Diel variation of benthic respiration in a coral reef sediment (Reunion Island,Indian Ocean)

Oxygen and total dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) fluxes at the water–sediment interface were measured using benthic chambers to assess the short-term variations of community respiration (CR) in the back reef sediments of Reunion Island (Indian Ocean). Benthic CR had a daily cycle of minimal (6:00 AM) and maximal values (6:00 PM), showing increases of oxygen and DIC fluxes of 2.8- and 3.8-fold, respectively. Average CR values were observed at midday and midnight. The evolution of fluxes was positively related to oxygen concentration in ambient water, but not to temperature changes. In the study area, high daytime primary production augments the amount of energy available for community metabolism and increases benthic respiration. The benthic communities are therefore subjected to short-term variable environmental conditions with oxygen supersaturation during the day, and moderately hypoxic conditions at the end of the night.     

Mise au point d'un milieu de culture pour l'étude de l'altération de silicates en présence de Pseudomonas aeruginosa

The influence of microorganisms on mineral alteration is not easy to determine in environmental conditions, because of the difficulty to raise for comparison purposes an identical but abiotic system. Another problem in this context is the choice of reliable tracers to evaluate the alteration rate of materials during in vitro experiments. To face such difficulties, we elaborated a defined medium allowing both the growth of Pseudomonas aeruginosa and a precise measurement of the elements solubilized from the minerals. Thanks to this medium, we were able to quantitatively determine the amounts of major elements solubilized from the materials in the presence of bacterial growth, compared to a sterile system. Moreover, the analysis by ICP-MS of trace elements was possible after a chromatographic treatment, which selectively eliminated 99% of the sodium content of the medium. To cite this article: G. Aouad et al., C. R. Geoscience 337 (2005).     

Mais comment s'écoule donc un glacier ? Aperçu historique

Ice and snow have often helped physicists understand the world. On the contrary it has taken them a very long time to understand the flow of the glaciers. Naturalists only began to take an interest in glaciers at the beginning of the 19th century during the last phase of glacier advances. When the glacier flow from the upslope direction became obvious, it was then necessary to understand how it flowed. It was only in 1840, the year of the Antarctica ice sheet discovery by Dumont d'Urville, that two books laid the basis for the future field of glaciology: one by Agassiz on the ice age and glaciers, the other one by canon Rendu on glacier theory. During the 19th century, ice flow theories, adopted by most of the leading scientists, were based on melting/refreezing processes. Even though the word ‘fluid’ was first used in 1773 to describe ice, more the 130 years would have to go by before the laws of fluid mechanics were applied to ice. Even now, the parameter of Glen's law, which is used by glaciologists to model ice deformation, can take a very wide range of values, so that no unique ice flow law has yet been defined. To cite this article: F. Rémy, L. Testut, C. R. Geoscience 338 (2006).     

Quality assessment of GPS reprocessed terrestrial reference frame

The International GNSS Service (IGS) contributes to the construction of the International Terrestrial Reference Frame (ITRF) by submitting time series of station positions and Earth Rotation Parameters (ERP). For the first time, its submission to the ITRF2008 construction is based on a combination of entirely reprocessed GPS solutions delivered by 11 Analysis Centers (ACs). We analyze the IGS submission and four of the individual AC contributions in terms of the GNSS frame origin and scale, station position repeatability and time series seasonal variations. We show here that the GPS Terrestrial Reference Frame (TRF) origin is consistent with Satellite laser Ranging (SLR) at the centimeter level with a drift lower than 1 mm/year. Although the scale drift compared to Very Long baseline Interferometry (VLBI) and SLR mean scale is smaller than 0.4 mm/year, we think that it would be premature to use that information in the ITRF scale definition due to its strong dependence on the GPS satellite and ground antenna phase center variations. The new position time series also show a better repeatability compared to past IGS combined products and their annual variations are shown to be more consistent with loading models. The comparison of GPS station positions and velocities to those of VLBI via local ties in co-located sites demonstrates that the IGS reprocessed solution submitted to the ITRF2008 is more reliable and precise than any of the past submissions. However, we show that some of the remaining inconsistencies between GPS and VLBI positioning may be caused by uncalibrated GNSS radomes.     

Large-Scale Structures over a Single Street Canyon Immersed in an Urban-Type Boundary Layer

An analysis of the dynamics of the flow over a street canyon immersed in an atmospheric boundary layer is presented, using particle image velocimetry measurements in a wind tunnel. Care was taken to generate a 1:200 model scale urban type boundary layer that is correctly scaled to the size of the canyon buildings. Using proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) of the velocity field and conditional averaging techniques, it is first shown that the flow above the opening of the canyon consists of a shear layer separating from the upstream obstacle, animated by a coherent flapping motion and generating large-scale vortical structures. These structures are alternately injected into the canyon or shed off the obstacle into the outer flow. It is shown that unsteady fluid exchanges between the canyon and the outer flow are mainly driven by the shear layer. Finally, using POD, the non-linear interaction between the large-scale structures of the oncoming atmospheric boundary layer and the flow over the canyon is demonstrated.     

A 20cm 2 CCD mosaic camera for a dark matter search part II : Electronics,data acquisition and performance

Conclusion To summarize, the readout and the control system of the CCD mosaic camera are running since December 1991 at the La Silla Observatory (ESO). The overall performance of the camera has been good. About 12000 pictures (data and flat-fields) have been successfully registered up to now. We will report in the near future preliminary scientific results of the EROS experiment.     

Inhomogeneous substrate analysis using EM300 backscatter imagery

Backscatter reflectivity from multibeam echo-sounders provides a powerful tool to efficiently characterize seafloor substrates. A comprehensive EM300 bathymetric and backscatter survey has been completed of Cook Strait, in central New Zealand. This paper presents a detailed analysis of the realtime corrections applied to the raw EM300 multibeam data and additional corrections required to compute angular variations of the backscatter strength. The corrections, including the local absorption coefficient, the influence of seafloor topography and sound refraction in the water column, are determined for different Cook Strait seafloor substrates. Modifying MB-System software code, we extracted the backscatter signal parameters in order to quantify the raw backscatter strength and apply additional processing. Profiles of backscatter strength versus incidence angle were computed for a variety of sites characterized by flat seafloor and homogeneous substrates, and for which ground-truth data were available. For each homogeneous site, different but characteristic backscatter profiles are observed that can be interpreted in terms of sediment facies. To analyze heterogeneous substrates, we present a statistical technique, based on a 3-dimensional distribution of (incidence angle, backscatter strength) couples that preserves geological information of the substrate components. This analysis, using backscatter data acquired on a submarine volcano, north of New Zealand, clearly differentiates soft sediments and lava flows within a heterogeneous substrate.     

Calderas,landslides and paleo-canyons on Piton de la Fournaise volcano (La Réunion Island,Indian Ocean)

Based upon a re-interpretation of previous data and a new field campaign, a structural evolution is proposed for the early history of Piton de la Fournaise volcano from 500,000 to 50,000 years. Conceptually, it is shown that the formation of a caldera in which lava flows are contained inside the caldera depression, gives time for erosion to excavate deep canyons on the external slopes of the volcano, for example, the Rivière des Remparts, the Rivière Langevin and the Rivière de l'Est canyons on Piton de la Fournaise volcano. These canyons are infilled when lavas, filling the caldera and overflowing its rim, are able again to flow on the external slopes of the volcano. In the past, this excavating/infilling process has occurred twice following the formation of the Rivière des Remparts and Morne Langevin calderas. The formation of the third caldera, the Plaine des Sables caldera, was followed by the excavation of the current canyons. In addition to this process, two large landslides have been documented in the field. The first, which happened about 300,000 years ago, is apparently the first episode of the break up of Piton de la Fournaise volcano, predating the formation of the four large calderas. The second landslide, which occurred 150,000 years ago and is considered to be less extensive, has carried away the entire southern flank of the Rivière des Remparts caldera.     

The stratospheric version of LMDz: dynamical climatologies, arctic oscillation, and impact on the surface climate

A climatology of the stratosphere is determined from a 20-year integration with the stratospheric version of the Atmospheric General Circulation Model LMDz. The model has an upper boundary at near 65 km, uses a Doppler spread non-orographic gravity waves drag parameterization and a subgrid-scale orography parameterization. It also has a Rayleigh damping layer for resolved waves only (not the zonal mean flow) over the top 5 km. This paper describes the basic features of the model and some aspects of its radiative-dynamical climatology. Standard first order diagnostics are presented but some emphasis is given to the model’s ability to reproduce the low frequency variability of the stratosphere in the winter northern hemisphere. In this model, the stratospheric variability is dominated at each altitudes by patterns which have some similarities with the arctic oscillation (AO). For those patterns, the signal sometimes descends from the stratosphere to the troposphere. In an experiment where the parameterized orographic gravity waves that reach the stratosphere are exaggerated, the model stratosphere in the NH presents much less variability. Although the stratospheric variability is still dominated by patterns that resemble to the AO, the downward influence of the stratosphere along these patterns is near entirely lost. In the same time, the persistence of the surface AO decreases, which is consistent with the picture that this persistence is linked to the descent of the AO signal from the stratosphere to the troposphere. A comparison between the stratospheric version of the model, and its routinely used tropospheric version is also done. It shows that the introduction of the stratosphere in a model that already has a realistic AO persistence can lead to overestimate the actual influence of the stratospheric dynamics onto the surface AO. Although this result is certainly model dependent, it suggests that the introduction of the stratosphere in a GCM also call for a new adjustment of the model parameters that affect the tropospheric variability.     

Spurious diapycnal mixing in terrain-following coordinate models: The problem and a solution

In this paper, we identify a crucial numerical problem in sigma coordinate models, leading to unacceptable spurious diapycnal mixing. This error is a by-product of recent advances in numerical methods, namely the implementation of high-order diffusive advection schemes. In the case of ROMS, spurious mixing is produced by its third-order upwind advection scheme, but our analysis suggests that all diffusive advection schemes would behave similarly in all sigma models. We show that the common idea that spurious mixing decreases with resolution is generally false. In a coarse-resolution regime, spurious mixing increases as resolution is refined, and may reach its peak value when eddy-driven lateral mixing becomes explicitly resolved. At finer resolution, diffusivities are expected to decrease but with values that only become acceptable at resolutions finer than the kilometer. The solution to this problem requires a specifically designed advection scheme. We propose and validate the RSUP3 scheme, where diffusion is split from advection and is represented by a rotated biharmonic diffusion scheme with flow-dependent hyperdiffusivity satisfying the Peclet constraint. The rotated diffusion operator is designed for numerical stability, which includes improvements of linear stability limits and a clipping method adapted to the sigma-coordinate. Realistic model experiments in a southwest Pacific configuration show that RSUP3 is able to preserve low dispersion and diffusion capabilities of the original third-order upwind scheme, while preserving water mass characteristics. There are residual errors from the rotated diffusion operator, but they remain acceptable. The use of a constant diffusivity rather than the Peclet hyperdiffusivity tends to increase these residual errors which become unacceptable with Laplacian diffusion. Finally, we have left some options open concerning the use of time filters as an alternative to spatial diffusion. A temporal discretization approach to the present problem (including implicit discretization) will be reported in a following paper.