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Creators/Authors contains: "Mitchell, N_J"

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  1. Abstract Meteoroids of sub‐milligram sizes burn up high in the Earth's atmosphere and cause streaks of plasma trails detectable by meteor radars. The altitude at which these trails, or meteors, form depends on a number of factors including atmospheric density and the astronomical source populations from which these meteoroids originate. A previous study has shown that the altitude of these meteors is affected by long‐term linear trends and the 11‐year solar cycle related to changes in our atmosphere. In this work, we examine how shorter diurnal and seasonal variations in the altitude distribution of meteors are dependent on the geographical location at which the measurements are performed. We use meteoroid altitude data from 18 independent meteor radar stations at a broad range of latitudes and investigate whether there are local time (LT) and seasonal variations in the altitude of the peak meteor height, defined as the majority detection altitude of all meteors within a certain period, which differ from those expected purely from the variation in the visibility of their astronomical source. We find a consistent LT and seasonal response for the Northern Hemisphere locations regardless of latitude. However, the Southern Hemisphere locations exhibit much greater LT and seasonal variation. In particular, we find a complex response in the four stations located within the Southern Andes region, which indicates that the strong dynamical atmospheric activity, such as the gravity waves prevalent here, disrupts, and masks the seasonality and dependence on the astronomical sources. 
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  2. Abstract Sea turtles are vulnerable to climate change since their reproductive output is influenced by incubating temperatures, with warmer temperatures causing lower hatching success and increased feminization of embryos. Their ability to cope with projected increases in ambient temperatures will depend on their capacity to adapt to shifts in climatic regimes. Here, we assessed the extent to which phenological shifts could mitigate impacts from increases in ambient temperatures (from 1.5 to 3°C in air temperatures and from 1.4 to 2.3°C in sea surface temperatures by 2100 at our sites) on four species of sea turtles, under a “middle of the road” scenario (SSP2‐4.5). Sand temperatures at sea turtle nesting sites are projected to increase from 0.58 to 4.17°C by 2100 and expected shifts in nesting of 26–43 days earlier will not be sufficient to maintain current incubation temperatures at 7 (29%) of our sites, hatching success rates at 10 (42%) of our sites, with current trends in hatchling sex ratio being able to be maintained at half of the sites. We also calculated the phenological shifts that would be required (both backward for an earlier shift in nesting and forward for a later shift) to keep up with present‐day incubation temperatures, hatching success rates, and sex ratios. The required shifts backward in nesting for incubation temperatures ranged from −20 to −191 days, whereas the required shifts forward ranged from +54 to +180 days. However, for half of the sites, no matter the shift the median incubation temperature will always be warmer than the 75th percentile of current ranges. Given that phenological shifts will not be able to ameliorate predicted changes in temperature, hatching success and sex ratio at most sites, turtles may need to use other adaptive responses and/or there is the need to enhance sea turtle resilience to climate warming. 
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