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The dynamics of fragmentation and vibration of molecular systems with a large number of coupled degrees of freedom are key aspects for understanding chemical reactivity and properties. Here we present a resonant inelastic X-ray scattering (RIXS) study to show how it is possible to break down such a complex multidimensional problem into elementary components. Local multimode nuclear wave packets created by X-ray excitation to different core-excited potential energy surfaces (PESs) will act as spatial gates to selectively probe the particular ground-state vibrational modes and, hence, the PES along these modes. We demonstrate this principle by combining ultra-high resolution RIXS measurements for gas-phase water with state-of-the-art simulations.
Metal halide perovskites have emerged as materials of high interest for solar energy-to-electricity conversion, and in particular, the use of mixed-ion structures has led to high power conversion efficiencies and improved stability. For this reason, it is important to develop means to obtain atomic level understanding of the photoinduced behavior of these materials including processes such as photoinduced phase separation and ion migration. In this paper, we implement a new methodology combining visible laser illumination of a mixed-ion perovskite ((FAP-bI(3))(0.85)(MAPbBr(3))(0.15)) with the element specificity and chemical sensitivity of core-level photoelectron spectroscopy. By carrying out measurements at a synchrotron beamline optimized for low X-ray fluxes, we are able to avoid sample changes due to X-ray illumination and are therefore able to monitor what sample changes are induced by visible illumination only. We find that laser illumination causes partially reversible chemistry in the surface region, including enrichment of bromide at the surface, which could be related to a phase separation into bromide- and iodide-rich phases. We also observe a partially reversible formation of metallic lead in the perovskite structure. These processes occur on the time scale of minutes during illumination. The presented methodology has a large potential for understanding light-induced chemistry in photoactive materials and could specifically be extended to systematically study the impact of morphology and composition on the photostability of metal halide perovskites.
We report on light sensitive microgel particles that can change their volume reversibly in response to illumination with light of different wavelengths. To make the anionic microgels photosensitive we add surfactants with a positively charged polyamine head group and an azobenzene containing tail. Upon illumination, azobenzene undergoes a reversible photo-isomerization reaction from a trans- to a cis-state accompanied by a change in the hydrophobicity of the surfactant. Depending on the isomerization state, the surfactant molecules are either accommodated within the microgel (trans- state) resulting in its shrinkage or desorbed back into water (cis-isomer) letting the microgel swell. We have studied three surfactants differing in the number of amino groups, so that the number of charges of the surfactant head varies between 1 and 3. We have found experimentally and theoretically that the surfactant concentration needed for microgel compaction increases with decreasing number of charges of the head group. Utilization of polyamine azobenzene containing surfactants for the light triggered remote control of the microgel size opens up a possibility for applications of light responsive microgels as drug carriers in biology and medicine.
We report on light sensitive microgel particles that can change their volume reversibly in response to illumination with light of different wavelengths. To make the anionic microgels photosensitive we add surfactants with a positively charged polyamine head group and an azobenzene containing tail. Upon illumination, azobenzene undergoes a reversible photo-isomerization reaction from a trans- to a cis-state accompanied by a change in the hydrophobicity of the surfactant. Depending on the isomerization state, the surfactant molecules are either accommodated within the microgel (trans-state) resulting in its shrinkage or desorbed back into water (cis-isomer) letting the microgel swell. We have studied three surfactants differing in the number of amino groups, so that the number of charges of the surfactant head varies between 1 and 3. We have found experimentally and theoretically that the surfactant concentration needed for microgel compaction increases with decreasing number of charges of the head group. Utilization of polyamine azobenzene containing surfactants for the light triggered remote control of the microgel size opens up a possibility for applications of light responsive microgels as drug carriers in biology and medicine.
This study focuses on comparing physical properties of photoisomers of an azobenzene star with benzene-1,3,5-tricarboxamide core. Three azobenzene arms of the molecule undergo a reversible trans-cis isomerization upon UV-vis light illumination giving rise to multiple states from the planar all-trans one, via two mixed states to the kinked all-cis isomer. Employing density functional theory, we characterize the structural and photophysical properties of each state indicating a role the planar core plays in the coupling between azobenzene chromophores. To characterize the light-triggered switching of solvophilicity/solvophobicity of the star, the difference in solvation free energy is calculated for the transfer of an azobenzene star from its gas phase to implicit or explicit solvents. For the latter case, classical all-atom molecular dynamics simulations of aqueous solutions of azobenzene star are performed employing the polymer consistent force field to shed light on the thermodynamics of explicit hydration as a function of the isomerization state and on the structuring of water around the star. From the analysis of two contributions to the free energy of hydration, the nonpolar van der Waals and the electrostatic terms, it is concluded that isomerization specificity largely determines the polarity of the molecule and the solute-solvent electrostatic interactions. This convertible hydrophilicity/hydrophobicity together with readjustable occupied volume and the surface area accessible to water, affects the self-assembly/disassembly of the azobenzene star with a flat core triggered by light.
We report on a photo-assisted adsorption of gold nanoparticles on a silicon substrate studied using atomic-force microscopy and secondary ion mass-spectrometry. Depending on a silicon conductivity type (n-Si or p-Si), the amount of photo-assisted adsorbed gold nanoparticles either increases (n-Si) or decreases (p-Si) on irradiation. In addition, the impacts of a cationic polyelectrolyte monolayer and adsorption time were also revealed. The polyelectrolyte layer enhances the adsorption of the gold nanoparticles but decreases the influence of light. The results of the photo-assisted adsorption on two types of silicon wafer were explained by electron processes at the substrate/solution interface.
This work was supported by the German-Russian Interdisciplinary Science Center (G-RISC) funded by the German Federal Foreign Office via the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), Project No. P-2014b-1, and Russian foundation for basic research, Project No. 16-08-00524_a.
The dynamics of fragmentation and vibration of molecular systems with a large number of coupled degrees of freedom are key aspects for understanding chemical reactivity and properties. Here we present a resonant inelastic X-ray scattering (RIXS) study to show how it is possible to break down such a complex multidimensional problem into elementary components. Local multimode nuclear wave packets created by X-ray excitation to different core-excited potential energy surfaces (PESs) will act as spatial gates to selectively probe the particular ground-state vibrational modes and, hence, the PES along these modes. We demonstrate this principle by combining ultra-high resolution RIXS measurements for gas-phase water with state-of-the-art simulations.
The femtosecond excited-state dynamics following resonant photoexcitation enable the selective deformation of N-H and N-C chemical bonds in 2-thiopyridone in aqueous solution with optical or X-ray pulses. In combination with multiconfigurational quantum-chemical calculations, the orbital-specific electronic structure and its ultrafast dynamics accessed with resonant inelastic X-ray scattering at the N 1s level using synchrotron radiation and the soft X-ray free-electron laser LCLS provide direct evidence for this controlled photoinduced molecular deformation and its ultrashort time-scale.
Observational and computational extragalactic astrophysics are two fields of research that study a similar subject from different perspectives. Observational extragalactic astrophysics aims, by recovering the spectral energy distribution of galaxies at different wavelengths, to reliably measure their properties at different cosmic times and in a large variety of environments. Analyzing the light collected by the instruments, observers try to disentangle the different processes occurring in galaxies at the scales of galactic physics, as well as the effect of larger scale processes such as mergers and accretion, in order to obtain a consistent picture of galaxy formation and evolution. On the other hand, hydrodynamical simulations of galaxy formation in cosmological context are able to follow the evolution of a galaxy along cosmic time, taking into account both external processes such as mergers, interactions and accretion, and internal mechanisms such as feedback from Supernovae and Active Galactic Nuclei. Due to the great advances in both fields of research, we have nowadays available spectral and photometric information for a large number of galaxies in the Universe at different cosmic times, which has in turn provided important knowledge about the evolution of the Universe; at the same time, we are able to realistically simulate galaxy formation and evolution in large volumes of the Universe, taking into account the most relevant physical processes occurring in galaxies.
As these two approaches are intrinsically different in their methodology and in the information they provide, the connection between simulations and observations is still not fully established, although simulations are often used in galaxies' studies to interpret observations and assess the effect of the different processes acting on galaxies on the observable properties, and simulators usually test the physical recipes implemented in their hydrodynamical codes through the comparison with observations. In this dissertation we aim to better connect the observational and computational approaches in the study of galaxy formation and evolution, using the methods and results of one field to test and validate the methods and results of the other.
In a first work we study the biases and systematics in the derivation of the galaxy properties in observations. We post-process hydrodynamical cosmological simulations of galaxy formation to calculate the galaxies' Spectral Energy Distributions (SEDs) using different approaches, including radiative transfer techniques. Comparing the direct results of the simulations with the quantities obtained applying observational techniques to these synthetic SEDs, we are able to make an analysis of the biases intrinsic in the observational algorithms, and quantify their accuracy in recovering the galaxies' properties, as well as estimating the uncertainties affecting a comparison between simulations and observations when different approaches to obtain the observables are followed. Our results show that for some quantities such as the stellar ages, metallicities and gas oxygen abundances large differences can appear, depending on the technique applied in the derivation.
In a second work we compare a set of fifteen galaxies similar in mass to the Milky Way and with a quiet merger history in the recent past (hence expected to have properties close to spiral galaxies), simulated in a cosmological context, with data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). We use techniques to obtain the observables as similar as possible to the ones applied in SDSS, with the aim of making an unbiased comparison between our set of hydrodynamical simulations and SDSS observations. We quantify the differences in the physical properties when these are obtained directly from the simulations without post-processing, or mimicking the SDSS observational techniques. We fit linear relations between the values derived directly from the simulations and following SDSS observational procedures, which in most of the cases have relatively high correlation, that can be easily used to more reliably compare simulations with SDSS data. When mimicking SDSS techniques, these simulated galaxies are photometrically similar to galaxies in the SDSS blue sequence/green valley, but have in general older ages, lower SFRs and metallicities compared to the majority of the spirals in the observational dataset.
In a third work, we post-process hydrodynamical simulations of galaxies with radiative transfer techniques, to generate synthetic data that mimic the properties of the CALIFA Integral Field Spectroscopy (IFS) survey. We reproduce the main characteristics of the CALIFA observations in terms of field of view and spaxel physical size, data format, point spread functions and detector noise. This 3-dimensional dataset is suited to be analyzed by the same algorithms applied to the CALIFA dataset, and can be used as a tool to test the ability of the observational algorithms in recovering the properties of the CALIFA galaxies. To this purpose, we also generate the resolved maps of the simulations' properties, calculated directly from the hydrodynamical snapshots, or from the simulated spectra prior to the addition of the noise.
Our work shows that a reliable connection between the models and the data is of crucial importance both to judge the output of galaxy formation codes and to accurately test the observational algorithms used in the analysis of galaxy surveys' data. A correct interpretation of observations will be particularly important in the future, in light of the several ongoing and planned large galaxy surveys that will provide the community with large datasets of properties of galaxies (often spatially-resolved) at different cosmic times, allowing to study galaxy formation physics at a higher level of detail than ever before. We have shown that neglecting the observational biases in the comparison between simulations and an observational dataset may move the simulations to different regions in the planes of the observables, strongly affecting the assessment of the correctness of the sub-resolution physical models implemented in galaxy formation codes, as well as the interpretation of given observational results using simulations.
Galaxies are among the most complex systems that can currently be modelled with a computer. A realistic simulation must take into account cosmology and gravitation as well as effects of plasma, nuclear, and particle physics that occur on very different time, length, and energy scales. The Milky Way is the ideal test bench for such simulations, because we can observe millions of its individual stars whose kinematics and chemical composition are records of the evolution of our Galaxy. Thanks to the advent of multi-object spectroscopic surveys, we can systematically study stellar populations in a much larger volume of the Milky Way. While the wealth of new data will certainly revolutionise our picture of the formation and evolution of our Galaxy and galaxies in general, the big-data era of Galactic astronomy also confronts us with new observational, theoretical, and computational challenges.
This thesis aims at finding new observational constraints to test Milky-Way models, primarily based on infra-red spectroscopy from the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE) and asteroseismic data from the CoRoT mission. We compare our findings with chemical-evolution models and more sophisticated chemodynamical simulations. In particular we use the new powerful technique of combining asteroseismic and spectroscopic observations that allows us to test the time dimension of such models for the first time. With CoRoT and APOGEE (CoRoGEE) we can infer much more precise ages for distant field red-giant stars, opening up a new window for Galactic archaeology.
Another important aspect of this work is the forward-simulation approach that we pursued when interpreting these complex datasets and comparing them to chemodynamical models.
The first part of the thesis contains the first chemodynamical study conducted with the APOGEE survey. Our sample comprises more than 20,000 red-giant stars located within 6 kpc from the Sun, and thus greatly enlarges the Galactic volume covered with high-resolution spectroscopic observations. Because APOGEE is much less affected by interstellar dust extinction, the sample covers the disc regions very close to the Galactic plane that are typically avoided by optical surveys. This allows us to investigate the chemo-kinematic properties of the Milky Way's thin disc outside the solar vicinity. We measure, for the first time with high-resolution data, the radial metallicity gradient of the disc as a function of distance from the Galactic plane, demonstrating that the gradient flattens and even changes its sign for mid-plane distances greater than 1 kpc.
Furthermore, we detect a gap between the high- and low-[$\alpha$/Fe] sequences in the chemical-abundance diagram (associated with the thin and thick disc) that unlike in previous surveys can hardly be explained by selection effects. Using 6D kinematic information, we also present chemical-abundance diagrams cleaned from stars on kinematically hot orbits. The data allow us to confirm without doubt that the scale length of the (chemically-defined) thick disc is significantly shorter than that of the thin disc.
In the second part, we present our results of the first combination of asteroseismic and spectroscopic data in the context of Galactic Archaeology. We analyse APOGEE follow-up observations of 606 solar-like oscillating red giants in two CoRoT fields close to the Galactic plane. These stars cover a large radial range of the Galactic disc (4.5 kpc $\lesssim R_{\rm Gal}\lesssim15$ kpc) and a large age baseline (0.5 Gyr $\lesssim \tau\lesssim$ 13 Gyr), allowing us to study the age- and radius-dependence of the [$\alpha$/Fe] vs. [Fe/H] distributions. We find that the age distribution of the high-[$\alpha$/Fe] sequence appears to be broader than expected from a monolithically-formed old thick disc that stopped to form stars 10 Gyr ago. In particular, we discover a significant population of apparently young, [$\alpha$/Fe]-rich stars in the CoRoGEE data whose existence cannot be explained by standard chemical-evolution models. These peculiar stars are much more abundant in the inner CoRoT field LRc01 than in the outer-disc field LRc01, suggesting that at least part of this population has a chemical-evolution rather than a stellar-evolution origin, possibly due to a peculiar chemical-enrichment history of the inner disc. We also find that strong radial migration is needed to explain the abundance of super-metal-rich stars in the outer disc.
Finally, we use the CoRoGEE sample to study the time evolution of the radial metallicity gradient in the thin disc, an observable that has been the subject of observational and theoretical debate for more than 20 years. By dividing the CoRoGEE dataset into six age bins, performing a careful statistical analysis of the radial [Fe/H], [O/H], and [Mg/Fe] distributions, and accounting for the biases introduced by the observation strategy, we obtain reliable gradient measurements. The slope of the radial [Fe/H] gradient of the young red-giant population ($-0.058\pm0.008$ [stat.] $\pm0.003$ [syst.] dex/kpc) is consistent with recent Cepheid data. For the age range of $1-4$ Gyr, the gradient steepens slightly ($-0.066\pm0.007\pm0.002$ dex/kpc), before flattening again to reach a value of $\sim-0.03$ dex/kpc for stars with ages between 6 and 10 Gyr. This age dependence of the [Fe/H] gradient can be explained by a nearly constant negative [Fe/H] gradient of $\sim-0.07$ dex/kpc in the interstellar medium over the past 10 Gyr, together with stellar heating and migration. Radial migration also offers a new explanation for the puzzling observation that intermediate-age open clusters in the solar vicinity (unlike field stars) tend to have higher metallicities than their younger counterparts. We suggest that non-migrating clusters are more likely to be kinematically disrupted, which creates a bias towards high-metallicity migrators from the inner disc and may even steepen the intermediate-age cluster abundance gradient.
Bacteria swim in sequences of straight runs that are interrupted by turning events. They drive their swimming locomotion with the help of rotating helical flagella. Depending on the number of flagella and their arrangement across the cell body, different run-and-turn patterns can be observed. Here, we present fluorescence microscopy recordings showing that cells of the soil bacterium Pseudomonas putida that are decorated with a polar tuft of helical flagella, can alternate between two distinct swimming patterns. On the one hand, they can undergo a classical push-pull-push cycle that is well known from monopolarly flagellated bacteria but has not been reported for species with a polar bundle of multiple flagella. Alternatively, upon leaving the pulling mode, they can enter a third slow swimming phase, where they propel themselves with their helical bundle wrapped around the cell body. A theoretical estimate based on a random-walk model shows that the spreading of a population of swimmers is strongly enhanced when cycling through a sequence of pushing, pulling, and wrapped flagellar configurations as compared to the simple push-pull-push pattern.
We present electrical impedance measurements of amoeboid cells on microelectrodes. The model organism Dictyostelium discoideum shows under starvation conditions a transition to collective behavior when chemotactic cells collect in multicellular aggregates. We show how impedance recordings give a precise picture of the stages of aggregation by tracing the dynamics of cell-substrate adhesion. Furthermore, we present for the first time systematic single cell measurements of wild type cells and four mutant strains that differ in their substrate adhesion strength. We recorded the projected cell area by time lapse microscopy and found a correlation between quasi-periodic oscillations in the kinetics of the projected area - the cell shape oscillation - and the long-term trend in the impedance signal. Typically, amoeboid motility advances via a cycle of membrane protrusion, substrate adhesion, traction of the cell body and tail retraction. This motility cycle results in the quasi-periodic oscillations of the projected cell area and the impedance. In all cell lines measured, similar periods were observed for this cycle, despite the differences in attachment strength. We observed that cell-substrate attachment strength strongly affects the impedance in that the deviations from mean (the magnitude of fluctuations) are enhanced in cells that effectively transmit forces, generated by the cytoskeleton, to the substrate. For example, in talA- cells, which lack the actin anchoring protein talin, the fluctuations are strongly reduced. Single cell force spectroscopy and results from a detachment assay, where adhesion is measured by exposing cells to shear stress, confirm that the magnitude of impedance fluctuations is a correct measure for the strength of substrate adhesion. Finally, we also worked on the integration of cell-substrate impedance sensors into microfluidic devices. A chip-based electrical chemotaxis assay is designed which measures the speed of chemotactic cells migrating over microelectrodes along a chemical concentration gradient.
Galaxies evolve on cosmological timescales and to study this evolution we can either study the stellar populations, tracing the star formation and chemical enrichment, or the dynamics, tracing interactions and mergers of galaxies as well as accretion. In the last decades this field has become one of the most active research areas in modern astrophysics and especially the use of integral field spectrographs furthered our understanding. This work is based on data of NGC 5102 obtained with the panoramic integral field spectrograph MUSE. The data are analysed with two separate and complementary approaches: In the first part, standard methods are used to measure the kinematics and than model the gravitational potential using these exceptionally high-quality data. In the second part I develop the new method of surface brightness fluctuation spectroscopy and quantitatively explore its potential to investigate the bright evolved stellar population.
Measuring the kinematics of NGC 5102 I discover that this low-luminosity S0 galaxy hosts two counter rotating discs. The more central stellar component co-rotates with the large amount of HI gas. Investigating the populations I find strong central age and metallicity gradients with a younger and more metal rich central population. The spectral resolution of MUSE does not allow to connect these population gradients with the two counter rotating discs.
The kinematic measurements are modelled with Jeans anisotropic models to infer the gravitational potential of NGC 5102. Under the self-consistent mass-follows-light assumption none of the Jeans models is able to reproduce the observed kinematics. To my knowledge this is the strongest evidence evidence for a dark matter dominated system obtained with this approach so far. Including a Navarro, Frenk & White dark matter halo immediately solves the discrepancies. A very robust result is the logarithmic slope of the total matter density. For this low-mass galaxy I find a value of -1.75 +- 0.04, shallower than an isothermal halo and even shallower than published values for more massive galaxies. This confirms a tentative relation between total mass slope and stellar mass of galaxies.
The Surface Brightness Fluctuation (SBF) method is a well established distance measure, but due to its sensitive to bright stars also used to study evolved stars in unresolved stellar populations. The wide-field spectrograph MUSE offers the possibility to apply this technique for the first time to spectroscopic data. In this thesis I develop the spectroscopic SBF technique and measure the first SBF spectrum of any galaxy. I discuss the challenges for measuring SBF spectra that rise due to the complexity of integral field spectrographs compared to imaging instruments.
Since decades, stellar population models indicate that SBFs in intermediate-to-old stellar systems are dominated by red giant branch and asymptotic giant branch stars. Especially the later carry significant model uncertainties, making these stars a scientifically interesting target. Comparing the NGC 5102 SBF spectrum with stellar spectra I show for the first time that M-type giants cause the fluctuations. Stellar evolution models suggest that also carbon rich thermally pulsating asymptotic giant branch stars should leave a detectable signal in the SBF spectrum. I cannot detect a significant contribution from these stars in the NGC 5102 SBF spectrum.
I have written a stellar population synthesis tool that predicts for the first time SBF spectra. I compute two sets of population models: based on observed and on theoretical stellar spectra. In comparing the two models I find that the models based on observed spectra predict weaker molecular features. The comparison with the NGC 5102 spectrum reveals that these models are in better agreement with the data.
In Germany more than 200.000 persons die of cancer every year, which makes it the second most common cause of death. Chemotherapy and radiation therapy are often combined to exploit a supra-additive effect, as some chemotherapeutic agents like halogenated nucleobases sensitize the cancerous tissue to radiation. The radiosensitizing action of certain therapeutic agents can be at least partly assigned to their interaction with secondary low energy electrons (LEEs) that are generated along the track of the ionizing radiation. In the therapy of cancer DNA is an important target, as severe DNA damage like double strand breaks induce the cell death. As there is only a limited number of radiosensitizing agents in clinical practice, which are often strongly cytotoxic, it would be beneficial to get a deeper understanding of the interaction of less toxic potential radiosensitizers with secondary reactive species like LEEs. Beyond that LEEs can be generated by laser illuminated nanoparticles that are applied in photothermal therapy (PTT) of cancer, which is an attempt to treat cancer by an increase of temperature in the cells. However, the application of halogenated nucleobases in PTT has not been taken into account so far. In this thesis the interaction of the potential radiosensitizer 8-bromoadenine (8BrA) with LEEs was studied. In a first step the dissociative electron attachment (DEA) in the gas phase was studied in a crossed electron-molecular beam setup. The main fragmentation pathway was revealed as the cleavage of the C-Br bond. The formation of a stable parent anion was observed for electron energies around 0 eV. Furthermore, DNA origami nanostructures were used as platformed to determine electron induced strand break cross sections of 8BrA sensitized oligonucleotides and the corresponding nonsensitized sequence as a function of the electron energy. In this way the influence of the DEA resonances observed for the free molecules on the DNA strand breaks was examined. As the surrounding medium influences the DEA, pulsed laser illuminated gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) were used as a nanoscale electron source in an aqueous environment. The dissociation of brominated and native nucleobases was tracked with UV-Vis absorption spectroscopy and the generated fragments were identified with surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS). Beside the electron induced damage, nucleobase analogues are decomposed in the vicinity of the laser illuminatednanoparticles due to the high temperatures. In order to get a deeper understanding of the different dissociation mechanisms, the thermal decomposition of the nucleobases in these systems was studied and the influence of the adsorption kinetics of the molecules was elucidated. In addition to the pulsed laser experiments, a dissociative electron transfer from plasmonically generated ”hot electrons” to 8BrA was observed under low energy continuous wave laser illumination and tracked with SERS. The reaction was studied on AgNPs and AuNPs as a function of the laser intensity and wavelength. On dried samples the dissociation of the molecule was described by fractal like kinetics. In solution, the dissociative electron transfer was observed as well. It turned out that the timescale of the reaction rates were slightly below typical integration times of Raman spectra. In consequence such reactions need to be taken into account in the interpretation of SERS spectra of electrophilic molecules. The findings in this thesis help to understand the interaction of brominated nucleobases with plasmonically generated electrons and free electrons. This might help to evaluate the potential radiosensitizing action of such molecules in cancer radiation therapy and PTT.
There is growing empirical evidence that anthropogenic climate change will substantially affect the electric sector. Impacts will stem both from the supply sidethrough the mitigation of greenhouse gasesand from the demand sidethrough adaptive responses to a changing environment. Here we provide evidence of a polarization of both peak load and overall electricity consumption under future warming for the worlds third-largest electricity marketthe 35 countries of Europe. We statistically estimate country-level doseresponse functions between daily peak/total electricity load and ambient temperature for the period 2006-2012. After removing the impact of nontemperature confounders and normalizing the residual load data for each country, we estimate a common doseresponse function, which we use to compute national electricity loads for temperatures that lie outside each countrys currently observed temperature range. To this end, we impose end-of-century climate on todays European economies following three different greenhouse-gas concentration trajectories, ranging from ambitious climate-change mitigationin line with the Paris agreementto unabated climate change. We find significant increases in average daily peak load and overall electricity consumption in southern and western Europe (similar to 3 to similar to 7% for Portugal and Spain) and significant decreases in northern Europe (similar to-6 to similar to-2% for Sweden and Norway). While the projected effect on European total consumption is nearly zero, the significant polarization and seasonal shifts in peak demand and consumption have important ramifications for the location of costly peak-generating capacity, transmission infrastructure, and the design of energy-efficiency policy and storage capacity.
Here we report on a cyclic, physical ice-discharge instability in the Parallel Ice Sheet Model, simulating the flow of a three-dimensional, inherently buttressed ice-sheet-shelf system which periodically surges on a millennial timescale. The thermomechanically coupled model on 1 km horizontal resolution includes an enthalpy-based formulation of the thermodynamics, a nonlinear stress-balance-based sliding law and a very simple subglacial hydrology. The simulated unforced surging is characterized by rapid ice streaming through a bed trough, resulting in abrupt discharge of ice across the grounding line which is eventually calved into the ocean. We visualize the central feedbacks that dominate the subsequent phases of ice buildup, surge and stabilization which emerge from the interaction between ice dynamics, thermodynamics and the subglacial till layer. Results from the variation of surface mass balance and basal roughness suggest that ice sheets of medium thickness may be more susceptible to surging than relatively thin or thick ones for which the surge feedback loop is damped. We also investigate the influence of different basal sliding laws (ranging from purely plastic to nonlinear to linear) on possible surging. The presented mechanisms underlying our simulations of self-maintained, periodic ice growth and destabilization may play a role in large-scale ice-sheet surging, such as the surging of the Laurentide Ice Sheet, which is associated with Heinrich events, and ice-stream shutdown and reactivation, such as observed in the Siple Coast region of West Antarctica.
Non-linear intensification of Sahel rainfall as a possible dynamic response to future warming
(2017)
Recently a multitude of empirically derived damage models have been applied to project future tropical cyclone (TC) losses for the United States. In their study (Geiger et al 2016 Environ. Res. Lett. 11 084012) compared two approaches that differ in the scaling of losses with socio-economic drivers: the commonly-used approach resulting in a sub-linear scaling of historical TC losses with a nation's affected gross domestic product (GDP), and the disentangled approach that shows a sub-linear increase with affected population and a super-linear scaling of relative losses with per capita income. Statistics cannot determine which approach is preferable but since process understanding demands that there is a dependence of the loss on both GDP per capita and population, an approach that accounts for both separately is preferable to one which assumes a specific relation between the two dependencies. In the accompanying comment, Rybski et al argued that there is no rigorous evidence to reach the conclusion that high-income does not protect against hurricane losses. Here we affirm that our conclusion is drawn correctly and reply to further remarks raised in the comment, highlighting the adequateness of our approach but also the potential for future extension of our research.
Kuramoto and Battogtokh (2002 Nonlinear Phenom. Complex Syst. 5 380) discovered chimera states represented by stable coexisting synchrony and asynchrony domains in a lattice of coupled oscillators. After a reformulation in terms of a local order parameter, the problem can be reduced to partial differential equations. We find uniformly rotating, spatially periodic chimera patterns as solutions of a reversible ordinary differential equation, and demonstrate a plethora of such states. In the limit of neutral coupling they reduce to analytical solutions in the form of one-and two-point chimera patterns as well as localized chimera solitons. Patterns at weakly attracting coupling are characterized by virtue of a perturbative approach. Stability analysis reveals that only the simplest chimeras with one synchronous region are stable.