12,332 research outputs found
Predicting September sea ice: Ensemble skill of the SEARCH Sea Ice Outlook 2008â2013
Since 2008, the Study of Environmental Arctic Change Sea Ice Outlook has solicited predictions of September sea-ice extent from the Arctic research community. Individuals and teams employ a variety of modeling, statistical, and heuristic approaches to make these predictions. Viewed as monthly ensembles each with one or two dozen individual predictions, they display a bimodal pattern of success. In years when observed ice extent is near its trend, the median predictions tend to be accurate. In years when the observed extent is anomalous, the median and most individual predictions are less accurate. Statistical analysis suggests that year-to-year variability, rather than methods, dominate the variation in ensemble prediction success. Furthermore, ensemble predictions do not improve as the season evolves. We consider the role of initial ice, atmosphere and ocean conditions, and summer storms and weather in contributing to the challenge of sea-ice prediction
Predicting September sea ice: Ensemble skill of the SEARCH Sea Ice Outlook 2008-2013
Abstract
Since 2008, the Study of Environmental Arctic Change Sea Ice Outlook has solicited predictions of September sea-ice extent from the Arctic research community. Individuals and teams employ a variety of modeling, statistical, and heuristic approaches to make these predictions. Viewed as monthly ensembles each with one or two dozen individual predictions, they display a bimodal pattern of success. In years when observed ice extent is near its trend, the median predictions tend to be accurate. In years when the observed extent is anomalous, the median and most individual predictions are less accurate. Statistical analysis suggests that year-to-year variability, rather than methods, dominate the variation in ensemble prediction success. Furthermore, ensemble predictions do not improve as the season evolves. We consider the role of initial ice, atmosphere and ocean conditions, and summer storms and weather in contributing to the challenge of sea-ice prediction. Key Points Analysis of Sea Ice Outlook contributions 2008-2013 shows bimodal success Years when observations depart from trend are hard to predict despite preconditioning Yearly conditions dominate variations in ensemble prediction success
The reversibility of sea ice loss in a state-of-the-art climate model
Rapid Arctic sea ice retreat has fueled speculation about the possibility of threshold (or âtipping pointâ) behavior and irreversible loss of the sea ice cover. We test sea ice reversibility within a state-of-the-art atmosphereâocean global climate model by increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide until the Arctic Ocean becomes ice-free throughout the year and subsequently decreasing it until the initial ice cover returns. Evidence for irreversibility in the form of hysteresis outside the envelope of natural variability is explored for the loss of summer and winter ice in both hemispheres. We find no evidence of irreversibility or multiple ice-cover states over the full range of simulated sea ice conditions between the modern climate and that with an annually ice-free Arctic Ocean. Summer sea ice area recovers as hemispheric temperature cools along a trajectory that is indistinguishable from the trajectory of summer sea ice loss, while the recovery of winter ice area appears to be slowed due to the long response times of the ocean near the modern winter ice edge. The results are discussed in the context of previous studies that assess the plausibility of sea ice tipping points by other methods. The findings serve as evidence against the existence of threshold behavior in the summer or winter ice cover in either hemisphere
Field Measurements of Penetrator Seismic Coupling in Sediments and Volcanic Rocks
Field experiments were conducted to determine how well a seismometer installed using a penetrator would be coupled to the ground. A dry-lake bed and a lava bed were chosen as test sites to represent geological environments of two widely different material properties. At each site, two half-scale penetrators were fired into the ground, a three-component geophone assembly was mounted to the aft end of each penetrator, and dummy penetrators were at various distances to generate seismic signals. These signals were detected by the penetrator-mounted geophone assembly and by a reference geophone assembly buried or anchored to surface rock and 1-m from the penetrator. The recorded signals were digitized, and cross-spectral analyses were performed to compare the observed signals in terms of power spectral density ratio, coherence, and phase difference. The analyses indicate that seismometers deployed by penetrators will be as well coupled to the ground as are seismometers installed by conventional methods for the frequency range of interest in earthquake seismology
On a zero speed sensitive cellular automaton
Using an unusual, yet natural invariant measure we show that there exists a
sensitive cellular automaton whose perturbations propagate at asymptotically
null speed for almost all configurations. More specifically, we prove that
Lyapunov Exponents measuring pointwise or average linear speeds of the faster
perturbations are equal to zero. We show that this implies the nullity of the
measurable entropy. The measure m we consider gives the m-expansiveness
property to the automaton. It is constructed with respect to a factor dynamical
system based on simple "counter dynamics". As a counterpart, we prove that in
the case of positively expansive automata, the perturbations move at positive
linear speed over all the configurations
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Cargo adaptors regulate stepping and force generation of mammalian dynein-dynactin.
Cytoplasmic dynein is an ATP-driven motor that transports intracellular cargos along microtubules. Dynein adopts an inactive conformation when not attached to a cargo, and motility is activated when dynein assembles with dynactin and a cargo adaptor. It was unclear how active dynein-dynactin complexes step along microtubules and transport cargos under tension. Using single-molecule imaging, we showed that dynein-dynactin advances by taking 8 to 32-nm steps toward the microtubule minus end with frequent sideways and backward steps. Multiple dyneins collectively bear a large amount of tension because the backward stepping rate of dynein is insensitive to load. Recruitment of two dyneins to dynactin increases the force generation and the likelihood of winning against kinesin in a tug-of-war but does not directly affect velocity. Instead, velocity is determined by cargo adaptors and tail-tail interactions between two closely packed dyneins. Our results show that cargo adaptors modulate dynein motility and force generation for a wide range of cellular functions
Critical Droplets and Phase Transitions in Two Dimensions
In two space dimensions, the percolation point of the pure-site clusters of
the Ising model coincides with the critical point T_c of the thermal transition
and the percolation exponents belong to a special universality class. By
introducing a bond probability p_B<1, the corresponding site-bond clusters keep
on percolating at T_c and the exponents do not change, until
p_B=p_CK=1-exp(-2J/kT): for this special expression of the bond weight the
critical percolation exponents switch to the 2D Ising universality class. We
show here that the result is valid for a wide class of bidimensional models
with a continuous magnetization transition: there is a critical bond
probability p_c such that, for any p_B>=p_c, the onset of percolation of the
site-bond clusters coincides with the critical point of the thermal transition.
The percolation exponents are the same for p_c<p_B<=1 but, for p_B=p_c, they
suddenly change to the thermal exponents, so that the corresponding clusters
are critical droplets of the phase transition. Our result is based on Monte
Carlo simulations of various systems near criticality.Comment: Final version for publication, minor changes, figures adde
Two qubits entanglement dynamics in a symmetry-broken environment
We study the temporal evolution of entanglement pertaining to two qubits
interacting with a thermal bath. In particular we consider the simplest
nontrivial spin bath models where symmetry breaking occurs and treat them by
mean field approximation. We analytically find decoherence free entangled
states as well as entangled states with an exponential decay of the quantum
correlation at finite temperature.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figure
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