516 research outputs found
Phosphorus stress induced by atmospheric deposition to the surface waters of the subtropical North Atlantic
A Physical Limit to the Magnetic Fields of T Tauri Stars
Recent estimates of magnetic field strengths in T Tauri stars yield values
--. In this paper, I present an upper limit to the
photospheric values of by computing the equipartition values for different
surface gravities and effective temperatures. The values of derived from
the observations exceed this limit, and I examine the possible causes for this
discrepancy
Can top-down controls expand the ecological niche of marine N2 fixers?
The ability of marine diazotrophs to fix dinitrogen gas (Nâ‚‚) is one of the most influential yet enigmatic processes in the ocean. With their activity diazotrophs support biological production by fixing about 100-200 Tg N/yr of bioavailable nitrogen (N), an essential limiting nutrient.
Despite their important role, the factors that control the distribution of diazotrophs and their ability to fix Nâ‚‚ are not fully elucidated. We discuss insights that can be gained from the emerging picture of a wide geographical distribution of marine diazotrophs and provide a critical assessment of environmental (bottom-up) versus trophic (top-down) controls. We present a simplified theoretical framework to understand how top-down control affects competition for resources that determine ecological niches. Selective grazing on non-fixing phytoplankton is identified as a critical process that can broaden the ability of diazotrophs to compete for resources in top-down controlled systems and explain an expanded ecological niche for diazotrophy. Our simplified analysis predicts a larger importance of top-down control in nutrient-rich systems where grazing controls the faster growing phytoplankton, allowing the slower growing diazotrophs to become established. However, these predictions require corroboration by experimental and field data, together with the identification of specific traits of organisms and associated trade-offs related to selective top-down control. Elucidation of these factors could greatly improve our predictive capability for marine N2 fixation. The susceptibility of this key biogeochemical process to future changes may not only be determined by changes in environmental conditions but also via changes in the ecological interactions
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Incidence and public health burden of sunburn among beachgoers in the United States.
The beach environment creates many barriers to effective sun protection, putting beachgoers at risk for sunburn, a well-established risk factor for skin cancer. Our objective was to estimate incidence of sunburn among beachgoers and evaluate the relationship between sunburn incidence and sun-protective behaviors. A secondary analysis, of prospective cohorts at 12 locations within the U.S. from 2003 to 2009 (n = 75,614), were pooled to evaluate sunburn incidence 10-12 days after the beach visit. Behavioral and environmental conditions were cross-tabulated with sunburn incidence. Multivariable logistic regression was used to estimate the association between new sunburn and sun-protective behaviors. Overall, 13.1% of beachgoers reported sunburn. Those aged 13-18 years (16.5%), whites (16.0%), and those at beach locations along the Eastern Seaboard (16.1%), had the highest incidence of sunburn. For those spending ≥5 h in the sun, the use of multiple types of sun protection reduced odds of sunburn by 55% relative to those who used no sun protection (Odds Ratio = 0.45 (95% Confidence Interval:0.27-0.77)) after adjusting for skin type, age, and race. Acute health effects of sunburn tend to be mild and self-limiting, but potential long-term health consequences are more serious and costly. Efforts to encourage and support proper sun-protective behaviors, and increase access to shade, protective clothing, and sunscreen, can help prevent sunburn and reduce skin cancer risk among beachgoers
Milne-Eddington inversion of the Fe I line pair at 630~nm
The iron lines at 630.15 and 630.25 nm are often used to determine the
physical conditions of the solar photosphere. A common approach is to invert
them simultaneously under the Milne-Eddington approximation. The same
thermodynamic parameters are employed for the two lines, except for their
opacities, which are assumed to have a constant ratio. We aim at investigating
the validity of this assumption, since the two lines are not exactly the same.
We use magnetohydrodynamic simulations of the quiet Sun to examine the behavior
of the ME thermodynamic parameters and their influence on the retrieval of
vector magnetic fields and flow velocities. Our analysis shows that the two
lines can be coupled and inverted simultaneously using the same thermodynamic
parameters and a constant opacity ratio. The inversion of two lines is
significantly more accurate than single-line inversions because of the larger
number of observables.Comment: Accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics (Research
Note
PCA detection and denoising of Zeeman signatures in stellar polarised spectra
Our main objective is to develop a denoising strategy to increase the signal
to noise ratio of individual spectral lines of stellar spectropolarimetric
observations.
We use a multivariate statistics technique called Principal Component
Analysis. The cross-product matrix of the observations is diagonalized to
obtain the eigenvectors in which the original observations can be developed.
This basis is such that the first eigenvectors contain the greatest variance.
Assuming that the noise is uncorrelated a denoising is possible by
reconstructing the data with a truncated basis. We propose a method to identify
the number of eigenvectors for an efficient noise filtering.
Numerical simulations are used to demonstrate that an important increase of
the signal to noise ratio per spectral line is possible using PCA denoising
techniques. It can be also applied for detection of magnetic fields in stellar
atmospheres. We analyze the relation between PCA and commonly used well-known
techniques like line addition and least-squares deconvolution. Moreover, PCA is
very robust and easy to compute.Comment: accepted to be published in A&
Atomic alignment and Diagnostics of Magnetic Fields in Diffuse Media
We continue our studies of atomic alignment in diffuse media, in
particularly, in interstellar and circumstellar media, with the goal of
developing new diagnostics of magnetic fields in these environments. We
understand atomic alignment as alignment of atoms or ions in their ground
state. Such atoms are sensitive to weak magnetic fields. In particular, we
provide predictions of the polarization that arises from astrophysically
important aligned atoms (ions) with fine structure of the ground level, namely,
OI and SII and Ti II. Unlike our earlier papers which dealt with weak fields
only, a substantial part of our current paper is devoted to the studies of
atomic alignment when magnetic fields get strong enough to affect the emission
from the excited level, i.e. with the regime when the magnetic splitting is
comparable to the line-width. This is a regime of Hanle effect modified by the
atomic alignment. Using an example of emission and absorption lines of SII ion
we demonstrate how polarimetric studies can probe magnetic fields in
circumstellar regions and accretion disks. In addition, we show that atomic
alignment induced by anisotropic radiation can induce substantial variations of
magnetic dipole transitions within the ground state, thus affecting abundance
studies based on this emission. Moreover, the radio emission is polarized,
provides a new way to study magnetic fields, e.g. at the epoch of Universe
reionization.Comment: Minor changes, accepted to Ap
On the Atomic Polarization of the Ground Level of Na I
In a recent letter (Trujillo Bueno et al. 2002), we showed the remarkable
result that the atomic alignment of the levels P and S of the
D line of Na I is practically destroyed in the presence of magnetic fields
sensibly larger than 10 G, irrespectively of the field direction. In this
paper, we demonstrate analytically that this property is a consequence of the
decoupling of the electronic and nuclear angular momenta, J and I, in the
excited state P, which is achieved when the Zeeman splitting from the
local magnetic field becomes much larger than the typical hyperfine separation
for that level.Comment: The Astrophysical Journal; 2002; in pres
The Physical Origin of the Scattering Polarization of the Na I D-Lines in the Presence of Weak Magnetic Fields
We demonstrate that the atomic alignment of the hyperfine-structure
components of the ground level S of Na {\sc i} and of the upper level
P of the D line are practically negligible for magnetic strengths
, and virtually zero for B\ga 100 \rm G. This occurs
independently of the magnetic-field inclination on the stellar surface (also,
in particular, for vertical fields). Consequently, the characteristic
antisymmetric linear-polarization signature of the scattered light in the D
line is practically suppressed in the presence of magnetic fields larger than
10 G, regardless of their inclination. Remarkably, we find that the scattering
polarization amplitude of the D line increases steadily with the magnetic
strength, for vertical fields above 10 G, while the contribution of alignment
to the polarization of the D line rapidly decreases. Therefore, we suggest
that spectropolarimetric observations of the ``quiet'' solar chromosphere
showing significant linear polarization peaks in both D and D cannot be
interpreted in terms of one-component magnetic field models, implying that the
magnetic structuring of the solar chromosphere could be substantially more
complex than previously thought.Comment: 11 pages and 2 figures. The Astrophysical Journal Letter (in press
Global impact of benthic denitrification on marine N2 fixation and primary production simulated by a variable-stoichiometry Earth system model
Nitrogen (N) is a crucial limiting nutrient for phytoplankton growth in the ocean. The main source of bioavailable N in the ocean is delivered by N2-fixing diazotrophs in the surface layer. Since field observation of N2 fixation are spatially and temporally sparse, the fundamental processes and mechanisms controlling N2 fixation are not well understood and constrained. Here, we implement benthic denitrification in an Earth System Model of intermediate complexity (UVic-ESCM 2.9) coupled to an optimality-based plankton ecosystem model (OPEM v1.1). Benthic denitrification occurs mostly in coastal upwelling regions and on shallow continental shelves, and is the largest N-loss process in the global ocean. We calibrate our model against three different combinations of observed Chl, NO3-, PO43-, O2 and N* = NO3- −16PO43- +2.9. The inclusion of N* provides a powerful constraint on biogeochemical model behavior. Our new model version including benthic denitrification simulates higher global rates of N2 fixation with a more realistic distribution extending to higher latitudes that are supported by independent estimates based on geochemical data. Oxygen deficient zone volume and water column denitrification rates are reduced in the new version, indicating that including benthic denitrification may improve global biogeochemical models that commonly overestimate anoxic zones. With the improved representation of the ocean N cycle, our new model configuration also yields better global net primary production (NPP) when compared to the independent datasets not included in the calibration. Benthic denitrification plays an important role shaping N2 fixation and NPP throughout the global ocean in our model, and should be considered when evaluating and predicting their response to environmental change
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