Towards sectoral and standardised vulnerability assessments: the example of heatwave impacts on human health

The relevance of climate change is especially apparent through the impacts it has on natural and societal systems. A standardised methodology to assess these impacts in order to produce comparable results is still lacking. We propose a semi-quantitative approach to calculate vulnerability to climate change, with the ability to capture complex mechanisms in human-environmental systems. The key mechanisms are delineated and translated into a deterministic graph (impact chain). A fuzzy logic algorithm is then applied to address uncertainty regarding the definition of clear threshold values. We exemplify our approach by analysing the direct impacts of climate change on human health in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, where the urban heat island potential, the percentage of elderly population as well as the occurrence of heat waves determine impact intensity. Increases in heatwaves and elderly population will aggravate the impacts. While the influence of climatic changes is apparent on larger spatial scales, societal factors determine the small scale distribution of impacts within our regional case study. In addition to identifying climate change impact hot spots, the structured approach of the impact chain and the methodology of aggregation enable to infer from the results back to the main constituents of vulnerability. Thus, it can provide a basis for decision-makers to set priorities for specific adaptation measures within the complex field of climate change impacts.     

Überschiebungen in der Tandil-Gebirgsgruppe der argentinischen Provinz Buenos Aires

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Experimental determination of corundum solubilities in pure water between 400–700°C and 1–3 kbar

Experimentally reversed corundum solubilities in pure water at 400° to 700°C and 0.7 to 3 kbar yield values of dissolved aluminum that range from 1–4 ppm Al. At constant pressure the solubility shows a sigmoidal behavior with a slight maximum at 500°C and minimum at 600°C. Corundum solubility increases with increasing pressure at constant temperature. The dissolved aluminum appears to form an uncharged, but polar species under these conditions probably of the form Al(OH)₃⁰.