Search results for " oscillation"
showing 10 items of 845 documents
Recurrent daily rainfall patterns over South Africa and associated dynamics during the core of the austral summer
2010
This paper investigates the influence of some modes of climate variability on the spatio-temporal rainfall variability over South Africa during the core of the rainy season, December to February (DJF). All analyses are based directly on the rainfall field instead of atmospheric processes and dynamics. An original agglomerative hierarchical clustering approach is used to classify daily rainfall patterns recorded at 5352 stations from DJF 1971 to DJF 1999. Five clusters are retained for analysis. Amongst them, one cluster looks most like the rainfall and circulation mean picture. Another one, representing 37% of the days, describes strong negative rainfall anomalies over South Africa resultin…
Inter-Relationships Between Groundnut Yield in Senegal, Interannual Rainfall Variability and Sea-Surface Temperatures
1999
Groundnut production strongly contributes to Senegal’s economy. Interannual variations of groundnut yield for the country as a whole, and their relationship with rainfall amounts, are examined for the 31-yr period 1960–1990. It is shown that on that scale, and after removing decadal trends, almost half of the variance is explained by rainfall variability, especially that of the early part of the rainy season (July–August). Given the high spatial coherence of seasonal rainfall in the region, teleconnections with global- and regional-scale climate dynamics, including sea-surface temperatures, are assessed. Though some features are similar to the rest of the Sahel, others are more specific, su…
Comparison of rainfall structures between NCEP/NCAR reanalyses and observed data over tropical Africa
2000
A comparison is made between modelled (NCEP/NCAR reanalysis) and observed (CRC and CRU dataset) annual and monthly precipitation over tropical Africa during the period 1958–1997. The split moving-windows dissimilarity analysis (SMWDA) is used to locate abrupt changes in rainfall time series. In the NCEP reanalysis data, we identify a main abrupt shift, which occurs in 1967 and concerns more than 50% of grid points. In the observation, this shift is only found over parts of tropical North Africa. Three other NCEP abrupt shifts (1975, 1983 and 1987) in the reanalysis shown by the SMWDA, each concerning about 20% of tropical Africa, are not identified in the observation. One hypothesis concern…
WING FLUTTER SUPPRESSION ENHANCEMENT USING A WELL-SUITED ACTIVE CONTROL MODEL
2007
State-space theory is employed here to model a new active wing flutter suppression control. In this paper, the design of a flutter suppression control law, for the NASA Benchmark Active Control Technology wing, is proposed through a single input-single output controller and unsteady aerodynamics is modelled using the Theodorsen's theory. Wing dynamic model is obtained by combining the aeroelastic equations of motion with the actuator model presented. Open-loop dynamic behaviour is examined for a single feedback variable that combines pitch and plunge accelerations. Here, a new formulation of control law, based on classical control techniques and featuring two feedback closed-loops, is succ…
Contribution of mode coupling and phase-mixing of Alfv\'en waves to coronal heating
2017
This research has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No. 647214) and from the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council. This work used the DiRAC Data Centric system at Durham University, operated by the Institute for Computational Cosmology on behalf of the STFC DiRAC HPC Facility (www.dirac.ac.uk. This equipment was funded by a BIS National E-infrastructure capital grant ST/K00042X/1, STFC capital grant ST/K00087X/1, DiRAC Operations grant ST/K003267/1 and Durham University. Context. Phase-mixing of Alfvén waves in the solar corona has been identified as one possible candid…
North-Atlantic Oscillation and regional-scale sea-surge variability in Gulf of Lions during the 20th century
2010
Article soumis; International audience; Sea-surge variations recorded at three tide-gauge stations (Grau-de-la-Dent, Sète, and Port-Vendres) around the Gulf of Lions (Northwest Mediterranean Sea) are mostly locally forced by onshore winds blowing from 90° to 180° related to an atmospheric depression usually centered between the Bay of Biscay and the British Island, which is more prevalent during the negative phase of the North-Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). During the second half of the 20th century, the long-term increase of sea-surge height at Grau-de-la-Dent finds no counterpart in the positive deviation of the NAO. The relationship between the monthly frequency of sea surges > 20 cm at Gra…
Recent changes in measured wind in the NE Atlantic and variability of correlation with NAO
2010
The paper deals with wind measurements, recorded since the 1950s, at twelve meteorological stations along a transect near the westernmost European border, between 64° and 44° N. Extreme wind speed tends to decrease sharply near the northern boundary (at Reykjavick), near the middle of the study area (at Shannon and Valentia) and near the southern boundary (at Brest and Cap Ferret), to increase at Thorshavn, with less significant trends at the other stations. Average wind speeds confirm the above tendencies, with an additional increasing speed at Lerwick, Kirkwall, Malin Head, Belle-Ile and Cap Ferret. To compare changes in wind activity, the data have been subdivided into three periods: unt…
Global atmospheric response to specific linear combinations of the main SST modes. Part I: numerical experiments and preliminary results
1996
Abstract. This article investigates through numerical experiments the controversial question of the impact of El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomena on climate according to large-scale and regional-scale interhemispheric thermal contrast. Eight experiments (two considering only inversed Atlantic thermal anomalies and six combining ENSO warm phase with large-scale interhemispheric contrast and Atlantic anomaly patterns) were performed with the Météo-France atmospheric general circulation model. The definition of boundary conditions from observed composites and principal components is presented and preliminary results concerning the month of August, especially over West Africa and the …
Physics at a future Neutrino Factory and super-beam facility
2009
The conclusions of the Physics Working Group of the international scoping study of a future Neutrino Factory and super-beam facility (the ISS) are presented. The ISS was carried by the international community between NuFact05, (the 7th International Workshop on Neutrino Factories and Superbeams, Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati, Rome, June 21-26, 2005) and NuFact06 (Ivine, California, 24{30 August 2006). The physics case for an extensive experimental programme to understand the properties of the neutrino is presented and the role of high-precision measurements of neutrino oscillations within this programme is discussed in detail. The performance of second generation super-beam experiments, …
Nonlinear electrostatic oscillations in a cold magnetized electron-positron plasma
2017
We study the spatio-temporal evolution of the nonlinear electrostatic oscillations in a cold magnetized electron-positron (e-p) plasma using both analytics and simulations. Using a perturbative method we demonstrate that the nonlinear solutions change significantly when a pure electrostatic mode is excited at the linear level instead of a mixed upper-hybrid and zero-frequency mode that is considered in a recent study. The pure electrostatic oscillations undergo phase mixing nonlinearly. However, the presence of the magnetic field significantly delays the phase-mixing compared to that observed in the corresponding unmagnetized plasma. Using 1D PIC simulations we then analyze the damping of t…