Quasi-stationary striations in basin-scale oceanic circulation: vorticity balance from observations and eddy-resolving model

Recently, prominent jet-like features of the ocean circulation, called striations, with a meridional scale of O(300–500 ;km) and extending for thousands of kilometers in length, have been detected in satellite and in situ observations and in high-resolution numerical models. In this paper, we study quasi-stationary striations, which are best seen in the multi-year time-averaged velocity fields. Using 1993–2002 mean dynamic ocean topography, satellite altimeter observations, and output of the Ocean General Circulation Model for the Earth Simulator, the dynamics of the quasi-stationary striations in the eastern parts of the subtropical North and South Pacific are examined by assessing individual terms in the time-averaged equations of relative and potential vorticity. While non-linear effects are found to be essential in the dynamics of the striations, rejecting some linear hypotheses forwarded in the earlier studies, the relevance of the Rhines mechanism is not confirmed. Eddy flux does not act as a relative vorticity source for the striations. Using the potential vorticity (PV) diagnostics, we show that the time-mean PV is not conserved along the time-mean streamlines, and on the scale of the striations these changes in PV are largely induced by the eddy flux of layer thickness. The fact that eddy fluxes contribute to the striations’ time-mean PV budget suggests that the striations are not a kinematical artifact of time-averaging of westward-propagating eddies.     

Regional Problems in Water Use in Siberian Industrial Agglomerations

Water Resources - The basic indicators of regional water use have been identified and assessed as a component of a single social–natural–technogenic system. These indicators have been...     

Multi-decadal synthesis of benthic–pelagic coupling in the western arctic: Role of cross-shelf advective processes

Using geographic information systems (GIS) software and geostatistical techniques, we utilized three decades of water-column chlorophyll a data to examine the relative importance of autochthonous versus allochthonous sources of reduced carbon to benthic communities that occur from the northern Bering to the eastern Beaufort Sea shelf. Spatial trend analyses revealed areas of high benthic biomass (>300 g m⁻²) and chlorophyll (>150 mg m⁻²) on both the southern and northern Chukchi shelf; both areas are known as depositional centers for reduced organic matter that originates on the Bering Sea shelf and is advected northward in Anadyr and Bering shelf water masses. We found a significant correlation between biomass and chlorophyll a in the Chukchi Sea, reflective of the strong benthic–pelagic coupling in a system that is utilized heavily by benthic-feeding marine mammals. In contrast, there was no significant correlation between biomass and chlorophyll in the Beaufort Sea, which by comparison, is considerably less productive (biomass and chlorophyll, <75 g m⁻² and <50 mg m⁻², respectively). One notable exception is an area of relatively high biomass (50–100 g m⁻²) and chlorophyll (80 mg m⁻²) near Barter Island in the eastern Beaufort Sea. Compared to other adjacent areas in the Beaufort Sea, the chlorophyll values in the vicinity of Barter Island were considerably higher and likely reflect a long-hypothesized upwelling in that area and close coupling between the benthos and autochthonous production. In the Bering Sea, a drop in benthic biomass in 1994 compared with previous measurements (1974–1993) may support earlier observations that document a decline in biomass that began between the 1980s and 1990s in the Chirikov Basin and south of St. Lawrence Island. The results of this study indicate that the benthos is an excellent long-term indicator of both local and physical advective processes. In addition, this work provides further evidence that secondary production on arctic shelves can be significantly augmented by reduced carbon advected from highly productive adjacent shelves.     

Tidal effects in geomagnetic variations

Doklady Earth Sciences - This paper reports the results of processing and analysis of geomagnetic variations, estimates of their spectra, and the first identified waves of lunar–solar tides...     

Relationship of galaxies from the second Byurakan survey to Zwicky clusters. II. Discussion

We analyze the data presented in a previous paper by Gyulzadyan and Petrosian, and discuss the results of a statistical investigation of the relationship between SBS galaxies and Zwicky clusters. The main results are that SBS galaxies follow the overall galaxy distribution in clusters and they do not avoid any type of Zwicky cluster. There is a significantly higher probability of finding SBS galaxies occurring in medium compact clusters than in open clusters. They also follow the well-established morphology-density relation. Earlier morphological type, higher luminosity, larger linear size, and redder SBS galaxies tend to be found in clusters with higher compactness, or in more compact regions of the clusters. The number distribution of SBS galaxies in Zwicky open clusters probably follows the distribution of normal galaxies. The number distribution of SBS galaxies in medium compact and compact clusters shows two-maxima structure. Published in Astrofizika, Vol. 52, No. 2, pp. 225–236 (May 2009).     

On the convective instability of finitely conducting viscous model chromosphere

The convective stability of a simple model chromosphere, consisting of protons, electrons and hydrogen atoms in the ground state, has been studied in the presence of a vertically upward uniform magnetic field to include the effects of FLR, Hall-currents, finite conductivity and ionization. The ionization in the chromosphere is collisional and the recombination is radiative. It is found that the Schwarzchild criterion should necessarily be satisfied for the stability together with the condition thatv > 2v ₀, where is kinematic viscosity andv ₀ is gyroviscosity. Some special cases have also been investigated.     

A method for constructing high-order differential boundary conditions for solving external boundary value problems in geoelectromagnetism

A general approach to the construction of differential boundary conditions for vector fields satisfying the Helmholtz equation is proposed on the basis of the field expansion in multipole series and the application of annihilating operators to them. The resulting differential constraints can be used as boundary conditions in solving external boundary value problems. Examples of their application to the solution of forward geoelectric problems in three-dimensionally inhomogeneous media are examined. Their use at a finite distance from the source of an anomaly is shown to yield more accurate results than those obtained under the assumption that the anomalous field at this distance vanishes. Another effect of their application is a substantial decrease in the dimensions of the modeling domain and therefore in the time required to solve the forward problem. The “safe” distance for using the Dirichlet-type boundary conditions is estimated.     

27‐day variations of solar indices and cosmic ray neutron monitor intensities

Solar activity indices (coronal, chromospheric as well as photospheric) and cosmic ray neutron monitor rates (different cut‐off rigidity) have been used to study 27‐day variations in the years from 1957 to 2004. Daily data were employed for this purpose, analysed by the FFT and wavelet techniques. To work with a continuous data set for the cosmic rays (CR), the ‘Composite Cosmic Ray’ (CCR) set was first created from the observations carried out at different neutron monitor stations. The CCR frequency analysis shows significant 27‐day variations in the intensity of CR, with its amplitude's values very sensitive to the sign of the quantity qA. The most significant 27‐day variations of CR were found not to correlate with those of other solar indices. (© 2008 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Water Quality Estimation Based on the Structural Analysis of Diatomic Complexes

Two types of plots characterizing the undisturbed structure of the biotopic spectrum of diatom algae are recognized. The first of them has a hyperbolic form and the second is a sigmoid curve (normal distribution). It was shown that, under adverse external impact, both types of plots change their shape and the extent of their distortion reflects the general level of anthropogenic load on this water body or its part. The proposed method of graphical comparison was developed for lakes of Kola Peninsula. Later it was successfully used in the biomonitoring of watercourses of the Volga–Akhtuba interfluve area (Astrakhan Province) and in paleoenvironmental reconstruction for Galichskoe Lake (Kostroma Province).