Abiotic controls on macroscale variations of humid tropical forest height

Spatial variation of tropical forest tree height is a key indicator of ecological processes associated with forest growth and carbon dynamics. Here we examine the macroscale variations of tree height of humid tropical forests across three continents and quantify the climate and edaphic controls on these variations. Forest tree heights are systematically sampled across global humid tropical forests with more than 2.5 million measurements from Geoscience Laser Altimeter System (GLAS) satellite observations (2004–2008). We used top canopy height (TCH) of GLAS footprints to grid the statistical mean and variance and the 90 percentile height of samples at 0.5 degrees to capture the regional variability of average and large trees globally. We used the spatial regression method (spatial eigenvector mapping-SEVM) to evaluate the contributions of climate, soil and topography in explaining and predicting the regional variations of forest height. Statistical models suggest that climate, soil, topography, and spatial contextual information together can explain more than 60% of the observed forest height variation, while climate and soil jointly explain 30% of the height variations. Soil basics, including physical compositions such as clay and sand contents, chemical properties such as PH values and cation-exchange capacity, as well as biological variables such as the depth of organic matter, all present independent but statistically significant relationships to forest height across three continents. We found significant relations between the precipitation and tree height with shorter trees on the average in areas of higher annual water stress, and large trees occurring in areas with low stress and higher annual precipitation but with significant differences across the continents. Our results confirm other landscape and regional studies by showing that soil fertility, topography and climate may jointly control a significant variation of forest height and influencing patterns of aboveground biomass stocks and dynamics. Other factors such as biotic and disturbance regimes, not included in this study, may have less influence on regional variations but strongly mediate landscape and small-scale forest structure and dynamics.The research was funded by Gabon National Park (ANPN) under the contract of 011-ANPN/2012/SE-LJTW at UCLA. We thank IIASA, FAO, USGS, NASA, Worldclim science teams for making their data available. (011-ANPN/2012/SE-LJTW - Gabon National Park (ANPN) at UCLA

Dirac quasinormal modes of a Schwarzschild black hole surrounded by free static spherically symmetric quintessence

We evaluate the quasinormal modes of massless Dirac perturbation in a Schwarzschild black hole surrounded by the free static spherically symmetric quintessence by using the third-order WKB approximation. The result shows that due to the presence of quintessence, the massless field damps more slowly. The real part of the quasinormal modes increases and the the absolute value of the imaginary part increases when the state parameter $w_q$ increases. In other words, the massless Dirac field decays more rapidly for the larger $w_q$. And the peak value of potential barrier gets higher as $|k|$ increases and the location of peak moves along the right for fixed $w_q$.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure

Highly Charged Ion (HCI) Clocks: Frontier candidates for testing variation of fine-structure constant

Attempts are made to unify gravity with the other three fundamental forces of nature. As suggested by higher dimensional models, this unification may require space and time variation of some dimensionless fundamental constants. In this scenario, probing temporal variation of the electromagnetic fine structure constant ($\alpha= \frac{e^2} {\hbar c}$) in low energy regimes at the cosmological time scale is of immense interest. Atomic clocks are ideal candidates for probing $\alpha$ variation because their transition frequencies are measured to ultra-high precision accuracy. Since atomic transition frequencies are functions of $\alpha$, measurements of clock frequencies at different temporal and spatial locations can yield signatures to ascertain such conjecture. Electrons in highly charged ions (HCIs) experience unusually enhanced relativistic effects. Hence level-crossings can be observed often in these ions compared to their isoelectronic neutral or singly charged atomic systems. Such a process features by their more significant relativistic sensitive coefficients ($q$) of atomic transitions. For unambiguous detection of subtle changes in the transition frequencies due to $\alpha$ variation, it would be judicious to contemplate transitions for which $q$ values are enormous. HCIs are considered one of the most suitable candidates for making atomic clocks as they are the least sensitive to external electromagnetic fields owing to their exceptionally contracted orbitals. The first HCI clock has been realized, but its accuracy is much less than the counter optical clocks based on neutral atoms and singly charged ions. The realization of HCI clocks can add an extra dimension to investigating fundamental physics. In this work, we survey HCIs suitable for clock candidates on the grounds of general features, including their potential to probe temporal variation of $\alpha$.Comment: 35 pages, 12 table

Load capacity prediction of in-service timber utility poles considering wind load

© 2016, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg. This paper presents a numerical investigation on the influence of different types of damage to the load capacity of in-service timber utility poles. Current design codes do not highlight a pole’s strength performance due to different types of damage. However, damages typically found in ageing timber poles, such as damage due to fungus or termite attack, have very different characteristics and result in various effects on the strength properties of timber poles. Hence, the presented study investigates the influence of typical common types of damage to the strength properties and load capacities of timber utility poles. The study considers the damage type, location and severity. Wind load is considered as critical load due to the practical issue. The research shows that external damages at ground level significantly affect the load capacity of a timber pole. While internal damage, such as termite nests, has less influence on the load capacity regardless of the damage location and severity