What is the climate system able to do ‘on its own’?

The climate of the Earth, like planetary climates in general, is broadly controlled by solar irradiation, planetary albedo and emissivity as well as its rotation rate and distribution of land (with its orography) and oceans. However, the majority of climate fluctuations that affect mankind are internal modes of the general circulation of the atmosphere and the oceans. Some of these modes, such as El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), are quasi-regular and have some longer-term predictive skill; others like the Arctic and Antarctic Oscillation are chaotic and generally unpredictable beyond a few weeks. Studies using general circulation models indicate that internal processes dominate the regional climate and that some like ENSO events have even distinct global signatures. This is one of the reasons why it is so difficult to separate internal climate processes from external ones caused, for example, by changes in greenhouse gases and solar irradiation. However, the accumulation of the warmest seasons during the latest two decades is lending strong support to the forcing of the greenhouse gases. As models are getting more comprehensive, they show a gradually broader range of internal processes including those on longer time scales, challenging the interpretation of the causes of past and present climate events further

NaV_2O_5 as an Anisotropic t-J Ladder at Quarter Filling

Based on recent experimental evidences that the electronic charge degrees of freedom plays an essential role in the spin-Peierls--like phase transition of NaV$_2$O$_5$, we first make the mapping of low-energy electronic states of the $d$$-$$p$ model for NaV$_2$O$_5$ to the quarter-filled $t$$-$$J$ ladder with anisotropic parameter values between legs and rungs, and then show that this anisotropic $t$$-$$J$ ladder is in the Mott insulating state, of which lowest-energy states can be modeled by the one-dimensional Heisenberg antiferromagnet with the effective exchange interaction $J_{eff}$ whose value is consistent with experimental estimates. We furthermore examine the coupling between the ladders as the trellis lattice model and show that the nearest-neighbor Coulomb repulsion on the zigzag-chain bonds can lead to the instability in the charge degrees of freedom of the ladders.Comment: 4 pages, 5 gif figures. Fig.3 corrected. Hardcopies of figures (or the entire manuscript) can be obtained by e-mail request to [email protected]

Using electronic structure changes to map the H-T phase diagram of alpha'-NaV2O5

We report polarized optical reflectance studies of \alpha'-NaV2O5 as a function of temperature (4-45 K) and magnetic field (0-60 T). Rung directed electronic structure changes, as measured by near-infrared reflectance ratios \Delta R(H)=R(H)/R(H=0 T), are especially sensitive to the phase boundaries. We employ these changes to map out an H-T phase diagram. Topological highlights include the observation of two phase boundaries slightly below T_{SG}, enhanced curvature of the 34 K phase boundary above 35 T, and, surprisingly, strong hysteresis effects of both transitions with applied field.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, PRB accepte

The evolution of interstellar clouds in a streaming hot plasma including heat conduction

To examine the evolution of giant molecular clouds in the stream of a hot plasma we performed two-dimensional hydrodynamical simulations that take full account of self-gravity, heating and cooling effects and heat conduction by electrons. We use the thermal conductivity of a fully ionized hydrogen plasma proposed by Spitzer and a saturated heat flux according to Cowie & McKee in regions where the mean free path of the electrons is large compared to the temperature scaleheight. Significant structural and evolutionary differences occur between simulations with and without heat conduction. Dense clouds in pure dynamical models experience dynamical destruction by Kelvin-Helmholtz (KH) instability. In static models heat conduction leads to evaporation of such clouds. Heat conduction acting on clouds in a gas stream smooths out steep temperature and density gradients at the edge of the cloud because the conduction timescale is shorter than the cooling timescale. This diminishes the velocity gradient between the streaming plasma and the cloud, so that the timescale for the onset of KH instabilities increases, and the surface of the cloud becomes less susceptible to KH instabilities. The stabilisation effect of heat conduction against KH instability is more pronounced for smaller and less massive clouds. As in the static case more realistic cloud conditions allow heat conduction to transfer hot material onto the cloud's surface and to mix the accreted gas deeper into the cloud.Comment: 19 pages, 12 figures, accepted in Astronomy and Astrophysic

Global distribution and bioclimatic characterization of alpine biomes

Although there is a general consensus on the distribution and ecological features of terrestrial biomes, the allocation of alpine ecosystems in the global biogeographic system is still unclear. Here, we delineate a global map of alpine areas above the treeline by modelling regional treeline elevation at 30 m resolution, using global forest cover data and quantile regression. We then used global datasets to 1) assess the climatic characteristics of alpine ecosystems using principal component analysis, 2) define bioclimatic groups by an optimized cluster analysis and 3) evaluate patterns of primary productivity based on the normalized difference vegetation index. As defined here, alpine biomes cover 3.56 Mkm(2) or 2.64% of land outside Antarctica. Despite temperature differences across latitude, these ecosystems converge below a sharp threshold of 5.9 degrees C and towards the colder end of the global climatic space. Below that temperature threshold, alpine ecosystems are influenced by a latitudinal gradient of mean annual temperature and they are climatically differentiated by seasonality and continentality. This gradient delineates a climatic envelope of global alpine biomes around temperate, boreal and tundra biomes as defined in Whittaker's scheme. Although alpine biomes are similarly dominated by poorly vegetated areas, world ecoregions show strong differences in the productivity of their alpine belt irrespectively of major climate zones. These results suggest that vegetation structure and function of alpine ecosystems are driven by regional and local contingencies in addition to macroclimatic factors

Chemical enrichment and star formation in the Milky Way disk III. Chemodynamical constraints

In this paper, we investigate some chemokinematical properties of the Milky Way disk, by using a sample composed by 424 late-type dwarfs. We show that the velocity dispersion of a stellar group correlates with the age of this group, according to a law proportional to t^0.26, where t is the age of the stellar group. The temporal evolution of the vertex deviation is considered in detail. It is shown that the vertex deviation does not seem to depend strongly on the age of the stellar group. Previous studies in the literature seem to not have found it due to the use of statistical ages for stellar groups, rather than individual ages. The possibility to use the orbital parameters of a star to derive information about its birthplace is investigated, and we show that the mean galactocentric radius is likely to be the most reliable stellar birthplace indicator. However, this information cannot be presently used to derive radial evolutionary constraints, due to an intrinsic bias present in all samples constructed from nearby stars. An extensive discussion of the secular and stochastic heating mechanisms commonly invoked to explain the age-velocity dispersion relation is presented. We suggest that the age-velocity dispersion relation could reflect the gradual decrease in the turbulent velocity dispersion from which disk stars form, a suggestion originally made by Tinsley and Larson (1978) and supported by several more recent disk evolution calculations. A test to distinguish between the two types of models using high-redshift galaxies is proposed.Comment: 20 pages, 10 encapsulated postscript figures, LaTeX, uses Astronomy and Astrophysics macro aa.cls, graphicx package, to be published in Astronomy and Astrophysics (2004), Also available at: http://www.astro.iag.usp.br/~macie

Dynamic Carboniferous tropical forests: new views of plant function and potential for physiological forcing of climate

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/138385/1/nph14700_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/138385/2/nph14700.pd