Solar activity variations of ionosonde measurements and modeling results

The time series of hourly electron density profiles N(h) obtained at several mid-latitude stations in Europe have been used to obtain N(h) profiles on a monthly basis and to extract both the expected bottomside parameters and a proxy of the ionospheric variability as functions of time and height. With these data we present advances on a “Local Model” technique for the parameters B0 and B1, its applicability to other ionospheric stations, to other bottomside ionospheric parameters, and to modeling the time/height variability of the profile. The Local Model (LM) is an empirical model based on the experimental results of the solar activity dependence of the daily and seasonal behavior of the above parameters. The LM improves the IRI-2001 prediction of the B0 and B1 by factor of two at mid-latitudes. Moreover, the LM can be used to simulate other ionospheric parameters and to build mean N(h) profiles and the deviations from them. The modeling of both the average N(h) profiles and their deviations is an useful tool for ionospheric model users who want to know both the expected patterns and their deviations.     

Doppler characteristics of HF spread Doppler clutter recorded at Alice Springs,Australia

Mean night-time peak power, Doppler shift and Doppler width of spread Doppler clutter (SDC) received by a high frequency backscatter radar located at Alice Springs, Australia from 2000 to 2018 is presented as a function of azimuth, sunspot number, time of year and frequency. The sampled region covers 90 degrees from West to North and includes the northern and southern equatorial anomalies.SDC peak power diminished across all azimuths during the winter solstice from around May to August (local winter) coinciding with the global decrease in F layer density due to the annual non-seasonal F2 anomaly but was generally constant during the equinoxes. In contrast, SDC Doppler width and inbound Doppler shift both increased during the equinoxes and exhibited azimuthal dependence related to the eastward equatorial plasma drift.SDC peak power increased with increasing sunspot number with frequency dependence during winter but not summer. Inbound Doppler shift and Doppler width increased with increasing sunspot number during equinox but not solstice with a strong dependence on azimuth and a weak dependence on frequency.     

Semi-annual variations of chlorophyll concentration on the Eastern Tropical Pacific coast of Mexico

An analysis of the main remotly sensed oceanographic variables was conducted to characterize the dominant drivers that modulate the spatial-temporal variability of coastal phytoplankton biomass in the northern limit of the Eastern Tropical Pacific. The phytoplankton biomass was analyzed using monthly average satellite chlorophyll (Chlo) concentration data from MODIS sensors for the period 2003–2017. Oceanographic conditions were analyzed by considering (i) Sea Surface Temperature (SST) high-resolution data from the GHRSST project, (ii) wind stress calculated with data from the zonal and meridional components of the CCMP product, (iii) climatological precipitation, and (iv) climatological river flow. Chlo time series and spatial variability were analyzed using Hovmöller diagrams and Empirical Orthogonal Functions (EOF), respectively. A strong semi-annual signal in Chlo concentration along the coast was observed: the first peak occurs in winter-spring (5.0 mg·m⁻³) and a second one in summer-autumn (6.5 mg·m⁻³). A high year-round average of Chlo concentration (3.0–15.0 mg·m⁻³) was maintained by a 10 km wide along-shore coast, with maximum values spatially associated with river mouths, of which Santiago river registered the highest Chlo values (20.0 mg·m⁻³). Surface oceanographic conditions showed a marked annual cycle with warmer conditions (30–31 °C) from July to October and colder ones (23–24 °C) from December to April; during the cold period, seasonal wind stress stimulated coastal upwelling. The EOF showed that 70% of Chlo concentration variability was controlled by the semi-annual pattern, which responded to coastal upwelling conditions during cold period, while rivers outflows influenced high Chlo concentration during the warm period. These results highlighted the importance for land-ocean interface to sustain coastal ecosystems' biological production and the major role of watersheds as sources of nutrients to maintain high biological production during warm periods in transitional tropical-subtropical zones.     

Observation of a 27-day solar signature in noctilucent cloud altitude

Previous studies have identified solar 27-day signatures in several parameters in the Mesosphere/Lower thermosphere region, including temperature and Noctilucent cloud (NLC) occurrence frequency. In this study we report on a solar 27-day signature in NLC altitude with peak-to-peak variations of about 400?m. We use SCIAMACHY limb-scatter observations from 2002 to 2012 to detect NLCs. The superposed epoch analysis method is applied to extract solar 27-day signatures. A 27-day signature in NLC altitude can be identified in both hemispheres in the SCIAMACHY dataset, but the signature is more pronounced in the northern hemisphere. The solar signature in NLC altitude is found to be in phase with solar activity and temperature for latitudes $?70°$N. We provide a qualitative explanation for the positive correlation between solar activity and NLC altitude based on published model simulations.     

Satellite-observed biological variability in the equatorial Pacific during the 2009–2011 ENSO cycle

The event of 2009–2011 El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) provides an opportunity to gain insight into the biological variability of the equatorial Pacific Ocean for an entire ENSO cycle with satellite and in situ observations. Even though El Niño and La Niña in general led to respectively weakened and enhanced chlorophyll-a concentration and net primary production (NPP) along the equatorial Pacific Ocean during the 2009–2011 ENSO cycle, biological responses were highly disparate along the equator and attributed to different driving mechanisms. In the eastern equatorial Pacific east of 150°E, the El Niño-La Niña biological change was in general small except for the transition period even though sea surface temperature (SST) showed over ∼5 °C drop from El Niño to La Niña. In the central-eastern (170°W–140°W) equatorial Pacific, moderate change of biological activity is attributed to the changes of thermocline driven by the eastward propagating equatorial Kelvin waves and changes of zonal currents and undercurrents. Highest biological response in this ENSO cycle was located in the central (170°E–170°W) and central-western (150°E–170°E) equatorial Pacific with quadruple chlorophyll-a concentration and over ∼400 mg C m⁻² d⁻¹ increase of NPP from El Niño in 2009 to La Niña in 2010. However, spatial pattern of ENSO biological variability as represented with NPP is not exactly the same as chlorophyll-a variability. Wind-driving mixing of nutrients and eastward advection of the oligotrophic warm pool waters are attributed to this significant biological variability in this region.     

Decadal variability of tropical Pacific temperature in relation to solar cycles

We use the 8-year long satellite temperature data (2002–2010) from Atmospheric InfraRed Sounder (AIRS) and Atmospheric Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU) on the Aqua satellite to identify temperature trends in the troposphere and low stratosphere over the Niño 3.4 region of the Tropical Pacific Ocean in the most recent 11-year solar cycle. Employing more extended sea surface temperature (SST) data for five solar cycles (1950–2009) in this region we show that the satellite trends reflect a typical decrease of the sea surface temperature (SST) in the Niño 3.4 region in the declining phase of the solar cycle. The magnitude of the SST decrease depends on the solar cycle and ranges between 0.07 K/yr and 0.27 K/yr for the last five solar cycles.     

Solar Variability and the Earth's Climate: Introduction and Overview

Numerous attempts have been made over the years to link various aspects of solar variability to changes in the Earth's climate. There has been growing interest in this possible connection in recent years, spurred largely by the need to understand the natural causes of climate change, against which the expected global warming due to man's activities will have to be detected. The time scale of concern here is that of decades to centuries, and excludes the longer millennial scale in which orbital variations play a dominant role. The field has long been plagued by the lack of an acceptable physical mechanism by which solar variability can affect climate, but the discovery of variability in the Sun's total irradiance (the solar ``constant' of meteorology) by spacecraft instruments has pointed to a direct mechanism. Other less direct mechanisms that have been suggested involve variations in the Sun's ultraviolet flux and in the plasma outflow of the solar wind. The purpose of this paper is to summarize the current state of the field, emphasizing the proposed mechanisms as an introduction to the more detailed papers that follow. The particular case of sea-surface temperature data will be used as an illustration.     

On the optical variability of a be star,HDE 245770, — the optical counterpart of the transient X-ray pulsar A0535+26

Photoelectric WBVR observations of Be star HDE 245770=V 725 Tau, the optical counterpart of the transient X-ray pulsar A0535+26, having a pulse period of about 104 s, were conducted for more than 10 years. An irregular long-term optical variability of the star with amplitudes of the order of a few tenths of magnitude was found to be a usual phenomenon. In some cases rapid changes of the star's optical luminosity with a characteristic period of a few tens of minutes or a few hours, and an amplitude of several hundredths of magnitude in all the spectral bands used, which have practically coincided or correlated with the X-ray pulsar outbursts detected by X-ray satellites, were observed.Photoelectric recording of the optical flux from HDE 245770 were made in 1981–1982 with a time resolution of 1 second and 10 s, respectively, in theR spectral band (₀ 7000 Å) and in the narrowH -emission-line band (_1/2 75 Å) using a 48-cm reflector of High-Mountain Tien-Shan observatory of the Sternberg Astronomical Institute near Alma-Ata. An analysis of autocorrelation functions of the flux changes from object under study and a comparison with the star BD+26° 876 indicated the variability of luminosity of V 725 Tau in theR spectral band on a time scale of a few tens of second; this variability resembles shot noise with a characteristic time of stochastic bursts of about 15–20 s and their amplitudes of about a few tenths of a percent. InH -emission-line radiation autocorrelation functions and power spectra show quasiperiodic variability of luminosity of HDE 245770 with a characteristic period of about 100–150 s and an amplitude in the neighbour-hood of 0.5%. The latter result is not quite reliable because of not quite fine weather conditions during the observations; independent observations and check-up are required.     

Semi-automatic determination of the Azores Current axis using satellite altimetry: Application to the study of the current variability during 1995–2006

Satellite altimetry has been widely used to study the variability of the ocean currents such as the Azores Current (AzC) in the North Atlantic. Most analyses are performed over the region that encloses the current, thus being somehow affected by other oceanographic signals, e.g., eddies. In this study, a new approach for extracting the axis of a zonal current solely based on satellite altimetry is presented. This is a semi-automatic procedure that searches for the maximum values of the gradient of absolute dynamic topography (ADT), using the geostrophic velocity as auxiliary information. The advantage of this approach is to allow the analyses to be performed over a buffer centered on the current axis instead of using a wider region. It is here applied to the AzC for the period June 1995–October 2006.     

Regional and temporal variability of solar activity and galactic cosmic ray effects on the lower atmosphere circulation

In this work we studied the spatial and temporal structure of long-term effects of solar activity (SA) and galactic cosmic ray (GCR) variations on the lower atmosphere circulation as well as possible reasons for the peculiarities of this structure. The study revealed a strong latitudinal and regional dependence of SA/GCR effects on pressure variations in the lower troposphere which seems to be determined by specific features of baric systems formed in different regions. The temporal structure of SA/GCR effects on the troposphere circulation at high and middle latitudes is characterized by a roughly 60-year periodicity which is apparently due to the epochs of the large-scale atmospheric circulation. It is suggested that a possible mechanism of long-term effects of solar activity and cosmic ray variations on the troposphere circulation involves changes in the evolution of the polar vortex in the stratosphere of high latitudes, as well as planetary frontal zones.