Abstract. Every year, from December to April, anthropogenic haze spreads over most of the North Indian Ocean, and South and Southeast Asia. The Indian Ocean Experiment (INDOEX) documented this Indo-Asian haze at scales ranging from individual particles to its contribution to the regional climate forcing. This study integrates the multiplatform observations (satellites, aircraft, ships, surface stations, and balloons) with one-and fourdimensional models to derive the regional aerosol forcing resulting from the direct, the semidirect and the two indirect effects. The haze particles consisted of several inorganic and carbonaceous species, including absorbing black carbon clusters, fly ash, and mineral dust. The most striking result was the large loading of aerosols over most of the South Asian region and the North Indian Ocean. The January to March 1999 visible optical depths were about 0.5 over most of the continent and reached values as large as 0.2 over the equatorial Indian ocean due to long-range transport. The aerosol layer extended as high as 3 km. Black carbon contributed about 14% to the fine particle mass and 11% to the visible optical depth. The single-scattering albedo estimated by several independent methods was consistently around 0.9 both inland and over the open ocean. Anthropogenic sources contributed as much as 80% (_+10%) to the aerosol loading and the optical depth. The in situ data, which clearly support the existence of the first indirect effect (increased aerosol concentration producing more cloud drops with smaller effective radii), are used to develop a composite indirect effect scheme. The Indo-Asian aerosols impact the radiative forcing through a complex set of heating (positive forcing) and cooling (negative forcing) processes. Clouds and black carbon emerge as the major players. The dominant factor, however, is the large negative forcing (-20 +_ 4 W m -t) at the surface and the comparably large atmospheric heating. Regionally, the absorbing haze decreased the surface solar radiation by an amount comparable to 50% of the total ocean heat flux and nearly doubled the lower tropospheric solar heating. We demonstrate with a general circulation model how this additional heating significantly perturbs the tropical rainfall patterns and the hydrological cycle with implications to global climate.

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The methylotrophic yeast Pichia pastoris has been widely reported as a suitable expression system for heterologous protein production. The use of different phenotypes under PAOX promoter, other alternative promoters, culture medium, and operational strategies with the objective to maximize either yield or productivity of the heterologous protein, but also to obtain a repetitive product batch to batch to get a robust process for the final industrial application have been reported. Medium composition, kinetics growth, fermentation operational strategies from fedbatch to continuous cultures using different phenotypes with the most common PAOX promoter and other novel promoters (GAP, FLD, ICL), the use of mixed substrates, on-line monitoring of the key fermentation parameters (methanol) and control algorithms applied to the bioprocess are reviewed and discussed in detail.

A 44-year (1958-2001) high-resolution atmospheric hindcast for the whole Mediterranean Basin was performed within the EU-funded Hindcast of Dynamic Processes of the Ocean and Coastal Areas of Europe (HIPOCAS) Project. The long-term hindcasted data set, which comprises several atmospheric parameters at different levels, was produced by means of dynamical downscaling from the NCEP/NCAR global reanalysis using the atmospheric limited area model REMO. The REMO hindcast has been exhaustively validated. On that score, various hindcasted surface parameters, such as 10-m wind field, 2-m temperature and mean sea level pressure, have been compared to satellite data (ERS-1/2 scatterometer) and in-situ measurements from offshore stations. In addition, two ocean models (waves and sea level) have been forced with REMO hindcasted fields (mean sea level pressure and 10-m wind field). The validation of these ocean runs, performed through comparisons of simulated waves and sea level with oceanographic measurements, allows to evaluate "indirectly" the quality of the REMO hindcasted data used as atmospheric forcing. Once the quality of the hindcasted data was verified, the efficiency of the regional enhancement performed through dynamical downscaling on the NCEP global reanalysis was assessed. The regional improvement was evaluated through comparisons of REMO and NCEP performance in reproducing observations. The important improvement obtained in the characterization of extreme wind events is particularly remarkable.