Bomb-pulse radiocarbon dating of modern paintings on canvas

Radiocarbon (14C) dating has previously been applied to modern paintings on canvas from the 20th century to identify potential modern forgeries, and dates indicate a time lag of several years between the harvesting of plant fibers for making canvas, and completion of a painting. This study investigated both the length of this time lag and the potential of 14C dating to inform about an individual artist’s mode of working (for example long-term storage or reuse of canvases, or extended reworking on a single canvas) and/or to establish a chronology for a corpus of work. Two pre-bomb and 16 post-bomb artworks by 17 mid-20th-century Scandinavian artists were 14C dated. The majority of post-bomb samples indicated a time lag of 2–5 years between the harvesting of the plants and completion of a painting, but some samples recorded lags of up to 10 years, and others produced much earlier results, potentially indicating the use of much older canvases or challenges removing contamination prior to dating. The importance of thorough pre-screening of canvas samples for both synthetic fibers and contaminants prior to dating, and selection of the most suitable calibration curve, are highlighted

Variations in the predicted spatial distribution of atmospheric nitrogen deposition and their impact on carbon uptake by terrestrial ecosystems

Widespread mobilization of nitrogen into the atmosphere from industry, agriculture, and biomass burning and its subsequent deposition have the potential to alleviate nitrogen limitation of productivity in terrestrial ecosystems, and may contribute to enhanced terrestrial carbon uptake. To evaluate the importance of the spatial distribution of nitrogen deposition for carbon uptake and to better quantify its magnitude and uncertainty NOy-N deposition fields from five different three-dimensional chemical models, GCTM, GRANTOUR, IMAGES, MOGUNTIA, and ECHAM were used to drive NDEP, a perturbation model of terrestrial carbon uptake. Differences in atmospheric sources of NOx-N, transport, resolution, and representation of chemistry, contribute to the distinct spatial patterns of nitrogen deposition on the global land surface; these differences lead to distinct patterns of carbon uptake that vary between 0.7 and 1.3 Gt C yr−1 globally. Less than 10% of the nitrogen was deposited on forests which were most able to respond with increased carbon storage because of the wide C:N ratio of wood as well as its long lifetime. Addition of NHx-N to NOy-N deposition, increased global terrestrial carbon storage to between 1.5 and 2.0 Gt C yr−1, while the “missing terrestrial sink” is quite similar in magnitude. Thus global air pollution appears to be an important influence on the global carbon cycle. If N fertilization of the terrestrial biosphere accounts for the “missing” C sink or a substantial portion of it, we would expect significant reductions in its magnitude over the next century as terrestrial ecosystems become N saturated and O3 pollution expands

String and M-theory Deformations of Manifolds with Special Holonomy

The R^4-type corrections to ten and eleven dimensional supergravity required by string and M-theory imply corrections to supersymmetric supergravity compactifications on manifolds of special holonomy, which deform the metric away from the original holonomy. Nevertheless, in many such cases, including Calabi-Yau compactifications of string theory and G_2-compactifications of M-theory, it has been shown that the deformation preserves supersymmetry because of associated corrections to the supersymmetry transformation rules, Here, we consider Spin(7) compactifications in string theory and M-theory, and a class of non-compact SU(5) backgrounds in M-theory. Supersymmetry survives in all these cases too, despite the fact that the original special holonomy is perturbed into general holonomy in each case.Comment: Improved discussion of SU(5) holonomy backgrounds. Other minor typos corrected. Latex with JHEP3.cls, 42 page

Micro-fading spectrometry: investigating the wavelength specificity of fading

A modified microfading spectrometer incorporating a linear variable filter is used to investigate the wavelength dependence of fading of traditional watercolour pigments, dosimeters and fading standards at a higher spectral resolution and/or sampling than had previously been attempted. While the wavelength dependence of photochemical damage was largely found to correlate well with the absorption spectra of each material, exceptions were found in the case of Prussian blue and Prussian green pigments (the latter includes Prussian blue), for which an anti-correlation between the spectral colour change and the absorption spectrum was found

Record-setting Cosmic-ray Intensities in 2009 and 2010

We report measurements of record-setting intensities of cosmic-ray nuclei from C to Fe, made with the Cosmic Ray Isotope Spectrometer carried on the Advanced Composition Explorer in orbit about the inner Sun-Earth Lagrangian point. In the energy interval from ~70 to ~450 MeV nucleon^(–1), near the peak in the near-Earth cosmic-ray spectrum, the measured intensities of major species from C to Fe were each 20%-26% greater in late 2009 than in the 1997-1998 minimum and previous solar minima of the space age (1957-1997). The elevated intensities reported here and also at neutron monitor energies were undoubtedly due to several unusual aspects of the solar cycle 23/24 minimum, including record-low interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) intensities, an extended period of reduced IMF turbulence, reduced solar-wind dynamic pressure, and extremely low solar activity during an extended solar minimum. The estimated parallel diffusion coefficient for cosmic-ray transport based on measured solar-wind properties was 44% greater in 2009 than in the 1997-1998 solar-minimum period. In addition, the weaker IMF should result in higher cosmic-ray drift velocities. Cosmic-ray intensity variations at 1 AU are found to lag IMF variations by 2-3 solar rotations, indicating that significant solar modulation occurs inside ~20 AU, consistent with earlier galactic cosmic-ray radial-gradient measurements. In 2010, the intensities suddenly decreased to 1997 levels following increases in solar activity and in the inclination of the heliospheric current sheet. We describe the conditions that gave cosmic rays greater access to the inner solar system and discuss some of their implications

Radiation modeling in the Earth and Mars atmospheres using LRO/CRaTER with the EMMREM Module

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/106766/1/swe20121.pd

Analysis of the potential radiation hazard of the 23 July 2012 SEP event observed by STEREO A using the EMMREM model and LRO/CRaTER

We present a study of the potential radiation hazard of the powerful, superfast interplanetary coronal mass ejection (ICME) observed by STEREO A on 23 July 2012. Using energetic proton flux data from the High Energy Telescope and Low Energy Telescope instruments aboard STEREO A together with the Earth-Moon-Mars Radiation Environment Module, we compute dose rates and accumulated doses during the event for both skin/eye and blood forming organs using four physically relevant levels of shielding. For spacesuit equivalent shielding, we compute a peak skin/eye dose rate of 1970 cGy-Eq/d, a value far greater than those of the 2003 Halloween storms or the January and March solar energetic particle events of 2012. However, due to the relative brevity of the event, the resulting accumulated dose was just 383 cGy-Eq, which is more aligned with the total doses of the 2003 Halloween and 2012 January/March events. Additionally, we use dose rates at STEREO B and Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter/Cosmic Ray Telescope for the Effects of Radiation (LRO/CRaTER) during the event to show how the radiation impact is affected by the position of the ICME relative to the observer. Specifically, we find that the energetic particle event associated with the local shock and ICME passage at STEREO A caused greatly enhanced dose rates when compared to STEREO B and LRO/CRaTER, which were longitudinally distant from the ICME. The STEREO A/B dose rates used here will soon be made available to the community as a tool for studying the energetic particle radiation of solar events from different longitudes as a part of NASA's Heliophysics Virtual Observatories and on the Predictions of radiation from REleASE, EMMREM, and Data Incorporating CRaTER, COSTEP, and other SEP measurements (PREDICCS) and CRaTER websites

Observations of storm-induced mixing and Gulf Stream Ring incursion over the southern flank of Georges Bank : winter and summer 1997

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2010. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research 115 (2010): C08008, doi:10.1029/2009JC005706.High-resolution hydrographic measurements collected along the southern edge of Georges Bank during March and June–July 1997 focused on characterizing processes that drive fluxes of material between the slope and bank. Wintertime sampling characterized changes driven by a strong storm. A Scotian Shelf crossover event produced a ribbon of anomalously fresh water along the bank's southern flank that was diluted during the storm. Comparison of prestorm and poststorm sections shows that over the bank changes in heat and salt inventories are consistent with those expected solely from local surface fluxes. In deeper waters, advective effects, likely associated with frontal motion and eddies, are clearly important. Summertime surveys resolve the development of a massive intrusion of Gulf Stream-like waters onto the bank. East of the intrusion, a thin extrusion of bank water is drawn outward by the developing ring, exporting fresher water at a rate of about 7 × 104 m3/s. A large-amplitude Gulf Stream meander appears to initiate the extrusion, but it quickly evolves, near the bank edge, into a warm core ring. Ring water intrudes to approximately the 80 m isobath, 40 km inshore from the bank edge. The intrusion process seems analogous to the development of Gulf Stream shingles (a hydrodynamic instability) in the South Atlantic Bight. It appears that, once the intruded water is established on the bank, it remains there and dissipates in place. Although the intrusion is an extremely dramatic event, it is probably not actually a major contributor to shelf edge exchanges over a seasonal time scale.This work was supported by the National Science Foundation as part of the U.S. Global Ocean Ecosystems Dynamics (GLOBEC) program through grant OCE-9632349. Lee received additional support from OCE-0628379

Galactic cosmic radiation in the interplanetary space through a modern secular minimum

Recent solar conditions indicate a persistent decline in solar activity—possibly similar to thepast solar grand minima. During such periods of low solar activity, the fluxes of galactic cosmic rays(GCRs) increase remarkably, presenting a hazard for long-term crewed space missions. We used data fromthe Cosmic Ray Telescope for the Effects of Radiation (CRaTER) on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter(LRO) to examine the correlation between the heliospheric magnetic field, solar wind speed, and solarmodulation potential of the GCRs through Cycle 24. We used this correlation to project observations frompast secular solar minima, including the Dalton minimum (1790–1830) and the Gleissberg minimum(1890–1920), into the next cycle. For the case of conditions similar to the Dalton (or Gleissberg) minimum,the heliospheric magnetic field could drop to 3.61 (or 4.06) nT, leading to a dose rate increase of75% (or34%). We showed that accounting for a floor in the modulation potential, invoked by the Badhwar-O'Neill2014 model, moderates the projected radiation levels in Cycle 25. We used these results to determine themost conservative permissible mission duration (PMD,290.4+37.7−35.9and 204.3+26.6−25.2days for 45-year-old maleand female astronauts, respectively) based on a 3% risk of exposure-induced death (REID) at the upper95% confidence interval in interplanetary space

Oxidised cosmic acceleration

We give detailed proofs of several new no-go theorems for constructing flat four-dimensional accelerating universes from warped dimensional reduction. These new theorems improve upon previous ones by weakening the energy conditions, by including time-dependent compactifications, and by treating accelerated expansion that is not precisely de Sitter. We show that de Sitter expansion violates the higher-dimensional null energy condition (NEC) if the compactification manifold M is one-dimensional, if its intrinsic Ricci scalar R vanishes everywhere, or if R and the warp function satisfy a simple limit condition. If expansion is not de Sitter, we establish threshold equation-of-state parameters w below which accelerated expansion must be transient. Below the threshold w there are bounds on the number of e-foldings of expansion. If M is one-dimensional or R everywhere vanishing, exceeding the bound implies the NEC is violated. If R does not vanish everywhere on M, exceeding the bound implies the strong energy condition (SEC) is violated. Observationally, the w thresholds indicate that experiments with finite resolution in w can cleanly discriminate between different models which satisfy or violate the relevant energy conditions.Comment: v2: corrections, references adde