Response surfaces of vulnerability to climate change: the Colorado River Basin,the High Plains,and California

We quantify the vulnerability of water supply to shortage for the Colorado River Basin and basins of the High Plains and California and assess the sensitivity of their water supply system to future changes in the statistical variability of supply and demand. We do so for current conditions and future socio-economic scenarios within a probabilistic framework that incorporates the inherent uncertainties in the drivers of vulnerability. Our analysis indicates that the most sensitive basins to both current and future variability of demand and supply are the Central California and the San Joaquin-Tulare basins. Large sensitivity is also found for the Kansas basin of the High Plains. Within the Colorado River Basin, the Lower Colorado and Gila were found to be the most vulnerable and sensitive sub-basins. By accounting for future uncertainty within the above probabilistic framework, this study unveils and isolates the individual responses of a given basin to changes in the statistical properties of demand and supply and offers a valuable tool for the identification of policy strategies and adaptation measures.     

PCDD/Fs in sediments of Central Vietnam coastal lagoons: in search of TCDD

Samples from nine Central Vietnam coastal lagoons, together with three soils and sediments collected in two freshwater reservoirs of the Thua Thien-Hué province, were analysed for polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans (PCDD/Fs). Total concentrations are low, from 192 to 2912 pg g⁻¹ and depth profiles in Tam Giang-Cau Hai (TG-CH) sediment cores show only minor changes over time in PCDD/F input and composition. Octachloro dibenzo-p-dioxin (OCDD) is the prevailing congener (approximately 90%), indicating combustion as the main PCDD/F source to these coastal systems, whereas natural formation might be partly responsible for the presence at depth. 2,3,7,8-Tetrachloro dibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD), largely sprayed together with Agent Orange over the study areas during the war (1961–1971), is absent or very low. This result supports the hypothesis of strong degradation soon after spraying. Multivariate statistical analyses account for the presence of local, short-range sources as observed in the northern part of the TG-CH lagoon.     

Radioxenon Time Series and Meteorological Pattern Analysis for CTBT Event Categorisation

Understanding radioxenon time series and being able to distinguish anthropogenic from nuclear explosion signals are fundamental issues for the technical verification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. Every radioxenon event categorisation methodology must take into account the background at each monitoring site to uncover anomalies that may be related to nuclear explosions. Feedback induced by local meteorological patterns on the equipment and on the sampling procedures has been included in the analysis to improve a possible event categorisation scheme. The occurrence probability of radioxenon outliers has been estimated with a time series approach characterising and avoiding the influence of local meteorological patterns. A power spectrum estimator for radioxenon and meteorological time series was selected; the randomness of the radioxenon residual time series has been tested for white noise by Kolmogorov–Smirnov and Ljung–Box tests. This methodological approach was applied to radioxenon data collected at two monitoring sites located at St. John’s, Canada and Charlottesville, USA, equipped with two different noble gas systems. It shows different feedback with local meteorological patterns and randomness for the radioxenon data recorded at the selected sites of St. John’s and Charlottesville as well as a different occurrence probability of the outliers in the normalized radioxenon original and residual time series.     

Exact analytic solutions for the rotation of an axially symmetric rigid body subjected to a constant torque

New exact analytic solutions are introduced for the rotational motion of a rigid body having two equal principal moments of inertia and subjected to an external torque which is constant in magnitude. In particular, the solutions are obtained for the following cases: (1) Torque parallel to the symmetry axis and arbitrary initial angular velocity; (2) Torque perpendicular to the symmetry axis and such that the torque is rotating at a constant rate about the symmetry axis, and arbitrary initial angular velocity; (3) Torque and initial angular velocity perpendicular to the symmetry axis, with the torque being fixed with the body. In addition to the solutions for these three forced cases, an original solution is introduced for the case of torque-free motion, which is simpler than the classical solution as regards its derivation and uses the rotation matrix in order to describe the body orientation. This paper builds upon the recently discovered exact solution for the motion of a rigid body with a spherical ellipsoid of inertia. In particular, by following Hestenes’ theory, the rotational motion of an axially symmetric rigid body is seen at any instant in time as the combination of the motion of a “virtual” spherical body with respect to the inertial frame and the motion of the axially symmetric body with respect to this “virtual” body. The kinematic solutions are presented in terms of the rotation matrix. The newly found exact analytic solutions are valid for any motion time length and rotation amplitude. The present paper adds further elements to the small set of special cases for which an exact solution of the rotational motion of a rigid body exists.     

The structure of blue supergiant winds and the accretion in supergiant high-mass X-ray binaries

We have developed a stellar wind model for OB supergiants to investigate the effects of accretion from a clumpy wind on the luminosity and variability properties of high-mass X-ray binaries. Assuming that the clumps are confined by ram pressure of the ambient gas and exploring different distributions for their mass and radii, we computed the expected X-ray light curves in the framework of the Bondi–Hoyle accretion theory, modified to take into account the presence of clumps. The resulting variability properties are found to depend not only on the assumed orbital parameters but also on the wind characteristics. We have then applied this model to reproduce the X-ray light curves of three representative high-mass X-ray binaries: two persistent supergiant systems (Vela X−1 and 4U 1700−377) and the supergiant fast X-ray transient IGR J11215−5952. The model can reproduce the observed light curves well, but requiring in all cases an overall mass loss from the supergiant about a factor of 3–10 smaller than the values inferred from ultraviolet lines studies that assume a homogeneous wind.     

Heavy metal contamination in surface sediments from the Gulf of Venice, Italy

The authors studied surface sediments from 102 stations in four areas of the three port entrances to the Lagoon of Venice, examining the relationships between textural character, mineralogical composition, and Hg, Pb, Cd, Cu, Ni, Cr, Zn, Co and Fe content. Heavy metal distribution allowed boundaries to be fixed between polluted and nonpolluted zones. While the Cavallino area is not polluted, very high concentrations of Zn, Pb and Hg in the two central areas, facing the Lido and Malamocco port entrances, respectively, suggest that wastes mainly from industrial production of zinc are present. High concentrations of Cr in the southern part of the Chioggia area are probably due to tannery wastes reaching the sea from the Brenta river.     

New petrochemical data of volcanites from the Island of Pantelleria (Channel of Sicily)

The author presents 32 new analyses of volcanites from Pantelleria and draws some magmatological and geochemical conclusions.

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Zusammenfassung Der Autor gibt 32 neue Analysen von Vulkaniten von Pantelleria bekannt und zieht daraus einige magmatologische und geochemische Schlußfolgerungen.

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Résumé L'auteur présente 32 analyses nouvelles de roches volcaniques de l'île de Pantelleria et en tire des conclusions d'ordre magmatologique et géochimique.

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Riassunto Nella presente nota, l'Autore riporta 32 nuove analisi di vulcaniti di Pantelleria traendone delle conclusioni di carattere magmatologico e geochimico.

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32 Pantelleria. , .

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Dedicated to Professor Dr. A.Rittmann on the occasion of his 75. birthday     

Is the forward problem of ground water hydrology always well posed?

Complex aquifer systems are often modeled with quasi-three-dimensional models, which consider two-dimensional horizontal flow in the aquifers and one-dimensional vertical flow through aquitards. When the aquifer system consists of a phreatic aquifer and one or more semiconfined aquifers connected by aquitards, the discrete model consists of a nonlinear system of algebraic equations, because the transmissivity of the phreatic aquifer depends on the phreatic head. If the water extraction is very high, the phreatic aquifer can be depleted and the equations of the model must be modified accordingly. There are not simple and general criteria to state if the phreatic aquifer is depleted before solving the system of equations. Therefore, the iterative procedures (e.g., relaxation methods), used to find the solution to the forward problem, must handle these particular conditions and can suffer several problems of convergence. These problems can be caused by the choice of the initial head values or of the relaxation coefficient of the iterative algorithms; however, they can also be caused by the nonexistence or nonuniqueness of the solution to the system of nonlinear equations. The study of existence and uniqueness of the general problem is very difficult and, therefore, we consider a simplified problem, for which the discrete model can be handled analytically. The results of the numerical experiments show that the solution to the forward problem can be nonunique. Only for some cases it is possible to invoke physical arguments to eliminate tentative solutions.