Geoeffective Disturbances in the Solar Wind near the Solar Activity Minimum according to the Data of a Two-year Series of Observations of Interplanetary Scintillations with the BSA LPI Radio Telescope

Astronomy Reports - A joint analysis of the monitoring data of interplanetary scintillations with solar and geophysical data showed that at the descending phase of the 24 solar activity cycle, the...     

Seismic hazard monitoring in Kamchatka and its applications to the M = 6.6 earthquake of 6 October 1987

The earthquake of 6 October 1987 (M = 6.6), which occurred near the Shipunsky Cape, Kamchatka, was the largest crustal event in the vicinity of the main city of Kamchatka — Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky — during the last three decades. It was followed by numerous aftershocks. This earthquake allowed us to test the effectiveness of the seismic hazard monitoring in Kamchatka, including the seismological, geodetic and hydrogeochemical surveys. The seismic survey provided the location and source nature of the main shock and aftershocks and the seismic environment of the main shock. The geodetic and hydrogeochemical surveys have yielded data on the response to earthquakes of the Earth's surface deformations, water level, and chemical elements concentration in the underground water. As a result, the following data were obtained:

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The earthquake of 6 October had a seismic moment 4–10 E18 Nm, thrust type of faulting and the source volume of 20 × 20 × 10 km³. The maximum intensity was VI–VII (MSK-64 scale) and maximum acceleration 88 cm/s².

Before this event, a relative increase in the number of the upper mantle (depth more than 100 km) moderate magnitude earthquakes during 5 years and a one-year period of seismic quiescence for small shallow earthquakes, were recognized. Significant anomalies in HCO₃ and H₃BO₃ concentrations in the underground waters were observed in the wells a week before the main shock.

     

Applying personal carbon trading: a proposed ‘Carbon,Health and Savings System’ for British Columbia,Canada

Addressing climate change requires the synergy of technological, behavioural and market mechanisms. This article proposes a policy framework that integrates the three, deploying personal carbon trading as a key element within a policy portfolio to reduce personal carbon footprints. It draws on policy and human motivation literatures that address the behavioural changes that may be needed in the context of a long-term threat such as climate change. This proposal builds on an analysis of the British Columbia carbon tax, international examples of carbon pricing instruments and strategies for behavioural change such as social networks, loyalty management, mobile apps and gamification. Interviews were conducted with experts in financial services, energy conservation and clean technology, as well as with specialists in climate, health and taxation policy. Their input, together with a review of the theoretical literature and practical case studies, informed the proposed design of a Carbon, Health and Saving System for promoting individual engagement and collective action by linking long-term climate mitigation measures with short-term personal and social goals, including health, recreation and social reinforcement.

Policy Relevance

This article identifies areas for climate policy innovation and recommends policies that can support, promote and enable personal carbon budgeting and collective action. Although this study is focused on British Columbia, both the input provided by key opinion leaders and the proposed framework are applicable to other jurisdictions.

This policy proposal shows how personal carbon trading could work in the context of a Canadian province with an existing climate mitigation policy. It also specifies a minimum viable product approach to establishing the economic, social and technological foundations for personal carbon trading.

The Carbon, Health and Saving System identifies the technologies and stakeholders needed to implement personal carbon trading, and offers the possibility of motivating a widespread conscious human response in the event that carbon taxation proves insufficient to generate economic adaptation in a changing climate.     

Late Cretaceous-Cenozoic history of the Lake Baikal depression and formation of its unique biodiversity

Independent methods of geological and molecular-biological chronologies have made it possible to define generally corresponding stages in the geological and biological evolution of the environments and communities of Lake Baikal since the Late Cretaceous, i.e., during the last 70 myr. All the abiotic elements drastically changed during geological evolution, with destruction of existing and formation of new natural complexes. Nevertheless, some specific zones retained relicts of former settings. The resulting present-day natural complex includes elements of different ages and geneses. Similar to different natural zones of the present-day Earth, which are populated by different biocoenoses, stages in the development of abiotic elements are also characterized by different faunal and floral assemblages. Some taxa were replaced by others, and the resulting aqueous biota of Lake Baikal includes different-age and ecologically different elements. The oldest groups of Baikal organisms appeared approximately 70 Ma ago, although the largest proportion of the lake biota started forming 4–3 Ma ago in response to the most drastic changes in the abiotic elements of the environment. The youngest taxa appeared 1.8 to 0.15 Ma ago, i.e., during the period when superdeep lake environments and mountainous glaciations were developing. The chronological coincidence of main stages in development of abiotic and biotic elements of the nature indicates their relationships. Particular transformations of abiotic elements and the probable mechanism of their influence on the evolution of living communities are also considered.     

Solar Microwave Bursts from Electron Populations with a 'Broken’ Energy Spectrum

Usually the gyrosynchrotron emission of microwave bursts from electron populations with a power-law (PL) energy distribution has been considered under the assumption that the spectral index of the distribution is constant over a wide range of energies. Meanwhile, there is strong evidence, in particular from hard X-ray and -ray, but also from cm/mm wavelength radio observations, that in many solar flare events the spectrum of the emitting electrons is characterized by a significant hardening at energies above 100–500 keV. We present some examples of calculated microwave burst spectra at cm/mm wavelengths taking into account the above evidence. It is shown that a break in the energy spectrum of the PL electrons can indeed result in a spectral hardening sometimes observed in microwave bursts at frequencies above 10–30 GHz.     

Anisotropy of small-scale inhomogeneities in the region of solar-wind acceleration

A model is proposed to explain observational data on the scattering of radio signals, which indicate that small-scale plasma-density inhomogeneities in the region of solar-wind acceleration are strongly elongated in the radial direction, with the degree of elongation sharply decreasing at heliocentric distances of about six solar radii. The evolution of the energy spectra of the fluctuations of the magnetic field and plasma density is studied assuming that the plasma-density fluctuations are generated locally by nonlinear interactions of high-frequency Alfven waves, and that the gradients of the mean plasma parameters are smooth. The growth rates of the main nonlinear processes are estimated. The strong elongation of the inhomogeneities first arises when the Alfven waves travel through the chromosphere-corona transition layer, then survives to considerable distances from the Sun because the associated nonlinear relaxation processes are fairly slow. Estimates of the degree of elongation of the inhomogeneities and the characteristic distance for changes in the angular wave spectra are in good agreement with radio propagation data.     

A local model for analysis of pump and treat systems with vertical barrier walls

We present a mathematical model of local, steady groundwater flow near a vertical barrier wall. Flow features represented in the model include an impermeable arc-shaped barrier wall and multiple wells; distant boundary conditions are not included explicitly, but their effects on the local flow field are modelled by specifying a uniform flow at infinity and a constant areal recharge within a local domain. We develop an explicit closed-form solution to the boundary-value problem using the analytic element method. The solution is an extension of a harmonic solution presented by Anderson and Mesa [Anderson EI, Mesa E. The effects of vertical barrier walls on the hydraulic control of contaminated groundwater. Adv Water Resourc 2006;29(1):89–98] which does not include the effects of recharge. We demonstrate that the general solution with recharge consists of the harmonic solution superposed on a special case of the harmonic solution along with two elementary one-dimensional flow solutions. The results are used to investigate the effects of areal recharge on the capture zone envelopes of the pumping wells and on the reduction in discharge that can be achieved by including a barrier wall in a pump and treat design. We find that the benefits of including an open barrier wall in a design, measured as a reduction in the pumping rate required to contain a plume, increase for higher recharge rates. Dimensionless plots of capture zone envelopes are presented for a practical well and barrier wall configuration.