Nonlinear intensification of monsoon low pressure systems by the BSISO

More than half of the rainfall brought to the Indian subcontinent by the summer monsoon is associated with low-pressure systems (LPSs). Yet their relationship with the Boreal Summer Intraseasonal Oscillation (BSISO) &ndash; the dominant intraseasonal forcing on the monsoon &ndash; is only superficially understood. Using reanalysis data, we explore the relationship between the BSISO and LPS intensity, propagation, and precipitation, and associated underlying mechanisms. The BSISO has a large impact on mean monsoon vorticity and rainfall as it moves northward &ndash; maximising both in phases 2&ndash;3 over southern India and phases 5&ndash;6 over northern India &ndash; but a much weaker relationship with total column water vapour. We present evidence that LPS genesis also preferentially follows these phases of the BSISO. We identify significant relationships between BSISO phase and LPS precipitation and propagation: for example, during BSISO phase 5, LPSs over north India produce 51 % heavier rainfall and propagate northwestward 20 % more quickly. Using a combination of moisture flux linearisation and quasigeostrophic theory, we show that these relationships are driven by changes to the underlying dynamics, rather than the moisture content or thermodynamic structure, of the monsoon. Using the example of LPSs over northern India during BSISO phase 5, we show that the vertical structure of anomalous vorticity can be split into contributions from the BSISO and the nonlinear response of the LPS to anomalous BSISO circulation. Complementary hypotheses emerge about the source of this nonlinear vorticity response: nonlinear frictional convergence and secondary barotropic growth. We show that both are important. The BSISO imparts greater meridional shear on the background state, supporting LPS intensification. The BSISO background and nonlinear LPS response both contribute significantly to anomalous boundary layer convergence, and we show through vortex budget arguments that the former supports additional LPS intensification in boundary layer while the latter supports faster westward propagation. This work therefore yields important insights into the scale interactions controlling one of the dominant synoptic systems contributing to rainfall during the monsoon.</p

Modelling monsoons: understanding and predicting current and future behaviour

The global monsoon system is so varied and complex that understanding and predicting its diverse behaviour remains a challenge that will occupy modellers for many years to come. Despite the difficult task ahead, an improved monsoon modelling capability has been realized through the inclusion of more detailed physics of the climate system and higher resolution in our numerical models. Perhaps the most crucial improvement to date has been the development of coupled ocean-atmosphere models. From subseasonal to interdecadal time scales, only through the inclusion of air-sea interaction can the proper phasing and teleconnections of convection be attained with respect to sea surface temperature variations. Even then, the response to slow variations in remote forcings (e.g., El Niño—Southern Oscillation) does not result in a robust solution, as there are a host of competing modes of variability that must be represented, including those that appear to be chaotic. Understanding the links between monsoons and land surface processes is not as mature as that explored regarding air-sea interactions. A land surface forcing signal appears to dominate the onset of wet season rainfall over the North American monsoon region, though the relative role of ocean versus land forcing remains a topic of investigation in all the monsoon systems. Also, improved forecasts have been made during periods in which additional sounding observations are available for data assimilation. Thus, there is untapped predictability that can only be attained through the development of a more comprehensive observing system for all monsoon regions. Additionally, improved parameterizations - for example, of convection, cloud, radiation, and boundary layer schemes as well as land surface processes - are essential to realize the full potential of monsoon predictability. A more comprehensive assessment is needed of the impact of black carbon aerosols, which may modulate that of other anthropogenic greenhouse gases. Dynamical considerations require ever increased horizontal resolution (probably to 0.5 degree or higher) in order to resolve many monsoon features including, but not limited to, the Mei-Yu/Baiu sudden onset and withdrawal, low-level jet orientation and variability, and orographic forced rainfall. Under anthropogenic climate change many competing factors complicate making robust projections of monsoon changes. Absent aerosol effects, increased land-sea temperature contrast suggests strengthened monsoon circulation due to climate change. However, increased aerosol emissions will reflect more solar radiation back to space, which may temper or even reduce the strength of monsoon circulations compared to the present day. Precipitation may behave independently from the circulation under warming conditions in which an increased atmospheric moisture loading, based purely on thermodynamic considerations, could result in increased monsoon rainfall under climate change. The challenge to improve model parameterizations and include more complex processes and feedbacks pushes computing resources to their limit, thus requiring continuous upgrades of computational infrastructure to ensure progress in understanding and predicting current and future behaviour of monsoons

Exploring the Effects of a Single Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) Workshop in Elite Blind Soccer Players

Research examining the effects of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) on athletic performance is emerging. There exists however, a paucity of research exploring psychological interventions within specialized sport populations. Our present study investigated the effects of a single REBT workshop, including intellectual and practical insight into the ABC(DE) framework on psychological, physiological, and performance markers within an elite blind soccer team. Using a within-participant pretest-posttest crossover design in an ecologically valid setting, data indicated small and immediate reductions in irrational beliefs, perceived helpfulness of pre-performance anxiety, and physiological markers (i.e., Systolic Blood Pressure) prior to a penalty-kick simulation. However, no substantial changes were shown in penalty-kick performance. In sum, although the findings elucidate some benefits of a single REBT workshop, the educational insight into the ABC(DE) framework was deemed insufficient for meaningful changes in outcome measures. Practical implications and recommendations for future researchers are discussed

The impact of travel time to cancer treatment centre on post-diagnosis care and mortality among cancer patients in Scotland

Funding This research was supported by a grant from NHS Grampian Endowment Fund (Grant no.16/11/017). The funder had no role in the design and conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis and interpretation of the data; preprataion, review or approval of the manuscript; or the decision to submit the manuscript for publication. For the purpose of open access, the author has applied a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising from this submission.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

A comprehensive analysis of coherent rainfall patterns in China and potential drivers. Part I: interannual variability

Interannual rainfall variability in China affects agriculture, infrastructure and water resource management. To improve its understanding and prediction, many studies have associated precipitation variability with particular causes for specific seasons and regions. Here, a consistent and objective method, Empirical Orthogonal Teleconnection (EOT) analysis, is applied to 1951–2007 high-resolution precipitation observations over China in all seasons. Instead of maximizing the explained space–time variance, the method identifies regions in China that best explain the temporal variability in domain-averaged rainfall. The EOT method is validated by the reproduction of known relationships to the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO): high positive correlations with ENSO are found in eastern China in winter, along the Yangtze River in summer, and in southeast China during spring. New findings include that wintertime rainfall variability along the southeast coast is associated with anomalous convection over the tropical eastern Atlantic and communicated to China through a zonal wavenumber-three Rossby wave. Furthermore, spring rainfall variability in the Yangtze valley is related to upper-tropospheric midlatitude perturbations that are part of a Rossby wave pattern with its origin in the North Atlantic. A circumglobal wave pattern in the northern hemisphere is also associated with autumn precipitation variability in eastern areas. The analysis is objective, comprehensive, and produces timeseries that are tied to specific locations in China. This facilitates the interpretation of associated dynamical processes, is useful for understanding the regional hydrological cycle, and allows the results to serve as a benchmark for assessing general circulation models

Skilful seasonal predictions of Global Monsoon summer precipitation with DePreSys3

We assess skill of the Met Office’s DePreSys3 prediction system at forecasting summer global monsoon precipitation at the seasonal time scale (2-5 month forecast period). DePreSys3 has significant skill at predicting summer monsoon precipitation (r=0.68), but the skill varies by region and is higher in the northern (r=0.68) rather than in the southern hemisphere (r=0.44). To understand the sources of precipitation forecast skill, we decompose the precipitation into several dynamic and thermodynamic components and assess the skill in predicting each. While dynamical changes of the atmospheric circulation primarily contribute to global monsoon variability, skill at predicting shifts in the atmospheric circulation is relatively low. This lower skill partly relates to DePreSys3’s limited ability to accurately simulate changes in atmospheric circulation patterns in response to sea surface temperature forcing. Skill at predicting the thermodynamic component of precipitation is generally higher than for the dynamic component, but thermodynamic anomalies only contribute a small proportion of the total precipitation variability. Finally, we show that the use of a large ensemble improves skill for predicting monsoon precipitation, but skill does not increase beyond 20 members

AlbaTraDIS:Comparative analysis of large datasets from parallel transposon mutagenesis experiments

Bacteria need to survive in a wide range of environments. Currently, there is an incomplete understanding of the genetic basis for mechanisms underpinning survival in stressful conditions, such as the presence of anti-microbials. Transposon directed insertion-site sequencing (TraDIS) is a powerful tool to identify genes and networks which are involved in survival and fitness under a given condition by simultaneously assaying the fitness of millions of mutants, thereby relating genotype to phenotype and contributing to an understanding of bacterial cell biology. A recent refinement of this approach allows the roles of essential genes in conditional stress survival to be inferred by altering their expression. These advancements combined with the rapidly falling costs of sequencing now allows comparisons between multiple experiments to identify commonalities in stress responses to different conditions. This capacity however poses a new challenge for analysis of multiple data sets in conjunction. To address this analysis need, we have developed 'AlbaTraDIS'; a software application for rapid large-scale comparative analysis of TraDIS experiments that predicts the impact of transposon insertions on nearby genes. AlbaTraDIS can identify genes which are up or down regulated, or inactivated, between multiple conditions, producing a filtered list of genes for further experimental validation as well as several accompanying data visualisations. We demonstrate the utility of our new approach by applying it to identify genes used by Escherichia coli to survive in a wide range of different concentrations of the biocide Triclosan. AlbaTraDIS identified all well characterised Triclosan resistance genes, including the primary target, fabI. A number of new loci were also implicated in Triclosan resistance and the predicted phenotypes for a selection of these were validated experimentally with results being consistent with predictions. AlbaTraDIS provides a simple and rapid method to analyse multiple transposon mutagenesis data sets allowing this technology to be used at large scale. To our knowledge this is the only tool currently available that can perform these tasks. AlbaTraDIS is written in Python 3 and is available under the open source licence GNU GPL 3 from https://github.com/quadram-institute-bioscience/albatradis

A remarkable long-term light curve, and deep, low-state spectroscopy: Swift & XMM-Newton monitoring of the NLS1 galaxy Mkn 335

The Narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxy (NLS1) Mkn 335 is remarkable because it has repeatedly shown deep, long X-ray low-states which show pronounced spectral structure. It has become one of the prototype AGN in deep minimum X-ray states. Here we report on the continuation of our ongoing monitoring campaign with Swift and the examination of the low state X-ray spectra based on a 200 ks triggered observation with XMM in June 2009. Swift has continuously monitored Mkn 335 since May 2007 typically on a monthly basis. This is one of the longest simultaneous UV/X-ray light curves so far obtained for an active galactic nucleus (AGN). Mkn 335 has shown strong X-ray variability even on time scales of hours. In the UV, it turns out to be one of the most variable among NLS1s. Long-term Swift monitoring allow us to examine correlations between the UV, X-rays and X-ray hardness ratios. We find no significant correlation or lag between the UV and X-ray variability; however, we do find distinct trends in the behavior of the hardness ratio variability. The hardness ratio and count rate are correlated in the low-flux state, but no correlation is seen in the high-state. The X-ray low-state spectra of the 2007 and 2009 XMM observations display significant spectral variability. We fit the X-ray spectra with a suite of phenomenological models in order to characterize the data. The broad band CCD spectrum can be fitted equally well with partial absorption and blurred reflection models. These more complicated models are explored in further detail in upcoming work.Comment: 23 pages, 8 figures, 4 Tables, ApJ Suppl. accepte

Revision of the African cichlid fish genus Ctenochromis (Teleostei, Cichliformes), including a description of the new genus Shuja from Lake Tanganyika and the new species Ctenochromis scatebra from northern Tanzania

Molecular phylogenetic evidence clearly resolves the African cichlid fish genus Ctenochromis, as defined by Greenwood (1979), as paraphyletic. Here, we redefine the genus Ctenochromis and assign Ctenochromis horei, a member of the Tropheini from Lake Tanganyika, to a new genus Shuja gen. nov. We restrict Ctenochromis to Ctenochromis pectoralis and Ctenochromis scatebra sp. nov., both of which are endemic to the Pangani River catchment in northern Tanzania, and are resolved as sister taxa in a phylogenetic analysis using genome-wide data. Ctenochromis pectoralis is the type species of the genus and described from specimens collected near Korogwe, Tanzania. The species was declared extinct in a 2016 IUCN Red List Assessment. We confirm the continued presence of a population of C. pectoralis within the Ruvu tributary linking Lake Jipe to Nyumba ya Mungu Reservoir. The new taxon Ctenochromis scatebra sp. nov. is described from Chemka Springs, and recognised on the basis of differences from C. pectoralis in tooth and jaw morphology