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Rainfall is an important variable to be able to monitor and forecast across Africa, due to its impact on agriculture, food security, climate related diseases and public health. Numerical Weather Models (NWM) are an important component of this work, due to their complete spatial coverage, high resolution, and ability to forecast into the future. In this study, we seek to evaluate the spatiotemporal skill of short-term rainfall forecasts of rainfall across Africa. Specifically, the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) and the National Centers for Environmental Prediction-Global Forecast System (NCEP-GFS) forecast models are verified by Rainfall Estimates 2.0 (RFE2) and African Rainfall Climatology Version 2 (ARC2), which are fused products of satellite and in-situ observations and are commonly used in analysis of African rainfall. We found that the model rainfall forecasts show good consistency with the satellite rainfall observations in spatial distribution over Africa on the seasonal timescale. Evaluation metrics show high spatial and seasonal variations over the African continent, including a strong link to the location of the inter-tropical convergence zone (ITCZ) and topographically enhanced precipitation. The rainfall forecasts at one week aggregation time are improved against daily forecasts., Comment: 50 pages, 10 figures, 3 supplementary figures

In this work, chiral anomalies and Drude enhancement in Weyl semimetals are separately discussed from a semi-classical and quantum perspective, clarifying the physics behind Weyl semimetals while avoiding explicit use of topological concepts. The intent is to provide a bridge to these modern ideas for educators, students, and scientists not in the field using the familiar language of traditional solid-state physics at the graduate or advanced undergraduate physics level.

Chiral pumping from optical electric fields oscillating at THz frequencies is observed in the Weyl material TaAs with electric and magnetic fields aligned along both the a- and c-axes. Free carrier spectral weight enhancement is measured directly for the first time, confirming theoretical expectations of chiral pumping. A departure from linear field-dependence of the Drude weight is observed at the highest fields in the quantum limit, providing direct evidence of field-dependent Fermi velocity of the chiral Landau level. Implications for the chiral magnetic effect in Weyl semimetals from the optical f-sum rule are discussed.

We report on temperature dependence of the infrared reflectivity spectra of a single crystalline herbertsmithite in two polarizations --- parallel and perpendicular to the kagome plane of Cu atoms. We observe anomalous broadening of the low frequency phonons possibly caused by fluctuations in the exotic dynamical magnetic order of the spin liquid.

A Weyl semimetallic state with pairs of nondegenerate Dirac cones in three dimensions was recently predicted to occur in the antiferromagnetic state of the pyrochlore iridates. Here, we show that the THz optical conductivity and temperature dependence of free carriers in the pyrochlore Eu2Ir2O7 match the predictions for a Weyl semimetal and suggest novel Dirac liquid behavior. The interband optical conductivity vanishes continuously at low frequencies signifying a semimetal. The metal-insulator transition at T_N = 110 K is manifested in the Drude spectral weight, which is independent of temperature in the metallic phase, and which decreases smoothly in the ordered phase. The temperature dependence of the free carrier weight below T_N is in good agreement with theoretical predictions for a Dirac material. The data yield a Fermi velocity v_F=4x10^7 cm/s, a logarithmic renormalization scale Lambda_L=600 K, and require a Fermi temperature of T_F=100 K associated with residual unintentional doping to account for the low temperature optical response and dc resistivity., Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures

We propose a terahertz radiation source based on the excitation of plasma resonances in graphene structures by means of mixing two NIR laser signals with a THz difference frequency. The process is the photo-thermo-electric effect which has recently been demonstrated to be operative at THz frequencies in graphene. An antenna couples the THz radiation out of the sub-wavelength graphene element and into the far field. The emission is monochromatic with a bandwidth determined by that of the NIR laser sources. The output power of the device as a function of the emitter frequency is estimated at tens of microWatts., Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures

We report gated terahertz Faraday angle measurements on epitaxial Bi2Se3 thin films capped with In2Se3. A plateau is observed in the real part of the Faraday angle at an onset gate voltage corresponding to no band bending at the surface which persists into accumulation. The plateau is two orders of magnitude flatter than the step size expected from a single Landau Level in the low frequency limit, quantized in units of the fine structure constant. At 8 T, the plateau extends over a range of gate voltage that spans an electron density greater than 14 times the quantum flux density. Both the imaginary part of the Faraday angle and transmission measurements indicate dissipative off-axis and longitudinal conductivity channels associated with the plateau., Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures

Gated terahertz cyclotron resonance measurements on epitaxial Bi2Se3 thin films capped with In2Se3 enable the first spectroscopic characterization of a single topological interface state from the vicinity of the Dirac point to above the conduction band edge. A precipitous drop in the scattering rate with Fermi energy is observed that is interpreted as the surface state decoupling from bulk states and evidence of a shift of the Dirac point towards mid-gap. Near the Dirac point, potential fluctuations of 50 meV are deduced from an observed loss of differential optical spectral weight near the Dirac point. Potential fluctuations are reduced by a factor of two at higher surface Fermi levels in the vicinity of the conduction band edge inferred from the width of the scattering rate step. The passivated topological interface state attains a high mobility of 3500 cm2/Vsec near the Dirac point., Comment: 12 Pages, 6 figures

While evidence of a topologically nontrivial surface state has been identified in surface-sensitive measurements of Bi2Se3, a significant experimental concern is that no signatures have been observed in bulk transport. In a search for such states, nominally undoped single crystals of Bi2Se3 with carrier densities approaching 10^16 cm^-3 and very high mobilities exceeding 2 m^2 V^-1 s^-1 have been studied. A comprehensive analysis of Shubnikov de Haas oscillations, Hall effect, and optical reflectivity indicates that the measured electrical transport can be attributed solely to bulk states, even at 50 mK at low Landau level filling factor, and in the quantum limit. The absence of a significant surface contribution to bulk conduction demonstrates that even in very clean samples, the surface mobility is lower than that of the bulk, despite its topological protection., Comment: 4 pgs, 4 figs; title changed, minor text revision, references updated

The horizontal and vertical transport of biomass fire emissions in West Africa during November 1998 through February 1999, are examined using all available data including wind, fire, aerosol, precipitation, lightning and outgoing longwave radiation. Ozonesonde data from the Aerosols99 Trans-Atlantic cruise are also included with rain and wind analyses. The results here support earlier studies that ozone and ozone precursors associated with biomass burning are confined to the lower troposphere primarily due to the lack of deep convection over land areas. Ozone and its precursors are horizontally transported equatorward or towards the west by winds in the 1000-700 hPa layers. However, rising adiabatic motions associated with the diurnal evolution of the West African n can transport ozone and its precursors vertically into the free troposphere above the marine boundary layer. Moreover, lightning from South America, Central Africa and mesoscale convective systems in the Gulf of Guinea can lead to elevated ozone mixing ratios in the middle and upper troposphere.

Solar energy at the top of the atmosphere (solar constant), rotation rate, and carbon dioxide (CO2) may have varied significantly over Earth's history, especially during the earliest times. The sensitivity of a general circulation model to faster rotation, enhanced CO2 concentration, and reduced solar constant is presented. The control simulation of this study has a solar constant reduced by 10% the present amount, zero land fraction using a swamp ocean surface, CO2 concentrations of 330 ppmv, present-day rotation rate, and is integrated under mean diurnal and seasonal solar forcing. Four sensitivity test are performed under zero land fraction and reduced solar constant conditions by varying the earth's rotation rate atmospheric CO2 concentration and solar constant. The global mean sea surface temperatures (SSTs) compared to the control simulation: were 6.6 K to 12 K higher than the control's global mean temperature of 264.7 K. Sea ice is confined to higher latitudes in each experiment compared to the control, with ice-free areas equatorward of the subtropics. The warm SSTs are associated with a 20% reduction in clouds for the rotation rate experiments and higher CO2 concentrations in the other experiments. These results are in contrast to previous studies that have used energy balance and radiative convective models. Previous studies required a much larger atmospheric CO2 increase to prevent an ice-covered Earth. The results of the study, suggest that because of its possible feedback with clouds, the general circulation of the atmosphere should be taken into account in understanding the climate of early Earth. While higher CO2 concentrations are likely in view of the results, very large atmospheric CO2 concentrations may not be necessary to counterbalance the lower solar constant that existed early in Earth's history.