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Abstract. Flooding in the Amazon basin is frequently attributed to modes of large-scale climate variability, but little attention is paid to how these modes influence the timing and duration of floods despite their importance to early warning systems and the significant impacts that these flood characteristics can have on communities. In this study, river discharge data from the Global Flood Awareness System (GloFAS 2.1) and observed data at 58 gauging stations are used to examine whether positive or negative phases of several Pacific and Atlantic indices significantly alter the characteristics of river flows throughout the Amazon basin (1979–2015). Results show significant changes in both flood magnitude and duration, particularly in the north-eastern Amazon for negative El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phases when the sea surface temperature (SST) anomaly is positioned in the central tropical Pacific. This response is not identified for the eastern Pacific index, highlighting how the response can differ between ENSO types. Although flood magnitude and duration were found to be highly correlated, the impacts of large-scale climate variability on these characteristics are non-linear; some increases in annual flood maxima coincide with decreases in flood duration. The impact of flood timing, however, does not follow any notable pattern for all indices analysed. Finally, observed and simulated changes are found to be much more highly correlated for negative ENSO phases compared to the positive phase, meaning that GloFAS struggles to accurately simulate the differences in flood characteristics between El Niño and neutral years. These results have important implications for both the social and physical sectors working towards the improvement of early warning action systems for floods.

The ATLAS Inner Detector is a composite tracking system consisting of silicon pixels, silicon strips and straw tubes in a 2 T magnetic field. Its installation was completed in August 2008 and the detector took part in data- taking with single LHC beams and cosmic rays. The initial detector operation, hardware commissioning and in-situ calibrations are described. Tracking performance has been measured with 7.6 million cosmic-ray events, collected using a tracking trigger and reconstructed with modular pattern-recognition and fitting software. The intrinsic hit efficiency and tracking trigger efficiencies are close to 100%. Lorentz angle measurements for both electrons and holes, specific energy-loss calibration and transition radiation turn-on measurements have been performed. Different alignment techniques have been used to reconstruct the detector geometry. After the initial alignment, a transverse impact parameter resolution of 22.1+/-0.9 ��m and a relative momentum resolution ��p/p = (4.83+/-0.16) \times 10-4 GeV-1 \times pT have been measured for high momentum tracks. 34 pages, 25 figures

Multiport power converters integrate three or more energy devices into a single (potentially highly controllable and efficient) hub. These characteristics suggest that multiport power converters may be valuable for the decarbonisation of distribution networks, where the increase of converter-interfaced devices has degraded system reliability and efficiency. This review analyses the suitability of a wide range of multiport power converter solutions for four example distribution network applications (where previous studies have focussed on a limited range of topologies or applications) and the research areas that can progress their maturity. A review of grid codes and standards overviews the base capability that multiport power converters are likely to require, some of which are carried forward as requirements for a novel comparison tool. The comparison tool is developed to qualify and score reviewed topologies in terms of a range of features that are weighted for the applications. Isolated and partially-isolated topologies perform well due to their flexibility to be configured for the specifications and their operational capabilities (including modularity and voltage decoupling). Further research should focus on the complex control interactions between ports and scaling of these topologies for medium voltages. In contrast, many direct current non-isolated topologies do not qualify due to their low flexibility to be configured for the applications. This suggests that future research could focus on the development of a more flexible non-isolated multiport power converter configuration to take advantage of the high efficiency and low footprint that these topologies might otherwise offer for low voltage applications. This project was funded by the Innovate UK Horizon Europe Guarantee application number 10039599. This work was also funded by the European Union's Horizon Europe research and innovation programme in the framework of the project “iPLUG” with grant agreement 101069770. . Peer Reviewed