Atmospheric nitrogen inputs into the North Sea: effect on productivity

The ANICE (Atmospheric Nitrogen Inputs into the Coastal Ecosystem) project addressed the atmospheric deposition of nitrogen to the North Sea, with emphasis on coastal effects. ANICE focused on quantifying the deposition of inorganic nitrogen compounds to the North Sea and the governing processes. An overview of the results from modelling and experimental efforts is presented. They serve to identify the role of the atmosphere as a source of biologically essential chemical species to the marine biota. Data from the Weybourne Atmospheric Observatory (UK) are used to evaluate the effect of short episodes with very high atmospheric nitrogen concentrations. One such episode resulted in an average deposition of 0.8 mmol N m⁻² day⁻¹, which has the potential to promote primary productivity of 5.3 mmol C m⁻² day⁻¹. This value is compared to long-term effects determined from model results. The total calculated atmospheric deposition to the North Sea in 1999 is 948 kg N km⁻¹, i.e. 0.19 mmol N m⁻² day⁻¹ which has the potential to promote primary productivity of 1.2 mmol C m⁻² day⁻¹. Detailed results for August 1999 show strong gradients across the North Sea due to adjacent areas where emissions of NO_x and NH₃ are among the highest in Europe. The average atmospheric deposition to the southern part of the North Sea in August 1999 could potentially promote primary production of 2.0 mmol C m⁻² day⁻¹, i.e. 5.5% of the total production at this time of the year in this area of the North Sea. For the entire study area the atmospheric contribution to the primary production per m² is about two-third of this value. Most of the deposition occurs during short periods with high atmospheric concentrations. This atmospheric nitrogen is almost entirely anthropogenic in origin and thus represents a human-induced perturbation of the ecosystem.     

Variations in temperature and extent of Atlantic Water in the northern North Atlantic during the Holocene

We compare six high-resolution Holocene, sediment cores along a S–N transect on the Norwegian–Svalbard continental margin from ca 60°N to 77.4°N, northern North Atlantic. Planktonic foraminifera in the cores were investigated to show the changes in upper surface and subsurface water mass distribution and properties, including summer sea-surface temperatures (SST). The cores are located below the axis of the Norwegian Current and the West Spitsbergen Current, which today transport warm Atlantic Water to the Arctic. Sediment accumulation rates are generally high at all the core sites, allowing for a temporal resolution of 10–10² years. SST is reconstructed using different types of transfer functions, resulting in very similar SST trends, with deviations of no more than ±1.0/1.5 °C. A transfer function based on the maximum likelihood statistical approach is found to be most relevant. The reconstruction documents an abrupt change in planktonic foraminiferal faunal composition and an associated warming at the Younger Dryas–Preboreal transition. The earliest part of the Holocene was characterized by large temperature variability, including the Preboreal Oscillations and the 8.2 k event. In general, the early Holocene was characterized by SSTs similar to those of today in the south and warmer than today in the north, and a smaller S–N temperature gradient (0.23 °C/°N) compared to the present temperature gradient (0.46 °C/°N). The southern proxy records (60–69°N) were more strongly influenced by slightly cooler subsurface water probably due to the seasonality of the orbital forcing and increased stratification due to freshening. The northern records (72–77.4°N) display a millennial-scale change associated with reduced insolation and a gradual weakening of the North Atlantic thermohaline circulation (THC). The observed northwards amplification of the early Holocene warming is comparable to the pattern of recent global warming and future climate modelling, which predicts greater warming at higher latitudes. The overall trend during mid and late Holocene was a cooling in the north, stable or weak warming in the south, and a maximum S–N SST gradient of ca 0.7 °C/°N at 5000 cal. years BP. Superimposed on this trend were several abrupt temperature shifts. Four of these shifts, dated to 9000–8000, 5500–3000 and 1000 and 400 cal. years BP, appear to be global, as they correlate with periods of global climate change. In general, there is a good correlation between the northern North Atlantic temperature records and climate records from Norway and Svalbard.     

Modelling of run up of steep non-breaking waves

A Navier–Stokes solver is used to examine steep waves as they run up a steep beach (10.54°). The volume of fluid method (VOF) is used to model the free surface. Comparison with experimental results shows reasonable overall agreement in the prediction of the free-surface, velocities and accelerations within the flow. A spurious feature at the free-surface was found which does reduce the quality of the results. For a steep wave we see the transition from a steep wave front to a smooth run-up tongue at the beach that is in qualitative agreement with experiment.     

Airborne VLF Measurements and Variations of Ground Conductivity: A Tutorial

Airborne very low frequency (VLF) data are routinely collected by national agencies and commercial companies together with other passive geophysical measurements of the static magnetic field and radiometric data. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that both standard three-component VLF and tensor VLF (TVLF) data contain a lot of useful quantitative and qualitative information about the electrical conductivity distribution in the upper few hundred meters of the crystalline basement. We first give a new derivation of the fundamental transfer functions (the tipper) used in the TVLF technique. We then show that the tipper can be estimated from simultaneous measurements of the wave magnetic fields from at least two transmitters with somewhat different frequencies, and present a simple model by which the maximum error introduced by the difference in frequencies can be found. Single transmitter scalar VLF maps emphasise those conductive structures that have dominant strikes in the direction of the transmitter. Multiple transmitter transfer functions are dependent only upon the underlying conductivity structure. Two dimensional structures can be quantitatively modelled by modern inversion methods developed originally for deep electromagnetic magnetotelluric (MT) soundings. In such cases three-component VLF measurements can be modelled easily upon appropriate rotation of the co-ordinate system to “strike” co-ordinates. Single frequency transfer functions (tippers) have real and imaginary parts that carry information on not only lateral contrasts in conductivity, as usually stated in text books, but, taken together, they provide a robust tool for determining the background conductivity level away from distinct conductors, and they can also be used to discriminate between deep and shallow conductors. Based upon simulations using multi-frequency data, it can be concluded that such a new development would dramatically increase the resolving power of airborne VLF measurements.