El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomena and forest fires in the southwestern United States

Fire statistics (area burned) and fire-scar chronologies from tree rings show reduced fire activity during El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) in forests of Arizona and New Mexico. This relationship probably stems from increased fuel moisture after a wet winter and spring, but also could involve climatic controls on lightning activity at the onset of the monsoon season.

Holocene history of the El Niño phenomenon as recorded in flood sediments of northern coastal Peru

EXTRACT (SEE PDF FOR FULL ABSTRACT): The Holocene history of flooding in northern coastal Peru is believed to be a proxy record for the El Niño phenomenon. A recently completed set of 30 radiocarbon dates on overbank flood deposits and a tsunami deposit from the Casma region (Figure 1 and Table 1) establishes a chronology for the largest events that have occurred during the last 3500 years. ... The data presented here indicate that events much larger than the one in 1982-1983 may occur with a frequency of about once every 1000 years.

Sea surface temperature and paleo-El Niño events in Santa Barbara Basin, AD 1841-1941

Like pages of a "natural coastal diary", successive layers of anoxic varved sediment in the central Santa Barbara Basin have been used by paleoceanographers to reconstruct aspects of past coastal climate. This report focuses on the end of the "Little Ice Age" (15th to 19th century) and on the beginning of this century, a period known to encompass extreme climate excursions and weather events in the Santa Barbara Basin and other parts of Southern California. El Niño events are known to disrupt Southern California's coastal ecosystems and to cause anomalous weather conditions, but El Niño events in Southern California before 1990 have been largely undocumented.

Interdecadal shifting of the North Pacific jet stream - El Niño events [abstract]

EXTRACT (SEE PDF FOR FULL ABSTRACT): Researchers have shown a step-like increase in worldwide sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in the mid-1970s. Wintertime (December through March) polar-front jet stream positions in the North Pacific will be presented for six moderate-to-very-strong El Niño events - three before the winter of 1975-76 (1965-66, 1968-69, 1972-73) and three after (1982-83, 1986-87, 1991-92).

Geographic patterns in the lag of temperature response to insolation for El Niño vs. La Niña conditions [abstract]

EXTRACT (SEE PDF FOR FULL ABSTRACT): The most important control on the annual cycle of temperature is insolation, with secondary influences from terms related to moisture, yet direct statistical analysis of the moisture-driven modulations (such as El Niño) of the response of temperature to insolation are not available. We have examined one aspect of the relationship between insolation and the instrumental record of maximum daily temperature - the lag between the two - at 252 stations in the western United States.

The QBO, El Niño, and tidal resonance model

I tentatively conclude ... that the QBO may be either modulated or amplified by atmospheric tidal resonances. The generally strong correlation between the QBO and tropical Southern Oscillation, in turn, suggests that one or probably both of these stratospheric and tropospheric oscillations are modulated or amplified by the same tidal-resonance system. ... The strikingly weaker correlation between the Southern Oscillation and El Niño events strongly suggests that some critical parameters are missing in the GCMs specifically designed to predict El Niño occurrence.

Accurate screened exchange band structures for the transition metal monoxides MnO, FeO, CoO and NiO.

We report calculations of the band structures and density of states of the four transition metal monoxides MnO, FeO, CoO and NiO using the hybrid density functional sX-LDA ('screened exchange local density approximation'). Late transition metal oxides are prototypical examples of strongly correlated materials, which pose challenges for electronic structure methods. We compare our results with available experimental data and show that our calculations generally yield accurate predictions for the fundamental band gaps and valence bands, in favourable agreement with previously reported theoretical studies. For MnO, the band gaps are still underestimated, suggesting additional many-body effects that are not captured by our screened hybrid functional approach.

Magnetic property and interface structure of Ta/NiO/NiFe/Ta

Ta/NiO/NiFe/Ta multilayers, utilizing Ta as buffer layer, were prepared by rf reactive and de magnetron sputtering. The exchange coupling field between NiO and NiFe reached a maximum value of 9.6x10(3) A/m at a NiO film thickness of 50 nm. The composition and chemical states at interface region of Ta/NiO/Ta were studied by using the X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and peak decomposition technique. The results show that there is an "intermixing layer" at the Ta/NiO land NiO/Ta) interface due to a thermodynamically favorable reaction 2Ta + 5NiO = 5Ni + Ta2O5. This interface reaction has a great effect on exchange coupling. The thickness of Ni+NiO estimated by XPS depth. profiles is about 8-10 nm.

耐硫水煤气变换反应NiO-MoO_3-K_2CO_3/r-Al_2O_3催化剂研究

在本工作中，制备了一系列催化剂样品，其中有K、Ni、Mo单组份催化剂，K-Ni、K-Mo、Ni-Mo双组份催化剂及不同活性组份含量的K-Ni-Mo三组份催化剂。针对水煤气变换反应，对上述催化剂进行反应活性考察，得出如下结果：①催化剂各活性组份的最佳含量大致是NiO(3%), MoO_3(13%), K_2CO_3(6%)；②催化剂制备中的最佳焙烧温度在400 ℃左右；③催化剂使用前用H_2S/H_2的混和气进行预处理其效果最佳；④催化剂的催化活性与催化剂表面硫的含量有关，当催化剂表面处于严重缺硫状态时其活性下降；⑤反应的最佳汽:气 = 0.5-1.5；⑥加压有利于催化剂活性的提高，在加压情况下催化剂的活性随着反应温度的增加通过一极大值（在约200 ℃左右），不加压的反应催化剂活性随着反应温度的提高而增加。在催化剂的表征部分，利用XPS、XRD、紫外可见温反射光谱、SEM、ESR、比表面、TPR、酸度测定、TPD、TPS、TPS-TPR等实验对我们所制备的催化剂进行了研究。最后，我们用ESR和XRD实验技术研究了MoO_3、M_2CO_3 (M = Li、Na、K、Cs)-MoO_3加热过程中的固相反应，知道MoO_3在空气中焙烧时可以失去晶格氧，使晶体中的一些Mo~(6+)变成Mo~(5+)。在焙烧过程中，Li、Cs~+的加入将阻止MoO_3晶格氧向气相氧的转变，对Mo~(5+)的生成有抑制作用。加入一定量Na~+、K~+的MoO_3在焙烧过程中，其晶格氧被活化更易失去它们对Mo~(5+)的生成有促进作用，这种作用的大小是Na~+ > K~+。

NiO removal of Ni/Au Ohmic contact to p-GaN after annealing

The Ni/Au contact was treated with oxalic acid after annealing in O_2 ambient, and its I-V characteristic showed the property of contact has been obviously improved. An Auger electron spectroscopy (AES) depth pro-file of the contact as-annealed showed that the top layer was highly resistive NiO, while an X-ray photo-electron spectroscopy (XPS) of oxalic acid treated samples indicated that the NiO has been removed effectively. A scanning electron microscope (SEM) was used to observe the surface morphology of the contacts, and it was found that the lacunaris surface right after annealing became quite smooth with lots of small Au exposed areas after oxalic acid treatment. When the test probe or the subsequently deposited Ti/Au was directly in contact with these small Au areas, they worked as low resistive current paths and thus decrease the specific contact resistance.

Ta/NiO/NiFe/Ta的磁性及界面的结构

利用磁控反应溅射方法以Ta作为缓冲层制备了Ta/NiO/NiFe/Ta薄膜，磁性分析表明，该结构薄膜的交换耦合场为9.6×10~3A/m，但量所需NiO的实际厚度增加了。采用X射线光电子能谱研究了Ta/NiO/Ta界面，并进行计算机谱图拟合分析。结果表明界面反应是影响层间耦合的一个重要因素。在Ta/NiO界面处发生了反应

Cu掺杂的NiO的制备及其超级电容器性能

采用低热固相反应法合成掺杂Cu的Ni(OH)2,将其在300℃下热处理得到相应的NiO.电化学测试表明∶掺杂量为n(Ni)∶n(Cu)=100∶0.25时,NiO电极的比容量最高,为99-120 F/g,具有良好的充放电性能,而不掺杂的只有83-111 F/g,因此掺杂Cu有利于提高NiO的电化学性能.