An analysis of Pc3 and Pc4 pulsations at Terra Nova Bay (Antarctica)

We conducted a statistical analysis of the physical characteristics of the micropulsation activity (Pc3 and Pc4 range) detected, during the austral summer 1994/95, at Terra Nova Bay (Antarctica, corrected latitude 80.0°S), a station which is few degrees poleward of those where most of the Antarctic measurements in these frequency ranges have been performed. The emerging overview suggests that the correspondence between the pulsation power and the external parameters (solar wind speed, interplanetary magnetic field magnitude and orientation) is significantly stronger than at somewhat lower latitudes. The day-to-day power variability was found to be strictly related to the general level of the geomagnetic activity, and the power level sharply maximizes at local magnetic noon. In the Pc4 range peaks of correlation with the SW speed are found in the dawn and dusk sides of the Earths magnetosphere and the daily variation of the polarization pattern is closely consistent with that found at auroral latitudes and at lower frequencies. In the Pc3 range the correlation coefficient between the pulsation power and the SW speed has maximum values in the local morning, and the frequency of selected events reveals a strong IMF control during closed magnetospheric conditions. The local time dependence of the correlation coefficient between the pulsation power and the cone angle reveals an additional control by the IMF orientation, which becomes more explicit around local noon.     

The ALOMAR Rayleigh/Mie/Raman lidar: objectives, configuration, and performance

We report on the development and current capabilities of the ALOMAR Rayleigh/Mie/Raman lidar. This instrument is one of the core instruments of the international ALOMAR facility, located near Andenes in Norway at 69°N and 16°E. The major task of the instrument is to perform advanced studies of the Arctic middle atmosphere over altitudes between about 15 to 90 km on a climatological basis. These studies address questions about the thermal structure of the Arctic middle atmosphere, the dynamical processes acting therein, and of aerosols in the form of stratospheric background aerosol, polar stratospheric clouds, noctilucent clouds, and injected aerosols of volcanic or anthropogenic origin. Furthermore, the lidar is meant to work together with other remote sensing instruments, both ground- and satellite-based, and with balloon- and rocket-borne instruments performing in situ observations. The instrument is basically a twin lidar, using two independent power lasers and two tiltable receiving telescopes. The power lasers are Nd:YAG lasers emitting at wavelengths 1064, 532, and 355 nm and producing 30 pulses per second each. The power lasers are highly stabilized in both their wavelengths and the directions of their laser beams. The laser beams are emitted into the atmosphere fully coaxial with the line-of-sight of the receiving telescopes. The latter use primary mirrors of 1.8 m diameter and are tiltable within 30° off zenith. Their fields-of-view have 180 rad angular diameter. Spectral separation, filtering, and detection of the received photons are made on an optical bench which carries, among a multitude of other optical components, three double Fabry-Perot interferometers (two for 532 and one for 355 nm) and one single Fabry-Perot interferometer (for 1064 nm). A number of separate detector channels also allow registration of photons which are produced by rotational-vibrational and rotational Raman scatter on N₂ and N₂+O₂ molecules, respectively. Currently, up to 36 detector channels simultaneously record the photons collected by the telescopes. The internal and external instrument operations are automated so that this very complex instrument can be operated by a single engineer. Currently the lidar is heavily used for measurements of temperature profiles, of cloud particle properties such as their altitude, particle densities and size distributions, and of stratospheric winds. Due to its very effective spectral and spatial filtering, the lidar has unique capabilities to work in full sunlight. Under these conditions it can measure temperatures up to 65 km altitude and determine particle size distributions of overhead noctilucent clouds. Due to its very high mechanical and optical stability, it can also employed efficiently under marginal weather conditions when data on the middle atmosphere can be collected only through small breaks in the tropospheric cloud layers.     

Efficient satellite orbit modelling using pseudo-stochastic parameters

If the force field acting on an artificial Earth satellite is not known a priori with sufficient accuracy to represent its observations on their accuracy level, one may introduce so-called pseudo-stochastic parameters into an orbit determination process, e.g. instantaneous velocity changes at user-defined epochs or piecewise constant accelerations in user-defined adjacent time subintervals or piecewise linear and continuous accelerations in adjacent time subintervals. The procedures, based on standard least-squares, associated with such parameterizations are well established, but they become inefficient (slow) if the number of pseudo-stochastic parameters becomes large. We develop two efficient methods to solve the orbit determination problem in the presence of pseudo-stochastic parameters. The results of the methods are identical to those obtained with conventional least-squares algorithms. The first efficient algorithm also provides the full variance–covariance matrix; the second, even more efficient algorithm, only parts of it.     

European winter precipitation extremes and large-scale circulation: a coupled model and its scenarios

Summary The physical coupling between the occurrence of winter heavy precipitation in Europe and the surface large-scale circulation is studied by isolating their coupled modes with a singular value decomposition technique. The leading mode is a clear manifestation of the North Atlantic Oscillation forcing. The second mode reflects the influence of a centre-of-action in the pressure field westward of the British Isles. The Hadley Centre Coupled Model (3^rd generation) is skilful in reproducing these two modes and an eastward extension of the North Atlantic Oscillation towards the Mediterranean Basin is projected under two future climatic scenarios. This extension yields an increase in the North Atlantic Oscillation forcing over the occurrence of heavy precipitation in several regions of Southern Europe, which is corroborated by the changes in the coupling of the daily precipitation. A combination of the first six coupled modes of the daily precipitation revealed that its amounts in some parts of Western Europe and the Mediterranean are effectively governed by the large-scale circulation. The model is still reasonably skilful in reproducing this large-scale coupling. The projected modifications, both in the strength and in the patterns of the coupled modes, explain important fractions of the projected changes in variance, which ultimately have implications in the occurrence of heavy precipitation in several European areas. Therefore, the ability of a model in reproducing the large-scale forcing over the daily precipitation is important for the reliability of its projections of the occurrence of heavy precipitation in Europe.     

Dissolution mechanisms of goethite in the presence of siderophores and organic acids

In dynamic natural systems such as soils and surface waters, transient biogeochemical processes can induce strong chemical non-steady-state conditions. In this paper, we investigate the effects of non-steady-state conditions on ligand-controlled iron oxide dissolution. The rates of goethite dissolution at pH 6 in the presence of low molecular weight organic acids (oxalate, citrate or malonate) were observed. Non-steady-state conditions were induced by rapid additions of fungal, bacterial or plant siderophores. In the presence of the low molecular weight organic acids, dissolved iron concentrations are below detection limit as predicted by equilibrium solubility calculations. The rapid addition of the siderophores triggered reproducible, fast dissolution of kinetically labile iron from the iron oxide surface. The same effect was observed upon rapid additions of high citrate concentrations to goethite-oxalate suspensions. The concentration of the labile iron pool at the mineral surface was a function of the surface concentration of the low molecular weight organic acids and of the reaction time before addition of the siderophores. Isotopic exchange with ⁵⁹Fe independently confirmed the existence of the labile iron pool before addition of the siderophore. A dissolution mechanism was elucidated that is consistent with these observations and with accepted models of ligand-controlled dissolution. We conclude that the fast dissolution reaction observed here is an important process in biological iron acquisition and that it is based on a general geochemical mechanism.     

Boulders of MIS 5 age deposited by a tsunami on the coast of Otago, New Zealand

A series of elevated imbricated boulders were investigated on the Otago coastline, southeast New Zealand, through field surveying and optical luminescence dating. By using established hydrodynamic relationships of sediment transport the energy required to move the clasts was calculated and compared to the historic record of marine inundations of that coast. The boulders are platy in shape and are over 2 m long in some cases, and are sourced from a locally outcropping conglomerate unit which appears to be the only lithology on this section of coast that erodes to produce clasts of this size. It is estimated that the boulders were deposited by a tsunami between 2 and 3 m high during the latter part of Marine Isotope Stage 5. They therefore represent the first pre-Holocene tsunami deposit and one composed of large boulders described on the New Zealand coastline.     

Change of river channel and bank erosion of the burhi dihing river (assam), assessed using remote sensing data and gis

The Burhi Dining river flows in a meandering course for about 220 km through alluvial plains of Assam including a short rocky and hilly tract in between. Sequential changes in the position of banklines of the river due to consistent bank erosion have been studied from Survey of India topographic maps of 1934 and 1972, and digital satellite data of 2001 and 2004 using GIS. Two broad kinds of changes have been observed, e.g. alteration of direction of flow due to neck cut-off and progressive gradual change of the meander bends that accounts for translational, lateral, rotational, extensional and other types of movement of the meander bends. Study of bankline shift due to the bank erosion has been carried out for the periods 1934–1972, 1972–2001, 2001–2004 and 1934–2004 at 13 segments spaced at 5′ longitude interval (average 15 km) as the river course trends nearly east to west. The amounts of the bank area lost due to erosion and gained due to sediment deposition are estimated separately. The total area eroded in both banks during 1934–1972 was more (26.796 km²) as compared to sediment deposition (19.273 km²), whereas total sediment deposition was more (34.61 km²) during 1972-2001 as compared to erosion (23.152 km²). Erosion was again more in 2001–2004 (7.568 km²) as compared to sediment deposition (2.493 km²). During the entire period (1934–2004) of study the overall erosion on the both banks was 31.169 km² and overall sediment deposition was 30.101 km². The highest annual rates of bank erosion as well as bank building of the river are 21055.47 m²/km in 2001–2004 and 9665.81 m²/km in 1972-2001, respectively. Similarly the highest average annual rates of erosion as well as sediment deposition in both banks are observed during 2001–2004 and 1972–2001, respectively. The hard rocks of the hilly tract situated in between result in development of entrenched meandering and this tract has suffered minimum bank erosion.     

Petrology,chemistry, and isotopic compositions of the lunar highland regolith breccia Dar al Gani 262

Abstract— Lunar meteorite Dar al Gani 262 (DG 262)—found in the Libyan part of the Sahara—is a mature, anorthositic regolith breccia with highland affinities. The origin from the Moon is undoubtedly indicated by its bulk chemical composition; radionuclide concentrations; noble gas, N, and O isotopic compositions; and petrographic features. Dar al Gani 262 is a typical anorthositic highland breccia similar in mineralogy and chemical composition to Queen Alexandra Range (QUE) 93069. About 52 vol% of the studied thin sections of Dar al Gani 262 consist of fine-grained(100 μm) constituents, and 48 vol% is mineral and lithic clasts and impact-melt veins. The most abundant clast types are feldspathic fine-grained to microporphyritic crystalline melt breccias (50.2 vol%; includes recrystallized melt breccias), whereas mafic crystalline melt breccias are extremely rare (1.4 vol%). Granulitic lithologies are 12.8 vol%, intragranularly recrystallized anorthosites and cataclastic anorthosites are 8.8 and 8.2 vol%, respectively, and (devitrified) glasses are 2.7 vol%. Impact-melt veins (5.5 vol% of the whole thin sections) cutting across the entire thin section were probably formed subsequent to the lithification process of the bulk rock at pressures below 20 GPa, because the bulk rock never experienced a higher peak shock pressure. Mafic crystalline melt breccias are very rare in Dar al Gani 262 and are similar in abundance to those in QUE 93069. The extremely low abundance of mafic components and the bulk composition may constrain possible areas of the Moon from which the breccia was derived. The source area of Dar al Gani 262 must be a highland terrain lacking significant mafic impact melts or mare components. On the basis of radionuclide activities, an irradiation position of DG 262 on the Moon at a depth of 55–85 g/cm³and a maximum transit time to Earth <0.15 Ma is suggested. Dar al Gani 262 contains high concentrations of solar-wind-implanted noble gases. The isotopic abundance ratio ⁴⁰Ar/³⁶Ar < 3 is characteristic of lunar soils. The terrestrial weathering of DG 262 is reflected by the occurrence of fractures filled with calcite and by high concentrations of Ca, Ba, Cs, Br, and As. There is also a large amount of terrestrial C and some N in the sample, which was released at low temperatures during stepped heating. High concentrations of Ni, Co, and Ir indicate a significant meteoritic component in the lunar surface regolith from which DG 262 was derived.     

Airborne gravimetry used in precise geoid computations by ring integration

Two detailed geoids have been computed in the region of North Jutland. The first computation used marine data in the offshore areas. For the second computation the marine data set was replaced by the sparser airborne gravity data resulting from the AGMASCO campaign of September 1996. The results of comparisons of the geoid heights at on-shore geometric control showed that the geoid heights computed from the airborne gravity data matched in precision those computed using the marine data, supporting the view that airborne techniques have enormous potential for mapping those unsurveyed areas between the land-based data and the off-shore marine or altimetrically derived data. Received: 7 July 1997 / Accepted: 22 April 1998