On eccentricity functions for eccentric orbits

Situations arise in celestial mechanics where orbital eccentricities are large and yet it is desirable to maintain the Darwin-Kaula Fourier decomposition of the perturbing function. Evaluation of the appropriate eccentricity functionsG _lpq (e) requires a double summation which, for practical purposes, must be truncated. In this note criteria have been established for truncation of the expansion for eccentricities 0.75.     

The June 2013 Alberta catastrophic flooding event – part 2: fine‐scale precipitation and associated features

Data obtained from a variety of sources including the Canadian Lightning Detection Network, weather radars, weather stations and operational numerical weather model analyses were used to address the evolution of precipitation during the June 2013 southern Alberta flood. The event was linked to a mid‐level closed low pressure system to the west of the region and a surface low pressure region initially to its south. This configuration brought warm, moist unstable air into the region that led to dramatic, organized convection with an abundance of lightning and some hail. Such conditions occurred in the southern parts of the region whereas the northern parts were devoid of lightning. Initially, precipitation rates were high (extreme 15‐min rainfall rates up to 102 mm h^?1 were measured) but decreased to lower values as the precipitation shifted to long‐lived stratiform conditions. Both the convective and stratiform precipitation components were affected by the topography. Similar flooding events, such as June 2002, have occurred over this region although the 2002 event was colder and precipitation was not associated with substantial convection over southwest Alberta. Copyright © 2016 Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada. Hydrological Processes. © John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Isolation of protein from Chlorella sorokiniana CY1 using liquid biphasic flotation assisted with sonication through sugaring-out effect

Microalgae,a sustainable source of multi beneficial components has been discovered and could be utilised in pharmaceutical,bioenergy and food applications.This study aims to investigate the sugaring-out effect on the recovery of protein from wet green microalga,Chlorella sorokiniana CY1 which was assisted with sonication.A comparison of monosaccharides and disaccharides as one of the phaseforming constituents shows that the monosaccharides,glucose was the most suitable sugar in forming the phases with acetonitrile to enhance the production of protein(52% of protein).The protein productivity of microalgae was found to be significantly influenced by the volume ratio of both phases,as the yield of protein increased to 77%.The interval time between the sonication as well as the sonication modes were influencing the protein productivity as well.The optimum protein productivity was obtained with 10s of resting time in between sonication.Pulse mode of sonication was suitable to break down the cell wall of microalgae compared to continuous mode as a lower protein yield was obtained with the application of continuous mode.The optimum condition for protein extraction were found as followed:200g/L glucose as bottom phase with volume ratio of 1:1.25,10s of resting time for ultrasonication,5s of ultrasonication in pulse mode and 0.25g of biomass weight.The high yield of protein about 81% could be obtained from microalgae which demonstrates the potential of this source and expected to play an important role in the future.     

Isolation of protein from Chlorella sorokiniana CY1 using liquid biphasic flotation assisted with sonication through sugaring-out effect

Microalgae, a sustainable source of multi beneficial components has been discovered and could be utilised in pharmaceutical, bioenergy and food applications. This study aims to investigate the sugaring-out effect on the recovery of protein from wet green microalga, Chlorella sorokiniana CY1 which was assisted with sonication. A comparison of monosaccharides and disaccharides as one of the phaseforming constituents shows that the monosaccharides, glucose was the most suitable sugar in forming the phases with acetonitrile to enhance the production of protein(52% of protein). The protein productivity of microalgae was found to be significantly influenced by the volume ratio of both phases, as the yield of protein increased to 77%. The interval time between the sonication as well as the sonication modes were influencing the protein productivity as well. The optimum protein productivity was obtained with 10 s of resting time in between sonication. Pulse mode of sonication was suitable to break down the cell wall of microalgae compared to continuous mode as a lower protein yield was obtained with the application of continuous mode. The optimum condition for protein extraction were found as followed: 200 g/L glucose as bottom phase with volume ratio of I:1.25, 10 s of resting time for ultrasonication, 5 s of ultrasonication in pulse mode and 0.25 g of biomass weight. The high yield of protein about 81% could be obtained from microalgae which demonstrates the potential of this source and expected to play an important role in the future.     

Limit states and failure mechanisms of viscous dampers and the implications for large earthquakes

Fluid viscous dampers are used to control story drifts and member forces in structures during earthquake events. These elements provide satisfactory performance at the design‐level or maximum considered earthquake. However, buildings using fluid viscous dampers have not been subjected to very large earthquakes with intensities greater than the design and maximum considered events. Furthermore, an extensive database of viscous damper performance during large seismic events does not exist. To address these issues, a comprehensive analytical and experimental investigation was conducted to determine the performance of damped structures subjected to large earthquakes. A critical component of this research was the development and verification of a detailed viscous damper mathematical model that incorporates limit states. The development of this model and the laboratory and simulation results conclude good correlation with the new model and the damper limit states and provide superior results compared with the typical damper model when considering near collapse evaluation of structures. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Measurements of the dissipation coefficient at the wavemaker in the process of generation of the resonant standing waves in a tank

The complex dissipation at the wavemaker used for direct excitation of nonlinear standing waves in the vicinity of the cut-off frequency, is measured experimentally. The results indicate that the absolute value of this dissipation coefficient exceeds significantly the estimate based on purely viscous dissipation. This is attributed to the turbulent effects resulting from the vortex shedding at the discontinuities of the wavemaker surface. It is shown that incorporation of this dissipation in the boundary condition at the wavemaker as a nonlinear term in a form generally used to describe dissipation in a turbulent boundary layer, is more appropriate allowing to remove hysteresis in the value of the wavemaker dissipation coefficient. Such hysteresis is observed when a linear dissipation model is applied.     

The coupled rotation of the inner core

The rotation of the inner core (IC) is influenced by the rest of the Earth through a number of coupling mechanisms. Among four possible coupling mechanisms, gravitational, pressure, viscous and electromagnetic, the first two torques are dominant. Numerous existing IC gravitational torque estimates have been shown to agree very well with one another Xu & Szeto 1996 ). It is shown in this paper that different estimates of the IC pressure torque are also in good agreement.
The coupled rotation of the IC has been investigated in the frequency domain by several research groups (Mathews et al. 1991a,b; De Vries & Wahr 1991 ; Dehant et al. 1993; Jiang 1993 ). Not all of these efforts obtained two IC-related rotational modes, the inner-core wobble (ICW) and the free-inner-core nutation (FICN). We investigate this problem in the time domain and confirm the existence of the two modes. The periods of ICW and FICN are in good agreement with those obtained by other researchers. In studying the effects of coupling torques on the IC rotational modes we have found that depending on whether the IC net torque is 'restoring' or otherwise, an increased torque magnitude will respectively shorten or lengthen the ICW period. We have also found that the sense of FICN is determined by the orientation of the net coupling torque on the IC.     

Statistical decadal predictions for sea surface temperatures: a benchmark for dynamical GCM predictions

Accurate decadal climate predictions could be used to inform adaptation actions to a changing climate. The skill of such predictions from initialised dynamical global climate models (GCMs) may be assessed by comparing with predictions from statistical models which are based solely on historical observations. This paper presents two benchmark statistical models for predicting both the radiatively forced trend and internal variability of annual mean sea surface temperatures (SSTs) on a decadal timescale based on the gridded observation data set HadISST. For both statistical models, the trend related to radiative forcing is modelled using a linear regression of SST time series at each grid box on the time series of equivalent global mean atmospheric CO₂ concentration. The residual internal variability is then modelled by (1) a first-order autoregressive model (AR1) and (2) a constructed analogue model (CA). From the verification of 46 retrospective forecasts with start years from 1960 to 2005, the correlation coefficient for anomaly forecasts using trend with AR1 is greater than 0.7 over parts of extra-tropical North Atlantic, the Indian Ocean and western Pacific. This is primarily related to the prediction of the forced trend. More importantly, both CA and AR1 give skillful predictions of the internal variability of SSTs in the subpolar gyre region over the far North Atlantic for lead time of 2–5 years, with correlation coefficients greater than 0.5. For the subpolar gyre and parts of the South Atlantic, CA is superior to AR1 for lead time of 6–9 years. These statistical forecasts are also compared with ensemble mean retrospective forecasts by DePreSys, an initialised GCM. DePreSys is found to outperform the statistical models over large parts of North Atlantic for lead times of 2–5 years and 6–9 years, however trend with AR1 is generally superior to DePreSys in the North Atlantic Current region, while trend with CA is superior to DePreSys in parts of South Atlantic for lead time of 6–9 years. These findings encourage further development of benchmark statistical decadal prediction models, and methods to combine different predictions.     

Real-time multi-model decadal climate predictions

We present the first climate prediction of the coming decade made with multiple models, initialized with prior observations. This prediction accrues from an international activity to exchange decadal predictions in near real-time, in order to assess differences and similarities, provide a consensus view to prevent over-confidence in forecasts from any single model, and establish current collective capability. We stress that the forecast is experimental, since the skill of the multi-model system is as yet unknown. Nevertheless, the forecast systems used here are based on models that have undergone rigorous evaluation and individually have been evaluated for forecast skill. Moreover, it is important to publish forecasts to enable open evaluation, and to provide a focus on climate change in the coming decade. Initialized forecasts of the year 2011 agree well with observations, with a pattern correlation of 0.62 compared to 0.31 for uninitialized projections. In particular, the forecast correctly predicted La Niña in the Pacific, and warm conditions in the north Atlantic and USA. A similar pattern is predicted for 2012 but with a weaker La Niña. Indices of Atlantic multi-decadal variability and Pacific decadal variability show no signal beyond climatology after 2015, while temperature in the Niño3 region is predicted to warm slightly by about 0.5 °C over the coming decade. However, uncertainties are large for individual years and initialization has little impact beyond the first 4 years in most regions. Relative to uninitialized forecasts, initialized forecasts are significantly warmer in the north Atlantic sub-polar gyre and cooler in the north Pacific throughout the decade. They are also significantly cooler in the global average and over most land and ocean regions out to several years ahead. However, in the absence of volcanic eruptions, global temperature is predicted to continue to rise, with each year from 2013 onwards having a 50 % chance of exceeding the current observed record. Verification of these forecasts will provide an important opportunity to test the performance of models and our understanding and knowledge of the drivers of climate change.