University of Hawaii at Manoa

About: University of Hawaii at Manoa is a education organization based out in Honolulu, Hawaii, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Sea surface temperature. The organization has 13693 authors who have published 25161 publications receiving 1023924 citations.

One-third of reef-building corals face elevated extinction risk from climate change and local impacts

Abstract: The conservation status of 845 zooxanthellate reef-building coral species was assessed by using International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List Criteria. Of the 704 species that could be assigned conservation status, 32.8% are in categories with elevated risk of extinction. Declines in abundance are associated with bleaching and diseases driven by elevated sea surface temperatures, with extinction risk further exacerbated by local-scale anthropogenic disturbances. The proportion of corals threatened with extinction has increased dramatically in recent decades and exceeds that of most terrestrial groups. The Caribbean has the largest proportion of corals in high extinction risk categories, whereas the Coral Triangle (western Pacific) has the highest proportion of species in all categories of elevated extinction risk. Our results emphasize the widespread plight of coral reefs and the urgent need to enact conservation measures.

Revisiting the scaling relations of black hole masses and host galaxy properties

Abstract: New kinematic data and modeling efforts in the past few years have substantially expanded and revised dynamical measurements of black hole masses (M ?) at the centers of nearby galaxies. Here we compile an updated sample of 72 black holes and their host galaxies, and present revised scaling relations between M ? and stellar velocity dispersion (?), V-band luminosity (L), and bulge stellar mass (M bulge), for different galaxy subsamples. Our best-fitting power-law relations for the full galaxy sample are log10(M ?) = 8.32 + 5.64log10(?/200 km s?1), log10(M ?) = 9.23 + 1.11log10(L/1011 L ?), and log10(M ?) = 8.46 + 1.05log10(M bulge/1011 M ?). A log-quadratic fit to the M ?-? relation with an additional term of ?2 [log10(?/200 km s?1)]2 gives ?2 = 1.68 ? 1.82 and does not decrease the intrinsic scatter in M ?. Including 92 additional upper limits on M ? does not change the slope of the M ?-? relation. When the early- and late-type galaxies are fit separately, we obtain similar slopes of 5.20 and 5.06 for the M ?-? relation but significantly different intercepts?M ? in early-type galaxies are about two times higher than in late types at a given sigma. Within early-type galaxies, our fits to M ?(?) give M ? that is about two times higher in galaxies with central core profiles than those with central power-law profiles. Our M ?-L and M ?-M bulge relations for early-type galaxies are similar to those from earlier compilations, and core and power-law galaxies yield similar L- and M bulge-based predictions for M ?. When the conventional quadrature method is used to determine the intrinsic scatter in M ?, our data set shows weak evidence for increased scatter at M bulge < 1011 M ? or LV < 1010.3 L ?, while the scatter stays constant for 1011 < M bulge < 1012.3 M ? and 1010.3 < LV < 1011.5 L ?. A Bayesian analysis indicates that a larger sample of M ? measurements would be needed to detect any statistically significant trend in the scatter with galaxy properties.

Rainy Season of the Asian-Pacific Summer Monsoon(.

Abstract: To date, the monsoon-research community has not yet reached a consensus on a unified definition of monsoon rainy season or on the linkage between the onsets over the Asian continent and the adjacent oceans. A single rainfall parameter is proposed, and a suite of universal criteria for defining the domain, onset, peak, and withdrawal of the rainy season are developed. These results reveal a cohesive spatial–temporal structure of the Asian–Pacific monsoon rainy season characteristics, which will facilitate validation of monsoon hydrological cycles simulated by climate system models and improve our understanding of monsoon dynamics. The large-scale onset of the Asian monsoon rainy season consists of two phases. The first phase begins with the rainfall surges over the South China Sea (SCS) in mid-May, which establishes a planetary-scale monsoon rainband extending from the south Asian marginal seas (the Arabian Sea, the Bay of Bengal, and the SCS) to the subtropical western North Pacific (WNP). The ra...