540 research outputs found
Ice core evidence for a 20th century increase in surface mass balance in coastal Dronning Maud Land, East Antarctica
Ice cores provide temporal records of surface mass balance (SMB). Coastal areas of Antarctica have relatively high and variable SMB, but are under-represented in records spanning more than 100 years. Here we present SMB reconstruction from a 120 m-long ice core drilled in 2012 on the Derwael Ice Rise, coastal Dronning Maud Land, East Antarctica. Water stable isotope (δ18O and δD) stratigraphy is supplemented by discontinuous major ion profiles and continuous electrical conductivity measurements. The base of the ice core is dated to AD 1759 ± 16, providing a climate proxy for the past ∼ 250 years. The core's annual layer thickness history is combined with its gravimetric density profile to reconstruct the site's SMB history, corrected for the influence of ice deformation. The mean SMB for the core's entire history is 0.47 ± 0.02 m water equivalent (w.e.) a−1. The time series of reconstructed annual SMB shows high variability, but a general increase beginning in the 20th century. This increase is particularly marked during the last 50 years (1962–2011), which yields mean SMB of 0.61 ± 0.01 m w.e. a−1. This trend is compared with other reported SMB data in Antarctica, generally showing a high spatial variability. Output of the fully coupled Community Earth System Model (CESM) suggests that, although atmospheric circulation is the main factor influencing SMB, variability in sea surface temperatures and sea ice cover in the precipitation source region also explain part of the variability in SMB. Local snow redistribution can also influence interannual variability but is unlikely to influence long-term trends significantly. This is the first record from a coastal ice core in East Antarctica to show an increase in SMB beginning in the early 20th century and particularly marked during the last 50 years
A fast Monte Carlo algorithm for site or bond percolation
We describe in detail a new and highly efficient algorithm for studying site
or bond percolation on any lattice. The algorithm can measure an observable
quantity in a percolation system for all values of the site or bond occupation
probability from zero to one in an amount of time which scales linearly with
the size of the system. We demonstrate our algorithm by using it to investigate
a number of issues in percolation theory, including the position of the
percolation transition for site percolation on the square lattice, the
stretched exponential behavior of spanning probabilities away from the critical
point, and the size of the giant component for site percolation on random
graphs.Comment: 17 pages, 13 figures. Corrections and some additional material in
this version. Accompanying material can be found on the web at
http://www.santafe.edu/~mark/percolation
Transiting exoplanets from the CoRoT space mission. XV. CoRoT-15b: a brown dwarf transiting companion
We report the discovery by the CoRoT space mission of a transiting brown
dwarf orbiting a F7V star with an orbital period of 3.06 days. CoRoT-15b has a
radius of 1.12 +0.30 -0.15 Rjup, a mass of 63.3 +- 4.1 Mjup, and is thus the
second transiting companion lying in the theoretical mass domain of brown
dwarfs. CoRoT-15b is either very young or inflated compared to standard
evolution models, a situation similar to that of M-dwarfs stars orbiting close
to solar-type stars. Spectroscopic constraints and an analysis of the
lightcurve favors a spin period between 2.9 and 3.1 days for the central star,
compatible with a double-synchronisation of the system.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures, accepted in A&
- …