Anisotropic path modeling to assess pedestrian-evacuation potential from Cascadia-related tsunamis in the US Pacific Northwest

Recent disasters highlight the threat that tsunamis pose to coastal communities. When developing tsunami-education efforts and vertical-evacuation strategies, emergency managers need to understand how much time it could take for a coastal population to reach higher ground before tsunami waves arrive. To improve efforts to model pedestrian evacuations from tsunamis, we examine the sensitivity of least-cost-distance models to variations in modeling approaches, data resolutions, and travel-rate assumptions. We base our observations on the assumption that an anisotropic approach that uses path-distance algorithms and accounts for variations in land cover and directionality in slope is the most realistic of an actual evacuation landscape. We focus our efforts on the Long Beach Peninsula in Washington (USA), where a substantial residential and tourist population is threatened by near-field tsunamis related to a potential Cascadia subduction zone earthquake. Results indicate thousands of people are located in areas where evacuations to higher ground will be difficult before arrival of the first tsunami wave. Deviations from anisotropic modeling assumptions substantially influence the amount of time likely needed to reach higher ground. Across the entire study, changes in resolution of elevation data has a greater impact on calculated travel times than changes in land-cover resolution. In particular areas, land-cover resolution had a substantial impact when travel-inhibiting waterways were not reflected in small-scale data. Changes in travel-speed parameters had a substantial impact also, suggesting the importance of public-health campaigns as a tsunami risk-reduction strategy.     

Community variations in social vulnerability to Cascadia-related tsunamis in the U.S. Pacific Northwest

Tsunamis generated by Cascadia subduction zone earthquakes pose significant threats to coastal communities in the U.S. Pacific Northwest. Impacts of future tsunamis to individuals and communities will likely vary due to pre-event socioeconomic and demographic differences. In order to assess social vulnerability to Cascadia tsunamis, we adjust a social vulnerability index based on principal component analysis first developed by Cutter et al. (2003) to operate at the census-block level of geography and focus on community-level comparisons along the Oregon coast. The number of residents from blocks in tsunami-prone areas considered to have higher social vulnerability varies considerably among 26 Oregon cities and most are concentrated in four cities and two unincorporated areas. Variations in the number of residents from census blocks considered to have higher social vulnerability in each city do not strongly correlate with the number of residents or city assets in tsunami-prone areas. Methods presented here will help emergency managers to identify community sub-groups that are more susceptible to loss and to develop risk-reduction strategies that are tailored to local conditions.     

A fast tour design method using non-tangent v-infinity leveraging transfer

The announced missions to the Saturn and Jupiter systems renewed the space community interest in simple design methods for gravity assist tours at planetary moons. A key element in such trajectories are the V-Infinity Leveraging Transfers (VILT) which link simple impulsive maneuvers with two consecutive gravity assists at the same moon. VILTs typically include a tangent impulsive maneuver close to an apse location, yielding to a desired change in the excess velocity relative to the moon. In this paper we study the VILT solution space and derive a linear approximation which greatly simplifies the computation of the transfers, and is amenable to broad global searches. Using this approximation, Tisserand graphs, and heuristic optimization procedure we introduce a fast design method for multiple-VILT tours. We use this method to design a trajectory from a highly eccentric orbit around Saturn to a 200-km science orbit at Enceladus. The trajectory is then recomputed removing the linear approximation, showing a Δv change of <4%. The trajectory is 2.7 years long and comprises 52 gravity assists at Titan, Rhea, Dione, Tethys, and Enceladus, and several deterministic maneuvers. Total Δv is only 445 m/s, including the Enceladus orbit insertion, almost 10 times better then the 3.9 km/s of the Enceladus orbit insertion from the Titan–Enceladus Hohmann transfer. The new method and demonstrated results enable a new class of missions that tour and ultimately orbit small mass moons. Such missions were previously considered infeasible due to flight time and Δv constraints.     

The importance of social drivers in the resilient provision of ecosystem services

While a sustained flow of ecosystem services brings tangible benefits to humans, some ecosystem states and suites of services may be more desired by some people than others. Allocating or using the flow of services is loaded with asymmetries, complex power dynamics and political struggles between groups of people. We argue that the issues associated with such allocation and use questions are poorly integrated into the literatures of resilience, sustainability, and vulnerability. To illustrate this, we focus on three socially constructed factors that inhibit a fuller understanding about how to sustain the flow of ecosystem services: (1) rigidity/poverty traps; (2) power asymmetries; and (3) scientization of policy/politicization of science. These factors limit our ability to assess the sustainable flows of ecosystem services, and in particular to better understand the trade-offs and limits to aggregate human activity. We demonstrate that an improved understanding of the allocation trade-offs and limits to the flows of ecosystem services could result from more applied research that integrates the developing fields of deliberative democracy, pragmatic environmental philosophy, and legitimacy and rule compliance. Without the understanding that such integration would bring, researchers and policy makers risk underestimating the limits on flows of ecosystem services and how to accomplish their provision toward the greater collective - rather than individual - good.     

昆仑断裂带东段滑动速率梯度

欧亚大陆走滑断裂带是否实现对青藏地壳及岩石层的向东挤出,很大程度上取决于断层尾端变形的动力学机制。本文我们利用青藏高原北部昆仑断裂最东段千年尺度的地貌标志物提供一组最新的滑动速率测定结果。该断裂带是印度?亚欧碰撞带产生的最主要走滑断裂带之一,在西藏岩石层向东挤出的模型中扮演着主要的作用。曾有人争论在相当长的长度内该断裂显示出相同的滑动速率。黄河支流上的河流阶地位移以及阶地上物质的14C测年可以控制晚更新世至全新世断层以来的滑动速率。结果显示沿断裂东部约150km滑动速率从>10mm/a～<2mm/a自西向东系统地递减。这些数据向那些认为整条断裂滑动速率保持一致的观点提出质疑,相反揭示出位错的梯度性,这与那些在断层尾端预期的情形是类似的。另外,沿断层的滑动看起来在增厚的高原地壳内部终结,因此沿昆仑断裂的滑动导致的西藏岩石层的挤出都会被断裂尾端周围高原的内部变形所吸收。     

Role of wave–mean flow interaction in sun–climate connections: Historical overview and some new interpretations and results

Quasi-decadal variations in solar irradiance – termed the 11-year solar cycle (SC) – have been linked to variations in a variety of atmospheric circulation features, including the polar vortex, the Brewer–Dobson circulation, and the quasi-biennial oscillation. These features share an underlying commonality: they are all rooted in wave–mean flow interaction. The purpose of this paper is to provide a historical overview of the connection between the SC and wave–mean flow interaction and to propose a more complete theoretical framework for solar modulated wave–mean flow interaction that includes both zonal-mean and zonally asymmetric ozone as intermediaries for communicating variations in solar spectral irradiance to the climate system. We solve a quasi-geostrophic model using the WKB formalism to highlight the physics connecting the SC to planetary wave-drag. Numerical results show the importance of the zonally asymmetric ozone field in mediating the effects of solar variability to the wave-driven circulation in the middle atmosphere.     

Geochronology and geochemistry of the Wunugetushan porphyry Cu–Mo deposit in NE china,and their geological significance

The Wunugetushan porphyry Cu–Mo deposit is located in the Manzhouli district of NE China, on the southern margin of the Mesozoic Mongol–Okhotsk Orogenic Belt. Concentric rings of hydrothermal alteration and Cu–Mo mineralization surround an Early–Middle Jurassic monzogranitic porphyry. The Cu–Mo mineralization is clearly related to the quartz–potassic and quartz–sericite alteration. Molybdenite Re–Os and groundmass ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar of the host porphyry dates indicate that the ore-formation and porphyry-emplacement occurred at 177.6 ± 4.5 Ma and 179.0 ± 1.9 Ma, respectively. Geochemically, the host porphyry of the deposit is characterized by strong LREE/HREE fractionation, enrichment in LILE, Ba, Rb, U, Th and Pb, and depletion of HFSE, Nb, Ta, Ti and HREE. The Sr–Nd–Pb isotopic compositions of the porphyry display an varied initial (⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr)_i ratio, a positive ε_Nd(t) values and high ²⁰⁶Pb/²⁰⁴Pb_t, ²⁰⁷Pb/²⁰⁴Pb_t and ²⁰⁸Pb/²⁰⁴Pb_t ratios. These data indicate that the magmatic source of the host porphyry comprised two end-members: lithospheric mantle metasomatized by fluids derived from the subducted slab; and continental crust. We infer that the primitive magma of the host porphyry was derived from crust–mantle transition zone. Based on regional geology and geochemistry of the host porphyry, the Wunugetushan deposit is suggested to form in a continental collision environment after closure of the Mongol–Okhotsk Ocean.