An inverse procedure to estimate transmissivity from heads and SP signals

Experimental hydraulic heads and electrical (self-potential) signals associated with a pumping test were used in an inverse model to estimate the transmissivity distribution of a real aquifer. Several works reported in the literature show that there is a relatively good linear relationship between the hydraulic heads in the aquifer and electrical signals measured at the ground surface. In this experimental test field, first, the current coupling coefficient was determined by the best fit between experimental and modeled self-potential signals at the end of the pumping phase. Soon afterward, with the hydraulic heads obtained from the self-potential signals, the transmissivity distribution of the aquifer was conditioned by means an inverse model based on the successive linear estimator (SLE). To further substantiate the estimated T field from the SLE analysis, we analyzed the drawdown rate, the derivative of the drawdown with respect to the ln(t), because the drawdown rate is highly sensitive to the variability in the transmissivity field. In our opinion, these results show that self-potential signals allow the monitoring of subsurface flow in the course of pumping experiments, and that electrical potentials serve as a good complement to piezometric observations to condition and characterize the transmissivity distribution of an aquifer.     

Effects of a melted greenland ice sheet on climate, vegetation, and the cryosphere

This paper investigates the possible implications for the earth-system of a melting of the Greenland ice-sheet. Such a melting is a possible result of increased high latitude temperatures due to increasing anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Using an atmosphere-ocean general circulation model (AOGCM), we investigate the effects of the removal of the ice sheet on atmospheric temperatures, circulation, and precipitation. We find that locally over Greenland, there is a warming associated directly with the altitude change in winter, and the altitude and albedo change in summer. Outside of Greenland, the largest signal is a cooling over the Barents sea in winter. We attribute this cooling to a decrease in poleward heat transport in the region due to changes to the time mean circulation and eddies, and interaction with sea-ice. The simulated climate is used to force a vegetation model and an ice-sheet model. We find that the Greenland climate in the absence of an ice sheet supports the growth of trees in southern Greenland, and grass in central Greenland. We find that the ice sheet is likely to regrow following a melting of the Greenland ice sheet, the subsequent rebound of its bedrock, and a return to present day atmospheric CO₂ concentrations. This regrowth is due to the high altitude bedrock in eastern Greenland which allows the growth of glaciers which develop into an ice sheet.     

Global high resolution versus Limited Area Model climate change projections over Europe: quantifying confidence level from PRUDENCE results

Four high resolution atmospheric general circulation models (GCMs) have been integrated with the standard forcings of the PRUDENCE experiment: IPCC-SRES A2 radiative forcing and Hadley Centre sea surface temperature and sea-ice extent. The response over Europe, calculated as the difference between the 2071–2100 and the 1961–1990 means is compared with the same diagnostic obtained with nine Regional Climate Models (RCM) all driven by the Hadley Centre atmospheric GCM. The seasonal mean response for 2m temperature and precipitation is investigated. For temperature, GCMs and RCMs behave similarly, except that GCMs exhibit a larger spread. However, during summer, the spread of the RCMs—in particular in terms of precipitation—is larger than that of the GCMs. This indicates that the European summer climate is strongly controlled by parameterized physics and/or high-resolution processes. The temperature response is larger than the systematic error. The situation is different for precipitation. The model bias is twice as large as the climate response. The confidence in PRUDENCE results comes from the fact that the models have a similar response to the IPCC-SRES A2 forcing, whereas their systematic errors are more spread. In addition, GCM precipitation response is slightly but significantly different from that of the RCMs.     

A Twilight Zone: Identity Crisis in French Geopolitics

The paper initially describes some of the most important historical processes that have conditioned France's geopolitical position in the contemporary world. It discusses the current changes in France's geopolitics as a changing reality of international relations and as a changing discourse of scholars and experts, that reflects those real world changes. The paper focuses on French politics in Africa and on France's policy in Europe after the end of the Cold War. In Africa the French post-colonial empire with its close ties between domestic regimes, French business interests and the French state becomes unsustainable after the bipolar rivalry has been suspended. In Europe French policy can no longer be presented as either an independent view among a series of others (Europe des patries) nor as a successful effort to press French views by way of a larger European entity. The paper presents an overview of geopolitical literature written in France as a reflection of these conditions.     

LES of turbulent surface shear stress and pressure-gradient-driven flow on shallow continental shelves

Turbulent shear flows on shallow continental shelves (here shallow means that the interaction with the solid, no-slip bottom is important) are of great importance because tide- and wind-driven flows on the shelf are drivers of the transfer of momentum, heat, and mass (gas) across the air–sea interface. These turbulent flows play an important role because vertical mixing and current are vectors for the transport of sediment and bioactive material on continental shelves. Understanding the dynamics of this class of flows presents complications because of the presence of a free surface and also because the flow can be driven by a pressure gradient (a tidal current), a stress at the free surface (a wind-driven current), or a combination of both. In addition, the flow can be modified by the presence of a wave field that can induce Langmuir circulation (Langmuir, Science 87:119–123, 1938). Large eddy simulation is used to quantify the effects of pressure gradient and wind shear on the distinctive structures of the turbulent flow. From these computations, an understanding of the physics governing the turbulence of pressure-driven and wind-driven flows, how they can interact in a normal or a tangential direction, and the effect of wave forcing on these flows is obtained.     

Evidence for delayed poleward expansion of North Atlantic surface waters during the last interglacial (MIS 5e)

The Last Interglacial (Marine Isotopic Stage or MIS 5e) surface ocean heat flux from the Rockall Basin (NE Atlantic) towards the Arctic Ocean was reconstructed by analysing dinoflagellate cyst (dinocyst) assemblages in four sediment cores. Together with records of stable isotopes and ice-rafted detritus, the assemblage data reflect the northward retreat of ice(berg)-laden waters and the gradual development towards interglacial conditions at the transition from the Saalian deglaciation (Termination II) into MIS 5e. At the Rockall Basin, this onset of the Last Interglacial is soon followed by the appearance of the thermophilic dinocyst species Spiniferites mirabilis, with relative abundances higher than those observed at present in the area. North of the Iceland-Scotland Ridge, however, S. mirabilis only appears in significant numbers during late MIS 5e, between ～118 and 116.5 ka. Hence, fully marine Last Interglacial conditions with most intense Atlantic surface water influence occurred during late MIS 5e in the Nordic seas, and consequently also farther north in the Arctic Ocean, and at times when northern hemisphere summer insolation was already significantly decreased. The stratigraphic position of this Late Interglacial optimum is supported by planktic foraminifers and contrasts with the timing of the early Holocene climatic optimum in this area. We interpret the delayed northward expansion of Atlantic waters towards the polar latitudes as a result of the Saalian ice sheet deglaciation and its specific impact on the subsequent water mass evolution in this region.     

A geologic study of the Juan del Grijalva landslide,the most important mass movement during the last century in Mexico

On November 4th 2007, along the Grijalva River in the state of Chiapas, Mexico, has occurred one of the largest landslides ever known. This landslide, known as Juan del Grijalva, destroyed the town of the same name, killing 20 people, and moved 55 million cubic meters of rock and debris down slope to completely block the Grijalva River. In order to understand the characteristics and factors that triggered the Juan del Grijalva landslide, geologic studies were conducted at the site. The results indicate that the landslide was composed of a lithologic sequence of thin-bedded shales and thin to medium-thick-bedded sandstones. This was faulted into several blocks dipping in the same sense as the mass movement. The main triggering factor was the increment of the pore pressure into the lithologic unit due to water saturation after 5 days of heavy rain before the incident. According to records from the last century, the Juan del Grijalva mass movement represents one of the largest mass movements recorded all over the world. The risk conditions of the area after the landslide lead to the rapid construction of an artificial channel to drain the accumulating mass of water upstream and therefore prevent a future catastrophic inundation down stream.     

Dynamics of sea-surface temperature anomalies in the Southern Ocean diagnosed from a 2D mixed-layer model

We analyze the processes responsible for the generation and evolution of sea-surface temperature anomalies observed in the Southern Ocean during a decade based on a 2D diagnostic mixed-layer model in which geostrophic advection is prescribed from altimetry. Anomalous air–sea heat flux is the dominant term of the heat budget over most of the domain, while anomalous Ekman heat fluxes account for 20–40% of the variance in the latitude band 40°?60°S. In the ACC pathway, lateral fluxes of heat associated with anomalous geostrophic currents are a major contributor, dominating downstream of several topographic features, reflecting the influence of eddies and frontal migrations. A significant fraction of the variability of large-scale SST anomalies is correlated with either ENSO or the SAM, each mode contributing roughly equally. The relation between the heat budget terms and these climate modes is investigated, showing in particular that anomalous Ekman and air–sea heat fluxes have a co-operating effect (with regional exceptions), hence the large SST response associated with each mode. It is further shown that ENSO- or SAM-locked anomalous geostrophic currents generate substantial heat fluxes in all three basins with magnitude comparable with that of atmospheric forcings for ENSO, and smaller for the SAM except for limited areas. ENSO-locked forcings generate SST anomalies along the ACC pathway, and advection by mean flows is found to be a non-negligible contribution to the heat budget, exhibiting a wavenumber two zonal structure, characteristic of the Antarctic Circumpolar Wave. By contrast SAM-related forcings are predominantly zonally uniform along the ACC, hence smaller zonal SST gradients and a lesser role of mean advection, except in the SouthWest Atlantic. While modeled SST anomalies are significantly correlated with observations over most of the Southern Ocean, the analysis of the data-model discrepancies suggests that vertical ocean physics may play a significant role in the nonseasonal heat budget, especially in some key regions for mode water formation.     

PCA and SVM as geo-computational methods for geological mapping in the southern of Tunisia,using ASTER remote sensing data set

The purpose of this study was to examine the efficiency of Advanced Space Borne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) data in the discrimination of geological formations and the generation of geological map in the northern margin of the Tunisian desert. The nine ASTER bands covering the visible (VIS), near-infrared (NIR) and short-wave infrared (SWIR) spectral regions (wavelength range of 400–2500 nm) have been treated and analyzed. As a first step of data processing, crosstalk correction, resampling, orthorectification, atmospheric correction, and radiometric normalization have been applied to the ASTER radiance data. Then, to decrease the redundancy information in highly correlated bands, the principal component analysis (PCA) has been applied on the nine ASTER bands. The results of PCA allow the validation and the rectification of the lithological boundaries already published on the geologic map, and gives a new information for identifying new lithological units corresponding to superficial formations previously undiscovered. The application of a supervised classification on the principal components image using a support vector machine (SVM) algorithm shows good correlation with the reference geologic map. The overall classification accuracy is 73 % and the kappa coefficient equals to 0.71. The processing of ASTER remote sensing data set by PCA and SVM can be employed as an effective tool for geological mapping in arid regions.     

Recent variations in the general circulation as related to glacier retreat in northern Scandinavia

Summary A review is given of the investigations on variations in the general circulation in middle latitudes made byWillett andPetterssen. According toWillett a «high-index» type of circulation pattern with a strong zonal flow has probably caused the recent climatic improvement in the northern latitudes while the «low-index» type with meridional flow would create a cooling off in the same areas. According toPetterssen an other type of «low-index» pattern with a weak zonal flow and strong meridional exchange of air has been the essential cause of the warming up of the northern latitudes in Europe. This implies that the definition of the «low-index» type is not clear and gives rise to misunderstanding. Making use of our experience on glacier retreat in northern Scandinavia it is concluded that thePetterssen type of circulation more probably than the «high-index» type has caused the warming-up in the North Atlantic area from which the retreat of the glaciers has followed.