in melt inclusions contained plagioclase. The magma mixing might have occurred shortly before the submarine eruption and could have been a trigger for the initiation of the removal of magma from the chamber as an extensive dyke, which eventually led to caldera subsidence.Editorial responsibility: S Nakada, T Druitt     

Searching for novel CYP members using cDNA library from a minke whale liver

The contaminant-induced cytochrome P450 (CYP) members in minke whale (Balaenoptera acutorostrata) can be potential biomarkers of the contaminant exposure and toxic effects. In this study, we constructed a cDNA library from the liver of minke whale from the North Pacific, and further screened a total of 6930 clones randomly selected in the library for the isolation of cDNA clones encoding novel members of CYP superfamily. The screening revealed the isolation of six novel CYP cDNA clones that are classified into CYP1A, CYP2C, CYP2E, CYP3A, CYP4, and CYP4A subfamilies. The BLAST homology search using the partial cDNA fragments of four CYP subfamilies (CYP1A, CYP2C, CYP2E and CYP4A) demonstrated that the minke whale CYPs were most closely related to pig CYPs (81-91%). Identification of multiple CYP genes in marine mammal species such as minke whale will provide new insights into the metabolic or toxicological functions of individual CYP members.     

Water exchange in Kabira Cove,Ishigaki Island

The mechanism and rate of water exchange were investigated in Kabira Cove, Ishigaki Island, in the southernmost part of Japanese islands, near Taiwan. During observations in the summers of 1976 and 1977, a larger proportion of the salt transport into the bay was derived from the so-called “tidal trapping effect”. In the latter period of observation carried out after heavy rain brought by a seasonal typhoon under annual mean tidal conditions, the turnover time, i.e. the scale of replacement of the whole bay water with the open sea water, is estimated to be 3.6 days. Based on these observational results, a concept of the tidal trapping due to coupling of the actions of tides and buoyancy in a vertical two-dimensional field with a sill at the bay mouth is proposed. Considering the topographical, hydrometeorological and geographical conditions of the cove, it is inferred that this water exchange process tends to be formed in Kabira Cove in summer except during neap tides.     

Year-to-year change in water exchange characteristics in a semi-enclosed bya,Lake Hamana

The year-to-year change in characteristics of water exchange between Lake Hamana, a semi-enclosed bya, and the adjacent open sea is investigated.The destruction of the bay mouth by a typhoon in 1953 and subsequent stabilization work on the bay mouth from 1954 to 1973 resulted in an increase in the tidal prism volume of the bay (Mazda, 1983). In the present paper, a simple model has been constructed in which the magnitude of water exchange depends on the tidal prism, and using this model, the year-to-year increase in salinity of the bay water after 1953 can be well explained. Consequently, it can be said that the salinity increase after 1953 is a result of a progressive increase in water exchange caused by successive changes in topography of the bay mouth.The extent of water exchange in Lake Hamana, which varies seasonally, has increased gradually since 1953, and became stable after about 1967. For instance, at present the turnover time of the bay for exchange with open sea water reaches a maximum (2.9 months) in January and a minimum (0.9 month) in October, while in 1955 it is estimated to have been about 2.5 times that at the present time.     

Vertical two-dimensional mechanism of tidal exchange in a bay with a sill-entrance

For a vertical two-dimensional field with a sill at a bay entrance, the tidal exchange mechanism is discussed.The schematic model is proposed as follows. The tidal trapping effect which is detected at the entrance section,i. e., the material transport due to the phase difference between the tidal periodic constituent of material concentration and tidal current at the entrance section, results because the oscillatory tidal flow at the sill entrance induces a gravitational flow along the sill slope inside the entrance. Accordingly, the tidal trapping effect depends largely upon the difference in water density between the bay and open sea and the density stratification in the bay.This model is supported by the observations at Kabira Cove (Okinawa Pref.) and Lake Hamana (Shizuoka Pref.) in 1976 through 1984. In addition, based on this model, in the case of Lake Hamana, the activity of the tidal exchange is inferred to change seasonally.     

Episyenite formation in the Toki granite,central Japan

Episyenite is a quartz-depleted vuggy rock resulting from hydrothermal alteration of granitic rocks. This is the first report of its existence in an island arc, which is identified in a deep drill core of the Toki Cretaceous granite distributed in central Japan. In order to understand the petrographical features of the episyenite, neutron porosity measurement, geochemical analysis, microscopic observation, and X-ray computed tomography scanning were carried out. The results show remarkably high porosity (35.4 %) due to interconnecting vugs and the removal of quartz, plagioclase, and biotite. The Rb–Sr isotopic results and the paragenetic sequence of secondary minerals in the vugs suggest that the hydrothermal alteration process can be divided into an episyenitization stage and a later hydrothermal stage. At the episyenitization stage (70.6 ± 3.1 Ma) ca. 6 million years after the emplacement of the unaltered granite (76.3 ± 1.5 Ma), dissolution of quartz, biotite, and plagioclase occurred and was followed by the precipitation of albite, vermicular chlorite, and platy calcite. The episyenitization is considered as a local alteration of the Toki granite in an isotopically closed system. At the later hydrothermal stage, illite and secondary quartz precipitated from circulating meteoric-derived water in the dissolution vugs. Superimposing alteration at the later hydrothermal stage is limited, which results in the preservation of the episyenite in an almost primitive condition.     

Biogenic opal production changes during the Mid-Pleistocene Transition in the Bering Sea (IODP Expedition 323 Site U1343)

Biogenic opal content and mass accumulation rate (MAR) at IODP Expedition 323 Site U1343 were found to fluctuate consistently, generally being high under warm conditions and low under cold conditions during the last 2.4 Ma. Continuous wavelet transform analysis of the normalized biogenic opal content indicates that export production in the Bering Sea varied predominantly at 41-ka periodicity before 1.25 Ma, and shifted to 100-ka periodicity at the onset of the Mid-Pleistocene Transition (MPT; 1.25–0.7 Ma). The 100-ka cycles dominated until the Holocene. Export production in the Bering Sea decreased markedly in the Bering Sea two times during the MPT: the first occurred at the beginning of the MPT (1.25 Ma) and the second in the middle of the MPT (0.9 Ma). These decreases coincided with both increases in the relative abundance of sea-ice diatoms and decreases in the warm-water diatom species Neodenticula seminae, indicating that reductions in export production in the Bering Sea during the MPT were associated with climate cooling. Decreases in export production in the Bering Sea during the MPT were most likely associated with the increased influence of polar/Arctic domains on the high-latitude North Pacific.