Qualitative and quantitative applications of LiDAR imagery in fluvial geomorphology

The potential for geomorphological mapping and quantitative calculations of light detection and ranging (LiDAR) data within fluvial geomorphology was studied for two river catchments within Belgium (Dijle and Amblève), which differ in physical settings and floodplain morphology. Two commercial, of‐the‐shelf LiDAR datasets with different specifications (horizontal resolution and vertical accuracy) were available for parts of the floodplains of both catchments. Real‐time kinematic (RTK) Global Positioning System (GPS) data were used as ground truth for error calculations. Qualitative analysis of LiDAR data allowed the identification of former channel patterns, levees, colluvial hillslope and fan deposits. These results were confirmed by field data, topographic surveys and historical maps. The pixel resolution proved to be an important factor in the identification of small landforms: only features with a width equal to or larger than LiDAR resolution can be detected. This poses limits on the usability of regionally available LiDAR data, which often have a horizontal resolution of several metres. The LiDAR data were also used in a quantitative analysis of channel dynamics. In the study area, the width of the Dijle River channel increased 3 m on average between 1969 and 2003. A sediment budget of channel processes for the period 1969–2003 indicated a total river bank erosion of 16·1 10³ m³ and a total within channel deposition of 7·1 10³ m³, resulting in a net river erosion of 9·0 10³ m³ or c. 0·4 Mg year^?1 per metre river length. Sequential LiDAR data can in theory be used to calculate vertical sedimentation rates, as long as there is control on the error of the reference levels used. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley and Sons, Ltd.     

Climate sensitivity: should the climate tail wag the policy dog?

The small but stubbornly unyielding possibility of a very large long-term response of global temperature to increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide can be termed the fat tail of high climate sensitivity. Recent economic analyses suggest that the fat tail should dominate a rational policy strategy if the damages associated with such high temperatures are large enough. The conclusions of such analyses, however, depend on how economic growth, temperature changes, and climate damages unfold and interact over time. In this paper we focus on the role of two robust physical properties of the climate system: the enormous thermal inertia of the ocean, and the long timescales associated with high climate sensitivity. Economic models that include a climate component, and particularly those that focus on the tails of the probability distributions, should properly represent the physics of this slow response to high climate sensitivity, including the correlated uncertainty between present forcing and climate sensitivity, and the global energetics of the present climate state. If climate sensitivity in fact proves to be high, these considerations prevent the high temperatures in the fat tail from being reached for many centuries. A failure to include these factors risks distorting the resulting economic analyses. For example, we conclude that fat-tail considerations will not strongly influence economic analyses when these analyses follow the common—albeit controversial—practices of assigning large damages only to outcomes with very high temperature changes and of assuming a significant baseline level of economic growth.     

A European digital accelerometric database:statistical analysis of engineering parameters of small to moderate magnitude events

During the NERIES Project, an accelerometric database containing European digital information was developed. Besides event and station metadata, ground motion parameters, computed in a homogeneous manner, were assembled:PGA, PGV, AI, TD, CAV, HI and PSV(f,5%)(19,961 components, 2629 events, 547 stations). Merging small and moderate magnitude events produced a unique database capable of providing important information such as:(i) Correlations between several ground motion parameters follow analogous trends as in previous worldwide datasets, with slight corrections.(ii) Although PGA attenuations with distance show great uncertainties, four recent GMPEs recommended for Europe fit quite well the central 50% data interval for the distance range 10 R 200 km; outside these distances, they do not fit.(iii) Soil amplification ratios indicate that weak motion(low magnitudes and larger distances) shows larger amplification than strong motion(short distances and large magnitudes) as represented in UBC97 for the USA, but not in EC8 for Europe.(iv) Average spectral shapes are smaller than in the EC8.(v) Differences in amplification factors for PGA, PGV and HI for EC8 soil classes B and C, and differences in spectral shapes for these soil classes, indicate that EC8, Type 2 S-coefficient should be frequency dependent, as in UBC97.     

Spatial patterns of Holocene glacier advance and retreat in Central Asia

Glaciers in the southern Himalayas advanced in the early Holocene despite an increase in incoming summer solar insolation at the top of the atmosphere. These glacier advances are in contrast to the smaller alpine glaciers in the western and northern regions of Central Asia. Two different glacier mass-balance models are used to reconcile this Holocene glacier history with climate by quantifying the change in equilibrium-line altitudes (ELA) for simulated changes in Holocene climate. Both ELA models clearly show that the lowering of ELAs in the southern Himalayas is largely due to a decrease in summer temperatures, and that an increase in monsoonal precipitation accounts for less than 30% of the total ELA changes. The decrease in summer temperatures is a dynamic response to the changes in solar insolation, resulting in both a decrease in incoming shortwave radiation at the surface due to an increase in cloudiness and an increase in evaporative cooling. In the western and northern zones of Central Asia, both ELA models show a rise in ELAs in response to a general increase in summer temperatures. This increase in temperatures in the more northern regions is a direct radiative response to the increase in summer solar insolation.     

Continental Lithospheric Contribution to Alkaline Magmatism: Isotopic (Nd, Sr, Pb) and Geochemical (REE) Evidence from Serra de Monchique and Mount Ormonde Complexes

Isotopic results (Sr, Nd, Pb), as well as concentrations ofmajor and trace elements (REE) are reported for whole-rock samplesand mineral separates from the onland alkaline complex of Serrade Monchique (South Portugal) and the offshore alkali basaltvolcanic suite of Mount Ormonde (Gorringe Bank). These two geneticallyrelated alkaline complexes were emplaced at the east Atlanticcontinent–ocean boundary during the Upper Cretaceous,i.e. 66–72 m.y. ago. Taken together, Serra de Monchiqueand Mount Ormonde may be seen as one of the few examples ofwithin-plate magmatism that straddles the continent–oceanboundary. Major and trace element compositions fail to revealany significant differences between onland and offshore complexes.This is particularly true regarding less differentiated samples(mg-number 0.40) which show the same progressive and continuousenrichment of their trace element patterns, with no specificanomaly (e.g. negative Nb anomaly) being present in samplesfrom the onland complex. Initial Pb and Sr isotopic compositionsalso do not allow any distinction to be made between Serra deMonchique and Mount Ormonde samples. Initial Pb isotope ratiosare moderately high (19.1 < ²⁰⁶Pb/²⁰⁴Pb < 19.8; ²⁰⁷Pb/²⁰⁴Pb= 15.6) in both cases. Moreover, once the effects of Sr contaminationby seawater are taken into account and the most contaminatedsamples discarded using data from fresh clinopyroxene separatesand results of leaching experiments, the initial Sr isotopiccompositions of Mount Ormonde samples are found to be unradiogenic(⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr = 0.7031±1) and identical to those obtainedat Serra de Monchique (⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr = 0.7032±1). In contrast,a systematic mean difference of 2 _Nd units is observed betweenSerra de Monchique [_Nd(T) = +4.8] and Mount Ormonde [_Nd(T) =+6.6] whole-rock samples. Surprisingly, a variation is alsoobserved at Mount Ormonde between the whole-rock samples andone of the two analysed clinopyroxene separates. Whereas MountOrmonde whole-rock samples invariably yielded _Nd(T) = +6.6 (meanvalue), a value of +0.5 is obtained for one clinopyroxene separate,whereas another gives +6.0. The above geochemical and isotopicresults make it possible to assign respective roles to the asthenosphere,lithosphere and crust in the petrogenesis of Serra de Monchiqueand Mount Ormonde complexes. We propose that both complexesshare a common mantle source whose isotopic characteristicsare very similar to the source of oceanic island basalts. Continentalmantle lithosphere, already characterized isotopically by studiesof peridotite massifs within the Iberian peninsula, acts asa contaminant which is evident onland on the whole-rock scale,and also present offshore as discrete clinopyroxene xenocrysts.The continental crust appears to play no role in the petrogenesisof the Serra de Monchique alkaline rocks. KEY WORDS: alkaline complexes; continental lithosphere; isotope geochemistry; passive continental margin; within-plate volcanics     

Aliphatic and aromatic biomarkers from Gondwanan sediments of Late Ordovician to Early Devonian age: An early terrestrialization approach

Twenty one core samples of Late Ordovician to Early Devonian age from sections in southern Tunisia, North African Platform (Gondwana) and containing marine and terrestrial organic matter with microbial input were investigated to link the aliphatic and aromatic hydrocarbon distributions with the terrestrial and marine palynomorph content (e.g. acritarchs, prasinophytes, chitinozoans, cryptospores and trilete spores). In addition to several biomarkers of algal/bacterial origin, long chain n-alkanes that might be derived from land plants, as well as the terrestrial diterpane, norabietane, were found. Several land plant-derived biomarkers, such as retene, cadalene, simonellite, tetrahydroretene and C₁₉ isohexylalkyl naphthalene were observed in the aromatic fractions. While these terrestrial biomarkers could be clearly recognized in the middle Silurian-lower Devonian samples, their presence in the upper Ordovician-lower Silurian sediments is more doubtful, because of much lower relative abundances. The land plant biomarkers show a fairly good correlation with the occurrence and abundance of cryptospores and trilete spores, derived from bryophytes and tracheophytes, which covered the emerged areas around the Ghadamis Basin during the Silurian and Devonian. The early tracheophytes (e.g. Cooksonia, lycophytes and zosterophylls) are therefore suggested as a new terrestrial source for most of the saturated and aromatic biomarkers found in sediments of Middle Silurian to Early Devonian age.     

A fracture mapping and extended finite element scheme for coupled deformation and fluid flow in fractured porous media

This paper presents a fracture mapping (FM) approach combined with the extended finite element method (XFEM) to simulate coupled deformation and fluid flow in fractured porous media. Specifically, the method accurately represents the impact of discrete fractures on flow and deformation, although the individual fractures are not part of the finite element mesh. A key feature of FM‐XFEM is its ability to model discontinuities in the domain independently of the computational mesh. The proposed FM approach is a continuum‐based approach that is used to model the flow interaction between the porous matrix and existing fractures via a transfer function. Fracture geometry is defined using the level set method. Therefore, in contrast to the discrete fracture flow model, the fracture representation is not meshed along with the computational domain. Consequently, the method is able to determine the influence of fractures on fluid flow within a fractured domain without the complexity of meshing the fractures within the domain. The XFEM component of the scheme addresses the discontinuous displacement field within elements that are intersected by existing fractures. In XFEM, enrichment functions are added to the standard finite element approximation to adequately resolve discontinuous fields within the simulation domain. Numerical tests illustrate the ability of the method to adequately describe the displacement and fluid pressure fields within a fractured domain at significantly less computational expense than explicitly resolving the fracture within the finite element mesh. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The effect of providing probabilistic information about a tornado threat on people’s protective actions

National Weather Service issues deterministic warnings in a tornado event. An alternative system is being researched at National Severe Storms Laboratory to issue Probabilistic Hazard Information (PHI). This study investigated how providing the uncertainty information about the tornado occurrence through PHI changes people’s protective actions. In an experiment, visual displays of the probabilistic information and deterministic warnings were presented to fifty participants to report their expected protective actions in different scenarios. It was found that the percentage of people who expected to immediately take shelter right after receiving the weather information increased exponentially as their proximity to the threat decreased. When there was more chance that the information about occurrence of a particular tornado was false rather than true, in scenarios that the likelihood of the threat occurrence was less than 50%, providing it through PHI lowered the percentage of people who immediately took shelter. The ordinal logistic regression models showed that the probability of taking protective actions significantly changes by providing the uncertainty information when people have less than 20 min lead time before getting impacted by the threat. When the lead time is less than 10 min, the probability of immediately taking shelter increases to 94 from 71%, and when the lead time is more than 10 but less than 20 min, that probability increases from 53 to 70%, if they are provided with the probabilistic information. Presenting the likelihood of any tornado formation in the area did not have significant effect on the people’s protective actions.