Assessing multifaceted vulnerability and resilience in order to design risk-mitigation strategies

Vulnerability studies have evolved significantly in recent decades. Although not overly theoretical compared with some other fields of science, some important conceptual progress has been made. At the practical level, vulnerability indicators have been used either at a generic level or for particular hazard contexts. However, these indicators are often predictably too narrow in their coverage of aspects of vulnerability. An important need remains to produce more conceptually informed vulnerability indicators or parameters and more satisfactory operational tools to assess weaknesses and resilience in coping with natural risks. In this paper, we present the methodology developed in the context of a recently concluded EU funded project, ENSURE (Enhancing resilience of communities and territories facing natural and na-tech hazards). The resulting vulnerability and resilience assessment framework tool adopts a systemic approach embedding and integrating as much as possible the multifaceted and articulated nature of concepts such as vulnerability and resilience. The tool guides evaluators towards a comprehensive and context-related understanding of strengths and fragilities of a given territory and community with respect to natural extremes. In this paper, both the framework tool and its application to Sondrio in Italy, which is exposed to flash floods, are presented and discussed. The merits and demerits of the new tool are discussed, and the results of the application to Sondrio indicate where data are currently missing, suggesting the kind of data, which will need to be gathered in future to achieve more complete assessments. The results also suggest vulnerability reduction policies and actions and further ways of revising the existing framework tool in the future.     

Preserved landscapes underneath the Antarctic Ice Sheet reveal the geomorphological history of Jutulstraumen Basin

The landscape of Antarctica, hidden beneath kilometre-thick ice in most places, has been shaped by the interactions between tectonic and erosional processes. The flow dynamics of the thick ice cover deepened pre-formed topographic depressions by glacial erosion, but also preserved the subglacial landscapes in regions with moderate to slow ice flow. Mapping the spatial variability of these structures provides the basis for reconstruction of the evolution of subglacial morphology. This study focuses on the Jutulstraumen Glacier drainage system in Dronning Maud Land, East Antarctica. The Jutulstraumen Glacier reaches the ocean via the Jutulstraumen Graben, which is the only significant passage for draining the East Antarctic Ice Sheet through the western part of the Dronning Maud Land mountain chain. We acquired new bed topography data during an airborne radar campaign in the region upstream of the Jutulstraumen Graben to characterise the source area of the glacier. The new data show a deep relief to be generally under-represented in available bed topography compilations. Our analysis of the bed topography, valley characteristics and bed roughness leads to the conclusion that much more of the alpine landscape that would have formed prior to the Antarctic Ice Sheet is preserved than previously anticipated. We identify an active and deeply eroded U-shaped valley network next to largely preserved passive fluvial and glacial modified landscapes. Based on the landscape classification, we reconstruct the temporal sequence by which ice flow modified the topography since the beginning of the glaciation of Antarctica.     

Residence time of S-type anatectic magmas beneath the Neogene Volcanic Province of SE Spain: a zircon and monazite SHRIMP study

Zircon and monazite from three restitic enclaves and one host dacite have been dated by ion microprobe (SHRIMP), with the aim of characterising their Miocene history and defining the timing relationships between crustal melting and eruption in the high-K calc-alkaline volcanics of the Neogene Volcanic Province of SE Spain. The studied samples are from the volcanic edifices of El Joyazo (Cerro del Hoyazo) and Mazarrón. Zircons in the enclaves are characterized by a thin euhedral rim overgrowing a detrital core. The core-rim boundary is marked by tiny glass inclusions of S-type granitic composition, which attest to the growth of zircon rims during a crustal melting event. At El Joyazo, where lavas erupted at 6.3 Ma (Zeck and Williams 2002), U-Pb ages of zircon overgrowths define an age of anatexis of 9.63±0.26 Ma (95% c.l.), in agreement with monazite ages of 9.74±0.21 Ma (95% c.l.). At Mazarrón, the age of anatexis provided by monazite at 9.13±0.18 Ma (95% c.l.) overlaps with that of melt-precipitated zircon in the host dacite, dated at 9.06±0.53 Ma (95% c.l.). These results indicate that after partial melting, the enclaves and the syngenetic S-type melts resided at depth for >3 m.y. at El Joyazo. Compared with the results from Mazarrón, the long residence time obtained at El Joyazo is probably due to the greater depth of melting (c. 25 km vs. c. 15 km). At such depth, corresponding to the Miocene palaeo-Moho, the more ductile regime of the crust is likely to have favoured magma ponding. The thermal anomaly beneath the Neogene Volcanic Province, which generated the S-type crustal melts, is today visible from geophysical data and can be traced back to the Lower Miocene. As a consequence, residence times longer than determined in this work may be expected.Editorial responsibility: J. Hoefs     

Revisiting spectral parameters of silicate‐bearing meteorites

Abstract— Visible and near‐infrared reflectance spectra of a sample of silicate‐bearing meteorites have been used to evaluate the spectral parameters space defined in the pioneering work of Gaffey et al. (1993). The studied sample consisted of 91 ordinary chondrites, 47 basaltic achondrites, and 21 different laboratory mixtures obtained from the RELAB database. Our results indicate that the spectral parameter space, in particular the BAR versus band I center, is not suitable enough to identify the mineralogy of meteorites and asteroids. The grain size of the sample also appears as a very sensitive parameter and can play an important role in locating an object in the spectral parameter space. Finally, the application of our study to the question of a genetic link between V‐type asteroids and HED meteorites shows that these bodies plot in distinct regions in the BAR versus band I center space. This result further confirms that those spectral parameters cannot uniquely define the mineralogy of a sample.     

A Global Inventory of Burned Areas at 1 Km Resolution for the Year 2000 Derived from Spot Vegetation Data

Biomass burning constitutes a major contribution to global emissions of carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, methane, greenhouse gases and aerosols. Furthermore, biomass burning has an impact on health, transport, the environment and land use. Vegetation fires are certainly not recent phenomena and the impacts are not always negative. However, evidence suggests that fires are becoming more frequent and there is a large increase in the number of fires being set by humans for a variety of reasons. Knowledge of the interactions and feedbacks between biomass burning, climate and carbon cycling is needed to help the prediction of climate change scenarios. To obtain this knowledge, the scientific community requires, in the first instance, information on the spatial and temporal distribution of biomass burning at the global scale. This paper presents an inventory of burned areas at monthly time periods for the year 2000 at a resolution of 1 kilometer (km) and is available to the scientific community at no cost. The burned area products have been derived from a single source of satellite-derived images, the SPOT VEGETATION S1 1 km product, using algorithms developed and calibrated at regional scales by a network of partners. In this paper, estimates of burned area, number of burn scars and average size of the burn scar are described for each month of the year 2000. The information is reported at the country level. This paper makes a significant contribution to understanding the effect of biomass burning on atmospheric chemistry and the storage and cycling of carbon by constraining one of the main parameters used in the calculation of gas emissions.     

Combined Earth orientation parameters based on homogeneous and continuous VLBI and GPS data

The CONT02 campaign is of great interest for studies combining very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) with other space-geodetic techniques, because of the continuously available VLBI observations over 2 weeks in October 2002 from a homogeneous network. Especially, the combination with the Global Positioning System (GPS) offers a broad spectrum of common parameters. We combined station coordinates, Earth orientation parameters (EOPs) and troposphere parameters consistently in one solution using technique- specific datum-free normal equation systems. In this paper, we focus on the analyses concerning the EOPs, whereas the comparison and combination of the troposphere parameters and station coordinates are covered in a companion paper in Journal of Geodesy. In order to demonstrate the potential of the VLBI and GPS space-geodetic techniques, we chose a sub-daily resolution for polar motion (PM) and universal time (UT). A consequence of this solution set-up is the presence of a one-to-one correlation between the nutation angles and a retrograde diurnal signal in PM. The Bernese GPS Software used for the combination provides a constraining approach to handle this singularity. Simulation studies involving both nutation offsets and rates helped to get a deeper understanding of this singularity. With a rigorous combination of UT1–UTC and length of day (LOD) from VLBI and GPS, we showed that such a combination works very well and does not suffer from the systematic effects present in the GPS-derived LOD values. By means of wavelet analyses and the formal errors of the estimates, we explain this important result. The same holds for the combination of nutation offsets and rates. The local geodetic ties between GPS and VLBI antennas play an essential role within the inter-technique combination. Several studies already revealed non-negligible discrepancies between the terrestrial measurements and the space-geodetic solutions. We demonstrate to what extent these discrepancies propagate into the combined EOP solution.     

An inter-comparison of regional climate models for Europe: model performance in present-day climate

The analysis of possible regional climate changes over Europe as simulated by 10 regional climate models within the context of PRUDENCE requires a careful investigation of possible systematic biases in the models. The purpose of this paper is to identify how the main model systematic biases vary across the different models. Two fundamental aspects of model validation are addressed here: the ability to simulate (1) the long-term (30 or 40 years) mean climate and (2) the inter-annual variability. The analysis concentrates on near-surface air temperature and precipitation over land and focuses mainly on winter and summer. In general, there is a warm bias with respect to the CRU data set in these extreme seasons and a tendency to cold biases in the transition seasons. In winter the typical spread (standard deviation) between the models is 1 K. During summer there is generally a better agreement between observed and simulated values of inter-annual variability although there is a relatively clear signal that the modeled temperature variability is larger than suggested by observations, while precipitation variability is closer to observations. The areas with warm (cold) bias in winter generally exhibit wet (dry) biases, whereas the relationship is the reverse during summer (though much less clear, coupling warm (cold) biases with dry (wet) ones). When comparing the RCMs with their driving GCM, they generally reproduce the large-scale circulation of the GCM though in some cases there are substantial differences between regional biases in surface temperature and precipitation.     

Particulate matter fluxes in the southern and central Kara Sea compared to sediments: Bulk fluxes, amino acids, stable carbon and nitrogen isotopes, sterols and fatty acids

The Kara Sea is one of the arctic marginal seas strongly influenced by fresh water and river suspension. The highly seasonal discharge by the two major rivers Yenisei and Ob induces seasonal changes in hydrography, sea surface temperature, ice cover, primary production and sedimentation. In order to obtain a seasonal pattern of sedimentation in the Kara Sea, sediment traps were deployed near the river mouth of the Yenisei (Yen) as well as in the central Kara Sea (Kara) within the framework of the German–Russian project “Siberian River run-off; SIRRO”. Two and a half years of time-series flux data were obtained between September 2000 and April 2003 and were analyzed for bulk components, amino acids, stable carbon and nitrogen isotopes as well as sterols and fatty acids.Sediment trap data show that much of the annual deposition occurred under ice cover, possibly enhanced by zooplanktonic activity and sediment resuspension. An early bloom of ice-associated algae in April/May occurred in the polynya area and may have been very important to sustain the life cycles of higher organisms after the light limitation of the winter months due to no/low insolation and ice cover. The strong river input dominated the months June–August in the southern part of the Kara Sea. The central Kara Sea had a much shorter productive period starting in August and was less affected by the river plumes. Despite different time-scales of sampling and trapping biases, total annual fluxes from traps were in the same order of magnitude as accumulation rates in surface sediments. Terrestrial organic carbon accumulation decreased from 10.7 to 0.3 g C m⁻² a⁻¹ from the riverine source to the central Kara Sea. Parallel to this, preservation of marine organic matter decreased from 10% to 2% of primary productivity which was probably related to decreasing rates of sedimentation.     

Modelling Indonesian rainfall with a coupled regional model

Long-term high-resolution coupled climate model simulations using the Max Planck Institute Regional Climate Model and the Max Planck Institute Ocean Model have been performed with boundary forcings from two reanalyses: firstly from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, and secondly from the joint reanalysis of the National Centers for Environmental Prediction and the National Center for Atmospheric Research. This study employs a special coupling setup using a regional atmospheric model and a global ocean model. The latter model applies a special conformal grid from a bipolar orthogonal spherical coordinate system, which allows irregular positions of the poles and focuses on the detail over the Maritime Continent. The coupled model was able to simulate stable and realistic rainfall variabilities without flux correction and at two different ocean resolutions. The coupled system is integrated for a period between 1979 and 1993 and the results are then compared to those from uncoupled runs and from observation. The results show improved performance after coupling: a remarkable reduction of overestimated rainfall over the sea for the atmospheric model and of warm SST biases for the ocean model. There is no significant change in rainfall variability at higher ocean model resolution, but the ocean circulation shows less transport variability within the Makassar Strait in comparison to observations. This paper has not been published or considered by any other journal in any language.