Bjorn Lomborg, The Sceptical Environmentalist

Bjorn Lomborg, the "sceptical environmentalist", argues that anxious environmentalists have got it wrong. The world's environment is basically doing fine, he says, despite the increase in humankind's demands upon it.^[11] Indeed, he points to various improvements in environmental conditions achieved in recent decades. However, he is only telling the more superficial part of the story; he fails to explore the less familiar, but troubling, possible consequences of the disruption of Earth's ecological, climatic and other natural systems.     

A Long-Term Perspective on Glacial Erosion

A rough estimate of glacial erosion in the Precambrian basement is related to the total denudation of bedrock since its formation in the Proterozoic. The basis for the calculations is reference to surfaces of different age. Glacial erosion is responsible for merely polishing the northern shields. Major denudation occurred during the Proterozoic and amounted to tens of kilometres. During long periods the basement was protected by Palaeozoic cover rocks. It was re-exposed successively during the Mesozoic and Tertiary with denudation amounting to 600 m at the most. Glacial erosion can generally be counted in tens of metres though with great variations. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

非线性地球物理反演方法:回顾与展望

自20世纪90年代以来，非线性地球物理反演方法已走向成熟，这些方法包括线性化迭代法，仿真淬火法，遗传算法及联合反演方法等，线性化迭代反演基于开放物理系统状态发生相变的原理，要进一步改善模型参数化的技术和迭代过程的自组织；仿真淬火法与遗传算法基于自然过程的指数率或生物演化的优生率，可以相互结合以提高解估计的分辨率与置信度；联合反演要结合岩石物理性质的统计规律，才能取得兼容地质与综合方法的应用效果，地球动力学中的反问题不仅涉及偏微分方程系数项的求解，而且涉及初始条件或初始边界的求解，对地球动力学作用过程研究特别重要。     

A New Statistical Perspective on Trophic Indexes for Shallow Lakes

Water Resources - The aim of this study is to develop a new trophic level index using water quality parameters which are known to affect eutrophication but not in national and international...     

Grey Water Footprint Assessment from the Perspective of Water Pollution Sources: A Case Study of China

Water Resources - With the acceleration of industrialization and urbanization, the water crisis is becoming more severe and may threaten the future of sustainable development. Assessing grey water...     

Lg Coda Q and its Relation to the Structure and Evolution of Continents: A Global Perspective

—Tomographic maps of Lg coda Q (Q ^c _Lg) variation are now available for nearly the entire African, Eurasian, South American, and Australian continents, as well as for the United States. Q ^c _Lg at 1 Hz (Q ₀) varies from less than 200 to more than 1000 and Q ^c _Lg frequency dependence (<eta>) varies between 0.0 and nearly 1.0. Q ₀ appears to increase in proportion to the length of time that has elapsed since the most recent major episode of tectonic or orogenic activity in any region. A plot of Q ₀ versus time since that activity indicates that a single Q ₀-time relation approximates most mean Q ₀ values. Those that deviate most from the trend lay in Australia, the Arabian Peninsula, and the East African rift. The increase in Q ₀ with time may be due to a continual increase in crustal shear wave Q (Q ) caused by the loss of crustal fluids and reduction of crustal permeability following tectonic or orogenic activity. Extrapolated values of Q ^c _Lg at 5 Hz (using Q ₀ and <eta> values measured at 1 Hz and assuming that <eta> is constant in all regions between 1 and 5 Hz) show a similar percentage-wise increase with times that has elapsed since the most recent activity. Other factors that can reduce Q ₀ in continental regions include thick accumulations of sediment (especially sandstone and shale of Mesozoic age and younger), severe velocity gradients at the crust-mantle transition and, possibly, lateral variations in the depth, thickness, and severity of those gradients. Severe and large increases of Q in the mid-crust of some regions can cause relatively large values of <eta>, even if the frequency dependence of Q is small.     

The Magnetospheric cusps: A Summary

The polar cusps of the magnetosphere are key regions for the transfer of mass, momentum, and energy from the solar wind into the magnetosphere. Understaning these key regions and the dynamical interactions that occur there are fundamentally important to determining the physical nature of the magnetosphere. In this paper we try to summarize many of the conclusions reached in the papers of this special issue emphasizing the present concepts and definition of the cusp, what variations could be temporal structures and what could be spatial structures. We address the need for further measurements and the role of present and planned projects to address these needs.     

The cooling Earth: A reappraisal

By treating the lithosphere as a diffusive boundary layer to mantle convection, the convective speed or mantle creep rate, $\text{?}\text{?}$, can be related to the mantle-derived heat flux, $\text{Q}\text{?}$. If cell size is independent of $\text{Q}\text{?}{}^2$ then $\text{?}\text{?}\text{∝}\text{Q}\text{?}$. (If cell size varies with $\text{Q}\text{?}$, then a different power law prevails, but the essential conclusions are unaffected.) Then the factthat for constant thermodynamic efficiency of mantle convection, the mechanical power dissipation is proportionalto $\text{Q}\text{?}$, gives convective stress $\text{σ ∝}\text{Q}\text{?}{}^{\mathrm{?1}}$, i.e. the stress increases as the convection slows. This means an increasing viscosityor stiffness of the mantle which can be identified with a cooling rate in terms of a temperature-dependent creep law. If we suppose that the mantle was at or close to its melting point within 1 or 2 × 10⁸ years of accretionof the Earth, the whole scale of cooling is fixed. The present rate of cooling is estimated to be about 4.6 × 10^?8 deg y^?1 for the average mantle temperature, assumed to be 2500 K, but this very slow cooling rate represents a loss ofresidual mantle heat of 7 × 10¹² W, about 30% of the total mantle-derived heat flux. This conclusion requires theEarth to be deficient in radioactive heat, relative to carbonaceous chondrites. A consideration of mantle outgassing and atmospheric argon leads to the conclusion that the deficiency is due to depletion of potassium, and that the K/U ratio of the mantle is only about 2500, much less than either the crustal or carbonaceous chondritic values. Thetotal terrestrial potassium is estimated to be about 6 × 10²⁰ kg. Acceptance of the cooling of the Earth removes the necessity for potassium in the core.     

The Inner Magnetosphere: A Review

This paper addresses research achievements during roughly the period 1991–1993 pertaining to the inner magnetosphere including the radiation belts, plasmasphere, and ring current region. It also addresses issues concerning the magnetic fields, electrical currents, and particle precipitation properties that relate to this region of the solar-terrestrial system. Recent analysis and modeling of magnetospheric substorms and geomagnetic storms affecting the inner edge of the plasma sheet are discussed and the regions from the geostationary orbit inward toward the Earth are examined in light of new observational and theoretical tools.Presented at the 7th Scientific Assembly International Association of Geomagnetism and Aeronomy Buenos Aires, Argentina 8–20 August 1993.     

Slip, Stress Drop and Ground Motion of Earthquakes: A View from the Perspective of Fractional Brownian Motion

—The characteristics of slip and stress drop distributions accompanying earthquakes are explored from the perspective of fractional Brownian motion (fBm). Slip and stress drop distributions are assumed to be processes of fBm.The Hurst exponent (H), which reveals the roughness of a random process of fBm, is first estimated from ten inferred slip maps for six crustal earthquakes occurring in California. The relationships between the Hurst exponents with respect to static slip (H _u ),stress (H _τ ), static stress drop (H _δσ ) and slip velocity (H _ú ) are then established following Andrews (1980). They are found to be H _δσ = H _τ = H _u -1 = H _ú -0.5. Empirically, H _u is recognized as being about 1 which, according to the theory of fBm, implies that the static slip distribution of an earthquake is just on the margin between being and not being self-similar, depending on the individual case. Cases where H _u is less than 1 (i.e., self-similar) suggest that H _δσ < 0(i.e., the distribution of static stress drop diverges), which is, in light of fBm, invalid. One possible explanation for this paradox is that H _u is less than 1 in crustal earthquake phenomena only over a certain specific bandwidth of wavenumbers, or it could be that the relation H _δσ = H _u -1 is not valid, which implies that static stress drop in the wavenumber domain is not the product of stiffness and slip as described in Andrews (1980). It could be that some different physics apply over this particular bandwidth. In such cases, multi-fractals may be a better way to explore the characteristics of the Hurst exponents of slip. In general, static stress drop and stress distributions are more likely to be self-similar than static slip distribution. H _u ≌ 1 and H _δσ ≌ 0 are good first approxima tions for the slip and stress drop distributions. The spectrum of ground motion displacement falls off as ω ^{-(Hδσ + 2)} with H _δσ ≌ 0, consistent with an ω^-2 model of the earthquake source.     

A hydrodynamic curiosity: The salt oscillator

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the derivation of the dispersion relation of a static fully ionized hydrogen plasma, at a temperature much smaller than 10¹⁰°K, interacting with radiation through electron scattering. The Fokker-Planck form of the transfer equation is first considered and the derivation of the dispersion relation is reduced to the resolution of a v-differential eigenvalue problem, which could be realized by numerical integration. In the second part, the dispersion relation is explicitly derived in the frame of an algebraic approximation of the transfer equation. This shows that the branches of this relation, which are obtained in the optically thick and in the optically thin limits, are continuously connected to each other in a somehow remarkable way.     

The Oaxaca gap: A case history

An attempted use of seismic gap observations to predict a large earthquake in Oaxaca, Mexico is discussed. The observations were initially published in a scientific journal and were subsequently distorted by noncientists, who predicted a major earthquake and tsunami to take place at Pinotepa Nacional, Oaxaca on 23 April 1978. Public reactions and property losess sustained by individuals and communities were comparable to those expected from an actual earthquake. A revision of epicenter locations from the NOAA data file revealed that a number of earthquakes did occur in the alleged gap but had been excluded because their reported focal depth was in excess of 60 km. It is shown that the probability that the number of earthquakes in two consecutive time intervals of a stationary Poisson process differs by an amount which would be reported as a seismic gap is of the order of 5% or more for Oaxaca. This means that spurious seismic gaps would be observed in one out of 20 data runs. The possibility of detecting a true interval of abnormal quiescence in a random earthquake sequence appears to be fairly remote in this case.     

利用电磁波CT技术进行岩溶区透视成像

利用井间电磁波CT技术可以对地下岩溶、破碎带等问题进行精细探查。本文通过构建岩溶区域模型,利用数值模拟手段对岩溶区进行电磁波CT透视模拟,讨论电磁波在岩溶发育区的衰减及响应特征。结合杭州某地实施孔间电磁波透视成像,对岩溶发育区进行解释,并与钻孔实际揭露地质资料相对比,结果表明电磁波CT对探测岩溶发育区效果良好。     

The Gulf: A young sea in decline

This review examines the substantial changes that have taken place in marine habitats and resources of the Gulf over the past decade. The habitats are especially interesting because of the naturally high levels of temperature and salinity stress they experience, which is important in a changing world climate. However, the extent of all natural habitats is changing and their condition deteriorating because of the rapid development of the region and, in some cases from severe, episodic warming episodes.Major impacts come from numerous industrial, infrastructure-based, and residential and tourism development activities, which together combine, synergistically in some cases, to cause the observed deterioration in most benthic habitats. Substantial sea bottom dredging for material and its deposition in shallow water to extend land or to form a basis for huge developments, directly removes large areas of shallow, productive habitat, though in some cases the most important effect is the accompanying sedimentation or changes to water flows and conditions. The large scale of the activities compared to the relatively shallow and small size of the water body is a particularly important issue.Important from the perspective of controlling damaging effects is the limited cross-border collaboration and even intra-country collaboration among government agencies and large projects. Along with the accumulative nature of impacts that occur, even where each project receives environmental assessment or attention, each is treated more or less alone, rarely in combination. However, their combination in such a small, biologically interacting sea exacerbates the overall deterioration. Very few similar areas exist which face such a high concentration of disturbance, and the prognosis for the Gulf continuing to provide abundant natural resources is poor.