Detrended fluctuation analysis as a statistical tool to monitor the climate

Detrended fluctuation analysis is used to investigate power law relationship between the monthly averages of the maximum daily temperatures for different locations in the western US. On the map created by the power law exponents, we can distinguish different geographical regions with different power law exponents. When the power law exponents obtained from the detrended fluctuation analysis are plotted versus the standard deviation of the temperature fluctuations, we observe different data points belonging to the different climates, hence indicating that by observing the long-time trends in the fluctuations of temperature we can distinguish between different climates.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, submitted to JSTA

Impacts of the Last Glacial Cycle on ground surface temperature reconstructions over the last millennium

Borehole temperature profiles provide robust estimates of past ground surface temperature changes, in agreement with meteorological data. Nevertheless, past climatic changes such as the Last Glacial Cycle (LGC) generated thermal effects in the subsurface that affect estimates of recent climatic change from geothermal data. We use an ensemble of ice sheet simulations spanning the last 120 ka to assess the impact of the Laurentide Ice Sheet on recent ground surface temperature histories reconstructed from borehole temperature profiles over North America. When the thermal remnants of the LGC are removed, we find larger amounts of subsurface heat storage (2.8 times) and an increased warming of the ground surface over North America by 0.75 K, both relative to uncorrected borehole estimates

Fungal Endophyte Diversity in Sarracenia

Fungal endophytes were isolated from 4 species of the carnivorous pitcher plant genus Sarracenia: S. minor, S. oreophila, S. purpurea, and S. psittacina. Twelve taxa of fungi, 8 within the Ascomycota and 4 within the Basidiomycota, were identified based on PCR amplification and sequencing of the internal transcribed spacer sequences of nuclear ribosomal DNA (ITS rDNA) with taxonomic identity assigned using the NCBI nucleotide megablast search tool. Endophytes are known to produce a large number of metabolites, some of which may contribute to the protection and survival of the host. We speculate that endophyte-infected Sarracenia may benefit from their fungal associates by their influence on nutrient availability from within pitchers and, possibly, by directly influencing the biota within pitchers

Assimilation of radioactive phosphorus by Liriomyza trifolii (Burgess) (Diptera: Agromyzidae) from feeding at different temperatures on different chrysanthenum cultivars

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Temperature signal in the underground for climate history reconstruction in Italy

Underground temperature data from height boreholes logged between 1981 and 2000 were studied to infer the climate change in central-northern Italy during the last 250 years. The ground surface temperature history was reconstructed by using the functional space inversion method. A different inverse approach was also used for two temperature sets to obtain the fine details of the most recent surface temperature change. The results were compared with the air temperature recorded since the beginning of the 19th century at meteorological observatories. The analysis puts into evidence that the trend of the temperature change in the western side of the Apennines chain differs from that of the eastern side. Since 1750 the western side shows temperature lower than that of the 1990s, with minimum values in the period 1930\u20131960, followed by an almost linear increase in the ground surface temperature. Along the eastern side the temperature is always larger than that inferred for the 1970s, with maximum values in the period 1920\u20131940, which is followed by a sharp temperature decrease. Only since 1970\u20131980 a local warming phase has started. By combining borehole temperature logs with meteorological surface air temperature records, the pre-observational mean temperature was calculated. The results corroborate the difference of the climatic histories in both sides of the Apennines concerning the ground surface temperatures. It also appears that the recent climatic changes have partly a local origin and can obscure the changes forced by the regional surface air temperature influence