15 research outputs found

    Slaves and Free Blacks in Mid-Eighteenth to Mid-Nineteenth Century Cape Neddick, Maine

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    In coastal southern Maine, a number of towns people enslaved others in the years through the end of the American Revolution. The height of slavery in the region was the period just before the American Revolution. During the revolution, attitudes changed dramatically leading to emancipation in Massachusetts and what is now Maine. This article explores the lives of Cape Neddick’s early black community, before and after freedom, using sparse public documents, contemporary newspaper accounts, local histories, and the unpublished diary of farmer Joseph Weare. The diary provides evidence of how a prominent slaveholder’s grandson frequently cooperated with a neighboring free family over more than forty-five years. That black family has disappeared along with most other vestiges of slavery and early free blacks in rural coastal Maine. Bryan Weare grew up in Cape Neddick and attended York schools, after which he graduated from Bates College with a degree in physics and received his PhD in biophysical sciences from the University at Buffalo. He is currently a professor emeritus of atmospheric science at the University of California at Davis. Inquiries are invited at [email protected]

    Climatology and Trends in the Forcing of the Stratospheric Ozone Transport

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    Abstract and PDF report are also available on the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change website (http://globalchange.mit.edu/)A thorough analysis of the ozone transport was carried out using the Transformed-Mean Eulerian (TEM) tracer transport equation and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) Re- Analysis (ERA-40). In this budget analysis, the chemical net production term, which is calculated as the residual of the other terms, displays the correct features of a chemical sink and source term, including location and seasonality, and shows a good agreement in magnitude compared to other methods of calculating ozone loss rates. This study provides further insight into the role of the eddy ozone transport and underlines its fundamental role in the recovery of the ozone hole during spring. The trend analysis reveals that the ozone hole intensification over 1980-2001 time period is not directly related to the trend in chemical losses, but more specifically to the balance in the trends in chemical losses and transport. That is because, in the SH from October to December, the large increase in the chemical destruction of ozone is balanced by an equally large trend in the eddy transport, associated with a small increase of the mean transport. This study shows that the increase in the eddy transport is characterized by more poleward ozone eddy flux by transient waves in the midlatitudes and by stationary waves in the polar region. This is primarily due to the presence of storm tracks in the midlatitudes and of the asymmetric Antarctic topography and ice-sea heating contrasts near the pole. Overall, this study makes clear of the fact that without an increase in the eddy ozone transport over the 1980-2001 time period, the ozone hole over Antarctica would be drastically more severe. This underlines the need for careful diagnostics of the eddy ozone transport in modeling studies of long-term changes in stratospheric ozone.This study received support from the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, which is funded by a consortium of government, industry and foundation sponsors and the National Science Foundation grant ATM073369

    The Madden–Julian oscillation wind-convection coupling and the role of moisture processes in the MM5 model

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    The Madden–Julian oscillation (MJO) produced by a mesoscale model is investigated using standardized statistical diagnostics. Results show that upper- and lower-level zonal winds display the correct MJO structure, phase speed (8 m s[superscript −1]) and space–time power spectrum. However, the simulated free atmosphere moisture, outgoing longwave radiation and precipitation do not exhibit any clear MJO signal. Yet, the boundary layer moisture, moist static energy and atmospheric instability, measured using a moist static energy instability index, have clear MJO signals. A significant finding is the ability of the model to simulate a realistic MJO phase speed in the winds without reproducing the MJO wind-convection coupling or a realistic propagation in the free atmosphere water vapor. This study suggests that the convergence of boundary layer moisture and the discharge and recharge of the moist static energy and atmospheric instability may be responsible for controlling the speed of propagation of the MJO circulation.National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Grant ATM0733698

    California-2100: Assessing Future Water Resources over California

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    This project implemented the initial phase of California-2100 (Cal21), which is aimed at making and evaluating high resolution estimates of climate change over California out to the year 2100. The initial WRC component of this project has been focused on evaluating how well regional climate models reproduce the variations of important components of the water budget for California, and estimating the effects of the increases over the past century in irrigation in California on regional climate, especially snow accumulation. The results show that global warming has a large effect on precipitation, snow water, surface temperature, low level winds and soil moisture They also show in summer that irrigation has a strong effect on the differences between recent and past conditions in maximum temperature, surface latent and sensible heat fluxes, surface moisture, and surface humidity

    Annual Mean Surface Heat Fluxes in the Tropical Pacific Ocean

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    How will changes in global climate influence California?

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