Formation of Cyprus Lows within Red-Sea Trough

<p>The Red-Sea Trough (RST) is a lower-level trough extending from the tropical low-pressure to the Levant. Its annual occurrence is 20%, between October and May, producing mostly dry weather, but occasionally active and causing local showers and floods. During winter the dominant synoptic system over the Levant is the Cyprus low (CL). Previous studies showed that some CLs form within pre-existing RSTs, through a tropical-extratropical interaction.</p><p>This study is the first comprehensive climatological framework of such formation events, analyzing occurrence, seasonality and the resulting rainfall in Israel. The study looked at events of new CLs formed within the domain 31°-35°N, 30°-36°E while a RST was detected within 24 hours before the event. We used the 6-hourly ERA-Interim database, with 0.75°×0.75° resolution, during 1979-2017, and identified 104 formation events, which constitute 10% of the CLs. Most events occurred during fall and early winter, as the case for the RST. Eighty-four percent of them formed during the evening or the night, and almost two thirds of the CLs disappeared temporarily at noon and regenerated afterwards. This is attributed to the sea/land diurnal oscillation. Most of the CLs that formed were found shallow with little rain, but occasionally became major storms, like "Alexa", which caused extreme snowing in Jerusalem, in December 2013.</p><p>The evolution scenarios leading to formation events were divided into four clusters, according to the synoptic situation at the 500-hPa geopotential height. The first one is characterized by a closed cyclone approaching from the southwest, often connected to active RSTs, such as the event that occurred in 2-4 November 1994. In the second, a trough is deepening from the northern sector, possibly a polar intrusion, like the "Alexa" storm. In the third, the most populated cluster, a trough is approaching from the west. A separate cluster contains four events with no upper-level support.</p>

Men’s weight loss stories: How personal confession, responsibility and transformation work as social control

Obesity is considered a public health concern. In Australia, there are a greater number of overweight or obese men compared with women. The media is an important source of information about body weight and weight management. We undertook a qualitative study to analyse men’s weight loss stories in a popular men’s magazine. Between January 2009 and December 2012, we collected 47 men’s weight loss stories from the Australian edition of Men’s Health magazine. We undertook thematic analysis to examine the stories. Confession, personal responsibility, appearance and transformation were key themes. The stories describe the men’s self-discipline and their monitoring and tracking of their behaviours as activities which supported their weight loss. In this way, the stories promote the importance of such panoptic self-surveillance and self-discipline to the readers. We consider how such stories contribute to the wider synoptic system of media messages about body weight.

Lightning characteristics over the eastern coast of the Mediterranean during different synoptic systems

Thunderstorm activity takes place in the eastern Mediterranean mainly through the boreal fall and winter seasons during synoptic systems of Red Sea Trough (RST), Red Sea Trough that closed a low over the sea (RST-CL), and Cyprus Low (during fall – FCL and winter – WCL). In this work we used the Israeli Lightning Location System ground strokes data set, between October 2004 and December 2010, for studying the properties of lightning strokes and their link to the thermodynamic conditions in each synoptic system. It is shown that lightning activity dominates over sea during WCL and FCL systems (with maximum values of 1.5 in WCL, and 2.2 km−2 day−1 in FCL) and have a dominant component over land during the RST and RST-CL days. The stronger instability (high Convective Available Potential Energy (CAPE) values of 762 ± 457 J kg−1) during RST-CL days together with the higher altitude of the clouds' mixed-phase region (3.6 ± 0.3 km), result in a slightly higher density of ground strokes during this system but a lower fraction of positive ground strokes (3 ± 0.5 %). In general the fraction of positive strokes was found to be inversely correlated with the sea surface temperature: it increases from 1.2 % in early fall to 17.7 % in late winter, during FCL and WCL days. This change could be linked to the variation in the charge center's vertical location during those months. The diurnal cycle in the lightning activity was examined for each synoptic system. During WCL conditions, no preferred times were found through the day, as it relates to the random passage timing of the frontal systems over the study region. During the fall systems (FCL and RST-CL) there is a peak in lightning activity during the morning hours, probably related to the enhanced convection driven by the convergence between the eastern land breeze and the western synoptic winds. The distributions of peak currents in FCL and WCL systems also change from fall to winter and include more strong negative and positive strokes toward the end of the winter.

Lightning characteristics in Eastern Mediterranean thunderstorms during different synoptic systems

Thunderstorms activity takes place in the Eastern Mediterranean mainly along the boreal fall and winter seasons during synoptic systems of Red Sea Trough (RST), Red Sea Trough that closed a low over the sea (RST-CL), and Cyprus Low (during fall – FCL and Winter – WCL). In this work we used the Israeli Lightning Location System ground strokes dataset (between October 2004 and December 2010) for studying the lightning strokes properties and their link to the thermodynamic conditions in each synoptic system. It is shown that the lightning activity dominates over sea during WCL and FCL systems (with maximum values of 37 strokes per 25 km2 day−1 in WCL, and 54 in FCL) and have a dominant component over land during the RST and RST-CL days. The stronger instability (high CAPE values of 621 ± 466 J kg−1) during RST-CL days together with the higher altitude of the clouds' mixed-phase region (3630 ± 316 m) result in higher ground strokes density during this system (compared to all other) but lower fraction of positive ground strokes (3 ± 0.5%). In general the fraction of positive strokes was found to be positively correlated with the wind shear values in the layer between 0 and −25 °C. It increases from the 1.2 ± 1% in early fall to 17 ± 7% in late winter, (during FCL and WCL days) and can be linked to the decrease in the sea surface (and lower troposphere) temperature during those months, due to an impact on the charge centers vertical location. The diurnal cycle in the lightning activity was examined for each synoptic system. During WCL conditions no preferred times were found along the day (as it relates to the timing of frontal systems). During the fall systems (FCL and RST-CL) there is a peak in lightning activity during the morning hours, probably related to the enhanced convection driven by the convergence between the eastern land breeze and the western synoptic winds. The distributions of peak currents in FCL and WCL systems also change from fall to winter and include more strong negative and positive strokes toward the end of the winter.