245 research outputs found
Multi-decadal variability in seasonal mean sea level along the North Sea coast
Seasonal deviations from annual-mean sea level in the North Sea
region show a large low-frequency component with substantial variability at
decadal and multi-decadal timescales. In this study, we quantify
low-frequency variability in seasonal deviations from annual-mean sea level
and look for drivers of this variability. The amplitude, as well as the
temporal evolution of this multi-decadal variability shows substantial
variations over the North Sea region, and this spatial pattern is similar to
the well-known pattern of the influence of winds and pressure changes on sea
level at higher frequencies. The largest low-frequency signals are found in
the German Bight and along the Norwegian coast. We find that the variability
is much stronger in winter and autumn than in other seasons and that this
winter and autumn variability is predominantly driven by wind and sea-level
pressure anomalies which are related to large-scale atmospheric patterns. For
the spring and summer seasons, this atmospheric forcing explains a smaller
fraction of the observed variability.
Large-scale atmospheric patterns have been derived from a principal component
analysis of sea-level pressure. The first principal component of sea-level
pressure over the North Atlantic Ocean, which is linked to the North Atlantic
Oscillation (NAO), explains the largest fraction of winter-mean variability
for most stations, while for some stations, the variability consists of a
combination of multiple principal components.
The low-frequency variability in season-mean sea level can manifest itself as
trends in short records of seasonal sea level. For multiple stations around
the North Sea, running-mean 40-year trends for autumn and winter sea level
often exceed the long-term trends in annual mean sea level, while for spring
and summer, the seasonal trends have a similar order of magnitude as the
annual-mean trends. Removing the variability explained by atmospheric
variability vastly reduces the seasonal trends, especially in winter and
autumn.</p
The sources of seaâlevel changes in the Mediterranean Sea since 1960
Past sea-level changes in the Mediterranean Sea are highly non-uniform and can deviate significantly from both the global average sea-level rise and changes in the nearby Atlantic. Understanding the causes of this spatial non-uniformity is crucial to the success of coastal adaptation strategies. This, however, remains a challenge owing to the lack of long sea-level records in the Mediterranean. Previous studies have addressed this challenge by reconstructing past sea levels through objective analysis of sea-level observations. Such reconstructions have enabled significant progress toward quantifying sea-level changes, however, they have difficulty capturing long-term changes and provide little insight into the causes of the changes. Here, we combine data from tide gauges and altimetry with sea-level fingerprints of contemporary land-mass changes using spatial Bayesian methods to estimate the sources of sea-level changes in the Mediterranean Sea since 1960. We find that, between 1960 and 1989, sea level in the Mediterranean fell at an average rate of â0.3 ± 0.5 mm yrâ1, due to an increase in atmospheric pressure over the basin and opposing sterodynamic and land-mass contributions. After 1989, Mediterranean sea level started accelerating rapidly, driven by both sterodynamic changes and land-ice loss, reaching an average rate of 3.6 ± 0.3 mm yrâ1 in the period 2000â2018. The rate of sea-level rise shows considerable spatial variation in the Mediterranean Sea, primarily reflecting changes in the large-scale circulation of the basin. Since 2000, sea level has been rising faster in the Adriatic, Aegean, and Levantine Seas than anywhere else in the Mediterranean Sea
Photogenerated Carriers in SrTiO3 Probed by Mid-Infrared Absorption
Infrared absorption spectra of SrTiO have been measured under
above-band-gap photoexcitations to study the properties of photogenerated
carriers, which should play important roles in previously reported photoinduced
phenomena in SrTiO. A broad absorption band appears over the entire
mid-infrared region under photoexcitation. Detailed energy, temperature, and
excitation power dependences of the photoinduced absorption are reported. This
photo-induced absorption is attributed to the intragap excitations of the
photogenerated carriers. The data show the existence of a high density of
in-gap states for the photocarriers, which extends over a wide energy range
starting from the conduction and valence band edges.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, submitted to J. Phys. Soc. Jp
Origin of interannual variability in global mean sea level
Author Posting. © National Academy of Sciences, 2020. This article is posted here by permission of National Academy of Sciences for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 117(25), (2020): 13983-13990, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1922190117.The two dominant drivers of the global mean sea level (GMSL) variability at interannual timescales are steric changes due to changes in ocean heat content and barystatic changes due to the exchange of water mass between land and ocean. With Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites and Argo profiling floats, it has been possible to measure the relative steric and barystatic contributions to GMSL since 2004. While efforts to âclose the GMSL budgetâ with satellite altimetry and other observing systems have been largely successful with regards to trends, the short time period covered by these records prohibits a full understanding of the drivers of interannual to decadal variability in GMSL. One particular area of focus is the link between variations in the El NiñoâSouthern Oscillation (ENSO) and GMSL. Recent literature disagrees on the relative importance of steric and barystatic contributions to interannual to decadal variability in GMSL. Here, we use a multivariate data analysis technique to estimate variability in barystatic and steric contributions to GMSL back to 1982. These independent estimates explain most of the observed interannual variability in satellite altimeter-measured GMSL. Both processes, which are highly correlated with ENSO variations, contribute about equally to observed interannual GMSL variability. A theoretical scaling analysis corroborates the observational results. The improved understanding of the origins of interannual variability in GMSL has important implications for our understanding of long-term trends in sea level, the hydrological cycle, and the planetâs radiation imbalance.The research was carried out at JPL, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with NASA. This study was funded by NASA Grants NNX17AH35G (Ocean Surface Topography Science Team), 80NSSC17K0564, and 80NSSC17K0565 (NASA Sea Level Change Team). The efforts of J.T.F. in this work were also supported by NSF Award AGS-1419571, and by the Regional and Global Model Analysis component of the Earth and Environmental System Modeling Program of the US Department of Energy's Office of Biological & Environmental Research via National Science Foundation Grant IA 1844590. C.G.P. was supported by the J. Lamar Worzel Assistant Scientist Fund and the Penzance Endowed Fund in Support of Assistant Scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.2020-12-0
The global signature of post-1900 land ice wastage on vertical land motion
Melting glaciers, ice caps and ice sheets have made an important contribution to sea-level rise through the last century. Self-attraction and loading effects driven by shrinking ice masses cause a spatially varying redistribution of ocean waters that affects reconstructions of past sea level from sparse observations. We model the solid-earth response to ice mass changes and find significant vertical deformation signals over large continental areas. We show how deformation rates have been strongly varying through the last century, which implies that they should be properly modelled before interpreting and extrapolating recent observations of vertical land motion and sea-level change
Tuning of metal-insulator transition of two-dimensional electrons at parylene/SrTiO interface by electric field
Electrostatic carrier doping using a field-effect-transistor structure is an
intriguing approach to explore electronic phases by critical control of carrier
concentration. We demonstrate the reversible control of the insulator-metal
transition (IMT) in a two dimensional (2D) electron gas at the interface of
insulating SrTiO single crystals. Superconductivity was observed in a
limited number of devices doped far beyond the IMT, which may imply the
presence of 2D metal-superconductor transition. This realization of a
two-dimensional metallic state on the most widely-used perovskite oxide is the
best manifestation of the potential of oxide electronics
The dominant global modes of recent internal sea level variability
Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2019. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research-Oceans 124(4), (2019):2750-2768, doi: 10.1029/2018JC014635.The advances in the modern sea level observing system have allowed for a new level of knowledge of regional and global sea level in recent years. The combination of data from satellite altimeters, Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites, and Argo profiling floats has provided a clearer picture of the different contributors to sea level change, leading to an improved understanding of how sea level has changed in the present and, by extension, may change in the future. As the overlap between these records has recently extended past a decade in length, it is worth examining the extent to which internal variability on timescales from intraseasonal to decadal can be separated from longâterm trends that may be expected to continue into the future. To do so, a combined modal decomposition based on cyclostationary empirical orthogonal functions is performed simultaneously on the three data sets, and the dominant shared modes of variability are analyzed. Modes associated with the trend, seasonal signal, El NiñoâSouthern Oscillation, and Pacific decadal oscillation are extracted and discussed, and the relationship between regional patterns of sea level change and their associated global signature is highlighted.The satellite altimetry grids are available from NASA JPL/PO.DAAC at the following location: https://podaac.jpl.nasa.gov/dataset. GRACE land water storage data are available at http://grace.jpl.nasa.gov, supported by the NASA MEaSUREs Program. The gridded fields based on Argo data used to compute the steric sea level data are available at http://www.argo.ucsd.edu/Gridded_fields.html. The gridded fields based on Argo data used to compute the steric sea level data are available at http://www.argo.ucsd.edu/Gridded_fields.html. The research was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. B. D. H., F. W. L., J. T. R., and P. R. T. acknowledge support from NASA grant 80NSSC17K0564 (NASA Sea Level Change Team). C. G. P. acknowledges support from NSF awards OCEâ1558966 and OCEâ1834739. K. Y. K. was partially supported for this research by the National Science Foundation of Korea under the grant NRFâ 2017R1A2B4003930.2019-09-2
Common arterial trunk and ventricular non-compaction in Lrp2 knockout mice indicate a crucial role of LRP2 in cardiac development
Lipoprotein-related receptor protein 2 (LRP2) is important for development of the embryonic neural crest and brain in both mice and humans. Although a role in cardiovascular development can be expected, the hearts of Lrp2 knockout (KO) mice have not yet been investigated. We studied the cardiovascular development of Lrp2 KO mice between embryonic day 10.5 (E10.5) and E15.5, applying morphometry and immunohistochemistry, using antibodies against Tfap2α (neural crest cells), Nkx2.5 (second heart field), WT1 (epicardium derived cells), tropomyosin (myocardium) and LRP2. The Lrp2 KO mice display a range of severe cardiovascular abnormalities, including aortic arch anomalies, common arterial trunk (persistent truncus arteriosus) with coronary artery anomalies, ventricular septal defects, overriding of the tricuspid valve and marked thinning of the ventricular myocardium. Both the neural crest cells and second heart field, which are essential for the lengthening and growth of the right ventricular outflow tract, are abnormally positioned in the Lrp2 KO. T hi s explains the absence of the aorto-pulmonary septum, which leads to common arterial trunk and ventricular septal defects. Severe blebbing of the epicardial cells covering the ventricles is seen. Epithelial-mesenchymal transition does occur; however, there are fewer WT1-positive epicardium-derived cells in the ventricular wall as compared to normal, coinciding with the myocardial thinning and deep intertrabecular spaces. LRP2 plays a crucial role in cardiovascular development in mice. This corroborates findings of cardiac anomalies in humans with LRP2 mutations. Future studies should reveal the underlying signaling mechanisms in which LRP2 is involved during cardiogenesis
Lattice dynamics effects on small polaron properties
This study details the conditions under which strong-coupling perturbation
theory can be applied to the molecular crystal model, a fundamental theoretical
tool for analysis of the polaron properties. I show that lattice dimensionality
and intermolecular forces play a key role in imposing constraints on the
applicability of the perturbative approach. The polaron effective mass has been
computed in different regimes ranging from the fully antiadiabatic to the fully
adiabatic. The polaron masses become essentially dimension independent for
sufficiently strong intermolecular coupling strengths and converge to much
lower values than those tradition-ally obtained in small-polaron theory. I find
evidence for a self-trapping transition in a moderately adiabatic regime at an
electron-phonon coupling value of .3. Our results point to a substantial
independence of the self-trapping event on dimensionality.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figure
- âŠ