Assessing optical earth observation systems for mapping and monitoring temporary ponds in arid areas

Remote sensing methods for locating and monitoring temporary ponds over large areas in arid lands were tested on a study site in Northern Senegal. Three main results are presented, validated with field data and intended to highlight different spectral, spatial and temporal characteristics of the methods: (1) Among several water indices tested, two Middle Infrared-based indices (MNDWI—Modified Normalized Difference Water Index and NDWI₁—Normalized Difference Water Index) are found to be most efficient; (2) an objective method is given prescribing the necessary sensor spatial resolution in terms of minimal detected pond area; and (3) the potential of multi-temporal MODIS imagery for tracking the filling phases of small ponds is illustrated. These results should assist in epidemiological studies of vector-borne diseases that develop around these ponds, but also more generally for land and water management and preservation of threatened ecosystems in arid areas.     

Forest dynamics and the importance of place in western Honduras

Analyses of landscape change using remotely sensed satellite imagery constitute a large component of forest transition research, allowing for assessments of large areas. In the western highlands of Honduras is an area of complex forest dynamics (～45,000 ha) that has seen significant forest regeneration in recent years. However, analysis of the larger region (～500,000 ha) shows net forest loss. The comparative aspects highlight the importance of site selection and scale in forest transition analysis, a process often ignored in the land-use and land-cover change (LULCC) and forest transition literature. Results also highlight the importance of analyzing human-induced fragmentation at a variety of selected sites and a range of spatial scales, and producing quality, accurate forest cover and change maps.     

Spectral filtering as a method of visualising and removing striped artefacts in digital elevation data

Spectral filtering was compared with traditional mean spatial filters to assess their ability to identify and remove striped artefacts in digital elevation data. The techniques were applied to two datasets: a 100 m contour derived digital elevation model (DEM) of southern Norway and a 2 m LiDAR DSM of the Lake District, UK. Both datasets contained diagonal data artefacts that were found to propagate into subsequent terrain analysis. Spectral filtering used fast Fourier transformation (FFT) frequency data to identify these data artefacts in both datasets. These were removed from the data by applying a cut filter, prior to the inverse transform. Spectral filtering showed considerable advantages over mean spatial filters, when both the absolute and spatial distribution of elevation changes made were examined. Elevation changes from the spectral filtering were restricted to frequencies removed by the cut filter, were small in magnitude and consequently avoided any global smoothing. Spectral filtering was found to avoid the smoothing of kernel based data editing, and provided a more informative measure of data artefacts present in the FFT frequency domain. Artefacts were found to be heterogeneous through the surfaces, a result of their strong correlations with spatially autocorrelated variables: landcover and landsurface geometry. Spectral filtering performed better on the 100 m DEM, where signal and artefact were clearly distinguishable in the frequency data. Spectrally filtered digital elevation datasets were found to provide a superior and more precise representation of the landsurface and be a more appropriate dataset for any subsequent geomorphological applications. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Book review of Mechanics of Bio-Sediment Transport,Hongwei Fang,Lei Huang,Huiming Zhao,Wei Cheng,Yishan Chen,Mehdi Fazeli,Qianqin Shang (Eds.), Springer-Verlag,Berlin Heidelberg (2020)

Sediment transport is a classical subject in hydraulic engineering,and relevant to fluvial processes,flood control,reservoir operation,and river management.Mode...     

Trace elements in tissues of cetacean species rarely stranded along the Israeli Mediterranean coast

In this paper we present the concentrations of Hg, Cd, Se, Pb, Cu, Mn, Zn and Fe in organs of 6 non-common specimens of cetaceans that were stranded along the Israeli Mediterranean coast (IMC), during 2002–2010: two fin whales, one minke whale, one Cuvier’s beaked whale, one rough-toothed dolphin, and one Risso’s dolphin. Most of the specimens were calves stranded by accident. Concentrations of Hg and Cd were low in tissues of the baleen whales and higher in the toothed whales, with maximum concentrations of 1067 mg kg⁻¹ Hg in the liver of the Risso’s dolphin and 29 mg kg⁻¹ Cd in the kidney of the Cuvier’s beaked whale. As far as we are aware, this is the first report of trace elements in baleen whales in the Eastern Mediterranean, and the first report of trace elements in minke whale and rough-toothed dolphin in the Mediterranean.     

An annually resolved bristlecone pine carbon isotope chronology for the last millennium

We present the first near millennium-length, annually resolved stable isotope record from bristlecone pines (Pinus longaeva, D.K Bailey). The carbon isotope ratios from the cellulose of seven trees from the White Mountains of California, corrected for anthropogenic changes in atmospheric chemistry, are used to reconstruct growing season (June through August) precipitation back to AD 1085. Extremely negative isotope results are strongly correlated with proposed severest El Niño events over the last 500 yr, and similar values in the first half of the millennium are used to reconstruct a further 13 strong El Niño events, concentrated in the 12th Century and the mid 13th and 14th Centuries. Ring-width chronologies from adjacent sites in the White Mountains demonstrate a high degree of decadal covariance with the δ¹³C series, although there are several periods of notable divergence.     

On the role of high latitude ice,snow, and vegetation feedbacks in the climatic response to external forcing changes

A seasonal energy balance climate model containing a detailed treatment of surface and planetary albedo, and in which seasonally varying land snow and sea ice amounts are simulated in terms of a number of explicit physical processes, is used to investigate the role of high latitude ice, snow, and vegetation feedback processes. Feedback processes are quantified by computing changes in radiative forcing and feedback factors associated with individual processes. Global sea ice albedo feedback is 5–8 times stronger than global land snowcover albedo feedback for a 2% solar constant increase or decrease, with Southern Hemisphere cryosphere feedback being 2–5 times stronger than Northern Hemisphere cryosphere feedback.In the absence of changes in ice extent, changes in ice thickness in response to an increase in solar constant are associated with an increase in summer surface melting which is exactly balanced by increased basal winter freezing, and a reduction in the upward ocean-air flux in summer which is exactly balanced by an increased flux in winter, with no change in the annual mean ocean-air flux. Changes in the mean annual ocean-air heat flux require changes in mean annual ice extent, and are constrained to equal the change in meridional oceanic heat flux convergence in equilibrium. Feedback between ice extent and the meridional oceanic heat flux obtained by scaling the oceanic heat diffusion coefficient by the ice-free fraction regulates the feedback between ice extent and mean annual air-sea heat fluxes in polar regions, and has a modest effect on model-simulated high latitude temperature change.Accounting for the partial masking effect of vegetation on snow-covered land reduces the Northern Hemisphere mean temperature response to a 2% solar constant decrease or increase by 20% and 10%, respectively, even though the radiative forcing change caused by land snowcover changes is about 3 times larger in the absence of vegetational masking. Two parameterizations of the tundra fraction are tested: one based on mean annual land air temperature, and the other based on July land air temperature. The enhancement of the mean Northern Hemisphere temperature response to solar constant changes when the forest-tundra ecotone is allowed to shift with climate is only 1/3 to 1/2 that obtained by Otterman et al. (1984) when the mean annual parameterization is used here, and only 1/4 to 1/3 as large using the July parameterization.The parameterized temperature dependence of ice and snow albedo is found to enhance the global mean temperature response to a 2% solar constant increase by only 0.04 °C, in sharp contrast to the results of Washington and Meehl (1986) obtained with a mean annual model. However, there are significant differences in the method used here and in Washington and Meehl to estimate the importance of this feedback process. When their approach is used in a mean annual version of the present model, closer agreement to their results is obtained.     

Degree of rock surface weathering as an indicator of ice-sheet thickness along an east—west transect across southern Norway

Rock surface weathering, as reflected by rock surface hardness and roughness, was measured at six mountains along an east-west transect across southern Norway. At most sites the results show significant differences in rock surface weathering across the autochthonous blockfield boundary, suggesting that the areas above the boundary have been exposed to subaerial weathering for a considerably longer time span that the areas below. The results are interpreted as reflecting the surface profile of an asymmetric, west-centred, low-gradient ice sheet.     

Declining Temporal Effectiveness of Carbon Sequestration: Implications for Compliance with the United National Framework Convention on Climate Change

Carbon sequestration is increasingly being promoted as a potential response to the risks of unrestrained emissions of CO₂, either in place of or as a complement to reductions in the use of fossil fuels. However, the potential role of carbon sequestration as an (at-least partial) substitute for reductions in fossil fuel use can be properly evaluated only in the context of a long-term acceptable limit (or range of limits) to the increase in atmospheric CO₂ concentration, taking into account the response of the entire carbon cycle to artificial sequestration. Under highly stringent emission-reduction scenarios for non-CO₂ greenhouse gases, 450 ppmv CO₂ is the equivalent, in terms of radiative forcing of climate,to a doubling of the pre-industrial concentration of CO₂. It is argued in this paper that compliance with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (henceforth, the UNFCCC) implies that atmospheric CO₂ concentration should be limited, or quickly returned to, a concentration somewhere below 450 ppmv. A quasi-one-dimensional coupled climate-carbon cycle model is used to assess the response of the carbon cycle to idealized carbon sequestration scenarios. The impact on atmospheric CO₂ concentration of sequestering a given amount of CO₂ that would otherwise be emitted to the atmosphere, either in deep geological formations or in the deep ocean, rapidly decreases over time. This occurs as a result of a reduction in the rate of absorption of atmospheric CO₂ by the natural carbon sinks (the terrestrial biosphere and oceans) in response to the slower buildup of atmospheric CO₂ resulting from carbon sequestration. For 100 years of continuous carbon sequestration, the sequestration fraction (defined as the reduction in atmospheric CO₂ divided by the cumulative sequestration) decreases to 14% 1000 years after the beginning of sequestration in geological formations with no leakage, and to 6% 1000 years after the beginning of sequestration in the deep oceans. The difference (8% of cumulative sequestration) is due to an eflux from the ocean to the atmosphere of some of the carbon injected into the deep ocean.The coupled climate-carbon cycle model is also used to assess the amount of sequestration needed to limit or return the atmospheric CO₂ concentration to 350–400 ppmv after phasing out all use of fossil fuels by no later than 2100. Under such circumstances, sequestration of 1–2 Gt C/yr by the latter part of this century could limit the peak CO₂ concentration to 420–460 ppmv, depending on how rapidly use of fossilfuels is terminated and the strength of positive climate-carbon cycle feedbacks. To draw down the atmospheric CO₂ concentration requires creating negative emissions through sequestration of CO₂ released as a byproduct of the production of gaseous fuels from biomass primary energy. Even if fossil fuel emissions fall to zero by 2100, it will be difficult to create a large enough negative emission using biomass energy to return atmospheric CO₂ to 350 ppmv within 100 years of its peak. However, building up soil carbon could help in returning CO₂ to 350 ppmv within 100 years of its peak. In any case, a 100-year period of climate corresponding to the equivalent of a doubled-CO₂ concentration would occur before temperatures decreased. Nevertheless, returning the atmospheric CO₂concentration to 350 ppmv would reduce longterm sea level rise due to thermal expansion and might be sufficient to prevent the irreversible total melting of the Greenland ice sheet, collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet, and abrupt changes in ocean circulation that might otherwise occur given a prolonged doubled-CO₂ climate. Recovery of coral reef ecosystems, if not already driven to extinction, could begin.