The impact of overturning and horizontal circulation in Pine Island Trough on ice shelf melt in the eastern Amundsen Sea

The ice shelves around the Amundsen Sea are rapidly melting as a result of the circulation of relatively warm ocean water into their cavities. However, little is known about the processes that determine the variability of this circulation. Here we use an ocean circulation model to diagnose the relative importance of horizontal and vertical (overturning) circulation within Pine Island Trough, leading to Pine Island and Thwaites ice shelves. We show that melt rates and southwardCircumpolar Deep Water (CDW)transports covary over large parts of the continental shelf at interannual to decadal time scales. The dominant external forcing mechanism for this variability is Ekman pumping and suction on the continental shelf and at the shelf break, in agreementwith previous studies.At the continental shelf break, the southward transport of CDWand heat is predominantly barotropic. Farther south within Pine Island Trough, northward and southward barotropic heat transports largely cancel, and the majority of the net southward temperature transport is facilitated by baroclinic and overturning circulations. The overturning circulation is related to water mass transformation and buoyancy gain on the shelf that is primarily facilitated by freshwater input from basal melting

Short-term climate response to a freshwater pulse in the Southern Ocean

The short-term response of the climate system to a freshwater anomaly in the Southern Ocean is investigated using a coupled global climate model. As a result of the anomaly, ventilation of deep waters around Antarctica is inhibited, causing a warming of the deep ocean, and a cooling of the surface. The surface cooling causes Antarctic sea-ice to thicken and increase in extent, and this leads to a cooling of Southern Hemisphere surface air temperature. The surface cooling increases over the first 5 years, then remains constant over the next 5 years. There is a more rapid response in the Pacific Ocean, which transmits a signal to the Northern Hemisphere, ultimately causing a shift to the negative phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation in years 5–10

Sensitivity of the Walker Circulation to different basic states in a linear model, The

December, 1984.Includes bibliographical references.Sponsored by the National Science Foundation ATM-8305759

Architects

For whom are we designing libraries? Architects from Stantec, Marble Fairbanks, and MSR Design discuss how they strategically design libraries to align with the pressing needs of their communities. Panelists will explain how utilizing new data tools allows them to think differently about the design process; as well as how the shifting paradigm of academic libraries from books to social spaces is informing the built form. Three case studies in the Re-envisioning Branch Libraries research project will also be presented

Meridional heat transport across the Antarctic Circumpolar Current by the Antarctic Bottom Water overturning cell

The heat transported by the lower limb of the Southern Ocean meridional overturning circulation is commonly held to be negligible in comparison with that transported by eddies higher in the water column. We use output from one of the first global high resolution models to have a reasonably realistic export of Antarctic Bottom Water, the OCCAM one twelfth degree model. The heat fluxed southward by the deep overturning cell using the annual mean field for 1994 at 56S is 0.033 PW, but the 5-day mean fields give a larger heat flux (0.048 and 0.061 PW depending on calculation method). This is more than 30% of previous estimates of the total heat flux. Eddies and other transients add considerably to the heat flux. These results imply that this component of meridional heat flux may not be negligible as has been supposed

Gene expression analysis in specific cell populations of bovine blastocysts using laser capture microdissection

Laser capture microdissection (LCM) has become a powerful technique for the isolation of specific cell populations from heterogeneous tissues for gene expression analysis. For standard laser capture microdissection procedures, snap freezing and cryosectioning is the optimal fixation and processing procedure. This sufficiently preserves RNA integrity for downstream molecular analysis. However, in the case of small sized samples, such as early stage embryos, snap freezing and cryosectioning is highly complex and frequently leads to the loss of valuable samples. In the present study, a protocol was optimized to specifically isolate the inner cell mass cells from bovine blastocysts with LCM on chemically fixated paraffin embedded embryos. Bovine blastocysts were fixed for 24h in a methacarn fixative (8 parts methanol, 1 part acetic acid), upon which they were embedded in 2% agarose. After paraffin embedding of the agarose blocks, serial sections of 10 µm were cut and adhered to glass slides. The slides were deparaffinized in xylene, stained with 0.1% cresyl violet in 85% ethanol, and dehydrated in xylene. Subsequently the trophectoderm cells and the inner cell mass cells were separately isolated using LCM. The RNA of the samples was isolated, and subjected to different tests to evaluate the purity of the samples and the quality of the RNA. Expression of Cytokeratin 18 which is only expressed in trophectoderm revealed that the isolated cells were highly pure. An amplicon length assay and a 3’-5’ assay revealed that the RNA quality was sufficient for gene expression analysis with RT-qPCR. In conclusion, LCM on blastocysts is well suited for gene expression analysis of specific cell populations, providing a novel strategy to investigate molecular pathways for pluripotency and cell fate development. This procedure is also compatible with micro-RNA profiling strategies, and the application for downstream transcriptome sequencing is currently being evaluated

Exploring The Relationship Between Emotional Intelligence And Academic Stress Among Students At A Small, Private College

This research explored the relationship between total-trait emotional intelligence and academic stress among college students at a small, private college. Student total-trait emotional intelligence (TTEI) and university stress scores were significantly correlated. Measures of TTEI and USS are useful for student intervention to impact issues such as attrition. To increase retention, small private colleges benefit significantly from knowing students’ level of academic stress and emotional intelligence. Identifying specific factors and mitigating the adverse effects of these factors allows small colleges the opportunity to provide additional services for students