Well-being and environmental change in the arctic: a synthesis of selected research from Canada’s International Polar Year program

The social and cultural dimensions of arctic environmental change were explored through Canada??s International Polar Year (IPY) research program. Drawing on concepts of vulnerability, resilience and human security, we discuss preliminary results of 15 IPY research projects (of 52) which dealt with the effects and responses of northern communities to issues of ecological variability, natural resource development and climate change. This paper attempts to determine whether the preliminary results of these projects have contributed to the IPY program goal of building knowledge about well-being in the arctic. The projects were diverse in focus and approach but together offer a valuable pan-northern perspective on many themes including land and resource use, food security, poverty and best practices of northern engagement. Case study research using self-reported measures suggests individual views of their own well-being differ from regional and territorial standardized statistics on quality of life. A large body of work was developed around changes in land and resource use. A decline in land and resource use in some areas and consequent concerns for food security, are directly linked to the effects of climate change, particularly in coastal areas where melting sea ice, erratic weather events and changes in the stability of landscapes (e.g., erosion, slumping) are leading to increased risks for land users. Natural resource development, while creating some new economic opportunities, may be compounding rather than offsetting such stresses of environmental change for vulnerable populations. While the IPY program has contributed to our understanding of some aspects of well-being in the arctic, many other issues of social, economic, cultural and political significance, including those unrelated to environmental change, remain poorly understood.     

Non-uniform interhemispheric temperature trends over the past 550 years

The warming trend over the last century in the northern hemisphere (NH) was interrupted by cooling from ad 1940 to 1975, a period during which the southern hemisphere experienced pronounced warming. The cause of these departures from steady warming at multidecadal timescales are unclear; the prevailing explanation is that they are driven by non-uniformity in external forcings but recent models suggest internal climate drivers may play a key role. Paleoclimate datasets can help provide a long-term perspective. Here we use tree-rings to reconstruct New Zealand mean annual temperature over the last 550 years and demonstrate that this has frequently cycled out-of-phase with NH mean annual temperature at a periodicity of around 30–60 years. Hence, observed multidecadal fluctuations around the recent warming trend have precedents in the past, strongly implicating natural climate variation as their cause. We consider the implications of these changes in understanding and modelling future climate change.     

Vulnerability of Aboriginal health systems in Canada to climate change

Climate change has been identified as potentially the biggest health threat of the 21st century. Canada in general has a well developed public health system and low burden of health which will moderate vulnerability. However, there is significant heterogeneity in health outcomes, and health inequality is particularly pronounced among Aboriginal Canadians. Intervention is needed to prevent, prepare for, and manage climate change effects on Aboriginal health but is constrained by a limited understanding of vulnerability and its determinants. Despite limited research on climate change and Aboriginal health, however, there is a well established literature on Aboriginal health outcomes, determinants, and trends in Canada; characteristics that will determine vulnerability to climate change. In this paper we systematically review this literature, using a vulnerability framework to identify the broad level factors constraining adaptive capacity and increasing sensitivity to climate change. Determinants identified include: poverty, technological capacity constraints, socio-political values and inequality, institutional capacity challenges, and information deficit. The magnitude and nature of these determinants will be distributed unevenly within and between Aboriginal populations necessitating place-based and regional level studies to examine how these broad factors will affect vulnerability at lower levels. The study also supports the need for collaboration across all sectors and levels of government, open and meaningful dialogue between policy makers, scientists, health professionals, and Aboriginal communities, and capacity building at a local level, to plan for climate change. Ultimately, however, efforts to reduce the vulnerability of Aboriginal Canadians to climate change and intervene to prevent, reduce, and manage climate-sensitive health outcomes, will fail unless the broader determinants of socio-economic and health inequality are addressed.     

Multiple regression of GRB luminosity on light-curve properties

Statistical relations between the luminosity L of gamma-ray burster (GRBs) and several of their other observable properties have been discovered. Four of these properties are considered here: the spectral lag; a measure of the light-curve variability; peak energy and the minimum light-curve rise time. Data are taken from a tabulation by Schaefer. Log–log regression of L on various combinations of the four light-curve properties, as well as redshift, is considered, using conventional multiple linear regression, and multiple errors-in-variables regression. Several cases are found in which the regression coefficients of more than one luminosity indicators are significant. In particular, the simultaneous regression of luminosity on peak energy, spectral lag, minimum rise time and redshift is meaningful.     

Optical and near-infrared colours as a discriminant of the age and metallicity of stellar populations

We present a comprehensive analysis of the ability of current stellar population models to reproduce the optical ( ugriz ) and near-infrared ( JHK ) colours of a small sample of well-studied nearby elliptical and S0 galaxies. We find broad agreement between the ages and metallicities derived using different population models, although different models show different systematic deviations from the measured broad-band fluxes. Although it is possible to constrain simple stellar population models to a well-defined area in age–metallicity space, there is a clear degeneracy between these parameters even with such a full range of precise colours. The precision to which age and metallicity can be determined independently, using only broad-band photometry with realistic errors, is  Δ[Fe/H]≃ 0.18  and  Δlog Age ≃ 0.25  . To constrain the populations and therefore the star formation history further, it will be necessary to combine broad-band optical–IR photometry with either spectral line indices, or else photometry at wavelengths outside this range.     

西藏恰功铁矿岩浆演化序列及斑岩出溶流体特征

冈底斯成矿带是碰撞造山过程形成的最重要的成矿带,恰功矽卡岩铁(铜)矿床即位于冈底斯成矿带中部.本文在详细的野外地质填图和室内研究基础上确定了恰功铁矿与成矿有关的斑岩体为二长花岗斑岩,锆石的U-Pb定年结果为68.8±2.2 Ma,明显早于冈底斯东部与后碰撞伸展有关的斑岩型矿床和主碰撞期形成的矽卡岩型矿床,其应代表了冈底斯一次尚未被充分认识到的成矿事件.通过对成矿斑岩的岩石学、岩石化学、岩浆出溶流体的包裹体岩相学、显微测温分析及包裹体成分的LRM、LA-ICP-MS和PIXE分析,本文探讨了与该矽卡岩矿床有关的斑岩的岩浆起源、斑岩侵位机制及出溶流体特征.结果表明,成矿斑岩为矿区最早的侵入岩单元,具有壳幔源混源特征,其常量元素组成与冈底斯东部斑岩铜矿带的埃达克质岩相近,但稀土和微量元素组成与东部斑岩明显不同,为地幔物质上涌并诱发角闪岩相下地壳熔融的产物,岩体侵位深度大(>7 km)、剥蚀程度高.早期岩浆出溶的流体为高温、高压、高盐度流体,其中富含Fe、Pb、Zn、Cu等成矿金属,与世界其他斑岩铜矿床相比,相对富铁、铅而贫铜.流体的沸腾作用发生于钾硅化阶段,形成了一套富气、高盐、高固相和气液包裹体组合,不同于早期出溶流体的包裹体组合.从岩浆起源和出溶流体性质可以看出,该斑岩具有形成与斑岩有关的铁铅多金属矿床的成矿潜力,但从该矿区地表出露的蚀变和包裹体测压结果可以看出,该斑岩体目前剥蚀深度较大,对斑岩型矿床保存不利,对该斑岩体及与成矿关系的认识对理解该区内的矿床成因和指导区域找矿具有重要的指示意义.     

Complex statistics in Hamiltonian barred galaxy models

We use probability density functions (pdfs) of sums of orbit coordinates, over time intervals of the order of one Hubble time, to distinguish weakly from strongly chaotic orbits in a barred galaxy model. We find that, in the weakly chaotic case, quasi-stationary states arise, whose pdfs are well approximated by q-Gaussian functions (with 1 <?q < 3), while strong chaos is identified by pdfs which quickly tend to Gaussians (q =?1). Typical examples of weakly chaotic orbits are those that ??stick?? to islands of ordered motion. Their presence in rotating galaxy models has been investigated thoroughly in recent years due to their ability to support galaxy structures for relatively long time scales. In this paper, we demonstrate, on specific orbits of 2 and 3 degree of freedom barred galaxy models, that the proposed statistical approach can distinguish weakly from strongly chaotic motion accurately and efficiently, especially in cases where Lyapunov exponents and other local dynamic indicators appear to be inconclusive.     

A longer-term perspective on soil moisture,groundwater and stream flow response to the 2018 drought in an experimental catchment in the Scottish Highlands

The drought of summer 2018, which affected much of Northern Europe, resulted in low river flows, biodiversity loss and threats to water supplies. In some regions, like the Scottish Highlands, the summer drought followed two consecutive, anomalously dry, winter periods. Here, we examine how the drought, and its antecedent conditions, affected soil moisture, groundwater storage, and low flows in the Bruntland Burn; a sub-catchment of the Girnock Burn long-term observatory in the Scottish Cairngorm Mountains. Fifty years of rainfall-runoff observations and long-term modelling studies in the Girnock provided unique contextualisation of this extreme event in relation to more usual summer storage dynamics. Whilst summer precipitation in 2018 was only 63% of the long-term mean, soil moisture storage across much of the catchment were less than half of their summer average and seasonal groundwater levels were 0.5 m lower than normal. Hydrometric and isotopic observations showed that ~100 mm of river flows during the summer (May-Sept) were sustained almost entirely by groundwater drainage, representing ~30% of evapotranspiration that occurred over the same period. A key reason that the summer drought was so severe was because the preceding two winters were also dry and failed to adequately replenish catchment soil moisture and groundwater stores. As a result, the drought had the biggest catchment storage deficits for over a decade, and likely since 1975–1976. Despite this, recovery was rapid in autumn/winter 2018, with soil and groundwater stores returning to normal winter values, along with stream flows. The study emphasizes how long-term data from experimental sites are key to understanding the non-linear flux-storage interactions in catchments and the “memory effects” that govern the evolution of, and recovery from, droughts. This is invaluable both in terms of (a) giving insights into hydrological behaviours that will become more common water resource management problems in the future under climate change and (b) providing extreme data to challenge hydrological models.