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In this study, we compiled a high-quality, in situ observational dataset to evaluate snow depth simulations from 22 CMIP6 models across high-latitude regions of the Northern Hemisphere over the period 1955–2014. Simulated snow depths have low accuracy (RMSE = 17–36 cm) and are biased high, exceeding the observed baseline (1976–2005) on average (18 ± 16 cm) across the study area. Spatial climatological patterns based on observations are modestly reproduced by the models (normalized root-mean-square deviations of 0.77 ± 0.20). Observed snow depth during the cold season increased by about 2.0 cm over the study period, which is approximately 11% relative to the baseline. The models reproduce decreasing snow depth trends that contradict the observations, but they all indicate a precipitation increase during the cold season. The modeled snow depths are insensitive to precipitation but too sensitive to air temperature; these inaccurate sensitivities could explain the discrepancies between the observed and simulated snow depth trends. Based on our findings, we recommend caution when using and interpreting simulated changes in snow depth and associated impacts.

The concept of stars being tidally ripped apart and consumed by a massive black hole (MBH) lurking in the center of a galaxy first captivated theorists in the late 1970's. The observational evidence for these rare but illuminating phenomena for probing otherwise dormant MBHs, first emerged in archival searches of the soft X-ray ROSAT All-Sky Survey in the 1990's; but has recently accelerated with the increasing survey power in the optical time domain, with tidal disruption events (TDEs) now regarded as a class of optical nuclear transients with distinct spectroscopic features. Multiwavelength observations of TDEs have revealed panchromatic emission, probing a wide range of scales, from the innermost regions of the accretion flow, to the surrounding circumnuclear medium. I review the current census of 56 TDEs reported in the literature, and their observed properties can be summarized as follows: $\bullet$ The optical light curves follow a power-law decline from peak that scales with the inferred central black hole mass as expected for the fallback rate of the stellar debris, but the rise time does not. $\bullet$ The UV/optical and soft X-ray thermal emission come from different spatial scales, and their intensity ratio has a large dynamic range, and is highly variable, providing important clues as to what is powering the two components. $\bullet$ They can be grouped into three spectral classes, and those with Bowen fluorescence line emission show a preference for a hotter and more compact line-emitting region, while those with only He II emission lines are the rarest class., 46 pages, 10 figures, author's version (before copy-editing) of invited review to appear in Annual Reviews of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Volume 59 (2021)

To produce food for a growing world population, irrigated areas have increased from approximately 0.63 million km2 of land in 1900 to 3.1 million km2 of land in 2005. Despite this massive expansion, irrigation is still overlooked in most state-of-the-art Earth system models (ESMs) involved in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 6 (CMIP6). To our knowledge, only three CMIP6 models represent irrigation activities: CESM2, GISS-E2-1-G, and NorESM2-LM. Here, we investigate the role of irrigation on historical climate at global and regional scales by analyzing trends of key surface climate variables in CMIP6 simulations during 1900?2014. The three models including irrigation show distinct behavior from the 15 models without irrigation over intensively irrigated areas (i.e., >50% of grid cell area is equipped by irrigation): both annual (months that correspond to monthly air temperature higher than 274 K) mean latent heat flux (LHF) and soil moisture increase over time, in contrast to the modelswithout irrigation that show no trend or even a negative trend. The positive LHF trend over intensively irrigated areas in the irrigation-on models is consistent with three satellite-based LHF products. While annual (considering the warmest month in a year) warming trends are found in these regions for most of the no-irrigation models, the increase in LHF induces a cooling trend for the models with irrigation, which was not confirmed by observational air temperature data sets. These findings, supported by satellite data, indicate the importance of improved representation of land management in the next generation of ESM.

Deep venous thrombosis (DVT) and pulmonary thromboembolism (PTE) are the major causes of morbidity and mortality in immobile patients. There is observational evidence that intercontinental air travel is associated with a high incidence of DVT and PTE during or within 48 hours of long-distance flights. This situation is known as the economy class syndrome and can affect both the cabin crew and passengers. The term “economy class syndrome” refers to the occurrence of thrombotic events that mainly occur in passengers in the economy class of the aircraft during long-haul flights. This syndrome results from several factors related to the aircraft cabin and the passenger, acting together to predispose to excessive blood coagulation, which can result in venous thromboembolism. In this review, we have shared the relationship between air travel and the formation of DVT and PTE.

The ability to regulate our emotions plays an important role in our psychological and physical health. Regulating emotions influences how and when emotions are expressed. We performed a large scale, longitudinal observational study to investigate the effect of emotion regulation ability on expressed affect. We found that expression of negative affect increased throughout the day. For people who suppress emotion this increase is slower that for those who do not. For those with stronger cognitive reappraisal abilities, though not significant, there was a trend for higher positive affect and negative affect increased significantly less steeply, suggesting that they might experience more positive and less negative affect. These results reflect some of the first results based on large scale, continuous tracking of behavioral expression of emotion longitudinally. Our results demonstrate the need to carefully consider the time of day and emotion regulation ability, in addition to gender and age, when attempting to automatically infer affective states for facial behavior.

Many microfinance institutions (MFIs) use dynamic incentives in combination with progressive lending schemes to reduce defaults. However, the specific role of progressive lending has never been tested empirically, while observational evidence in other contexts points to potentially adverse effects. Using an experimental approach, we study the impact of progressive lending on overborrowing, attending to the possibility that progressive lending may actually increase liquidity defaults. We organize a framed field experiment in the municipality of Coroico, Bolivia, inviting 271 members of an MFI to participate in an experimental game. In Bolivia, the penetration rates of microfinance are among the highest in the world, progressive lending systems are a common practice, and the concept and practices of microfinance are well known among most people. We find that participants who borrowed over multiple rounds with progressively increasing borrowing caps showed increased liquidity defaults once the caps became unconstraining compared to those without progressive lending. We speculate that this result stems from anchoring borrowing loan requests on the credit limit set by the lender and formalize this rationale in a model for credit demand and naive borrowers. MFIs should consider the potential perverse anchoring effects of progressive lending when designing policies aimed at reducing overborrowing.

Observational evidence suggests that better ambient lighting leads people to feel safer when spending time outdoors in their community. We subject this finding to greater scrutiny and elaborate on the extent to which improvements in street lighting affect routine activities during nighttime hours. We report evidence from a survey experiment that examines individuals’ perceptions of safety under two different intensities of nighttime ambient lighting. Brighter street lighting leads individuals to feel safer and over half of survey respondents are willing to pay an additional $400 per year in taxes in order to finance a hypothetical program which would replace dim yellow street lights with brighter LED lights. However, poor lighting does not change people’s willingness to spend time outdoors or to engage in behaviors which mitigate risk. Results suggest that street lighting is a means through which policymakers can both control crime and improve community well-being. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1057/s41284-021-00296-0.

The cloud particle concentration, size, and shape data from optical array probes (OAPs) are routinely used to parameterise cloud properties and constrain remote sensing retrievals. This paper characterises the optical response of OAPs using a combination of modelling, laboratory, and field experiments. Significant uncertainties are found to exist with such probes for ice crystal measurements. We describe and test two independent methods to constrain a probe's sample volume that remove the most severely mis-sized particles: (1) greyscale image analysis and (2) co-location using stereoscopic imaging. These methods are tested using field measurements from three research flights in cirrus. For these cases, the new methodologies significantly improve agreement with a holographic imaging probe compared to conventional data-processing protocols, either removing or significantly reducing the concentration of small ice crystals (< 200 µm) in certain conditions. This work suggests that the observational evidence for a ubiquitous mode of small ice particles in ice clouds is likely due to a systematic instrument bias. Size distribution parameterisations based on OAP measurements need to be revisited using these improved methodologies.

We search for observational evidence that is in agreement with the model of a binary star system in gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), as presented in [1–3]. The model predicts three distinctly temporal and spectral properties, which could be identified by the observational data. Here we present a detailed time-resolved spectral analysis for several bright GRBs (GRB 130427A, 160509A, 160625B, and 190114C), and find that all of them are consistent with the expectation predicted by the model.

Összefoglaló. A SARS-CoV-2 okozta megbetegedés (COVID–19) a cikk megírásáig a világon több mint 82 millió embert érintett, a halálos áldozatok száma 1,8 millió (2,2%). Hazánkban eddig 300 000 feletti esetszámot regisztráltak, a cikk megjelenésének idején már várhatóan több mint 10 000 halottal (3%). Habár a megbetegedésnek oki gyógyszeres terápiája egyelőre nincs, egyes antivirális szerek és a rekonvaleszcens plazma alkalmazása a tapasztalatok szerint csökkentik a vírusterhelést, és ezzel hozzájárulnak a beteg gyógyulásához. Az eddig példa nélküli epidemiológiai rendelkezések nem tudták megállítani, csak lelassítani a betegség terjedését, ezért a megelőzés tűnik az egyetlen, a közeljövőben tömegek számára is elérhető megoldásnak. A jelen cikk nem egy virológiai vagy biotechnológiai szakmunka, sokkal inkább egy összefoglaló házi- és általános orvosok számára, amely ismerteti a jelenleg engedélyezett, illetve a közeljövőben forgalomba kerülő védőoltások előnyeit és hátrányait a COVID–19 tágabb kontextusában. Írásunkban bemutatjuk a leggyakoribb álhíreket, rémhíreket is, valamint ezek cáfolatát is annak érdekében, hogy kollégáink felkészültebben tudják betegeiket informálni, valamint segíteni a vakcináció fontosságával kapcsolatos döntéshozatalt. Egy járvány megfékezésének legkézenfekvőbb módja a társadalmi szintű védettség megvalósítása. A nyájimmunitás kialakulása nélkül nagy valószínűséggel e jelenlegi pandémia sem állítható meg. Amennyiben egyéni és társadalmi szinten is vissza szeretnénk térni a vírus előtti életünkhöz, újra élvezve az akadálytalan áru- és kereskedelmi forgalom jelentette előnyöket, akkor a tömeges oltás tűnik a leghatékonyabb eszköznek ennek eléréséhez. A fertőző betegségek számának és mortalitásának a 20. században tapasztalt jelentős csökkenése egyértelműen a társadalmi szintű átoltottságnak, valamint a higiénés körülmények javulásának köszönhető. Az oltás ugyan önkéntes, de felvételének kérdése pandémiás helyzetben valószínűleg nemcsak egyéni döntés, de társadalmi felelősségvállalás kérdése is. Orv Hetil. 2021; 162(8): 283–292. Summary. Out of more than 82 million people worldwide, 1.8 million (2.2%) succumbed to SARS-CoV-2 disease (COVID–19). In 2020, more than 300 000 cases were registered in Hungary, and by the time of publication of this article, the death toll would probably exceed 10 000 (3%). Currently no causative drug therapy is available, however, observational evidence suggests that certain antivirals and the use of convalescent plasma may change the disease course. The unprecedented, strict epidemiological provisions managed to slow down the spread of the disease though they could not stop it. It seems that prevention remains the only readily available option to beat COVID–19. This is not a virology or biotechnology paper, but an unbiased review for general practitioners, aiming to summarize the advantages/disadvantages of the (emergency) authorized and soon-to-be-launched vaccines in the wider context of COVID–19. We also intended to address and debunk the most common misconceptions, aiming to help both doctors and patients to make a fact-based, informed decision about vaccination. Herd immunity is paramount to combat COVID pandemic. Without population-level vaccination, we are unlikely to regain the quality of life, the freedom of travel and the unrestricted economy/commerce we enjoyed before. It is obvious that the significant reduction in morbity/mortality of infectious diseases in the 20th century was achieved through advancements in vaccinology and improved hygiene. Albeit voluntary, vaccination in a pandemic situation is probably not only an individual decision, but social responsibility as well. Orv Hetil. 2021; 162(8): 283–292.

The abundance patterns observed in the Sun and in metal-poor stars show a clear odd-even effect. An important question is whether the odd-even effect in solar-metallicity stars is similar to the Sun, or if there are variations that can tell us about different chemical enrichment histories. In this work, we report for the first time observational evidence of a differential odd-even effect in the solar twin HIP 11915, relative to the solar odd-even abundance pattern. The spectra of this star were obtained with high resolving power (140 000) and signal-to-noise ratio ($\sim$420) using the ESPRESSO spectrograph and the VLT telescope. Thanks to the high spectral quality, we obtained extremely precise stellar parameters ($\sigma(T_{\rm eff})$ = 2 K, $\sigma(\rm{[Fe/H]})$ = 0.003 dex, and $\sigma(\log g)$ = 0.008 dex). We determine the chemical abundance of 20 elements ($Z\leq39$) with high precision ($\sim$0.01 dex), which shows a strong pattern of the odd-even effect even after performing Galactic Chemical Evolution corrections. The odd-even effect is reasonably well-reproduced by a core-collapse supernova of 13 $\rm{M_{\odot}}$ and metallicity Z = 0.001 diluted into a metal-poor gas of 1 $\rm{M_{\odot}}$. Our results indicate that HIP 11915 has an odd-even effect slightly different than the Sun, thus confirming a different supernova enrichment history., Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures and 2 tables

Considerable observational evidence indicates that travel time, averaged across a population, is stable at about an hour a day. This implies both an upper and a lower bound to time that can be expe...

The present study gives evidence of the occurrence of foehn-like wind on the eastern slopes of the mountains at Southeastern Brazil. A particular case was detected based on observational evidence on 4 July 2015 near the city of Cruzeiro, state of Sao Paulo, on the Serra da Mantiqueira mountains. Results obtained from numerical simulations are consistent with the foehn wind occurrence deducted from the analysis of regional patterns and time series of selected meteorological parameters. Resumo O presente trabalho evidencia a ocorrência de vento tipo foehn nas encostas orientais das serras do Sudeste do Brasil. Um caso particular foi detectado a partir de evidências observacionais em 4 de Julho de 2015 perto da cidade de Cruzeiro, Estado de São Paulo, na Serra da Mantiqueira. Os resultados obtidos por simulações numéricas são consistentes com a ocorrência de vento foehn, como pode ser visto a partir da análise de padrões regionais e séries temporais de certos parâmetros meteorológicos.

Decadal climate prediction has been one of the most popular topics in recent climate change studies. It is closely linked to our daily life, deeply affecting the wellbeing of people and global economic growth. Among those climate variables, precipitation is essential for industrial and agricultural productions but it’s also hard to precisely predict. In this study, we provide observational evidence for the relationship of mean precipitation in the Northern Hemisphere (NH), NH tropics and Sahel with the five Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) indicators on the multidecadal time scale. We conclude that precipitation in those three regions exhibits a consistent multidecadal variability from 1901 to 2015. The correlations between NH precipitation and AMOC indicators are strong and significant. The NAO-based AMOC indicator leads the precipitation by 8 years and the correlation coefficient reaches 0.9 higher than other oceanic indicators. It is the NAO that forces the AMOC transporting heat to the North Atlantic and induces sea surface temperature (SST) dipole which eventually affects the multidecadal precipitation change in NH. As the AMOC_NAO indicator leads the precipitation, we employ it as a predictor and construct a linear model to make a future prediction based on historical data. It indicates that the precipitation will decrease in the following few years, and then will rise again.

A variety of satellite and ground-based observations are used to study how diurnal variations of cloud radiative heating affect the life cycle of anvil clouds over the tropical western Pacific Ocean. High clouds thicker than 2 km experience longwave heating at cloud base, longwave cooling at cloud top, and shortwave heating at cloud top. The shortwave and longwave effects have similar magnitudes during midday, but only the longwave effect is present at night, so high clouds experience a substantial diurnal cycle of radiative heating. Furthermore, anvil clouds are more persistent or laterally expansive during daytime. This cannot be explained by variations of convective intensity or geographic patterns of convection, suggesting that shortwave heating causes anvil clouds to persist longer or spread over a larger area. It is then investigated if shortwave heating modifies anvil development by altering turbulence in the cloud. According to one theory, radiative heating drives turbulent overturning within anvil clouds that can be sufficiently vigorous to cause ice nucleation in the updrafts, thereby extending the cloud lifetime. High-frequency air motion and ice-crystal number concentration are shown to be inversely related near cloud top, however. This suggests that turbulence depletes or disperses ice crystals at a faster rate than it nucleates them, so another mechanism must cause the diurnal variation of anvil clouds. It is hypothesized that radiative heating affects anvil development primarily by inducing a mesoscale circulation that offsets gravitational settling of cloud particles.

Why do so many voters in African countries vote for minor ethnic parties instead of unifying into a powerful multi-ethnic opposition coalition? I present a model that demonstrates that as the incumbent devotes more resources to programmatic goods, which voters can access regardless of how they voted, the opportunity cost of voting for a sincerely preferred, but losing, candidate decreases. I provide experimental and cross-national observational evidence that voters are more likely to support a minor party as they perceive more or more valuable goods being distributed programmatically. Those who perceive poor distribution, or only clientelist distribution, instead vote strategically for a major opposition party. In general, support for minor parties increases along with positive outcomes and approval of the incumbent.

There are widespread anecdotal reports of seemingly successful treatment among the early (three to seven days from symptoms) stage coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients with the drug hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), and randomized placebo-controlled trials of HCQ in outpatient settings are underway. In this note, we (1) report observational evidence and present scientific reasoning as to why early treatment with HCQ may succeed while treatment later in the disease progression is likely to fail and (2) hypothesize a public health regime under which HCQ may be used to mitigate the impact of the current pandemic.

Significance Torrential rains induced by tropical cyclones (TCs) are a major trigger of catastrophic flood hazards. Devastating TCs causing unprecedented floods in recent years were usually characterized with low translation speeds. We find that both observations and numerical simulations show a significant slowdown of TCs over the coast of China. Our analyses of long-term observations exhibit a significant increase in extreme rainfall amounts induced by TCs, and significant inverse relationships between TC translation speeds and local rainfall totals over the study period. Our probability analysis reveals the association of higher local rainfall totals and slow-moving TCs. We provide observational evidence that slowdown of TCs tends to elevate local rainfall totals and thus impose greater flood risks at the regional scale., The total amount of rainfall associated with tropical cyclones (TCs) over a given region is proportional to rainfall intensity and the inverse of TC translation speed. Although the contributions of increase in rainfall intensity to larger total rainfall amounts have been extensively examined, observational evidence on impacts of the recently reported but still debated long-term slowdown of TCs on local total rainfall amounts is limited. Here, we find that both observations and the multimodel ensemble of Global Climate Model simulations show a significant slowdown of TCs (11% in observations and 10% in simulations, respectively) from 1961 to 2017 over the coast of China. Our analyses of long-term observations find a significant increase in the 90th percentile of TC-induced local rainfall totals and significant inverse relationships between TC translation speeds and local rainfall totals over the study period. The study also shows that TCs with lower translation speed and higher rainfall totals occurred more frequently after 1990 in the Pearl River Delta in southern China. Our probability analysis indicates that slow-moving TCs are more likely to generate heavy rainfall of higher total amounts than fast-moving TCs. Our findings suggest that slowdown of TCs tends to elevate local rainfall totals and thus impose greater flood risks at the regional scale.

Gaseous dicarboxylic acids (diacids) are suggested to participate in atmospheric new particle formation via bonding with sulfuric acid (SA), ammonia (NH3), amines, and other molecules. However, the...

Parotidectomies are commonly performed procedures by head and neck surgeons. Although parotidectomies are historically inpatient procedures, recent observational evidence has highlighted the potential for parotidectomies to be performed on an outpatient basis. This systematic review and meta-analysis sought to compare complications and unplanned health care utilization between patients undergoing outpatient versus inpatient parotidectomy.A systematic review was performed using MEDLINE, EMBASE, and the Cochrane Library.Studies comparing the outcomes of outpatient parotidectomy with those of inpatient parotidectomy were included. Risk of bias was assessed using the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale. Postoperative complications (hematoma, facial nerve dysfunction, seroma, fistulisation, Frey syndrome, and wound infection) and rates of 30-day readmission, reintervention, and emergency department presentation were compared.We screened 1018 nonduplicate articles to include 5 studies, all of which were retrospective cohort studies. There were fewer complications found in the outpatient group (relative risk = 0.61, 95% confidence interval: 0.40-0.93). Outpatient procedures were more commonly performed on patients who lived close to the hospital, had fewer comorbidities, and had less extensive planned surgery.Outpatient parotidectomy appears safe in select patients with outcomes comparable with inpatient surgery. However, evidence overall is of low quality, and further work is needed to delineate a satisfactory set of criteria for appropriate patient identification.

Throat aurora was defined based on the ground observations near local noon and has been suggested to be the ground signature of an indentation on the subsolar magnetopause. A global view of the auroral oval with throat aurora will be critical for inferring global processes at the magnetopause, but it has never been achieved. Using imaging spectrograph observations from Defense Meteorological Satellite Program satellites, for the first time, here we show typical throat auroras in a global view and reveal some important observational facts as follows. (1) The throat auroras can be as long as ~8 degrees in latitudinal direction, which is hardly to be fully seen in the ground-based camera. (2) The plasma flows and field aligned currents associated with throat aurora show consistences with previous radar observations, which have been suggested to be the observational evidence of magnetopause reconnection. (3) Most importantly, we confirmed that the electron and ion precipitations associated with throat aurora are always spatially separated, i.e., electrons in the east and ions in the west. The observational results not only establish a new picture of the aurora oval near local noon, but also provide important support to a conceptual model of throat aurora.

On the basis of measurements from an observing mooring system, the observational evidence of parametric subharmonic instability (PSI) that transfers energy from semidiurnal internal tides (ITs) to the subharmonic waves at the East China Sea continental shelf slope is presented for the first time. Although the mooring station is very close to the energetic semidiurnal IT generation site, about 76% of the observed shear variance is contained in the near-inertial band, which is found to have comparable upward- and downward-propagating energy components. Bispectra and bicoherence estimates further confirm the occurrence of PSI transferring energy from the low-mode M2 ITs (vertical wavelength of ~1000 m) to high-mode subharmonic waves (vertical wavelength of ~200 m). The calculated energy transfer rate reveals an averaged net value of ~5 × 10−9 W kg−1. Strong temporal variation of is found that is not exactly in phase with the semidiurnal energy flux. After looking into the local vorticity fields, it is strongly suggested that the varying background relative vorticity associated with the evolving Kuroshio has modified the efficiency of PSI at the mooring location through changing the local effective inertial frequency.

Odonata flight performance capabilities and behaviour and their body and wing form diversity are explored, and their interrelationships discussed theoretically and from observational evidence. Over...

Here we provide statistically significant observational evidence that a feedback control system moderating atmospheric temperature is presently operating coherently at global scale. Further, this control system is of a sophisticated type, involving the corrective feedback not only of a linear error term but also its derivative and its integral. This makes it of the same type as the most widely used control system developed by humans, the proportional-integral-derivative (PID) control system.

In the future, large wildfires are expected to become more frequent and intense. Not only do they pose a serious threat to people and ecosystems, but they also affect the Earth's atmosphere. Aerosols from large wildfires can even reach the stratosphere where they can linger for months to years. However, little is known about their impact on climate. In particular, the potential of large wildfires to cause temperature changes in the stratosphere has hardly been studied.In our study, we analyze two extreme wildfire events, those in 2017 in North America and those in 2019/20 in Australia, using new satellite observational data. We find strong effects of the fires on the atmospheric temperature structure and short-term climate in the stratosphere. The results show significant warming of the lower stratosphere by up to 10 K within the aerosol clouds emitted by the wildfires immediately after their formation. The climate signal in the lower stratosphere persists for several months, reaching 1 K for the 2017 North American wildfires and a remarkable 3.5 K for the 2019/20 Australian wildfires. This is stronger than any signal from volcanic eruptions in the past two decades. Such extreme events potentially influence the atmospheric composition and stratospheric temperature trends, underscoring their importance for future climate.Improved knowledge of the temperature signals from extreme wildfires is particularly important for trend analysis. Our ongoing research on this topic aims to further improve the separation of natural variability from anthropogenic influences in climate trend detection, especially in the stratosphere.

Anthropogenic emissions decreased dramatically during the COVID-19 pandemic, but its possible effect on monsoon is unclear. Based on coupled models participating in the COVID Model Intercomparison Project (COVID-MIP), we show modeling evidence that the East Asian summer monsoon (EASM) is enhanced in terms of both precipitation and circulation, and the amplitude of the forced response reaches about 1/3 of the standard deviation for interannual variability. The response of EASM to COVID-19 is consistent with the response to the removal of all anthropogenic aerosols simulated by atmospheric component models, which confirms the dominant role of the fast response to reduced aerosols. The observational evidence, i.e., the anomalously strong EASM observed in 2020 and 2021, also supports the simulated enhancement of EASM. The essential mechanism for the enhanced EASM in response to COVID-19 is the enhanced zonal thermal contrast between Asian continent and the western North Pacific in the troposphere, particularly at the upper troposphere, due to the reduced aerosol concentration over Asian continent and the associated latent heating feedback. As the enhancement of EASM is a fast response to the reduction in aerosols, the effect of COVID-19 on EASM dampens soon after the rebound of emissions based on the models participating in COVID-MIP.

Although tsunamis are dispersive water waves, hazard maps for earthquake-generated tsunamis neglect dispersive effects because the spatial dimensions of tsunamis are much greater than the water depth, and dispersive effects are generally small. Furthermore, calculations that include non-dispersive effects tend to predict higher tsunamis than ones that include dispersive effects. Although non-dispersive models may overestimate the tsunami height, this conservative approach is acceptable in disaster management, where the goal is to save lives and protect property. However, we demonstrate that offshore frequency dispersion amplifies tsunamis caused by outer-rise earthquakes, which displace the ocean bottom downward in a narrow area, generating a dispersive short-wavelength and pulling-dominant (water withdrawn) tsunami. We compared observational evidence and calculations of tsunami for a 1933 Mw 8.3 outer-rise earthquake along the Japan Trench. Dispersive (Boussinesq) calculations predicted significant frequency dispersion in the 1933 tsunami. The dispersive tsunami deformation offshore produced tsunami inundation heights that were about 10% larger than those predicted by non-dispersive (long-wave) calculations. The dispersive tsunami calculations simulated the observed tsunami inundation heights better than did the non-dispersive tsunami calculations. Contrary to conventional practice, we conclude that dispersive calculations are essential when preparing deterministic hazard maps for outer-rise tsunamis.

Here, we provide unique photo documentation and observational evidence of rescue behaviour described for the first time in wild boar. Rescue behaviour represents an extreme form of prosocial behaviour that has so far only been demonstrated in a few species. It refers to a situation when one individual acts to help another individual that finds itself in a dangerous or stressful situation and it is considered by some authors as a complex form of empathy. We documented a case in which an adult female wild boar manipulated wooden logs securing the door mechanism of a cage trap and released two entrapped young wild boars. The whole rescue was fast and particular behaviours were complex and precisely targeted, suggesting profound prosocial tendencies and exceptional problem-solving capacities in wild boar. The rescue behaviour might have been motivated by empathy because the rescuer female exhibited piloerection, a sign of distress, indicating an empathetic emotional state matching or understanding the victims. We discuss this rescue behaviour in the light of possible underlying motivators, including empathy, learning and social facilitation.

We report observational evidence for a class of coherent magnetic dipolarization structures that are long lived and radially extensive. The reported dipolarization structures, a subset of general d...