Verification of Carbon Sink Assessment: Can We Exclude Natural Sinks?

Any human-induced terrestrial sink is susceptible to the effects of elevated atmospheric CO₂ concentration, nitrogen deposition, climate variability and other natural or indirect human-induced factors. It has been suggested in climate negotiations that the effects of these factors should be excluded from estimates of carbon sequestration used to meet the emission reduction commitments under the Kyoto Protocol. This paper focuses on the methodologies for factoring out the effects of atmospheric and climate variability/change. We estimate the relative magnitude of the non-human induced effects by using two biosphere models and discuss possibilities for narrowing estimate uncertainty.     

Influence of bottom topography roughness on the jet and inertial recirculation of a mid-latitude gyre

Several numerical experiments are conducted to examine the influence of mesoscale, bottom topography roughness on the inertial circulation of a wind-driven, mid-latitude ocean gyre. The ocean model is based on the quasi-geostrophic formulation, and is eddy-resolving as it features high vertical and horizontal resolutions (six layers and a 10 km grid). An antisymmetrical double-gyre wind stress curl forces the baroclinic modes and generates a strong surface jet. In the case of a flat bottom, inertia and inverse energy cascade force the barotropic mode, and the resulting circulation features strong, barotropic, inertial gyres. The sea-floor roughness inhibits the inertial circulation in the deep layers; the barotropic component of the flow is then forced by eddy-topography interactions, and its energy concentrates at the scales of the topography. As a result, the baroclinicity of the flow is intesified: the barotropic mode is reduced with regard to the baroclinic modes, and the bottom flow (constrained by the mesoscale sea-floor roughness) is decoupled from the surface flow (forced by the gyre-scale wind). Rectified, mesoscale bottom circulation induces an interfacial form stress at the thermocline, which enhances horizontal shear instability and opposes the eastward penetration of the jet. The mean jet is consequently shortened, but the instantaneous jet remains very turbulent, with meanders of large meridional extent. The sea-floor roughness modifies the energy pathways, and the eddies have an even more important role in the establishment of the mean circulation: below the thermocline, rectification processes are dominant, and eddies transfer energy toward permanent mesoscale circulations strongly correlated with topography, whereas above the thermocline mean flow and eddy generation are influenced by the mean bottom circulation through interfacial stress. The topography modifies the vorticity of the barotropic and highest baroclinic modes. Vorticity accumulates at the small topographic scales, and the vorticity content of the highest modes, which is very weak in the flat-bottom case, increases significantly. Few changes occur in surface-intensified modes. In the deep layers of the model, the inverse correlation between relative vorticity and topography at small scales ensures the homogenization of the potential vorticity, which mainly retains the largest scales of the bottom flow and the scale of β.     

The exceptionally wet year of 2014 over Greece: a statistical and synoptical-atmospheric analysis over the region of Thessaloniki

The highest rainfall totals (912.2 mm) and the largest number of raindays (133 days), since 1958, were recorded in Thessaloniki during the year of 2014. Extreme precipitation heights were also observed on a seasonal, monthly and daily basis. The examined year presented the highest daily rainfall intensity, the maximum daily precipitation and the largest number of heavy precipitation days (greater than 10 mm), and it also exceeded the previous amounts of precipitation of very wet (95th percentile) and extremely wet (99th percentile) days. According to the automatic circulation type classification scheme that was used, it was found that during this exceptionally wet year, the frequency of occurrence of cyclonic types at the near surface geopotential level increases, while the same types decreased at a higher atmospheric level (500 hPa). The prevailing type was type C which is located at the centre of the study area (Greece), but several other cyclonic types changed during this year not only their frequency but also their percentage of rainfall as well as their daily precipitation intensity. It should be highlighted that these findings differentiated on the seasonal-scale analysis. Moreover, out of the three teleconnection patterns that were examined (Scandinavian Pattern, Eastern Mediterranean Teleconnection Pattern and North Sea-Caspian Pattern), the Scandinavian one (SCAND) was detected during the most of the months of 2014 meaning that it was highly associated with intense precipitation over Greece.     

Pigment characterization for the 2011 bloom in Qinhuangdao implicated "brown tide" events in China

A large-scale bloom occurred from May to June in 2011 in sea area near Qinhuangdao of the Bohai Sea, leading to huge damage of the scallop culture industry. Similar blooms have been observed in this region for three years. The causative species of the bloom, which dominated the phytoplankton community with the maximum cell density around 109 cell/L, could not be identified with morphological features due to the small cell size (~2 mm). A pigment analytical method was then adopted to analyze the pigment profile of the phytoplankton samples collected from the blooming sea area. It was found that pico-sized (<2 mm), nano-sized (2-20 mm), and bulk phytoplankton samples had similar pigment profile, representing the pigment signature of the bloom-causative species. The major pigments detected included 19-butanoyloxyfucoxanthin (But-fuco), fucoxanthin (Fuco), diadinoxanthin (Diad) and chlorophyll a (Chl a), and high content of But-fuco was the most significant characteristics of the phytoplankton samples. Based on the pigment composition and content, the bloom-causative species could be tentatively identified as pelagophyte, "type 8" group of haptophyte, or silicoflagellate. Some unique features of the bloom, such as the extremely high cell density, small-sized and But-fuco containing cells, occurring in early summer, and the feeding-cessation effects on scallops, suggest it be a "brown tide" event similar to those reported in the east coast of the United States of America. The recurrent "brown tide" events and their dramatic impacts on the shellfish mariculture industry in Qinhuangdao need close attention in the coming years.     

Development of a soil moisture‐based distributed hydrologic model for determining hydrologically based critical source areas

A simple grid cell‐based distributed hydrologic model was developed to provide spatial information on hydrologic components for determining hydrologically based critical source areas. The model represents the critical process (soil moisture variation) to run‐off generation accounting for both local and global water balance. In this way, it simulates both infiltration excess run‐off and saturation excess run‐off. The model was tested by multisite and multivariable evaluation on the 50‐km² Little River Experimental Watershed I in Georgia, U.S. and 2 smaller nested subwatersheds. Water balance, hydrograph, and soil moisture were simulated and compared to observed data. For streamflow calibration, the daily Nash‐Sutcliffe coefficient was 0.78 at the watershed outlet and 0.56 and 0.75 at the 2 nested subwatersheds. For the validation period, the Nash‐Sutcliffe coefficients were 0.79 at the watershed outlet and 0.85 and 0.83 at the 2 subwatersheds. The per cent bias was less than 15% for all sites. For soil moisture, the model also predicted the rising and declining trends at 4 of the 5 measurement sites. The spatial distribution of surface run‐off simulated by the model was mainly controlled by local characteristics (precipitation, soil properties, and land cover) on dry days and by global watershed characteristics (relative position within the watershed and hydrologic connectivity) on wet days when saturation excess run‐off was simulated. The spatial details of run‐off generation and travel time along flow paths provided by the model are helpful for watershed managers to further identify critical source areas of non‐point source pollution and develop best management practices.     

Segmentation and kinematics of the North America‐Caribbean plate boundary offshore Hispaniola

We explored the submarine portions of the Enriquillo–Plantain Garden Fault zone (EPGFZ) and the Septentrional–Oriente Fault zone (SOFZ) along the Northern Caribbean plate boundary using high‐resolution multibeam echo‐sounding and shallow seismic reflection. The bathymetric data shed light on poorly documented or previously unknown submarine fault zones running over 200 km between Haiti and Jamaica (EPGFZ) and 300 km between the Dominican Republic and Cuba (SOFZ). The primary plate‐boundary structures are a series of strike‐slip fault segments associated with pressure ridges, restraining bends, step overs and dogleg offsets indicating very active tectonics. Several distinct segments 50–100 km long cut across pre‐existing structures inherited from former tectonic regimes or bypass recent morphologies formed under the current strike‐slip regime. Along the most recent trace of the SOFZ, we measured a strike‐slip offset of 16.5 km, which indicates steady activity for the past ~1.8 Ma if its current GPS‐derived motion of 9.8 ± 2 mm a^?1 has remained stable during the entire Quaternary.     

Dating megafaunal extinction on the Pleistocene Darling Downs,eastern Australia: the promise and pitfalls of dating as a test of extinction hypotheses

A key to understanding Late Pleistocene megafaunal extinction dynamics is knowledge of megafaunal ecological response(s) to long-term environmental perturbations. Strategically, that requires targeting fossil deposits that accumulated during glacial and interglacial intervals both before and after human arrival, with subsequent palaeoecological models underpinned by robust and reliable chronologies. Late Pleistocene vertebrate fossil localities from the Darling Downs, eastern Australia, provide stratigraphically-intact, abundant megafaunal sequences, which allows for testing of anthropogenic versus climate change megafauna extinction hypotheses. Each stratigraphic unit at site QML796, Kings Creek Catchment, was previously shown to have had similar sampling potential, and the basal units contain both small-sized taxa (e.g., land snails, frogs, bandicoots, rodents) and megafauna. Importantly, sequential faunal horizons show stepwise decrease in taxonomic diversity with the loss of some, but not all, megafauna in the geographically-small palaeocatchment. The purpose of this paper is to present the results of our intensive, multidisciplinary dating study of the deposits (>40 dates). Dating by means of accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) ¹⁴C (targeting bone, freshwater molluscs, and charcoal) and thermal ionisation mass spectrometry U/Th (targeting teeth and freshwater molluscs) do not agree with each other and, in the case of AMS ¹⁴C dating, lack internal consistency. Scanning electron microscopy and rare earth element analyses demonstrate that the dated molluscs are diagenetically altered and contain aragonite cements that incorporated secondary young C, suggesting that such dates should be regarded as minimum ages. AMS ¹⁴C dated charcoals provide ages that occur out of stratigraphic order, and cluster in the upper chronological limits of the technique (～40–48 ka). Again, we suggest that such results should be regarded as suspicious and only minimum ages. Subsequent OSL and U/Th (teeth) dating provide complimentary results and demonstrate that the faunal sequences actually span ～120–83 ka, thus occurring beyond the AMS ¹⁴C dating window. Importantly, the dates suggest that the local decline in biological diversity was initiated ～75,000 years before the colonisation of humans on the continent. Collectively, the data are most parsimoniously consistent with a pre-human climate change model for local habitat change and megafauna extinction, but not with a nearly simultaneous extinction of megafauna as required by the human-induced blitzkrieg extinction hypothesis. This study demonstrates the problems inherent in dating deposits that lie near the chronological limits of the radiocarbon dating technique, and highlights the need to cross-check previously-dated archaeological and megafauna deposits within the timeframe of earliest human colonisation and latest megafaunal survival.