Flood-driven CO2 emissions from adjacent North Carolina estuaries during Hurricane Joaquin (2015)

Extreme climatic events like floods and hurricanes have the potential to significantly alter coastal carbon cycling. However, due to the challenges associated with sampling these events, they can be difficult to incorporate into regional and global carbon budgets. To address this data gap, we bracket a major flooding event associated with the passing of Hurricane Joaquin (October 2015) with direct and high-resolution pCO2 measurements in the Neuse (NeuseRE) and New River Estuary (NewRE), North Carolina. Enhanced river discharge quickly flushed the relatively small NewRE, causing residence time to fall from 90 to 9 days, while the larger NeuseRE responded relatively slowly to flooding. This period of rapid flushing coincided with a significant increase in CO2 fluxes. The effect of cooler flood-waters, which reduce pCO2, was counteracted by allochthonous DIC inputs, which drove large increases in pCO2 relative to dissolved O2. The spatial distribution of carbonate buffering differed between estuaries, enhancing CO2 fluxes in the NewRE (178 mmol C m−2 d−1), while partially limiting air-water exchange in the NeuseRE (62 mmol C m−2 d−1). While windy storms may drive larger CO2 fluxes from estuaries, we show that flooding events can also contribute significantly to annual carbon budgets. CO2 emissions during this ~14-day flood period accounted for 31% (NeuseRE) to 44% (NewRE) of the total annual CO2 flux. Our findings show that sufficient spatial and temporal coverage during storms is necessary for estuarine CO2 fluxes to be reliably assessed over annual or longer time scales

Lingering Carbon Cycle Effects of Hurricane Matthew in North Carolina's Coastal Waters

In 2016, Hurricane Matthew accounted for 25% of the annual riverine C loading to the Neuse River Estuary-Pamlico Sound, in eastern North Carolina. Unlike inland watersheds, dissolved organic carbon (DOC) was the dominant component of C flux from this coastal watershed and stable carbon isotope and chromophoric dissolved organic matter evidence indicated the estuary and sound were dominated by wetland-derived terrigenous organic matter sources for several months following the storm. Persistence of wetland-derived DOC enabled its degradation to carbon dioxide (CO2), which was supported by sea-to-air CO2 fluxes measured in the sound weeks after the storm. Under future increasingly extreme weather events such as Hurricane Matthew, and most recently Hurricane Florence (September 2018), degradation of terrestrial DOC in floodwaters could increase flux of CO2 from estuaries and coastal waters to the atmosphere

CO2 limited conditions favor cyanobacteria in a hypereutrophic lake: An empirical and theoretical stable isotope study

Harmful algal blooms (HABs) are a global problem, exacerbated by rising temperatures, cultural eutrophication, urbanization, and agricultural development. During these HABs, phytoplankton consumption of CO2 may result in conditions of C limitation, where algal taxa best adapted for these conditions will be at a competitive advantage. Many cyanobacteria are capable of alleviating CO2 limitation by a variety of strategies, including the active assimilation of HCO3 -. In this study, we utilized a high-resolution, month-long time series of stable C isotopes and high-performance liquid chromatograph-based algal taxonomy in the hypereutrophic Lake Taihu, China, to investigate whether cyanobacteria are indeed advantaged by CO2 limiting conditions. We employed a model of phytoplankton C acquisition to support the inferences derived from direct measurements. Diurnal cycles of production and respiration caused δ13CDIC to vary between −4‰ and −9‰, while δ13CPOC varied between −29.6‰ and −19.6‰. Measured and modeled phytoplankton fractionation of DIC were positively correlated with pCO2 and negatively correlated with cyanobacterial abundance, suggesting that CO2 limitation preferentially favored increased cyanobacterial biomass, relative to other taxa. We propose that the ability of many cyanobacteria to access otherwise limiting pools of inorganic C is intrinsically linked with their capacity to cope with CO2 limiting conditions, and may be a key factor in their dominance during HABs

Extreme weather events modulate processing and export of dissolved organic carbon in the Neuse River Estuary, NC

As the interface between riverine and coastal systems, estuaries play a key role in receiving, transporting, and processing terrestrial organic carbon prior to export to downstream coastal systems. Estuaries can switch from terrestrial organic carbon reactors under low river flow to pipelines under high flow, but it remains unclear how estuarine terrestrial organic carbon processing responds to the full spectrum of discharge conditions, which are bracketed by these high and low discharge events. The amount of terrestrial dissolved organic carbon and colored dissolved organic matter imported, processed, and exported was assessed for riverine discharge events spanning from the 4th to 99th flow quantiles in the Neuse River Estuary, North Carolina, USA using spatially and temporally (July 2015–December 2016) resolved measurements. The extent of dissolved organic matter processing in the estuary under various flow conditions was estimated using a non-steady state box model to calculate estuary-wide terrestrial dissolved organic carbon and colored dissolved organic matter source & sink terms. Under mid-range riverine discharge conditions (4th to 89th flow quantiles), the Neuse River Estuary was a sink for terrestrial dissolved organic carbon, retaining and/or processing (i.e., flocculation; photochemical and microbial degradation) on average ∼29% of terrestrial dissolved organic carbon. Following floods due to extreme precipitation events (99th flow quantile), however, over 99% of the terrestrial dissolved organic carbon loaded from the riverine end-member was exported directly to the downstream coastal system. Following such extreme weather events, the estuary acts as a pipeline for direct export of terrestrial dissolved organic carbon, drastically altering the amount and quality of dissolved organic carbon loaded to downstream coastal systems. This has important implications under future climate scenarios, where extreme weather events are expected to increase

Search for direct production of charginos and neutralinos in events with three leptons and missing transverse momentum in √s = 7 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for the direct production of charginos and neutralinos in final states with three electrons or muons and missing transverse momentum is presented. The analysis is based on 4.7 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data delivered by the Large Hadron Collider and recorded with the ATLAS detector. Observations are consistent with Standard Model expectations in three signal regions that are either depleted or enriched in Z-boson decays. Upper limits at 95% confidence level are set in R-parity conserving phenomenological minimal supersymmetric models and in simplified models, significantly extending previous results

Jet size dependence of single jet suppression in lead-lead collisions at sqrt(s(NN)) = 2.76 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the LHC

Measurements of inclusive jet suppression in heavy ion collisions at the LHC provide direct sensitivity to the physics of jet quenching. In a sample of lead-lead collisions at sqrt(s) = 2.76 TeV corresponding to an integrated luminosity of approximately 7 inverse microbarns, ATLAS has measured jets with a calorimeter over the pseudorapidity interval |eta| < 2.1 and over the transverse momentum range 38 < pT < 210 GeV. Jets were reconstructed using the anti-kt algorithm with values for the distance parameter that determines the nominal jet radius of R = 0.2, 0.3, 0.4 and 0.5. The centrality dependence of the jet yield is characterized by the jet "central-to-peripheral ratio," Rcp. Jet production is found to be suppressed by approximately a factor of two in the 10% most central collisions relative to peripheral collisions. Rcp varies smoothly with centrality as characterized by the number of participating nucleons. The observed suppression is only weakly dependent on jet radius and transverse momentum. These results provide the first direct measurement of inclusive jet suppression in heavy ion collisions and complement previous measurements of dijet transverse energy imbalance at the LHC.Comment: 15 pages plus author list (30 pages total), 8 figures, 2 tables, submitted to Physics Letters B. All figures including auxiliary figures are available at http://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/PAPERS/HION-2011-02

Measurement of the polarisation of W bosons produced with large transverse momentum in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV with the ATLAS experiment

This paper describes an analysis of the angular distribution of W->enu and W->munu decays, using data from pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV recorded with the ATLAS detector at the LHC in 2010, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of about 35 pb^-1. Using the decay lepton transverse momentum and the missing transverse energy, the W decay angular distribution projected onto the transverse plane is obtained and analysed in terms of helicity fractions f0, fL and fR over two ranges of W transverse momentum (ptw): 35 < ptw < 50 GeV and ptw > 50 GeV. Good agreement is found with theoretical predictions. For ptw > 50 GeV, the values of f0 and fL-fR, averaged over charge and lepton flavour, are measured to be : f0 = 0.127 +/- 0.030 +/- 0.108 and fL-fR = 0.252 +/- 0.017 +/- 0.030, where the first uncertainties are statistical, and the second include all systematic effects.Comment: 19 pages plus author list (34 pages total), 9 figures, 11 tables, revised author list, matches European Journal of Physics C versio

Observation of a new chi_b state in radiative transitions to Upsilon(1S) and Upsilon(2S) at ATLAS

The chi_b(nP) quarkonium states are produced in proton-proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV and recorded by the ATLAS detector. Using a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 4.4 fb^-1, these states are reconstructed through their radiative decays to Upsilon(1S,2S) with Upsilon->mu+mu-. In addition to the mass peaks corresponding to the decay modes chi_b(1P,2P)->Upsilon(1S)gamma, a new structure centered at a mass of 10.530+/-0.005 (stat.)+/-0.009 (syst.) GeV is also observed, in both the Upsilon(1S)gamma and Upsilon(2S)gamma decay modes. This is interpreted as the chi_b(3P) system.Comment: 5 pages plus author list (18 pages total), 2 figures, 1 table, corrected author list, matches final version in Physical Review Letter

Search for displaced vertices arising from decays of new heavy particles in 7 TeV pp collisions at ATLAS

We present the results of a search for new, heavy particles that decay at a significant distance from their production point into a final state containing charged hadrons in association with a high-momentum muon. The search is conducted in a pp-collision data sample with a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV and an integrated luminosity of 33 pb^-1 collected in 2010 by the ATLAS detector operating at the Large Hadron Collider. Production of such particles is expected in various scenarios of physics beyond the standard model. We observe no signal and place limits on the production cross-section of supersymmetric particles in an R-parity-violating scenario as a function of the neutralino lifetime. Limits are presented for different squark and neutralino masses, enabling extension of the limits to a variety of other models.Comment: 8 pages plus author list (20 pages total), 8 figures, 1 table, final version to appear in Physics Letters

Measurement of the inclusive isolated prompt photon cross-section in pp collisions at sqrt(s)= 7 TeV using 35 pb-1 of ATLAS data

A measurement of the differential cross-section for the inclusive production of isolated prompt photons in pp collisions at a center-of-mass energy sqrt(s) = 7 TeV is presented. The measurement covers the pseudorapidity ranges |eta|<1.37 and 1.52<=|eta|<2.37 in the transverse energy range 45<=E_T<400GeV. The results are based on an integrated luminosity of 35 pb-1, collected with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The yields of the signal photons are measured using a data-driven technique, based on the observed distribution of the hadronic energy in a narrow cone around the photon candidate and the photon selection criteria. The results are compared with next-to-leading order perturbative QCD calculations and found to be in good agreement over four orders of magnitude in cross-section.Comment: 7 pages plus author list (18 pages total), 2 figures, 4 tables, final version published in Physics Letters