A review of the Paleozoic tectonics in the eastern part of Central Asian Orogenic Belt

Current status of persistent organic pesticides residues in air, water, and soil, and their possible effect on neighboring countries: a comprehensive review of India.

https://www.earth-prints.org/bitstream/2122/9538/1/North_atlantic_simulations_2014.pdf

North Atlantic simulations in Coordinated Ocean-ice Reference Experiments phase II (CORE-II). Part I: Mean states

After more than 20 years of steady progress, lithium-ion batteries still exhibit modest energy capacities that seem to have reached their asymptotic values with the present combination of graphite at the anode and insertion oxide or phosphate materials at the cathode. New applications, particularly for all-electric vehicles are pushing the development of electrode materials with higher Li storage capabilities, for both electrodes. Silicon, which exhibits the highest known Li-alloying capacity is one of the most promising anode materials. However, Li alloying with Si is accompanied by a large volume change which induces cracking and rapid pulverization of Si-based anodes. Significant improvements in the anode's lifetime as well as charge–discharge rates have been obtained over the past few years by employing Si nanostructures, particularly nanowires. In this paper, we present the main synthesis methods for Si nanowires as well as the alloying properties of Li with Si and review how the use of Si-based nanowires has evolved, thanks to sophisticated material/structure combinations, including core–shell nanowires, composites as well as hollowed nanotube-like approaches.

Silicon nanowires for Li-based battery anodes: a review

To the Editor — The rate of global mean warming has been lower over the past decade than previously. It has been argued1–5 that this observation might require a downwards revision of estimates of equilibrium climate sensitivity, that is, the long-term (equilibrium) temperature response to a doubling of atmospheric CO2 concentrations. Using up-to-date data on radiative forcing, global mean surface temperature and total heat uptake in the Earth system, we find that the global energy budget6 implies a range of values for the equilibrium climate sensitivity that is in agreement with earlier estimates, within the limits of uncertainty. The energy budget of the most recent decade does, however, indicate a lower range of values for the more policy-relevant7 transient climate response (the temperature increase at the point of doubling of the atmospheric CO2 concentration following a linear ramp of increasing greenhouse gas forcing) than the range obtained by either analysing the energy budget of earlier decades or current climate model simulations8. The response of the climate system to rising greenhouse gas levels is often summarized in terms of the equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) or the transient climate response (TCR). Both quantities are related to the global mean temperature change9 ΔT, the radiative forcing change ΔF, and the change in the rate of the total increase in Earth system heat content ΔQ (see Supplementary Section S1), by the global energy budget:

/pdf/energy-budget-constraints-on-climate-response-hdw51z9knx.pdf

Energy budget constraints on climate response

[1] Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS)-based radio occultation (RO) is a satellite remote sensing technique providing accurate profiles of the Earth’s atmosphere for weather and climate applications. Above about 30km altitude, however, statistical optimization is a critical process for initializing the RO bending angles in order to optimize the climate monitoring utility of the retrieved atmospheric profiles. Here we introduce an advanced dynamic statistical optimization algorithm, which uses bending angles from multiple days of European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) short-range forecast and analysis fields, together with averaged-observed bending angles, to obtain background profiles and associated error covariance matrices with geographically varying background uncertainty estimates on a daily updated basis. The new algorithm is evaluated against the existing Wegener Center Occultation Processing System version 5.4 (OPSv5.4) algorithm, using several days of simulated MetOp and observed CHAMP and COSMIC data, for January and July conditions. We find the following for the new method’s performance compared to OPSv5.4: 1.) it significantly reduces random errors (standard deviations), down to about half their size, and leaves less or about equal residual systematic errors (biases) in the optimized bending angles; 2.) the dynamic (daily) estimate of the background error correlation matrix alone already improves the optimized bending angles; 3.) the subsequently retrievedrefractivityprofilesandatmospheric(temperature)profilesbenefit by improvederror characteristics,especiallyabove about 30km. Based on theseencouraging results, we work to employ similar dynamic error covariance estimation also for the observed bending angles and to apply the method to full months and subsequently to entire climate data records.

/pdf/a-new-dynamic-approach-for-statistical-optimization-of-gnss-4kvuyf8iph.pdf

S. Zhang

Papers

A new dynamic approach for statistical optimization of GNSS radio occultation bending angles for optimal climate monitoring utility