一个气候系统模式对小冰期外强迫变化的平衡态响应

本文利用中国科学院大气物理研究所大气科学和地球流体力学数值模拟国家重点实验室发展的气候系统模式FGOALS_gl, 通过设定小冰期的太阳辐射变化, 模拟了小冰期的气候平衡态, 讨论了小冰期气候变化的机理。数值试验结果表明, 由太阳辐照度变化和火山活动共同作用造成的太阳辐射减少是小冰期气候的重要成因, 模拟的小冰期表层气温变化分布与重建资料在全球大多数地区较为一致。就全球平均情况而言, 小冰期的年平均气温较之1860年偏冷0.15℃, 较之20世纪平均情况偏冷0.6℃左右。小冰期温度变化存在显著的地域和季节特征, 表现为北半球降温幅度大于南半球, 高纬地区降温幅度大于低纬地区, 夏季的降温幅度大于冬季。东亚地区小冰期温度较之1860年和20世纪分别偏冷0.3℃和0.6℃。小冰期的降水异常中心位于低纬地区, 主要表现为赤道中东太平洋降水负异常和赤道中西太平洋降水正异常, 以及位于热带印度洋的降水偶极子型。除欧洲和北美外, 全球其他地区陆地降水均减少。东亚地区小冰期夏季降水的变化最为显著, 较之1860年, 华北、 东北地区降水增加, 而长江流域以南降水则减少; 较之20世纪, 东部降水异常表现出华北地区偏多、长江流域偏少、华南地区偏多的“三极型” 分布特征。     

厄尔尼诺事件和拉尼娜事件的成因与预测

通过对南极气温资料、环南极海冰资料、臭氧变化资料、太平洋海温资料、地球自转速度变化资料、厄尔尼诺和拉尼娜资料的综合验证,发现了构造运动与厄尔尼诺因果关系。大气、海洋与岩石圈的角动量交换在南半球和北半球有不同的形式,这是由陆海分布的差异决定的。南极上空臭氧变化和环南极海冰变化是赤道海温和全球气候准两年振荡的原因。其中,德雷克海峡的海冰变化起主要作用。这个结论给出了作者提出的“海洋锅炉效应”、“臭氧洞漏能效应”、“德雷克海冰气候开关效应”和“大洋地壳跷跷板运动”的相互关系,证明构造运动对厄尔尼诺的重要影响。强潮汐准4a周期的发现,表明南极海冰变化、东太平洋海温变化、地球自转变化和厄尔尼诺都具有4a准周期变化的原因。海温和海冰开关的准2a周期和日食-厄尔尼诺系数理论有较好的预测效果。     

A survey for satellites of Venus

We present a systematic survey for satellites of Venus using the Baade-Magellan 6.5 m telescope and IMACS wide-field CCD imager at Las Campanas observatory in Chile. In the outer portions of the Hill sphere the search was sensitive to a limiting red magnitude of about 20.4, which corresponds to satellites with radii of a few hundred meters when assuming an albedo of 0.1. In the very inner portions of the Hill sphere scattered light from Venus limited the detection to satellites of about a kilometer or larger. Although several main belt asteroids were found, no satellites (moons) of Venus were detected.     

Halo masses for optically selected and for radio-loud AGN from clustering and galaxy–galaxy lensing

We compute two-point correlation functions and measure the shear signal due to galaxy–galaxy lensing for 80 000 optically identified and 5700 radio-loud active galactic nuclei (AGN) from Data Release 4 of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Halo occupation models are used to estimate halo masses and satellite fractions for these two types of AGN. The large sample size allows us to separate AGN according to the stellar mass of their host galaxies. We study how the halo masses of optical and radio AGN differ from those of the parent population at fixed   M _*  . Halo masses deduced from clustering and from lensing agree satisfactorily. Radio AGN are found in more massive haloes than optical AGN: in our samples, their mean halo masses are  1.6 × 10¹³  and  8 × 10¹¹  h ⁻¹ M_⊙  , respectively. Optical AGN follow the same relation between stellar mass and halo mass as galaxies selected without regard to nuclear properties, but radio-loud AGN deviate significantly from this relation. The dark matter haloes of radio-loud AGN are about twice as massive as those of control galaxies of the same stellar mass. This boost is independent of radio luminosity, and persists even when our analysis is restricted to field galaxies. The large-scale gaseous environment of the galaxy clearly plays a crucial role in producing observable radio emission. The dark matter halo masses that we derive for the AGN in our two samples are in good agreement with recent models in which feedback from radio AGN becomes dominant in haloes where gas cools quasi-statically.     

iVINE – Ionization in the parallel tree/sph code VINE: first results on the observed age-spread around O-stars

We present a three-dimensional, fully parallelized, efficient implementation of ionizing ultraviolet (UV) radiation for smoothed particle hydrodynamics ( sph ) including self-gravity. Our method is based on the sph / tree code vine . We therefore call it iVINE (for Ionization + VINE). This approach allows detailed high-resolution studies of the effects of ionizing radiation from, for example, young massive stars on their turbulent parental molecular clouds. In this paper, we describe the concept and the numerical implementation of the radiative transfer for a plane-parallel geometry and we discuss several test cases demonstrating the efficiency and accuracy of the new method. As a first application, we study the radiatively driven implosion of marginally stable molecular clouds at various distances of a strong UV source and show that they are driven into gravitational collapse. The resulting cores are very compact and dense exactly as it is observed in clustered environments. Our simulations indicate that the time of triggered collapse depends on the distance of the core from the UV source. Clouds closer to the source collapse several 10⁵ yr earlier than more distant clouds. This effect can explain the observed age spread in OB associations where stars closer to the source are found to be younger. We discuss possible uncertainties in the observational derivation of shock front velocities due to early stripping of protostellar envelopes by ionizing radiation.     

On corotation torques, horseshoe drag and the possibility of sustained stalled or outward protoplanetary migration

We study the torque on low-mass protoplanets on fixed circular orbits, embedded in a protoplanetary disc in the isothermal limit. We consider a wide range of surface density distributions including cases where the surface density increases smoothly outwards. We perform both linear disc response calculations and non-linear numerical simulations. We consider a large range of viscosities, including the inviscid limit, as well as a range of protoplanet mass ratios, with special emphasis on the co-orbital region and the corotation torque acting between disc and protoplanet.
For low-mass protoplanets and large viscosity, the corotation torque behaves as expected from linear theory. However, when the viscosity becomes small enough to enable horseshoe turns to occur, the linear corotation torque exists only temporarily after insertion of a planet into the disc, being replaced by the horseshoe drag first discussed by Ward. This happens after a time that is equal to the horseshoe libration period reduced by a factor amounting to about twice the disc aspect ratio. This torque scales with the radial gradient of specific vorticity, as does the linear torque, but we find it to be many times larger. If the viscosity is large enough for viscous diffusion across the co-orbital region to occur within a libration period, we find that the horseshoe drag may be sustained. If not, the corotation torque saturates leaving only the linear Lindblad torques. As the magnitude of the non-linear co-orbital torque (horseshoe drag) is always found to be larger than the linear torque, we find that the sign of the total torque may change even for mildly positive surface density gradients. In combination with a kinematic viscosity large enough to keep the torque from saturating, strong sustained deviations from linear theory and outward or stalled migration may occur in such cases.     

The role of minor mergers in the recent star formation history of early-type galaxies

We demonstrate that the large scatter in the ultraviolet (UV) colours of intermediate-mass early-type galaxies in the local Universe and the inferred low-level recent star formation (RSF) in these objects can be reproduced by minor mergers in the standard Λ cold dark matter (ΛCDM) cosmology. Numerical simulations of mergers with mass ratios ≤1:4, with reasonable assumptions for the ages, metallicities and dust properties of the merger progenitors, produce good agreement with the observed UV colours of the early-type population, if the infalling satellites are assumed to have (cold) gas fractions ≥20 per cent. Early-types that satisfy  ( NUV − r ) ≲ 3.8  are likely to have experienced mergers with mass ratios between 1:4 and 1:6 within the last ∼1.5 Gyr, while those that satisfy  3.8 < ( NUV − r ) < 5.5  are consistent with either recent mergers with mass ratios ≤1:6 or mergers with higher mass ratios that occurred more than ∼1.5 Gyr in the past. We demonstrate that the early-type colour–magnitude relations and colour distributions, in both the UV and optical spectral ranges, are consistent with the expected frequency of minor merging activity in the standard ΛCDM cosmology at low redshift. We present a strong plausibility argument for minor mergers to be the principal mechanism behind the large UV scatter and associated low-level RSF observed in early-type galaxies in the nearby Universe.