Continental drift,plateau uplift,and the evolutions of monsoon and arid regions in Asia,Africa, and Australia during the Cenozoic

Monsoon and arid regions in the Asia-Africa-Australia(A-A-A) realm occupy more than 60% of the total area of these continents. Geological evidence showed that significant changes occurred to the A-A-A environments of the monsoon and arid regions, the land-ocean configuration in the Eastern Hemisphere, and the topography of the Tibetan Plateau(TP) in the Cenozoic. Motivated by this background, numerical experiments for 5 typical geological periods during the Cenozoic were conducted using a coupled ocean-atmosphere general circulation model to systemically explore the formations and evolutionary histories of the Cenozoic A-A-A monsoon and arid regions under the influences of continental drift and plateau uplift. Results of the numerical experiments indicate that the timings and causes of the formations of monsoon and arid regions in the A-A-A realm were very different. The northern and southern African monsoons existed during the mid-Paleocene, while the South Asian monsoon appeared in the Eocene after the Indian Subcontinent moved into the tropical Northern Hemisphere. In contrast, the East Asian monsoon and northern Australian monsoon were established much later in the Miocene. The establishment of the tropical monsoons in northern and southern Africa, South Asia, and Australia were determined by both the continental drift and seasonal migration of the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone(ITCZ), while the position and height of the TP were the key factor for the establishment of the East Asian monsoon. The presence of the subtropical arid regions in northern and southern Africa,Asia, and Australia depended on the positions of the continents and the control of the planetary scale subtropical high pressure zones, while the arid regions in the Arabian Peninsula and West Asia were closely related to the retreat of the Paratethys Sea. The formation of the mid-latitude arid region in the Asian interior, on the other hand, was the consequence of the uplift of the TP.These results from this study provide insight to the important roles played by the earth's tectonic boundary conditions in the formations and evolutions of regional climates during geological times.     

Sangay volcano, Ecuador: structural development, present activity and petrology

Sangay (5230 m), the southernmost active volcano of the Andean Northern Volcanic Zone (NVZ), sits 130 km above a >32-Ma-old slab, close to a major tear that separates two distinct subducting oceanic crusts. Southwards, Quaternary volcanism is absent along a 1600-km-long segment of the Andes. Three successive edifices of decreasing volume have formed the Sangay volcanic complex during the last 500 ka. Two former cones (Sangay I and II) have been largely destroyed by sector collapses that resulted in large debris avalanches that flowed out upon the Amazon plain. Sangay III, being constructed within the last avalanche amphitheater, has been active at least since 14 ka BP. Only the largest eruptions with unusually high Plinian columns are likely to represent a major hazard for the inhabited areas located 30 to 100 km west of the volcano. However, given the volcano's relief and unbuttressed eastern side, a future collapse must be considered, that would seriously affect an area of present-day colonization in the Amazon plain, 30 km east of the summit. Andesites greatly predominate at Sangay, there being few dacites and basalts. In order to explain the unusual characteristics of the Sangay suite—highest content of incompatible elements (except Y and HREE) of any NVZ suite, low Y and HREE values in the andesites and dacites, and high Nb/La of the only basalt found—a preliminary five-step model is proposed: (1) an enriched mantle (in comparison with an MORB source), or maybe a variably enriched mantle, at the site of the Sangay, prior to Quaternary volcanism; (2) metasomatism of this mantle by important volumes of slab-derived fluids enriched in soluble incompatible elements, due to the subduction of major oceanic fracture zones; (3) partial melting of this metasomatized mantle and generation of primitive basaltic melts with Nb/La values typical of the NVZ, which are parental to the entire Sangay suite but apparently never reach the surface and subordinate production of high Nb/La basaltic melts, maybe by lower degrees of melting at the periphery of the main site of magma formation, that only infrequently reach the surface; (4) AFC processes at the base of a 50-km-thick crust, where parental melts pond and fractionate while assimilating remelts of similar basaltic material previously underplated, producing andesites with low Y and HREE contents, due to garnet stability at this depth; (5) low-pressure fractionation and mixing processes higher in the crust. Both an enriched mantle under Sangay prior to volcanism and an important slab-derived input of fluids enriched in soluble incompatible elements, two parameters certainly related to the unique setting of the volcano at the southern termination of the NVZ, apparently account for the exceptionally high contents of incompatible elements of the Sangay suite. In addition, the low Cr/Ni values of the entire suite—another unique characteristic of the NVZ—also requires unusual fractionation processes involving Cr-spinel and/or clinopyroxene, either in the upper mantle or at the base of the crust.     

Sediment supply to the Orange sedimentary system over the last 150 My: An evaluation from sedimentation/denudation balance

The South African plateau is bordered by passive margin basins preserving the terrigeneous sediment produced during onshore erosion. As such, these basins potentially provide a record of the variation in onshore elevation and relief over time. Here we bring new constraints on the uplift and erosion of the Southern African plateau over the last 150 Ma from the perspective of the stratigraphic architecture of these basins. We review published data to quantify the terrigeneous supply eroded in the drainage area and preserved in the basins. The novel aspect of our approach is the integration of the evolution of the whole domain in sedimentation (i.e. not only the platform) as well as the onshore eroding region.     

喀喇昆仑断裂的变形特征及构造演化

喀喇昆仑断裂的变形特征、形成时代、构造演化以及它的构造意义一直存在着争议。在喀喇昆仑断裂东南段阿伊拉日居山地区,沿断裂出露具右旋剪切应变的糜棱岩和糜棱岩化片麻岩-花岗岩,显微构造研究表明其存在高温右旋剪切变形特征,并伴随淡色同构造花岗岩的产生,同构造结晶锆石所记录的U-Pb同位素年龄,暗示了喀喇昆仑断裂的形成时代在23-25Ma以前,其连续变形作用持续到-12Ma,之后伴随阿伊拉日居山的快速隆升以及噶尔盆地开始形成。综合分析表明喀喇昆仑断裂生长过程可能是由南东向北西扩展的过程,是印度板块与欧亚大陆持续碰撞的结果。断裂的累积位移量至少为280km,其长期平均滑移速率约为11mm／a。通过块体间运动学分析,表明在-23-25Ma以后青藏高原物质以约16．2mmn/a的速率向-N108°方向挤出。     

The ACPI Project, Element 1: Initializing a Coupled Climate Model from Observed Conditions

A problem for climate change studies with coupled ocean-atmosphere models has been how to incorporate observed initial conditions into the ocean, which holds most of the `memory' of anthropogenic forcing effects. The first difficulty is the lack of comprehensive three-dimensional observations of the current ocean temperature (T) and salinity (S) fields to initialize to. The second problem is that directly imposing observed T and S fields into the model results in rapid drift back to the model climatology, with the corresponding loss of the observed information. Anthropogenic forcing scenarios therefore typically initialize future runs by starting with pre-industrial conditions. However, if the future climate depends on the details of the present climate, then initializing the model to observations may provide more accurate forecasts. Also, this ～ 130 yr spin up imposes substantial overhead if only a few decades of predictions are desired. A new technique to address these problems is presented. In lieu of observed T and S, assimilated ocean data were used. To reduce model drift, an anomaly coupling scheme was devised. This consists of letting the model's climatological (pre-industrial) oceanic and atmospheric heat contents and transports balance each other, while adding on the (much smaller) changes in heat content since the pre-industrial era as anomalies. The result is model drift of no more than 0.2 K over 50 years, significantly smaller than the forced response of 1.0 K. An ensemble of runs with these assimilated initial conditions is then compared to a set spun up from pre-industrial conditions. No systematic differences were found, i.e., the model simulation of the ocean temperature structure in the late 1990s is statistically indistinguishable from the assimilated observations. However, a model with a worse representation of the late 20th century climate might show significant differences if initialized in this way.     

Factors influencing anthropogenic carbon dioxide uptake in the North Atlantic in models of the ocean carbon cycle

The uptake and storage of anthropogenic carbon in the North Atlantic is investigated using different configurations of ocean general circulation/carbon cycle models. We investigate how different representations of the ocean physics in the models, which represent the range of models currently in use, affect the evolution of CO₂ uptake in the North Atlantic. The buffer effect of the ocean carbon system would be expected to reduce ocean CO₂ uptake as the ocean absorbs increasing amounts of CO₂. We find that the strength of the buffer effect is very dependent on the model ocean state, as it affects both the magnitude and timing of the changes in uptake. The timescale over which uptake of CO₂ in the North Atlantic drops to below preindustrial levels is particularly sensitive to the ocean state which sets the degree of buffering; it is less sensitive to the choice of atmospheric CO₂ forcing scenario. Neglecting physical climate change effects, North Atlantic CO₂ uptake drops below preindustrial levels between 50 and 300 years after stabilisation of atmospheric CO₂ in different model configurations. Storage of anthropogenic carbon in the North Atlantic varies much less among the different model configurations, as differences in ocean transport of dissolved inorganic carbon and uptake of CO₂ compensate each other. This supports the idea that measured inventories of anthropogenic carbon in the real ocean cannot be used to constrain the surface uptake. Including physical climate change effects reduces anthropogenic CO₂ uptake and storage in the North Atlantic further, due to the combined effects of surface warming, increased freshwater input, and a slowdown of the meridional overturning circulation. The timescale over which North Atlantic CO₂ uptake drops to below preindustrial levels is reduced by about one-third, leading to an estimate of this timescale for the real world of about 50 years after the stabilisation of atmospheric CO₂. In the climate change experiment, a shallowing of the mixed layer depths in the North Atlantic results in a significant reduction in primary production, reducing the potential role for biology in drawing down anthropogenic CO₂.     

A laboratory model of Saturn’s North Polar Hexagon

A hexagonal structure has been observed at ∼76°N on Saturn since the 1980s (Godfrey, D.A. [1988]. Icarus 76, 335-356). Recent images by Cassini (Baines, K., Momary, T., Roos-Serote, M., Atreya, S., Brown, R., Buratti, B., Clark, R., Nicholson, P. [2007]. Geophys. Res. Abstr. 9, 02109; Baines, K., Momary, T., Fletcher, L., Kim, J., Showman, A., Atreya, S., Brown, R., Buratti, B., Clark, R., Nicholson, P. [2009]. Geophys. Res. Abstr. 11, 3375) have shown that the feature is still visible and largely unchanged. Its long lifespan and geometry has puzzled the planetary physics community for many years and its origin remains unclear. The measured rotation rate of the hexagon may be very close to that of the interior of the planet (Godfrey, D.A. [1990]. Science 247, 1206-1208; Caldwell, J., Hua, X., Turgeon, B., Westphal, J.A., Barnet, C.D. [1993]. Science 206, 326-329; Sánchez-Lavega, A., Lecacheux, J., Colas, F., Laques, P. [1993]. Science 260, 329-332), leading to earlier interpretations of the pattern as a stationary planetary wave, continuously forced by a nearby vortex (Allison, M., Godfrey, D.A., Beebe, R.F. [1990]. Science 247, 1061-1063). Here we present an alternative explanation, based on an analysis of both spacecraft observations of Saturn and observations from laboratory experiments where the instability of quasi-geostrophic barotropic (vertically uniform) jets and shear layers is studied. We also present results from a barotropic linear instability analysis of the saturnian zonal wind profile, which are consistent with the presence of the hexagon in the North Pole and absence of its counter-part in the South Pole. We propose that Saturn’s long-lived polygonal structures correspond to wavemodes caused by the nonlinear equilibration of barotropically unstable zonal jets.     

Tidal currents and mixing at the INSTANT mooring locations

Tides affect transport and mixing in the Indonesian Seas, impacting the throughflow and the return flow of the global thermohaline circulation. In a previous study, barotropic and baroclinic tides were simulated for the Indonesian Seas at 5 km resolution in order to characterize the tides of the region and to identify and quantify locations of tidal mixing. Baroclinic tidal velocities exceeded barotropic velocities except in shallow regions and their variability was on smaller scales. Model results agreed reasonably with observations and are consistent with the resolution. However, only four mooring locations were available for comparison. The new International Nusantara Stratification (INSTANT) data set enables a more comprehensive comparison. With the exception of Lombok Strait, the model replicated the observed INSTANT velocity spectra, falling within the 90% confidence limits of the observed spectra, both in regions of high and low baroclinic tidal activity for the band of frequencies from 0.02 cph to 0.33 cph (periods of 50–3 h, respectively), which includes the major semidiurnal and diurnal tides and several of their first harmonics. The model overestimated the semidiurnal baroclinic tides in the narrow Lombok Strait, which is not well resolved in the model. Comparisons of vertical profiles of the major axes of the tidal ellipses at the mooring sites generally reproduced the vertical pattern, although there were exceptions, such as Lombok and Ombai Straits. Rms differences between the model estimates and hourly observations for the major axes of the tidal ellipses were typically 1–8 cm s⁻¹ in regions of high tidal activity, 1–5 cm s⁻¹ in regions of low tidal activity, and 1–20 cm s⁻¹ for the semidiurnal tides in Lombok and Ombai Straits. Rms errors of 1–6 cm s⁻¹ are typical in regions of moderate baroclinic tidal activity at this model resolution (5 km). Many of the larger rms differences result from vertical discrepancies in the depths of the internal tidal beams. The local nature of the internal tides generation and beam propagation results in large differences from small vertical shifts in the beams or generation due to topographic differences between the model topography and the actual topography. In addition, the moorings experienced severe blowdown. The blowdown adds uncertainty to the depths of the instruments and introduces errors in the observational tidal analysis in magnitude of the tidal constituents, both of which contribute to rms differences. Tidal mixing was found to occur in intense local regions with strong internal tidal shear. The local regions of mixing were typically along the bottom in steep slopes and over sills. In conclusion, the tidal model was found to reproduce the kinetic energy distribution and transfer of energy from tides to other frequencies in the Indonesian Seas and to roughly replicate the observed structure and magnitude of the tidal currents. Improvements in the tidal simulations in reproducing observations are expected with increased resolution.     

The trouble with the Local Bubble

The model of a Local Hot Bubble has been widely accepted as providing a framework that can explain the ubiquitous presence of the soft X-ray background diffuse emission. We summarize the current knowledge on this local interstellar region, paying particular reference to observations that sample emission from the presumed local million degree K hot plasma. However, we have listed numerous observations that are seemingly in conflict with the concept of a hot Local Bubble. In particular, the discovery of solar wind charge exchange that can generate an appreciable soft X-ray background signal within the heliosphere, has led to a re-assessment of the generally accepted model that requires a hot local plasma. In order to explain the majority of observations of the local plasma, we forward two new speculative models that describe the physical state of the local interstellar gas. One possible scenario is similar to the present widely accepted model of the Local Hot Bubble, except that it accounts for only 50% of the soft X-ray emission currently detected in the galactic plane, has a lower thermal pressure than previously thought, and its hot plasma is not as hot as previously believed. Although such a model can solve several difficulties with the traditional hot Local Bubble model, a heating mechanism for the dimmer and cooler gas remains to be found. The second possible explanation is that of the ‘Hot Top’ model, in which the Local Cavity is an old supernova remnant in which no (or very little) million degree local plasma is presently required. Instead, the cavity is now thought to be filled with partially ionized cloudlets of temperature ∼7000 K that are surrounded by lower density envelopes of photo-ionized gas of temperature ∼20,000 K. Although this new scenario provides a natural explanation for many of the observations that were in conflict with the Local Hot Bubble model, we cannot (as yet) provide a satisfactory explanation or the emission levels observed in the B and Be ultra-soft X-ray bands.