U.S. East Coast Trough Indices at 500 hPa and New England Winter Climate Variability

Using monthly gridded 500-hPa data, two synoptic indices are defined to better understand the principle mechanisms controlling intraseasonal to multiannual winter climate variability in NewEngland (NE). The “trough axis index” (TAI) is created to quantify the mean longitudinal position of the common East Coast pressure trough, and the “trough intensity index” (TII) is calculated to estimate the relative amplitude of this trough at 42.5°N. The TAI and TII are then compared with records for NE regional winter precipitation, temperature, and snowfall with the goal of understanding physical mechanisms linking NE winter climate with regional sea surface temperatures (SST), the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), and the Pacific–North American (PNA) teleconnection pattern. The TAI correlates most significantly with winter precipitation at inland sites, such that a western (eastern)trough axis position is associated with greater (lower) average monthly precipitation. Also, significant correlations between the TAI and both NE regional SSTs and the NAO suggest that longitudinal shifting of the trough is one possible mechanism linking the North Atlantic with NE regional winterclimate variability. The NE winter temperature is significantly correlated with the TII, regional SSTs, and the NAO. While the PNA also correlates with the TII, NE winter climate variables are apparently unrelated to the PNA index

Is New Hampshire\u27s climate warming?

This Carsey brief looks at temperature anomalies across New Hampshire and shows that not only is the state warmer than it has been in the past, but it is also warming faster than much of the planet. Sociologist Lawrence Hamilton, research associate professor Cameron Wake, and former NH state climatologist Barry Keim analyzed over 100 years of temperatures across the state to produce this data for the Carsey Institute in August 2010

Are there spurious temperature trends in the United States Climate Division database

The United States (U.S.) Climate Division data set is commonly used in applied climatic studies in the United States. The divisional averages are calculated by including all available stations within a division at any given time. The averages are therefore vulnerable to shifts in average station location or elevation over time, which may introduce spurious trends within these data. This paper examines temperature trends within the 15 climate divisions of New England, comparing the NCDC\u27s U.S. Divisional Data to the U.S. Historical Climate Network (USHCN) data. Correlation and multiple regression revealed that shifts in latitude, longitude, and elevation have affected the quality of the NCDC divisional data with respect to the USHCN. As a result, there may be issues with regard to their use in decadal- to century-scale climate change studies

Pre-main-sequence isochrones -- II. Revising star and planet formation timescales

We have derived ages for 13 young (<30 Myr) star-forming regions and find they are up to a factor two older than the ages typically adopted in the literature. This result has wide-ranging implications, including that circumstellar discs survive longer (~10-12 Myr) and that the average Class I lifetime is greater (~1 Myr) than currently believed. For each star-forming region we derived two ages from colour-magnitude diagrams. First we fitted models of the evolution between the zero-age main-sequence and terminal-age main-sequence to derive a homogeneous set of main-sequence ages, distances and reddenings with statistically meaningful uncertainties. Our second age for each star-forming region was derived by fitting pre-main-sequence stars to new semi-empirical model isochrones. For the first time (for a set of clusters younger than 50 Myr) we find broad agreement between these two ages, and since these are derived from two distinct mass regimes that rely on different aspects of stellar physics, it gives us confidence in the new age scale. This agreement is largely due to our adoption of empirical colour-Teff relations and bolometric corrections for pre-main-sequence stars cooler than 4000 K. The revised ages for the star-forming regions in our sample are: ~2 Myr for NGC 6611 (Eagle Nebula; M 16), IC 5146 (Cocoon Nebula), NGC 6530 (Lagoon Nebula; M 8), and NGC 2244 (Rosette Nebula); ~6 Myr for {\sigma} Ori, Cep OB3b, and IC 348; ~10 Myr for {\lambda} Ori (Collinder 69); ~11 Myr for NGC 2169; ~12 Myr for NGC 2362; ~13 Myr for NGC 7160; ~14 Myr for {\chi} Per (NGC 884); and ~20 Myr for NGC 1960 (M 36).Comment: 28 pages, 18 figures, 34 tables, accepted for publication in MNRAS. All photometric catalogues presented in this paper are available online at the Cluster Collaboration homepage http://www.astro.ex.ac.uk/people/timn/Catalogues

A lithium depletion boundary age of 22 Myr for NGC 1960

We present a deep Cousins RI photometric survey of the open cluster NGC 1960, complete to R_C \simeq 22, I_C \simeq 21, that is used to select a sample of very low-mass cluster candidates. Gemini spectroscopy of a subset of these is used to confirm membership and locate the age-dependent "lithium depletion boundary" (LDB) --the luminosity at which lithium remains unburned in its low-mass stars. The LDB implies a cluster age of 22 +/-4 Myr and is quite insensitive to choice of evolutionary model. NGC 1960 is the youngest cluster for which a LDB age has been estimated and possesses a well populated upper main sequence and a rich low-mass pre-main sequence. The LDB age determined here agrees well with precise age estimates made for the same cluster based on isochrone fits to its high- and low-mass populations. The concordance between these three age estimation techniques, that rely on different facets of stellar astrophysics at very different masses, is an important step towards calibrating the absolute ages of young open clusters and lends confidence to ages determined using any one of them.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRA

Toward a conceptual framework of emotional relationship marketing: an examination of two UK political parties

The purpose of this paper is to review the notion of branding and evaluate its applicability to political parties. As ideological politics is in decline, branding may provide a consistent narrative where voters feel a sense of warmth and belonging. The paper aims to build an understanding of the complexity of building a political brand where a combination of image, logo, leadership, and values can all contribute to a compelling brand narrative. It investigates how competing positive and negative messages attempt to build and distort the brand identity. A critical review of bran ding, relationship marketing, and political science literature articulates the conceptual development of branding and its applicability to political parties. The success or failure of negative campaigning is due to the authenticity of a political party’s brand values — creating a coherent brand story — if there is no distance between the brand values articulated by the political party and the values their community perceives then this creates an "authentic" brand. However, if there is a gap this paper illustrates how negative campaigning can be used to build a "doppelganger brand," which undermines the credibility of the authentic political brand. The paper argues that political parties need to understand how brand stories are developed but also how they can be used to protect against negative advertising. This has implications for political marketing strategists and political parties. This paper draws together branding theory and relationship marketing and incorporates them into a framework that makes a contribution to the political marketing literature

The Waldmeier Effect in Sunspot Cycles

We discuss two aspects of the Waldmeier Effect, namely (1) the rise times of sunspot cycles are anti-correlated to their strengths (WE1) and (2) the rates of rise of the cycles are correlated to their strengths (WE2). From analysis of four different data sets we conclude that both WE1 and WE2 exist in all the data sets. We study these effects theoretically by introducing suitable stochastic fluctuations in our regular solar dynamo model.Comment: Magnetic Coupling between the Interior and Atmosphere of the Sun; Astrophysics and Space Science Proceeding