Abstract: We determined the δ15N and δ13C values of individual amino acids (AAs) isolated from chick blood of 4 penguin species that forage in different oceanic regions (from the subtropics of the Indian Ocean to Antarctica) to test if: (1) the δ15N values of phenylalanine (δ15N phe) revealed different foraging areas among the species; (2) the difference between glutamic acid and phenylalanine δ15N values (Δδ15Nglu-phe) accurately predicted trophic levels; and (3) the δ13C value of AAs could resolve species foraging locations, similar to bulk δ13C values. The δ13C values of all AAs decreased with latitude, were positively correlated with bulk δ13C data, and, therefore, tracked the isotopic baseline. However, we were not able to discern additional ecological information from these δ13C values. In contrast, the δ15N values of AAs distinguished the isotopic value of the nitrogen at the base of the food web from the trophic level of the consumer, providing new insight for the study of the trophic ecology of seabirds. The difference in the bulk δ15N values of northern and southern rockhopper penguins Eudyptes chrysocome ssp. was due to both a difference in their foraging location (different δ15N phe) and their trophic levels (different Δδ15Nglu-phe). The δ15N phe values of king Aptenodytes patagonicus and Adélie penguins Pygoscelis adeliae were higher than those of rockhoppers, which could reflect a foraging on mesopelagic prey for king penguins and, in the highly productive Antarctic shelf waters, for Adelie penguins. The Δδ15Nglu-phe accurately reflected the relative trophic level of penguins, but further work is required to determine the trophic enrichment factors for compound-specific isotope analysis.

Abstract: Haplotype and allele frequencies of 17 Y-chromosomal short tandem repeat (Y-STR) markers in a population sample of 133 Yakut male volunteers from two regions: Central (n = 41) and Western Yakutia (n = 92) were determined using the AmpFlSTR Yfiler PCR Amplification Kit (Applied Biosystems). A total of 65 haplotypes were identified in the Yakut population, with 15 haplotypes in Central sample and 54 haplotypes in Western sample. Haplotype diversity values of 0.79 and 0.96, and average gene diversity values of 0.14 and 0.41 were calculated for Central and Western samples, respectively. The Fst distances between both our Yakut populations with other Russian, Siberian and Chinese populations were represented by MDS plot. The graphical view demonstrated close distances between most Yakut populations and differences with other Siberian populations.

Abstract: Marine Isotope Stage 19 (MIS 19) is the oldest interglacial period archived in the EPICA Dome C ice core (~ 780 ky BP) and the closest “orbital analogue” to the Holocene -- albeit with a different obliquity amplitude and phase with precession. New detailed deuterium measurements have been conducted with a depth resolution of 11 cm (corresponding time resolution of ~ 130 years). They confirm our earlier low resolution profile (55 cm), showing a relatively smooth shape over the MIS 20 to MIS 18 time period with a lack of sub-millennial climate variability, first thought to be due to this low resolution. The MIS 19 high resolution profile actually reveals a strong isotopic diffusion process leading to a diffusion length of at least ~ 40 cm erasing sub-millennial climate variability. We suggest that this diffusion is caused by water-veins associated with large ice crystals at temperatures above -10 °C, temperature conditions in which the MIS 19 ice has spent more than 200 ky. This result has implications for the selection of the future “oldest ice” drilling site.

Abstract: We present a statistical analysis of ULF (1-100 mHz) geomagnetic measurements conducted during years 2003-2006 at the Italian/French base of Concordia at Dome C, close to the geomagnetic pole, and at the Italian base «Mario Zucchelli» at Terra Nova Bay, also located in the polar cap, but at lower latitude. Our analysis shows that high latitude ULF pulsation power is largely controlled by the solar wind speed. At Terra Nova Bay the power shows a maximum at local noon, clearly related to cusp and closed field lines phenomena. At few mHz, the polarization pattern indicates field line resonances driven, just equatorward with respect to the station, by waves propagating tailward; the polarization of higher frequency pulsations, mostly originated from interplanetary upstream waves, suggests waves propagating sunward from the night sector. At Dome C the wave power shows a small enhancement in the local morning, more pronounced for mid-frequency pulsations; the polarization pattern, at all frequencies, appears to indicate waves propagating sunward from the night sector, suggesting a propagation channel to the ground via the magnetotail lobes.

Abstract: The European Space Agency's Ozone Climate Change Initiative (O3-CCI) project aims at producing and validating a number of high-quality ozone data products generated from different satellite sensors. For total ozone, the O3-CCI approach consists of minimizing sources of bias and systematic uncertainties by applying a common retrieval algorithm to all level 1 data sets, in order to enhance the consistency between the level 2 data sets from individual sensors. Here we present the evaluation of the total ozone products from the European sensors Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment (GOME)/ERS-2, SCIAMACHY/Envisat, and GOME-2/MetOp-A produced with the GOME-type Direct FITting (GODFIT) algorithm v3. Measurements from the three sensors span more than 16 years, from 1996 to 2012. In this work, we present the latest O3-CCI total ozone validation results using as reference ground-based measurements from Brewer and Dobson spectrophotometers archived at the World Ozone and UV Data Centre of the World Meteorological Organization as well as from UV-visible differential optical absorption spectroscopy (DOAS)/Système D′Analyse par Observations Zénithales (SAOZ) instruments from the Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Composition Change. In particular, we investigate possible dependencies in these new GODFIT v3 total ozone data sets with respect to latitude, season, solar zenith angle, and different cloud parameters, using the most adequate type of ground-based instrument. We show that these three O3-CCI total ozone data products behave very similarly and are less sensitive to instrumental degradation, mainly as a result of the new reflectance soft-calibration scheme. The mean bias to the ground-based observations is found to be within the 1 ± 1% level for all three sensors while the near-zero decadal stability of the total ozone columns (TOCs) provided by the three European instruments falls well within the 1–3% requirement of the European Space Agency's Ozone Climate Change Initiative project.