scholarly journals Diagnosing oceanic nutrient deficiency

Author(s):  
C. Mark Moore

The supply of a range of nutrient elements to surface waters is an important driver of oceanic production and the subsequent linked cycling of the nutrients and carbon. Relative deficiencies of different nutrients with respect to biological requirements, within both surface and internal water masses, can be both a key indicator and driver of the potential for these nutrients to become limiting for the production of new organic material in the upper ocean. The availability of high-quality, full-depth and global-scale datasets on the concentrations of a wide range of both macro- and micro-nutrients produced through the international GEOTRACES programme provides the potential for estimation of multi-element deficiencies at unprecedented scales. Resultant coherent large-scale patterns in diagnosed deficiency can be linked to the interacting physical–chemical–biological processes which drive upper ocean nutrient biogeochemistry. Calculations of ranked deficiencies across multiple elements further highlight important remaining uncertainties in the stoichiometric plasticity of nutrient ratios within oceanic microbial systems and caveats with regards to linkages to upper ocean nutrient limitation. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Biological and climatic impacts of ocean trace element chemistry’.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bronwen L. Konecky ◽  
Nicholas P. McKay ◽  
Olga V. Churakova (Sidorova) ◽  
Laia Comas-Bru ◽  
Emilie P. Dassié ◽  
...  

Abstract. Reconstructions of global hydroclimate during the Common Era (CE; the past ~ 2000 years) are important for providing context for current and future global environmental change. Stable isotope ratios in water are quantitative indicators of hydroclimate on regional to global scales, and these signals are encoded in a wide range of natural geologic archives. Here we present the Iso2k database, a global compilation of previously published datasets from a variety of natural archives that record the stable oxygen (δ18O) or hydrogen (δ2H) isotopic composition of environmental waters, which reflect hydroclimate changes over the CE. The Iso2k database contains 756 isotope records from the terrestrial and marine realms, including: glacier and ground ice (205); speleothems (68); corals, sclerosponges, and mollusks (145); wood (81); lake sediments and other terrestrial sediments (e.g., loess) (158); and marine sediments (99). Individual datasets have temporal resolutions ranging from sub-annual to centennial, and include chronological data where available. A fundamental feature of the database is its comprehensive metadata, which will assist both experts and non-experts in the interpretation of each record and in data synthesis. Key metadata fields have standardized vocabularies to facilitate comparisons across diverse archives and with climate model simulated fields. This is the first global-scale collection of water isotope proxy records from multiple types of geological and biological archives. It is suitable for evaluating hydroclimate processes through time and space using large-scale synthesis, model-data intercomparison and (paleo)data assimilation. The Iso2k database is available for download at: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.11553162 (McKay and Konecky, 2020).


2005 ◽  
Vol 18 (23) ◽  
pp. 5110-5124 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lazaros Oreopoulos ◽  
Robert F. Cahalan

Abstract Two full months (July 2003 and January 2004) of Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Atmosphere Level-3 data from the Terra and Aqua satellites are analyzed in order to characterize the horizontal variability of vertically integrated cloud optical thickness (“cloud inhomogeneity”) at global scales. The monthly climatology of cloud inhomogeneity is expressed in terms of standard parameters, initially calculated for each day of the month at spatial scales of 1° × 1° and subsequently averaged at monthly, zonal, and global scales. Geographical, diurnal, and seasonal changes of inhomogeneity parameters are examined separately for liquid and ice phases and separately over land and ocean. It is found that cloud inhomogeneity is overall weaker in summer than in winter. For liquid clouds, it is also consistently weaker for local morning than local afternoon and over land than ocean. Cloud inhomogeneity is comparable for liquid and ice clouds on a global scale, but with stronger spatial and temporal variations for the ice phase, and exhibits an average tendency to be weaker for near-overcast or overcast grid points of both phases. Depending on cloud phase, hemisphere, surface type, season, and time of day, hemispheric means of the inhomogeneity parameter ν (roughly the square of the ratio of optical thickness mean to standard deviation) have a wide range of ∼1.7 to 4, while for the inhomogeneity parameter χ (the ratio of the logarithmic to linear mean) the range is from ∼0.65 to 0.8. The results demonstrate that the MODIS Level-3 dataset is suitable for studying various aspects of cloud inhomogeneity and may prove invaluable for validating future cloud schemes in large-scale models capable of predicting subgrid variability.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 2261-2288 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bronwen L. Konecky ◽  
Nicholas P. McKay ◽  
Olga V. Churakova (Sidorova) ◽  
Laia Comas-Bru ◽  
Emilie P. Dassié ◽  
...  

Abstract. Reconstructions of global hydroclimate during the Common Era (CE; the past ∼2000 years) are important for providing context for current and future global environmental change. Stable isotope ratios in water are quantitative indicators of hydroclimate on regional to global scales, and these signals are encoded in a wide range of natural geologic archives. Here we present the Iso2k database, a global compilation of previously published datasets from a variety of natural archives that record the stable oxygen (δ18O) or hydrogen (δ2H) isotopic compositions of environmental waters, which reflect hydroclimate changes over the CE. The Iso2k database contains 759 isotope records from the terrestrial and marine realms, including glacier and ground ice (210); speleothems (68); corals, sclerosponges, and mollusks (143); wood (81); lake sediments and other terrestrial sediments (e.g., loess) (158); and marine sediments (99). Individual datasets have temporal resolutions ranging from sub-annual to centennial and include chronological data where available. A fundamental feature of the database is its comprehensive metadata, which will assist both experts and nonexperts in the interpretation of each record and in data synthesis. Key metadata fields have standardized vocabularies to facilitate comparisons across diverse archives and with climate-model-simulated fields. This is the first global-scale collection of water isotope proxy records from multiple types of geological and biological archives. It is suitable for evaluating hydroclimate processes through time and space using large-scale synthesis, model–data intercomparison and (paleo)data assimilation. The Iso2k database is available for download at https://doi.org/10.25921/57j8-vs18 (Konecky and McKay, 2020) and is also accessible via the NOAA/WDS Paleo Data landing page: https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/study/29593 (last access: 30 July 2020).


2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oliver López ◽  
Rasmus Houborg ◽  
Matthew F. McCabe

Abstract. Advances in multi-satellite based observations of the earth system have provided the capacity to retrieve information across a wide-range of land surface hydrological components and provided an opportunity to characterize terrestrial processes from a completely new perspective. Given the spatial advantage that space-based observations offer, several regional-to-global scale products have been developed, offering insights into the multi-scale behaviour and variability of hydrological states and fluxes. However, one of the key challenges in the use of satellite-based products is characterizing the degree to which they provide realistic and representative estimates of the underlying retrieval: that is, how accurate are the hydrological components derived from satellite observations? The challenge is intrinsically linked to issues of scale, since the availability of high-quality in-situ data is limited, and even where it does exist, is generally not commensurate to the resolution of the satellite observation. Basin-scale studies have shown considerable variability in achieving water budget closure with any degree of accuracy using satellite estimates of the water cycle. In order to assess the suitability of this type of approach for evaluating hydrological observations, it makes sense to first test it over environments with restricted hydrological inputs, before applying it to more hydrological complex basins. Here we explore the concept of hydrological consistency, i.e. the physical considerations that the water budget impose on the hydrologic fluxes and states to be temporally and spatially linked, to evaluate the reproduction of a set of large-scale evaporation (E) products by using a combination of satellite rainfall (P) and Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) observations of storage change, focusing on arid and semi-arid environments, where the hydrological flows can be more realistically described. Our results indicate no persistent hydrological consistency in these environments, suggesting the need for continued efforts in improving satellite observations, particularly for the retrieval of evaporation, and the need to more directly account for anthropogenic influences such as agricultural irrigation into our large scale water cycle studies.


2020 ◽  
Vol 216 (8) ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam P. Showman ◽  
Xianyu Tan ◽  
Vivien Parmentier

AbstractGroundbased and spacecraft telescopic observations, combined with an intensive modeling effort, have greatly enhanced our understanding of hot giant planets and brown dwarfs over the past ten years. Although these objects are all fluid, hydrogen worlds with stratified atmospheres overlying convective interiors, they exhibit an impressive diversity of atmospheric behavior. Hot Jupiters are strongly irradiated, and a wealth of observations constrain the day-night temperature differences, circulation, and cloudiness. The intense stellar irradiation, presumed tidal locking and modest rotation leads to a novel regime of strong day-night radiative forcing. Circulation models predict large day-night temperature differences, global-scale eddies, patchy clouds, and, in most cases, a fast eastward jet at the equator—equatorial superrotation. The warm Jupiters lie farther from their stars and are not generally tidally locked, so they may exhibit a wide range of rotation rates, obliquities, and orbital eccentricities, which, along with the weaker irradiation, leads to circulation patterns and observable signatures predicted to differ substantially from hot Jupiters. Brown dwarfs are typically isolated, rapidly rotating worlds; they radiate enormous energy fluxes into space and convect vigorously in their interiors. Their atmospheres exhibit patchiness in clouds and temperature on regional to global scales—the result of modulation by large-scale atmospheric circulation. Despite the lack of irradiation, such circulations can be driven by interaction of the interior convection with the overlying atmosphere, as well as self-organization of patchiness due to cloud-dynamical-radiative feedbacks. Finally, irradiated brown dwarfs help to bridge the gap between these classes of objects, experiencing intense external irradiation as well as vigorous interior convection. Collectively, these diverse objects span over six orders of magnitude in intrinsic heat flux and incident stellar flux, and two orders of magnitude in rotation rate—thereby placing strong constraints on how the circulation of giant planets (broadly defined) depend on these parameters. A hierarchy of modeling approaches have yielded major new insights into the dynamics governing these phenomena.


Author(s):  
C. R. German ◽  
K. A. Casciotti ◽  
J.-C. Dutay ◽  
L. E. Heimbürger ◽  
W. J. Jenkins ◽  
...  

Hydrothermal activity occurs in all ocean basins, releasing high concentrations of key trace elements and isotopes (TEIs) into the oceans. Importantly, the calculated rate of entrainment of the entire ocean volume through turbulently mixing buoyant hydrothermal plumes is so vigorous as to be comparable to that of deep-ocean thermohaline circulation. Consequently, biogeochemical processes active within deep-ocean hydrothermal plumes have long been known to have the potential to impact global-scale biogeochemical cycles. More recently, new results from GEOTRACES have revealed that plumes rich in dissolved Fe, an important micronutrient that is limiting to productivity in some areas, are widespread above mid-ocean ridges and extend out into the deep-ocean interior. While Fe is only one element among the full suite of TEIs of interest to GEOTRACES, these preliminary results are important because they illustrate how inputs from seafloor venting might impact the global biogeochemical budgets of many other TEIs. To determine the global impact of seafloor venting, however, requires two key questions to be addressed: (i) What processes are active close to vent sites that regulate the initial high-temperature hydrothermal fluxes for the full suite of TEIs that are dispersed through non-buoyant hydrothermal plumes? (ii) How do those processes vary, globally, in response to changing geologic settings at the seafloor and/or the geochemistry of the overlying ocean water? In this paper, we review key findings from recent work in this realm, highlight a series of key hypotheses arising from that research and propose a series of new GEOTRACES modelling, section and process studies that could be implemented, nationally and internationally, to address these issues. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Biological and climatic impacts of ocean trace element chemistry’.


2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 1256-1266
Author(s):  
Hamid Amiri

Butanol is a key microbial product that provides a route from renewable carbohydrate resources to a "drop-in" liquid biofuel, broadening its market in the near future. The acceptable performance of butanol as a neat or a blended fuel in different engines both from the technical and environmental points of view has attracted a wide range of research for reviving the old acetone-butanol-ethanol (ABE) fermentation. In this review, recent findings on fuel characteristics of butanol, different generations of substrate for large scale butanol production, and alternative process designs for upstream, mainstream, and downstream operations have been critically reviewed and discussed. In the upstream, studies devoted to designing and optimization of pretreatments based on prerequisites of butanol production, e.g., maximizing cellulose and hemicellulose recovery and minimizing lignin degradation, are presented. In the mainstream, different microbial systems and process integrations developed for facilitating ABE production (e.g., in-situ butanol removal) are scrutinized. Finally, innovations in ABE recovery and purification as "Achilles Heel" of butanol production processes which directly controls the energy return on investment (EROI), are reviewed and discussed.


Author(s):  
Reiner Schlitzer

A global, coarse-resolution ocean model previously fitted to geostrophic shear estimates and to data of 10 hydrographic parameters and tracers has been used to simulate the 3 He and 4 He distributions resulting from the release of mantle helium from mid-ocean ridges. The model is in very good agreement with 14 C and chlorofluorocarbon data and has realistic global ocean overturning strength as well as water mass formation and transport rates. It is found that previously published global mantle 3 He fluxes are too high by a factor of about 2. In the model, optimal agreement of modelled δ 3 He with data is achieved for a global flux of 450 ± 50 mol 3 He yr −1 . The formulation of He source strengths proportional to ridge spreading rates appears compatible with data. A model/data misfit analysis shows significant and large-scale δ 3 He underestimation in the southwestern Pacific centred over the Lau Backarc Basin (approx. 179° W/20° S). These misfits disappear in a set-up with 30 of the 450 mol yr −1 global total 3 He flux released in the Lau Basin over a depth range between 1250 and 2500 m. Such He flux contributions are missing in present mantle He source compilations. Hydrothermal fluxes of other trace elements and isotopes (TEI) can be calculated from He fluxes on the basis of TEI : He ratios measured close to the sources. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Biological and climatic impacts of ocean trace element chemistry’.


Author(s):  
V. C. Kannan ◽  
A. K. Singh ◽  
R. B. Irwin ◽  
S. Chittipeddi ◽  
F. D. Nkansah ◽  
...  

Titanium nitride (TiN) films have historically been used as diffusion barrier between silicon and aluminum, as an adhesion layer for tungsten deposition and as an interconnect material etc. Recently, the role of TiN films as contact barriers in very large scale silicon integrated circuits (VLSI) has been extensively studied. TiN films have resistivities on the order of 20μ Ω-cm which is much lower than that of titanium (nearly 66μ Ω-cm). Deposited TiN films show resistivities which vary from 20 to 100μ Ω-cm depending upon the type of deposition and process conditions. TiNx is known to have a NaCl type crystal structure for a wide range of compositions. Change in color from metallic luster to gold reflects the stabilization of the TiNx (FCC) phase over the close packed Ti(N) hexagonal phase. It was found that TiN (1:1) ideal composition with the FCC (NaCl-type) structure gives the best electrical property.


Author(s):  
О. Кravchuk ◽  
V. Symonenkov ◽  
I. Symonenkova ◽  
O. Hryhorev

Today, more than forty countries of the world are engaged in the development of military-purpose robots. A number of unique mobile robots with a wide range of capabilities are already being used by combat and intelligence units of the Armed forces of the developed world countries to conduct battlefield intelligence and support tactical groups. At present, the issue of using the latest information technology in the field of military robotics is thoroughly investigated, and the creation of highly effective information management systems in the land-mobile robotic complexes has acquired a new phase associated with the use of distributed information and sensory systems and consists in the transition from application of separate sensors and devices to the construction of modular information subsystems, which provide the availability of various data sources and complex methods of information processing. The purpose of the article is to investigate the ways to increase the autonomy of the land-mobile robotic complexes using in a non-deterministic conditions of modern combat. Relevance of researches is connected with the necessity of creation of highly effective information and control systems in the perspective robotic means for the needs of Land Forces of Ukraine. The development of the Armed Forces of Ukraine management system based on the criteria adopted by the EU and NATO member states is one of the main directions of increasing the effectiveness of the use of forces (forces), which involves achieving the principles and standards necessary for Ukraine to become a member of the EU and NATO. The inherent features of achieving these criteria will be the transition to a reduction of tasks of the combined-arms units and the large-scale use of high-precision weapons and land remote-controlled robotic devices. According to the views of the leading specialists in the field of robotics, the automation of information subsystems and components of the land-mobile robotic complexes can increase safety, reliability, error-tolerance and the effectiveness of the use of robotic means by standardizing the necessary actions with minimal human intervention, that is, a significant increase in the autonomy of the land-mobile robotic complexes for the needs of Land Forces of Ukraine.


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