WHAT’S NEXT Leonardi, Alan P.; Ballard, Robert D.; Soule, Adam
Oceanography (Washington, D.C.),
03/2021, Letnik:
34, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
The past year has been difficult. Many friends and loved ones were lost during the coronavirus pandemic. All of us had to adjust, adapt, and learn new ways to live and work together while keeping ...healthy and safe in a virtual workspace. During this time, the NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research, the Ocean Exploration Trust, and the Schmidt Ocean Institute continued their unique partnership to map, explore, and characterize the ocean while supporting goals of the blue economy. The partners advanced this mission by using virtual tools such as telepresence and new technologies to explore the deep ocean remotely, and most importantly, by drawing on the resilience and creativity of their people. NOAA's Office of Ocean Exploration and Research suspended ship operations in 2020.
The Critical Assessment of Genome Interpretation (CAGI) aims to advance the state-of-the-art for computational prediction of genetic variant impact, particularly where relevant to disease. The five ...complete editions of the CAGI community experiment comprised 50 challenges, in which participants made blind predictions of phenotypes from genetic data, and these were evaluated by independent assessors.
Performance was particularly strong for clinical pathogenic variants, including some difficult-to-diagnose cases, and extends to interpretation of cancer-related variants. Missense variant interpretation methods were able to estimate biochemical effects with increasing accuracy. Assessment of methods for regulatory variants and complex trait disease risk was less definitive and indicates performance potentially suitable for auxiliary use in the clinic.
Results show that while current methods are imperfect, they have major utility for research and clinical applications. Emerging methods and increasingly large, robust datasets for training and assessment promise further progress ahead.
TOPEX/POSEIDON and ERS‐2 (T/ERS) sea surface height altimeter observations and the Naval Research Laboratory Layered Ocean Model (NLOM) are used to study the circulation along the southwest coast of ...Mexico. The results of this research indicate that strong El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) warm phase Kelvin waves (KW) destabilize the upper ocean circulation. The effect of ENSO appears as three distinct stages. First, a coastal jet characterized by strong vertical shear flow develops. Second, the shear flow strengthens, increasing its horizontal dimension and the amplitude of its oscillations. Finally, the jet becomes unstable and breaks into anticyclonic eddies, which separate from the coast and drift southwestward. The genesis and strengthening of the jet is due to the simultaneous occurrence of the poleward‐flowing currents along the southwest coast of Mexico and the poleward circulation associated with ENSO downwelling KW.
Regionally organized winter (DJF) precipitation anomalies over North America are presented in association with cold and warm phases of the El Nino-Southern Oscillation. Variations in low-level flow ...from moisture sources and in upper-level dynamic properties are diagnosed for each anomalous precipitation region using DJF composites of upper- and lower-tropospheric winds, sea level pressure, divergence, and vorticity advection. Variance analysis determines which precipitation and circulation patterns are robust and evaluates the predictability of the extreme phase composites with respect to the climatology. In cold phases, the Pacific Northwest and the lower Mississippi Valley regions have above-normal precipitation totals. The heavier precipitation over the Pacific Northwest is the result of a multilevel onshore flow forced by an amplified Pacific high off the California coast and a single zonal upper-tropospheric jet. In the Lower Mississippi and Tennessee Valleys, the equatorward entrance region of a west-east-oriented jet core combines with anomalous positive vorticity advection (PVA) and a convergent low-level flow off the Gulf of Mexico, resulting in heavier precipitation. Drier than normal conditions occur in coastal Alaska and California due to negative vorticity advection anomalies aloft, low-level divergence, and weaker onshore flow. The increased precipitation over the southern Mississippi Valley and the Pacific Northwest, and the drier conditions over Florida, are statistically robust. During warm phases, more precipitation occurs in the coastal regions of Alaska, California, and the Gulf of Mexico, whereas drier conditions persist over the Pacific Northwest. Alaskan precipitation is enhanced by strong, convergent, onshore flow associated with a deeper Aleutian low, upper-level PVA, and the northern branch of a split jet pattern. A strong southern subtropical branch of the split jet provides dynamic support for uplift of moisture along the Gulf Coast. The drier conditions in the Pacific Northwest and the wet conditions in Texas and Florida are predictable relative to the climatology and are statistically robust.
Interannual variability in the eastern subtropical North Pacific Ocean is investigated using the Naval Research Laboratory Layered Ocean Model (NLOM). Emphasis is placed on examining the nature of ...westward propagating Rossby waves and their interaction with the overlying atmosphere.
