ALBERT

Description: Oxygen-18 (18O) values of sediment from the Wilson Creek Formation, Mono Basin, California, indicate three scales of temporal variation (Dansgaard–Oeschger, Heinrich, and Milankovitch) in the hydrologic balance of Mono Lake between 35,400 and 12,900 14C yr B.P. During this interval, Mono Lake experienced four lowstands each lasting from 1000 to 2000 yr. The youngest lowstand, which occurred between 15,500 and 14,000 14C yr B.P., was nearly synchronous with a desiccation of Owens Lake, California. Paleomagnetic secular variation (PSV) data indicate that three of four persistent lowstands occurred at the same times as Heinrich events H1, H2, and H4.18O data indicate the two highest lake levels occurred ∼18,000 and ∼13,100 14C yr B.P., corresponding to passages of the mean position of the polar jet stream over the Mono Basin. Extremely low values of total inorganic carbon between 26,000 and 14,000 14C yr B.P. indicate glacial activity, corresponding to a time when summer insolation was much reduced.

Description: Milk yield was determined by the weigh-suckle-weigh method over 2 years (1983 and 1984 calvings), for a total of 305 purebred Hereford (H×H) and first-cross Brahman×Hereford (B×H), Simmental×Hereford (S×H) and Friesian×Hereford (F×H) cows grazing three pasture systems at Grafton, New South Wales, Australia. The age of the cows ranged from 6 to 11 years. The data were used to evaluate different estimates of milk yield and to examine the effects of milk yield on growth of calves up to weaning.Of all the cow traits studied, average lactation milk yield (average of early, mid and late-lactation milk yields) had the highest correlation coefficient with calf 210-day weight (r=0·73) and pre-weaning average daily gain (ADGtotal, r=0·73), and explained 〉50% of the variation in the calf traits. However, milk yield was also moderately correlated with other cow traits (liveweight and body condition score). Thus, to predict calf performance, milk yield data may not be required if detailed data on other cow traits are available. This is supported by the finding that differences in the coefficients of determination (R2) between models for calf 210-day weight and ADGtotal which included average lactation milk yield and other cow traits (highest R2=69%) and models which included other cow traits but no milk yield estimate (highest R2=57%) were

Description: Diverse cultivars of winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) were grown in the field in 1993/94 and 1994/95 at Reading UK in temperature gradient tunnels at normal atmospheric (c. 370) or elevated CO2 concentration (c. 700 μmol CO2 mol−1 air). In 1993/94, grain yield of cv. Avalon was insensitive to mean temperature (between 8·8 and 10·9°C), while elevated CO2 increased yield by 1·3 t ha−1 (12·6%). In all other cultivars, warming reduced grain yield and CO2 increased grain yield. In 1993/94, in cvs Galahad and Mercia the effects of CO2 and temperature on yield were additive. However, for cv. Hereward in both years and for cv. Soissons in 1994/95, there were negative interactions between the effects of CO2 and temperature on yield: the maximum benefit of doubling CO2 to grain yield, 4·5 and 2·7 t ha−1 (65 and 29%) respectively, occurred at cooler temperatures; there was no benefit from doubling CO2 (i.e. 0%) once the temperature had increased above the seasonal mean by 2·2–2·6°C in cv. Hereward and by 1·3°C in cv. Soissons. The beneficial effect of doubling CO2 on grain yield in cvs Galahad, Hereward, Mercia and Soissons was negated by an increase in mean seasonal temperature of only 0·7–2·0°C. Warming decreased root dry mass at anthesis in 1994/95 while it increased at elevated CO2 (49 and 186%, coolest and warmest regime, respectively). Carbon partitioned to roots declined progressively with warming, while at elevated CO2 there was an average of 56% increase in allocation to roots. The relative impacts of both CO2 and temperature were greater on root dry mass than on either grain yield or total above-ground biomass, while the effects on grain and biomass yield varied considerably between cultivars, suggesting that the impact of rising CO2 and temperature are likely to be dependent on cultivar.

Description: The polar mesopause region (80-100 km) is the coldest region of the Earth's atmosphere and is expected to be sensitive to global change. Reported increases in observations of polar mesospheric clouds over the last 100 years have been postulated to be related to decreased temperatures (associated with tropospheric warming) and increased water vapour at mesospheric altitudes (a result of increased methane concentrations in the troposphere). The temperature of this region can be monitored by spectroscopic techniques utilising hydroxyl (OH) emissions which originate near 87 km. The Australian Antarctic Division, Atmospheric and Space Physics group has been analyzing OH (6-2) band spectra recorded with a Czerny—Turner scanning spectrometer at Davis Station, Antarctica (68.6° S, 78.0° E) to optimise temperature determinations for climate change studies. A number of difficulties were encountered, some of which have been overcome and all of which can be overcome. The mid-winter average temperature of the OH layer for May-July 1990 has been measured as 224 ±2 K. The equivalent value for 1996 is 215±2 K. Possible reasons for the difference are discussed.

Description: For an anisotropic topographic feature in a large-scale flow, the orientation of the topography with respect to the flow will affect the vorticity production that results from the topography-flow interaction. This in turn affects the amount of form drag that the ambient flow experiences. Numerical simulations and perturbation theory are used to explore these effects of change in topographic orientation. The flow is modelled as a quasi-geostrophic homogeneous fluid on an /-plane. The topography is taken to be a hill of limited extent, with an elliptical cross-section in the horizontal. It is shown that, as a result of a basic asymmetry of the quasi-geostrophic flow, the strength of the form drag depends not only on the magnitude of the angle that the topographic axis makes with the oncoming stream, but also on the sign of this angle. For sufficiently low topography, it is found that a positive angle of attack leads to a stronger form drag than that for the corresponding negative angle. For strong topography, this relation is reversed, with the negative angle then resulting in the stronger form drag. © 1995, Cambridge University Press. All rights reserved.

Description: Hydrothermal-wave instabilities in thermocapillary convection are known to produce undesirable effects when they occur during the float-zone crystal-growth process, and perhaps in other situations. Suppression of the hydrothermal-wave instability produced in the model system of Part 1 (Riley & Neitzel 1998) is demonstrated through the sensing of free-surface temperature perturbations and the periodic addition of heat at the free surface along lines parallel to the crests of the hydrothermal waves.

Description: The present paper addresses some topical issues in modelling compressible turbulent shear flows. The work is based on direct numerical simulation (DNS) of two supersonic fully developed channel flows between very cold isothermal walls. Detailed decomposition and analysis of terms appearing in the mean momentum and energy equations are presented. The simulation results are used to provide insights into differences between conventional Reynolds and Favre averaging of the mean-flow and turbulent quantities. Study of the turbulence energy budget for the two cases shows that compressibility effects due to turbulent density and pressure fluctuations are insignificant. In particular, the dilatational dissipation and the mean product of the pressure and dilatation fluctuations are very small, contrary to the results of simulations for sheared homogeneous compressible turbulence and to recent proposals for models for general compressible turbulent flows. This provides a possible explanation of why the Van Driest density-weighted transformation (which ignores any true turbulent compressibility effects) is so successful in correlating compressible boundary-layer data. Finally, it is found that the DNS data do not support the strong Reynolds analogy. A more general representation of the analogy is analysed and shown to match the DNS data very well. © 1995, Cambridge University Press. All rights reserved.

Description: The axisymmetric flows arising in a rotating annulus with a superimposed forced flow are investigated with a pseudo-spectral numerical method. The flow enters the annulus at the inner radius with a radial velocity, then develops into a geostrophic flow azimuthally directed and flanked by two Ekman (nonlinear) boundary layers, and finally exits the outer radius, with a radially directed velocity. In this study the rotation rate of the cavity is fixed and very high. When the forced flow is weak, the flow is steady. On increasing the mass flow rate, the flow evolves to a chaotic temporal behaviour through several bifurcations, which perturbs the basic spatial configuration of the flow. The first bifurcation drives the steady state into an oscillatory regime, associated with a break of symmetry with respect to the midheight of the annulus. The entry flow travels radially through the cavity as in the steady flow, but it wavers and then is alternately sucked towards each Ekman layer. The frequency of this oscillation is close to the rotation rate frequency of the cavity, which is characteristic of inertial waves in rotating flows. A second transition to a quasi-periodic regime is characterized by the appearance of a second frequency. Further increases in the flow rate lead to a period-five state, via a locking of both frequencies, and then to a chaotic motion. This second frequency is of the order of the inverse of the Ekman spin-up characteristic time, suggesting that this instability is originated by the relaxation of the perturbations in the flow field. These perturbations of the unsteady flow field are corotating vortices along the rigid boundary walls. They are excited by the entry flow and their strength diminishes with increasing radius due to the low value of the Reynolds number. The parameters characterizing the unstable flows are also consistent with this explanation. The conclusion is that in this configuration, the origin of the described dynamical behaviour is not the instability of the Ekman boundary layers, as could be expected, but the instability of the entry flow. The reason is the importance of the nonlinear inertial terms in cavities with small radius of curvature.

Description: We investigate an asymptotic model of DiPrima & Stuart (1972b, 1975) describing steady Taylor vortex flow between eccentric cylinders, under the assumption that the eccentricity e, the clearance ratio 8 and the Taylor vortex amplitude A satisfy e, 8 and A small. By solving a boundary value problem for the radial eigenfunctions we numerically obtain the flow field of DiPrima & Stuart and investigate its topology, after correcting higher-order terms to ensure that the flow preserves volume. We find regions of chaotic streamlines at all eccentricities and discuss the reason for their existence. We make an analogy between the full model and a modulated vortex flow field which qualitatively displays the same behaviour. For large eccentricities, we examine the flow field and the topology of its streamlines, especially where the two-dimensional flow contains a separated region of recirculation. In this case Taylor vortices give rise to transport of fluid particles in and out of the separated region. We find that the onset of Taylor vortices encourages recirculation in the inflow plane, whilst discouraging it in the outflow plane. © 1995, Cambridge University Press. All rights reserved.