Eddy formation in the bays of Kamchatka and fluxes to the open ocean

Ocean Dynamics - The Eastern Kamchatka Current (EKC) is the western boundary current of the North Pacific subpolar gyre. Southeast of the Kamchatka Peninsula lies a large anticyclonic eddy, the...     

Transboundary problems associated with groundwater exploitation near the Russian-Estonian state boundary: Case study of the Lomonosovskii-Voronkovskii aquifer

Hydrogeological information for the territories of the Republic of Estonia, Leningrad province, and northern Pskov province of the Russian Federation is generalized. A unified groundwater flow model was developed for the Lomonosov-Voronkovskii aquifer, including its Estonian part is developed. The methodological approaches for solving transboundary problems as applied to groundwater are determined. The results of studying transboundary hydrodynamic interaction in Lomonosov-Voronkovskii aquifer in the Russian-Estonian boundary area are given. The direction of undisturbed groundwater flow is determined, and changes caused by the exploitation of the aquifer are assessed.     

Modeling studies of the upper ocean response to a tropical cyclone

A coupled ocean and boundary layer flux numerical modeling system is used to study the upper ocean response to surface heat and momentum fluxes associated with a major hurricane, namely, Hurricane Dennis (July 2005) in the Gulf of Mexico. A suite of experiments is run using this modeling system, constructed by coupling a Navy Coastal Ocean Model simulation of the Gulf of Mexico to an atmospheric flux model. The modeling system is forced by wind fields produced from satellite scatterometer and atmospheric model wind data, and by numerical weather prediction air temperature data. The experiments are initialized from a data assimilative hindcast model run and then forced by surface fluxes with no assimilation for the time during which Hurricane Dennis impacted the region. Four experiments are run to aid in the analysis: one is forced by heat and momentum fluxes, one by only momentum fluxes, one by only heat fluxes, and one with no surface forcing. An equation describing the change in the upper ocean hurricane heat potential due to the storm is developed. Analysis of the model results show that surface heat fluxes are primarily responsible for widespread reduction (0.5°–1.5°C) of sea surface temperature over the inner West Florida Shelf 100–300 km away from the storm center. Momentum fluxes are responsible for stronger surface cooling (2°C) near the center of the storm. The upper ocean heat loss near the storm center of more than 200 MJ/m² is primarily due to the vertical flux of thermal energy between the surface layer and deep ocean. Heat loss to the atmosphere during the storm’s passage is approximately 100–150 MJ/m². The upper ocean cooling is enhanced where the preexisting mixed layer is shallow, e.g., within a cyclonic circulation feature, although the heat flux to the atmosphere in these locations is markedly reduced.     

Active phase of a substorm as a chain of two types of reconnection: In the closed plasma sheet and in the open tail lobes

The maps of the field-aligned current (FAC) density distribution in the ionosphere obtained by the TIM-2 magnetogram inversion technique are used to investigate the August 27, 2001 substorm. The open magnetic flux Ψ and intensity J of the substorm current wedge (SCW) have been determined with a step of 1–5 min. The substorm onsets are divided into two types, PSR (plasma sheet reconnection) and TLR (tail lobe reconnection). The fast expansion tailward of the PSR region is described as the transition from PSR to PSR+TLR. Assuming that the SCW FACs flow down into the ionosphere from the edges of the disruption region of the cross-tail dawn-dusk current, several parameters of the disruption region have been estimated. The disrupted magnetic field has been found to be ∼5% of the undisrupted one for PSR and ∼95% for PSR+TLR. The disturbance power Q for PSR is an order of magnitude lower than that for PSR+TLR. The abrupt growth of Q during the transition from PSR to PSR+TLR is observed over the entire SCW area from its near-Earth part to the midtail and distant tail.     

Discreteness of spatial-temporal manifestations of solar activity and solar-terrestrial phenomena

The discreteness of the time series of the solar-related geophysical phenomena is justified. The balance of the formation and decomposition (neglecting diffusion) of fractal elements during the evolution of the equilibrium systems as applied to the heliophysical and geomagnetic phenomena is the original position in this case. The discreteness properties of the spatial-temporal characteristics of solar activity are simply justified based on a fractal analysis. The performed calculations in the solar wind medium in the near-Earth space make it possible to classify the fluxes depending on their fractal dimension. The possible mechanism by which high-speed solar wind streams are generated is also briefly discussed in the scope of the fractal paradigm.     

Sudden enhancement of sedimentation flux of <Superscript>210</Superscript>Pb<Subscript>ex</Subscript> as an indicator of lake productivity as exemplified by Lake Chenghai

The fundamental assumption of ²¹⁰Pb sediment dating is the stable flux of ²¹⁰Pb_ex, which was derived from atmosphere and then transferred into sediments via lake water. When the sedimentation rate is relatively constant, the ²¹⁰Pb_ex activity in sediments will be exponentially reduced with sedimentation age. ²¹⁰Pb_ex in lake water is incorporated into sediments mainly via organic particulates. If the sedimentation flux of organic matter in lake water is suddenly increased, ²¹⁰Pb_ex will be significantly deposited and then transferred into sediments. On the one hand such sudden purification effect is obviously unfit for the fundamental assumption of ²¹⁰Pb dating; on the other hand, the sudden enhancement of ²¹⁰Pb_ex flux would be indicative of the conspicuous variation of primary productivity of lake water. This problem will be discussed in accordance with the variation trend of ²¹⁰Pb_ex in the vertical profile of recent sediments of Lake Chenghai, Yunnan Province. The sediment core was collected from the deep-water area of Lake Chenghai in June 1997. The vertical profile of ¹³⁷Cs activity is characterized by a tree-peak pattern. This profile gave reliable ages, and also showed the stability of sediment accumulation in the recent ten years. The vertical profile of ²¹⁰Pb_ex activity displays a specific distribution of peaks, and is similar to the vertical profile of C_org. This phenomenon seems to be related to the mechanism of constraining the transfer of ²¹⁰Pb_ex into lake sediments. The average atomic ratios of H_org/C_org and C_org/N_org in Lake Chenghai sediments are 5.51 and 7.04, respectively, indicating that the organic matter was predominantly derived from the remains of endogenic algae. In terms of the three-stage evolutionary characteristics of organic matter in sediments, i.e., “deposition-de-composition-accumulation”, the sedimentation fluxes (F(C_org)) of organic carbon (C_org) since 1970 were calculated by modeling. The sedimentation fluxes of ²¹⁰Pb_ex (F(²¹⁰Pb_ex)) in different years display good synchronous relations with the sedimentation flux of organic carbon (F(C_org)), especially in the years of 1972–1974 and 1986–1989. The variation of F(C_org) led to the variation of F(²¹⁰Pb_ex); the variation of F(²¹⁰Pb_ex) reflects, to some extent, the historical variation of lake productivity.     

Exploring the spatially varying innovation capacity of the US counties in the framework of Griliches’ knowledge production function: a mixed GWR approach

Griliches’ knowledge production function has been increasingly adopted at the regional level where location-specific conditions drive the spatial differences in knowledge creation dynamics. However, the large majority of such studies rely on a traditional regression approach that assumes spatially homogenous marginal effects of knowledge input factors. This paper extends the authors’ previous work (Kang and Dall’erba in Int Reg Sci Rev, 2015. doi: 10.1177/0160017615572888) to investigate the spatial heterogeneity in the marginal effects by using nonparametric local modeling approaches such as geographically weighted regression (GWR) and mixed GWR with two distinct samples of the US Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) and non-MSA counties. The results indicate a high degree of spatial heterogeneity in the marginal effects of the knowledge input variables, more specifically for the local and distant spillovers of private knowledge measured across MSA counties. On the other hand, local academic knowledge spillovers are found to display spatially homogenous elasticities in both MSA and non-MSA counties. Our results highlight the strengths and weaknesses of each county’s innovation capacity and suggest policy implications for regional innovation strategies.