ENSO, IOD and Indian Summer Monsoon in NCEP climate forecast system

El Ni?o-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) and Indian Summer Monsoon rainfall features are explored statistically and dynamically using National Centers for Environment Prediction (NCEP) Climate Forecast System (CFSv1) freerun in relation to observations. The 100?years of freerun provides a sufficiently long homogeneous data set to find out the mean state, periodicity, coherence among these climatic events and also the influence of ENSO and IOD on the Indian monsoon. Differences in the occurrence of seasonal precipitation between the observations and CFS freerun are examined as a coupled ocean–atmosphere system. CFS simulated ENSO and IOD patterns and their associated tropical Walker and regional Hadley circulation in pure ENSO (PEN), pure IOD (PIO) and coexisting ENSO-IOD (PEI) events have some similarity to the observations. PEN composites are much closer to the observation as compared to PIO and PEI composites, which suggest a better ENSO prediction and its associated teleconnections as compared to IOD and combined phenomenon. Similar to the observation, the model simulation also show that the decrease in the Indian summer monsoon rainfall during ENSO phases is associated with a descending motion of anomalous Walker circulation and the increase in the Indian summer monsoon rainfall during IOD phase is associated with the ascending branch of anomalous regional Hadley circulation. During co-existing ENSO and IOD years, however, the fate of Indian summer monsoon is dictated by the combined influence of both of them. The shift in the anomalous descending and ascending branches of the Walker and Hadley circulation may be somewhat attributed to the cold (warm) bias over eastern (western) equatorial Indian Ocean basin, respectively in the model. This study will be useful for identifying some of the limitations of the CFS model and consequently it will be helpful in improving the model to unravel the realistic coupled ocean–atmosphere interactions for the better prediction of Indian Summer Monsoon.     

Subduction, collision and initiation of hominin dispersal

Subduction is the main driving force of plate tectonics controlling the physiography of the Earth. The northward subduction of the Sinai plate was interrupted during the Early Pleistocene when the Eratosthenes Seamount began to collide with the Cyprian arc. A series of synchronous structural deformations was triggered across the entire eastern Mediterranean, and local topography was drastically accentuation along the Levantine corridor – one of the main pathways of hominin dispersal out of Africa. However, the choice of this preferred pathway and timing of dispersal has not been resolved. Though causes for dispersal out of Africa are in debate, we show that the transition from subduction to collision in the eastern Mediterranean set the route.     

Dispersive Stresses at the Canopy Upstream Edge

The derivation of flow and mass transfer models in canopy and porous media environments involves the spatial-averaging of the flow properties and their subscale equations. The averaging of the momentum equation generates the dispersive stress terms that represent the subscale spatial variations of the unresolved velocity field. While previous studies ignored the dispersive stresses in their flow models, recent evidence indicates that the dispersive stresses may be important. Here we focus our attention on the magnitude of the normal dispersive stresses in the entry region of a ‘forest patch’, where the in-canopy velocities are large and the longitudinal derivatives do not cancel out. Highly detailed particle image velocimetry measurements, at a temporal and spatial resolution of 5 Hz and 1.4 mm, are obtained inside and around a 1-m long model canopy which consists of transparent vertical cylinders 6 mm in diameter and 74.3 mm high (h). The cylinders are randomly distributed to form a relatively sparse forest patch with a leaf area density of 7.56 m⁻¹ and a fluid volume fraction (porosity) of 0.965. We present results of the double averaged flow properties at three different regions of the forest patch; the upstream edge (x ≈ 0), the fully-developed interior region (x ≈ 10h) and the downstream edge (x ≈ 13h). We find that the normal dispersive stresses around the entry region of the forest patch are significantly larger than the normal Reynolds stresses. An order of magnitude analysis of the relevant terms in the momentum equation indicates that the longitudinal derivatives of the dispersive stresses are of the same order of magnitude as that of the drag force and similar to that of the horizontal convection term. The longitudinal derivatives of the Reynolds stresses are smaller, though cannot be ignored. Comparing these results with the characteristic profiles measured in the fully-developed region indicates that the dispersive stresses, which are generated at the forest patch entrance, decrease along an adjustment region while maintaining their profile shape. We find that the dispersive stresses influence the rate at which momentum penetrates into the canopy. These observations suggest that under certain flow conditions, dispersive stresses may dominate the momentum balance and therefore must be considered in future canopy and porous media flow models.     

Conservation laws and invariants of motion for nonlinear internal waves: part II

In this paper, we derive three conservation laws and three invariants of motion for the generalized Gardner equation. These conserved quantities for internal waves are the momentum, energy, and Hamiltonian. The approach used for the derivation of these conservation laws and their associated invariants of motion is direct and does not involve the use of variational principles. It can be easily applied for finding similar invariants of motion for other general types of KdV, Gardner, and Boussinesq equations. The stability and conservation properties of discrete schemes for the simulations of internal waves propagation can be assessed and monitored using the analytical expressions of the constants of motion that are derived in this work.     

Status of NCEP CFS vis-a-vis IPCC AR4 models for the simulation of Indian summer monsoon

National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Coupled Forecast System (CFS) is selected to play a lead role for monsoon research (seasonal prediction, extended range prediction, climate prediction, etc.) in the ambitious Monsoon Mission project of Government of India. Thus, as a prerequisite, a detail analysis for the performance of NCEP CFS vis-a-vis IPCC AR4 models for the simulation of Indian summer monsoon (ISM) is attempted. It is found that the mean monsoon simulations by CFS in its long run are at par with the IPCC models. The spatial distribution of rainfall in the realm of Indian subcontinent augurs the better results for CFS as compared with the IPCC models. The major drawback of CFS is the bifurcation of rain types; it shows almost 80–90 % rain as convective, contrary to the observation where it is only 50–65 %; however, the same lacuna creeps in other models of IPCC as well. The only respite is that it realistically simulates the proper ratio of convective and stratiform rain over central and southern part of India. In case of local air–sea interaction, it outperforms other models. However, for monsoon teleconnections, it competes with the better models of the IPCC. This study gives us the confidence that CFS can be very well utilized for monsoon studies and can be safely used for the future development for reliable prediction system of ISM.     

A framework for the probabilistic analysis of meteotsunamis

A probabilistic technique is developed to assess the hazard from meteotsunamis. Meteotsunamis are unusual sea-level events, generated when the speed of an atmospheric pressure or wind disturbance is comparable to the phase speed of long waves in the ocean. A general aggregation equation is proposed for the probabilistic analysis, based on previous frameworks established for both tsunamis and storm surges, incorporating different sources and source parameters of meteotsunamis. Parameterization of atmospheric disturbances and numerical modeling is performed for the computation of maximum meteotsunami wave amplitudes near the coast. A historical record of pressure disturbances is used to establish a continuous analytic distribution of each parameter as well as the overall Poisson rate of occurrence. A demonstration study is presented for the northeast U.S. in which only isolated atmospheric pressure disturbances from squall lines and derechos are considered. For this study, Automated Surface Observing System stations are used to determine the historical parameters of squall lines from 2000 to 2013. The probabilistic equations are implemented using a Monte Carlo scheme, where a synthetic catalog of squall lines is compiled by sampling the parameter distributions. For each entry in the catalog, ocean wave amplitudes are computed using a numerical hydrodynamic model. Aggregation of the results from the Monte Carlo scheme results in a meteotsunami hazard curve that plots the annualized rate of exceedance with respect to maximum event amplitude for a particular location along the coast. Results from using multiple synthetic catalogs, resampled from the parent parameter distributions, yield mean and quantile hazard curves. Further refinements and improvements for probabilistic analysis of meteotsunamis are discussed.     

Chemical Fractionation of Aluminium in the Sediments of El-Burullus Lagoon of Nile Delta,Egypt

A five step sequential extraction technique, following Tessier’s protocol has been applied to determine the chemical association of aluminium with major sedimentary phases (exchangeable, carbonate, manganese and iron oxides, organic and residual fraction) in four short sediment cores collected from El-Burullus lagoon of the Nile delta, Egypt. This study is a first approach of chemical fractionation of aluminium in one of the protective areas of the Mediterranean Sea of Egypt. The total metal content was also determined. The results of the fractionation study indicated that aluminium was mainly associated with the residual fraction (>95%). The organic and Fe–Mn oxide fractions were the next important phases. The exchangeable and carbonate fractions were less than 1%, limiting its potential toxicity as a pollutant. The geochemical analysis of aluminium forms reflected the lithogenic origin of this metal in the study area.     

Event sedimentation in low‐latitude deep‐water carbonate basins,Anegada passage,northeast Caribbean

The Virgin Islands and Whiting basins in the Northeast Caribbean are deep, structurally controlled depocentres partially bound by shallow‐water carbonate platforms. Closed basins such as these are thought to document earthquake and hurricane events through the accumulation of event layers such as debris flow and turbidity current deposits and the internal deformation of deposited material. Event layers in the Virgin Islands and Whiting basins are predominantly thin and discontinuous, containing varying amounts of reef‐ and slope‐derived material. Three turbidites/sandy intervals in the upper 2 m of sediment in the eastern Virgin Islands Basin were deposited between ca. 2000 and 13 600 years ago, but do not extend across the basin. In the central and western Virgin Islands Basin, a structureless clay‐rich interval is interpreted to be a unifite. Within the Whiting Basin, several discontinuous turbidites and other sand‐rich intervals are primarily deposited in base of slope fans. The youngest of these turbidites is ca. 2600 years old. Sediment accumulation in these basins is low (<0.1 mm year^?1) for basin adjacent to carbonate platform, possibly due to limited sediment input during highstand sea‐level conditions, sediment trapping and/or cohesive basin walls. We find no evidence of recent sediment transport (turbidites or debris flows) or sediment deformation that can be attributed to the ca. M7.2 1867 Virgin Islands earthquake whose epicentre was located on the north wall of the Virgin Islands Basin or to recent hurricanes that have impacted the region. The lack of significant appreciable pebble or greater size carbonate material in any of the available cores suggests that submarine landslide and basin‐wide blocky debris flows have not been a significant mechanism of basin margin modification in the last several thousand years. Thus, basins such as those described here may be poor recorders of past natural hazards, but may provide a long‐term record of past oceanographic conditions in ocean passages.