Toward a warmer Arctic Ocean: Spreading of the early 21st century Atlantic Water warm anomaly along the Eurasian Basin margins

We document through the analysis of 2002–2005 observational data the recent Atlantic Water (AW) warming along the Siberian continental margin due to several AW warm impulses that penetrated into the Arctic Ocean through Fram Strait in 1999–2000. The AW temperature record from our long-term monitoring site in the northern Laptev Sea shows several events of rapid AW temperature increase totaling 0.8°C in February–August 2004. We hypothesize the along-margin spreading of this warmer anomaly has disrupted the downstream thermal equilibrium of the late 1990s to earlier 2000s. The anomaly mean velocity of 2.4–2.5 ± 0.2 cm/s was obtained on the basis of travel time required between the northern Laptev Sea and two anomaly fronts delineated over the Eurasian flank of the Lomonosov Ridge by comparing the 2005 snapshot along-margin data with the AW pre-1990 mean. The magnitude of delineated anomalies exceeds the level of pre-1990 mean along-margin cooling and rises above the level of noise attributed to shifting of the AW jet across the basin margins. The anomaly mean velocity estimation is confirmed by comparing mooring-derived AW temperature time series from 2002 to 2005 with the downstream along-margin AW temperature distribution from 2005. Our mooring current meter data corroborate these estimations

Screening vs. Confinement in 1+1 Dimensions

We show that, in 1+1 dimensional gauge theories, a heavy probe charge is screened by dynamical massless fermions both in the case when the source and the dynamical fermions belong to the same representation of the gauge group and, unexpectedly, in the case when the representation of the probe charge is smaller than the representation of the massless fermions. Thus, a fractionally charged heavy probe is screened by dynamical fermions of integer charge in the massless Schwinger model, and a colored probe in the fundamental representation is screened in $QCD_2$ with adjoint massless Majorana fermions. The screening disappears and confinement is restored as soon as the dynamical fermions are given a non-zero mass. For small masses, the string tension is given by the product of the light fermion mass and the fermion condensate with a known numerical coefficient. Parallels with 3+1 dimensional $QCD$ and supersymmetric gauge theories are discussed.Comment: 29 pages, latex, no figures. slight change in the wording on page 2, references adde

Seasonal variability in Atlantic water off Spitsbergen

A combination of 2-year-long mooring-based measurements and snapshot conductivity–temperature–depth (CTD) observations at the continental slope off Spitsbergen (81°30′N, 31°00′E) is used to demonstrate a significant hydrographic seasonal signal in Atlantic Water (AW) that propagates along the Eurasian continental slope in the Arctic Ocean. At the mooring position this seasonal signal dominates, contributing up to 50% of the total variance. Annual temperature maximum in the upper ocean (above 215 m) is reached in mid-November, when the ocean in the area is normally covered by ice. Distinct division into ‘summer’ (warmer and saltier) and ‘winter’ (colder and fresher) AW types is revealed there. Estimated temperature difference between the ‘summer’ and ‘winter’ waters is 1.2 °C, which implies that the range of seasonal heat content variations is of the same order of magnitude as the mean local AW heat content, suggesting an important role of seasonal changes in the intensity of the upward heat flux from AW. Although the current meter observations are only 1-year long, they hint at a persistent, highly barotropic current with little or no seasonal signal attached

Atlantic water flow into the Arctic Ocean through the St. Anna Trough in the northern Kara Sea

The Atlantic Water flow from the Barents and Kara seas to the Arctic Ocean through the St. Anna Trough (SAT) is conditioned by interaction between Fram Strait branch water circulating in the SAT and Barents Sea branch water—both of Atlantic origin. Here we present data from an oceanographic mooring deployed on the eastern flank of the SAT from September 2009 to September 2010 as well as CTD (conductivity-temperature-depth) sections across the SAT. A distinct vertical density front over the SAT eastern slope deeper than ∼50 m is attributed to the outflow of Barents Sea branch water to the Arctic Ocean. In turn, the Barents Sea branch water flow to the Arctic Ocean is conditioned by two water masses defined by relative low and high fractions of the Atlantic Water. They are also traceable in the Nansen Basin downstream of the SAT entrance. A persistent northward current was recorded in the subsurface layer along the SAT eastern slope with a mean velocity of 18 cm s−1 at 134–218 m and 23 cm s−1 at 376–468 m. Observations and modeling suggest that the SAT flow has a significant density-driven component. It is therefore expected to respond to changes in the cross-trough density gradient conditioned by interaction between the Fram Strait and Barents Sea branches. Further modeling efforts are necessary to investigate hydrodynamic instability and eddy generation caused by the interaction between the SAT flow and the Arctic Ocean Fram Strait branch water boundary current

Statistics of the One-Electron Current in a One-Dimensional Mesoscopic Ring at Arbitrary Magnetic Fields

The set of moments and the distribution function of the one-electron current in a one-dimensional disordered ring with arbitrary magnetic flux are calculated.Comment: 10 pages; Plain TeX; IFUM 448/FT; to appear in J. Stat. Phy

Baryon Spectra and AdS/CFT Correspondence

We provide a detailed map between wrapped D3-branes in Anti-de Sitter (AdS) backgrounds and dibaryon operators in the corresponding conformal field theory (CFT). The effective five dimensional action governing the dynamics of AdS space contains a $U(1)_R$ gauge field that mediates interactions between objects possessing R-charge. We show that the $U(1)_R$ charge of these wrapped D3-branes as measured by the gauge field matches the R-charge of the dibaryons expected from field theory considerations. We are able, through a careful probe brane calculation in an $AdS_5\times T^{1,1}$ background, to understand the exact relation between the mass of the wrapped D3-brane and the dimension of the corresponding dibaryon. We also make some steps toward matching the counting of dibaryon operators in the CFT with the ground states of a supersymmetric quantum mechanical system whose target space is the moduli space of D-branes. Finally, we discuss BPS excitations of the D3-brane and compare them with higher dimension operators in the CFT.Comment: 24 pages, typos correcte

Touching Random Surfaces and Liouville Gravity

Large $N$ matrix models modified by terms of the form g(\Tr\Phi^n)^2 generate random surfaces which touch at isolated points. Matrix model results indicate that, as $g$ is increased to a special value $g_t$, the string susceptibility exponent suddenly jumps from its conventional value $\gamma$ to ${\gamma\over\gamma-1}$. We study this effect in \L\ gravity and attribute it to a change of the interaction term from $O e^{\alpha_+ \phi}$ for $g<g_t$ to $O e^{\alpha_- \phi}$ for $g=g_t$ ($\alpha_+$ and $\alpha_-$ are the two roots of the conformal invariance condition for the \L\ dressing of a matter operator $O$). Thus, the new critical behavior is explained by the unconventional branch of \L\ dressing in the action.Comment: 15 pages, PUPT-1486 (last paragraph of sec. 2 revised

Vertical structure of recent arctic warming from observed data and reanalysis products

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10584-011-0192-8Spatiotemporal patterns of recent (1979–2008) air temperature trends are evaluated using three reanalysis datasets and radiosonde data. Our analysis demonstrates large discrepancies between the reanalysis datasets, possibly due to differences in the data assimilation procedures as well as sparseness and inhomogeneity of high-latitude observations. We test the robustness of Arctic tropospheric warming based on the ERA-40 dataset. ERA-40 Arctic atmosphere temperatures tend to be closer to the observed ones in terms of root mean square error compare to other reanalysis products used in the article. However, changes in the ERA-40 data assimilation procedure produce unphysical jumps in atmospheric temperatures, which may be the likely reason for the elevated tropospheric warming trend in 1979-2002. NCEP/NCAR Reanalysis show that the near-surface upward temperature trend over the same period is greater than the tropospheric trend, which is consistent with direct radiosonde observations and inconsistent with ERA-40 results. A change of sign in the winter temperature trend from negative to positive in the late 1980s is documented in the upper troposphere/lower stratosphere with a maximum over the Canadian Arctic, based on radiosonde data. This change from cooling to warming tendency is associated with weakening of the stratospheric polar vortex and shift of its center toward the Siberian coast and possibly can be explained by the changes in the dynamics of the Arctic Oscillation. This temporal pattern is consistent with multi-decadal variations of key Arctic climate parameters like, for example, surface air temperature and oceanic freshwater content. Elucidating the mechanisms behind these changes will be critical to understanding the complex nature of high-latitude variability and its impact on global climate change.acceptedVersio

F-Theorem without Supersymmetry

The conjectured F-theorem for three-dimensional field theories states that the finite part of the free energy on S^3 decreases along RG trajectories and is stationary at the fixed points. In previous work various successful tests of this proposal were carried out for theories with {\cal N}=2 supersymmetry. In this paper we perform more general tests that do not rely on supersymmetry. We study perturbatively the RG flows produced by weakly relevant operators and show that the free energy decreases monotonically. We also consider large N field theories perturbed by relevant double trace operators, free massive field theories, and some Chern-Simons gauge theories. In all cases the free energy in the IR is smaller than in the UV, consistent with the F-theorem. We discuss other odd-dimensional Euclidean theories on S^d and provide evidence that (-1)^{(d-1)/2} \log |Z| decreases along RG flow; in the particular case d=1 this is the well-known g-theorem.Comment: 34 pages, 2 figures; v2 refs added, minor improvements; v3 refs added, improved section 4.3; v4 minor improvement