The Cyprus Institute

About: The Cyprus Institute is a other organization based out in Nicosia, Cyprus. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Aerosol & Environmental science. The organization has 418 authors who have published 1252 publications receiving 32586 citations.

Incorrect interpretation of carbon mass balance biases global vegetation fire emission estimates.

Abstract: Vegetation fires are a complex phenomenon in the Earth system with many global impacts, including influences on global climate. Estimating carbon emissions from vegetation fires relies on a carbon mass balance technique that has evolved with two different interpretations. Databases of global vegetation fire emissions use an approach based on 'consumed biomass', which is an approximation to the biogeochemically correct 'burnt carbon' approach. Here we show that applying the 'consumed biomass' approach to global emissions from vegetation fires leads to annual overestimates of carbon emitted to the atmosphere by 4.0% or 100 Tg compared with the 'burnt carbon' approach. The required correction is significant and represents ∼9% of the net global forest carbon sink estimated annually. Vegetation fire emission studies should use the 'burnt carbon' approach to quantify and understand the role of this burnt carbon, which is not emitted to the atmosphere, as a sink enriched in carbon.

Axial charges of hyperons and charmed baryons using N f = 2 + 1 + 1 twisted mass fermions

Abstract: The axial couplings of the low lying baryons are evaluated using a total of five ensembles of dynamical twisted mass fermion gauge configurations. The simulations are performed using the Iwasaki gauge action and two degenerate flavors of light quarks, and a strange and a charm quark fixed to approximately their physical values at two values of the coupling constant. The lattice spacings, determined using the nucleon mass, are $a=0.082\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{fm}$ and $a=0.065\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{fm}$, and the simulations cover a pion mass in the range of about 210 MeV to 430 MeV. We study the dependence of the axial couplings on the pion mass in the range of about 210 MeV to 430 MeV as well as the SU(3) breaking effects as we decrease the light quark mass toward its physical value.

Modelling Anopheles gambiae s.s. Population Dynamics with Temperature- and Age-Dependent Survival.

Abstract: Climate change and global warming are emerging as important threats to human health, particularly through the potential increase in vector- and water-borne diseases. Environmental variables are known to affect substantially the population dynamics and abundance of the poikilothermic vectors of disease, but the exact extent of this sensitivity is not well established. Focusing on malaria and its main vector in Africa, Anopheles gambiae sensu stricto, we present a set of novel mathematical models of climate-driven mosquito population dynamics motivated by experimental data suggesting that in An. gambiae, mortality is temperature and age dependent. We compared the performance of these models to that of a “standard” model ignoring age dependence. We used a longitudinal dataset of vector abundance over 36 months in sub-Saharan Africa for comparison between models that incorporate age dependence and one that does not, and observe that age-dependent models consistently fitted the data better than the reference model. This highlights that including age dependence in the vector component of mosquito-borne disease models may be important to predict more reliably disease transmission dynamics. Further data and studies are needed to enable improved fitting, leading to more accurate and informative model predictions for the An. gambiae malaria vector as well as for other disease vectors.

The relative dispersion of cloud droplets: its robustness with respect to key cloud properties

Abstract: . Flight data measured in warm convective clouds near Istanbul in June 2008 were used to investigate the relative dispersion of cloud droplet size distribution. The relative dispersion (v), defined as the ratio between the standard deviation (σ) of the cloud droplet size distribution and cloud droplet average radius (⟨r⟩), is a key factor in regional and global models. The relationship between e and the clouds' microphysical and thermodynamic characteristics is examined. The results show that e is constrained with average values in the range of ~0.25–0.35. e is shown not to be correlated with cloud droplet concentration or liquid water content (LWC). However, e variance is shown to be sensitive to droplet concentration and LWC, suggesting smaller variability of v in the clouds' most adiabatic regions. A criterion for use of in situ airborne measurement data for calculations of statistical moments (used in bulk microphysical schemes), based on the evaluation of v, is suggested.