As an essential dietary micronutrient, vitamin D plays a pivotal role in promoting calcium absorption in the intestine and maintaining a healthy skeletal system throughout life. Beyond bone health, an emerging volume of scientific studies shows that vitamin D also may provide cardiovascular, metabolic, and immunologic benefits and reduce mortality. To our knowledge, in mainland China no nationa...

Over the last two and half decades, strong evidence showed that the terrestrial ecosystems are acting as a net sink for atmospheric carbon. However the spatial and temporal patterns of variation in the sink are not well known. In this study, we examined latitudinal patterns of interannual variability (IAV) in net ecosystem exchange (NEE) of CO2 based on 163 site-years of eddy covariance data, f...

Global Positioning System (GPS) results from networks spanning the Eastern California shear zone and adjacent Sierra Nevada block, occupied annually between 1993 and 1998, constrain plate margin kinematics. We use an elastic block model to relate GPS station velocities to long-term fault slip rate estimates. The model accounts for elastic strain accumulation on the San Andreas fault, as well as...

[1] To investigate the observed atmospheric response to SST variability in the North Pacific, the Maximum Covariance Analysis is performed between the monthly sea surface temperature anomaly (SSTA) and the 500-hPa geopotential height anomaly over the North Pacific using observations of the period 1958–1993. In addition to the strong remote ENSO impact in winter months, the MCA analysis suggests...

-The principal components of the surface current system in the tropical Atlantic are the westward South Equatorial Current south of 30N, the eastward Equatorial Countercurrent between 30N and lOoN and the westward North Equatorial Current north of lOoN. The subsurface, eastward Equatorial Undercurrent is confined to about 1 1/20 latitude and is centered on the equator. These mean currents are s...

We investigate the sensitivity of the thermohaline circulation (THC) with respect to a subpolar salinity perturbation. Such perturbation simulates a fresh water release caused by retreating glaciers or anomalous sea ice. The feedback mechanisms amplifying or damping the initial anomaly are analyzed in the coupled ocean-atmospheresea ice model. Their understanding is essential for modelling clim...

A dry general circulation model is used to investigate how coupling between the stratospheric polar vortex and the extratropical tropospheric circulation depends on the latitude of the tropospheric jet. The tropospheric response to an identical stratospheric vortex configuration is shown to be strongest for a jet centered near 408 and weaker for jets near either 308 or 508 by more than a factor...