62 research outputs found
The role of eddies and topography in the export of shelf waters from the West Antarctic Peninsula shelf
Oceanic heat strongly influences the glaciers and ice shelves along West Antarctica. Prior studies show that the subsurface onshore heat flux from the Southern Ocean on the shelf occurs through deep, glacially carved channels. The mechanisms enabling the export of colder shelf waters to the open ocean, however, have not been determined. Here, we use ocean glider measurements collected near the mouth of Marguerite Trough (MT), west Antarctic Peninsula, to reveal shelfâmodified cold waters on the slope over a deep (2,700 m) offshore topographic bank. The shelf hydrographic sections show subsurface cold features (Ξ <=1.5 °C), and associated potential vorticity fields suggest a significant instabilityâdriven eddy field. Output from a highâresolution numerical model reveals offshore export modulated by small (6 km), coldâcored, cyclonic eddies preferentially generated along the slope and at the mouth of MT. While baroclinic and barotropic instabilities appear active in the surrounding open ocean, the former is suppressed along the steep shelf slopes, while the latter appears enhanced. Altimetry and model output reveal the mean slope flow splitting to form an offshore branch over the bank, which eventually forms a large (116 km wide) persistent lee eddy, and an onshore branch in MT. The offshore flow forms a pathway for the small coldâcored eddies to move offshore, where they contribute significantly to cooling over the bank, including the large lee eddy. These results suggest eddy fluxes, and topographically modulated flows are key mechanisms for shelf water export along this shelf, just as they are for the shoreward warm water transport
Widespread increase in discharge from West Antarctic Peninsula glaciers since 2018
Many glaciers on the Antarctic Peninsula have retreated and accelerated in recent decades. Here we show that there has been a widespread, quasi-synchronous, and sustained increase in grounding line discharge from glaciers on the west coast of the Antarctic Peninsula since 2018. Overall, the west Antarctic Peninsula discharge trends increased by over a factor of 3, from 50 Mt yrâ2 during 2017 to 2020 up to 160 Mt yrâ2 in the years following, leading to a 7.4 % increase in grounding line discharge since 2017. The acceleration in discharge was concentrated at glaciers connected to deep, cross-shelf troughs hosting warm-ocean waters, and the acceleration occurred during a period of anomalously high subsurface water temperatures on the continental shelf. Given that many of the affected glaciers have retreated over the past several decades in response to ocean warming, thereby highlighting their sensitivity to ocean forcing, we argue that the recent period of anomalously warm water was likely a key driver of the observed acceleration. However, the acceleration also occurred during a time of anomalously high atmospheric temperatures and glacier surface runoff, which could have contributed to speed-up by directly increasing basal water pressure and, by invigorating near-glacier ocean circulation, increasing submarine melt rates. The spatial pattern of glacier acceleration therefore provides an indication of glaciers that are exposed to warm-ocean water at depth and/or have active surface-to-bed hydrological connections; however, many stages in the chain of events leading to glacier acceleration, and how that response is affected by glacier-specific factors, remain insufficiently understood. Both atmospheric and ocean temperatures in this region and its surroundings are likely to increase further in the coming decades; therefore, there is a pressing need to improve our understanding of recent changes in Antarctic Peninsula glacier dynamics in response atmospheric and oceanic changes in order to improve projections of their behaviour over the coming century
Heat Transport through Rough Channels
We investigate the two-dimensional transport of heat through viscous flow
between two parallel rough interfaces with a given fractal geometry. The flow
and heat transport equations are solved through direct numerical simulations,
and for different conduction-convection conditions. Compared with the behavior
of a channel with smooth interfaces, the results for the rough channel at low
and moderate values of the Peclet number indicate that the effect of roughness
is almost negligible on the efficiency of the heat transport system. This is
explained here in terms of the Makarov's theorem, using the notion of active
zone in Laplacian transport. At sufficiently high Peclet numbers, where
convection becomes the dominant mechanism of heat transport, the role of the
interface roughness is to generally increase both the heat flux across the wall
as well as the active length of heat exchange, when compared with the smooth
channel. Finally, we show that this last behavior is closely related with the
presence of recirculation zones in the reentrant regions of the fractal
geometry.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figure
Scalar field in the Bianchi I: Non commutative classical and Quantum Cosmology
Using the ADM formalism in the minisuperspace, we obtain the commutative and
noncommutative exact classical solutions and exact wave function to the
Wheeler-DeWitt equation with an arbitrary factor ordering, for the anisotropic
Bianchi type I cosmological model, coupled to a scalar field, cosmological term
and barotropic perfect fluid. We introduce noncommutative scale factors,
considering that all minisuperspace variables do not commute, so the
symplectic structure was modified. In the classical regime, it is shown that
the anisotropic parameter and the field , for some
value in the cosmological term and noncommutative
parameter, present a dynamical isotropization up to a critical cosmic time
; after this time, the effects of isotropization in the noncommutative
minisuperspace seems to disappear. In the quantum regimen, the probability
density presents a new structure that corresponds to the value of the
noncommutativity parameter.Comment: 17 pages, 6 figures, Acepted in IJT
Elemental signatures of Australopithecus africanus teeth reveal seasonal dietary stress
Reconstructing the detailed dietary behaviour of extinct hominins is challenging1\u2014particularly for a species such as Australopithecus africanus, which has a highly variable dental morphology that suggests a broad diet2,3. The dietary responses of extinct hominins to seasonal fluctuations in food availability are poorly understood, and nursing behaviours even less so; most of the direct information currently available has been obtained from high-resolution trace-element geochemical analysis of Homo sapiens (both modern and fossil), Homo neanderthalensis4 and living apes5. Here we apply high-resolution trace-element analysis to two A. africanus specimens from Sterkfontein Member 4 (South Africa), dated to 2.6\u20132.1 million years ago. Elemental signals indicate that A. africanus infants predominantly consumed breast milk for the first year after birth. A cyclical elemental pattern observed following the nursing sequence\u2014comparable to the seasonal dietary signal that is seen in contemporary wild primates and other mammals\u2014indicates irregular food availability. These results are supported by isotopic evidence for a geographical range that was dominated by nutritionally depauperate areas. Cyclical accumulation of lithium in A. africanus teeth also corroborates the idea that their range was characterized by fluctuating resources, and that they possessed physiological adaptations to this instability. This study provides insights into the dietary cycles and ecological behaviours of A. africanus in response to food availability, including the potential cyclical resurgence of milk intake during times of nutritional challenge (as observed in modern wild orangutans5). The geochemical findings for these teeth reinforce the unique place of A. africanus in the fossil record, and indicate dietary stress in specimens that date to shortly before the extinction of Australopithecus in South Africa about two million years ago
Minimum mass of galaxies from BEC or scalar field dark matter
Many problems of cold dark matter models such as the cusp problem and the
missing satellite problem can be alleviated, if galactic halo dark matter
particles are ultra-light scalar particles and in Bose-Einstein condensate
(BEC), thanks to a characteristic length scale of the particles. We show that
this finite length scale of the dark matter can also explain the recently
observed common central mass of the Milky Way satellites ()
independent of their luminosity, if the mass of the dark matter particle is
about .Comment: 10 pages, 1 figure, accepted in JCA
Quintessence and variation of the fine structure constant in the CMBR
We study dependence of the CMB temperature anisotropy spectrum on the value
of the fine structure constant and the equation of state of the dark
energy component of the total density of the universe. We find that bounds
imposed on the variation of from the analysis of currently available
CMB data sets can be significantly relaxed if one also allows for a change in
the equation of state.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures. Several references added and a few minor typos
corrected in the revised versio
CMB observations in LTB universes: Part I: Matching peak positions in the CMB spectrum
Acoustic peaks in the spectrum of the cosmic microwave background in
spherically symmetric inhomogeneous cosmological models are studied. At the
photon-baryon decoupling epoch, the universe may be assumed to be dominated by
non-relativistic matter, and thus we may treat radiation as a test field in the
universe filled with dust which is described by the Lema\^itre-Tolman-Bondi
(LTB) solution. First, we give an LTB model whose distance-redshift relation
agrees with that of the concordance CDM model in the whole redshift
domain and which is well approximated by the Einstein-de Sitter universe at and
before decoupling. We determine the decoupling epoch in this LTB universe by
Gamow's criterion and then calculate the positions of acoustic peaks. Thus
obtained results are not consistent with the WMAP data. However, we find that
one can fit the peak positions by appropriately modifying the LTB model,
namely, by allowing the deviation of the distance-redshift relation from that
of the concordance CDM model at where no observational data are
available at present. Thus there is still a possibility of explaining the
apparent accelerated expansion of the universe by inhomogeneity without
resorting to dark energy if we abandon the Copernican principle. Even if we do
not take this extreme attitude, it also suggests that local, isotropic
inhomogeneities around us may seriously affect the determination of the density
contents of the universe unless the possible existence of such inhomogeneities
is properly taken into account.Comment: 20 pages, 5 figure
About Bianchi I with VSL
In this paper we study how to attack, through different techniques, a perfect
fluid Bianchi I model with variable G,c and Lambda, but taking into account the
effects of a -variable into the curvature tensor. We study the model under
the assumption,div(T)=0. These tactics are: Lie groups method (LM), imposing a
particular symmetry, self-similarity (SS), matter collineations (MC) and
kinematical self-similarity (KSS). We compare both tactics since they are quite
similar (symmetry principles). We arrive to the conclusion that the LM is too
restrictive and brings us to get only the flat FRW solution. The SS, MC and KSS
approaches bring us to obtain all the quantities depending on \int c(t)dt.
Therefore, in order to study their behavior we impose some physical
restrictions like for example the condition q<0 (accelerating universe). In
this way we find that is a growing time function and Lambda is a decreasing
time function whose sing depends on the equation of state, w, while the
exponents of the scale factor must satisfy the conditions
and
, i.e. for all equation of state relaxing in this way the
Kasner conditions. The behavior of depends on two parameters, the equation
of state and a parameter that controls the behavior of
therefore may be growing or decreasing.We also show that through
the Lie method, there is no difference between to study the field equations
under the assumption of a var affecting to the curvature tensor which the
other one where it is not considered such effects.Nevertheless, it is essential
to consider such effects in the cases studied under the SS, MC, and KSS
hypotheses.Comment: 29 pages, Revtex4, Accepted for publication in Astrophysics & Space
Scienc
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