Climate change,income and happiness: An empirical study for Barcelona

The present article builds upon the results of an empirical study exploring key factors which determine life satisfaction in Barcelona. Based on a sample of 840 individuals we first look at the way changes in income, notably income reductions, associated with the current economic situation in Spain, affect subjective well-being. Income decreases which occur with respect to one year ago have a negative effect on happiness when specified in logarithmic terms, and a positive one when specified as a dummy variable (and percentage change). The divergence in results is discussed and various explanations are put forward. Both effects are however temporary and do not hold for a period longer than a year, probably for reasons of adaptation and a downward adjustment of reference consumption and income levels. Next, we examine the implications of experiencing forest fires and find a lasting negative effect on life satisfaction. Our results suggest that climate policy need not reduce happiness in the long run, even when it reduces income and carbon-intensive consumption. Climate policy may even raise life well-being, if accompanied by compensatory measures that decrease formal working hours and reference consumption standards, while maintaining employment security.     

Deckgebirgstektonik und vulkanische Förderzonen in Nordost-Bayern

Zusammenfassung Die germanotype Zerlegung setzt am Ende des Jura ein. Zeitpunkt, Häufigkeit und Intensität der wirksamen Phasen wechselt in den einzelnen Bereichen und erzeugt teilweise schwer entwirrbare Interferenzbilder von Beulungen und Brüchen. Der basaltische Vulkanismus reicht vom Miozän bis zum Plio-Pleistozän.Förderschlote sind an vor-basaltisch geprägte Beulungszentren gebunden. Die Gänge verfüllen synbasaltische Raumangebote längs vorbasaltisch angelegten Kluftflächen. p]Die erschlossenen Förderzonen lassen aus Füllung und Verbandsverhältnissen den Ausräumungsprozeß als sukzessive mechanische Verdrängung rekonstruieren, ähnlich wie in der Uracher Alb.

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Germanotype orogenesis started in the end of the Jurassic. Regional units differ with time, frequency and effect of orogenetic phases. Some units show complex combinations of upfolding and faulting. Basaltic volcanism lasted from the miocene to the plio-pleistocene period.Vents are connected with the centres of pre-basaltic upfolding. Dikes filled syn-basaltic tension-fissures using pre-basaltic joint planes.Vents formed by an intrusive process of increasing mechanical emplacement just like the necks in the Swabian Alb.

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Résumé Les phases qui ont lieu depuis le tournant Jurassique-Crétacé varient en âge, nombre et intensité suivant les lieux, ce qui cause parfois une tectonique très compliquée. Le volcanisme, surtout basaltique, commence au Miocène et se termine au Plio-Pléistocène.Dans la plupart des cas, les cheminées apparaissent au centre de voûtes d'un âge pré-basaltique. Les dykes suivent l'espace tectonique synbasaltique le long de joints de séparation pré-basaltiques.Si le super-stockwerk volcanique est érodé, le contenu et l'entourage des cheminées permettent de connaître le mode d'épanchement, délogement successif et mécanique comparable au processus de la Uracher Alb.

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The Last Glacial Maximum in the North Sea Basin: micromorphological evidence of extensive glaciation

Despite a long history of investigation, critical issues regarding the last glacial cycle in northwest Europe remain unresolved. One of these refers to the extent, timing and dynamics of Late Devensian/Weichselian glaciation of the North Sea Basin, and whether the British and Scandinavian ice sheets were confluent at any time during this period. This has been the result of the lack of the detailed sedimentological data required to reconstruct processes and environment of sediments recovered through coring. This study presents the results of seismic, sedimentological and micromorphological evidence used to reconstruct the depositional processes of regionally extensive seismic units across the North Sea Basin. Thin section micromorphology is used here to provide an effective means of discriminating between subglacial and glacimarine sediments from cored samples and deriving process‐based interpretations from sediment cores. On the basis of micromorphology, critical formations from the basin have been reinterpreted, with consequent stratigraphic implications. Within the current stratigraphic understanding of the North Sea Basin, a complex reconstruction is suggested, with a minimum of three major glacial episodes inferred. On at least two occasions during the Weichselian/Devensian, the British and Scandinavian ice sheets were confluent in the central North Sea. Whilst micromorphology can provide much greater confidence in the interpretation of Late Quaternary offshore stratigraphic sequences, it is noted that a much better geochronology is required to resolve key stratigraphic issues between the onshore and offshore stratigraphic records. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Flood magnification on the River Rhine

Flooding on the German Rhine during the 20th century was tested for trends and assessed to identify causal mechanisms driving worsening of flooding. A review of previous research outlines the range of impacts due to climate change, land‐use shifts, and river regulation. Analysis of hydrologic data, especially of the long record at Cologne, documents statistically significant increases in both flood magnitudes and frequencies. Specific‐gauge analysis, which isolates the effects of channel modification, documents that 20th century river engineering has caused little of the observed increase in flooding on the German Rhine. Precipitation records from the Rhine basin confirm that flood magnification has been driven by upstream factors, including an increase in flood‐producing precipitation of roughly 25% during the past 100 years and increases in runoff yields. In addition, agricultural land‐use records suggest that flood magnification can be partially explained by 20th century trends documenting intensification and industrialization of German agriculture. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Tectono-magmatic control on vertical dip slip basement faulting: An example from the Fennoscandian Shield

Vertical dip-slip basement faults play an important role in the evolution and structuring of the Earth's crust. The Proterozoic anorogenic rapakivi-anorthosite setting of the Fennoscandian Shield in southern Finland exhibits a widespread pattern of vertical dip-slip basement faults that are deeply eroded. The Porkkala-Mantsala (PM)-fault, located c. 30 km W of Helsinki is part of a system of crustal lineaments that closely follows the outcrop pattern of Mid-Late Proterozoic anorogenic crustal elements, such as basic dyke swarms, the outline of rapakivi granites and remnants of sediment-filled grabens. These lineaments are formed by low-grade dip-slip faults that overprint Svecofennian shear zones. Structural analysis of the PM-fault supports an interpretation in terms of reactivation of a high-grade ductile wrench zone. Successive stages of brittle deformation visible in as well the PM-fault and the Obbnäs granite demonstrate that brittle deformation in the PM-fault is coeval with the intrusion of the anorogenic Obbnäs rapakivi granite. Based on the spatial and temporal relationship of anorogenic magmatism and block faulting, a genetic relationship is proposed.     

Galaxy evolution, cosmology and dark energy with the Square Kilometer Array

The present-day Universe is seemingly dominated by dark energy and dark matter, but mapping the normal (baryonic) content remains vital for both astrophysics – understanding how galaxies form – and astro-particle physics – inferring properties of the dark components.The Square Kilometer Array (SKA) will provide the only means of studying the cosmic evolution of neutral hydrogen (HI) which, alongside information on star formation from the radio continuum, is needed to understand how stars formed from gas within dark-matter over-densities and the rôles of gas accretion and galaxy merging.‘All hemisphere’ HI redshift surveys to z 1.5 are feasible with wide-field-of-view realizations of the SKA and, by measuring the galaxy power spectrum in exquisite detail, will allow the first precise studies of the equation-of-state of dark energy. The SKA will be capable of other uniquely powerful cosmological studies including the measurement of the dark-matter power spectrum using weak gravitational lensing, and the precise measurement of H₀ using extragalactic water masers.The SKA is likely to become the premier dark-energy-measuring machine, bringing breakthroughs in cosmology beyond those likely to be made possible by combining CMB (e.g. Planck), optical (e.g. LSST, SNAP) and other early-21st-century datasets.     

Short time-scale variability in the Faint Sky Variability Survey

We present the V -band variability analysis of the point sources in the Faint Sky Variability Survey on time-scales from 24 min to tens of days. We find that about one per cent of the point sources down to   V = 24  are variables. We discuss the variability-detection probabilities for each field depending on field sampling, amplitude and time-scale of the variability. The combination of colour and variability information allows us to explore the fraction of variable sources for different spectral types. We find that about 50 per cent of the variables show variability time-scales shorter than 6 h. The total number of variables is dominated by main-sequence sources. The distribution of variables with spectral type is fairly constant along the main sequence, with 1 per cent of the sources being variable, except at the blue end of the main sequence, between spectral types F0 and F5, where the fraction of variable sources increases to about 2 per cent. For bluer sources, above the main sequence, this percentage increases to about 3.5. We find that the combination of the sampling and the number of observations allows us to determine the variability time-scales and amplitudes for a maximum of 40 per cent of the variables found. About a third of the total number of short time-scale variables found in the survey were not detected in either B or/and I band. These show a similar variability time-scale distribution to that found for the variables detected in all three bands.