We report 3 years of data from one meteorological and three smaller stations in University Valley, a high-elevation (1677 m) site in the Dry Valleys of Antarctica with extensive dry permafrost. Mean air temperature was -23.4°C. Summer air temperatures were virtually always < 0°C and were consistent with the altitude lapse rate and empirical relationships between summer temperature, distance from the coast and elevation. The measured frost point (-22.5°C) at the 42 cm deep ice table is equal to the surface frost point and above the atmospheric frost point (-29.6°C), providing direct evidence that surface conditions control ground ice depth. Observed peak surface soil temperatures reach 6°C for ice-cemented ground > 15 cm deep but stay < 0°C when it is shallower. We develop an energy balance model tuned to this rocky and dry environment. We find that differences in peak soil surface temperatures are primarily due to the higher thermal diffusivity of ice-cemented ground compared to dry soil. Sensitivity studies show that expected natural variability is insufficient for melt to form and significant excursions from current conditions are required. The site's ice table meets the criteria for a Special Region on Mars, with 30% of the year > -18°C and water activity > 0.6.

Antarctica's ice shelves modulate the grounded ice flow, and weakening of ice shelves due to climate forcing will decrease their ‘buttressing’ effect, causing a response in the grounded ice. While the processes governing ice-shelf weakening are complex, uncertainties in the response of the grounded ice sheet are also difficult to assess. The Antarctic BUttressing Model Intercomparison Project (ABUMIP) compares ice-sheet model responses to decrease in buttressing by investigating the ‘end-member’ scenario of total and sustained loss of ice shelves. Although unrealistic, this scenario enables gauging the sensitivity of an ensemble of 15 ice-sheet models to a total loss of buttressing, hence exhibiting the full potential of marine ice-sheet instability. All models predict that this scenario leads to multi-metre (1–12 m) sea-level rise over 500 years from present day. West Antarctic ice sheet collapse alone leads to a 1.91–5.08 m sea-level rise due to the marine ice-sheet instability. Mass loss rates are a strong function of the sliding/friction law, with plastic laws cause a further destabilization of the Aurora and Wilkes Subglacial Basins, East Antarctica. Improvements to marine ice-sheet models have greatly reduced variability between modelled ice-sheet responses to extreme ice-shelf loss, e.g. compared to the SeaRISE assessments.

Epstein Barr virus (EBV) infects 95% of the global population and is associated with up to 2% of cancers globally. Immunoglobulin G (IgG) antibody levels to EBV have been shown to be heritable and associated with developing malignancies. We, therefore, performed a pilot genome-wide association analysis of anti-EBV IgG traits in an African population, using a combined approach including array genotyping, whole-genome sequencing and imputation to a panel with African sequence data. In 1562 Ugandans, we identify a variant in human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-DQA1, rs9272371 (p = 2.6 × 10−17) associated with anti-EBV nuclear antigen-1 responses. Trans-ancestry meta-analysis and fine-mapping with European-ancestry individuals suggest the presence of distinct HLA class II variants driving associations in Uganda. In addition, we identify four putative, novel, very rare African-specific loci with preliminary evidence for association with anti-viral capsid antigen IgG responses which will require replication for validation. These findings reinforce the need for the expansion of such studies in African populations with relevant datasets to capture genetic diversity.

The upper 20—30 m of ice-rich permafrost at three sites overridden by the northwest margin of the Laurentide ice sheet in the Tuktoyaktuk Coastlands, western Arctic Canada, comprise massive ice beneath ice-rich diamicton or sandy silt. The diamicton and silt contain (1) truncated ice blocks up to 15 m long, (2) sand lenses and layers, (3) ice veins dipping at 20—30°, (4) ice lenses adjacent and parallel to sedimentary contacts, and (5) ice wedges. The massive ice is interpreted as intrasedimental or buried basal glacier ice, and the diamicton and silt as glacitectonite that has never thawed. Deformation of frozen ground was mainly ductile in character. Deformation was accompanied by sub-marginal erosion of permafrost, which formed an angular unconformity along the top of the massive ice and supplied ice clasts and sand bodies to the overlying glacitectonite. After deformation and erosion ceased, postglacial segregated ice and ice- wedge ice developed within the deformed permafrost.

Ten ice-sheet models are used to study sensitivity of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets to prescribed changes of surface mass balance, sub-ice-shelf melting and basal sliding. Results exhibit a large range in projected contributions to sea-level change. In most cases, the ice volume above flotation lost is linearly dependent on the strength of the forcing. Combinations of forcings can be closely approximated by linearly summing the contributions from single forcing experiments, suggesting that nonlinear feedbacks are modest. Our models indicate that Greenland is more sensitive than Antarctica to likely atmospheric changes in temperature and precipitation, while Antarctica is more sensitive to increased ice-shelf basal melting. An experiment approximating the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s RCP8.5 scenario produces additional first-century contributions to sea level of 22.3 and 8.1 cm from Greenland and Antarctica, respectively, with a range among models of 62 and 14 cm, respectively. By 200 years, projections increase to 53.2 and 26.7 cm, respectively, with ranges of 79 and 43 cm. Linear interpolation of the sensitivity results closely approximates these projections, revealing the relative contributions of the individual forcings on the combined volume change and suggesting that total ice-sheet response to complicated forcings over 200 years can be linearized.

Asynchronous coupling schemes between ice sheet and atmospheric forcing models are evaluated for use in long-term ice-age simulations. In these schemes the ice sheet and atmospheric forcing are run together for short synchronous periods (T s), alternating with longer asynchronous periods (T A) during which the ice sheet is run with atmospheric information extrapolated from the previous synchronous period(s). Two simple ice-sheet models are used that predict ice thickness as a function of latitude, and the atmosphere is represented by a prescribed pattern of net annual accumulation minus ablation. The pattern is shifted vertically to represent long-term orbital variations, stochastic inter-annual weather variability and ice-sheet albedo feedback.

Several asynchronous schemes are evaluated by comparing results with those from fully synchronous runs. The best overall results are obtained using a scheme in which the forcing during each asynchronous period is linearly extrapolated from its means in the previous two synchronous periods. Differences from the synchronous results are caused primarily by poor sampling of the stochastic forcing component, which exaggerates the stochastic ice-sheet fluctuations. We examine how these errors depend on T s and T A, and outline implications for GCM ice-age simulations.

The crystal character of the ice core within frost blisters supports the hypothesis that groundwater injection into residual zones of the active layer followed by rapid freezing is the primary growth mechanism for these features. The ice core is characterized by an upper zone of relatively small randomly arranged equigranular ice crystals which change with increasing depth to columnar anhedral crystals, commonly exceeding 200 mm in length, and with crystal diameters ranging between 25 and 35 mm. Petrofabric analyses show that the c-axis orientations are normal to crystal elongations, with crystal growth along the basal plane in an a-axis direction. These observations eliminate ice segregation as a possible growth mechanism, thereby distinguishing seasonal frost mounds from palsas.

Eta Carinae is one of the most massive observable binaries. Yet determination of its orbital and physical parameters is hampered by obscuring winds. However the effects of the strong, colliding winds changes with phase due to the high orbital eccentricity. We wanted to improve measures of the orbital parameters and to determine the mechanisms that produce the relatively brief, phase-locked minimum as detected throughout the electromagnetic spectrum. We conducted intense monitoring of the He ii λ4686 line in η Carinae for 10 months in the year 2014, gathering ~300 high S/N spectra with ground- and space-based telescopes. We also used published spectra at the FOS4 SE polar region of the Homunculus, which views the minimum from a different direction. We used a model in which the He ii λ4686 emission is produced by two mechanisms: a) one linked to the intensity of the wind-wind collision which occurs along the whole orbit and is proportional to the inverse square of the separation between the companion stars; and b) the other produced by the ‘bore hole’ effect which occurs at phases across the periastron passage. The opacity (computed from 3D SPH simulations) as convolved with the emission reproduces the behavior of equivalent widths both for direct and reflected light. Our main results are: a) a demonstration that the He ii λ4686 light curve is exquisitely repeatable from cycle to cycle, contrary to previous claims for large changes; b) an accurate determination of the longitude of periastron, indicating that the secondary star is ‘behind’ the primary at periastron, a dispute extended over the past decade; c) a determination of the time of periastron passage, at ~4 days after the onset of the deep light curve minimum; and d) show that the minimum is simultaneous for observers at different lines of sight, indicating that it is not caused by an eclipse of the secondary star, but rather by the immersion of the wind-wind collision interior to the inner wind of the primary.

About twenty years ago I was invited by the Council to read a paper before the Society, the title suggested being "The Use of Steel in Aircraft Structures." At that time steel, as the material for important parts of main structural members, was giving place to the then new and stronger aluminium alloys, and I decided that the lecture should be on something of growing, and not diminishing, importance; therefore in a paper entitled “ Some Developments in Aircraft Construction ” (March 1934) stiffened sheeted structure in aluminium alloy was chosen as the theme of the subject. The paper was as up-to-date as possible, but it contained no pictures or descriptions of British aeroplane structure of that type because in this country no aeroplanes (except the odd one in which fabric had simply been replaced by aluminium alloy) designed basically in that way had been built.

When the Council invited me to read a paper before the Society they suggested as the subject, “ The Use of Steel in Aircraft.” After some consideration, I came to the conclusion that there was not very much new and interesting to say on the use of steel in structures, but that there was a good deal to say concerning the use of light alloys in special constructions. Not that I claim that what I have to say is new, but the particular use of light alloy sheet to be described certainly merits more consideration than it has so far received in England. It is not to be inferred that I think that the use of steel is likely to decline rapidly, on the contrary, I am of the opinion that it will always be widely used. Everyone seriously, engaged in the technical side of the industry knows that steel of various grades has been used in aircraft from the beginning of aviation amd has been the subject of intensive studies during the last fifteen years. It was obvious from the first that if high stresses could be realised with fair uniformity in the finished structural members—say 35 tons per sq. inch or higher—more economical use of steel on a weight-strength basis could be made than of any other material. However that may be, I shall only touch on steel and its uses in construction at one or two points in the course of the lecture.

A novel similarity-based form is derived of the transport equation for the second-order velocity structure function of $\langle ({\it\delta}q)^{2}\rangle$ along the centreline of a round turbulent jet using an equilibrium similarity analysis. This self-similar equation has the advantage of requiring less extensive measurements to calculate the inhomogeneous (decay and production) terms of the transport equation. It is suggested that the normalised third-order structure function can be uniquely determined when the normalised second-order structure function, the power-law exponent of $\langle q^{2}\rangle$ and the decay rate constants of $\langle u^{2}\rangle$ and $\langle v^{2}\rangle$ are available. In addition, the current analysis demonstrates that the assumption of similarity, combined with an inverse relation between the mean velocity $U$ and the streamwise distance $x-x_{0}$ from the virtual origin (i.e.  $U\propto (x-x_{0})^{-1}$ ), is sufficient to predict a power-law decay for the turbulence kinetic energy ( $\langle q^{2}\rangle \propto (x-x_{0})^{m}$ ), rather than requiring a power-law decay ( $m=-2$ ) as an additional ad hoc assumption. On the basis of the current analysis, it is suggested that the mean kinetic energy dissipation rate, $\langle {\it\epsilon}\rangle$ , varies as $(x-x_{0})^{m-2}$ . These theoretical results are tested against new experimental data obtained along the centreline of a round turbulent jet as well as previously published data on round jets for $11\,000\leqslant \mathit{Re}_{D}\leqslant 184\,000$ over the range $10\leqslant x/D\leqslant 90$ . For the present experiments, $\langle q^{2}\rangle$ exhibits power-law behaviour with $m=-1.83$ . The validity of this solution is confirmed using other experimental data where $\langle q^{2}\rangle$ follows a power law with $-1.89\leqslant m\leqslant -1.78$ . The present similarity form of the transport equation for $\langle ({\it\delta}q)^{2}\rangle$ is also shown to be closely satisfied by the experimental data.

Increased recognition of the business case for managing corporate impacts on the environment has helped drive increasingly detailed and quantified corporate environmental goals. Foremost among these are goals of no net loss (NNL) and net positive impact (NPI). We assess the scale and growth of such corporate goals. Since the first public, company-wide NNL/NPI goal in 2001, 32 companies have set similar goals, of which 18 specifically include biodiversity. Mining companies have set the most NNL/NPI goals, and the majority of those that include biodiversity, despite the generally lower total global impact of the mining industry on biodiversity compared to the agriculture or forestry industries. This could be linked to the mining industry's greater participation in best practice bodies, high-profile impacts, and higher profit margins per area of impact. The detail and quality of present goals vary widely. We examined specific NNL/NPI goals and assessed the extent to which their key components were likely to increase the effectiveness of these goals in benefiting biodiversity and managing business risk. Nonetheless, outcomes are more important than goals, and we urge conservationists to work with companies to both support and monitor their efforts to achieve increasingly ambitious environmental goals.

We carried out an extensive photometric and spectroscopic investigation of the SPB binary, HD 25558 (see Fig. 1 for the time and geographic distribution of the observations). The ~2000 spectra obtained at 13 observatories during 5 observing seasons, the ground-based multi-colour light curves and the photometric data from the MOST satellite revealed that this object is a double-lined spectroscopic binary with a very long orbital period of about 9 years. We determined the physical parameters of the components, and have found that both lie within the SPB instability strip. Accordingly, both components show line-profile variations consistent with stellar pulsations. Altogether, 11 independent frequencies and one harmonic frequency were identified in the data. The observational data do not allow the inference of a reliable orbital solution, thus, disentangling cannot be performed on the spectra. Since the lines of the two components are never completely separated, the analysis is very complicated. Nevertheless, pixel-by-pixel variability analysis of the cross-correlated line profiles was successful, and we were able to attribute all the frequencies to the primary or secondary component. Spectroscopic and photometric mode-identification was also performed for several of these frequencies of both binary components. The spectroscopic mode-identification results suggest that the inclination and rotation of the two components are rather different. While the primary is a slow rotator with ~6 d rotation period, seen at ~60° inclination, the secondary rotates fast with ~1.2 d rotation period, and is seen at ~20° inclination. Our spectropolarimetric measurements revealed that the secondary component has a magnetic field with at least a few hundred Gauss strength, while no magnetic field was detected in the primary.

The detailed analysis and results of this study will be published elsewhere.

Short sleep duration is associated with obesity in young children. This study develops the hypothesis that parental rules play a role in this association. Participants were 3-year-old children and their parents, recruited at nursery schools in socioeconomically deprived and non-deprived areas of a North-East England town. Parents were interviewed to assess their use of sleep, television-viewing and dietary rules, and given diaries to document their child's sleep for 4 days/5 nights. Children were measured for height, weight, waist circumference and triceps and subscapular skinfold thicknesses. One-hundred and eight families participated (84 with complete sleep data and 96 with complete body composition data). Parental rules were significantly associated together, were associated with longer night-time sleep and were more prevalent in the non-deprived-area compared with the deprived-area group. Television-viewing and dietary rules were associated with leaner body composition. Parental rules may in part confound the association between night-time sleep duration and obesity in young children, as rules cluster together across behavioural domains and are associated with both sleep duration and body composition. This hypothesis should be tested rigorously in large representative samples.

We report on 475 measurements of depth to ice-cemented ground in four high-elevation valleys of the Quartermain Mountains, McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica. These valleys have pervasive ice-cemented ground, and the depth to ice-cemented ground and the ice composition may be indicators of climate change. In University Valley, the measured depth to ice-cemented ground ranges from 0–98 cm. There is an overall trend of increasing depth to ice-cemented ground with distance from a small glacier at the head of the valley, with a slope of 32 cm depth per kilometre along the valley floor. For Farnell Valley, the depth to ice-cemented ground is roughly constant (c. 30 cm) in the upper and central parts of the valley, but increases sharply as the valley descends into Beacon Valley. The two valleys north of University Valley also have extensive ice-cemented ground, with depths of 20–40 cm, but exhibit no clear patterns of ice depth with location. For all valleys there is a tendency for the variability in depth to ice-cemented ground at a site to increase with increasing depth to ice. Snow recurrence, solar insolation, and surface albedo may all be factors that cause site to site variations in these valleys.

Beringian climate and environmental history are poorly characterized at its easternmost edge. Lake sediments from the northern Yukon Territory have recorded sedimentation, vegetation, summer temperature and precipitation changes since ~ 16 cal ka BP. Herb-dominated tundra persisted until ~ 14.7 cal ka BP with mean July air temperatures ≤ 5°C colder and annual precipitation 50 to 120 mm lower than today. Temperatures rapidly increased during the Bølling/Allerød interstadial towards modern conditions, favoring establishment of Betula-Salix shrub tundra. Pollen-inferred temperature reconstructions recorded a pronounced Younger Dryas stadial in east Beringia with a temperature drop of ~ 1.5°C (~ 2.5 to 3.0°C below modern conditions) and low net precipitation (90 to 170 mm) but show little evidence of an early Holocene thermal maximum in the pollen record. Sustained low net precipitation and increased evaporation during early Holocene warming suggest a moisture-limited spread of vegetation and an obscured summer temperature maximum. Northern Yukon Holocene moisture availability increased in response to a retreating Laurentide Ice Sheet, postglacial sea level rise, and decreasing summer insolation that in turn led to establishment of Alnus-Betula shrub tundra from ~ 5 cal ka BP until present, and conversion of a continental climate into a coastal-maritime climate near the Beaufort Sea.