Quaternary zoogeography of the Nearctic Dicrostonyx lemmings

Twenty-four fossil localities of Dicrostonyx lemmings are reported in North America. The fossil localities are all extralimital except two, one in Alaska and one in the Northwest Territories. The Pleistocene fossil distribution parallels the modern ranges: Dicrostonyx hudsonius east of Hudson Bay and the Appalachian Mountains and D. torquatus to the west. Dicrostonyx remains of the late Quaternary are generally found in disharmonious faunas and may therefore not be an accurate indicator of a strict tundra environment.     

On the entrainment of sediment and initiation of bed defects: insights from recent developments within turbulent boundary layer research

Sediment entrainment and the initiation of bed defects has commonly been ascribed to the impact of high velocity sweeps upon mobile sand beds. Results of visualization experiments suggest that these sweep impacts are grouped and may define ‘patches’of entrainment upon a mobile bed that may be wider than an individual sweep impact. Additionally, the presence of longitudinal ribs of sediment generated by sweep impacts may stabilize the position of sweeps and low speed streaks. These observations are interpreted in the light of recent boundary layer research which suggests the formation of multiple hairpin shaped vortices within turbulent flows: these are postulated to generate multiple sweeps that manifest themselves as entrainment patches on a mobile bed. These features of the turbulent boundary layer and its modification by sweep generated sediment ridges can be used to propose a model for bed defect formation and the subsequent development of current ripples.     

A CHANGING TEMPERATURE RESPONSE WITH ELEVATION FOR LAGAROSTROBOS FRANKLINII IN TASMANIA, AUSTRALIA

A network of seven Huon pine ring-width chronologies is constructed from sites ranging in elevation from 200 to 950 metres above sea level in western Tasmania. The chronologies are analysed individually and collectively to explore Huon pines response to climate as a function of elevation. Three chronologies from greater than 700 metres in elevation exhibit a strong, direct response to temperature for most growing season months (p<0.05), while three from below 700 metres exhibit a weaker, direct response to growing-season temperature, and a strong, inverse relationship with temperature of the prior season of growth, also significant at the 0.05 level. Moisture availability at these temperate rainforest sites is less growth-limiting than temperature, and significant correlations for January (inverse) and April (direct) of the year of growth largely reflect the inter-relationships between temperature, precipitation and cloudiness, and their combined influence on photosynthesis, particularly at higher-elevation sites. A rotated Principal Component Analysis reveals a clear grouping of the high and low-elevation chronologies, represented by the first and second eigenvectors, respectively. The 700 metre Lake Marilyn Low chronology is revealed to be a transitional site between the two groupings, and likely reflects an important climatic ecotone where both temperature and photosynthetically-active radiation drop below optimum levels for the species, and begin to directly inhibit growth. Tasmania's west coast climate has been shown to exhibit a distinct vertical structure, exemplified by a subsidence-inversion layer above 900 metres. Temperature increases slightly with altitude above 930 metres (the elevation at which a peak in daily minimum and maximum humidity levels is observed) before decreasing again. A dense, orographically-generated cloud-zone of reduced light and temperature has a mean altitude between 700 and 900 metres, with the steepest drop in both air and soil temperature exhibited between 850 and 930 metres. This structure can account for Huon pines changing response to climate with elevation as described in this paper, and reinforces the importance of careful site selection for dendroclimatic research. In the case of reconstructing warm-season temperature from Tasmanian Huon pine, the desired signal might be maximised through sampling at the few rare, subalpine stands which have been located in western Tasmania. The great length afforded by the low-elevation Huon pine resource may ultimately yield a far more detailed reconstruction of regional climate throughout the Holocene, with respect to a vertical profile, following the development of more sound, mechanistically-based response models.     

PHYSICAL IMPACTS OF CLIMATIC CHANGE ON DELTAIC COASTAL SYSTEMS (I): AN APPROACH

The evaluation of the impact of climate change on deltaic systems implies studying a multi-component system in which the complexity of links is high enough to present doing it as a whole. Because of this, it is a reasonable approach to study separately the behaviour of each element, to be afterwards linked into a general conceptual model for deltaic behaviour. Moreover, in the case of largely regulated deltas, the main impacts of climatic change will be marine-related since those related to the catchment areas will be severely damped by river regulation and management policies. This fact implies that coastal fringes may become the main frontier between the delta and climatic change effects. In this context, a methodology to study climatic change impacts on deltaic coastal fringes is here presented. It will be further developed on two companion papers dealing with the study of driving terms and coastal response. As coastal processes act at different time and space scales, determining the reference – initial – situation must be done taking into account the inherent system dynamics. It is thus unrealistic to characterize the initial stage as a static one. In order to avoid this simplistic approach, a comprehensive approach to the coastal system must be employed, with three different scales (long-term/large scale, medium term/scale and episodic).     

PHYSICAL IMPACTS OF CLIMATIC CHANGE ON DELTAIC COASTAL SYSTEMS (II): DRIVING TERMS

The evaluation of the impact of climatic change on deltaic coastal systems requires establishing a reference situation. As deltaic coastal zones are highly dynamic areas, it is necessary to define the reference situation as a function of their present evolutive stage. This implies characterizing coastal processes as a complex system defined by the links between driving or forcing terms and the coastal response at different temporal and spatial scales (long/large, medium and episodic scales). Starting from classical previous works on deltaic systems and including all available field and conceptual knowledge to properly consider present conditions (largely regulated rivers, subsidence, etc.) a detailed methodology to analyse forcing or driving agents at the three mentioned scales is presented. This methodology which developed the general approach presented in a companion paper, will be followed by a future paper focusing on the analysis of the coastal response.     

Detecting and adjusting temporal inhomogeneity in Chinese mean surface air temperature data

Adopting the Easterling-Peterson (EP) techniques and considering the reality of Chinese meteorolog-ical observations, this paper designed several tests and tested for inhomogeneities in all Chinese historicalsurface air temperature series from 1951 to 2001. The result shows that the time series have been widelyimpacted by inhomogeneities resulting from the relocation of stations and changes in local environmentsuch as urbanization or some other factors. Among these factors, station relocations caused the largestmagnitude of abrupt changes in the time series, and other factors also resulted in inhomogeneities to someextent. According to the amplitude of change of the difference series and the monthly distribution featuresof surface air temperatures, discontinuities identified by applying both the E-P technique and supportedby China‘s station history records, or by comparison with other approaches, have been adjusted. Basedon the above processing, the most significant temporal inhomogeneities were eliminated, and China‘s mosthomogeneous surface air temperature series has thus been created. Results show that the inhomogeneitytesting captured well the most important change of the stations, and the adjusted dataset is more reli-able than ever. This suggests that the adjusted temperature dataset has great value of decreasing theuncertaities in the study of‘ observed climate change in China.     

Comment on "Air pollution and precipitation suppression over SE Australia: critical review of evidence presented by Rosenfeld (2000) and Rosenfeld (2006)" by Greg Ayers

Rosenfeld (2000, hereafter R00), in applying new satellite methodology to analyse case studies in Southeastern Australia and elsewhere, provided evidence that urban and industrial air pollution can suppress precipitation from shallow clouds. He concluded that 'Air pollution must be an important factor in determining the precipitation amounts in the Snowy Mountains'. These satellite observations were the impetus for our proposed detailed follow-on research program to further validate and quantify these inferences, publicly offered in Rosenfeld et al. (2006, hereafter R06) and repeated here, thereby recognizing the remaining large uncertainties. In response, Ayers (2009, hereafter A09) attempts to deny the significance and validity of the observations of R00. His scientific arguments are refuted here. Furthermore, A09 wrote erroneously that 'a hypothesis that air pollution in the form of small particles has caused a secular decrease in precipitation over SE Australia was advanced by Rosenfeld (2000) , who concluded that the hypothesis was proven.' But R00 did not make such a claim, although this is a viable hypothesis that warrants testing (R06). In fact, R00 wrote: 'trend analyses of snow, winter temperature, and total winter rainfall for the period 1910–1991 showed statistically insignificant decreases… ( Duus, 1992 )'.     

Longitudinal Petrochemical Variation in the Mackenzie Dyke Swarm, Northwestern Canadian Shield

Previous magnetic fabric studies of the giant, radiating, 1.27Ga Mackenzie dyke swarm concluded that flow patterns withinthe dykes support the concept of a mantle plume that is centredbeneath the swarm focus and supplies magma to overlying floodbasalts and developing radial dykes. To examine petrochemicalimplications of the model, compositional variation within thebasalt sequence is compared with that of the dykes along a ‘streamline’ of the swarm between 400 km (just beneath the lavas)and 2100 km from its focus and in a parallel segment farthereast. Evolution of tholeiitic magmas of the main sampled streamis recorded in the upward change of composition in the lavasequence from mg-numbers of 70 to 35. Underlying (feeder) dykeshave a comparable range, but outward along the swarm the rangeof compositions narrows progressively towards its more evolvedend, and at 2100 km, dyke compositions match those in upperlevels of the lava sequence. REE and other trace element abundancesshow a similar contraction in range, and a shift towards moreevolved compositions, both upward in the lava sequence and outwardalong the swarm. Apart from complications owing to crustal contamination,fundamental attributes of the magma (e.g. Zr/Y) change littlewith stratigraphic level or distance from the focus. The moreeasterly stream differs in its high proportion of alkalic compositions,suggesting the existence of distinctive subswarms. Normativemineral variation plots are consistent with fractionation inhigh- (main stream) to low-level (eastern stream) crustal magmachambers. Mackenzie magmatism is compatible with the plume model.Domal uplift related to plume activity initiated central grabencollapse and outward-extending radial fractures, thus providingaccess to plume-derived magmas and loci for magma chamber anddyke swarm development. Multiple magma chambers, forming aroundthe apex, each fed relatively independent subswarms of dykes.Uplift, accompanying fractionation, provided increasing magmatichead by which fractionating magmas could be dispatched to successivelygreater distances. This, and crystal settling in transport,accounts for the increasingly evolved nature of dykes with distancefrom the source. KEY WORDS: mantle plume; flood basalts; dyke swarm; petrochemistry; Precambrian ^*Corresponding author.