ALBERT

Description: Electron measurements from the MagEIS instruments on Van Allen Probes, for kinetic energies ∼100 to 400 keV, show characteristic dynamical features of the innermost ( ) radiation belt: rapid injections, slow decay, and structured energy spectra. There are also periods of steady or slowly increasing intensity and of fast decay following injections. Local time asymmetry, with higher intensity near dawn, is interpreted as evidence for drift shell distortion by a convection electric field of magnitude ∼0.4 mV/m during geomagnetically quiet times. Fast fluctuations in the electric field, on the drift time scale, cause inward diffusion. Assuming they are proportional to changes in K p , the resulting diffusion coefficient is sufficient to replenish trapped electrons lost by atmospheric scattering. Major electric field increases cause injections by inward electron transport. An injection associated with the June 2015 magnetic storm is consistent with an enhanced field magnitude ∼5 mV/m. Subsequent drift echoes cause spectral structure.

Description: The Communications/Navigation Outage Forecasting System (C/NOFS) satellite observed large-scale density depletions at postmidnight and early morning local times in the Northern Hemisphere summer during solar minimum conditions. Using electric field data obtained from the vector electric field instrument (VEFI) as input, the assimilative physics-based model (PBMOD) qualitatively reproduced more than 70% of the large-scale density depletions observed by the Planar Langmuir Probe (PLP) onboard C/NOFS. In contrast, the use of a climatological specification of plasma drifts in the model produces no plasma depletions at night. Results from a one-month statistical study, we found that the large-scale depletion structures most often occur near longitudes of 60°, 140°, and 330°, suggesting that these depletions may be associated with nonmigrating atmospheric tides, although the generation mechanisms of eastward electric fields at postmidnight local times are still uncertain. In this paper, densities obtained from both assimilation and climatology for the entire month of June 2008 are compared with PLP data from C/NOFS and the Challenging Minisatellite Payload (CHAMP), as well as special sensor ionospheric plasma drift/scintillation meter (SSIES) measurements from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) satellites. Our statistical study has shown that, on average, the densities obtained by the PBMOD when it assimilates VEFI electric fields agree better with observed background densities than when PBMOD uses climatological electric fields.

Description: Modeled and observed solar diffuse fluxes at the surface usually have unacceptably large discrepancies. It is necessary to address and resolve these discrepancies in order to accurately calculate a reliable aerosol direct radiative forcing (DRF). We present and compare two methods of deriving dust aerosol optical properties from the MFRSR (Multi-Filter Rotating Shadowband Radiometer) observations and the AERONET products. The single-scattering albedo (SSA) values from MFRSR are found to be 10% less than those from the AERONET. This difference is mainly due to the different imaginary part of refractive index retrieved by the MFRSR compared to AERONET. These two sets of dust aerosol optical properties are used in the SBDART model to simulate the shortwave fluxes that are compared with the surface observations to perform the radiative closure experiment. The diffuse simulations using the AERONET-derived aerosol SSA may have significant discrepancies compared with the observed diffuse irradiances. The DRFs at the top of atmosphere (TOA) simulated with the MFRSR-derived aerosol optical properties are positive while the DRFs with the AERONET are negative. The sign of the DRFs at the surface and in the atmosphere using the MFRSR is the same as those using the AERONET while the magnitudes from the MFRSR are much larger. It indicates that dust aerosols with higher absorption as derived from the MFRSR heat the aerosol layer but cool the surface much more than those based on the AERONET, which may have an important impact on the boundary layer processes.

Description: Although climate change models predict relatively modest increases in temperature in the tropics by the end of the century, recent analyses identify tropical ectotherms as the organisms most at risk from climate warming. Because metabolic rate in ectotherms increases exponentially with temperature, even a small rise in temperature poses a physiological threat to tropical ectotherms inhabiting an already hot environment. If correct, the metabolic theory of climate warming has profound implications for global biodiversity, since tropical insects and arachnids constitute the vast majority of animal species. Predicting how climate change will translate into fitness consequences for tropical arthropods requires an understanding of the effects of temperature increase on the entire life history of the species. Here, in a comprehensive case study of the fitness consequences of the projected temperature increase for the tropics, we conducted a split-brood experiment on the neotropical pseudoscorpion, Cordylochernes scorpioides , in which 792 offspring from 33 females were randomly assigned at birth to control- and high-temperature treatments for rearing through the adult stage. The diurnally varying, control treatment temperature was determined from long-term, average daily temperature minima and maxima in the pseudoscorpion's native habitat. In the high temperature treatment, increasing temperature by the 3.5 °C predicted for the tropics significantly reduced survival and accelerated development at the cost of reduced adult size and a dramatic decrease in level of sexual dimorphism. The most striking effects, however, involved reproductive traits. Reared at high temperature, males produced 45% as many sperm as control males, and females failed to reproduce. Sequencing of the mitochondrial ND2 gene revealed two highly divergent haplogroups that differed substantially in developmental rate and survivorship but not in reproductive response to high temperature. Our findings suggest that reproduction may be the Achilles’ heel of tropical ectotherms, as climate warming subjects them to an increasingly adverse thermal environment.

Description: To investigate ion density depletion along magnetic field lines, we compare in situ-measured ion density fluctuations as seen from C/NOFS and compare them to the field-line-integrated depletion of the whole bubble as inferred from electric field measurements. Results show that, within C/NOFS' range, local measurement of the normalized density depletion, Δn/n0, near the apex may be far less than at other points on the same field line. We argue that the distribution of Δn/n0 is a weighted distribution concentrated at latitudes of the Appleton anomalies and becomes more heavily weighted the closer the field-aligned bubble rises to the peak of the anomalies. A three-dimensional simulation of an ionospheric bubble verifies our arguments.

Description: This article presents surface electric potential distributions, measured by Kelvin Probe Force Microscopy, on the (001) surface in an indentation-pre-cracked BaTiO 3 single crystal with and without applied electric field. The results show that cracks are higher potential regions in comparison to other regions. The higher surface potential is induced by the crack itself in air at room temperature and an applied in-plane electric field cannot change the major feature of the potential distribution across the crack.

Description: During the night in the F region about the equator, plasma density depletions form, causing scintillation. In April 2008, the Communications/Navigation Outage Forecasting System (C/NOFS) satellite developed by the Air Force Research Laboratory was launched to predict ionospheric scintillation. Using its Planar Langmuir Probe (PLP), C/NOFS is capable of measuring in situ ion density within the F region over the equator. Plasma irregularities are found regularly during the night. We examine how these irregularities depend on longitude, latitude, and season. The most significant observations from this study are longitudinal structures in which these irregularities most frequently occur. Since similar structure has been found in diurnal tides, we conclude that lower atmospheric tides may play a strong role in determining the amplitude of equatorial irregularities, at least during low solar minimum conditions when the presented observations were made. We propose that this link is likely related to the generation of zonal electric fields by the E-region dynamo.

Description: Freshwater in the Arctic Ocean plays an important role in the regional ocean circulation, sea ice and global climate. From salinity observed by a variety of platforms we are able, for the first time, to estimate a statistically reliable liquid freshwater trend from monthly gridded fields over all upper Arctic Ocean basins. From 1992 to 2012 this trend was 600 ± 300  km 3 yr − 1 . A numerical model agrees very well with the observed freshwater changes. A decrease in salinity made up about 2/3 of the freshwater trend and a thickening of the upper layer 1/3. The Arctic Ocean Oscillation index, a measure for the regional wind stress curl, correlated well with our freshwater timeseries. No clear relation to Arctic Oscillation or Arctic Dipole indices could be found. Following other observational studies, an increased Bering Strait freshwater import to the Arctic Ocean, a decreased Davis Strait export and enhanced net sea ice melt could have played an important role in the freshwater trend we observed.

Description: [1]  We present results from an analysis of high-latitude ionosphere-thermosphere (IT) coupling to the solar wind during a moderate magnetic storm which occurred on 5-6 August 2011. During the storm, a multi-point set of observations of the ionosphere and thermosphere was available. We make use of ionospheric measurements of electromagnetic and particle energy made by the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP), and neutral densities measured by the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite to infer: (1) the energy budget and (2) timing of the energy transfer process during the storm. We conclude that the primary location for energy input to the IT system may be the extremely high latitude region. We suggest that the total energy available to the IT system is not completely captured either by observation or empirical models.

Description: Although climate change models predict relatively modest increases in temperature in the tropics by the end of the century, recent analyses identify tropical ectotherms as the organisms most at risk from climate warming. Because metabolic rate in ectotherms increases exponentially with temperature, even a small rise in temperature poses a physiological threat to tropical ectotherms inhabiting an already hot environment. If correct, the metabolic theory of climate warming has profound implications for global biodiversity, since tropical insects and arachnids constitute the vast majority of animal species. Predicting how climate change will translate into fitness consequences for tropical arthropods requires an understanding of the effects of temperature increase on the entire life history of the species. Here, in a comprehensive case study of the fitness consequences of the projected temperature increase for the tropics, we conducted a split-brood experiment on the neotropical pseudoscorpion, Cordylochernes scorpioides , in which 792 offspring from 33 females were randomly assigned at birth to control- and high-temperature treatments for rearing through the adult stage. The diurnally-varying, control-treatment temperature was determined from long-term, average daily temperature minima and maxima in the pseudoscorpion's native habitat. In the high-temperature treatment, increasing temperature by the 3.5 °C predicted for the tropics significantly reduced survival and accelerated development at the cost of reduced adult size and a dramatic decrease in level of sexual dimorphism. The most striking effects, however, involved reproductive traits. Reared at high temperature, males produced 45% as many sperm as control males, and females failed to reproduce. Sequencing of the mitochondrial ND2 gene revealed two highly divergent haplogroups that differed substantially in developmental rate and survivorship but not in reproductive response to high temperature. Our findings suggest that reproduction may be the Achilles’ heel of tropical ectotherms, as climate warming subjects them to an increasingly adverse thermal environment.