An assessment of the effects of climatic change on agriculture

This paper summarizes some of the results and conclusions of an international project funded by IIASA and UNEP on the effects of climatic variations on agriculture. An overall goal of the project was to improve our understanding both of first-order effects of climatic variations on agricultural productivity and of higher-order effects on regional and national economies. Two broad types of experiments are described: (i) impact experiments, which provide estimates of first-order and higher-order effects of climatic variations on farming systems, and which assume that no adjustments are put in place, and (ii) adjustment experiments, which evaluate a number of adjustments available at the farm or government level to offset or mitigate these effects.The results from case studies in cool temperate and cold regions in Saskatchewan (Canada), Iceland, Finland, northern European U.S.S.R. and Japan] are described here. Findings from a parallel set of IIASA/UNEP case studies in semiarid regions, which examine the effects of a different set of climatic scenarios, are reported elsewhere (Parry et al., 1988b).     

The effect of climatic variations on agricultural risk

The thesis of this paper is that impacts from climatic change can be evaluated effectively as changes in the frequency of short-term, anomalous climatic events. These can then be expressed as changes in the level of risk of impact from climatic extremes. To evaluate this approach, the risk of crop failure resulting from low levels of accumulated temperature is assessed for oats farming in southern Scotland. Annual accumulated temperatures are calculated for the 323-year-long temperature record compiled by Manley for Central England. These are bridged across to southern Scotland and, by calculating mean levels of risk for different elevations, an average risk surface is constructed. One-in-10 and 1-in-50 frequencies of crop failure are assumed to delineate a high-risk zone, which is mapped for the 323-year period by constructing isopleths of these risk levels. By redrawing the risk isopleths for warm and cool 50-year periods, the geographical shift of the high-risk zone is delineated. The conclusion is that relatively recent and apparently minor climatic variations in the United Kingdom have in fact induced substantial spatial changes in levels of agricultural risk. An advantage of expressing climatic change as a change in agricultural risk is that support programs for agriculture can be retuned to accommodate acceptable frequencies of impact by adjusting support levels to match new risk levels.     

Magnetization of immobilized particle dispersions with two distinct particle sizes

The magnetic properties of specimens containing dispersed magnetic particles, at low concentrations, containing two distinct size ranges, have been measured. The results have been used to evaluate the effectiveness of several parameters which have been used to discriminate the type of particles in a dispersion. The location of the point representing the properties of a specimen on a graph of $\text{M}{}_{\mathrm{<mtext>RS</mtext>}}\text{M}{}_{\mathrm{<mtext>S</mtext>}}$ and $\text{H}{}_{\mathrm{<mtext>R</mtext>}}\text{H}{}_{\mathrm{<mtext>c</mtext>}}$ indicates a possible particle dispersion which would produce a model with equivalent magnetic properties. The behaviour of dispersions of titomagnetic is also considered and these produce ambiguities in the interpretation of the graph. The possibility of modelling a dispersion which has equivalent properties to specimens from a single lava is considered.     

The piezomagnetic effect in rocks: a comparison of measurements in high and low fields

There are some puzzling features of the stress-dependence of magnetic susceptibility in rocks, although the behaviour in high fields appears to be well understood. As a test for the factors that cause low-field behaviour to differ from current theories we have made both high- and low-field torquemeter measurements of the stress-induced magnetic anisotropies of a number of rocks. Ratios of low- and high-field torques differing from expectation by factors up to 4 or so have been found in some rocks, although others conform well to expectation. A comprehensive study of magnetic and microscopic properties was undertaken to seek the cause(s) of the discrepancies. Stress sensitivity of susceptibility becomes particularly high in titanomagnetite with composition parameter x ≈ 0.6, at which the intrinsic anisotropy vanishes, and some other high values appear to be related to the presence of sulphide. It is concluded that current theory is satisfactory if but only if the magnetic minerals in a rock are simple titanomagnetites with x ? 0.4.     

Geochemistry of hydrothermal alteration at the Roosevelt hot springs thermal area,Utah

Hot spring deposits in the Roosevelt thermal area consist of opaline sinter and sintercemented alluvium. Alluvium, plutonic rocks, and amphibolite-facies gneiss have been altered by acidsulfate water to alunite and opal at the surface, and alunite, kaolinite, montmorillonite, and muscovite to a depth of 70 m. Marcasite, pyrite, chlorite, and calcite occur below the water table at about 30 m.The thermal water is dilute (ionic strength 0.1–0.2) sodium-chloride brine. The spring water now contains 10 times as much Ca, 100 times as much Mg, and up to 2.5 times as much SO₄ as the deep water. Although the present day spring temperature is 25°C, the temperature was 85°C in 1950.A model for development of the observed alteration is supported by observation and irreversible mass transfer calculations. Hydrothermal fluid convectively rises along major fractures. Water cools by conduction and steam separation, and the pH rises due to carbon dioxide escape. At the surface, hydrogen and sulfate ions are produced by oxidation of H₂S. The low pH water percolates downward and reacts with feldspar in the rocks to produce alunite, kaolinite, montmorillonite, and muscovite as hydrogen ion is consumed.     

Titanomagnetites prepared at different oxidation conditions: Influence of magnetite-rich inclusions

Synthetic titanomagnetites prepared at 1300°C at different oxidation potentials, although giving only spinel-type X-ray reflections, were found to contain a small amount of included material with a Curie point above that for the bulk material. Specimens, comprising either dispersed sized grains, or polycrystalline spherical aggregates of grains, develop thermoremanent moments which are dependent upon the presence of the inclusions. The magnetization of the inclusions is revealed by thermal demagnetization experiments, and the experimental results are compared with the effects expected to arise from magnetic shielding by the matrix titanomagnetite.     

Earth albedo and the orbit of Lageos

The long-period perturbations in the orbit of Lageos satellite due to the earth's albedo have been found using a new analytical formalism. The earth is assumed to be a sphere whose surface diffusely reflects sunlight according to Lambert's law. Specular reflection is not considered. The formalism is based on spherical harmonics; it produces equations which hold regardless of whether the terminator is seen by the satellite or not. Specializing in the case of a realistic zonal albedo shows that Lageos' orbital semimajor axis changes periodically by only about a centimeter and the eccentricity by two parts in 10⁵. The longitude of the node increases secularly by about 6×10^–4 arc sec yr^–1. The effect considered here can explain neither the secular decay of 1.1 mm day^–1 in the semimajor axis nor the observed along-track variations in acceleration of order 2×10^–12 ms^–2.     

Observations of the supernova SN1987L with the new Faint Object Spectrograph on the 4.2 m William Herschel Telescope

We present the spectrum of the supernova SN1987L in NGC 2336 over the wavelength range 4000–9700 Å as recorded in one 500 s exposure on 20–21 October, 1987. This spectrum was taken using the new Faint Object Spectrograph on the 4.2 m William Herschel Telescope (WHT) at the Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos.We conclude that SN1987L was a type Ia supernova, and approximately 100 days post maximum at the time of the observation.