Search

Large-eddy simulations of an observed single-layer Arctic mixed-phase cloud are analyzed to study the value of forward modeling of profiling millimeter-wave cloud radar Doppler spectral width for model evaluation. Individual broadening terms and their uncertainties are quantified for the observed spectral width and compared to modeled broadening terms. Modeled turbulent broadening is narrower than the observed values when the turbulent kinetic energy dissipation rate from the subgrid-scale model is used in the forward model. The total dissipation rates, estimated with the subgrid-scale dissipation rates and the numerical dissipation rates, agree much better with both the retrieved dissipation rates and those inferred from the power spectra of the simulated vertical air velocity. The comparison of the microphysical broadening provides another evaluative measure of the ice properties in the simulation. To accurately retrieve dissipation rates as well as each broadening term from the observations, we suggest a few modifications to previously presented techniques. First, we show that the inertial subrange spectra filtered with the radar sampling volume is a better underlying model than the unfiltered -5/3 law for the retrieval of the dissipation rate from the power spectra of the mean Doppler velocity. Second, we demonstrate that it is important to filter out turbulence and remove the layer-mean reflectivity-weighted mean fall speed from the observed mean Doppler velocity to avoid overestimation of shear broadening. Finally, we provide a method to quantify the uncertainty in the retrieved dissipation rates, which eventually propagates to the uncertainty in the microphysical broadening.

Theory predicts that the mechanism of genetic sex determination can substantially influence the evolution of sexually selected traits. For example, female heterogamety (ZZ/ZW) can favour the evolution of extreme male traits under Fisher's runaway model of sexual selection. We empirically test whether the genetic system of sex determination has played a role in the evolution of exaggerated male ornaments in actinopterygiian fishes, a clade in which both female-heterogametic and male-heterogametic systems of sex determination have evolved multiple times. Using comparative methods both uncorrected and corrected for phylogenetic non-independence, we detected no significant correlation between sex-chromosome systems and sexually selected traits in males. Results suggest that sex-determination mechanism is at best a relatively minor factor affecting the outcomes of sexual selection in ray-finned fishes. © 2005 The Royal Society.

Sex-determination genes are among the most fluid features of the genome in many groups of animals (1,2). In some taxa the master sex-determining gene moves frequently between chromosomes, whereas in [...]

Turbulent fountain flow consists of two distinct stages, the initial 'negatively buoyant jet' (NBJ) stage, and the fully developed 'fountain' stage. The present study investigates both stages of the flow using particle image velocimetry and planar laser-induced fluorescence, over a range of source Froude numbers, 10 ≲ Fro ≲ 30, and Reynolds numbers, 5500 ≲ Reo ≲ 7700. While the velocity and buoyancy profiles in NBJs take similar Gaussian shapes over a wide range of axial locations, this was not observed in fountains. The changing profile shape is most evident in the outer flow (OF) region, while there is a degree of similarity in the inner flow (IF). Entrainment between IF and OF is shown to depend on the local Richardson number, Ri. The fountains are found to have a negative entrainment coefficient, α < 0, for the majority of their height, implying a net radial outflow of fluid from the IF to the OF. An alternative description of entrainment is considered, the 'decomposed top-hat' model, where the radial flow is separated into inflow and outflow components that are then estimated using the present experimental data. The inflow component was found to be proportional to the axial IF velocity, which is similar to the classical description of entrainment in pure jets/plumes, while the outflow depends on the local Ri. Entrainment in NBJs may also be described by this framework, which, despite not having an OF, is still subject to an Ri-dependent radial outflow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High-fidelity measurements of velocity and concentration are carried out in a neutral jet (NJ) and a negatively buoyant jet (NBJ) by injecting a jet of fresh water vertically downwards into ambient fresh and saline water, respectively. The Reynolds number ($Re$) based on the pipe inlet diameter ($d$) and the source velocity ($W_o$) is approximately 5900 in all the experiments, while the source Froude number based on density difference is approximately 30 in the NBJ experiments. Velocity and concentration measurements are obtained in the region $17 \leq z/d \leq 40$ ($z$ being the axial coordinate) using particle image velocimetry and planar laser induced fluorescence techniques, respectively. Consistent with the literature on jets, the centreline velocity ($W_c$) decays as $z^{-1}$ in the NJ, but in the NBJ, $W_c$ decays faster along $z$ due to the action of negative buoyancy. Nonetheless, the mean velocity ($W$) and concentration ($C$) profiles in both the flows exhibit self-similar Gaussian form, when scaled by the local centreline parameters ($W_c,C_c$) and the jet half-widths ($r^\ast _{W},r^\ast _{C}$). On the other hand, the turbulence statistics and Reynolds stress in the NBJ do not scale with $W_c$. The results of autocorrelation functions, integral length scales and two-dimensional correlation maps show the similarity of turbulence structure in the NJ and the NBJ when the axial and radial distances are normalised by the local jet half-width. Further, the spectra and probability density functions are similar on the axis and only minor differences are seen near the jet interface. The above findings are fundamentally consistent with our recent analysis (Milton-McGurk et al., J. Fluid Mech., 2020b), where we observed that the mean and turbulence statistics in the NBJ have different development characteristics. Overall, we find that the turbulence structure of the NBJ (when scaled by local velocity and length scales) is very similar to the momentum-driven NJ, and the differences (e.g. spreading rate, scaling of turbulence intensities, etc.) between the NJ and the NBJ seem to be of secondary importance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]