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Arctic sea ice decline is expected to continue throughout the twenty-first century as a result of increased greenhouse gas concentrations. Here we investigate the impact of a strong Arctic sea ice decline on the atmospheric circulation and low pressure systems in the Northern Hemisphere through numerical experimentation with a coupled climate model. More specifically, a large ensemble of 1-yr-long integrations, initialized on 1 June with Arctic sea ice thickness artificially reduced by 80%, is compared to corresponding unperturbed control experiments. The sensitivity experiment shows an ice-free Arctic from July to October; during autumn the largest near-surface temperature increase of about 15 K is found in the central Arctic, which goes along with a reduced meridional temperature gradient, a decreased jet stream, and a southward shifted Northern Hemisphere storm track; and the near-surface temperature response in winter and spring reduces substantially due to relatively fast sea ice growth during the freezing season. Changes in the maximum Eady growth rate are generally below 5% and hardly significant, with reduced vertical wind shear and reduced vertical stability counteracting each other. The reduced vertical wind shear manifests itself in a decrease of synoptic activity by up to 10% and shallower cyclones while the reduced vertical stability along with stronger diabatic heating due to more available moisture may be responsible for the stronger deepening rates and thus faster cyclone development once a cyclone starts to form. Furthermore, precipitation minus evaporation decreases over the Arctic because the increase in evaporation outweighs that for precipitation, with implications for the ocean stratification and hence ocean circulation.
1. Introduction
September Arctic sea ice extent has declined by 40% over the last three decades (Perovich et al. 2014) and September Arctic sea ice thickness has decreased by 85% from 1975 to 2012 (Lindsay and Schweiger 2015). Also in the other seasons massive decreases in extent and thickness have been observed. What impacts could this have on the midlatitudes? There is already a multitude of both observational and modeling studies that address the impact of recent and future Arctic sea ice decline on the large-scale circulation and related weather and climate in the Northern midlatitudes [see review papers by Budikova (2009), Petoukhov and Semenov (2010), Bader et al. (2011), Vihma (2014), Walsh (2014), and Cohen et al. (2014), and references therein]. Some studies attribute recent extreme winter conditions in the United States and in Eurasia to large-scale circulation changes due to the record low Arctic sea ice extents in recent years (e.g., Francis and Vavrus 2012; Honda et al. 2009). However, there is an ongoing debate about to what extent such changes can be attributed to Arctic sea ice decline or explained by large-scale intrinsic variability of the climate system (Screen et al. 2013).
Observational studies have the caveat of including a variety of local and remote factors such as midlatitude influences. As a result it is difficult to disentangle different influencing factors. Furthermore, reliable observations of the Arctic sea ice extent are restricted to the satellite era spanning the last 30 to 40 years and long-term observations of the Arctic sea ice thickness are sparse and subject to considerable uncertainty (Lindsay and Schweiger 2015). It is challenging, therefore, to understand the origin of recent changes by observational studies alone. Consequently, it remains unclear whether recent atmosphere circulation changes in Europe and North America can be attributed to the Arctic sea ice decline, to local or remote diabatic heating and associated altered air–sea fluxes (Gulev et al. 2013), or to the inherent variability due to lower-latitude dynamics (Perlwitz et al. 2015).
Most but not all modeling studies published so far use atmosphere-only climate models to investigate the impact of Arctic sea ice decline on the weather and climate of the midlatitudes (e.g., Deser et al. 2007, 2010; Semmler et al. 2012; Screen et al. 2013; Peings and Magnusdottir 2014). More recently, the atmospheric response to Arctic sea ice decline has been studied from a numerical weather prediction (NWP) perspective by investigating the transient atmospheric response to sudden changes in the Arctic sea ice conditions in very large ensembles of short-term simulations of only a few weeks (Semmler et al. 2016). Finally, Arctic lower-latitude linkages have recently been studied by carrying out experiments with and without relaxation of the Arctic atmosphere toward reanalysis data and by considering differences in midlatitude medium-range and subseasonal prediction skill (Jung et al. 2014).
Using atmosphere-only models has the advantage that the impact of sea ice changes can be assessed by prescribing observed or idealized sea ice distributions. The same advantage holds for experiments with atmosphere models coupled to slab ocean models such as in Rind et al. (1995) or Chiang and Bitz (2005). However, in the atmosphere-only simulations it is impossible to account for coupled processes in the response to Arctic sea ice decline and in the ones using slab ocean models only thermodynamic feedbacks are considered while ocean dynamics is missing. Therefore, idealized coupled sensitivity experiments using full ocean and interactive sea ice models have been performed by Scinocca et al. (2009), Deser et al. (2015), and Petrie et al. (2015). While the first two studies of the three use long-term simulations on the order of hundreds of years, the latter study employs ensembles of 1-yr simulations—an approach we are using in the present study although with important differences in the sea ice perturbations as pointed out in section 2a. Also Tietsche et al. (2011) use a similar experimental setup, but with a different focus (recovery mechanism of Arctic sea ice).
We performed two sets of experiments with and without reduction of Arctic sea ice thickness by 80% on 1 June for a large number of different initial states drawn from a long control integration of the coupled model. We study the ensemble mean response of the coupled system during the 12-month period following the introduction of the perturbation in early summer. Note that the strongest perturbation occurs in summer and autumn because in late autumn strong freezing occurs in the sensitivity experiments, making the sensitivity experiments less different in winter and spring compared to summer and autumn. While this issue may result in comparably weak responses in winter and spring, the advantage of our method is that the model can run without adding any extra heat to the coupled system during the 1-yr simulations.
The aim of this study is to investigate the atmospheric response to reduced Arctic sea ice thickness and concentration by taking coupled processes into account. Our diagnostics will be focused on tropospheric temperature and precipitation changes as well as on characteristics of cyclone activity. The latter is considered to be an important indicator of changes in the coupled climate system, responding to the ocean signals (e.g., Woollings et al. 2012) and sea ice (e.g., Serreze and Barrett 2008), and can also modulate atmospheric influence on sea ice on shorter time scales (Zhang et al. 2013).
2. Methodology
a. Model setup
We use the AWI-CM (Alfred Wegener Institute Climate Model) consisting of the multiresolution Finite Element Sea Ice Ocean Model (FESOM) developed at AWI (Wang et al. 2014) and the atmosphere model ECHAM6 developed at Max Planck Institute for Meteorology (Stevens et al. 2013). This coupled atmosphere–ocean–sea ice model has been shown to be of comparable performance in simulating present-day climate and its variability to state-of-the-art coupled climate models that took part in phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) (Sidorenko et al. 2015; Rackow et al. 2015, manuscript submitted to Climate Dyn.).
We use ECHAM6 in the standard resolution of T63L47 corresponding to about 200 km horizontally with 47 vertical levels up to 0.01 hPa (about 80 km) coupled to FESOM with a horizontal ocean grid resolution between 25 and 150 km and 46 vertical levels as defined in Sidorenko et al. (2015). The coupling software used is OASIS3-MCT (Valcke et al. 2013).
The 1500-yr-long control simulation with constant 1990 greenhouse gas and aerosol concentration forcing, which is described and evaluated by Rackow et al. (2015, manuscript submitted to Climate Dyn.), has been extended by 100 years. On 1 June of each of those 100 years a 1-yr control simulation initialized with data of that day of that year (referred to as CTL) has been run. A corresponding 1-yr sensitivity simulation with the same initialization data but 80% reduced sea ice thickness in the Arctic (referred to as RED) has also been performed. In the beginning of each sensitivity simulation the sea ice extent is unchanged compared to the corresponding reference run but will be lower throughout the rest of the simulation due to melting processes and delayed onset of freezing. Altogether we have a 100-member CTL and a 100-member RED ensemble. In these ensemble simulations the enforcement of the global flux conservation as described in Sidorenko et al. (2015) has been switched off. This has been done to avoid possible spurious teleconnections associated with the correction of the global flux. The minor nonconservation of the global flux caused by different model geometries may be neglected on the discussed time scales. The design of the experiments allows analyzing the response of large-scale atmospheric circulation, freshwater balance, and cyclone characteristics to the modified ice conditions during the 1-yr period starting on 1 June of each year in 100 ensemble members.
b. Cyclone tracking
Cyclone tracking was performed using the numerical algorithm of Zolina and Gulev (2002) and Zolina and Gulev (2003) on a polar orthographic projection with 181 × 181 grid points (centered at the North Pole), allowing for effective cyclone identification north of 25°N. The original AWI-CM SLP data were interpolated onto the polar orthographic grid using the modified method of local procedures (Akima 1970).
Postprocessing of the output of tracking (coordinates, central pressure, and time) included the cutoff of the cyclones with less than 1-day lifetime and shorter than 1000-km migration distances. Furthermore we applied filtering unrealistic cyclone trajectories over the mountain regions by removing trajectories reaching their maximum depth in the areas higher than 1500 m.
To effectively map cyclone numbers and frequencies, 6-hourly trajectories were interpolated linearly onto 10-min time steps. This process eliminates underestimation of the number of cyclones and random errors in cyclone frequencies that can occur when this procedure is not applied (Zolina and Gulev 2002). Mapping of cyclone numbers and frequencies is performed for the grid with circular cells equivalent to 155 000 km2 (2° latitude) as in Tilinina et al. (2013). This numerical methodology was extensively evaluated during the IMILAST project (Neu et al. 2013) and was also successfully applied for the comparative assessment of cyclone activity in different reanalyses (Tilinina et al. 2013), operational products in different resolutions (Jung et al. 2006), climate model simulations (Löptien et al. 2008), and idealized atmospheric models (Kravtsov and Gulev 2013).
3. Results
a. Sea ice
Figure 1 shows the development of the sea ice area and Fig. 2 of the sea ice volume month by month as an average over the ensembles of CTL and RED experiments, respectively, from the initialization month to the end of the year-long simulations. The Arctic is completely free of ice (sea ice area less than 106 km2) for four months (July–October) in all members of the RED simulations, which is expected to happen around the year 2100 when considering CMIP5 projections under the strong RCP8.5 emissions scenario (Hezel et al. 2014, their Fig. 5). This is a strong perturbation compared to the one in Petrie et al. (2015). Their perturbation was designed to yield sea ice conditions similar to the observed conditions in the low ice extent years 2007 and 2012.
Despite our strong perturbation, already in February the sea ice areas of the ensembles of CTL and RED simulations are close to each other (less than 5% relative difference) with the error bars overlapping. This means that the sea ice area recovers at the end of the winter and remains practically the same as in the case when no sea ice has been taken away. However, this is not the case for the sea ice volume, which is distinctively different during the entire year of the simulation (e.g., February differences are about 25%). While thin sea ice can form quickly in the entire Arctic during the winter it cannot recover its thickness. The fact that changes in the sea ice area are comparably small in winter and spring should be considered when interpreting the results for those seasons. It should be noted that observations over the past 32 years show a similar behavior (Keen et al. 2013). Therefore, investigating responses to strong summer–autumn sea ice declines and weak winter–spring sea ice declines is relevant.
b. Surface energy budget and surface temperature
The changes in sea ice have substantial impacts on the surface energy budget. Radiative heat flux changes are most pronounced over the Arctic Ocean in summer [July–September (JAS)] and autumn [October–December (OND)] and relatively weak in winter [January–March (JFM)] (Fig. 3)—in line with the small sea ice area changes in the latter season. The downward anomalies in summer (mostly between 10 and 20 W m−2; see Fig. 3b) are due to the extra shortwave radiation absorbed by the ice-free ocean in the RED simulations. Longwave radiation changes (not shown) are minor in this season. It should be noted that those downward anomalies are even much stronger in June (mostly between 40 and 60 W m−2; not shown), which is not included in our summer average. The upward anomalies in autumn (mostly between 10 and 20 W m−2; see Fig. 3d) are due to the extra emission of longwave radiation due to the warmer surface temperatures (shown and discussed below). These upward anomalies weaken in winter (Fig. 3f) due to the weakening surface temperature anomalies.
Figure 4 shows the surface temperature response in summer, autumn, and winter. The response is strongest in autumn when the ocean emits the extra energy absorbed during the summer in the RED simulations while the sea ice has started to regrow in the CTL simulations, leading to cold surface temperatures due to the insulating effect of the sea ice. Differences reach up to 15 K in the central Arctic. In fact, the strongest temperature difference was identified in November with up to 19 K in the central Arctic. This is the month with the strongest absolute difference in the sea ice extent (Fig. 1b).
The differences in turbulent surface heat fluxes (Fig. 5) are also strongest in the autumn season. In the CTL simulations turbulent surface heat fluxes over the Arctic are close to 0 in all seasons. In the RED simulations these fluxes turn slightly upward in summer and winter (in most areas between 1 and 10 W m−2) but substantially upward (around 30 W m−2) in autumn. It is also the autumn season that shows substantial downward flux anomalies of up to 30 W m−2 in the sea areas south of the Arctic Ocean, decreasing the upward fluxes in those areas compared to the CTL simulations, whereas in the other seasons such anomalies are not significant.
It is noteworthy that over northern North America and northeastern Asia the warming signal tends to spread out farther southward in autumn than in winter (Figs. 4d,f). Over North America this could be due to a shift in the circulation anomaly from northward advection in autumn to southward advection in winter (Figs. 6d,f). Certainly the magnitude of the central Arctic warming is likely to play a role. Over the ocean areas the opposite is true (i.e., the warming signal tends to spread out farther southward in winter than in autumn)—the downward turbulent surface heat flux anomalies in autumn may lead to a slow accumulation of heat in the ocean surface layer resulting in the stronger sea surface temperature anomalies in winter. Some autumn and winter cooling of up to around 0.5 K, albeit hardly significant, is simulated in parts of North America and Siberia.
c. Large-scale circulation
Figure 6 shows the mean sea level pressure (MSLP) response. In summer anomalies are typically within 1 hPa even though some of them are significant: over northern Europe negative anomalies and over the eastern Arctic positive anomalies can be seen. The strongest response is detected in autumn, which makes sense given that the surface forcing is strongest in that season. The sign of the response tends to be opposite compared to the summer response, although the positive anomalies over northern Europe are hardly significant and the negative anomalies are located more toward the western Arctic. In winter, when there are hardly any changes in the Arctic sea ice area, no significant changes in the MSLP distribution can be found.
Comparing Figs. 6 and 7, the latter showing the 500-hPa geopotential height (Z500), it becomes obvious that the summer response is barotropic (Figs. 6b and 7b). It leads to a strengthened westerly flow over Europe consistent with a positive phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) along with a weakened westerly flow over parts of northern Asia.
In autumn the strong surface heating in the central Arctic leads to a baroclinic response with low anomalies close to the surface and high anomalies in the midtroposphere (cf. Figs. 6d and 7d). It should be noted that the described response actually acts to reduce the baroclinicity in the RED experiments compared to the CTL experiments because the baroclinic response has opposite sign to the actual baroclinicity in the CTL experiments. The anomalous heat low at the surface (or the weakening of the cold high at the surface) is consistent with increased upward turbulent surface heat fluxes and longwave radiation and a less stable situation. Vertical temperature anomaly profiles (Fig. 8) confirm that the strongest destabilization occurs in autumn. The anomalous surface heat is strongest and spreads out into the middle troposphere in contrast to the other seasons. Interestingly, in winter some significant stratospheric warming of partly more than 1 K close to the pole can be seen. Consistently, the 50-hPa geopotential height increases by more than 50 m around the pole (not shown), indicating a weaker stratospheric vortex. Such stratospheric winter response to reduced Arctic summer–autumn sea ice is not new [see the review paper by Cohen et al. (2014)]. It may lead to colder winter surface temperatures in the midlatitudes—a feature we can also see from our simulations, albeit only weakly (Figs. 4d,f).
Over northeastern Europe a positive barotropic response and over the northern North Pacific a negative barotropic response can be seen in autumn (Figs. 6d and 7d). While in the midtroposphere a weakened westerly flow is simulated in the midlatitudes, this is only the case over northern Europe close to the surface. This may explain the fact that any continental surface cooling that may be expected due to a weakened westerly flow and an associated weaker maritime influence on the continents is only limited. Over the west coast of North America an anomalous southeasterly flow close to the surface can be seen. Over the Mediterranean area an increased westerly flow is identified. Both over Europe and over the North Pacific the pressure anomalies indicate a shift of the storm track to the south. This southward shift persists into winter over Europe but not over the North Pacific.
In winter there are small areas of significant Z500 responses that are similar to the corresponding insignificant MSLP responses (cf. Figs. 6f and 7f). The western Arctic experiences positive Z500 and MSLP anomalies while over Europe there is a dipole of negative anomalies over western Europe and positive anomalies over eastern Europe. The pattern resembles to some extent the negative phase of the east Atlantic/western Russia pattern, also referred to as the Eurasian pattern type 1 in Barnston and Livezey (1987). These anomalies lead to a weakened westerly flow over North America and to an anomalous southerly flow over central Europe. Furthermore, like in autumn, the Mediterranean area tends to experience a stronger westerly flow. The winter surface anomaly pattern also resembles the positive phase of the Arctic dipole pattern, which is shown to have influence on sea ice motion such as increased Fram Strait ice export and enhanced sea ice import from the Laptev and East Siberian Seas into the Arctic basin (Wu et al. 2006).
d. Hydrological cycle
The anomalies of (liquid plus solid) precipitation minus evaporation (P − E; Fig. 9) are negative over the Arctic in summer and especially autumn; in winter negative anomalies are restricted to the ice edge in the North Atlantic section and to the Beaufort Sea and Bering Strait. When considering precipitation and evaporation separately, it turns out that both fluxes increase over the Arctic in the sensitivity experiment (not shown) as is expected due to the sea ice loss, with the magnitude of the response for evaporation being larger than that for precipitation. This can have important implications for the near-surface salinity and the stratification of the Arctic Ocean. Whereas in summer more moisture is transported into northern Europe due to increased westerly flow leading to an increase in P − E (Fig. 9b), in autumn and winter (Figs. 9d,f) there is a tendency of an increase in P − E over the Mediterranean Sea due to an increased westerly flow in that area, with possible consequences for the salinity and stratification of the Mediterranean Sea. However, it should be noted that the P − E response outside the Arctic is patchy and hardly significant.
There is an ongoing debate whether reduced Arctic sea ice would lead to increased snow cover in autumn over Siberia. This might trigger a negative phase of the NAO and Arctic Oscillation (AO) consistent with a southward shift of the storm track in the following winter, leading to cold Eurasian winters (Cohen et al. 2012, 2014). However, our results do not show any significant changes in autumn snow cover (Fig. 10), which is consistent with the patchy precipitation response. In contrast, in winter some significant snow thickness increases of up to 2 cm water equivalent are identified close to the Siberian coast, similar to Petrie et al. (2015). These changes occur when there is already a substantial snow cover so that large-scale circulation or storm track responses are not likely. The identified weakening of the stratospheric vortex and the slight winter cooling in some Eurasian areas as well as the storm track responses found in the following analyses are therefore not likely due to snow cover increases but are more likely a result of the decreased Arctic sea ice cover.
e. Cyclones and storm tracks
An important feature of the midlatitude atmospheric circulation, cyclone activity is closely related to diabatic signals associated with air–sea interaction processes (Neiman and Shapiro 1993; Rudeva and Gulev 2011), instability of the midlatitude flow potentially driven by intrinsic atmospheric variability, and general atmospheric circulation changes that may be controlled by changes in meridional temperature gradient. The most intense cyclogenesis occurs over the storm formation regions over western boundary currents and their extension regions, where strong surface air–sea fluxes force low-level baroclinic instability. Multiyear sea ice over the Arctic generally keeps the ocean and the atmosphere thermally isolated from each other. From this perspective the reduced sea ice cover and seasonally ice-free ocean in the RED experiments, along with the changes in the atmospheric circulation characteristics, may cause changes in cyclone activity. In the following, we analyze the response of extratropical cyclones to a reduction of Arctic sea ice.
A measure of synoptic activity is defined by Blackmon (1976) as standard deviation of high-pass-filtered Z500 data. Jung (2005) showed that a very simple high-pass filter considering only the difference between two consecutive 24-h time steps captures synoptic variations of up to 10 days. Here we define synoptic activity in the same way as Jung (2005) but for MSLP to be consistent with surface cyclone parameters shown later in this section. Patterns are similar between MSLP and Z500 synoptic activity. Figure 11 shows MSLP synoptic activity from CTL as well as MSLP synoptic activity responses for RED minus CTL.
In summer, changes are hardly matching statistical significance and consist of a slight extension of the North Atlantic storm track toward western Europe and of a decreasing synoptic activity over the eastern Mediterranean Sea as well as over northeastern Africa (Fig. 11b). Therefore, over the European sector a strengthening of the midlatitude storm track and a weakening of the subtropical one is identified. This signature is consistent with a positive NAO index (e.g., Osborn 2006) and therefore with the large-scale circulation response shown in Figs. 6b and 7b. Furthermore, some areas of the North Pacific, western Siberia, and around Greenland experience a slight decrease of synoptic activity.
In autumn the response is stronger compared to summer; significant decreases in synoptic activity occur over most Arctic sea ice areas and surrounding land areas including large parts of northern North America, northern Europe, and northern Siberia as well as some sea areas in the North Atlantic and North Pacific (Fig. 11d). Decreases reach up to around 10% in the southern Beaufort Sea and over northwestern Siberia. In winter the response is weaker than in autumn but still stronger than in summer; significant reductions of synoptic activity of around 5% can be seen around the Fram Strait and south of it, northwest of Greenland, and over the Beaufort Sea (Fig. 11f). Autumn and winter responses are only partly consistent with a shift toward a negative NAO index since the increases in the Mediterranean storm track are not significant.
An alternative approach that we used to investigate changes in storm tracks is to track and count cyclones (see section 2b). The total annual number of cyclones over the Northern Hemisphere (NH) in both the CTL and RED experiments is 1360 (±32 in CTL and ±49 in RED) (no figure shown; the uncertainty is given as standard deviation of the annual number of cyclones). This is about 3% less than found in the NCEP–DOE reanalysis (Tilinina et al. 2013). This reanalysis has a similar spectral resolution (T62L28) to our model experiments (T63L47) and shows on average ~1390 cyclones per year over the NH (Tilinina et al. 2013). The positioning of the major storm tracks in the North Atlantic and the North Pacific as well as over Mediterranean is also consistent with the NCEP–DOE and other reanalyses (Tilinina et al. 2013), with enhanced midlatitude storm tracks in winter and autumn and intensified Mediterranean storm tracks in summer (Figs. 12a,c,e).
The spatial response pattern of the number of cyclones to sea ice loss is presented in Figs. 12b, 12d, and 12f. During summer and especially autumn there is an evident decrease of the number of cyclones over the Arctic in RED compared to CTL. During winter, the response is partly opposite with approximately 20% (1–2 cyclones per winter season) more cyclones over the eastern Arctic in RED compared to CTL.
It should be noted that responses in the MSLP synoptic activity (Fig. 11) and in cyclone counts (Fig. 12) are not necessarily the same since the MSLP synoptic activity would additionally measure changes in high pressure regimes, which is not the case for cyclone counts. Furthermore, quasi-stationary or slow-moving cyclones (e.g., north of Greenland) may have an impact not on the synoptic activity but rather on the number of cyclones.
Consistent with characteristics of synoptic activity (Fig. 11), surface temperature gradients (Fig. 4), P − E (Fig. 9), and the large-scale circulation (Figs. 6 and 7), the strongest response in the number of cyclones [about 20%–30%, or 2–3 cyclones per autumn season, reduction in RED compared to CTL in the Greenland–Iceland–Norwegian (GIN) Seas and subpolar North Pacific] is identified in autumn (Fig. 12d), when the Arctic surface temperature increase is the strongest. At the same time, Mediterranean and subtropical Pacific storm tracks are enhanced in the RED experiment, showing 20%–30% (1 cyclone per autumn season) more cyclones compared to CTL. This implies a southward shift of the midlatitude storm tracks in autumn.
It is interesting to note also the strongly localized autumn response over the western Arctic north of Greenland with 40% (2–3 cyclones per autumn season) more cyclones and corresponding negative differences over northern Greenland (Fig. 12d). This likely hints at a northward shift of the local cyclone pass; however, this phenomenon should be considered with caution because of potentially large uncertainties of cyclone identification in this area in most numerical algorithms, including ours (Rudeva et al. 2014, their Fig. 8). Given the agreement of the results of our model experiment with those revealed by global reanalyses we expect the results to be qualitatively realistic, while quantitatively the coupled signal in cyclone characteristics might be underestimated due to model limitations implied by the spatial resolution.
f. Cyclone life cycle
To further analyze cyclone activity response to the Arctic sea ice loss in the set of RED experiments we demonstrate probability distributions of cyclone central pressure and deepening rates (Fig. 13) for the autumn over the Arctic Ocean and over the NH. These parameters characterize cyclone intensity and development, both being sensitive to sea–air interaction processes. Thus, they can potentially capture the storm track responses to the intensified air–sea heat and moisture fluxes over the ice-free ocean.
Our results show that in the RED experiments (reduced ice) over the Arctic Ocean cyclones tend to become shallower (Fig. 13a) and demonstrate stronger deepening rates (Fig. 13b). According to a Kolmogorov–Smirnov test (K-S test; Kolmogorov 1933; Smirnov 1948) the difference between the distributions revealed by RED and CTL is significant at the 95% level. The fraction of cyclones deeper than 980 hPa over the Arctic in the RED experiments is smaller than in CTL (12% vs 15%). This effect is likely the result of the southward shift of the storm track (Fig. 12d). The percentages of moderately [>3 hPa (6 h)−1] and rapidly [>6 hPa (6 h)−1] deepening cyclones in the RED experiments (18% and 4% respectively) are larger than in CTL (15% and 3%). Thus, while the Arctic cyclones are generally shallower in the RED experiments, they tend to intensify more rapidly than in CTL. Note that probability distributions of cyclone life cycle parameters (central pressure and deepening rates) built for the whole Northern Hemisphere (Figs. 13d,e) are very close to each other, and not distinguishable according to a K-S test.
A measure for the potential development and intensification of low pressure systems has been proposed by Eady (1949) and has been widely applied in previous studies. This Eady index or maximum Eady growth rate comprises a combination of vertical stability and vertical wind shear:
with EADY being the maximum Eady growth rate, f the Coriolis parameter, N the Brunt–Väisälä frequency, p the pressure in the middle of an atmospheric layer, R the gas constant for dry air (287 J kg−1 K−1), T the temperature in the middle of the atmospheric layer, and the change of horizontal wind speed with pressure as vertical coordinate. The vertical stability is expressed by while the vertical wind shear is accounted for by the remaining terms. In our analysis we used the atmospheric layer between 850 and 500 hPa and approximated the middle of that layer as 700 hPa. We obtained qualitatively similar results with atmospheric layers between 850 and 700 hPa or between 700 and 500 hPa.
In Fig. 14 the maximum Eady growth rate in CTL as well as the response RED minus CTL is shown. Differences are generally below 5% and only in small areas statistically significant. In summer the main response can be seen in the middle latitudes of Europe (Fig. 14b). This area of a stronger maximum Eady growth rate is the area where the strongest increases in the pressure gradient, the cyclone count, and P − E are simulated, indicating an intensified midlatitude storm track. In contrast, the subtropical Mediterranean storm track is weakened.
In autumn the picture changes: subtropical storm tracks are intensified and midlatitude storm tracks weakened (Fig. 14d) as was already identified from the cyclone number response. Therefore, negative maximum Eady growth rate responses can be seen over the northern North Atlantic and the northern North Pacific as well as adjacent land areas while positive maximum Eady growth rate responses can be seen over parts of and south of the Mediterranean Sea as well as over parts of the North Pacific and North Atlantic between around 40° and 50°N. Furthermore, in some high latitudes such as over the Canadian Arctic and north and east of Greenland positive responses are simulated, which do not necessarily translate into larger cyclone counts or increased synoptic activity—in contrast, decreased synoptic activity is simulated there while cyclone count responses are partly negative and partly positive. The southward shift of storm tracks with increased maximum Eady growth rate close to 40°N persists into winter (Fig. 14f), although these changes are hardly significant. Other areas do not show any significant responses apart from a negative response in some parts of western Canada.
When separately investigating the two factors contributing to the maximum Eady growth rate (i.e., vertical stability and vertical wind shear; not shown), it turns out that in autumn and winter over the Arctic a reduced vertical stability and a reduced vertical wind shear counteract and lead to no significant or positive Eady growth rate responses over the Arctic. Here the reduced vertical stability appears to be of no importance for synoptic activity as can be seen from the negative synoptic activity response. Instead, it is the reduced vertical wind shear that manifests itself in the synoptic activity response.
Over the midlatitudes no significant change in the vertical stability can be found in our RED compared to our CTL experiments. The vertical wind shear responses in the midlatitudes with decreases in many regions north of around 50°N and increases south of it in the Pacific and western Atlantic sectors as well as in the Mediterranean area are comparable to but more significant than the responses in the Eady growth rate. Therefore, it can be concluded that in our setup of experiments the change in the vertical wind shear is more relevant for the actual synoptic activity than the change in the vertical stability. The decrease of vertical stability may be responsible for the stronger deepening rates of the cyclones in the Arctic.
4. Discussion and conclusions
We studied the responses of a reduction of Arctic sea ice on the atmospheric circulation characteristics with a coupled model performing 1-yr-long experiments. Our model setup is quite similar to the one employed by Petrie et al. (2015) but with important differences: they introduce the sea ice thickness reduction already on 1 April and they do not have a seasonally ice-free Arctic but rather resemble Arctic sea ice conditions in recent summers with record low sea ice concentrations such as 2007 and 2012. When interpreting the responses to reduced Arctic sea ice we have to consider that changes in the Arctic sea ice conditions are small in winter and spring compared to summer and autumn due to the recovery mechanism of the Arctic sea ice described by Tietsche et al. (2011). It is relevant to study the impact of such seasonally different decreases in Arctic sea ice since observations of the last 32 years indicate such a behavior (Keen et al. 2013). It should be noted that all results are subject to model uncertainties and the ability to reproduce observed coupled processes.
The large-scale circulation responses in the sensitivity experiment depend on the season considered and are small (up to 2 hPa in MSLP and 30 m in Z500) compared to observed interannual variabilities (according to observations up to around 5 hPa in MSLP and 50 m in Z700; see, e.g., Chervin 1986). The fact that some of these anomalies are still statistically significant is a result of the relatively large ensemble size used. The general feature of decreased westerly flow in autumn and winter as a response to reduced Arctic sea ice cover has been reported in various previous studies such as Semmler et al. (2016), Deser et al. (2015), Jaiser et al. (2012), and many more. However, not all previous studies agree on this: for example, circulation changes in the coupled 1-yr experiments performed by Petrie et al. (2015) show quite different response patterns emphasizing how sensitive large-scale circulation responses may be to different experiment setups and different model formulations.
Winter large-scale circulation changes such as a shift toward the negative phase of the AO/NAO as well as a consistent shift of the storm track to the south have been suggested as a consequence of increased Eurasian autumn snow cover after summers with low Arctic sea ice extent (Cohen et al. 2012, 2014). However, we cannot confirm this relationship between autumn snow cover and large-scale circulation as we could not identify significant changes in autumn snow cover as a response to the reduced Arctic summer sea ice cover. The identified southward shift of the storm track is therefore more likely due to the sea ice loss and not to the autumn snow cover change, which is confirmed by Semmler et al. (2016) from short numerical weather prediction (NWP) model simulations.
It is interesting to note that coupled global climate model projections with increasing greenhouse gas concentrations generally show a northward shift of the storm track (Löptien et al. 2008; Ulbrich et al. 2009; Woollings et al. 2012). In these projections there is enhanced upper tropospheric warming in the tropics leading to an enhanced meridional temperature gradient in the upper troposphere. This may counteract the influence of a reduced meridional temperature gradient in the lower troposphere due to the decreasing Arctic sea ice cover.
While we found reduced synoptic activity and fewer cyclones in the Arctic in autumn, maximum Eady growth rate and cyclone deepening rates slightly increased especially around Greenland as a response to reduced Arctic sea ice. It is important to note that a stronger maximum Eady growth rate does not automatically translate into stronger synoptic activity outside the main baroclinic zones in areas such as the Arctic. More specifically, increasing maximum Eady growth rates in the past 20 years, as seen by Jaiser et al. (2012) in the Siberian Arctic as a response to decreasing Arctic sea ice, should not be interpreted as an increase in synoptic activity. We hypothesize that the weakened meridional temperature gradient and reduced vertical wind shear is the driver behind reduced cyclone activity while the decreased vertical stability increases levels of atmospheric humidity (and hence diabatic forcing), which can potentially trigger stronger cyclone intensification once a system has generated.
In winter some cooling of around 0.5 K, albeit marginally significant, was simulated in some regions of North America and Eurasia in response to reduced Arctic sea ice. Such a cooling due to sea ice reduction and associated weaker westerly flow (negative phase of AO/NAO) and less maritime influence or troposphere–stratosphere coupling is consistent with previous studies, although uncertainty remains (Walsh 2014; Vihma 2014). We conclude that the cooling effect is rather small compared to the variability of the system, locally very limited, and mostly insignificant. Furthermore, the high-latitude warming and the associated milder air advected in situations with northerly flow would counteract a possible cooling due to less maritime influence.
One additional outcome, which is interesting from an oceanographic perspective, is the decrease in precipitation minus evaporation (P − E) over the entire Arctic in summer and especially autumn, indicating a decrease in lateral moisture transport into the Arctic—consistent with Singarayer et al. (2006) from atmosphere-only simulations with end-of-the-century sea ice conditions. This is consistent with reduced synoptic activity due to a reduced meridional temperature gradient or reduced planetary wave activity. The decrease in Arctic P − E may have important consequences for the surface salinity and therefore the stratification of the upper ocean and could influence the Arctic Ocean circulation. The increase in P − E over the Mediterranean Sea in autumn and winter, which may be caused by the southward shift of the storm track and associated increased synoptic activity in that area, may be of importance for the surface salinity and stratification of the upper Mediterranean Sea layer. Similarly to the phase of the AO/NAO or the location of the storm tracks, the decreasing Arctic sea ice seems to counteract the impact of tropical warming on Arctic P − E. This can be concluded because previous studies such as Bintanja and Selten (2014) report an increase in Arctic P − E in climate change projections for the twenty-first century.
Finally we would like to note that our 1-yr simulations are too short to show a strong oceanic response. Sea surface temperature and sea surface salinity exhibit only small differences outside the Arctic Ocean (mostly below 0.1 K and 0.1 psu, respectively). This is in contrast to the recent results obtained by Petrie et al. (2015), who reported significant remote SST increases especially in the northwestern North Atlantic and in the northern North Pacific as a response to sea ice thickness reductions on 1 April. It is not clear if the different start date (in our study 1 June) or the different model could lead to these discrepancies. These discrepancies may also contribute to the different atmospheric large-scale circulation responses in our and their studies. In autumn some limited changes toward a weaker circulation in the GIN Seas and in winter toward a weaker North Atlantic subpolar gyre as expressed by sea surface height (SSH) increases by up to 0.02 m can be seen. Given these results, on this short time scale the oceanic feedback on the atmosphere can be regarded as small. Results of century-long coupled experiments indicate that substantial oceanic changes arise on such a long time scale, which can in turn influence the atmospheric circulation. We plan to publish results of those experiments in a separate paper.
We are grateful to the HLRN (Northern German High Performance Computing Centre) for granting us computational resources for carrying out the simulations. Furthermore we acknowledge our colleagues from the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg and from the Alfred Wegener Institute involved in the development of ECHAM6 and FESOM as well as their coupling. NT and SKG benefited from the grant of the Russian Science Foundation 14-37-00038 and LS from an ERASMUS scholarship. We would like to thank four anonymous reviewers for helpful comments.


text:
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August 4, 2020, 12:04:55 pm, UTC
Regions are: Central Luapula Lusaka Northern Southern Western
Latitude: -13.7994736842105 Longitude: 27.4031578947368

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Are Keepers Keepers ?
No member of our community is more freely abused on account of his profession than the " keeper," so called, who for the first time is to come under the unemployment scheme ; and there are a good many unerr, ,red keepers. The satirists say that he is named on the principle of lucus a non lucendo : called a keeper because he is a killer. Keepers undoubtedly exist whom most naturalists would like to see out of employment ; but on the whole the English game-keeper is of a fine type. Many o£ them are exceptional naturalists, with a particular knowledge of the feeding habits of birds. They all have their " larders " which make a grim and unlovely spectacle ; but one of them in the West Country provided me with a symbol of the keeper's activities and interests. He found a wren's nest built inside the skeleton of a carrion crow suspended from one of the " larder " beams. The queer association suggests what, I think, is an unquestionable fact : that the destruction of predatory birds, the carrion crow above all others, is the chief reason why small birds flourish peculiarly in this island. The landowners are often much more to blame than keepers where the rarer finer birds, peregrines, buzzards, harriers, barn owls and the rest, are shot. Shooting syndicates are often much to blame. They demand their tale of pheasants and nothing else ; and give rio sort of instructions for the preser- vation of hawks and owls.
* * *


text:
Relations between the Complex Neutrosophic Sets with Their Applications in Decision Making
School of Mathematical Sciences, Faculty of Science and Technology, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Bangi, Selangor 43600, Malaysia
Department of Mathematics, Zarqa University, Zarqa 13132, Jordan
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Axioms 2018, 7(3), 64; https://doi.org/10.3390/axioms7030064
Received: 23 July 2018 / Revised: 20 August 2018 / Accepted: 24 August 2018 / Published: 1 September 2018
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Neutrosophic Topology)
The basic aim of soft computing is to trade precision for a tractableness and reduction in solution cost by pushing the limits of tolerance for imprecision and uncertainty. This paper introduces a novel soft computing technique called complex neutrosophic relation (CNR) to evaluate the degree of interaction between two complex neutrosophic sets (CNSs). CNSs are used to represent two-dimensional information that are imprecise, uncertain, incomplete and indeterminate. The Cartesian product of CNSs and subsequently the complex neutrosophic relation is formally defined. This relation is generalised from a conventional single valued neutrosophic relation (SVNR), based on CNSs, where the ranges of values of CNR are extended to the unit circle in complex plane for its membership functions instead of [0, 1] as in the conventional SVNR. A new algorithm is created using a comparison matrix of the SVNR after mapping the complex membership functions from complex space to the real space. This algorithm is then applied to scrutinise the impact of some teaching strategies on the student performance and the time frame(phase) of the interaction between these two variables. The notion of inverse, complement and composition of CNRs along with some related theorems and properties are introduced. The performance and utility of the composition concept in real-life situations is also demonstrated. Then, we define the concepts of projection and cylindric extension for CNRs along with illustrative examples. Some interesting properties are also obtained. Finally, a comparison between different existing relations and CNR to show the ascendancy of our proposed CNR is provided.


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As marketers take steps to protect their brands, some have begun to tell publishers not to run their ads near news articles related to the Black Lives Matter movement. Separately, marketers at Target and MTV have added words to their "blocklist," similar to what was formerly called "blacklists," to block their advertisements from serving up next to articles mentioning "Breonna Taylor" and "George Floyd," as well as those with the word "protests."
As noted in a Wall Street Journal article, these types of lists aren't new. They do, however, often contain words like "shooting," "bomb," "immigration," and nowadays, "Trump."
The idea is to avoid an association with controversial topics.
"It's defunding our journalism at a time when it's imperative for us to be the front lines doing this kind of work," Paul Wallace, Vice Media's VP for global revenue products and services, told the WSJ.
Perhaps journalism needs to eliminate bias in the industry rather than feed into the "most popular news," especially when it can lead to harmful consequences. This doesn't mean readers who go to publisher websites won't read the news. It simply means a separation of church and state.
"Due to the comedic nature of the show...we didn't want to be insensitive by placing ads for it next to important and serious topics, such as Black Lives Matter," a MTV spokesperson told the WSJ. "This is standard practice we use with our media agency to ensure that our ads don't come across as tone-deaf or disrespectful."
The move proves these brands are in touch with society, yet remain sensitive to those consumers who wish not to continually be bombarded with biased content. It might even increase performance of publisher websites, regardless of how many advertising spots they sell.
Nor should this move by the brands discount the importance of reporting on topics like Black Lives Matter or systemic change.
But publishers, even search engines, should distance themselves from capitalizing on news such as the burning of the 249-year-old San Gabriel Mission church in California.
Authorities say they have not determined the cause of the fire, but the statue that once stood outside since the 1980s was relocated out of public view, citing activists' toppling of Serra's statues across California.


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Clingstone, Freestone, White, Yellow, and Donut: The Language of Peaches, ExplainedMartha Stewart Living - Marie Viljoen
We also explain which are best for baking and which are ideal for eating out of hand. What fruit is as evocative as a ripe peach? Velvet to the touch, easily bruisable, instantly dripping with juice, are


text:
ELM GROVE, W.Va. (WTRF) – Several local middle school teachers were presented with McDonald's Make Activities Count (MAC) Grants on Monday.
The 14 MAC Grants winners were honored at the McDonald's in Elm Grove.
Educators will receive up to $500 for interesting and educational projects to help learning come alive in their classrooms.
"It's just giving me a chance to get a little extra money, and I want to try something new and different," said Sheryl Sonk, a language arts teacher at Union Local Middle School.
Since its inception, the McDonald's MAC Grants program has provided more than $75,000 to teachers in the Ohio Valley.
"We're just very excited, very happy to get this," said Bellaire Middle school math teacher Kellie Cusick. "It makes a world of difference in the classroom. We feel blessed."
Nationwide, the "MAC Grants" program has provided more than $3 million to assist middle school teachers, just like the ones honored at the Elm Grove McDonald's.
Latest Posts:
- Lions Club donates to Ohio County Schools
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- WATCH LIVE Coronavirus In West Virginia: Gov. Justice holds a 12:00 PM news conference on COVID-19 coronavirus update
- Ohio murder suspect captured in New Martinsville
- Friday Night Lights at Brooke Hills Park


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We have added some new gaming bots to our server today which add far more interactivity and fun to do within the discord itself!
We have;
- Counting - where you compete with other discords to get to the highest number with every member taking part
- Pokemon - who doesn't like pokemon?
- Gamer - a bot with a huge variety of games to play alone or with friends
Stop on by and join the fun!


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Cities named Oberlin: to select only cities, choose "Cities".There are 8 places called Oberlin in the world.
There are 7 places named Oberlin in America.
There is one place named Oberlin in Jamaica.
|Cities named Oberlin in America.
|Oberlin - Pennsylvania
|Oberlin - Oklahoma
|Oberlin - Ohio
|Oberlin - North Carolina
|Oberlin - Michigan
|Oberlin - Louisiana
|Oberlin - Kansas
|Cities named Oberlin in Jamaica.
|Oberlin - Saint Andrew


text:
One of the farmers who dwelt outside of Salem drove to the lines of the Eyes of Keter ringing the city. The farmer and three sturdy dirks in hyz employ removed a box from their wagon and bore it toward the city gate using two staves threaded through brass rings on the box.
One of the Eyes of Keter barked at the yeng carrying the box, 'What yang of you are the loadmaster?'
The three dirks lowered the box to the ground and edged fearfully away from the oldest yang, who said in reply, 'This shipment is mine, milord. I am Sibiel of Odargas.'
'Do you pledge troth for whatsoever goods you bear in the box?'
'I do, milord.'
'Yet I would see within.'
Crestfallen, Sibiel ordered the dirks to open the box. The Ophan Lilith tumbled out, dazed by the sudden light. The three dirks feigned outrage at the sight of har.
The Eye of Keter said, 'Stand apart from this Sibiel, if you value your lives! Contrary to the will of Keter hy bears aid to the fugitive daughter of King Melchiyahu to enter Salem.'
But Ophan Lilith was not cowed by the pretensions of this uncouth lackey of Lord Zadkiel.
Sha cried out in a loud voice, 'May Chokhmah send down fire to slay you and your companions!'
At first the Eyes of Keter thought the princess was mocking their speech, but only a few heartbeats after sha spoke brilliant orange bolts of fire shot down from the clear sky.
So bright and hot was this fire that Sibiel and the three dirks thought their eyebrows had been burnt off. The immolation left only smoking grease spots where twelve Eyes of Keter stood an instant before. None remained to hinder Lilith from proceeding to the gates of Salem.
When Samael, the now living avatar of Keter, learned what happened hy knew the attack was direct interference from Chokhmah. It was the first such meddling that hyz daughter had dared to do in Heaven. Samael spoke to hyz prophet Zadkiel of two dilemmas now confronting hym.
'The people must not come to believe this yang Michael is in union with an eloah. Otherwise my controversy with hym will lead angels to hold the eloah Chokhmah in contempt. That is the natural impulse of world-dwellers when dealing with enemies among your own order.
Also I have encouraged the people in their belief that yen are unwarlike, and to be treated as mere property. The Ophan Lilith and har so-called Fallen Angels, who are without peer in Heaven, contradict this tradition every day. This cannot be permitted to continue.
Yet when it comes down to it, who is really worthy to confront them?'
Zadkiel snorted in derision and said, 'Surely my Lord makes a ridiculous joke.'
Samael continued to explain things to Zadkiel as though hyz prophet had not made hyz ill-informed interruption at all.
'Lilith has exactly one weakness, and that is Michael hymself. So I am willing to tolerate the human incarnation of an eloah being caged like a beast, because I assure you that is the only thing staying the annihilation of your expeditionary force by the Fallen Angels.
When you put the city under siege you must keep Michael in full view of Ophan Lilith at all times, with pikeyeng ready to run hym through at the slightest provocation from har Fallen Angels or the forces of Cherub Melchiyahu. Your victory will hang upon that slender thread.'
At a beautiful cataract in the mountains east of Salem, the Ophan Lilith and a squad of har Fallen Angels refreshed themselves. Afterwards they resumed their usual mode of riding slowly on their horses while patrolling all of the land approaches to the city for intruders.
The waterfall completely blanked out the sound and vibration of onrushing hooves until it was nearly too late. Not even Lilith's hypersensitive mare gave warning. Undetected, Adanite horseyeng raced up behind Lilith, har chief lieutenant Hashmal Imriel, and the other yen.
At the last instant Lilith's sword was unlimbered only to crash against a mighty iron rod. There were sparks and Lilith was knocked clean off har horse. Still stunned, Lilith witnessed another horseyang decapitating Imriel with a single stroke and choked back har grief.
Har horse possessed the intelligence to linger with Lilith rather than follow her equine instinct, which was to bolt. Shaking har head clear, Lilith mounted up again. Poor Imriel was dead but four other Fallen Angels survived the assault and they rallied around har.
Lumbering after them at a full gallop, Lilith and har companions loosed many arrows and felled the one wielding the iron staff. Two other weaving horseyeng were slain blocking arrows fired at the one who killed Imriel. Hy had a swift horse and far too much of a head start.
Hy dove into the safety of a vast forest glade guarded by a large armed encampment. Contrary to har every wish Lilith reared back and brought har horse to a stop. The other Fallen Angels conformed to har movements as the soldier they had chased turned to face them.
Seeing at last the face of the yang who killed Imriel, the princess mouthed hyz name with all the bile sha could summon: 'Zadkiel!' Yet every indication Lilith had gathered from the path of burning villages told har Zadkiel was yet twelve to fifteen leagues to the west.
Sha guessed that Zadkiel must have dragged hyz army here by forced march overnight. But that led har to marvel how hy knew to come to just this place. 'Keter,' Lilith muttered, answering har own unspoken question. As though in answer, Demonstroke soared over the trees.
Lilith was shocked to see the first and now last dragon in Heaven had been brought to this fight, but he orbited far overhead and made no move to attack. Then sha understood Demonstroke was brandished only as insurance against any more interference from Chokhmah's avatar.
Lilith signaled for the Fallen Angels to gather close around har. Sha said, 'Zadkiel will pay for Imriel, life for life. You needn't follow me.' Sha gestured to the back of har head. 'Chokhmah said my death will not be my death, but she has made no such promise to you.'
But the Fallen Angels were of a single mind. One of them answered for all and said, 'Lead us, Your Royal Highness. For Imriel!'
So heedless of the danger Lilith turned har horse to face the enemy. Sha sped forward to attack Zadkiel directly, and not one yen held back.
Zadkiel ordered the canvas covering Michael's cage to be removed, revealing hym just as Lilith entered the range of the enemy's darts. Sha brought har horse to a halt once more. Zadkiel said, 'You can kill me from where you stand, Lilith, but Michael would join me in death.'
Lilith stared at Zadkiel with narrowing eyes and rode a bit closer. Then moving in a well-practiced dance, Keter's best pikeyeng, arranged in a ring around Michael's cage, brought their forest of spikes to the horizontal, yet not toward Lilith, but inward, toward Michael.
'Don't sink to this, Zadkiel,' sha called out in disgust. 'I expect as much from Samael but it is not worthy of an unpossessed Gerash nobleyang.' But har words were mere bluster. Lilith was shocked how efficiently the use of Michael as a living shield curtailed har actions.
Zadkiel seemed to read har thoughts. 'Michael has become a noose around your neck, and the closer you try get to hym the tighter that noose will become. How easy it is to make you dance with a simple threat to Michael's life!'
Michael shouted, 'Lilith! Forget about me!'
Lilith's eyes became moist as sha shook har head with a sad smile. Sha said, 'Did you not know that is the only thing I could never do?' And there was nothing more sha could do that day on the field. Spurring har horse, sha turned and led har Fallen Angels back to the city.
On the eve of the first battle of Salem Princess Lilith joined har father Cherub Melchiyahu to tally the campfires of the Adanite forces arrayed against them. When they were finished sha asked, 'My father and king, how did you survive the countless battles you have fought?'
It is known that you never lead your forces from safe headquarters in the rear, but share the risk and the hardships of the front.'
Melchiyahu replied, 'A cowardly commander puts a premium on hyz personal survival, Lilith. This endangers hyz army, and ultimately hymself.
When I advance on the battlefield I have already reconciled myself with death. I go into every battle, no matter how great or small, as though I were certainly doomed to die. This leaves my mind clear to concentrate on fighting well. Gaining the victory, I keep my life.
Gaining victory, furthermore, I preserve the city and save the life of the people.'
During the battle the King's forces, which were a larger body than the Fallen Angels, took the role of the primary force. Lilith's yen were the skirmishers, the saboteurs, and the assassins.
On a grander scale, it was King Melchiyahu and his ordinary force that gained the victory, but Zadkiel's yeng remembered only the leather-clad yen who had somehow gotten behind their lines, throwing knives, cutting throats, driving off horses and setting fire to wagons.
And Keter, watching through the eyes of the dragon Demonstroke flying high over the field, witnessed the defeat of Zadkiel. He discounted his numerical losses and ordered more yeng to march west from Adan. They moved toward Salem like buckets of water in a fire brigade.
Before the second battle for Salem the Adanites massed on the Cherub's left, north of the city, and Melchiyahu marched to meet them. There Ophan Lilith asked hym, 'My father and liege-lord, why have you camped your army on this plain, and let Zadkiel occupy the high ground?'
'My army is like water,' hy answered. 'Everyone discounts the importance of water until they need to seek it out in the low places it rests, in wells and rivers and even swamps. By our mere presence on this plain leading to the city, Zadkiel will begin to covet the plain.'
'But father, we are ringed by hills on three sides. When Zadkiel attacks, we will not know from which direction hy will come!'
'But I have the interior lines. I can reinforce at the point of contact in moments, while anywhere I choose to counterattack he will be weak.
And daughter, behold: the hills hy occupies are covered by trees. Hy cannot communicate with hyz own force with signal companies using flags, only with individual messengers that must run around the horseshoe. No, Lilith, our enemy is a fool and hyz defeat here is assured.'
Hyz boast would have held true against any other foe in Heaven, but Zadkiel spent the lives of yeng on the Plain of Galcha without remorse until the Adanite horde was on the utter brink of mutiny. Melchiyahu and Lilith withdrew closer to Salem but the enemy did not pursue.
After they reckoned their own losses Lilith asked, almost in despair, 'Father, why do yeng love combat so much?'
'Because while a dirk is growing hy is filling out hyz potential,' said Cherub Melchiyahu. 'As long as hy has not yet exceeded hyz limits, hy remains a child.'
'For yen,' replied Lilith, 'maturity is attained in a very practical and natural way. Motherhood. Maturity means acknowledging your limits and returning to your root. And it is a yin's nature, even those who bear no children, to make harself still and embrace har center.'
'But yeng are always reaching out,' said the King, 'always extending until they find a breaking point. And while they are on this quest for a limit they can be enlisted in stupid vainglorious campaigns to defend the honor of other yeng who never found their own limit.'
Zadkiel came again against Salem with hyz dwindling army. The forces clashed in the ravine of Anixi and Melchiyahu was driven down the brook to Nolesh Wood. Then Lilith came with timely reinforcements to turn and drive the Adanite army to the very edge of the gorge of Armak.
The flags of truce were brought out, and with the King's consent Lilith rode into the lines of the enemy to see if Zadkiel, with hyz back against an awesome precipice, had come to new wisdom. Hy had not even believed Keter concerning Lilith, but that was before this fight.
'I find I want you working for me and not against me,' Zadkiel told har as Michael watched from hyz cage only a few paces away. 'You can defeat my army in this position, but I fear that Michael is close to the edge and something might happen to hym during the confusion.
To keep Michael safe you will dissolve your band of yen dressed as warriors, ride at the head of this army, and go where I command you in the East Lands and the West Lands and Salem, and every place where angels and men dare to hold the law of the god of heaven in contempt.'
'Where is the honor here, Zadkiel? Where is the glory? Do you really want me to command your army while every decision is tainted by holding hostage a peaceful yang that I love? Keter would do better to shun pretense and send Demonstroke down to finish the Fallen Angels.'
Zadkiel was delighted to hear Lilith declare that sha loved the prisoner. 'Then are the rumors true, Princess? Michael must not fall outside of the control of my army but hy need not be confined to a cage. Consider very carefully. You could go to hym this very night.'
'At a word from my father every Salemite would flock into hyz army, Hashmal Zadkiel; yea, even the yen, the infirm, the dirks and the dolls. The war would grow so bloody that the whole face of the land would be covered with the dead, and no one would be left to bury them.
This,' said sha, 'must not be.' Then sha turned on har heels and quit the parley. There had been no need to prod Lilith to do the right thing. Never was Michael more proud of har.
'Sha knows, Chokhmah. The things you love are always used against you. Always! Sha knows!'
'Sha does know,' Michael replied, 'but woe to those who turn love into a weapon and dare to use it against the ones who love. Beware, Zadkiel. Your doom lies before you. It takes no supernatural power of foresight to know the struggle for Salem will end badly for you.'
Many years before Zadkiel brought war to Salem, the Cherub Gordiel hitched a wagon to a nearby tree with a knot so elaborate no one has ever been able to fairly begin to unravel it. At that time an oracle said whoever untied the wagon would rule all the angels in Heaven.
Zadkiel had heard the prophecy, of course. When the Army of Keter drew near the city hy found the wagon and laid eyes on the Gordian Knot. For several days, while the army built camps in the surrounding fields, Zadkiel tried to undo the legendary knot, but to no avail.
This hy did in great secret, for the Eyes of Keter would look askance at any attempt to usurp the power of Samael by fulfilling the prophecy. Then, accepting at last the wagon was going nowhere, Zadkiel had hyz yeng lash Michael's cage to the old wagon on the hilltop.
Sibiel, the farmer from Odargas who once smuggled Princess Lilith into Salem, was fingered by witnesses after the Eyes of Keter threatened torment. The Eyes elected not to kill Sibiel, for it seemed a waste of good yengpower. Lilith had made Zadkiel's army short-handed.
Sibiel was issued army livery and pressed into service as a waterbearer in Zadkiel's camp. Having little else to do for entertainment, often the Adanite soldiers tripped hym, laughing together with their fellows as Sibiel trudged back and forth to refill hyz waterskin.
One night when Sibiel wandered off toward the edge of the camp hy was attacked by a hooded shape and dragged into a ravine. When they were alone the attacker revealed harself to be Lilith and ordered hym to swap their clothes. As hy stripped Sibiel said hy wanted to help.
But after some stern words from the Ophan, tempered with ample thanks for what hy had already done for har, Sibiel faded off into the night under the black robe.
Lilith adjusted Sibiel's second-hand armor and helmet, which was almost worse than no protection at all.
Sha padded out har ample curves and applied false facial hair to offset the soft yenish features that belied har status as commander of the most fierce army in heaven. Then Lilith drifted into camp fetching water for the yeng and taking abuse as though sha were Sibiel.
Lilith searched in the area where Sibiel told har Michael was being held captive. The wooden cage that had been hyz home for far too long had been taken off the wagon tied to a tree by the Gordian Knot and relocated to the center of the camp. It was guarded by only two yeng.
The cage was covered with a canvas to keep Michael from dying of exposure. It would not do, Zadkiel knew, to break the single thread keeping hymself and hyz whole army alive.
Lilith could swagger with the best of them. The guards permitted har to bring water to Michael.
Lilith appeared between the canvas and the cage with har ladle of rancid water. For light sha put on a green flexible band of intricate make, a gift from Michael. In the center it possessed a brilliant white light that allowed Lilith to move on the darkest nights.
There was none like it in Heaven. The canvas covering Michael's cage was thick enough that no light escaped to betray the princess and whispers could not be heard outside. Michael was initially filled with joy when hy saw the face of hyz disciple but this quickly changed.
'Nice beard.'
'Hush! Take my headband.'
'I gave that to you and I never ask for my gifts to be returned.'
'You will have to make an exception.'
'Do you want me to use it to escape?'
'Please don't do anything stupid, Michael. Better yet, don't do anything at all!'
Michael immediately got the joke and smiled. Lilith offered the water sha brought, such as it was. Then sha said, 'That headband is the only thing I have that says 'Lilith was here' without mistake. Zadkiel will come here later to gloat over you like they always do.'
'At that time I want you to let hym see that you have my headband. That's my message to hym, and it is a very simple one: that I can come or go at will.'
'It will rattle hym good.'
'It will rattle him to the point of pulling many yeng off the front lines to guard you.'
'It is a sound plan,' whispered Michael. 'I never doubted that you had a scheme to get me away from Zadkiel.'
Their last moment together that evening was spent in a passionate kiss that was made necessarily short because the guards were already getting suspicious.
At dawn Lilith and har father beheld the enemy, now very close to the city, from a small rise. Michael's cage was visible in the center of the field, protected by a sizeable fraction of Zadkiel's available yeng, perhaps up to a third. Lilith marveled how easy it had been.
'Do you see what I have done, father?' said sha. 'Things have been neatly reversed. Michael has become Zadkiel's greatest weakness instead, a precious jewel tying down a third of hyz force just as our attack begins.'
And Melchiyahu did not hesitate to let the attack begin.
The armies slammed together. With the new disparity in numbers the battle inexorably began to tip against Zadkiel. Lilith fought har way to the top of the hill behind Zadkiel's army where the wagon was tied up, standing all by itself and forgotten. Zadkiel spotted har.
Zadkiel nudged hyz horse up the hill to cut har off. A sudden fear gripped hym that Lilith could accomplish what no others had achieved, solve the Gordian Knot, and inherit the promise of the oracle to rule Heaven.
Alone on the summit they both dismounted and squared off.
After a flurry of clashing swords just the tip of Zadkiel's blade slashed Lilith's bare midsection and hy attained first blood. Sha feigned shock at the injury and slowed har dance.
Zadkiel saw that and let his guard wither for just a few heartbeats, but it was enough.
Seeing har slim opening, Lilith let fly a ferocious kick of one booted foot to hyz face and Zadkiel was laid out cold. Hyz sword separated from hyz unconscious hand. Lilith tossed it far away, then returned to har helpless prey with a strong urge to make an end of hym.
Before sha met Michael, Lilith would have done precisely that, to avenge Imriel. No, far better to let the Hashmal live and explain hyz defeat to hyz god. Sha suppressed har rage and glanced at the forgotten wagon fastened to a tree on the hilltop. Lilith ran to it instead.
Sha attempted to untie the knot that her mad grandfather old King Gordiel had made to secure the wagon to a mighty tree, but like so many that came before har sha made no headway. Sha looked down and saw Adanite skirmishers ascending to come to the aid of their commander.
Finally, with no time to lose, Lilith just hacked at the knot with har sword. The wagon was free, but sha was certain Gordiel didn't have that solution in mind when hy created the knot. The wagon began to roll downhill and Lilith jumped inside, hanging on for har very life.
Lilith's war cry caught the attention of the troops guarding Michael but the wagon gripped it. They gaped at the horror rushing down upon them faster than any horse could drive it. All of the yeng fled as har desperate gamble played out. Sha ducked inside and braced harself.
Michael saw what sha was doing also, and flattened hymself against the side of the cage that hy guessed would avoid a direct impact. The wagon collided with enough speed to shatter both the cage and the wagon to splinters. Lilith was unceremoniously dumped on har ass.
Somehow they both survived the collision. Lilith was more bruised and beaten than sha had ever been in har life but Michael was free. Melchiyahu and the Fallen Angels under Lilith's lieutenants pursued the defeated and scattered forces of Zadkiel's army into the forest.
But King Melchiyahu knew this defeated army was a fraction of the strength that Samael could bring to bear on hym and its modest size was itself a gesture of contempt on the part of Samael for the power of Salem to defend itself. Hy knew they would return with greater force.
When Lord Zadkiel awoke hy drank in the scope of hyz humiliation from hyz vantage on the hilltop. Cursing, hy fled the field alone on hyz horse. For the rest of hyz life, which endured little longer than hyz long ride back to Adan, hy contemplated how to explain it to Keter.
'No more adventures for a while,' Lilith told Michael while hy made certain sha was not seriously hurt. 'I've cracked a rib, for starters. But you know this battle would have been unnecessary if you had just let me carry out my plan at Adan.
'You would have been killed.'
Lilith touched the back of har head. 'But now you have changed me, and unleashed a warrior yin in Heaven who does not blanch at the consequence of death.'
'I would unleash an army of them. But tell me, why did you throw away everything you've worked for since you met me?'
'I don't understand what you just said.'
Michael held up one end of the wagon's rope. 'I'm talking about the Gordian Knot. I'll admit, cutting it was probably not what the oracle intended, but now you are destined to rule Heaven. Fate! The unreformed Lilith must return.'
'Must sha? You say Keter was behind all this, but do you think he will have his way forever? What if the oracle really meant the spirit of the new Lilith will take over Heaven? The one who changed –' Har eyes brimmed with moisture and har voice broke, but sha went on.
'The one who changed on that unforgettable day when sha first heard you speak.' The last word was a sob.
Michael ran hyz had over Lilith's side, and somehow hy took the underlying pain away. Lilith didn't have to use har new talent to shunt the agony away to breathe deeply.
'It may take many centuries to play out, my beloved, both here and in the other world. But I really believe you turned a corner here today. If every person in every age grows willing to do for each other what you did for me today, then love won. Once and for all, love won!'


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At 520 pm on the afternoon of 9/11, Larry Silverstein gave the order to "Pull it", a term used in the controlled demolition of buildings.
It normally takes weeks, if not months, to wire a building with explosives to demolish a building so they were planted before 9/11.
Among many other offices, the building contained the Office of Emergency Management of then Mayor Rudy Guilliani and the Securities and Exchange office that was investigating corruption at Enron, Halliburton, and other companies.
The destruction of this building was never reported in the 9/11 Commission final report.
Please recall that in the history of steel framed buildings, none had ever collapsed due to fire when, on 9/11, three buildings collapsed. Building number 7 fell at free fall speed in 6.5 seconds into its own footprint.
The building was never struck by an airplane.
You be the judge.


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The HIV virus stops at no borders. Now, the international fight-back intensifies.
The EU-funded CHAIN initiative has launched an international databank identifying multiple strains of the human immunodeficiency virus HIV to help scientists develop new drugs which can counter the spread of the killer virus.
World AIDS Day celebrates its 25th anniversary on 1 December 2013. Since the first reported death from AIDS, the disease caused by HIV, in 1981, an estimated 35 million people have died as a result of contracting the HIV infection.
HIV/AIDS has spread so quickly that, just 20 years later, the British Medical Journal predicted that the virus would surpass the Black Death as the worst pandemic of all time.
But a huge drive in humanitarian and scientific activity over the past decade – the European Commission alone is currently spending around EUR 155 million on HIV research through its 2007 to 2013 funding programme FP7 – is starting to turn the tide against it.
CHAIN reaction
The five-year CHAIN project is looking directly into tracking and limiting the spread of drug-resistant HIV strains. 'We still have no cure for HIV,' said Dr Osamah Hamouda, who works with CHAIN at the Robert Koch Institute, a disease control and prevention research centre in Berlin. 'But current antiretroviral therapy can slow, sometimes even stop, the HIV virus from replicating in the human body.'
Because lower concentrations of HIV in the blood stream also reduce the probability of transmission, these new drugs have helped cut global infection rates. And life expectancy for patients is on the rise.
The news is encouraging, but challenges remain. This rapidly mutating virus has a history of developing its own defences against treatments designed to stop it in its tracks. If the mutations it is capable of were to spread, the hard-earned achievements of the past decade would be completely neutralised.
Dr Ana Abecasis. Image courtesy of L'Oréal.
At Lisbon's Universidade Nova, Dr Ana Abecasis leads a new research group on the evolution of HIV that receives partial funding from CHAIN. Dr Abecasis, who in 2013 was awarded a L'Oreal Foundation research prize, is confident that the resilience of HIV does not make it invulnerable. 'If the virus develops a resistance to one kind of drug, we can still counter it with a combination of the others. This may entail a pay-off in terms of the treatment cost or the quality of life of the patient, but it saves lives.'
The real danger, in Dr Abecasis' view, is that drug-resistant mutations get transmitted. 'The chances of an HIV virus simultaneously evolving immunity to three or more forms of treatment are low in new patients. But if a strain that is resistant to one kind of treatment spreads across a population, it could gradually develop resistances to the others.'
One of CHAIN's objectives is to pool knowledge on drug-resistant HIV mutations by encouraging health services to upload the genomes of viruses identified in their patients into an international databank. By uploading such information, the databank can record the location of the patient associated with each HIV genome. The mathematical model then works backwards from the genetic and geographic records to identify how the virus strains branched out.
'This recreates a family tree for the virus which helps identify how drug-resistant mutations were passed on,' said Dr Abecasis.
The databank also includes records of which treatments worked against which mutations that offer guidance to researchers developing new drugs and help health services treating similar mutations elsewhere.
The rise of drug-immune HIV strains
Not all HIV mutations are dangerous to man. Some are actually lethal to the virus itself. But some of them present real risks.
'HIV lacks the proofreading enzymes used by other living organisms to check that its genetic sequence is copied correctly during cell division,' said CHAIN's Dr Hamouda. 'As a result, there tends to be a misreading in each replication cycle. Most of these mutations kill the virus. But those that survive could turn out to be more resistant to existing drugs.'
Scientific understanding of HIV mutations was significantly improved when mutation identification technology became a reality in the 1990s. 'Before then, few hospitals were equipped to perform the Polymerase Chain Reaction required to detect them,' explained Dr Hamouda. This technique artificially replicates the genome of the virus and identifies which parts of the DNA code have been corrupted.
Saving lives
'Most of these mutations kill the virus. But those that survive could turn out to be more resistant to existing drugs.'
Dr Osamah Hamouda, Robert Koch Institute, Germany
Dr Abecasis, like many other researchers involved in the CHAIN network, travels regularly to conferences where results and ideas coming out of the initiative are exchanged. 'The project has been helpful in focusing experts from so many different fields onto the problem,' said Dr Abecasis.
Not all of these experts are scientists, the World Health Organization (WHO) is also part of the consortium, and many studies produced by CHAIN are designed to help guide policymakers in public health too. Its findings help to improve surveillance of drug resistance and influence national and WHO HIV drug-resistance strategies.
Dr Hamouda is conscious that his studies can not only shed light on the prevalence of drug-resistant HIV within a community, but can also offer valuable information to national health services on the urgency of conducting genetic tests during patient treatment.
Such studies can also identify vulnerable groups with particularly high rates of drug-resistant virus transmission, and this can focus prevention efforts. 'The essence of what we are doing is translational science,' said Dr Hamouda. 'We are constantly translating what we learn from fundamental research into actions which can help patients.'
More than six months into the coronavirus crisis, data show that not just age, but also biological sex plays a pivotal role in the manifestation and response to Covid-19, with more men dying from acute infections versus women in the short term. This discrepancy has shined a spotlight on a key theme that has gained traction in recent years: is enough being done to account for sex and gender in disease and medicine? Not enough, says Dr Sabine Oertelt-Prigione, the chair of sex and gender-sensitive medicine at Radboud University in the Netherlands and a member of the European Commission's expert group on gendered innovations.
Read more
Infants born early, before 37 weeks of pregnancy, have a higher risk of dying in childhood and often suffer from lifelong health problems. But two novel devices could help cut this risk – one by improving how risk of an early birth is assessed and the other by offering personalised nutritional advice for premature babies.
Read more
Eavesdropping on the shudders and groans echoing deep inside alien worlds like Mars and the moon is revealing what lies far beneath their surfaces and could teach us more about how our own planet formed.
Read more
Earth is not the only place in our solar system that shakes with seismic activity.
Dr Sabine Oertelt-Prigione on a 'moment of awakening' for medical research.
Dr Kate Rychert studies ocean plate structures.


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ESL Teacher
ESL teacher required to teach students aged 2-12 years old. Competitive salary, good working conditions, and great benefits!
Zhuhai (8 positions)
Zhanjiang (2 positions)
Guiyang (2 positions)
Shenzhen (3 positions)
Please contact us for more information!
We are THINK EDUCATION, we are a training school brand based in Guangdong province, China. We teach children aged from 2-12 years old, we welcome candiates to join our already large family of teachers. We are a well established and stable education brand. We currently have a total of 25 schools in Guangdong province.
Accommodation provided
Z visa sponsorship
Semester bonuses
Flight ticket reimbursement (after 1 year)
Free chinese classes
High quality learning environments
Join a large team of established foreign teachers
A welcome bonus may also be offered for successful candidate.
Native and non native welcome to apply
(Non native must have a good accent)
TEFL/TESOL certificates
BA (Any subject)
At least 1 year of teaching experience
Must be in China now, due to the entry exit policy.
You need to have the requirements below:
AND one of the following sets to apply:
Please contact us for more information!
Please add our Foreigner Manager via WeChat
Email [email protected]
This advert was posted with an address from an email service anyone can use: [email protected]
It's worth checking to make sure this is the schools genuine email address. If you're not sure how to do this, we wrote about it here.


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Crazy Rich Asians
A hilarious and heartwarming New York Instances bestselling novel—now a serious movement image! "This 48-karat seashore learn is loopy enjoyable." —Leisure Weekly When New Yorker Rachel Chu agrees to spend the summer season in Singapore together with her boyfriend, Nicholas Younger, she envisions a humble household dwelling and high quality time with the person she hopes to marry. However Nick has failed to provide his girlfriend a number of key particulars. One, that his childhood dwelling appears like a palace; two, that he grew up driving in additional personal planes than automobiles; and three, that he simply occurs to be the nation's most eligible bachelor. On Nick's arm, Rachel could as properly have a goal on her again the second she steps off the airplane, and shortly, her relaxed trip turns into an impediment course of outdated cash, new cash, nosy relations, and scheming social climbers.
- Chef Per Bambini - August 6, 2020
- Ragazzi Numeri e Alfabeti - August 6, 2020
- Baby Taylor Cortile Di Pulizia - August 6, 2020


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Outdoors that I love
Collection by Keith Smith
Photos of England
A selection of photos of England that I have come across on flickr... Wastwater, Lake District, Cumbria Expectations and Fulfiment Two (Wasdale Head)...
St. Ives, Cornwall
St Ives is a seaside town, civil parish and port in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The town lies north of Penzance and west of Camborne on the coast of the Celtic Sea. In former times it was commercially dependent on fishing.
View over St Ives from the top. Cornwall May 2010
Explore Darren&Ness' photos on Flickr. Darren&Ness has uploaded 553 photos to Flickr.
Discovering Old Cornwall - 2
Charlestown, Cornwall on a sunshine day This is where I compare very old photos of Cornwall with how it looks now. Today I'm in Charlest...
Port Isaac, Cornwall
Port Isaac is a small and picturesque fishing village on the Atlantic coast of north Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The nearest towns are Wadebridge and Camelford, both ten miles away. Port Gaverne, commonly mistaken to be part of Port Isaac, is a nearby hamlet that has its own history. The meaning of the Cornish name is "corn port", indicating a trade in corn from the arable inland district.
Polperro, Cornwall
Explore Howard Somerville's photos on Flickr. Howard Somerville has uploaded 2841 photos to Flickr.
The Watermark, Bed and Breakfast Accommodation in Looe, Cornwall
Quality Bed and Breakfast holiday accommodation in Looe with panoramic views over the Cornish fishing village of Looe, its sandy family beach and Looe Bay.
Port Isaac #1
Amazing that I was able to take this picture in this scenic Cornish coastal village in mid afternoon with only one person and no traffic in sight. View On Black
Chris Thaxter's Store | Society6
Shop Chris Thaxter's Society6 store featuring unique designs on various products across art prints, tech accessories, apparels, and home decor goods. Worldwide shipping available.
This photo from Cornwall, England is titled 'Newquay, Cornwall'.
Port Isaac to Polzeath
A one-way coastal walk, made circular via an initial bus journey, from Port Isaac to Polzeath along the Rollercoaster Path to Port Quin, the golden beaches of Lundy Bay via the Iron Age hillfort on the twin headland of The Rumps.
Port Isaac to Polzeath
A one-way coastal walk, made circular via an initial bus journey, from Port Isaac to Polzeath along the Rollercoaster Path to Port Quin, the golden beaches of Lundy Bay via the Iron Age hillfort on the twin headland of The Rumps.
Port Isaac, Doc Martin's Port Wenn
One of the best places to visit when you stay at Rooke Cottages is Port Isaac, just a few minutes away. It really epitomises the meaning of the word picturesque. A traditional fishing port huddled into the hills, full of character and Cornish charm. It has also been a favourite for film and television productions over
Polperro, Cornwall ENGLAND | by Fitzhurbert
Periodically updated photographs & a weather report
Periodically updated photographs of Cornwall, a weather report from Redruth, Cornwall, archives of previous photographs and permission to use if you give correct credits


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Design ID: 3070680
Toretto's Charger Posters and Art Prints
Fast And Furious Posters and Art Prints
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Our 6 p.m. report continues, with the latest data we could round up for July 28, 2020. Our last report was Monday, July 27.
The Short Report
This report includes information available as of about 4 p.m. on July 28. Not all data is available in the same form from various jurisdictions.
Del Norte County
Just after 5 p.m. today, Del Norte County reported that there were no new positive cases of COVID-19 reported to Public Health today. Only one previously reported case remains active and is self-isolating at home.
The county updated testing and other data, as follows:
New confirmed COVID-19 cases: 0
- Total tests: 3991
- Total confirmed cases: 88
- Total active cases: 1
- Total inactive cases: 87
- Total hospitalizations: 2
- Total deaths: 0
- Contact to a Known Case: 49 cases (56%)
- Travel-Acquired: 2 cases (2%)
- Community Transmission: 37 cases (42%)
- Under Investigation: 0 cases (0%)
- Males: 50 cases (57%)
- Females: 38 cases (43%)
- 0-17 years: 18 cases (20%)
- 18-49 years: 51 cases (58%)
- 50-64 years: 15 cases (17%)
- 65+ years: 4 cases (5%)
- Mean Age: 35
- Symptomatic Cases: 44 cases (51%)
- Asymptomatic Cases: 43 cases (49%)
- Passive Case Finding: 45 cases (51%)
- Active Case Finding: 43 cases (49%)
The county's latest data is available HERE.
Curry County
Curry County — Around 5:45 p.m. today Curry County updated its published data on Facebook, showing 5 active cases, 9 recovered cases, 972 completed tests, 958 negative cases and zero deaths. Other than an increase in testing, this was the sane data published yesterday. Curry County Public Health has not yet responded to requests for information about the number of positive staff cases from Pelican Bay State Prison who are Curry County residents. More info here. https://currypublichealth.com/
Pelican Bay State Prison
As of about 4 p.m. on July 28, the CDCR report for Pelican Bay remained the sane as reported here yesterday:
- Pelican Bay staff: Cumulative positive cases, 27; returned to work, 4
- Pelican Bay inmates: no cases reported
Lt. Kenny Price said earlier today that inmate testing has been completed and results are pending. Innate do have the right to opt out of testing. Whether any opted out at PBSP has not yet been reported.
CDCR's suspension of intake from county jails has been extended to Aug. 9. The department also announced coordination with the Federal Receiver to identify 100 vacant beds at each institution that can be used for immediate isolation and this process is underway at PBSP.
The prison continues to monitor staff and inmates and reports of testing are provided to the appropriate public health agencies. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation updates its website regularly to show activity of the virus; there will be a lag between the website reporting and that reported by local health agencies, so numbers may not always match. For information go HERE.
- 130,042 new cases (last 14 days)
- 324.1 per 100K
- 466,550 total cases
- 1,431 new deaths (last 14 days)
- 3.6 per 100K
- 8,518 total deaths
- 1,742,911 tests reported (last 14 days)
- 7.5% test positivity
- 3.1 daily per 1,000 residents
- 7,417,866 total tests reported
Note: Some people, particularly medical personnel, have been tested multiple times.
A total of 37 counties are now on Calfornia's "Watch List," created to track jurisdictions with higher incidence of the virus and other factors. If a county is on the "Watch List" for three or more days, additional restrictions are put in place. The most northern counties on the list are Sonoma, Glenn and Butte.
California County Watch List https://covid19.ca.gov/roadmap-counties/
COVID-19 has claimed 14 more lives in Oregon, raising the state's death toll to 303, the Oregon Health Authority reported at 12:01 a.m. today.
Oregon Health Authority reported 342 new confirmed and presumptive cases of COVID-19 as of 12:01 a.m. today bringing the state total to 17,416. The new confirmed and presumptive COVID-19 cases reported today are in the following counties: Benton (3), Clackamas (15), Clatsop (3), Coos (3), Crook (2), Curry (1), Deschutes (7), Douglas (2), Harney (1), Jackson (10), Jefferson (9), Josephine (9), Klamath (2), Lane (6), Linn (5), Malheur (15), Marion (40), Morrow (7), Multnomah (74), Polk (13), Umatilla (75), Washington (31), and Yamhill (9).
Note: It appears that the Curry County cases showing on this list is the one that was reported July 27 (included in our report yesterday).
United States
- 4,280,135 (54,448 new cases since yesterday)
- 147,672 deaths (1,126 new deaths since yesterday)
More info here.
- Globally 16,341,920 cases (226,783 in last 24 hours)
- 650,805 deaths (4,153 in last 24 hours)
More info here.
Great for those who want more data!
We've discovered two additional information resources we think will be helpful to people in our area.
Del Norte County, California: This website provides a way to look at current data in California, down to the county level, as well as forecasts and scenarios based on modeling.
Curry County, Oregon: This website provides a way to look at each county in Oregon and get the latest published date.
Because these websites seem to provide a great deal of detail with more precision that we can manage, we are discontinuing our percentage calculations at this time. Data on these websites may vary a bit from local data due to reporting time gaps.
About Our Report
Our late afternoon report, Monday through Friday, is part of our effort to provide the communities served by the Curry Coastal Pilot and Del Norte Triplicate with the latest relevant information about COVID-19.
Although the communities we serve are in two different counties and two different states, residents frequently travel to neighboring communities for work and shopping. The virus is not contained by city, county or state boundaries. And we all need to know the rules at play in the jurisdictions we might visit.
Unless there is urgent information that must be shared, we plan to make just one post daily with the best information we can gather — and compile what is relevant for our Friday print editions.
If you have a suggestion for information you would like to see in this daily (Monday through Friday) report, please send an email to: email@example.com.
Unfortunately, all jurisdictions do not report information in the same format, so some information has not been provided for us to share:
About COVID-19
Basic information about COVID-19 is available at the Centers for Disease Control website.
What you need to know:
Anyone can have mild to severe symptoms.
Older adults and people who have severe underlying medical conditions like heart or lung disease or diabetes seem to be at higher risk for developing more serious complications from COVID-19 illness.
Symptoms may appear 2-14 days after exposure to the virus. People with these symptoms may have COVID-19:
- Fever or chill
- Cough
- Shortness of breath or difficulty breathing
- Fatigue
- Muscle or body aches
- Headache
- New loss of taste or smell
- Sore throat
- Congestion or runny nose
- Nausea or vomiting
- Diarrhea
This website has a handy self-checker questionnaire.
Del Norte County provides a website here with information about testing, which includes some options for Oregon residents, as well as California residents. As of today, the information may seem a little dated, but it's a good start if you would like to be tested.
CVS Pharmacy in Crescent City also provides testing, appointment required, for California residents only. Information here.
In Curry County, check this website for testing information. Also the State of Oregon has a new website to assist you in finding testing (does not include California locations). https://govstatus.egov.com/or-oha-covid-19-testing