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Journal articleHwang KJ, Sibeck DG, Burch JL, et al., 2018, , Journal of Geophysical 91桃色: Space Physics, Vol: 123, Pages: 8473-8488, ISSN: 2169-9380
We report MMS observations of the ion-scale flux transfer events (FTEs) that may involve two main X lines and tearing instability between the two X lines. The four spacecraft detected multiple isolated regions with enhanced magnetic field strength and bipolar Bn signatures normal to the nominal magnetopause, indicating FTEs. The currents within the FTEs flow mostly parallel to B, and the magnetic tension force is balanced by the total pressure gradient force. During these events, the plasma bulk flow velocity was directed southward. Detailed analysis of the magnetic and electric field and plasma moments variations suggests that the FTEs were initially embedded within the exhaust region north of an X line but were later located southward/downstream of a subsequent X line. The cross sections of the individual FTEs are in the range of ~2.5–6.8 ion inertial lengths. The observations suggest the formation of multiple secondary FTEs. The presence of an X line in the exhaust region southward of a second X line results from the southward drift of an old X line and the reformation of a new X line. The current layer between the two X lines is unstable to the tearing instability, generating multiple ion-scale flux-rope-type secondary islands.
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Journal articleSorba AM, Achilleos NA, Guio P, et al., 2018, , JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH-SPACE PHYSICS, Vol: 123, Pages: 8292-8316, ISSN: 2169-9380
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Journal articleTong Y, Vasko I, Mozer FS, et al., 2018, , GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, Vol: 45, Pages: 11513-11519, ISSN: 0094-8276
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- Citations: 39
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Journal articleSmith CJ, Kramer RJ, Myhre G, et al., 2018, , Geophysical 91桃色 Letters, Vol: 45, Pages: 12023-12031, ISSN: 0094-8276
Rapid adjustments are responses to forcing agents that cause a perturbation to the top of atmosphere energy budget but are uncoupled to changes in surface warming. Different mechanisms are responsible for these adjustments for a variety of climate drivers. These remain to be quantified in detail. It is shown that rapid adjustments reduce the effective radiative forcing (ERF) of black carbon by half of the instantaneous forcing, but for CO2 forcing, rapid adjustments increase ERF. Competing tropospheric adjustments for CO2 forcing are individually significant but sum to zero, such that the ERF equals the stratospherically adjusted radiative forcing, but this is not true for other forcing agents. Additional experiments of increase in the solar constant and increase in CH4 are used to show that a key factor of the rapid adjustment for an individual climate driver is changes in temperature in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere.
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Journal articleSchwartz SJ, Avanov L, Turner D, et al., 2018, , Geophysical 91桃色 Letters, Vol: 45, Pages: 11520-11529, ISSN: 0094-8276
Hot Flow Anomalies (HFAs) are transients observed at planetary bow shocks, formed by the shock interaction with a convected interplanetary current sheet. The primary interpretation relies on reflected ions channeled upstream along the current sheet. The short duration of HFAs has made direct observations of this process difficult. We employ high resolution measurements by NASA's Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission to probe the ion microphysics within a HFA. Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission data reveal a smoothly varying internal density and pressure, which increase toward the trailing edge of the HFA, sweeping up particles trapped within the current sheet. We find remnants of reflected or other backstreaming ions traveling along the current sheet, but most of these are not fast enough to out-run the incident current sheet convection. Despite the high level of internal turbulence, incident and backstreaming ions appear to couple gyro-kinetically in a coherent manner.
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Journal articleTinetti G, Drossart P, Eccleston P, et al., 2018, , Experimental Astronomy, Vol: 46, Pages: 135-209, ISSN: 0922-6435
Thousands of exoplanets have now been discovered with a huge range of masses, sizes and orbits: from rocky Earth-like planets to large gas giants grazing the surface of their host star. However, the essential nature of these exoplanets remains largely mysterious: there is no known, discernible pattern linking the presence, size, or orbital parameters of a planet to the nature of its parent star. We have little idea whether the chemistry of a planet is linked to its formation environment, or whether the type of host star drives the physics and chemistry of the planet’s birth, and evolution. ARIEL was conceived to observe a large number (~1000) of transiting planets for statistical understanding, including gas giants, Neptunes, super-Earths and Earth-size planets around a range of host star types using transit spectroscopy in the 1.25–7.8 μm spectral range and multiple narrow-band photometry in the optical. ARIEL will focus on warm and hot planets to take advantage of their well-mixed atmospheres which should show minimal condensation and sequestration of high-Z materials compared to their colder Solar System siblings. Said warm and hot atmospheres are expected to be more representative of the planetary bulk composition. Observations of these warm/hot exoplanets, and in particular of their elemental composition (especially C, O, N, S, Si), will allow the understanding of the early stages of planetary and atmospheric formation during the nebular phase and the following few million years. ARIEL will thus provide a representative picture of the chemical nature of the exoplanets and relate this directly to the type and chemical environment of the host star. ARIEL is designed as a dedicated survey mission for combined-light spectroscopy, capable of observing a large and well-defined planet sample within its 4-year mission lifetime. Transit, eclipse and phase-curve spectroscopy methods, whereby the signal from the star and planet are differentiated using know
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Journal articleArcher MO, Hartinger MD, Redmon R, et al., 2018, , Space Weather, Vol: 16, Pages: 1753-1769, ISSN: 1539-4956
Magnetospheric ultralow鈥恌requency (ULF) waves contribute to space weather in the solar wind鈥恗agnetosphere鈥恑onosphere system. The monitoring of these waves by space鈥 and ground鈥恇ased instruments, however, produces big data, which are difficult to navigate, mine, and analyze effectively. We present sonification, the process of converting an oscillatory time series into audible sound, and citizen science, where members of the public contribute to scientific investigations, as a means to potentially help tackle these issues. Magnetometer data in the ULF range at geostationary orbit have been sonified and released to London high schools as part of exploratory projects. While this approach reduces the overall likelihood of useful results from any particular group of citizen scientists compared to typical citizen science projects, it promotes independent learning and problem solving by all participants and can result in a small number of unexpected research outcomes. We present one such example, a case study identified by a group of students of decreasing鈥恌requency poloidal field line resonances over multiple days found to occur during the recovery phase of a coronal mass ejection鈥恉riven geomagnetic storm. Simultaneous plasma density measurements show that the decreasing frequencies were due to the refilling of the plasmasphere following the storm. The waves were likely generated by internal plasma processes. Further exploration of the audio revealed many similar events following other major storms; thus, they are much more common than previously thought. We therefore highlight the potential of sonification and exploratory citizen science in addressing some of the challenges facing ULF wave research.
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Journal articleHajra R, Henri P, Myllys M, et al., 2018, , Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol: 480, Pages: 4544-4556, ISSN: 0035-8711
Four interplanetary corotating interaction regions (CIRs) were identified during 2016 June–September by the Rosetta Plasma Consortium (RPC) monitoring in situ the plasma environment of the comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko (67P) at heliocentric distances of ∼3–3.8 au. The CIRs, formed in the interface region between low- and high-speed solar wind streams with speeds of ∼320–400 km s−1 and ∼580–640 km s−1, respectively, are characterized by relative increases in solar wind proton density by factors of ∼13–29, in proton temperature by ∼7–29, and in magnetic field by ∼1–4 with respect to the pre-CIR values. The CIR boundaries are well defined with interplanetary discontinuities. Out of 10 discontinuities, four are determined to be forward waves and five are reverse waves, propagating at ∼5–92 per cent of the magnetosonic speed at angles of ∼20°–87° relative to ambient magnetic field. Only one is identified to be a quasi-parallel forward shock with magnetosonic Mach number of ∼1.48 and shock normal angle of ∼41°. The cometary ionosphere response was monitored by Rosetta from cometocentric distances of ∼4–30 km. A quiet time plasma density map was developed by considering dependences on cometary latitude, longitude, and cometocentric distance of Rosetta observations before and after each of the CIR intervals. The CIRs lead to plasma density enhancements of ∼500–1000 per cent with respect to the quiet time reference level. Ionospheric modelling shows that increased ionization rate due to enhanced ionizing (>12–200 eV) electron impact is the prime cause of the large cometary plasma density enhancements during the CIRs. Plausible origin mechanisms of the cometary ionizing electron enhancements are discussed.
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Journal articleWeiss Z, Pickering JC, Hoffmann V, 2018, , SPECTROCHIMICA ACTA PART B-ATOMIC SPECTROSCOPY, Vol: 149, Pages: 241-242, ISSN: 0584-8547
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Journal articleThuy-Huong N, Min S-K, Paik S, et al., 2018, , CLIMATE DYNAMICS, Vol: 51, Pages: 3179-3193, ISSN: 0930-7575
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Journal articleGoodrich KA, Ergun R, Schwartz SJ, et al., 2018, , JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH-SPACE PHYSICS, Vol: 123, Pages: 9430-9442, ISSN: 2169-9380
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- Citations: 70
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Journal articleLiu F, Wienke C, Fiencke C, et al., 2018, , Environmental Science and Pollution 91桃色, Vol: 25, Pages: 31297-31306, ISSN: 0944-1344
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Journal articleMyhre G, Kramer RJ, Smith CJ, et al., 2018, , Geophysical 91桃色 Letters, Vol: 20, Pages: 11399-11405, ISSN: 0094-8276
Different climate drivers influence precipitation in different ways. Here we use radiative kernels to understand the influence of rapid adjustment processes on precipitation in climate models. Rapid adjustments are generally triggered by the initial heating or cooling of the atmosphere from an external climate driver. For precipitation changes, rapid adjustments due to changes in temperature, water vapor, and clouds are most important. In this study we have investigated five climate drivers (CO2, CH4, solar irradiance, black carbon, and sulfate aerosols). The fast precipitation responses to a doubling of CO2 and a 10-fold increase in black carbon are found to be similar, despite very different instantaneous changes in the radiative cooling, individual rapid adjustments, and sensible heating. The model diversity in rapid adjustments is smaller for the experiment involving an increase in the solar irradiance compared to the other climate driver perturbations, and this is also seen in the precipitation changes.
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Journal articleShawki D, Voulgarakis A, Chakraborty A, et al., 2018, , Journal of Geophysical 91桃色, Vol: 123, Pages: 11585-11601, ISSN: 0148-0227
The South Asian summer monsoon has been suggested to be influenced by atmospheric aerosols, and this influence can be the result of either local or remote emissions. We have used the Hadley Centre Global Environment Model Version 3 (HadGEM3) coupled atmosphere鈥恛cean climate model to investigate for the first time the centennial鈥恠cale South Asian precipitation response to emissions of sulfur dioxide (SO2), the dominant anthropogenic precursor of sulfate aerosol, from different midlatitude regions. Despite the localized nature of the regional heating that results from removing SO2 emissions, all experiments featured a similar large鈥恠cale precipitation response over South Asia, driven by ocean鈥恗odulated changes in the net cross鈥恊quatorial heat transport and an opposing cross鈥恊quatorial northward moisture transport. The effects are linearly additive, with the sum of the responses from the experiments where SO2 is removed from the United States, Europe, and East Asia resembling the response seen in the experiment where emissions are removed from the northern midlatitudes as a whole, but with East Asia being the largest contributor, even per unit of emission or top鈥恛f鈥恆tmosphere radiative forcing. This stems from the fact that East Asian emissions can more easily influence regional land鈥恠ea thermal contrasts and sea level pressure differences that drive the monsoon circulation, compared to emissions from more remote regions. Our results suggest that radiative effects of remote pollution should not be neglected when examining changes in South Asian climate and that and it is important to examine such effects in coupled ocean鈥恆tmosphere modeling frameworks.
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Journal articleBandyopadhyay R, Chasapis A, Chhiber R, et al., 2018, , ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL, Vol: 866, ISSN: 0004-637X
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- Citations: 50
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Journal articleGewin V, Keith D, Haigh J, et al., 2018, , NATURE, Vol: 562, Pages: 449-450, ISSN: 0028-0836
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Journal articleKhurana KK, Dougherty MK, Provan G, et al., 2018, , Geophysical 91桃色 Letters, Vol: 45, Pages: 10068-10074, ISSN: 0094-8276
Magnetic field observations obtained by the Cassini spacecraft as it traversed regions inside of Saturn's D ring packed a genuine surprise. The azimuthal component of the magnetic field recorded a consistent positive perturbation with a strength of 15–25 nT near closest approach. The closest approaches were near the equatorial plane of Saturn and were distributed narrowly around local noon and brought the spacecraft to within 2,550 km of Saturn's cloud tops. Modeling of this perturbation shows that it is not of internal origin but is produced by external currents that couple the low鈥恖atitude northern ionosphere to the low鈥恖atitude southern ionosphere. The azimuthal perturbations diminish at higher latitudes on field lines that connect to Saturn's icy rings. The sense of the current system suggests that the southern feet of the field lines in the ionosphere leads their northern counterparts. We show that the observed field perturbations are consistent with a field鈥恆ligned current whose strength is ~1 MA/radian, that is, comparable in strength to the planetary鈥恜eriod鈥恛scillation鈥恟elated current systems observed in the auroral zone. We show that the Lorentz force in the ionosphere extracts momentum from the faster moving low鈥恖atitude zonal belt and delivers it to the northern ionosphere. We further show that the electric current is generated when the two ends of a field line are embedded in zonal flows with differing wind speeds in the low鈥恖atitude thermosphere. The wind鈥恎enerated currents dissipate 2 × 1011W of thermal power, similar to the input from the solar extreme ultraviolet flux in this region.
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Journal articleJones G, Agarwal J, Bowles N, et al., 2018, , Advances in Space 91桃色, Vol: 62, Pages: 1921-1946, ISSN: 0273-1177
We describe Caroline, a mission proposal submitted to the European Space Agency in 2010 in response to the Cosmic Visions M3 call for medium-sized missions. Caroline would have travelled to a Main Belt Comet (MBC), characterizing the object during a 铿倅by, and capturing dust from its tenuous coma for return to Earth. MBCs are suspected to be transition objects straddling the traditional boundary between volatile–poor rocky asteroids and volatile–rich comets. The weak cometary activity exhibited by these objects indicates the presence of water ice, and may represent the primary type of object that delivered water to the early Earth. The Caroline mission would have employed aerogel as a medium for the capture of dust grains, as successfully used by the NASA Stardust mission to Comet 81P/Wild 2. We describe the proposed mission design, primary elements of the spacecraft, and provide an overview of the science instruments and their measurement goals. Caroline was ultimately not selected by the European Space Agency during the M3 call; we brie铿倅 re铿俥ct on the pros and cons of the mission as proposed, and how current and future mission MBC mission proposals such as Castalia could best be approached.
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Journal articleSnodgrass C, Jones GH, Boehnhardt H, et al., 2018, , Advances in Space 91桃色, Vol: 62, Pages: 1947-1976, ISSN: 0273-1177
We describe Castalia, a proposed mission to rendezvous with a Main Belt Comet (MBC), 133P/Elst-Pizarro. MBCs are a recently discovered population of apparently icy bodies within the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, which may represent the remnants of the population which supplied the early Earth with water. Castalia will perform the first exploration of this population by characterising 133P in detail, solving the puzzle of the MBC’s activity, and making the first in situ measurements of water in the asteroid belt. In many ways a successor to ESA’s highly successful Rosetta mission, Castalia will allow direct comparison between very different classes of comet, including measuring critical isotope ratios, plasma and dust properties. It will also feature the first radar system to visit a minor body, mapping the ice in the interior. Castalia was proposed, in slightly different versions, to the ESA M4 and M5 calls within the Cosmic Vision programme. We describe the science motivation for the mission, the measurements required to achieve the scientific goals, and the proposed instrument payload and spacecraft to achieve these.
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Journal articleBelmonte MT, Pickering JC, Clear CP, et al., 2018, , Galaxies, Vol: 6, ISSN: 2075-4434
Accurate atomic parameters, such as transition probabilities, wavelengths, and energy levels, are indispensable for the analysis of stellar spectra and the obtainment of chemical abundances. However, the quantity and quality of the existing data in many cases lie far from the current needs of astronomers, creating an acute need for laboratory measurements of matching accuracy and completeness to exploit the full potential of the very expensively acquired astrophysical spectra. The Fourier Transform Spectrometer at 91桃色 works in the vacuum ultraviolet-visible region with a resolution of 2,000,000 at 200 nm. We can acquire calibrated spectra of neutral, singly, and doubly ionized species. We collaborate with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Lund to extend our measurements into the infrared region. The aim of this review is to explain the current capabilities of our experiment in an understandable way to bring the astronomy community closer to the field of laboratory astrophysics and encourage further dialogue between our laboratory and all those astronomers who need accurate atomic data. This exchange of ideas will help us to focus our efforts on the most urgently needed data.
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Journal articleDougherty MK, Cao H, Khurana KK, et al., 2018, , Science, Vol: 362, ISSN: 0036-8075
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Journal articleHeritier K, Galand M, Henri P, et al., 2018, , Astronomy and Astrophysics, Vol: 618, ISSN: 0004-6361
Context.The Rosetta spacecraft provided us with a unique opportunity to study comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko from a closeperspective and over a two-year time period. Comet 67P is a weakly active comet. It was therefore unexpected to find an active anddynamic ionosphere where the cometary ions were largely dominant over the solar wind ions, even at large heliocentric distances.Aims.Our goal is to understand the different drivers of the cometary ionosphere and assess their variability over time and over thedifferent conditions encountered by the comet during the Rosetta mission.Methods.We used a multi-instrument data-based ionospheric model to compute the total ion number density at the position ofRosetta. In-situ measurements from the Rosetta Orbiter Spectrometer for Ion and Neutral Analysis (ROSINA) and the Rosetta PlasmaConsortium (RPC)–Ion and Electron Sensor (IES), together with the RPC–LAngmuir Probe instrument (LAP) were used to computethe local ion total number density. The results are compared to the electron densities measured by RPC–Mutual Impedance Probe(MIP) and RPC–LAP.Results.We were able to disentangle the physical processes responsible for the formation of the cometary ions throughout thetwo-year escort phase and we evaluated their respective magnitudes. The main processes are photo-ionization and electron-impactionization. The latter is a significant source of ionization at large heliocentric distance (>2 au) and was predominant during the lastfour months of the mission. The ionosphere was occasionally subject to singular solar events, temporarily increasing the ambientenergetic electron population. Solar photons were the main ionizer near perihelion at 1.3 au from the Sun, during summer 2015.
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Journal articleNowack PJ, Braesicke P, Haigh J, et al., 2018, , Environmental 91桃色 Letters, Vol: 13, ISSN: 1748-9326
A number of studies have demonstrated the importance of ozone in climate change simulations, for example concerning global warming projections and atmospheric dynamics. However, fully interactive atmospheric chemistry schemes needed for calculating changes in ozone are computationally expensive. Climate modelers therefore often use climatological ozone fields, which are typically neither consistent with the actual climate state simulated by each model nor with the specific climate change scenario. This limitation applies in particular to standard modeling experiments such as preindustrial control or abrupt 4xCO2 climate sensitivity simulations. Here we suggest a novel method using a simple linear machine learning regression algorithm to predict ozone distributions for preindustrial and abrupt 4xCO2 simulations. Using the atmospheric temperature field as the only input, the regression reliably predicts three-dimensional ozone distributions at monthly to daily time intervals. In particular, the representation of stratospheric ozone variability is much improved compared with a fixed climatology, which is important for interactions with dynamical phenomena such as the polar vortices and the Quasi-Biennial Oscillation. Our method requires training data covering only a fraction of the usual length of simulations and thus promises to be an important stepping stone towards a range of new computationally efficient methods to consider ozone changes in long climate simulations. We highlight key development steps to further improve and extend the scope of machine learning-based ozone parameterizations.
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Journal articleSourdeval O, Gryspeerdt E, Kr盲mer M, et al., 2018, , Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, Vol: 18, Pages: 14327-14350, ISSN: 1680-7316
The number concentration of cloud particles is a key quantity for understanding aerosol–cloud interactions and describing clouds in climate and numerical weather prediction models. In contrast with recent advances for liquid clouds, few observational constraints exist regarding the ice crystal number concentration (Ni). This study investigates how combined lidar–radar measurements can be used to provide satellite estimates of Ni, using a methodology that constrains moments of a parameterized particle size distribution (PSD). The operational liDAR–raDAR (DARDAR) product serves as an existing base for this method, which focuses on ice clouds with temperatures Tc < −30°C.Theoretical considerations demonstrate the capability for accurate retrievals of Ni, apart from a possible bias in the concentration in small crystals when Tc鈮 − 50°C, due to the assumption of a monomodal PSD shape in the current method. This is verified via a comparison of satellite estimates to coincident in situ measurements, which additionally demonstrates the sufficient sensitivity of lidar–radar observations to Ni. Following these results, satellite estimates of Ni are evaluated in the context of a case study and a preliminary climatological analysis based on 10 years of global data. Despite a lack of other large-scale references, this evaluation shows a reasonable physical consistency in Ni spatial distribution patterns. Notably, increases in Ni are found towards cold temperatures and, more significantly, in the presence of strong updrafts, such as those related to convective or orographic uplifts. Further evaluation and improvement of this method are necessary, although these results already constitute a first encouraging step towards large-scale observational constraints for Ni. Part 2 of this series uses this new dataset to examine the controls on Ni.
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Journal articleGryspeerdt E, Sourdeval E, Quaas J, et al., 2018, , Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, Vol: 18, Pages: 14351-14370, ISSN: 1680-7316
The ice crystal number concentration (Ni) is a key property of ice clouds, both radiatively and microphysically. Due to sparse in situ measurements of ice cloud properties, the controls on the Ni have remained difficult to determine. As more advanced treatments of ice clouds are included in global models, it is becoming increasingly necessary to develop strong observational constraints on the processes involved.This work uses the DARDAR-Nice Ni retrieval described in Part 1 to investigate the controls on the Ni at a global scale. The retrieved clouds are separated by type. The effects of temperature, proxies for in-cloud updraft and aerosol concentrations are investigated. Variations in the cloud top Ni (Ni(top)) consistent with both homogeneous and heterogeneous nucleation are observed along with differing relationships between aerosol and Ni(top) depending on the prevailing meteorological situation and aerosol type. Away from the cloud top, the Ni displays a different sensitivity to these controlling factors, providing a possible explanation for the low Ni sensitivity to temperature and ice nucleating particles (INP) observed in previous in situ studies.This satellite dataset provides a new way of investigating the response of cloud properties to meteorological and aerosol controls. The results presented in this work increase our confidence in the retrieved Ni and will form the basis for further study into the processes influencing ice and mixed phase clouds.
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Journal articleDougherty MK, Cao H, Khurana KK, et al., 2018, , Science, Vol: 362, Pages: 1-9, ISSN: 0036-8075
INTRODUCTIONStarting on 26 April 2017, the Grand Finale phase of the Cassini mission took the spacecraft through the gap between Saturn’s atmosphere and the inner edge of its innermost ring (the D-ring) 22 times, ending with a final plunge into the atmosphere on 15 September 2017. This phase offered an opportunity to investigate Saturn’s internal magnetic field and the electromagnetic environment between the planet and its rings. The internal magnetic field is a diagnostic of interior structure, dynamics, and evolution of the host planet. Rotating convective motion in the highly electrically conducting layer of the planet is thought to maintain the magnetic field through the magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) dynamo process. Saturn’s internal magnetic field is puzzling because of its high symmetry relative to the spin axis, known since the Pioneer 11 flyby. This symmetry prevents an accurate determination of the rotation rate of Saturn’s deep interior and challenges our understanding of the MHD dynamo process because Cowling’s theorem precludes a perfectly axisymmetric magnetic field being maintained through an active dynamo.RATIONALEThe Cassini fluxgate magnetometer was capable of measuring the magnetic field with a time resolution of 32 vectors per s and up to 44,000 nT, which is about twice the peak field strength encountered during the Grand Finale orbits. The combination of star cameras and gyroscopes onboard Cassini provided the attitude determination required to infer the vector components of the magnetic field. External fields from currents in the magnetosphere were modeled explicitly, orbit by orbit.RESULTSSaturn’s magnetic equator, where the magnetic field becomes parallel to the spin axis, is shifted northward from the planetary equator by 2808.5 ± 12 km, confirming the north-south asymmetric nature of Saturn’s magnetic field. After removing the systematic variation with distance from the spin axis, the peak-to-peak
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Journal articleWolf G, Brayshaw DJ, Klingaman NP, et al., 2018, , Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, Vol: 144, Pages: 2431-2448, ISSN: 0035-9009
Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of the Royal Meteorological Society. Large-scale, quasi-stationary atmospheric waves (QSWs) have long been known to be associated with weather extremes such as the European heatwave in 2003. There is much debate in the scientific literature as to whether QSW activity may increase under a changing climate, providing a strong motivation for developing a better understanding of the behaviour and drivers of QSWs. This paper presents the first steps in this regard: the development of a robust objective method for a simple identification and characterization of these waves. A clear connection between QSWs and European weather and extreme events is confirmed for all seasons, indicating that blocking anti-cyclones are often part of a broader-scale wave pattern. Investigation of the QSW climatology in the Northern Hemisphere reveals that wave activity is typically strongest in midlatitudes, particularly at the exit of the Atlantic and Pacific storm track, with weaker intensities in summer. In general, the structure of individual QSW events tends to follow the climatological pattern, except in winter where the strongest and most persistent QSWs are typically shifted polewards, indicating a distinct evolution of the “strongest” QSW events. Modes of interannual variability are calculated to better understand their importance and connection to European temperatures and to identify relevant QSW patterns. This analysis highlights that European winter temperatures are strongly associated with the meridional location of QSW activity whereas high European summer temperatures are associated with increases in the overall intensity of midlatitude QSW activity. QSWs are shown to be strongly connected to commonly used indices to describe the large-scale atmospheric circulation (NAO, AO, Niño 3.4, PNA) but offer a more direct link to understanding their impact on
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Journal articleMoore L, Cravens TE, Mueller-Wodarg I, et al., 2018, , Geophysical 91桃色 Letters, Vol: 45, Pages: 9398-9407, ISSN: 0094-8276
We present new models of Saturn's equatorial ionosphere based on the first in situ measurements of its upper atmosphere. The neutral spectrum measured by Cassini's Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometer, which includes substantial methane, ammonia, and organics in addition to the anticipated molecular hydrogen, helium, and water, serves as input for unexpectedly complex ionospheric chemistry. Heavy molecular ions are found to dominate Saturn's equatorial low鈥恆ltitude ionosphere, with a mean ion mass of 11 Da. Key molecular ions include H3O+ and HCO+; other abundant heavy ions depend upon the makeup of the mass 28 neutral species, which cannot be uniquely determined. Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometer neutral species lead to generally good agreement between modeled and observed plasma densities, though poor reproduction of measured H+ and H3+ variability and an overabundance of modeled H3+ potentially hint at missing physical processes in the model, including a loss process that affects H3+ but not H+.
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Journal articleManners H, Masters A, Yates J, 2018, , Geophysical 91桃色 Letters, Vol: 45, Pages: 8746-8754, ISSN: 0094-8276
Energy transport inside the giant magnetosphere at Jupiter is poorly understood. Since the Pioneer era, mysterious quasiperiodic (QP) pulsations have been reported. Early publications successfully modeled case studies of ∼60鈥恗in (rest鈥恌rame) pulsations as standing Alfvén waves. Since then, the range of periods has increased to ∼10–60 min, spanning multiple data sets. More work is required to assess whether a common QP modulation mechanism is capable of explaining the full range of wave periods. Here we have modeled standing Alfvén waves to compute the natural periods of the Jovian magnetosphere, for varying plasma sheet thicknesses, field line lengths, and Alfvén speeds. We show that variability in the plasma sheet produces eigenperiods that are consistent with all the reported observations. At least the first half鈥恉ozen harmonics (excluding the fundamental) may contribute but are indistinguishable in our analysis. We suggest that all QP pulsations reported at Jupiter may be explained by standing Alfvén waves.
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Journal articleBowen TA, Mallet A, Bonnell JW, et al., 2018, , ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL, Vol: 865, ISSN: 0004-637X
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- Citations: 24
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