Orographic and convective gravity waves above the Alps and Andes mountains during GPS radio occultation events – a case study

The significant distortions introduced in the measured atmospheric gravity wavelengths by soundings other than in vertical and horizontal directions, are discussed as a function of elevation angle of the sounding path and the gravity waves aspect ratio. Under- or overestimation of real vertical wavelengths during the measurement process depends basically on the value of these two parameters. The consequences of these distortions on the calculation of the energy and vertical flux of horizontal momentum are analyzed and discussed in the context of two experimental limb satellite setups: GPS-LEO radio occultations and TIMED/SABER measurements. Possible discrepancies previously found between the momentum flux calculated from satellite temperature profiles, on site and from model simulations, may, to a certain degree, be attributed to these distortions. A recalculation of previous momentum flux climatologies based on these considerations seems to be a difficult goal.Fil: Hierro, Rodrigo Federico. Universidad Austral. Facultad de Ingeniería. Departamento de Ciencias Básicas; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Steiner, Andrea K.. Universidad de Graz; AustriaFil: de la Torre, Alejandro. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad Austral. Facultad de Ingeniería. Departamento de Ciencias Básicas; ArgentinaFil: Alexander, Pedro Manfredo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Física de Buenos Aires. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Física de Buenos Aires; ArgentinaFil: Llamedo Soria, Pablo Martin. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad Austral. Facultad de Ingeniería. Departamento de Ciencias Básicas; ArgentinaFil: Cremades, Pablo Gabriel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales; Argentin

Connecting atmospheric blocking to European temperature extremes in spring

Atmospheric blocking is an important contributor to European temperature variability. It can trigger cold and warm spells, which is of specific relevance in spring because vegetation is particularly vulnerable to extreme temperatures in the growing season. The spring season is investigated as a transition period from predominant connections of blocking with cold spells in winter to predominant connections of blocking with warm spells in summer. Extreme temperatures are termed cold or warm spells if temperature stays outside the 10th to 90th percentile range for at least six consecutive days. Cold and warm spells in Europe over 1979–2014 are analyzed in observations from the European daily high-resolution gridded dataset (E-OBS) and the connection to blocking is examined in geopotential height fields from ERA-Interim. A highly significant link between blocking and cold and warm spells is found that changes during spring. Blocking over the northeastern Atlantic and Scandinavia is correlated with the occurrence of cold spells in Europe, particularly early in spring, whereas blocking over central Europe is associated with warmer conditions, particularly from March onward. The location of the block also impacts the spatial distribution of temperature extremes. More than 80% of cold spells in southeastern Europe occur during blocking whereas warm spells are correlated with blocking mainly in northern Europe. Over the analysis period, substantial interannual variability is found but also a decrease in cold spells and an increase in warm spells. The long-term change to a warmer climate holds the potential for even higher vulnerability to spring cold extremes

Profiling Sterols in Cerebrotendinous Xanthomatosis: Utility of Girard Derivatization and High Resolution Exact Mass LC-ESI-MSn Analysis

In this study we profile free 3-oxo sterols present in plasma from patients affected with the neurodegenerative disorder of sterol and bile acid metabolism cerebrotendinous xanthomatosis (CTX), utilizing a combination of charge-tagging and LC-ESI-MSn performed with an LTQ-Orbitrap Discovery instrument. In addition, we profile sterols in plasma from 24-month-old cyp27A1 gene knockout mice lacking the enzyme defective in CTX. Charge-tagging was accomplished by reaction with cationic Girard\u27s P (GP) reagent 1-(carboxymethyl) pyridinium chloride hydrazide, an approach uniquely suited to studying the 3-oxo sterols that accumulate in CTX, as Girard\u27s reagent reacts with the sterol oxo moiety to form charged hydrazone derivatives. The ability to selectively generate GP-tagged 3-oxo-4-ene and 3-oxo-5(H) saturated plasma sterols enabled ESI-MSn analysis of these sterols in the presence of a large excess (3 orders of magnitude) of cholesterol. Often cholesterol detected in biological samples makes it challenging to quantify minor sterols, with cholesterol frequently removed prior to analysis. We derivatized plasma (10μl) without SPE removal of cholesterol to ensure detection of all sterols present in plasma. We were able to measure 4-cholesten-3-one in plasma from untreated CTX patients (1207±302ng/ml, mean±SD, n=4), as well as other intermediates in a proposed pathway to 5α-cholestanol. In addition, a number of bile acid precursors were identified in plasma using this technique. GP-tagged sterols were identified utilizing high resolution exact mass spectra (±5ppm), as well as MS2 ([M]+→) spectra that possessed characteristic neutral loss of 79Da (pyridine) fragment ions, and MS3 ([M]+→[M-79]+→) spectra that provided additional structurally informative fragment ions. © 2010 Elsevier B.V

The power of vertical geolocation of atmospheric profiles from GNSS radio occultation

Abstract High‐resolution measurements from Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) radio occultation (RO) provide atmospheric profiles with independent information on altitude and pressure. This unique property is of crucial advantage when analyzing atmospheric characteristics that require joint knowledge of altitude and pressure or other thermodynamic atmospheric variables. Here we introduce and demonstrate the utility of this independent information from RO and discuss the computation, uncertainty, and use of RO atmospheric profiles on isohypsic coordinates—mean sea level altitude and geopotential height—as well as on thermodynamic coordinates (pressure and potential temperature). Using geopotential height as vertical grid, we give information on errors of RO‐derived temperature, pressure, and potential temperature profiles and provide an empirical error model which accounts for seasonal and latitudinal variations. The observational uncertainty of individual temperature/pressure/potential temperature profiles is about 0.7 K/0.15%/1.4 K in the tropopause region. It gradually increases into the stratosphere and decreases toward the lower troposphere. This decrease is due to the increasing influence of background information. The total climatological error of mean atmospheric fields is, in general, dominated by the systematic error component. We use sampling error‐corrected climatological fields to demonstrate the power of having different and accurate vertical coordinates available. As examples we analyze characteristics of the location of the tropopause for geopotential height, pressure, and potential temperature coordinates as well as seasonal variations of the midlatitude jet stream core. This highlights the broad applicability of RO and the utility of its versatile vertical geolocation for investigating the vertical structure of the troposphere and stratosphere

Revisiting the Mystery of Recent Stratospheric Temperature Trends

Simulated stratospheric temperatures over the period 1979–2016 in models from the Chemistry-Climate Model Initiative are compared with recently updated and extended satellite data sets. The multimodel mean global temperature trends over 1979–2005 are -0.88 ± 0.23, -0.70 ± 0.16, and -0.50 ± 0.12 K/decade for the Stratospheric Sounding Unit (SSU) channels 3 (~40–50 km), 2 (~35–45 km), and 1 (~25–35 km), respectively (with 95% confidence intervals). These are within the uncertainty bounds of the observed temperature trends from two reprocessed SSU data sets. In the lower stratosphere, the multimodel mean trend in global temperature for the Microwave Sounding Unit channel 4 (~13–22 km) is -0.25 ± 0.12 K/decade over 1979–2005, consistent with observed estimates from three versions of this satellite record. The models and an extended satellite data set comprised of SSU with the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit-A show weaker global stratospheric cooling over 1998–2016 compared to the period of intensive ozone depletion (1979–1997). This is due to the reduction in ozone-induced cooling from the slowdown of ozone trends and the onset of ozone recovery since the late 1990s. In summary, the results show much better consistency between simulated and satellite-observed stratospheric temperature trends than was reported by Thompson et al. (2012, https://doi.org/10.1038/nature11579) for the previous versions of the SSU record and chemistry-climate models. The improved agreement mainly comes from updates to the satellite records; the range of stratospheric temperature trends over 1979–2005 simulated in Chemistry-Climate Model Initiative models is comparable to the previous generation of chemistry-climate models

Tropical Temperature Variability in the UTLS: New Insights from GPS Radio Occultation Observations

AbstractGlobal positioning system (GPS) radio occultation (RO) observations, first made of Earth's atmosphere in 1995, have contributed in new ways to the understanding of the thermal structure and variability of the tropical upper troposphere–lower stratosphere (UTLS), an important component of the climate system. The UTLS plays an essential role in the global radiative balance, the exchange of water vapor, ozone, and other chemical constituents between the troposphere and stratosphere, and the transfer of energy from the troposphere to the stratosphere. With their high accuracy, precision, vertical resolution, and global coverage, RO observations are uniquely suited for studying the UTLS and a broad range of equatorial waves, including gravity waves, Kelvin waves, Rossby and mixed Rossby–gravity waves, and thermal tides. Because RO measurements are nearly unaffected by clouds, they also resolve the upper-level thermal structure of deep convection and tropical cyclones as well as volcanic clouds. Their low biases and stability from mission to mission make RO observations powerful tools for studying climate variability and trends, including the annual cycle and intraseasonal-to-interannual atmospheric modes of variability such as the quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO), Madden–Julian oscillation (MJO), and El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO). These properties also make them useful for evaluating climate models and detection of small trends in the UTLS temperature, key indicators of climate change. This paper reviews the contributions of RO observations to the understanding of the three-dimensional structure of tropical UTLS phenomena and their variability over time scales ranging from hours to decades and longer

Cell-type-specific profiling of protein-DNA interactions without cell isolation using targeted DamID with next-generation sequencing.

This protocol is an extension to: Nat. Protoc. 2, 1467-1478 (2007); doi:10.1038/nprot.2007.148; published online 7 June 2007The ability to profile transcription and chromatin binding in a cell-type-specific manner is a powerful aid to understanding cell-fate specification and cellular function in multicellular organisms. We recently developed targeted DamID (TaDa) to enable genome-wide, cell-type-specific profiling of DNA- and chromatin-binding proteins in vivo without cell isolation. As a protocol extension, this article describes substantial modifications to an existing protocol, and it offers additional applications. TaDa builds upon DamID, a technique for detecting genome-wide DNA-binding profiles of proteins, by coupling it with the GAL4 system in Drosophila to enable both temporal and spatial resolution. TaDa ensures that Dam-fusion proteins are expressed at very low levels, thus avoiding toxicity and potential artifacts from overexpression. The modifications to the core DamID technique presented here also increase the speed of sample processing and throughput, and adapt the method to next-generation sequencing technology. TaDa is robust, reproducible and highly sensitive. Compared with other methods for cell-type-specific profiling, the technique requires no cell-sorting, cross-linking or antisera, and binding profiles can be generated from as few as 10,000 total induced cells. By profiling the genome-wide binding of RNA polymerase II (Pol II), TaDa can also identify transcribed genes in a cell-type-specific manner. Here we describe a detailed protocol for carrying out TaDa experiments and preparing the material for next-generation sequencing. Although we developed TaDa in Drosophila, it should be easily adapted to other organisms with an inducible expression system. Once transgenic animals are obtained, the entire experimental procedure-from collecting tissue samples to generating sequencing libraries-can be accomplished within 5 d.This work was funded by a Wellcome Trust Senior Investigator Award (103792), Wellcome Trust Programme Grant (092545) and BBSRC Project Grant (BB/L00786X/1) to A.H.B. A.H.B acknowledges core funding to the Gurdon Institute from the Wellcome Trust (092096) and CRUK (C6946/A14492).This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Nature Publishing Group via http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nprot.2016.08