Geomagnetic disturbance fields: an analysis of observatory monthly means

SUMMARY
This work quantifies the extent to which disturbance phenomena contribute to the observed geomagnetic field on the time-scale of months to years. A deterministic approach was adopted in which geomagnetic monthly means were analysed in the time domain. By presupposing the time dependence of the external and induced field variations, which we assume to vary as the aa geomagnetic index, we arrived at an estimate of the relative amplitude of the disturbance to each component of the field at a number of observatories. In all some 58 000 geomagnetic monthly means from 59 observatories operating this century were analysed. Special attention was paid to the selection and validation of the data as otherwise the numerical computations would have been unduly compromised.
The results consist of 177 estimates of the relative amplitude of disturbance, one for each of three orthogonal components north ( X ), east ( Y ) and vertically down ( Z ) at each observatory. The disturbance to the X component was found to be consistently negative over the whole of the Earth's surface with an intensification in auroral regions. The disturbances to the Z component were found to be smaller than that for X except in high latitudes. Mean disturbances to the Y component were smaller still. Results were in general consistent with the dipole field of the magnetospheric ring current, aligned with, though of opposite polarity to, the Earth's main field. Typical amplitudes of the mean disturbance field from month to month were of the order 10 nT.
The results can be used to estimate the variation of the disturbance field. Subtracting this from both monthly and annual means yields an improved estimate of the field originating in the core and its secular variation. Some examples are presented.     

Metal tissue levels in Steller sea lion (Eumetopias jubatus) pups

The endangered Western population of the Steller sea lion declined for three decades for uncertain reasons. We present baseline data of metal concentrations in pups as a first step towards investigating the potential threat of developmental exposures to contaminants. Seven metals were investigated: arsenic, cadmium, silver, aluminum, mercury, lead and vanadium. Vanadium was detected in only a single blubber sample. Mercury appears to be the most toxicologically significant metal with concentrations in the liver well above the current action level for mercury in fish. The concentrations of aluminum, arsenic, silver, cadmium and lead were present in one-fourth to two-thirds of all samples and were at either comparable or below concentrations previously reported. Neither gender nor region had a significant effect on metal burdens. Future work should consider metal concentrations in juveniles and adults and toxicological studies need to be performed to begin to assess the toxicity of these metals.     

A Prominent Apparition of Neptune's South Polar Feature

During the last week of June 2001, a bright apparition of Neptune's South Polar Feature (SPF) at 70°S was observed to develop and decay in less than 30 hours, displaying contrast of ∼2.5 at 619 nm. Assuming that the same SPF was observed on two consecutive rotations of Neptune, the feature moved eastward at 3.2±1.8° hr⁻¹ (130±80 m s⁻¹). The SPF made no obvious appearances during eight other Hubble Space Telescope (HST) observations of Neptune between July 2000 and June 2001, although there was a faint feature at 70°S in one image in October 2000. A prominent SPF was present in near-IR Keck Telescope images in August 2000. Bright SPFs are seen on ∼10% of the HST images of Neptune obtained since 1994, and a fainter SPF is visible on another ∼10%. An SPF bright enough to be visible at HST resolution was present around half the time during the last week of Voyager's approach to Neptune in August 1989, with one prominent brightening, suggesting that the SPF is less visible now than in 1989.     

Stable regions in the Earth's liquid core

Summary. Slow cooling of the whole Earth can be responsible for the convection in the core that is required to generate the magnetic field. Previous studies have assumed the cooling rate to be high enough for the whole core to convect. Here we study the effects of a low rate of cooling by assuming the temperature at the base of the mantle to remain constant with an initially entirely molten, adiabatic core. We argue that, in such a situation, convection would stop at the top of the core, and calculate the consequent thermal evolution. A stable, density stratified layer grows downwards from the core mantle boundary reaching a thickness of 100–1000 km in a few thousands of millions of years. There is some geomagnetic evidence to support belief in the existence of such a stable layer.     

Gravity anomaly patterns in the south-central Zimbabwe Archaean craton and their geological interpretation

The granite-greenstone terrain of south-central Zimbabwe, encompassing the Belingwe (Mberengwa) greenstone belt and sections of the Great Dyke, provides important constraints on models for the evolution of the Zimbabwe craton and the Archaean crust in general. In this paper we enhance and model existing and recently acquired gravity data from the region and correlate the anomalies and their derivatives with the known basement geology to evaluate models for greenstone belt development. We also study the spatial gneiss-granite-greenstone association in general, and the geologic implications of models of the anomaly patterns in particular. Although the Belingwe greenstone belt has been mapped, its subsurface geometry is poorly known. Similarly, the Great Dyke is well studied, but no systematic study of the extent and cross-cutting relations of other mafic dykes in the Archaean crust has been undertaken.The regional gravity field shows no evidence for crustal thickness variations in the area and the gravity anomalies can be explained by lateral density variations of the supracrustal rocks. Prominent gravity highs are observed over the high density ( 3000 kg/m³) volcano-sedimentary piles (greenstone belts) and ultramafic complexes. Well-defined elongate, sub-oval/elliptical gravity lows are associated with intrusive granitic plutons. The granite-greenstone contacts are marked by steep gravity gradients of up to 5 mGal/km that imply steeply dipping or near-vertical contacts for the anomalous bodies. This is tested and confirmed by 2¹/₂D modelling of gravity profiles across the Belingwe and Fort Rixon greenstone belts, constrained by measured densities and observed geological data. The modelling also indicates that these belts, and possibly all the belts in the study area (based on comparable densities and anomaly amplitudes), have limited depth extents in the range of 3–5 km. This is comparable to thicknesses obtained elsewhere from deep seismic reflection data and geoelectrical studies, but mapped stratigraphic thicknesses give a maximum depth extent of about 9.5 km. Present studies and previous work support the idea that the volcanics were extruded within rift zones and laid on older granitic crust, followed by subsidence and rapid deposition of sediments that were sourced from the adjacent basement terrains. The volcano-sedimentary sequences were subsequently deformed by intruding younger plutons and affected by late-stage strike-slip activity producing cross-cutting structures.     

Physical constraints for the analysis of the geomagnetic secular variation

Slow changes in the magnetic field are believed to originate in the core of the Earth. Interpretation of these changes requires knowledge both of the vertical component of the field and of its rate of change at the core-mantle boundary (CMB). While various spherical harmonic models show some agreement for the field at the CMB, those for secular variation (SV) do not. SV models depend heavily on annual means at relatively few and poorly distributed magnetic observatories. In this paper, the SV at the CMB is modelled by fitting 15-year differences in the annual means of the X, Y and Z components (from 1959 to 1974). The model is made unique by imposing the constraint that $\text{?}{}_{\mathrm{CMB}}\text{B}\text{?}{}_{\mathrm{r}}{}^2\text{d}\text{S}$ be a minimum, using the method of Shure et al. (1982). If SV is attributed to motions of core fluid, then this model will yield, in some sense, the slowest core motions. The null space is determined by the distribution of observations, and therefore, to be consistent, only those observatories have been retained which recorded almost continuously throughout the interval 1959–1974.The method allows misfit between the model and the observations. The best value for the misfit can be derived from estimates of errors in the data, or alternatively, because larger misfit leads to smoother models (i.e., smaller $\text{?}\text{B}\text{?}{}_{\mathrm{r}}{}^2\text{d}\text{S}$), the best value can be estimated subjectively from the final appearance of the model. Both procedures have their counterparts in the conventional spherical harmonic expansion approach, when smoothing is achieved by lowering the truncation level. The new proposal made in this paper is to use objective criteria for determining the misfit, based on the assumption that diffusion is negligible, in which event all integrals $\text{∫}\text{B}\text{?}{}_{\mathrm{r}}{}^2\text{d}\text{S}$ will vanish when S_i is a region on the CMB bounded by a contour of zero vertical component of field. For the 1965 definitive model which is adopted here, and for most other contemporary models, there are six such areas, giving five independent integrals (the integrals over the six regions must sum to zero if ? · B = 0). Tabulating these integrals for various choices of the misfit gives minimum values near 2 nT y^?1. It is impossible to achieve this good a fit to the data using a reasonable model derived by truncating the spherical harmonic expansion. The value 2 nT y^?1 corresponds to errors of ～ 20 nT in individual annual means, which is rather larger than expected from the scatter in the data.     

PCR‐based techniques to determine diet of the Australian sea lion (Neophoca cinerea): a comparison with morphological analysis

Comprehensive dietary information for the endangered Australian sea lion (Neophoca cinerea) is currently limited by the deficiency and poor quality of identifiable prey remains recovered from regurgitate and faeces and the difficulty of observing feeding in the wild. In this study, we investigated DNA‐based prey detection methods using conventional (end‐point) and quantitative real‐time PCR (qPCR) on faeces collected from two captive Australian sea lions fed experimental diets of whole teleost fish, squid and shark tissue. PCR prey detection methods using the mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase subunit I (COI) and 16S genes combined with clone sequencing were compared with prey identified using traditional hard part analysis. The molecular results indicated that prey DNA was degraded. However, prey amplification was successful by targeting short (71 bp) DNA fragments. Both conventional PCR and qPCR techniques significantly increased prey detection compared with analysis of hard parts. For both sea lions, the hard part analysis was constrained by sporadic and extremely low recovery of fish otoliths (<2%), and cephalopod beaks were not recovered from the 116 squid fed. Comparisons between PCR techniques indicated comparable prey detection frequencies for all species tested; however, the sensitivity and greater resolution of qPCR improved prey detection by ~25% in one sea lion fed the experimental squid and perch. The detection of squid DNA ≤ 6 day post‐ingestion by qPCR further exhibits the ability and potential of this method to detect low concentrations of infrequent or pulse prey. This study highlights the use of DNA‐based analysis to detect prey taxa in the absence of identifiable hard prey remains.     

The impacts of climate change on tribal traditional foods

American Indian and Alaska Native tribes are uniquely affected by climate change. Indigenous peoples have depended on a wide variety of native fungi, plant and animal species for food, medicine, ceremonies, community and economic health for countless generations. Climate change stands to impact the species and ecosystems that constitute tribal traditional foods that are vital to tribal culture, economy and traditional ways of life. This paper examines the impacts of climate change on tribal traditional foods by providing cultural context for the importance of traditional foods to tribal culture, recognizing that tribal access to traditional food resources is strongly influenced by the legal and regulatory relationship with the federal government, and examining the multi-faceted relationship that tribes have with places, ecological processes and species. Tribal participation in local, regional and national climate change adaption strategies, with a focus on food-based resources, can inform and strengthen the ability of both tribes and other governmental resource managers to address and adapt to climate change impacts.     

Do asymmetries in ENSO predictability arise from different recharged states?

Climate Dynamics - Prospects for El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) predictability at long lead-times lie in the subsurface oceanic memory along the equatorial Pacific. Long considered...     

A modeling study of coastal inundation induced by storm surge,sea-level rise,and subsidence in the Gulf of Mexico

The northern coasts of the Gulf of Mexico (GoM) are highly vulnerable to the direct threats of climate change, such as hurricane-induced storm surge, and such risks are exacerbated by land subsidence and global sea-level rise. This paper presents an application of a coastal storm surge model to study the coastal inundation process induced by tide and storm surge, and its response to the effects of land subsidence and sea-level rise in the northern Gulf coast. The unstructured-grid finite-volume coastal ocean model was used to simulate tides and hurricane-induced storm surges in the GoM. Simulated distributions of co-amplitude and co-phase lines for semi-diurnal and diurnal tides are in good agreement with previous modeling studies. The storm surges induced by four historical hurricanes (Rita, Katrina, Ivan, and Dolly) were simulated and compared to observed water levels at National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration tide stations. Effects of coastal subsidence and future global sea-level rise on coastal inundation in the Louisiana coast were evaluated using a “change of inundation depth” parameter through sensitivity simulations that were based on a projected future subsidence scenario and 1-m global sea-level rise by the end of the century. Model results suggested that hurricane-induced storm surge height and coastal inundation could be exacerbated by future global sea-level rise and subsidence, and that responses of storm surge and coastal inundation to the effects of sea-level rise and subsidence are highly nonlinear and vary on temporal and spatial scales.