Organochlorine residues in whales landed at Durban,South Africa

The levels of DDT and its metabolites found in the blubber of 29 minke, 6 fin and 1 sei whale landed at the Durban whaling station in 1974 were on average much lower than those found in baleen whales from the North Atlantic, but of the same order as those measured from the Antarctic and North Pacific. In 12 sperm whales examined at Durban the levels of DDT and its metabolites in the blubber were substantially lower than in any other locality so far examined, including the Antarctic, but this may partly reflect the comparative youth of the animals sampled. Low levels of Dieldrin were found in some minke whales only. No PCB could be detected in any of the whales examined.     

Eine Analyse quasiperiodischer Variationen des Magnetfeldes während geomagnetischer Stürme

Summary Geomagnetic storms of middle intensity—the so-called moderate storms—are characterized in middle latitudes by fluctuations of pulsation and bay type in all three componentsD, H andZ, the periods of which are within the range of 20 to 120 minutes. They are appearing in all three storm phases (initial, main and recovery phase), generally showing a maximum in the main phase. By the aid of statistic frequency analysis as well as of the calculation of the autocorrelation function and power spectra the fluctuations of this period ranges were analysed for 22 geomagnetic storms of middle intensity during the period of 1952 to 1962, recorded at the Niemegk observatory. In order to get an impression about the dependence on latitude 7 parallel records from a station in higher latitude (Dombas, Norway) were analysed in the same way. Power spectra show that there are favoured some periodicities within the period range of 20 to 120 minutes, especially near 50 to 60 and 90 to 120 minutes. This applies to the investigatedX(H)- andY(D)-components as well in middle as in northern latitudes.

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Mitt. aus dem Geomagnetischen Inst. Potsdam Nr. 263.     

PCBs in the firth of clyde

Attention to detail is essential for the reduction of pollution. By detective work, a river purification board has been able to track down an important single source of PCB contamination of its sewage sludge and institute remedial action.     

Mascali,Mount Etna Region Sicily: An Example of Fascist Planning During the 1928 Eruption and Its Continuing Legacy

The 1928 eruption of Etna, Sicily, although the largest such event this century, has not been studied in detail. In this paper the nature of the eruption, the destruction it caused – including the complete devastation of the town of Mascali (pre-eruption population 2,000) – and emergency responses of the authorities to it are reviewed in the context of fascist politics and planning priorities. It is contended that, although at one level the response to the 1928 eruption was successful, at another fascism merely continued and enhanced a reactive, propitiatory approach to hazard mitigation. We argue that this legacy was not successfully overcome until the middle of the nineteen eighties. Finally contemporary Italian moves towards a more proactive approach to disaster planning, both generally and in the context of Etna, are discussed.     

Progress towards better weather forecasts for city dwellers: from short range to climate change

Summary The current resolution of operational weather forecast model is not sufficient in general to explicitly resolve even the major cities of the World. As a consequence, urban areas have traditionally been neglected in such models. The introduction of tiled land surface models has enabled sub-gridscale landuse to be modelled, and hence has provided the opportunity to model cities within weather forecast models. However, to date there has been little effort made within the operational weather forecast community. At present there is only one operational centre that explicitly resolves urban areas. This centre includes a simple urban scheme within its mesoscale and global models, which has been shown to have a positive impact on the forecast. However, with the recent developments within urban meteorology there are now a variety of urban schemes, which vary in their complexity and parameter requirements, that would be suitable for operational weather forecast models. So it is likely that more operational models, and in particular mesoscale models, will include urban areas in the near future. With the majority of the World‘s population living in cities, the resilience of these cities to the impacts of climate change is also becoming of increasing interest. This means that urban areas will have to be included within climate change simulations, as well as weather forecast simulations, in the future. At present, only one climate change model has included a parametrisation for urban areas. However, this is likely to increase if work in this area grows rapidly.     

Evaluation of the Urban Tile in MOSES using Surface Energy Balance Observations

The UK Met Office has introduced a new scheme for its urban tile in MOSES 2.2 (Met Office Surface Exchange Scheme version 2.2), which is currently implemented within the operational Met Office weather forecasting model. Here, the performance of the urban tile is evaluated in two urban areas: the historic core of downtown Mexico City and a light industrial site in Vancouver, Canada. The sites differ in terms of building structures and mean building heights. In both cases vegetation cover is less than 5%. The evaluation is based on surface energy balance flux measurements conducted at approximately the blending height, which is the location where the surface scheme passes flux data into the atmospheric model. At both sites, MOSES 2.2 correctly simulates the net radiation, but there are discrepancies in the partitioning of turbulent and storage heat fluxes between predicted and observed values. Of the turbulent fluxes, latent heat fluxes were underpredicted by about one order of magnitude. Multiple model runs revealed MOSES 2.2 to be sensitive to changes in the canopy heat storage and in the ratio between the aerodynamic roughness length and that for heat transfer (temperature). Model performance was optimum with heat capacity values smaller than those generally considered for these sites. The results suggest that the current scheme is probably too simple, and that improvements may be obtained by increasing the complexity of the model.