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The summer of 2018 was an extraordinary season in climatological terms for northern and central Europe, bringing simultaneous, widespread, and concurrent heat and drought extremes in large parts of the continent with extensive impacts on agriculture, forests, water supply, and the socio-economic sector. Here, we present a comprehensive, multi-faceted analysis of the 2018 extreme summer in terms of heat and drought in central and northern Europe, with a particular focus on Germany. The heatwave first affected Scandinavia in mid-July and shifted towards central Europe in late July, while Iberia was primarily affected in early August. The atmospheric circulation was characterized by strongly positive blocking anomalies over Europe, in combination with a positive summer North Atlantic Oscillation and a double jet stream configuration before the initiation of the heatwave. In terms of possible precursors common to previous European heatwaves, the Eurasian double-jet structure and a tripolar sea surface temperature anomaly over the North Atlantic were already identified in spring. While in the early stages over Scandinavia the air masses at mid and upper levels were often of a remote, maritime origin, at later stages over Iberia the air masses primarily had a local-to-regional origin. The drought affected Germany the most, starting with warmer than average conditions in spring, associated with enhanced latent heat release that initiated a severe depletion of soil moisture. During summer, a continued precipitation deficit exacerbated the problem, leading to hydrological and agricultural drought. A probabilistic attribution assessment of the heatwave in Germany showed that such events of prolonged heat have become more likely due to anthropogenic global warming. Regarding future projections, an extreme summer such as that of 2018 is expected to occur every 2 out of 3 years in Europe in a +1.5 ∘C warmer world and virtually every single year in a +2 ∘C warmer world. With such

The summer of 2018 was an extraordinary season in climatological terms for northern and central Europe, bringing simultaneous, widespread, and concurrent heat and drought extremes in large parts of the continent with extensive impacts on agriculture, forests, water supply, and the socio-economic sector. Here, we present a comprehensive, multi-faceted analysis of the 2018 extreme summer in terms of heat and drought in central and northern Europe, with a particular focus on Germany. The heatwave first affected Scandinavia in mid-July and shifted towards central Europe in late July, while Iberia was primarily affected in early August. The atmospheric circulation was characterized by strongly positive blocking anomalies over Europe, in combination with a positive summer North Atlantic Oscillation and a double jet stream configuration before the initiation of the heatwave. In terms of possible precursors common to previous European heatwaves, the Eurasian double-jet structure and a tripolar sea surface temperature anomaly over the North Atlantic were already identified in spring. While in the early stages over Scandinavia the air masses at mid and upper levels were often of a remote, maritime origin, at later stages over Iberia the air masses primarily had a local-to-regional origin. The drought affected Germany the most, starting with warmer than average conditions in spring, associated with enhanced latent heat release that initiated a severe depletion of soil moisture. During summer, a continued precipitation deficit exacerbated the problem, leading to hydrological and agricultural drought. A probabilistic attribution assessment of the heatwave in Germany showed that such events of prolonged heat have become more likely due to anthropogenic global warming. Regarding future projections, an extreme summer such as that of 2018 is expected to occur every 2 out of 3 years in Europe in a +1.5 ∘C warmer world and virtually every single year in a +2 ∘C warmer world. With such

The CORDEX Flagship Pilot Study ELVIC (climate Extremes in the Lake VICtoria basin) was recently established to investigate how extreme weather events will evolve in this region of the world and to provide improved information for the climate impact community. Here we assess the added value of the convection-permitting scale simulations on the representation of moist convective systems over and around Lake Victoria. With this aim, 10 year present-day model simulations were carried out with five regional climate models at both PARameterized (PAR) scales (12–25 km) and Convection-Permitting (CP) scales (2.5–4.5 km), with COSMO-CLM, RegCM, AROME, WRF and UKMO. Most substantial systematic improvements were found in metrics related to deep convection. For example, the timing of the daily maximum in precipitation is systematically delayed in CP compared to PAR models, thereby improving the agreement with observations. The large overestimation in the total number of rainy events is alleviated in the CP models. Systematic improvements were found in the diurnal cycle in Top-Of-Atmosphere (TOA) radiation and in some metrics for precipitation intensity. No unanimous improvement nor deterioration was found in the representation of the spatial distribution of total rainfall and the seasonal cycle when going to the CP scale. Furthermore, some substantial biases in TOA upward radiative fluxes remain. Generally our analysis indicates that the representation of the convective systems is strongly improved in CP compared to PAR models, giving confidence that the models are valuable tools for studying how extreme precipitation events may evolve in the future in the Lake Victoria basin and its surroundings.

The CORDEX Flagship Pilot Study ELVIC (climate Extremes in the Lake VICtoria basin) was recently established to investigate how extreme weather events will evolve in this region of the world and to provide improved information for the climate impact community. Here we assess the added value of the convection-permitting scale simulations on the representation of moist convective systems over and around Lake Victoria. With this aim, 10 year present-day model simulations were carried out with five regional climate models at both PARameterized (PAR) scales (12–25 km) and Convection-Permitting (CP) scales (2.5–4.5 km), with COSMO-CLM, RegCM, AROME, WRF and UKMO. Most substantial systematic improvements were found in metrics related to deep convection. For example, the timing of the daily maximum in precipitation is systematically delayed in CP compared to PAR models, thereby improving the agreement with observations. The large overestimation in the total number of rainy events is alleviated in the CP models. Systematic improvements were found in the diurnal cycle in Top-Of-Atmosphere (TOA) radiation and in some metrics for precipitation intensity. No unanimous improvement nor deterioration was found in the representation of the spatial distribution of total rainfall and the seasonal cycle when going to the CP scale. Furthermore, some substantial biases in TOA upward radiative fluxes remain. Generally our analysis indicates that the representation of the convective systems is strongly improved in CP compared to PAR models, giving confidence that the models are valuable tools for studying how extreme precipitation events may evolve in the future in the Lake Victoria basin and its surroundings.

Psychometrically sound instruments that assess temporal dynamics of creative abilities are limited. The Ambulatory Battery of Creativity (ABC) is designed to assess creative ideation performance multiple times in everyday life and was proven to capture the intra-individual dynamic of creative abilities reliably and validly. The present ambulatory study aimed to replicate and extend the psychometric evidence of the novel ABC. Sixty-nine participants worked on the ABC during a 5-day ambulatory assessment protocol. Each day, participants completed six randomly presented items of the verbal and the figural ABC. Matching previous psychometric analyses, the results indicated good between-person (≥0.80) and good within-person (≥0.72) reliability. Furthermore, evidence for between-person and within-person validity of the ABC was obtained. Performance in the verbal and the figural ABC were interrelated and correlated with an independent measure of creative potential. The verbal ABC was further associated with openness, self-reported creative behavior, creative activities, and creative achievements, thus providing additional evidence of construct validity, especially for the verbal ABC. Finally, the verbal and the figural ABC yielded convincing within-person validity: Longer response times and higher subjective originality ratings were associated with more original ideas. This replication and extension of the ABC’s psychometric properties indicates that it enables a reliable and valid assessment of moment-to-moment fluctuations of creative ideation abilities in everyday life, which may facilitate the investigation of exciting new research questions related to dynamic aspects of creative ability., Version of record

Non-linear phase field models are increasingly used for the simulation of fracture propagation problems. The numerical simulation of fracture networks of realistic size requires the efficient parallel solution of large coupled non-linear systems. Although in principle efficient iterative multi-level methods for these types of problems are available, they are not widely used in practice due to the complexity of their parallel implementation. Here, we present Utopia, which is an open-source C++ library for parallel non-linear multilevel solution strategies. Utopia provides the advantages of high-level programming interfaces while at the same time a framework to access low-level data-structures without breaking code encapsulation. Complex numerical procedures can be expressed with few lines of code, and evaluated by different implementations, libraries, or computing hardware. In this paper, we investigate the parallel performance of our implementation of the recursive multilevel trust-region (RMTR) method based on the Utopia library. RMTR is a globally convergent multilevel solution strategy designed to solve non-convex constrained minimization problems. In particular, we solve pressure-induced phasefield fracture propagation in large and complex fracture networks. Solving such problems is deemed challenging even for a few fractures, however, here we are considering networks of realistic size with up to 1000 fractures.

Despite the long-lasting and widespread drought in the Sahel, flood events did punctuate in the past. The concern about floods remains dwarf on the international research and policy agenda compared to droughts. In this paper, we elucidate that floods in the Sahel are now becoming more frequent, widespread, and more devastating. We analyzed gridded daily rainfall data over the period 1981-2020, used photographs and satellite images to depict flood areas and threats, compiled and studied flood-related statistics over the past two decades, and supported the results with peer-reviewed literature. Our analysis revealed that the timing of the maximum daily rainfall occurs from the last week of July to mid-August in the Eastern Sahel, but from the last week of July to the end of August in the Western Sahel. In 2019 and 2020, flash and riverine floods took their toll in Sudan and elsewhere in the region in terms of the number of affected people, direct deaths, destroyed and damaged houses and croplands, contaminated water resources, and disease outbreaks and deaths. Changes in rainfall intensity, human interventions in the physical environment, and poor urban planning play a major role in driving catastrophic floods. Emphasis should be put on understanding flood causes and impacts on vulnerable societies, controlling water-borne diseases, and recognizing the importance of compiling relevant and reliable flood information. Extreme rainfall in this dry region could be an asset for attenuating the regional water scarcity status if well harvested and managed. We hope this paper will induce the hydroclimate scholars to carry out more flood studies for the Sahel. It is only then encumbered meaningful opportunities for flood risk management can start to unveil.

A coherent synoptic sequence, mostly over North Africa, is identified whereby an upper‐level midlatitude trough (in November‐March) excites several days of quasi‐stationary near‐surface warming across the Sahara, leading to rainfall events over northern Congo (NC), and perturbed weather more widely. Ahead of NC rainfall events, composite sequences first identify troughs for several days near Iberia, followed by relatively quick transfer to the Central Mediterranean (CMed). Iberia and CMed daily trough‐strength indices reveal that both lead to warming and NC rainfall. Iberia trough linkages develop through West Africa and take longer to reach NC, while CMed linkages reach NC faster (2‐3 days), with impact extent focused mostly south and east of CMed. Building up to the rainfall events, initial warming over the central Sahara migrates southeastward close to NC, ultimately with typical magnitude of about 1‐2°C at 10‐15°N. Such anomalies are statistically predictive for NC daily rainfall and associated nearby atmospheric features: anomalous low‐level southerly wind and increased moisture; anomalous low‐level westerly wind and vertical easterly shear to 600 hPa; increased mid‐level moisture (600 hPa), which along with low‐level moisture, connects northward into midlatitudes. A secondary route identified by which Iberia troughs can impact NC rainfall is through direct atmospheric teleconnection with precipitation to the west of NC, and subsequent migration of that convection eastward into NC. The eastern side of NC generally shows a small lag on western parts, and links more strongly to CMed troughs. Taken together, the lagged synoptic expression of Iberia and CMed troughs is widespread over several days, including much of North Africa (to equatorial latitudes), southwestern Asia, eastern Africa and the western Indian Ocean. Overall, these results can contribute to situational awareness for weather forecasters across the zones influenced by the troughs, while also providi

Interplanetary human missions to Mars and beyond will suppose a very demanding physical and psychological environment for future astronauts. Isolation, confinement, hypoxia or hypercapnia in a less pressurized atmosphere, darkness and other factors are expected to endanger a mission's success, directly influencing human performance. In order to study the effects of such environmental conditions on human beings, the SIMSKILL Experiment aims to investigate how spacecraft piloting performance decays over time by deploying a Soyuz flight simulator on the Antarctic research stations Halley VI and Concordia, which feature similar living conditions as those of a space mission, leading eventually to muscular atrophy, loss of cognitive capacities, and reduction of psycho-motor skills. This paper offers an analysis on the recorded data from the scientific campaigns in Antarctica, compared to those of the subjects in a control group in Stuttgart, Germany. An overall total of 69 subjects and more than one thousand approach and docking flights to the ISS performed in a Soyuz-TMA simulator have been analysed using a performance assessment methodology. The post-processed simulation dataset allows to recognize collective trends and find which are the essential parameters that affect the pilot's skill evolution. The results obtained from this analysis show how the influence of isolation, confinement and hypoxia in Antarctica is crucial to understand how differences in performance appear between subjects. The significance of the obtained results has been proven by means of statistical models, which show that a one-month training refreshing delivers satisfactory performance for a docking simulation, whereas a frequency of 3 months follows to a loss of piloting reliability. Moreover, the effect of isolation and hypoxia aggravates the loss of flight performance.

Many goal-directed, as well as spontaneous everyday activities (e.g., planning, mind-wandering), rely on an internal focus of attention. This fMRI–eye-tracking coregistration study investigated brain mechanisms and eye behavior related to internally versus externally directed cognition. Building on an established paradigm, we manipulated internal attention demands within tasks utilizing conditional stimulus masking. Internally directed cognition involved bilateral activation of the lingual gyrus and inferior parietal lobe areas as well as wide-spread deactivation of visual networks. Moreover, internally directed cognition was related to greater pupil diameter, pupil diameter variance, blink duration, fixation disparity variance, and smaller amounts of microsaccades. FMRI–eye-tracking covariation analyses further revealed that larger pupil diameter was related to increased activation of basal ganglia and lingual gyrus. It can be concluded that internally and externally directed cognition are characterized by distinct neurophysiological signatures. The observed neurophysiological differences indicate that internally directed cognition is associated with reduced processing of task-irrelevant information and increased mental load. These findings shed further light on the interplay between neural and perceptual mechanisms contributing to an internal focus of attention., Version of record

Den lokalen Manifestationen und Auswirkungen der weltweiten 68er-Bewegung wurde in Österreich bislang vergleichsweise wenig Aufmerksamkeit geschenkt. Vorliegende Diplomarbeit rekonstruiert durch Literaturarbeit, Quellenrecherche und Zeitzeug:inneninterviews zunächst das österreichische „1968“ als folgenreiche Phase sozialer Kämpfe innerhalb des politischen Zyklus der „langen 70er-Jahre“, stellt wesentliche Akteur:innen und Ereignisse vor und geht insbesondere auf die räumliche und zeitliche Entfaltung der Protestdynamik ein. Im zweiten Teil wird die Politisierung des Alltagslebens und die Entstehung kollektiver Wohnprojekte im Kontext der 68er-Bewegung umrissen. Die Skizzierung der Entwicklung von Kommunen und Wohngemeinschaften erfolgt unter Berücksichtigung diskursiver und konzeptioneller Aspekte ebenso wie ihrer quantitativen und räumlichen Ausbreitung und wird durch die Darstellung ausgewählter Fallbeispiele illustriert. Der letzte Abschnitt widmet sich den Möglichkeiten der Thematisierung von „1968“ im Geschichtsunterricht, beleuchtet den Einsatz von Interviews und die Durchführung von Oral-History-Projekten aus geschichtsdidaktischer Perspektive und analysiert die Behandlung der 68er-Proteste in österreichischen Schulbüchern., Andreas Fink, BA, Diplomarbeit Universität Innsbruck 2021

Den lokalen Manifestationen und Auswirkungen der weltweiten 68er-Bewegung wurde in Österreich bislang vergleichsweise wenig Aufmerksamkeit geschenkt. Vorliegende Diplomarbeit rekonstruiert durch Literaturarbeit, Quellenrecherche und Zeitzeug:inneninterviews zunächst das österreichische „1968“ als folgenreiche Phase sozialer Kämpfe innerhalb des politischen Zyklus der „langen 70er-Jahre“, stellt wesentliche Akteur:innen und Ereignisse vor und geht insbesondere auf die räumliche und zeitliche Entfaltung der Protestdynamik ein. Im zweiten Teil wird die Politisierung des Alltagslebens und die Entstehung kollektiver Wohnprojekte im Kontext der 68er-Bewegung umrissen. Die Skizzierung der Entwicklung von Kommunen und Wohngemeinschaften erfolgt unter Berücksichtigung diskursiver und konzeptioneller Aspekte ebenso wie ihrer quantitativen und räumlichen Ausbreitung und wird durch die Darstellung ausgewählter Fallbeispiele illustriert. Der letzte Abschnitt widmet sich den Möglichkeiten der Thematisierung von „1968“ im Geschichtsunterricht, beleuchtet den Einsatz von Interviews und die Durchführung von Oral-History-Projekten aus geschichtsdidaktischer Perspektive und analysiert die Behandlung der 68er-Proteste in österreichischen Schulbüchern., Andreas Fink, BA, Diplomarbeit Universität Innsbruck 2021

Despite the long-lasting and widespread drought in the Sahel, flood events did punctuate in the past. The concern about floods remains dwarf on the international research and policy agenda compared to droughts. In this paper, we elucidate that floods in the Sahel are now becoming more frequent, widespread, and more devastating. We analyzed gridded daily rainfall data over the period 1981-2020, used photographs and satellite images to depict flood areas and threats, compiled and studied flood-related statistics over the past two decades, and supported the results with peer-reviewed literature. Our analysis revealed that the timing of the maximum daily rainfall occurs from the last week of July to mid-August in the Eastern Sahel, but from the last week of July to the end of August in the Western Sahel. In 2019 and 2020, flash and riverine floods took their toll in Sudan and elsewhere in the region in terms of the number of affected people, direct deaths, destroyed and damaged houses and croplands, contaminated water resources, and disease outbreaks and deaths. Changes in rainfall intensity, human interventions in the physical environment, and poor urban planning play a major role in driving catastrophic floods. Emphasis should be put on understanding flood causes and impacts on vulnerable societies, controlling water-borne diseases, and recognizing the importance of compiling relevant and reliable flood information. Extreme rainfall in this dry region could be an asset for attenuating the regional water scarcity status if well harvested and managed. We hope this paper will induce the hydroclimate scholars to carry out more flood studies for the Sahel. It is only then encumbered meaningful opportunities for flood risk management can start to unveil.

Scientific communities are increasingly adopting machine learning and deep learning models in their applications to accelerate scientific insights. High performance computing systems are pushing the frontiers of performance with a rich diversity of hardware resources and massive scale-out capabilities. There is a critical need to understand fair and effective benchmarking of machine learning applications that are representative of real-world scientific use cases. MLPerf is a community-driven standard to benchmark machine learning workloads, focusing on end-to-end performance metrics. In this paper, we introduce MLPerf HPC, a benchmark suite of large-scale scientific machine learning training applications driven by the MLCommons Association. We present the results from the first submission round, including a diverse set of some of the world's largest HPC systems. We develop a systematic framework for their joint analysis and compare them in terms of data staging, algorithmic convergence, and compute performance. As a result, we gain a quantitative understanding of optimizations on different subsystems such as staging and on-node loading of data, compute-unit utilization, and communication scheduling, enabling overall $>10 \times$ (end-to-end) performance improvements through system scaling. Notably, our analysis shows a scale-dependent interplay between the dataset size, a system's memory hierarchy, and training convergence that underlines the importance of near-compute storage. To overcome the data-parallel scalability challenge at large batch sizes, we discuss specific learning techniques and hybrid data-and-model parallelism that are effective on large systems. We conclude by characterizing each benchmark with respect to low-level memory, I/O, and network behavior to parameterize extended roofline performance models in future rounds.

A coherent synoptic sequence, mostly over North Africa, is identified whereby an upper‐level midlatitude trough (in November‐March) excites several days of quasi‐stationary near‐surface warming across the Sahara, leading to rainfall events over northern Congo (NC), and perturbed weather more widely. Ahead of NC rainfall events, composite sequences first identify troughs for several days near Iberia, followed by relatively quick transfer to the Central Mediterranean (CMed). Iberia and CMed daily trough‐strength indices reveal that both lead to warming and NC rainfall. Iberia trough linkages develop through West Africa and take longer to reach NC, while CMed linkages reach NC faster (2‐3 days), with impact extent focused mostly south and east of CMed. Building up to the rainfall events, initial warming over the central Sahara migrates southeastward close to NC, ultimately with typical magnitude of about 1‐2°C at 10‐15°N. Such anomalies are statistically predictive for NC daily rainfall and associated nearby atmospheric features: anomalous low‐level southerly wind and increased moisture; anomalous low‐level westerly wind and vertical easterly shear to 600 hPa; increased mid‐level moisture (600 hPa), which along with low‐level moisture, connects northward into midlatitudes. A secondary route identified by which Iberia troughs can impact NC rainfall is through direct atmospheric teleconnection with precipitation to the west of NC, and subsequent migration of that convection eastward into NC. The eastern side of NC generally shows a small lag on western parts, and links more strongly to CMed troughs. Taken together, the lagged synoptic expression of Iberia and CMed troughs is widespread over several days, including much of North Africa (to equatorial latitudes), southwestern Asia, eastern Africa and the western Indian Ocean. Overall, these results can contribute to situational awareness for weather forecasters across the zones influenced by the troughs, while also providi

Interplanetary human missions to Mars and beyond will suppose a very demanding physical and psychological environment for future astronauts. Isolation, confinement, hypoxia or hypercapnia in a less pressurized atmosphere, darkness and other factors are expected to endanger a mission's success, directly influencing human performance. In order to study the effects of such environmental conditions on human beings, the SIMSKILL Experiment aims to investigate how spacecraft piloting performance decays over time by deploying a Soyuz flight simulator on the Antarctic research stations Halley VI and Concordia, which feature similar living conditions as those of a space mission, leading eventually to muscular atrophy, loss of cognitive capacities, and reduction of psycho-motor skills. This paper offers an analysis on the recorded data from the scientific campaigns in Antarctica, compared to those of the subjects in a control group in Stuttgart, Germany. An overall total of 69 subjects and more than one thousand approach and docking flights to the ISS performed in a Soyuz-TMA simulator have been analysed using a performance assessment methodology. The post-processed simulation dataset allows to recognize collective trends and find which are the essential parameters that affect the pilot's skill evolution. The results obtained from this analysis show how the influence of isolation, confinement and hypoxia in Antarctica is crucial to understand how differences in performance appear between subjects. The significance of the obtained results has been proven by means of statistical models, which show that a one-month training refreshing delivers satisfactory performance for a docking simulation, whereas a frequency of 3 months follows to a loss of piloting reliability. Moreover, the effect of isolation and hypoxia aggravates the loss of flight performance.

A comprehensive literature review was conducted to create a new database of 197 field surveys of monthly malaria Entomological Inoculation Rates (EIR), a metric of malaria transmission intensity. All field studies provide data at a monthly temporal resolution and have a duration of at least one year in order to study the seasonality of the disease. For inclusion, data collection methodologies adhered to a specific standard and the location and timing of the measurements were documented. Auxiliary information on the population and hydrological setting were also included. The database includes measurements that cover West and Central Africa and the period from 1945 to 2011, and hence facilitates analysis of interannual transmission variability over broad regions.

Introduction Many goal‐directed and spontaneous everyday activities (e.g., planning, mind wandering) rely on an internal focus of attention. Internally directed cognition (IDC) was shown to differ from externally directed cognition in a range of neurophysiological indicators such as electroencephalogram (EEG) alpha activity and eye behavior. Methods In this EEG–eye‐tracking coregistration study, we investigated effects of attention direction on EEG alpha activity and various relevant eye parameters. We used an established paradigm to manipulate internal attention demands in the visual domain within tasks by means of conditional stimulus masking. Results Consistent with previous research, IDC involved relatively higher EEG alpha activity (lower alpha desynchronization) at posterior cortical sites. Moreover, IDC was characterized by greater pupil diameter (PD), fewer microsaccades, fixations, and saccades. These findings show that internal versus external cognition is associated with robust differences in several indicators at the neural and perceptual level. In a second line of analysis, we explored the intrinsic temporal covariation between EEG alpha activity and eye parameters during rest. This analysis revealed a positive correlation of EEG alpha power with PD especially in bilateral parieto‐occipital regions. Conclusion Together, these findings suggest that EEG alpha activity and PD represent time‐sensitive indicators of internal attention demands, which may be involved in a neurophysiological gating mechanism serving to shield internal cognition from irrelevant sensory information., Fonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung P29801‐B27, Version of record

A comprehensive literature review was conducted to create a new database of 197 field surveys of monthly malaria Entomological Inoculation Rates (EIR), a metric of malaria transmission intensity. All field studies provide data at a monthly temporal resolution and have a duration of at least one year in order to study the seasonality of the disease. For inclusion, data collection methodologies adhered to a specific standard and the location and timing of the measurements were documented. Auxiliary information on the population and hydrological setting were also included. The database includes measurements that cover West and Central Africa and the period from 1945 to 2011, and hence facilitates analysis of interannual transmission variability over broad regions.

Non-linear phase field models are increasingly used for the simulation of fracture propagation models. The numerical simulation of fracture networks of realistic size requires the efficient parallel solution of large coupled non-linear systems. Although in principle efficient iterative multi-level methods for these types of problems are available, they are not widely used in practice due to the complexity of their parallel implementation. Here, we present Utopia, which is an open-source C++ library for parallel non-linear multilevel solution strategies. Utopia provides the advantages of high-level programming interfaces while at the same time a framework to access low-level data-structures without breaking code encapsulation. Complex numerical procedures can be expressed with few lines of code, and evaluated by different implementations, libraries, or computing hardware. In this paper, we investigate the parallel performance of our implementation of the recursive multilevel trust-region (RMTR) method based on the Utopia library. RMTR is a globally convergent multilevel solution strategy designed to solve non-convex constrained minimization problems. In particular, we solve pressure-induced phase-field fracture propagation in large and complex fracture networks. Solving such problems is deemed challenging even for a few fractures, however, here we are considering networks of realistic size with up to 1000 fractures., Comment: CCF Trans. HPC (2021)

Previous studies on observed or projected rainfall trends for the Greater Horn of Africa (GHA) generally focus on calendric 3-month periods, and thus partly neglect the complexity of rainfall seasonality in this topographically heterogeneous region. This study introduces a novel and flexible methodology to identify the rainfall seasonality, the onset, cessation and duration of the rainy seasons and the associated uncertainties from rainfall time series. The definition is applied to the Climate Hazards Group InfraRed Precipitation with Stations (CHIRPS) satellite product and an extensive rain gauge data set. A strong agreement with known seasonal dynamics in the region and the commonly used calendric rainy seasons is demonstrated. Compared to the latter definition, a clear added value is found for the new approach as it captures the local rainfall features (associated with, for example, the sea breeze), thus facilitating evaluations across rainfall seasonality borders. While previously known trends are qualitatively confirmed, trends are amplified in some regions using the flexible definition method. Notably, a drying trend in Tanzania and Democratic Republic of Congo and a wetting trend in central Sudan and parts of eastern Ethiopia and Kenya can be detected. The trends are regionally associated with changes in rainy season cessation. CHIRPS and station trend patterns are consistent over larger regions of the GHA, but differ in regions with known rainfall contributions from warmer cloud tops. Discrepancies are found in coastal and topographically complex areas, and regions with an unstable seasonality of rainfall. As expected, CHIRPS shows spatially more homogeneous trends compared to station data. The more precise definition of the rainy season facilitates the assessment of rainfall characteristics like intensity, rainfall amounts or temporal shifts of rainy seasons. This novel methodology could also provide a more adequate calibration of climate model simulations

During the monsoon season, pollutants emitted by large coastal cities and biomass burning plumes originating from Central Africa have complex transport pathways over Southern West Africa (SWA). The Dynamics–Aerosol–Chemistry–Cloud–Interactions in West Africa (DACCIWA) field campaign has provided numerous dynamical and chemical measurements in and around the super site of Savè in Benin (≈185km away from the coast), which allows quantifying the relative contribution of advected pollutants. Through the combination of in-situ ground measurements with aircraft, radio-sounding, satellite and high-resolution chemistry-transport modeling with the CHIMERE model, the source attribution and transport pathways of pollutants inland (here, NOx and CO) are carefully analyzed for the 1–7 July 2016 period. The relative contributions of different sources (i.e. emissions from several large coastal cities) on the air quality in Savè are characterized. It is shown that a systematic diurnal cycle exists with high surface concentrations of pollutants from 18:00 to 22:00UTC. This evening peak is attributed to pollution transport from the coastal city of Cotonou (Benin). Numerical model experiments indicates that the anthropogenic pollutants are accumulated during the day close to the coast, and transported northward as soon as the daytime convection in the atmospheric boundary layer ceases after 16:00UTC, reaching 8°N at 21:00UTC. When significant biomass burning pollutants are transported into continental SWA, they are mixed with anthropogenic pollutants along the coast during the day, and this mixture is then transported northward. At night, most of the coastal anthropogenic plumes are transported within the planetary boundary layer (below about 500m above ground level), whereas the biomass burning pollutants are mostly transported above it, thus generally not impacting ground level air quality.

A three-week unicycling training was associated with (1) reductions of gray matter volume in regions closely linked to visuospatial processes such as spatial awareness, (2) increases in fractional anisotropy primarily in the right corticospinal tract and in the right forceps major of the corpus callosum, and (3) a slowly evolving increase in cortical thickness in the left motor cortex. Intriguingly, five weeks later, during which participants were no longer regularly engaged in unicycling, a re-increase in gray matter was found in the very same region of the rSTG. These changes in gray and white matter morphology were paralleled by increases in unicycling performance, and by improvements in postural control, which diminished until the follow-up assessments. Learning to ride a unicycle results in reorganization of different types of brain tissue facilitating more automated postural control, clearly demonstrating that learning a complex balance task modulates brain structure in manifold and highly dynamic ways.

The capacity to find humorous perspectives in aversive situations may outline a helpful strategy in the context of cognitive reappraisal. Yet, research suggested that some people produce more adaptive humour than others. At the same time, not all forms of cognitive reinterpretation seem to be unequivocally beneficial. The present study aimed to investigate specific cognitive reappraisal strategies that individuals employ in humorous reappraisal of adverse events. In a sample of 95 participants, the use of cognitive reappraisal sub-strategies was assessed in a behavioural test in which participants were required to generate a series of humorous reappraisals of self-relevant, threatening events. These reappraisal sub-strategies (three positive reinterpretation strategies, three de-emphasising strategies) were then related to the habitual use of different kinds of humour as well as the broader DSM-5 personality trait domains and well-being in terms of depressive experiences, assessed by self-report questionnaires. While no robust relationships were found for reappraisal strategies based on de-emphasising, sub-strategies within the positive reinterpretation category showed specific and contrasting associations with the examined traits. Findings indicated that the ability to produce humour is only linked to a favourable pattern of reappraisal strategies when manifested in benign forms of humour. Specific relations also emerged for the broader personality traits. The study suggests that some characteristics that advance the use of benign humour also benefit adaptive emotion regulation. The opposite seems to be true for malicious, or "dark" humour. The introduced behavioural approach to the analysis of humorous cognitive reappraisal may prove useful also in future related research.

Previous studies on observed or projected rainfall trends for the Greater Horn of Africa (GHA) generally focus on calendric 3-month periods, and thus partly neglect the complexity of rainfall seasonality in this topographically heterogeneous region. This study introduces a novel and flexible methodology to identify the rainfall seasonality, the onset, cessation and duration of the rainy seasons and the associated uncertainties from rainfall time series. The definition is applied to the Climate Hazards Group InfraRed Precipitation with Stations (CHIRPS) satellite product and an extensive rain gauge data set. A strong agreement with known seasonal dynamics in the region and the commonly used calendric rainy seasons is demonstrated. Compared to the latter definition, a clear added value is found for the new approach as it captures the local rainfall features (associated with, for example, the sea breeze), thus facilitating evaluations across rainfall seasonality borders. While previously known trends are qualitatively confirmed, trends are amplified in some regions using the flexible definition method. Notably, a drying trend in Tanzania and Democratic Republic of Congo and a wetting trend in central Sudan and parts of eastern Ethiopia and Kenya can be detected. The trends are regionally associated with changes in rainy season cessation. CHIRPS and station trend patterns are consistent over larger regions of the GHA, but differ in regions with known rainfall contributions from warmer cloud tops. Discrepancies are found in coastal and topographically complex areas, and regions with an unstable seasonality of rainfall. As expected, CHIRPS shows spatially more homogeneous trends compared to station data. The more precise definition of the rainy season facilitates the assessment of rainfall characteristics like intensity, rainfall amounts or temporal shifts of rainy seasons. This novel methodology could also provide a more adequate calibration of climate model simulations

During the monsoon season, pollutants emitted by large coastal cities and biomass burning plumes originating from Central Africa have complex transport pathways over Southern West Africa (SWA). The Dynamics–Aerosol–Chemistry–Cloud–Interactions in West Africa (DACCIWA) field campaign has provided numerous dynamical and chemical measurements in and around the super site of Savè in Benin (≈185km away from the coast), which allows quantifying the relative contribution of advected pollutants. Through the combination of in-situ ground measurements with aircraft, radio-sounding, satellite and high-resolution chemistry-transport modeling with the CHIMERE model, the source attribution and transport pathways of pollutants inland (here, NOx and CO) are carefully analyzed for the 1–7 July 2016 period. The relative contributions of different sources (i.e. emissions from several large coastal cities) on the air quality in Savè are characterized. It is shown that a systematic diurnal cycle exists with high surface concentrations of pollutants from 18:00 to 22:00UTC. This evening peak is attributed to pollution transport from the coastal city of Cotonou (Benin). Numerical model experiments indicates that the anthropogenic pollutants are accumulated during the day close to the coast, and transported northward as soon as the daytime convection in the atmospheric boundary layer ceases after 16:00UTC, reaching 8°N at 21:00UTC. When significant biomass burning pollutants are transported into continental SWA, they are mixed with anthropogenic pollutants along the coast during the day, and this mixture is then transported northward. At night, most of the coastal anthropogenic plumes are transported within the planetary boundary layer (below about 500m above ground level), whereas the biomass burning pollutants are mostly transported above it, thus generally not impacting ground level air quality.

Mesoscale Convective Systems (MCSs) produce some of the most intense rainfall on the planet, and their response to climate variability and change is rather uncertain. Under global warming, increased water vapour is expected to intensify the most extreme rain events and enhance flood frequency. However, MCS dynamics are also sensitive to other atmospheric variables, most notably, wind shear. Here we build on a recent study showing strong MCS intensification in the African Sahel, and examine evidence of similar trends elsewhere in tropical Africa. Using satellite data, we find a remarkable increase post‐1999 in intense MCS frequency over the Congo Basin during the month of February. This earlier onset of the spring rainy season has been accompanied by strong increases in the February meridional temperature gradient and associated wind shear. This supports the hypothesis that contrasts in warming across the continent can drive important decadal‐scale trends in storm intensity

Mesoscale Convective Systems (MCSs) produce some of the most intense rainfall on the planet, and their response to climate variability and change is rather uncertain. Under global warming, increased water vapour is expected to intensify the most extreme rain events and enhance flood frequency. However, MCS dynamics are also sensitive to other atmospheric variables, most notably, wind shear. Here we build on a recent study showing strong MCS intensification in the African Sahel, and examine evidence of similar trends elsewhere in tropical Africa. Using satellite data, we find a remarkable increase post‐1999 in intense MCS frequency over the Congo Basin during the month of February. This earlier onset of the spring rainy season has been accompanied by strong increases in the February meridional temperature gradient and associated wind shear. This supports the hypothesis that contrasts in warming across the continent can drive important decadal‐scale trends in storm intensity

The atmospheric response to global sea surface temperatures is the leading cause of rainfall variability in the West African Sahel. On interannual periodicities, El Niño–Southern Oscillation, the Atlantic equatorial mode, and Mediterranean warm/cold events primarily drive variations of summer rainfall over the Sahel. Nevertheless, the rainfall response to these modes of interannual SST variability has been suggested to be unstable throughout the observational record. This study explores changes in the leading patterns of covariability between Sahel rainfall and SSTs, analyzing the dynamical mechanisms at work to explain the nonstationary relationship between anomalies in these two fields. A new network of rain gauge stations across West Africa is used for the first time to investigate these instabilities during the period 1921–2010. A hypothesis is raised that the underlying SST background seems to favor some interannual teleconnections and inhibit others in terms of the cross-equatorial SST gradients and associated impacts on the location of the intertropical convergence zone. Results of this study are relevant for improving the seasonal predictability of summer rainfall in the Sahel.

A ground-based field campaign was conducted in southern West Africa from mid-June to the end of July 2016 within the framework of the Dynamics-Aerosol-Chemistry-Cloud Interactions in West Africa (DACCIWA) project. It aimed to provide a high-quality comprehensive data set for process studies, in particular of interactions between low-level clouds (LLCs) and boundary-layer conditions. In this region missing observations are still a major issue. During the campaign, extensive remote sensing and in situ measurements were conducted at three supersites: Kumasi (Ghana), Savè (Benin) and Ile-Ife (Nigeria). Daily radiosoundings were performed at 06:00 UTC, and 15 intensive observation periods (IOPs) were performed during which additional radiosondes were launched, and remotely piloted aerial systems were operated. Extended stratiform LLCs form frequently in southern West Africa during the nighttime and persist long into the following day. They affect the radiation budget and hence the evolution of the atmospheric boundary layer and regional climate. The relevant parameters and processes governing the formation and dissolution of the LLCs are still not fully understood. This paper gives an overview of the diurnal cycles of the energy-balance components, near-surface temperature, humidity, wind speed and direction as well as of the conditions (LLCs, low-level jet) in the boundary layer at the supersites and relates them to synoptic-scale conditions (monsoon layer, harmattan layer, African easterly jet, tropospheric stratification) in the DACCIWA operational area. The characteristics of LLCs vary considerably from day to day, including a few almost cloud-free nights. During cloudy nights we found large differences in the LLCs' formation and dissolution times as well as in the cloud-base height. The differences exist at individual sites and also between the sites. The synoptic conditions are characterized by a monsoon layer with south-westerly winds, on average about 1.9 km deep

Behavioral and neurophysiological effects of a computer-aided morphological training protocol were examined in German-speaking children from Grades 3 to 9. Study 1 compared morphological awareness, reading, and spelling skills of 34 trained children with an untrained control group of 34 children matched for age, sex, and intelligence. All participants in the training group showed increases in morphological awareness, but only students from secondary school improved significantly in reading and spelling competences. In Study 2, a subsample of 8 trained children with poor spelling and reading abilities and 10 untrained children with higher language competencies underwent an electroencephalography testing involving three different language tasks. The training resulted in decreased theta-activity and increased activity in lower (7-10Hz) and upper alpha (10-13Hz). These findings reflect more effortful and attention-demanding processing after the training and suggest that children with poor spelling and reading abilities use the acquired morphological knowledge in terms of a compensatory strategy

A record-breaking rainfall event occurred in northeastern Vietnam in late July-early August 2015. The coastal region in Quang Ninh Province was hit severely, with station rainfall sums in the range of 1000-1500 mm. The heavy rainfall led to flooding and landslides, which resulted in an estimated economic loss of $108 million (U.S. dollars) and 32 fatalities. Using a multitude of data sources and ECMWF ensemble forecasts, the synoptic-dynamic development and practical predictability of the event is investigated in detail for the 4-day period from 1200 UTC 25 July to 1200 UTC 29 July 2015, during which the major portion of the rainfall was observed. A slowly moving upper-level subtropical trough and the associated surface low in the northern Gulf of Tonkin promoted sustained moisture convergence and convection over northeastern Vietnam. The humidity was advected in a moisture transport band lying across the Indochina Peninsula and emanating from a tropical storm over the Bay of Bengal. Analyses of the ECMWF ensemble forecasts clearly showed a sudden emergence of the predictability of the extreme event at lead times of 3 days that was associated with the correct forecasts of the intensity and location of the subtropical trough in the 51 ensemble members. Thus, the Quang Ninh event is a good example in which the predictability of tropical convection arises from large-scale synoptic forcing; in the present case it was due to a tropical-extratropical interaction that has not been documented before for the region and season.

The key role of the South Atlantic Anticyclone (SAA) on the seasonal cycle of the tropical Atlantic is investigated with a regionally coupled atmosphere-ocean model for two different coupled domains. Both domains include the equatorial Atlantic and a large portion of the northern tropical Atlantic, but one extends southward, and the other northwestward. The SAA is simulated as internal model variability in the former, and is prescribed as external forcing in the latter. In the first case, the model shows significant warm biases in sea surface temperature (SST) in the Angola-Benguela front zone. If the SAA is externally prescribed, these biases are substantially reduced. The biases are both of oceanic and atmospheric origin, and are influenced by ocean-atmosphere interactions in coupled runs. The strong SST austral summer biases are associated with a weaker SAA, which weakens the winds over the southeastern tropical Atlantic, deepens the thermocline and prevents the local coastal upwelling of colder water. The biases in the basins interior in this season could be related to the advection and eddy transport of the coastal warm anomalies. In winter, the deeper thermocline and atmospheric fluxes are probably the main biases sources. Biases in incoming solar radiation and thus cloudiness seem to be a secondary effect only observed in austral winter. We conclude that the external prescription of the SAA south of 20A degrees S improves the simulation of the seasonal cycle over the tropical Atlantic, revealing the fundamental role of this anticyclone in shaping the climate over this region.

Precipitation over Southeast Asia is primarily controlled by the Southeast Asian monsoon system. This area features complex orography and morphology, and has limited surface precipitation observations. In this study, a statistical-dynamical downscaling approach that combines weather typing and dynamical downscaling is developed to obtain a high-resolution precipitation climatology for tropical Southeast Asia. A transient simulation with the regional climate model COSMO-CLM (COnsortium for Small Scale MOdelling-Climate Limited-area Modelling Community) driven by ERA-Interim (1979-2008) is performed for the study region. Focussing on Vietnam, six weather types (WTs) are selected for the Indochina Peninsula during the wet season (April to October) using a k-means cluster approach on daily 850 and 200hPa zonal wind components from ERA-Interim reanalysis. The six WTs can be physically interpreted as different stages of the seasonal progression of the planetary-scale monsoon circulation. For each WT, selected representatives from the COSMO-CLM run are dynamically downscaled to a resolution of 0.0625 degrees x0.0625 degrees (approximate to 7km). Using the present-day WT frequencies, the simulated COSMO-CLM representatives at 7km are recombined to a high-resolution rainfall climatology for the recent decades. The resulting high-resolution precipitation climatology is generally able to capture the present-day precipitation estimates derived from APHRODITE (Asian Precipitation - Highly Resolved Observational Data Integration Towards Evaluation of Water Resources) and station data. In spite of systematic biases our approach provides a valuable tool to obtain more robust regional climate change projections for the study area.

Within the scope of the EWATEC-COAST (Environmental and Water Protection Technologies of Coastal Zones in Vietnam) project, spatially and temporally highly resolved meteorological data for recent (1986-2005) and projected (2046-2065) climate conditions were provided for climate impact modeling of ground and surface water for the Thi Vai catchment in southern Vietnam. For this purpose, temperature and precipitation fields of the regional climate model CCAM (Conformal-Cubic Atmospheric Model) were used. For both time periods, there were six realizations of CCAM available, each of which was driven by a different global circulation model. The projected climate for the middle of the 21st century was examined for the scenarios of the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) 4.5 and 8.5. The RCP8.5 scenario assumes the strongest radiative forcing of 8.5 W m(-2) at the end of the 21st century when compared to the preindustrial level in the middle of the 19th century. Due to systematic errors in the CCAM, a comprehensive bias correction on the ensemble mean of the six realizations was carried out using station observations of daily temperatures and rainfall amounts. While a linear regression approach was conducted for temperature data, a double Quantile Mapping approach was used for precipitation data. It was demonstrated that the bias correction significantly improved the ensemble mean temperature and precipitation distributions. Among other factors, the onset of the southwest monsoon and thus the beginning of the rainy season in South Vietnam was in good agreement with the measurements. The climate change signal for both scenarios was determined using the bias corrected fields of the ensemble mean temperature and precipitation. On the basis of the RCP8.5 scenario, a temperature increase of up to +2 degrees C is projected for the period 2046 - 2065. While a precipitation decrease is projected in the north of the Thi Vai area, an increase is shown in both scenarios in co

West African summer monsoon precipitation is characterized by distinct decadal variability. Due to its well-documented link to oceanic boundary conditions in various ocean basins it represents a paradigm for decadal predictability. In this study, we reappraise this hypothesis for several sub-regions of sub-Saharan West Africa using the new German contribution to the coupled model intercomparison project phase 5 (CMIP5) near-term prediction system. In addition, we assume that dynamical downscaling of the global decadal predictions leads to an enhanced predictive skill because enhanced resolution improves the atmospheric response to oceanic forcing and land-surface feedbacks. Based on three regional climate models, a heterogeneous picture is drawn: none of the regional climate models outperforms the global decadal predictions or all other regional climate models in every region nor decade. However, for every test case at least one regional climate model was identified which outperforms the global predictions. The highest predictive skill is found in the western and central Sahel Zone with correlation coefficients and mean-square skill scores exceeding 0.9 and 0.8, respectively.

The ongoing boom in e-commerce increases the importance of profitable and customer-oriented delivery services. Particularly in metropolitan areas, the high population density offers great potential for e-commerce, while uncertain demand and traffic conditions increase planning uncertainty. This contribution focuses on e-commerce delivery fulfillment (e-fulfillment) for attended last-mile delivery services in metropolitan areas. As the customer needs to be present for deliveries of groceries, for example, a service time window has to be agreed upon already when a customer’s order is accepted. We consider service time windows as a scarce resource and as the critical interface between order capture and order delivery. To optimally utilize this scarce resource, we propose combining concepts of revenue management and vehicle routing to extend tactical and operational planning for e-fulfillment. We define the research problem and provide a perspective on integrated planning for attended deliveries. Furthermore, we present the design of a virtual laboratory to support benchmarking in e-fulfillment research. To ensure realistic experimental settings, we plan to incorporate real-world data provided by a major e-grocery in Germany.

In airline revenue management, capacity is usually assumed to be fixed. However, capacity changes are common in practice. This contribution quantifies the value of information when systematically considering possible capacity changes in revenue optimization. It solves a stochastic model that anticipates capacity changes, given different levels of information. A computational study compares solution approaches with respect to the resulting revenue, seat load factor, and denied boarding.

West African summer monsoon precipitation is characterized by distinct decadal variability. Due to its well-documented link to oceanic boundary conditions in various ocean basins it represents a paradigm for decadal predictability. In this study, we reappraise this hypothesis for several sub-regions of sub-Saharan West Africa using the new German contribution to the coupled model intercomparison project phase 5 (CMIP5) near-term prediction system. In addition, we assume that dynamical downscaling of the global decadal predictions leads to an enhanced predictive skill because enhanced resolution improves the atmospheric response to oceanic forcing and land-surface feedbacks. Based on three regional climate models, a heterogeneous picture is drawn: none of the regional climate models outperforms the global decadal predictions or all other regional climate models in every region nor decade. However, for every test case at least one regional climate model was identified which outperforms the global predictions. The highest predictive skill is found in the western and central Sahel Zone with correlation coefficients and mean-square skill scores exceeding 0.9 and 0.8, respectively.

The ongoing boom in e-commerce increases the importance of profitable and customer-oriented delivery services. Particularly in metropolitan areas, the high population density offers great potential for e-commerce, while uncertain demand and traffic conditions increase planning uncertainty. This contribution focuses on e-commerce delivery fulfillment (e-fulfillment) for attended last-mile delivery services in metropolitan areas. As the customer needs to be present for deliveries of groceries, for example, a service time window has to be agreed upon already when a customer’s order is accepted. We consider service time windows as a scarce resource and as the critical interface between order capture and order delivery. To optimally utilize this scarce resource, we propose combining concepts of revenue management and vehicle routing to extend tactical and operational planning for e-fulfillment. We define the research problem and provide a perspective on integrated planning for attended deliveries. Furthermore, we present the design of a virtual laboratory to support benchmarking in e-fulfillment research. To ensure realistic experimental settings, we plan to incorporate real-world data provided by a major e-grocery in Germany.

In airline revenue management, capacity is usually assumed to be fixed. However, capacity changes are common in practice. This contribution quantifies the value of information when systematically considering possible capacity changes in revenue optimization. It solves a stochastic model that anticipates capacity changes, given different levels of information. A computational study compares solution approaches with respect to the resulting revenue, seat load factor, and denied boarding.

The key role of the South Atlantic Anticyclone (SAA) on the seasonal cycle of the tropical Atlantic is investigated with a regionally coupled atmosphere-ocean model for two different coupled domains. Both domains include the equatorial Atlantic and a large portion of the northern tropical Atlantic, but one extends southward, and the other northwestward. The SAA is simulated as internal model variability in the former, and is prescribed as external forcing in the latter. In the first case, the model shows significant warm biases in sea surface temperature (SST) in the Angola-Benguela front zone. If the SAA is externally prescribed, these biases are substantially reduced. The biases are both of oceanic and atmospheric origin, and are influenced by ocean-atmosphere interactions in coupled runs. The strong SST austral summer biases are associated with a weaker SAA, which weakens the winds over the southeastern tropical Atlantic, deepens the thermocline and prevents the local coastal upwelling of colder water. The biases in the basins interior in this season could be related to the advection and eddy transport of the coastal warm anomalies. In winter, the deeper thermocline and atmospheric fluxes are probably the main biases sources. Biases in incoming solar radiation and thus cloudiness seem to be a secondary effect only observed in austral winter. We conclude that the external prescription of the SAA south of 20A degrees S improves the simulation of the seasonal cycle over the tropical Atlantic, revealing the fundamental role of this anticyclone in shaping the climate over this region.

A record-breaking rainfall event occurred in northeastern Vietnam in late July-early August 2015. The coastal region in Quang Ninh Province was hit severely, with station rainfall sums in the range of 1000-1500 mm. The heavy rainfall led to flooding and landslides, which resulted in an estimated economic loss of $108 million (U.S. dollars) and 32 fatalities. Using a multitude of data sources and ECMWF ensemble forecasts, the synoptic-dynamic development and practical predictability of the event is investigated in detail for the 4-day period from 1200 UTC 25 July to 1200 UTC 29 July 2015, during which the major portion of the rainfall was observed. A slowly moving upper-level subtropical trough and the associated surface low in the northern Gulf of Tonkin promoted sustained moisture convergence and convection over northeastern Vietnam. The humidity was advected in a moisture transport band lying across the Indochina Peninsula and emanating from a tropical storm over the Bay of Bengal. Analyses of the ECMWF ensemble forecasts clearly showed a sudden emergence of the predictability of the extreme event at lead times of 3 days that was associated with the correct forecasts of the intensity and location of the subtropical trough in the 51 ensemble members. Thus, the Quang Ninh event is a good example in which the predictability of tropical convection arises from large-scale synoptic forcing; in the present case it was due to a tropical-extratropical interaction that has not been documented before for the region and season.

Precipitation over Southeast Asia is primarily controlled by the Southeast Asian monsoon system. This area features complex orography and morphology, and has limited surface precipitation observations. In this study, a statistical-dynamical downscaling approach that combines weather typing and dynamical downscaling is developed to obtain a high-resolution precipitation climatology for tropical Southeast Asia. A transient simulation with the regional climate model COSMO-CLM (COnsortium for Small Scale MOdelling-Climate Limited-area Modelling Community) driven by ERA-Interim (1979-2008) is performed for the study region. Focussing on Vietnam, six weather types (WTs) are selected for the Indochina Peninsula during the wet season (April to October) using a k-means cluster approach on daily 850 and 200hPa zonal wind components from ERA-Interim reanalysis. The six WTs can be physically interpreted as different stages of the seasonal progression of the planetary-scale monsoon circulation. For each WT, selected representatives from the COSMO-CLM run are dynamically downscaled to a resolution of 0.0625 degrees x0.0625 degrees (approximate to 7km). Using the present-day WT frequencies, the simulated COSMO-CLM representatives at 7km are recombined to a high-resolution rainfall climatology for the recent decades. The resulting high-resolution precipitation climatology is generally able to capture the present-day precipitation estimates derived from APHRODITE (Asian Precipitation - Highly Resolved Observational Data Integration Towards Evaluation of Water Resources) and station data. In spite of systematic biases our approach provides a valuable tool to obtain more robust regional climate change projections for the study area.

Within the scope of the EWATEC-COAST (Environmental and Water Protection Technologies of Coastal Zones in Vietnam) project, spatially and temporally highly resolved meteorological data for recent (1986-2005) and projected (2046-2065) climate conditions were provided for climate impact modeling of ground and surface water for the Thi Vai catchment in southern Vietnam. For this purpose, temperature and precipitation fields of the regional climate model CCAM (Conformal-Cubic Atmospheric Model) were used. For both time periods, there were six realizations of CCAM available, each of which was driven by a different global circulation model. The projected climate for the middle of the 21st century was examined for the scenarios of the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) 4.5 and 8.5. The RCP8.5 scenario assumes the strongest radiative forcing of 8.5 W m(-2) at the end of the 21st century when compared to the preindustrial level in the middle of the 19th century. Due to systematic errors in the CCAM, a comprehensive bias correction on the ensemble mean of the six realizations was carried out using station observations of daily temperatures and rainfall amounts. While a linear regression approach was conducted for temperature data, a double Quantile Mapping approach was used for precipitation data. It was demonstrated that the bias correction significantly improved the ensemble mean temperature and precipitation distributions. Among other factors, the onset of the southwest monsoon and thus the beginning of the rainy season in South Vietnam was in good agreement with the measurements. The climate change signal for both scenarios was determined using the bias corrected fields of the ensemble mean temperature and precipitation. On the basis of the RCP8.5 scenario, a temperature increase of up to +2 degrees C is projected for the period 2046 - 2065. While a precipitation decrease is projected in the north of the Thi Vai area, an increase is shown in both scenarios in co

The ways in which humour can be used are related to the manifold interpersonal functions humour can serve, some of which are positive, and some negative. In the present study, phasic changes in the functional coupling of prefrontal and posterior cortex (EEG coherence) during other people's auditory displays of happy and sad mood were recorded to predict people's typical use of humour in social interactions. Greater use of benevolent humour, the intentions of which are in keeping with the characteristics of "laughing-with" humour, was associated with greater decreases of prefrontal-posterior coupling during the processing of happy laughter. More loose prefrontal-posterior coupling indicates loosening of control of the prefrontal cortex over the incoming perceptual information, thereby opening up the perceptual gate and allowing the brain to become more affected by the social-emotional signals. Greater use of humour styles linked to malicious intentions of "laughing-at" humour was associated with responses indicating a wider opened perceptual gate during the processing of other people's crying. The findings are consistent with the idea that typical humour styles develop in line with the rewarding values of their outcomes (e.g., interaction partners are happy or hurt), which in turn are defined through the individuals' latent interpersonal goals.

The Central Highlands are Vietnam's main coffee growing region. Unusual wet spells during the early dry season in November and December negatively affect two growing cycles in terms of yield and quality. The meteorological causes of wet spells in this region have not been thoroughly studied to date. Using daily rain gauge measurements at nine stations for the period 1981-2007 in the Central Highlands, four dynamically different early dry-season rainfall cases were investigated in depth: 1) the tail end of a cold front, 2) a tropical depression-type disturbance, 3) multiple tropical wave interactions, and 4) a cold surge with the Borneo vortex. Cases 1 and 4 are mainly extratropically forced. In case 1, moisture advection ahead of a dissipating cold front over the South China Sea led to high equivalent potential temperature in the southern highland where this air mass stalled and facilitated recurrent outbreaks of afternoon convection. In this case, the low-level northeasterly flow over the South China Sea was diverted around the southern highlands by relatively stable low layers. On the contrary, low-level flow was more orthogonal to the mountain barrier and high Froude numbers and concomitant low stability facilitated the westward extension of the rainfall zone across the mountain barrier in the other cases. In case 3, an eastward-traveling equatorial Kelvin wave might have been a factor in this westward extension, too. The results show a variety of interactions of large-scale wave forcings, synoptic-convective dynamics, and orographic effects on spatiotemporal details of the rainfall patterns.