Prenatal cocaine exposure and prematurity: Neurodevelopmental growth

The consequences of prematurity and prenatal cocaine exposure on early neurobehavior and physical growth were examined longitudinally in a sample of 20 cocaine-exposed and 20 nonexposed preterm neonates. The magnitude of the difference in physical growth acceleration related to prenatal cocaine exposure increased with increasing birth gestational age, whereas growth rate differences in irritability decreased. In contrast, prenatal cocaine exposure, independent of prematurity, was related to reduced attention skills at 36 wks conceptional age and increased rates of neurobehavioral change. The effects of prenatal cocaine exposure differed with respect to the degree of prematurity, depending on the nature of the outcome examined, suggesting differing windows of vulnerability for different outcome domains. The usefulness of a developmental growth perspective was demonstrated

Towards a 3-D tomographic retrieval for the air-borne limb-imager GLORIA

GLORIA (Gimballed Limb Observer for Radiance Imaging of the Atmosphere) is a new remote sensing instrument essentially combining a Fourier transform infrared spectrometer with a two-dimensional (2-D) detector array in combination with a highly flexible gimbal mount. It will be housed in the belly pod of the German research aircraft HALO (High Altitude and Long Range Research Aircraft). It is unique in its combination of high spatial and state-of-the art spectral resolution. Furthermore, the horizontal view angle with respect to the aircraft flight direction can be varied from 45° to 135°. This allows for tomographic measurements of mesoscale events for a wide variety of atmospheric constituents. <br><br> In this paper, a tomographic retrieval scheme is presented, which is able to fully exploit the manifold radiance observations of the GLORIA limb sounder. The algorithm is optimized for massive 3-D retrievals of several hundred thousands of measurements and atmospheric constituents on common hardware. The new scheme is used to explore the capabilities of GLORIA to sound the atmosphere in full 3-D with respect to the choice of the flightpath and to different measurement modes of the instrument using ozone as a test species. It is demonstrated that the achievable resolution should approach 200 m vertically and 20 km–30 km horizontally. Finally, a comparison of the 3-D inversion with conventional 1-D inversions using the assumption of a horizontally homogeneous atmosphere is performed

Response of stratospheric water vapor and ozone to the unusual timing of El Niño and the QBO disruption in 2015–2016

The stratospheric circulation determines the transport and lifetime of key trace gases in a changing climate, including water vapor and ozone, which radiatively impact surface climate. The unusually warm El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) event aligned with a disrupted Quasi-Biennial Oscillation (QBO) caused an unprecedented perturbation to this circulation in 2015–2016. Here, we quantify the impact of the alignment of these two phenomena in 2015–2016 on lower stratospheric water vapor and ozone from satellite observations. We show that the warm ENSO event substantially increased water vapor and decreased ozone in the tropical lower stratosphere. The QBO disruption significantly decreased global lower stratospheric water vapor and tropical ozone from early spring to late autumn. Thus, this QBO disruption reversed the lower stratosphere moistening triggered by the alignment of the warm ENSO event with westerly QBO in early boreal winter. Our results suggest that the interplay of ENSO events and QBO phases will be crucial for the distributions of radiatively active trace gases in a changing future climate, when increasing El Niño-like conditions and a decreasing lower stratospheric QBO amplitude are expected

Filamentary structure in chemical tracer distributions near the subtropical jet following a wave breaking event

This paper presents a set of observations and analyses of trace gas cross sections in the extratropical upper troposphere/lower stratosphere (UTLS). The spatially highly resolved (&approx;0.5 km vertically and 12.5 km horizontally) cross sections of ozone (O₃), nitric acid (HNO₃), and peroxyacetyl nitrate (PAN), retrieved from the measurements of the CRISTA-NF infrared limb sounder flown on the Russian M55-Geophysica, revealed intricate layer structures in the region of the subtropical tropopause break. The chemical structure in this region shows an intertwined stratosphere and troposphere. The observed filaments in all discussed trace gases are of a spatial scale of less than 0.8 km vertically and about 200 km horizontally across the jet stream. Backward trajectory calculations confirm that the observed filaments are the result of a breaking Rossby wave in the preceding days. An analysis of the trace gas relationships between PAN and O₃ identifies four distinct groups of air mass: polluted subtropical tropospheric air, clean tropical upper-tropospheric air, the lowermost stratospheric air, and air from the deep stratosphere. The tracer relationships further allow the identification of tropospheric, stratospheric, and the transitional air mass made of a mixture of UT and LS air. Mapping of these air mass types onto the geo-spatial location in the cross sections reveals a highly structured extratropical transition layer (ExTL). Finally, the ratio between the measured reactive nitrogen species (HNO₃ + PAN + ClONO₂) and O₃ is analysed to estimate the influence of tropospheric pollution on the extratropical UTLS. <br><br> In combination, these diagnostics provide the first example of a multi-species two-dimensional picture of the inhomogeneous distribution of chemical species within the UTLS region. Since Rossby wave breaking occurs frequently in the region of the tropopause break, these observed fine-scale filaments are likely ubiquitous in the region. The implications of the layered structure for chemistry and radiation need to be examined, and the representation of this structure in chemistry-climate models is discussed

Shear localisation in anisotropic, non-linear viscous materials that develop a CPO: A numerical study

Localisation of ductile deformation in rocks is commonly found at all scales from crustal shear zones down to grain scale shear bands. Of the various mechanisms for localisation, mechanical anisotropy has received relatively little attention, especially in numerical modelling. Mechanical anisotropy can be due to dislocation creep of minerals (e.g. ice or mica) and/or layering in rocks (e.g. bedding, cleavage). We simulated simple-shear deformation of a locally anisotropic, single-phase power-law rheology material up to shear strain of five. Localisation of shear rate in narrow shear bands occurs, depending on the magnitude of anisotropy and the stress exponent. At high anisotropy values, strain-rate frequency distributions become approximately log-normal with heavy, exponential tails. Localisation due to anisotropy is scale-independent and thus provides a single mechanism for a self-organised hierarchy of shear bands and zones from mm-to km-scales. The numerical simulations are compared with the natural example of the Northern Shear Belt at Cap de Creus, NE Spain

3-D tomographic observations of Rossby wave breaking over the North Atlantic during the WISE aircraft campaign in 2017

This paper presents measurements of ozone, water vapour and nitric acid (HNO3) in the upper troposphere/lower stratosphere (UTLS) over North Atlantic and Europe. The measurements were acquired with the Gimballed Limb Observer for Radiance Imaging of the Atmosphere (GLORIA) during the Wave Driven Isentropic Exchange (WISE) campaign in October 2017. GLORIA is an airborne limb imager capable of acquiring both 2-D data sets (curtains along the flight path) and, when the carrier aircraft is flying around the observed air mass, spatially highly resolved 3-D tomographic data. Here, we present a case study of a Rossby wave (RW) breaking event observed during two subsequent flights 2 d apart. RW breaking is known to steepen tracer gradients and facilitate stratosphere–troposphere exchange (STE). Our measurements reveal complex spatial structures in stratospheric tracers (ozone and nitric acid) with multiple vertically stacked filaments. Backward-trajectory analysis is used to demonstrate that these features are related to several previous Rossby wave breaking events and that the small-scale structure of the UTLS in the Rossby wave breaking region, which is otherwise very hard to observe, can be understood as stirring and mixing of air masses of tropospheric and stratospheric origin. It is also shown that a strong nitric acid enhancement observed just above the tropopause is likely a result of NOx production by lightning activity. The measurements showed signatures of enhanced mixing between stratospheric and tropospheric air near the polar jet with some transport of water vapour into the stratosphere. Some of the air masses seen in 3-D data were encountered again 2 d later, stretched to very thin filament (horizontal thickness down to 30 km at some altitudes) rich in stratospheric tracers. This repeated measurement allowed us to directly observe and analyse the progress of mixing processes in a thin filament over 2 d. Our results provide direct insight into small-scale dynamics of the UTLS in the Rossby wave breaking region, which is of great importance to understanding STE and poleward transport in the UTLS

Contribution of mixing to the upward transport across the TTL

International audienceDuring the second part of the TROCCINOX campaign that took place in Brazil in early 2005, chemical species were measured on-board of the high altitude research aircraft Geophysica (ozone, water vapor, NO, NOy, CH4 and CO) in the altitude range up to 20 km (or up to 450 K potential temperature), i.e. spanning the TTL region roughly extending between 350 and 420 K. Analysis of transport across TTL is performed using a new version of the Chemical Lagrangian Model of the Stratosphere (CLaMS). In this new version, the stratospheric model has been extended to the earth surface. Above the tropopause, the isentropic and cross-isentropic advection in CLaMS is driven by ECMWF winds and heating/cooling rates derived from a radiation calculation. Below the tropopause the model smoothly transforms from the isentropic to hybrid-pressure coordinate and, in this way, takes into account the effect of large-scale convective transport as implemented in the ECMWF vertical wind. As with other CLaMS simulations, the irreversible transport, i.e. mixing, is controlled by the local horizontal strain and vertical shear rates. Stratospheric and tropospheric signatures in the TTL can be seen both in the observation and in the model. The composition of air above ?350 K is mainly controlled by mixing on a time scale of weeks or even months. Based on CLaMS transport studies where mixing can be completely switched off, we deduce that vertical mixing, mainly driven by the vertical shear in the outflow regions of the large-scale convection and in the vicinity of the subtropical jets, is necessary to understand the upward transport of the tropospheric air from the main convective outflow around 350 K up to the tropical tropopause around 380 K. This mechanism is most effective if the outflow of the mesoscale convective systems interacts with the subtropical jets

Bivariate genetic modelling of the response to an oral glucose tolerance challenge: A gene x environment interaction approach

AIMS/HYPOTHESIS: Twin and family studies have shown the importance of genetic factors influencing fasting and 2 h glucose and insulin levels. However, the genetics of the physiological response to a glucose load has not been thoroughly investigated. METHODS: We studied 580 monozygotic and 1,937 dizygotic British female twins from the Twins UK Registry. The effects of genetic and environmental factors on fasting and 2 h glucose and insulin levels were estimated using univariate genetic modelling. Bivariate model fitting was used to investigate the glucose and insulin responses to a glucose load, i.e. an OGTT. RESULTS: The genetic effect on fasting and 2 h glucose and insulin levels ranged between 40% and 56% after adjustment for age and BMI. Exposure to a glucose load resulted in the emergence of novel genetic effects on 2 h glucose independent of the fasting level, accounting for about 55% of its heritability. For 2 h insulin, the effect of the same genes that already influenced fasting insulin was amplified by about 30%. CONCLUSIONS/INTERPRETATION: Exposure to a glucose challenge uncovers new genetic variance for glucose and amplifies the effects of genes that already influence the fasting insulin level. Finding the genes acting on 2 h glucose independently of fasting glucose may offer new aetiological insight into the risk of cardiovascular events and death from all causes