Mass Circulation Research Articles

The abundance of Plastic Marine Debris on Beaches in Ambon Bay

Marine plastic pollution is one of the most serious problems in the marine environment. In this study we determined the abundance of plastic marine debris (large microplastic [1-5 mm] mesoplastic [5-25 mm] and macroplastic [>25 mm] on 2 beaches in Ambon Bay. The sampling was conducted during March 2018 using quadrats of 2 sizes. Macroplastics were sampled using large quadrats measuring 5 × 5m. Small quadrats measuring 0.5 x 0.5 m were used to collect large microplastics and mesoplastics. The respective abundances of large micro-(1-5 mm), meso-(5-25 mm) and macroplastic (>25 mm) were 68.8, 5, and 0.722 items.m−2. The highest abundance of marine plastic debris was found in the inner Ambon Bay. The results indicated a strong contribution of water mass circulation within Ambon Bay to the distribution of plastic debris abundance throughout the Bay.

Sub-seasonal prediction skill for the stratospheric meridional mass circulation variability in CFSv2

This study evaluates the prediction skill for the stratospheric mass circulation variability in winter (November–March) in the Climate Forecast System, version 2 (CFSv2), from 2011 to 2018. Three stratospheric mass circulation indices measuring meridional mass transport into the polar stratosphere by the total flow (ST60N), wavenumber-1 (ST60N_W1), and wavenumber-2 waves (ST60N_W2) are considered. The variability of ST60N is mainly contributed by ST60N_W1 and ST60N_W2, and these indices are good indicators of the timing and locations of the continental-scale cold-air outbreaks (CAOs) at mid-latitudes. Thus, their potentially useful prediction skill can be utilized to make sub-seasonal forecasts of CAOs in a dynamical and statistical hybrid paradigm. Systematic forecast bias is found in both the 7-year averaged winter mean and seasonal cycle, which is tied to the overestimation of damping in amplitude and westward tilting variations of total waves and difficulties in forecasting the exact contributions from different spatial scales of waves. The intraseasonal variations of stratospheric mass circulation indices, with the systematic forecast bias corrected, can be modestly predicted at a forecast lead time of about 20 days, in terms of both the anomaly value and timing of negative and positive peak events. The sub-seasonal predictability of the ST60N value mainly comes from the ST60N_W1, while the predictability of the timing of positive and negative peaks comes from the ST60N_W2. The 20-day prediction limit of the stratospheric mass circulation indices is mainly due to the 2-week limit of the CFSv2 model in predicting the variability of anomalous wave tilt angle, whereas the prediction limit of the wave amplitude anomaly can exceed 50 days.

Understanding the variation of stratosphere–troposphere coupling during stratospheric northern annular mode events from a mass circulation perspective

We revisit the various stratosphere–troposphere coupling relation from the perspective of the meridional mass circulation. We constructed 10-hPa northern annular mode (NAM) phase composites to show the typical spatiotemporal evolution of circulation anomalies during the NAM’s life cycle. Our results indicate that there is large case-to-case difference in the temporal evolution and vertical profile of polar temperature anomalies during NAM events, which shows no strong dependence on the intensity and duration of NAM events, but agrees well with the variations of the three branches of mass circulation at 60°N: the stratospheric poleward warm air branch (ST), the poleward warm air branch in the upper troposphere (WB), and the equatorward cold air branch in the lower troposphere (CB). Such correspondence is due to the dynamic heating and cooling anomalies associated with the redistribution of air masses by the anomalous meridional mass circulation in different isentropic layers. The various relationship among the three mass circulation branches is attributed to anomalous wave activities. The amplitude and westward tilt of waves are always stronger (weaker) throughout the stratosphere before (after) the peak time of negative NAM events, leading to a stronger (weaker) ST before (after) the peak time. Variations in WB and CB are mostly dependent on wave variabilities in the mid- to lower troposphere, leading to variations in the timing of in- or out-of-phase coupling of the ST with the WB and CB, and thus various thermostructure during NAM events. At a later stage of the negative NAM events when the polar temperature becomes colder and the polar jet recovers, the weakened baroclinic instability in the lower stratosphere provides favorable conditions for the strengthening of the WB and CB if wave activities strengthen in the troposphere during that period.

'A Sensation More Appalling and More Appealing': Photography and Famine Relief in Ireland and India

In his biting 1861 history of the Great Irish Famine, John Mitchel comments on the degree to which James Mahoney’s drawings in The Illustrated London News of “naked wretches dying on a truss of wet straw” helped feed appeals for alms. But would those appeals have been more effective had it been possible to use photographs instead of drawings? (Photography was still in its infancy in 1846-48; there are no photographs of the famine.) The Madras Famine of 1876-78 (which reached its horrific nadir in 1877) provides a fascinating test case of the hypothesis that photographs are in fact more effective than other forms of illustration in provoking not merely a sympathetic affective response, but the sort of generosity that is quantifiable in monetary terms. Engravings based on photographs were published in The Graphic midway through the Indian Famine Relief fundraising campaign; a comparison can thus be made between the pace of fundraising efforts before those images had been published (when the photographs themselves were in limited circulation at fundraising meetings and so on) and the pace of fundraising efforts after sketches closely based on the photographs had been published in mass circulation publications. As was the case with the Great Irish Famine, the publication of images in mass circulation weeklies seems to have no effect on the pace of fundraising efforts.

Cardiovascular magnetic resonance T2* mapping for structural alterations in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy

PurposeHypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is characterized by a heterogeneous morphology and variable prognosis. A mismatch between left ventricular mass (LVM) and microvascular circulation with corresponding relative ischemia has been implicated to cause myocardial replacement fibrosis that deteriorates prognosis. Besides parametric T1 mapping, Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance (CMR) T2* mapping is able to identify ischemia as well as fibrosis in cardiac and extracardiac diseases. Therefore, we aimed to investigate the value of T2* mapping to characterize structural alterations in patients with HCM. MethodsCMR was performed on a 1.5 T MR imaging system (Achieva, Philips, Best, Netherlands) using a 5-channel coil in patients with HCM (n = 103, 50.6 ± 16.4 years) and in age- and gender-matched controls (n = 20, 44.8 ± 16.9 years). T2* mapping (1 midventricular short axis slice) was acquired in addition to late gadolinium enhancement (LGE). T2* values were compared between patients with HCM and controls as well as between HCM patients with- and without fibrosis. ResultsHCM patients showed significantly decreased T2* values compared to controls (26.2 ± 4.6 vs. 31.3 ± 4.3 ms, p < 0.001). Especially patients with myocardial fibrosis presented with decreased T2* values in comparison to those without fibrosis (25.2 ± 4.0 vs. 28.7 ± 5.3 ms, p = 0.003). A regression model including maximum wall thickness, LVM and T2* values provided good overall diagnostic accuracy of 80% to diagnose HCM with and without fibrosis. ConclusionIn this study, parametric mapping identified lower T2* values in HCM patients compared to controls, especially in a sub-group of patients with myocardial fibrosis. As myocardial fibrosis has been suggested to influence prognosis of patients with HCM, T2* mapping may add information for identifying a higher risk sub-group of HCM patients.

“Fallen but Charming Creatures”: The Demimondaine in Russian Literature and Visual Culture of the 1860s

This article examines the portrayal of the demimondaine in Russian literature and visual culture of the 1860s. Often referred to as kamelii (camellias) after Alexandre Dumas fils’ La Dame Aux Camelias (1848), such “fallen women” entered the cultural imagination through works of art and fiction that associated the demimondaine with pleasure and leisure. Taking the work of Vsevolod Krestovskii (1840–95) as case study, I compare the author’s short story “Pogibshee, no miloe sozdanie” (“A Fallen but Charming Creature,” 1861) with a virtually unknown album of salacious lithographs for which Krestovskii provided prurient captions. Titled Pogibshie no milye sozdaniia (Fallen but Charming Creatures, 1862–63) in reference to his earlier tale, the album glorifies the demimondaine as a new kind of urban woman who possesses sexual and financial agency. Analyzing the depiction of kamelii in these two works–one fiction, the other visual–shows that although they differ in focus, both the story and album commodify the demimondaine for mass circulation.

Constant circulation sequences of binary neutron stars and their spin characterization

For isentropic fluids, dynamical evolution of a binary system conserves the baryonic mass and circulation; therefore, sequences of constant rest mass and constant circulation are of particular importance. In this work, we present the extension of our Compact Object CALculator (\cocal{}) code to compute such quasiequilibria and compare them with the well-known corotating and irrotational sequences, the latter being the simplest, zero-circulation case. The circulation as a measure of the spin for a neutron star in a binary system has the advantage of being exactly calculable since it is a local quantity. To assess the different measures of spin, such as the angular velocity of the star, the quasilocal, dimensionless spin parameter $J/M^2$, or the circulation $\mathcal{C}$, we first compute sequences of single, uniformly rotating stars and describe how the different spin diagnostics are related to each other. The connection to spinning binary systems is accomplished through the concept of circulation and the use of the constant rotational velocity formulation. Finally, we explore a modification of the latter formulation that naturally leads to differentially rotating binary systems.

Лондонський журнал «The Ukrainian Review» як промоутер у західному світі ідеї української державності

Стаття написана на основі опрацьованих автором бібліотечних та архівних колекцій у Лондоні під час наукового стажування у Великій Британії. Цінність її полягає в тому, що це перше спеціальне дослідження історії англомовного часопису українців, що виходив у Лондоні в другій половині ХХ ст. упродовж майже 40 років і призначався для іноземного читача.Виділяються три головні причини заснування українцями такого журналу в Лондоні: поламати стереотип сприйняття світом Східної Європи крізь призму Російської імперії, актуалізувати нерозв’язане після поразки Української революції 1917–1921 років українське питання, розширити з числа іноземних політиків і парламентарів коло нових симпатиків відродження України як самостійної держави.Йдеться про засновників видання — Союз Українців у Великій Британії, Лігу Визволення України в Канаді й Організацію Оборони Чотирьох Свобід України в США.З’ясовані дві категорії читачів, на які був спрямований новий журнал. Перша: англомовні чужинці з числа політиків, парламентарів, журналістів. Друга: молоді українці, які виросли на еміграції і не володіли українською мовою.Головним у редакційній політиці журналу проголошувалося: бути авторитетним джерелом відомостей про становище українців під окупацією Росії, роз’яснення іноземцям окремішності історії українців та їх державницьких домагань, знайомство з культурою, літературою та традиціями українців.В аналізі тиражної політики журналу звернена увага, що упродовж 38 років існування максимальний наклад становив 1500 примірників, мінімальний — 950. Половина з такої кількості складали передплатники, інша половина розповсюджувалася безкоштовно. Журнал поширювався, згідно зі складеним адресарем, до бібліотек, наукових інституцій, редакцій газет, політичних партій, університетів, коледжів та шкіл, а також окремим політикам, ученим, журналістам, парламентарям у більшість країн Західної Європи, Америки та Азії. В аналізі фінансових засад наголошується, що збитки від видання журналу покривалися винятково на пожертви українців.

CLIL PRACTICES IN TOMSK POLYTECHNIC UNIVERSITY: SUCCESSES AND FAILURES

Introduction. Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) has recently been applied into education system, but a range of supporters is rapidly increasing, covering diverse countries. The CLIL approaches simultaneously use a foreign language as an object to studying and as an instrument to learning other subjects. The emergence of CLIL was related to a wide distribution of bilingualism in society and the need to cope with the problems related to this process, including the elimination of international conflicts, the consolidation of society as the factor of a social well-being, the support of a competitive labour market, etc.Despite growing popularity of CLIL across the world and recognised status by the European Union as one of the leading effective means to implementing international language policy of multilingualism, the academic teaching staff of Russian higher school does not still fully understand the organisational mechanisms and forms of a similar learning process, largely as a result of national characteristics and traditions. In a globalising world, CLIL didactics is currently becoming a perspective direction of higher education and an effective way both of acquiring and improving language and communicative competencies to provide further successful professionalising of students and to facilitate their career promotion in the chosen field of activity.Theaimof this paper was to sum up and discuss the experience of Tomsk Polytechnic University in conducting CLIL-based courses.Methodology and research methods. The concept of practice-oriented vocational education was used as the methodological base of the experimental work in order to search optimal variants when developing foreign language knowledge in the students of engineering specialties. In the course of the research, the approaches of comparative analysis, synthesis, generalisation, forecasting, design, modelling, prolonged monitoring of learning outcomes, observation and questionnaire survey were applied.Results and scientific novelty.The actualising reasons for CLIL approach in the Russian high school education were formulated and proved. The brief historical overview of didactic concepts was presented. The authors analysed temporary challenges which preceded the implementation of CLIL methodologies in the learning process of Tomsk Polytechnic University (TPU) and the introduction of programme “Vocational Training and Education in a Foreign Language” (3rd-4th years of education). The stages of teaching foreign language evolution at the university were distinguished: the anglification of engineering education transformed into multidisciplinary model of English for Specific Purpose (ESP); the creation of “pedagogical tandems” – the organization of courses with “double agents”; and, finally, CLIL training in which a cognitive component can be seen as the key characteristic and the main advantage. Success and failure in the field of CLIL practices available today at TPU were revised. The examples of private implementable practices were described and analysed. The research findings revealed the rationality when using various applied variations of CLIL methodology.Practical significance. The research outcomes allowed the authors to adjust not only the main educational programmes of higher education institution, but also internal programmes of professional development of teachers. Although the long-term experiment summarised in the publication in a single higher education institution does not apply for universality and mass circulation, the authors believe that experimentative materials will contribute to consistent embedding of CLIL courses into a complete system of vocational training.

American Alternatives: Participatory Futures of Print from New York City’s Nineteenth-Century Spanish-Language Press

This essay situates the Spanish-language literary monthly La Revista Ilustrada de Nueva York, which was published in New York City in the 1880s and 1890s, at the forefront of a wave of experimentation with news and timely literary prose that surged during the same period. I argue that the encounter between New York–based writers of Latin American descent and the period’s new print and electric media technologies powered La Revista’s efforts to promote democracy in Latin America and to advance the region’s cultural status on the world stage. As New York’s popular English-language press banked its future on mass circulation enabled by those technologies and on a clear dividing line between producers and consumers, La Revista emphasized quality over quantity, ideas over entertainment, and, most importantly and experimentally for the time, reader participation over passive consumption. My analysis contributes to recent investigation of the origins of Latinx writing and to related efforts to unsettle the boundaries of US and Latin American literary history. It also sheds new light on José Martí’s “Nuestra América” (“Our America”), which first appeared in La Revista in January 1891—at the height of the magazine’s efforts to extend its own print and publishing capacity.

Media representation of the antimicrobial resistance (AMR) crisis: An Australian perspective.

Antimicrobial resistance and the rise of 'super bugs' has become a major threat to public health worldwide, with authorities warning of an 'apocalyptic future' unless addressed as a matter of urgency. Mass circulation media has traditionally taken an active role in informing the public of important public health issues and the measures needed to address these. The key objective of the larger project informing this article was to describe Australian media representations of the AMR crisis and its role in informing the public about the AMR crisis. Undertaken as an unobtrusive qualitative research enquiry, existing data from Australian media, the websites of select partisan groups and government health departments as well as discipline literature were sourced and analysed using content analysis strategies. Overall, media coverage was well informed, accurate, balanced, responsive to the issues at stake, and highlighted the seriousness of the issue without being alarmist. Intriguingly, reports relied heavily on the use of content and conceptual metaphors to frame their narratives. The media reports analysed in the context of this study were substantive and well informed. Just what impact they have had on the public in terms of improving its knowledge of the AMR issue or motivating behaviour change to mitigate the AMR crisis was unable to be ascertained. The strategic use of the media to galvanise an effective public response to the AMR crises thus requires further investigation.

Image of an Atrocity: Ivan (Hovhannes) Aivazovsky’s Massacre of the Armenians in Trebizond 1895

The essay introduces the celebrated nineteenth-century Russian Armenian seascape painter Ivan (Hovhannes) Aivazovsky’s (1817-1900) Massacre of the Armenians in Trebizond in 1895 as one of the most important of the artist’s multifarious responses to the systematic series of massacres unleashed upon the Ottoman Armenian population during 1894-1897. An important document of intellectual engagement with a recorded event of wholesale massacre, the work is presented as an early manifestation of atrocity imagery within an Armenian historical context, radically introducing the representation of violence into an already established Russian Armenian visual taxonomy of Ottoman Armenian victimhood. It is a work that survives only through its mediated reproduction in Russian Armenian lawyer and editor Grigor Djanshiev’s illustrated Russian language Fraternal Help for the Suffering of the Armenians in Turkey, a tome produced to raise funds for the survivors of the mass violence and publicise the events to a wider audience. The essay examines the claim as implied in the work’s caption of the image as truthful depiction of an actual well-documented event, the 8 October 1895 massacre in the eponymous city, and asks whether it represents, rather, an imagined dramatization subordinating human drama to the artist’s customary concern for a Romantic aesthetic. The essay further considers the propagandistic attributes of the work, manifested via its mass circulation and wide dissemination, particularly as incorporated into Fraternal Help.

Printed Publications of Irkutsk Military School as a History of Military Cadres Training in Eastern Siberia

Irkutsk (Cadet) Military School was founded in 1874 in Irkutsk. The School began training military officers for military bases located not only in Siberia, but all over Russia. Since its foundation the School has trained dozens of thousands of highly-qualified specialists for the army. The School has been through difficult times over the course of its development. Opened as a cadet school first it soon received a higher status becoming a military school. It functioned as a military school until the Civil War when it was disestablished. In 1931 the school was reestablished, however, as an aviation technical school and existed in this status while undergoing several reorganizations until 2009. Since the schools foundation it has had a number of printed publications covering its life and activities. These publications are usually not available for the majority of researchers as they were circulating only among military men and the schools faculty members and were not issued for mass circulation. Being an officer of Irkutsk Military School O. N. Astrakhantsev managed to collect some of the schools printed publications. Having analyzed these publications and relying on the principles of historism, the social approach and the comparative historical method the authors of the article conclude that nowadays these publications are a valuable source for studying the military schools history. The analysis of these publications allows one to take a fresh look at this military school everyday life. The comparison of these publications with archive documents and statutory acts and some other documents allows one to reconstruct in more detail and evaluate more precisely the schools activities at a particular time. The article describes evolution of printed publications, studies their main trends and peculiarities.

The Typological Structure of The System of In-House Publications

The aim of this paper is to highlight the development tendencies of typological structure of the system of in-house publications at the time of informatization.Research methodology is based on using the general scientific methods and special methods: analysis, synthesis, logical method, method of visualization of research results.Results. In the modern information space, a system of promotional presentation of corporate records, which have a multifunctional purpose, has been formed. The development of the typological structure of corporate records depends on the documentary support status for advertising and public relations, which are important components of the communication strategy of the institution, and the implication of mass media to marketing projects. The analysis of the tendencies of evolution of corporate records shows that this segment of mass communication system is dynamically developing, combining traditional printed, electronic and hybrid documents. Corporate records demonstrate high dynamics and the ability to functional transformations for the satisfaction of public needs in the aspects of implementing the information influence, shaping the specified public opinion. Corporate records are effective means of mass circulation of business information.Novelty. An attempt is made to summarize the transformation tendencies of the typological structure of the document support system within the processes of convergence, which manifests itself in the apposite combination of creative journalizing with the business interests and information technologies.The practical significance. The research has important implications for the description and systematization of corporate printed, electronic, hybrid records in accordance with typological features. The study demonstrated a need for the definition of the functional purpose of certain types of documents.Key words: in-house publication, typology, convergence, press.

Determination of the copper isotope composition of seawater revisited: A case study from the Mediterranean Sea

A new technique for the determination of dissolved copper isotope composition (δ65Cu) of seawater was applied to examine copper sources and internal cycling in the Mediterranean Sea along the GEOTRACES GA04N transect. A succession of chelating resin with nitrilotriacetic acid functional groups and strong base anion exchange resin, together with optimization of the multi-collector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry set-up allowed to isolate copper from seawater matrix and to measure the 65Cu/63Cu ratios in seawater with an external precision of 0.06‰ (2 s.d.). This method was first applied for inter-comparison measurements to surface and deep waters sampled at the Bermuda Atlantic Time-Series station (BATS) in the North Atlantic Ocean during the GEOTRACES Intercalibration Cruise 1. Disparities in δ65Cu reported here and in the literature over these samples showed a need to investigate whether a new inter-comparison sample should be decided upon, or whether the use of UV-oxidation can also affect the measurement of δ65Cu. We also measured total dissolved Cu concentration ([dCu]T) and δ65Cu for 12 stations in the Mediterranean Sea. The δ65Cu distribution showed significant variations in the euphotic zone, at the Chl a maximum and at bottom depths. Copper isotope ratios ranged from +0.21‰ to +0.76‰ (±0.06‰, 2 s.d.), yielding an average of +0.51‰ (±0.20‰, 2 s.d.; n = 96) for the Mediterranean Sea. A strong zonation between natural aerosol deposition to the South and anthropogenic aerosol deposition to the North was seen in the sample set (Dulaquais et al. 2017; Gerringa et al. 2017; Rolison et al. 2015). Natural dust deposits seemed to draw δ65Cu toward lower values and deeper in the euphotic zone whereas the impact of anthropogenic aerosols seemed restricted to an increase in [dCu]T. At the Chl a maximum, δ65Cu showed significant increase which we attributed to scavenging on and/or uptake by phytoplankton. The isotope signature of Cu sources to the Mediterranean Sea was also investigated and we inferred a significant source of isotopically heavy Cu in the Gibraltar area, potentially originating from a release of Cu sulfide leached in the mining area of Southern Spain (i.e. Iberian Pyrite Belt) in rivers and transported to the Mediterranean Sea in surface by seasonal water mass circulation. Conversely, marine sediments appear to be a source of isotopically-light Cu to deep waters. This study provides new hints on the use of copper isotopes to study sources and sinks of Cu in seawater. This article is part of a special issue entitled: “Cycles of trace elements and isotopes in the ocean – GEOTRACES and beyond” - edited by Tim M. Conway, Tristan Horner, Yves Plancherel, and Aridane G. González.

Ciclismo e saúde: as matérias sobre bicicleta veiculadas em um jornal de grande circulação no Espírito Santo

Cycling and health: cycling news released in a mass circulation newspaper in the state of Espírito Santo

Flow characteristics of circulating fluidized beds near terminal velocity: Eulerian model of a lab-scale apparatus

The hydrodynamic characteristics of gas and solid flows in circulating fluidized beds (CFB) can also influence other processes. To investigate various features of flows and mass circulation in CFB, a computational study was performed with the support of experiments measured in the riser section of a lab-scale apparatus of CFB. The fluidization velocity was slightly below the terminal velocity to avoid a major solid entrainment. The Gidaspow's model was used to calculate the gas-solid drag term in computational cells, which led to a good agreement with the experimental data of pressure profile. The gas inlet conditions were shown to be uninfluential in the hydrodynamics of major part of the upper riser, and the solid inlet (return) imposed non-uniformity in radial and tangential directions. The time-averaged profiles presented a good indication of the wall layer formation. The rate of circulating mass in the riser from simulations was obtained 25% lower than the experiments. The coefficient of restitution was a parameter with notable influence on the hydrodynamics and the present study suggests that a variable coefficient of restitution in Eulerian models can describe the behavior of CFB system more accurately.

On the Linkage among Strong Stratospheric Mass Circulation, Stratospheric Sudden Warming, and Cold Weather Events

Abstract It is well established that sudden stratospheric warming (SSW) events tend to be accompanied by continental-scale, surface cold-air outbreaks (CAOs) in midlatitudes in boreal winter. However, SSW events occur at most one to two times per winter, whereas CAOs occur three to seven times over each of the North American and Eurasian continents. Using the ERA-Interim dataset for 37 winters (November–March) from 1979 to 2016, we reveal that SSW events correspond to a large-amplitude or long-lasting subset of pulse-like, anomalously strong, stratospheric mass circulation events. The anomalously strong, stratospheric mass circulation events (referred to as PULSE events) occur more than nine times in an average winter. The “displacement” versus “split” types of SSWs tend to correspond to the “wavenumber 1” versus “wavenumber 2” types of PULSEs, though the relationship between split-type SSWs and wavenumber-2-type PULSEs is weaker. Like SSW events, PULSEs also have a close relationship with CAOs. The robust relationship with CAOs still holds for the PULSE events not accompanied by SSW events. Using PULSE events, we determine that more than 70% of CAOs in the 37 winters occur in the week before and after a PULSE event, with a false alarm rate of CAO occurrence of about 25.7%. SSW events, however, are associated with only about 5.7% of CAOs, with a false alarm rate of 21.7%. Therefore, the linkage between individual continental-scale CAOs and PULSE events represents a more generalized relationship between the stratospheric circulation anomalies and surface weather. PULSE signals should also be considered as a potentially useful stratospheric indicator of the occurrence of individual CAO events.

Possible impact of El Niño and La Niña on water mass circulation in Ambon Bay

El Niño and La Niña are disruptions to the ocean-atmosphere system in the equatorial Pacific area, with significant impacts on the climate and weather throughout the world. This paper discusses the possible impact of El Niño and La Niña to the water mass circulation in Ambon bay which is directly adjacent to the Banda Sea. We used observed vertical temperature variability data in June, July, September, and October in the year of 2008 (neutral year) and 2009 (El Niño year), and July and October 2010 (La Niña year). All data have been taken with CTD instrument in 7 stations which are aligned in one straight line from inner to Ambon Outer Bay (AOB). The result shows that the water mass circulation in Ambon Bay may be affected by El Niño and La Niña. El Niño phase makes the thermocline layer from the Banda Sea to become shallower than usual and thus makes the circulation in Ambon Bay more rigorous. This is because the water mass with higher density can enter into the deep Ambon Inner Bay (AIB) through the narrow sill which separates the Ambon Bay inner from outer parts. La Niña, on the other hand, weakens the water circulation because the thermocline layer becomes deeper than usual.

MlCROPALEODOLOGICAL STUDY OF CORE Z1 FROM IONIAN SEA PALEOCLIMATOLOGICAL- PALEOOICOLOGICAL CONCLUSIONS

The preliminary results based on the abundances of planktonic foraminifera and oxygen isotopes at the sediments of the core Z1, selected from the Ionian Sea (Otranto Basin) revealed three main climatic periods: Last Glacial, Late Glacial and Holocene. The warmest conditions of the studied interval prevailed during the formation of sapropel S1. Four stadials occurred during Late Glacial and Holocene. The older corresponds to Younger Dryas event, while the other three occurred during Holocene. The establishment of warm and low salinity surficial waters seems that caused the reduction of water mass circulation and thus the formation of the sapropel S1. Although the presence of a stadial around the middle of the S1, no distinct interruption of the sapropelic sedimentation have been occurred. The younger stadial coincides with the end of the sapropel S1. The evolution of the planktonic assemblages seems to be similar with that of the Central Mediterranean for the studied interval. Therefore, almost all the biozones and ecozones of the Central Mediterranean have been recognized at the sediments of Z1. The application of the factor analysis revealed four factors. The first two correspond to the variation of SST, while the other two are related to the development of high fertility waters during cold periods and during the formation of S1.