Climatic variability of the mean flow and stationary planetary waves in the NCEP/NCAR reanalysis data

NCEP/NCAR (National Center for Environmental Prediction – National Center for Atmospheric Research) data have been used to estimate the long-term variability of the mean flow, temperature, and Stationary Planetary Waves (SPW) in the troposphere and lower stratosphere. The results obtained show noticeable climatic variabilities in the intensity and position of the tropospheric jets that are caused by temperature changes in the lower atmosphere. As a result, we can expect that this variability of the mean flow will cause the changes in the SPW propagation conditions. The simulation of the SPW with zonal wave number <I>m</I>=1 (SPW1), performed with a linearized model using the mean flow distributions typical for the 1960s and for the beginning of 21st century, supports this assumption and shows that during the last 40 years the amplitude of the SPW1 in the stratosphere and mesosphere increased substantially. The analysis of the SPW amplitudes extracted from the geopotential height and zonal wind NCEP/NCAR data supports the results of simulation and shows that during the last years there exists an increase in the SPW1 activity in the lower stratosphere. These changes in the amplitudes are accompanied by increased interannual variability of the SPW1, as well. Analysis of the SPW2 activity shows that changes in its amplitude have a different sign in the northern winter hemisphere and at low latitudes in the southern summer hemisphere. The value of the SPW2 variability differs latitudinally and can be explained by nonlinear interference of the primary wave propagation from below and from secondary SPW2

Structured Au/FeOx/C catalysts for low temperature CO oxidation

Innovative structured catalysts based on nanoparticles of gold supported on activated carbon fibers (ACF) in the form of woven fabrics are presented for low-temperature CO oxidation. Gold was deposited by adsorption from aqueous solution of ethylenediamine complex [Au(en)2]Cl3 followed by reduction in hydrogen. The catalysts were studied under transient reaction conditions and characterized by high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) and X-ray energy dispersive analysis (EDS). HRTEM-EDS shows that gold is present on the surface of Au/ACF catalyst in the form of metallic particles with sizes of ~2.5–5 and ~30–50 nm. A predeposition of iron oxide on the ACF was beneficial for the Au dispersion and catalytic activity in CO oxidation. Gold particles in the Au/FeOx/ACF samples were not in direct contact with the Fe2O3 phase and their size was smaller than without doping by iron oxide. The mechanism of catalyst formation, its morphology, and the influence of preparative conditions are discussed. The activity of Au/FeOx/ACF was substantially higher as compared to Au/Al2O3 and Au/FeOx/Al2O3 catalysts. A reductive pretreatment with H2 was necessary to activate the catalyst, but the activity decreased rapidly in CO/O2 atmosphere. Addition of hydrogen or water vapors to the reaction mixture increases the catalyst activity

Baikal-GVD: status and prospects

Baikal-GVD is a next generation, kilometer-scale neutrino telescope under construction in Lake Baikal. It is designed to detect astrophysical neutrino fluxes at energies from a few TeV up to 100 PeV. GVD is formed by multi-megaton subarrays (clusters). The array construction started in 2015 by deployment of a reduced-size demonstration cluster named "Dubna". The first cluster in its baseline configuration was deployed in 2016, the second in 2017 and the third in 2018. The full scale GVD will be an array of ~10000 light sensors with an instrumented volume of about 2 cubic km. The first phase (GVD-1) is planned to be completed by 2020-2021. It will comprise 8 clusters with 2304 light sensors in total. We describe the design of Baikal-GVD and present selected results obtained in 2015-2017.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figures. Conference proceedings for QUARKS201