Venus express: Highlights of the nominal mission

Venus Express is the first European (ESA) mission to the planet Venus. Its main science goal is to carry out a global survey of the atmosphere, the plasma environment, and the surface of Venus from orbit. The payload consists of seven experiments. It includes a powerful suite of remote sensing imagers and spectrometers, instruments for in-situ investigation of the circumplanetary plasma and magnetic field, and a radio science experiment. The spacecraft, based on the Mars Express bus modified for the conditions at Venus, provides a versatile platform for nadir and limb observations as well as solar, stellar, and radio occultations. In April 2006 Venus Express was inserted in an elliptical polar orbit around Venus, with a pericentre height of ～250 km and apocentre distance of ～66000 km and an orbital period of 24 hours. The nominal mission lasted from June 4, 2006 till October 2, 2007, which corresponds to about two Venus sidereal days. Here we present an overview of the main results of the nominal mission, based on a set of papers recently published in Nature, Icarus, Planetary and Space Science, and Geophysical Research Letters.     

Interferometric observations of rapidly rotating stars

Optical interferometry provides us with a unique opportunity to improve our understanding of stellar structure and evolution. Through direct observation of rotationally distorted photospheres at sub-milliarcsecond scales, we are now able to characterize latitude dependencies of stellar radius, temperature structure, and even energy transport. These detailed new views of stars are leading to revised thinking in a broad array of associated topics, such as spectroscopy, stellar evolution, and exoplanet detection. As newly advanced techniques and instrumentation mature, this topic in astronomy is poised to greatly expand in depth and influence.     

Spatially distributed modelling of soil erosion and sediment yield at regional scales in Spain

Initiated by the need to quantify erosion rates and the impacts of global changes on erosion, several attempts have been made to apply erosion models at regional scales. However, these models have often been directed towards on-site soil erosion estimates, emphasising sheet and rill erosion processes, and disregarding gully erosion, channel erosion and sediment transport. These models are therefore of limited use for the assessment of sediment yield, off-site impacts of erosion, and for the development of environmental management to control these impacts at regional scale. This study analyses and compares three spatially distributed models for the prediction of soil erosion and/or sediment yield at regional scales: the WATEM-SEDEM model that is based on the empirical Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) in combination with a sediment transport equation, the physics-based Pan European Soil Erosion Risk Assessment model (PESERA), and a newly developed Spatially Distributed Scoring model (SPADS). The three models were applied to 61 Spanish drainage basins and model predictions were evaluated against data on measured reservoir sedimentation rates. Global data sets on land use, climate, elevation and soil characteristics were used as model input for WATEM-SEDEM and SPADS, whereas published soil erosion estimates of PESERA at 1 km² resolution were used directly. SPADS and WATEM-SEDEM provided best results after separate calibration for basins with a Sediment Delivery Ratio (SDR) higher than 5% and those with an SDR lower than 5%. In this way, SPADS explained 67% of variation in sediment yield, while WATEM-SEDEM explained 48% of the variation. PESERA represents a promising alternative to the use of empirical models at the regional scale as it can be applied to very diverse environments with little calibration. However, PESERA provides soil erosion rates and not sediment yield estimates. For most basins PESERA soil erosion rates vary between fifty and close to zero percent of total sediment yield. Two major factors may explain this discrepancy between modelled soil erosion rates and measured sediment yield. First, it may be that PESERA underestimates soil erosion under Mediterranean conditions, although PESERA soil erosion rates are of the same order of magnitude as erosion rates measured in erosion plot studies. Second, gully-, river channel erosion and sediment transport processes may be much more important than sheet- and rill erosion for regional scale sediment yield in these environments. These issues therefore require further attention in future model development. Although spatially lumped models provide better predictions of sediment yield at the basin scale, and while validation of the predicted spatial patterns of sources and sinks of sediment requires further research, spatially distributed models are expected to be of value to support management decisions regarding the assessment of on-site and off-site impacts of erosion at the regional scale.     

Empirical calibration of climate policy using corporate solvency: a case study of the UK’s carbon price support

Emission reductions improve the chances that dangerous anthropogenic climate change will be averted, but could also cause some firms financial distress. Corporate failures, especially if they are unnecessary, add to the social cost of abatement. Social value can be permanently destroyed by the dissolution of organizational capital, deadweight losses paid to liquidators, and unemployment. This article proposes using measures of corporate solvency as an objective tool for policy makers to calibrate the optimal stringency of climate change policies, so that they can deliver the least loss of corporate solvency for a given level of emission reductions. They could also be used to determine the generosity of any compensation to address losses to corporate solvency. We demonstrate this approach using a case study of the UK’s Carbon Price Support (a carbon tax).

Key policy insights

• Solvency metrics could be used to empirically calibrate the optimal stringency of climate policies.

• An idealized solvency trajectory for firms affected by climate change policy would cause corporate solvency to initially decline – approaching but not exceeding ‘distressed’ levels – and then gradually improve to a new ‘steady state’ once the low-carbon transition had been achieved.

• In terms of the UK’s Carbon Price Support, corporate solvency of energy-intensive industries was found to be stable subsequent to its introduction. Therefore, the available evidence does not support its later weakening.

     

Helophyte zonation in two regulated estuarine areas in the Netherlands: Vegetation analysis and relationships with hydrological factors

The relationship between hydrological conditions and riparian helophyte vegetation was studied in two freshwater estuaries that differed in tidal regulation in order to assess the effects of large-scale hydrological regulation on the fringe vegetation. Vegetation and environmental variables were sampled for 206 sites in the Rhine-Meuse estuary (146 sites) and the IJsselmeer region (60 sites) in the Netherlands. These samples were classified into 10 vegetation types, all of which were dominated by tall helophytes. The most common vegetation types were dominated byPhragmites australis andTypha angustifolia, which formed both monospecific stands and mixtures. Tall Cyperaceae dominated three vegetation types (dominated individually bySchoenoplectus lacustris, Bolboschoenus maritimus, andSchoenoplectus tabernaemontani).Acorus calamus. Principal components analysis of the species composition of vegetation fringing open-water areas and associated environmental data revealed complex gradients incorporating differences in water depth, water-level fluctuation, were exposure, and sedimentation and/or erosion. The composition of the helophyte belts varied among the areas as the result of the differing times at which regulation occurred. Based on historical data, hydrological regulation of the estuaries has resulted in deterioration of intertidalSchoenoplectus andBolboschoenus stands, due to erosion and predation.P. australis stands have been invaded by terrestrial plant species or have been replaced byT. angustifolia. A scheme is presented of helophyte vegetation development under the influence of changes in the hydrological regime.     

Parsimonious wave‐equation travel‐time inversion for refraction waves

We present a parsimonious wave‐equation travel‐time inversion technique for refraction waves. A dense virtual refraction dataset can be generated from just two reciprocal shot gathers for the sources at the endpoints of the survey line, with N geophones evenly deployed along the line. These two reciprocal shots contain approximately 2N refraction travel times, which can be spawned into refraction travel times by an interferometric transformation. Then, these virtual refraction travel times are used with a source wavelet to create N virtual refraction shot gathers, which are the input data for wave‐equation travel‐time inversion. Numerical results show that the parsimonious wave‐equation travel‐time tomogram has about the same accuracy as the tomogram computed by standard wave‐equation travel‐time inversion. The most significant benefit is that a reciprocal survey is far less time consuming than the standard refraction survey where a source is excited at each geophone location.     

Multiscale phase inversion for 3D ocean-bottom cable data

We invert three-dimensional seismic data by a multiscale phase inversion scheme, a modified version of full waveform inversion, which applies higher order integrations to the input signal to produce low-boost signals. These low-boost signals are used as the input data for the early iterations, and lower order integrations are computed at the later iterations. The advantages of multiscale phase inversion are that it (1) is less dependent on the initial model compared to full waveform inversion, (2) is less sensitive to incorrectly modelled magnitudes and (3) employs a simple and natural frequency shaping filtering. For a layered model with a three-dimensional velocity anomaly, results with synthetic data show that multiscale phase inversion can sometimes provide a noticeably more accurate velocity profile than full waveform inversion. Results with the Society of Exploration Geophysicists/European Association of Geoscientists and Engineers overthrust model shows that multiscale phase inversion more clearly resolves meandering channels in the depth slices. However, the data and model misfit functions achieve about the same values after 50 iterations. The results with three-dimensional ocean-bottom cable data show that, compared to the full waveform inversion tomogram, the three-dimensional multiscale phase inversion tomogram provides a better match to the well log, and better flattens angle-domain common image gathers. The problem is that the tomograms at the well log provide an incomplete low-wavenumber estimate of the log's velocity profile. Therefore, a good low-wavenumber estimate of the velocity model is still needed for an accurate multiscale phase inversion tomogram.     

Sediment yield of the lower Tana River,Kenya, is insensitive to dam construction: sediment mobilization processes in a semi‐arid tropical river system

Dam construction in the 1960s to 1980s significantly modified sediment supply from the Kenyan uplands to the lower Tana River. To assess the effect on suspended sediment fluxes of the Tana River, we monitored the sediment load at high temporal resolution for 1 year and complemented our data with historical information. The relationship between sediment concentration and water discharge was complex: at the onset of the wet season, discharge peaks resulted in high sediment concentrations and counterclockwise hysteresis, while towards the end of the wet season, a sediment exhaustion effect led to low concentrations despite the high discharge. The total sediment flux at Garissa (c. 250 km downstream of the lowermost dam) between June 2012 and June 2013 was 8.8 Mt yr^‐1. Comparison of current with historical fluxes indicated that dam construction had not greatly affected the annual sediment flux. We suggest that autogenic processes, namely river bed dynamics and bank erosion, mobilized large quantities of sediments stored in the alluvial plain downstream of the dams. Observations supporting the importance of autogenic processes included the absence of measurable activities of the fall‐out radionuclides ⁷Be and ¹³⁷Cs in the suspended sediment, the rapid lateral migration of the river course, and the seasonal changes in river cross‐section. Given the large stock of sediment in the alluvial valley of the Tana River, it may take centuries before the effect of damming shows up as a quantitative reduction in the sediment flux at Garissa. Many models relate the sediment load of rivers to catchment characteristics, thereby implicitly assuming that alterations in the catchment induce changes in the sediment load. Our research confirms that the response of an alluvial river to external disturbances such as land use or climate change is often indirect or non‐existent as autogenic processes overwhelm the changes in the input signal. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.