Climates of the Earth and Cryosphere Evolution

The interrelationship between the cryosphere and the climate is not always operating on Earth over a scale of billions or millions of years. Indeed, most of the time, the Earth is regulated at temperatures such that no ice sheet exists. Nevertheless, it is very fruitful to understand the conditions where and when ice sheets were triggered during the Earth??s history. This paper deals with the paleoclimate and the cryosphere in the last 4.6 Ga and explains the different processes that make the climate of the first 4 billion years warm despite the weaker solar luminosity. We also describe the more recent evolution in the last 65 million years when a global decrease in atmospheric CO₂ from around 4 PAL to 1 PAL was associated with a global cooling (1 PAL present atmospheric level = 280 ppm). It is in this context that the Quaternary occurred characterized by low atmospheric CO₂ and the presence of two perennial ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica. The last million years are certainly the most documented since direct and reliable CO₂ measurements are available. They are characterized by a complex climate/cryosphere dynamics leading to oscillations between long glacial periods with four ice sheets and shorter ones with only two ice sheets (interglacial). We are currently living in one of those interglacials, generally associated with a CO₂ level of 280 ppm. Presently, anthropogenic activities are seriously perturbing the carbon cycle and the atmospheric CO₂ content and therefore the climate. The last but not least question raised in this paper is to investigate whether the anthropogenic perturbation may lead to a melting of the ice sheets.     

The 1995 FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries: Adopting,implementing or scoring results?

The paper presents the results of a major assessment of Code adoption and implementation in nine fishing countries in Asia (China, Thailand, Vietnam), Africa (Senegal, Guinea Bissau and Guinea) and in the Caribbean (Jamaica, Dominican Republic and Trinidad & Tobago), which are part of the international research project ECOST. The main findings are that the Code as an international policy instrument remains relevant and adaptable to the current international fisheries context, and that its guiding principles and provisions have been endorsed and adopted in almost unanimous fashion by the countries covered, and integrated into fisheries policy letters and legal frameworks. However, results also suggest that tackling the truly difficult issues in fisheries, such as combating illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing or adjusting fishing overcapacity has been a lot less successful. The design and implementation of necessary measures often remains very weak in domains with important economic and political dimensions. The causes for this are attributed to a mix of administrative inertia, lack of political will and stamina, and short-sighted economic considerations.     

Can UV radiation affect benthic deposit-feeders through biochemical alteration of food resources? An experimental study with juveniles of the benthic polychaete Eupolymnia nebulosa

The growth, tentacle development and feeding activity of the benthic polychaete Eupolymnia nebulosa were examined to determine whether UV might affect marine deposit-feeders indirectly through the modification of the nutritional quality of their resources. Since marine invertebrates have higher nutritional requirements during the period following settlement, we tested the effect of UV-altered phytodetritus on freshly settled juveniles of E. nebulosa. Phytodetritus was prepared from cultures of the diatom Skeletonema costatum either grown under or sheltered from UVB radiation. Sterol content of phytodetritus was unmodified by UV radiation. Conversely, phytodetritus was noticeably depleted in polyunsaturated fatty acids. Growth and tentacle development of juveniles fed on altered phytodetritus were reduced by 35% and 15% respectively, suggesting potential deficiencies in essential nutrients. In response to the lower quality of the phytodetritus, juveniles explored a wider area as they search for food, a strategy that could compensate for low food quality.     

Reorganization of a deeply incised drainage: role of deformation,sedimentation and groundwater flow

Deeply incised drainage networks are thought to be robust and not easily modified, and are commonly used as passive markers of horizontal strain. Yet, reorganizations (rearrangements) appear in the geologic record. We provide field evidence of the reorganization of a Miocene drainage network in response to strike–slip and vertical displacements in Guatemala. The drainage was deeply incised into a 50‐km‐wide orogen located along the North America–Caribbean plate boundary. It rearranged twice, first during the Late Miocene in response to transpressional uplift along the Polochic fault, and again in the Quaternary in response to transtensional uplift along secondary faults. The pattern of reorganization resembles that produced by the tectonic defeat of rivers that cross growing tectonic structures. Compilation of remote sensing data, field mapping, sediment provenance study, grain‐size analysis and Ar⁴⁰/Ar³⁹ dating from paleovalleys and their fill reveals that the classic mechanisms of river diversion, such as river avulsion over bedrock, or capture driven by surface runoff, are not sufficient to produce the observed diversions. The sites of diversion coincide spatially with limestone belts and reactivated fault zones, suggesting that solution‐triggered or deformation‐triggered permeability have helped breaching of interfluves. The diversions are also related temporally and spatially to the accumulation of sediment fills in the valleys, upstream of the rising structures. We infer that the breaching of the interfluves was achieved by headward erosion along tributaries fed by groundwater flow tracking from the valleys soon to be captured. Fault zones and limestone belts provided the pathways, and the aquifers occupying the valley fills provided the head pressure that enhanced groundwater circulation. The defeat of rivers crossing the rising structures results essentially from the tectonically enhanced activation of groundwater flow between catchments.     

Thermal Conductivity of Argillaceous Rocks: Determination Methodology Using In Situ Heating Tests

This study focuses on the characterisation of thermal conductivity for three potential host rocks for radioactive waste disposal. First, the heat conduction process is reviewed on the basis of an analytical solution and key aspects related to anisotropic conduction are discussed. Then the existing information on the three rocks is summarised and a broad uncertainty range of thermal conductivity is estimated based on the mineralogical composition. Procedures to backanalyse the thermal conductivity on the basis of in situ heating tests are assessed and a methodology is put forward. Finally, this methodology is used to estimate the impact of experimental uncertainties and applied to the four in situ heating tests. In the three potential host rocks, a clear influence of the bedding planes was identified and anisotropic heat conduction was shown to be necessary to interpret the observed temperature field. Experimental uncertainties were also shown to induce a larger uncertainty on the anisotropy ratio than on the equivalent thermal conductivity defined as the geometric mean of the thermal conductivity in the three principal directions.     

The application of an innovative inverse model for understanding and predicting landslide movements (Salazie cirque landslides,Reunion Island)

The prediction of landslide movement acceleration is a complex problem, among others identified for deep-seated landslides, and represents a crucial step for risk assessment. Within the scope of this problem, the objective of this paper is to explore a modelling method that enables the study of landslide function and facilitates displacement predictions based on a limited data set. An inverse modelling approach is proposed for predicting the temporal evolution of landslide movement based on rainfall and displacement velocities. Initially, the hydrogeology of the studied landslides was conceptualised based on correlative analyses. Subsequently, we applied an inverse model with a Gaussian-exponential transfer function to reproduce the displacements. This method was tested on the Grand Ilet (GI) and Mare-à-Poule-d’Eau (HB) landslides on Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean. We show that the behaviour of landslides can be modelled by inverse models with a bimodal transfer function using a Gaussian-exponential impulse response. The cumulative displacements over 7 years of modelling (2 years of calibration period for GI, and 4 years for HB) were reproduced with an RMSE above 0.9. The characteristics of the bimodal transfer function are directly related to the hydrogeological functioning demonstrated by the correlative analyses: the rapid reaction of a landslide can be associated with the effect of a preferential flow path on groundwater level variations. Thus, this study shows that the inverse model using a Gaussian-exponential transfer function is a powerful tool for predicting deep-seated landslide movements and for studying how they function. Beyond modelling displacements, our approach effectively demonstrates its ability to contribute relevant data for conceptualising the sliding mechanisms and hydrogeology of landslides.     

An Analytical Solution of the Lagrange Equations Valid also for Very Low Eccentricities: Influence of a Central Potential

This paper presents an analytic solution of the equations of motion of an artificial satellite, obtained using non singular elements for eccentricity. The satellite is under the influence of the gravity field of a central body, expanded in spherical harmonics up to an arbitrary degree and order. We discuss in details the solution we give for the components of the eccentricity vector. For each element, we have divided the Lagrange equations into two parts: the first part is integrated exactly, and the second part is integrated with a perturbation method. The complete solution is the sum of the so-called “main” solution and of the so-called “complementary” solution. To test the accuracy of our method, we compare it to numerical integration and to the method developed in Kaula (Theory of Satellite Geodesy, Blaisdell publ. Co., New York. 1966), expressed in classical orbital elements. For eccentricities which are not very small, the two analytical methods are almost equivalent. For low eccentricities, our method is much more accurate.