Multivariate climate reconstruction for the last 14,000 years in southernmost South America

Comparison between past changes in pollen assemblages and stable isotope ratios (deuterium and carbon) analyzed in the same peat core from Tierra del Fuego at latitude 55°S permitted identification of the relative contribution of precipitation versus temperature responsible for the respective change. Major steps in the sequence of paleoenvironmental changes, such as at 12700, 9000, 5000, and 4000 years ago are apparently related only to increase in precipitation, reflecting the latitudinal location and intensity of the westerly storm tracks. On the other hand, high paleoenvironmental variability, which is characteristic for the late-glacial and the latest Holocene, is related to temperature variability, which affects the relative moisture content. Comparison with other paleoenvironmental records suggests that the late-glacial temperature variability is probably related to variability in the extent of Antarctic sea-ice, which in turn appears to be related to the intensity of Atlantic deep-water circulation. Temperature variability during the latest Holocene, on the other hand, is probably related to the dynamics of the El Niño/Southern Oscillation

The effect of potential upon the high-temperature fatigue crack growth response of low-alloy steels. Part 1: Crack growth results

Corrosion-fatigue crack propagation experiments were conducted on several low-alloy steels in elevated temperature aqueous environments, and experimental parameters included temperature, sulfur content of the steel, applied potential level, and dissolved hydrogen (and in one case, dissolved oxygen) concentration in the water. Specimen potentials were controlled potentiostatically, and the observation (or non-observation) of accelerated fatigue crack growth rates was a complex function of the above parameters. Electrochemical results and the postulated explanation for the complex behavior are given in Part II

The effect of potential on the high-temperature fatigue crack growth response of low alloy steels: Part II, electrochemical results

Environmentally assisted cracking (EAC) in low alloy steels was found to be dependent on externally applied potential in low sulfur steels in high temperature water. EAC could be turned on when the specimen was polarized anodically above a critical potential. However, hydrogen (H) additions inhibited the ability of potential to affect EAC. The behavior was related to formation of H ions during H oxidation at the crack mouth. A mechanism based on formation of H sulfide at the crack tip and H ions at the crack mouth is presented to describe the process by which sulfides and H ions affect the critical sulfide concentration at the crack tip

Combined effect of coherent Z exchange and the hyperfine interaction in atomic PNC

The nuclear spin-dependent parity nonconserving (PNC) interaction arising from a combination of the hyperfine interaction and the coherent, spin-independent, PNC interaction from Z exchange is evaluated using many-body perturbation theory. For the 6s-7s transition in 133Cs, we obtain a result that is about 40% smaller than that found previously by Bouchiat and Piketty [Phys. Lett. B 269, 195 (1991)]. Applying this result to 133Cs, leads to an increase in the experimental value of nuclear anapole moment and exacerbates differences between constraints on PNC meson coupling constants obtained from the Cs anapole moment and those obtained from other nuclear parity violating experiments. Nuclear spin-dependent PNC dipole matrix elements, including contributions from the combined weak-hyperfine interaction, are also given for the 7s-8s transition in 211Fr and for transitions between ground-state hyperfine levels in K, Rb, Cs, Ba+, Au, Tl, Fr, and Ra+.Comment: Revtex4 preprint 19 pages 4 table

A 700 year record of Southern Hemisphere extratropical climate variability

Annually dated ice cores from West and East Antarctica provide proxies for past changes in atmospheric circulation over Antarctica and portions of the Southern Ocean, temperature in coastal West and East Antarctica, and the frequency of South Polar penetration of El Niño events. During the period AD 1700–1850, atmospheric circulation over the Antarctic and at least portions of the Southern Hemisphere underwent a mode switch departing from the out-of-phase alternation of multi-decadal long phases of EOF1 and EOF2 modes of the 850 hPa field over the Southern Hemisphere (as defined in the recent record by Thompson and Wallace, 2000; Thompson and Solomon, 2002) that characterizes the remainder of the 700 year long record. From AD 1700 to 1850, lower-tropospheric circulation was replaced by in-phase behavior of the Amundsen Sea Low component of EOF2 and the East Antarctic High component of EOF1. During the first phase of the mode switch, both West and East Antarctic temperatures declined, potentially in response to the increased extent of sea ice surrounding both regions. At the end of the mode switch, West Antarctic coastal temperatures rose and East Antarctic coastal temperatures fell, respectively, to their second highest and lowest of the record. Polar penetration of El Niño events increased during the mode switch. The onset of the AD 1700–1850 mode switch coincides with the extreme state of the Maunder Minimum in solar variability. Late 20th-century West Antarctic coastal temperatures are the highest in the record period, and East Antarctic coastal temperatures close to the lowest. Since AD 1700, extratropical regions of the Southern Hemisphere have experienced significant climate variability coincident with changes in both solar variability and greenhouse gase

Novel Methods for Determining Effective Interactions for the Nuclear Shell Model

The Contractor Renormalization (CORE) method is applied in combination with modern effective-theory techniques to the nuclear many-body problem. A one-dimensional--yet ``realistic''--nucleon-nucleon potential is introduced to test these novel ideas. It is found that the magnitude of ``model-space'' (CORE) corrections diminishes considerably when an effective potential that eliminates the hard-momentum components of the potential is first introduced. As a result, accurate predictions for the ground-state energy of the there-body system are made with relatively little computational effort when both techniques are used in a complementary fashion.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figures and 2 tabl

A Record of Atmospheric Co2 During the Last 40,000 Years from the Siple Dome, Antarctica Ice Core

We have measured the CO2 concentration of air occluded during the last 40,000 years in the deep Siple Dome A ( hereafter Siple Dome) ice core, Antarctica. The general trend of CO2 concentration from Siple Dome ice follows the temperature inferred from the isotopic composition of the ice and is mostly in agreement with other Antarctic ice core CO2 records. CO2 rose initially at similar to 17.5 kyr B. P. ( thousand years before 1950), decreased slowly during the Antarctic Cold Reversal, rose during the Younger Dryas, fell to a local minimum at around 8 kyr B. P., and rose continuously since then. The CO2 concentration never reached steady state during the Holocene, as also found in the Taylor Dome and EPICA Dome C ( hereafter Dome C) records. During the last glacial termination, a lag of CO2 versus Siple Dome isotopic temperature is probable. The Siple Dome CO2 concentrations during the last glacial termination and in the Holocene are at certain times greater than in other Antarctic ice cores by up to 20 ppm (mumol CO2/mol air). While in situ production of CO2 is one possible cause of the sporadic elevated levels, the mechanism leading to the enrichment is not yet clear