An ocean observation system for monitoring the affects of climate change on the ecology and sustainability of pelagic fisheries in the Pacific Ocean

Climate change presents an emerging challenge to the sustainable management of tuna fisheries, and robust information is essential to ensure future sustainability. Climate and harvest affect tuna stocks, populations of non-target, dependent species and the ecosystem. To provide relevant advice we need an improved understanding of oceanic ecosystems and better data to parameterise the models that forecast the impacts of climate change. Currently ocean-wide data collection in the Pacific Ocean is primarily restricted to oceanographic data. However, the fisheries observer programs that operate in the region offer an opportunity to collect the additional information on the mid and upper trophic levels of the ecosystem that is necessary to complement this physical data, including time-series of distribution, abundance, size, composition and biological information on target and non-target species and mid trophic level organisms. These observer programs are in their infancy, with limited temporal and spatial distribution but recent international and national policy decisions have been made to expand their coverage. We identify a number of actions to initiate this monitoring including: consolidating collaborations to ensure the use of best quality data; developing consistency between sub-regional observer programmes to ensure that they meet the objectives of ecosystem monitoring; interrogating of existing time series to determine the most appropriate spatial template for monitoring; and exploring existing ecosystem models to identify suitable indicators of ecosystem status and change. The information obtained should improve capacity to develop fisheries management policies that are resilient and can be adapted to climate change.     

Spatially explicit surface energy budget and partitioning with remote sensing and flux measurements in a boreal region of Interior Alaska

Extrapolating energy fluxes between the ground surface and the atmospheric boundary layer from point-based measurements to spatially explicit landscape estimation is critical to understand and quantify the energy balance components and exchanges in the hydrosphere, atmosphere, and biosphere. This information is difficult to quantify and are often lacking. Using a Landsat image (acquired on 5 August 2004), the flux measurements from three eddy covariance flux towers (a 1987 burn, a 1999 burn, and an unburned control site) and a customized satellite-based surface energy balance model of Mapping Evapotranspiration at High Resolution with Internalized Calibration (METRIC), we estimated net radiation, sensible heat flux (H), latent heat flux (LE), and soil heat flux (G) for the boreal Yukon River Basin of Interior Alaska. The model requires user selection of two extreme conditions present within the image area to calibrate and anchor the sensible flux output. One is the “hot” condition which refers to a bare soil condition with specified residual evaporation rates. Another one is the “cold” condition which refers to a fully transpiring vegetation such as full-cover agricultural crops. We selected one bare field as the “hot” condition while we explored three different scenarios for the “cold” pixel because of the absence of larger expanses of agricultural fields within the image area. For this application over boreal forest, selecting agricultural fields whose evapotranspiration was assumed to be 1.05 times the alfalfa-based reference evapotranspiration as the “cold” pixel could result in large errors. Selecting an unburned flux tower site as the “cold” pixel could achieve acceptable results, but uncertainties remain about the energy balance closure of the flux towers. We found that METRIC performs reasonably well in partitioning energy fluxes in a boreal landscape.     

Analytic study of sea-land breezes

1.IntroductionSea---landbreezesaremesoscale,secondarycirculationsforcedbythermalgradients,andtypicallyoccurunderconditionsofweakprevailingbackgroundwinds.Inthedaytime,theland,withasmallerheatcapacity,heatsupmorethanthesea.Asaresult,theairabovetheland...     

Prediction of a mesoscale convective system over catalonia (Northeastern Spain) with a nested numerical model

Summary A mesoscale convective system that affected Northeastern Spain on October 10, 1994, with rainfall amounts up to 400 mm, is simulated reasonably well by a nested 3-dimensional hydrostatic mesoscale model. Previous studies carried out in this region had already portrayed the main synoptic patterns that give rise to these devastating episodes. The present contribution takes a further step since it goes down to the mesoscale by means of a numerical model providing a more detailed representation not otherwise achieved by earlier analysis methods. Although the model was unable to forecast accurately the precipitation fields, it captured satisfactorily the framework in which the convective system originated and evolved.With 16 Figures     

Diagenesis of the black river (middle ordovician) limestones in Southern Ontario,Canada

The diagenetic history of the Black River Limestone Group is discussed with special reference to solution (leaching), cementation, neomorphism, authigenesis, pressure solution, compaction and dedolomitization.Formation of recrystallization textures (microspar and pseudospar) was controlled by original sediment grain size and occurred during both early and late stages of diagenesis.Dolomite, celestite and pyrite were the chief developments of late diagenetic minerals in the Black River carbonates. Pressure-solution (stylolitization) phenomena occurred at a very late diagenetic stage. Compaction played a minor role in the diagenesis of the rocks.Dedolomitization is a surface phenomenon related to weathering.     

Lake Sihwa tidal power plant project

A Tidal Power Plant (TPP) is being constructed in the middle section of the existing Lake Sihwa dike located near the southern Incheon Port in Korea. The project, which will be completed in 2010, is to harness the largest tidal energy in the Kyeonggi Bay in the eastern Yellow Sea. While noting the current progress in terms of plant construction, this paper outlines the overall project in the tidal regime and uses predictive local flow modeling. The results of two-dimensional finite element method simulations that predict the real-time tidal characteristics during the construction and after the completion of the tidal power plant are presented, including a method to estimate the electricity output from the plant in the future.     

1302Å absorption measurement of atomic oxygen concentrations in the high latitude winter upper atmosphere

The first measurement of atomic oxygen concentration in the upper atmosphere using the resonance absorption lamp method was made 23 January 1974 in a flight from the Churchill Research Range (58.4°N, 94.1°W, geographic) in northern Canada. Earlier difficulties with the data analysis have been resolved to a limited extent, and a concentration profile over the range 90–155 km is presented here. In the interim period, the same technique has been employed by a number of investigators, but the importance of the present data is that the atomic oxygen concentration was measured by three independent methods on the same flight, aeronomical and mass spectrometric methods being used as well as resonance absorption. The results are in good agreement when current aeronomical understanding is employed. Comparison is made with other measurements and it is concluded that the high degree of variability observed may well be real. A simple argument based on these data shows that O₂(c¹Σ) cannot be the sole source of O(¹S) and O₂(b¹Σ) in the aurora.     

Searching for multifractal scaling in gamma ray burst time series

We present a multifractal analysis of GRB time series used to quantify the variability of the light curve. We discuss the advantages and disadvantages of multifractal analysis, including sensitivity to noise, and burst intensity, and present results for a few sample bursts.     

Book reviews

Kakadu: natural and cultural heritage and management

E.J. Press, D.A.M. Lea, A. Webb & A. Graham (eds), 1995

Australian Nature Conservation Agency & North Australia Research Unit, Australian National University, Darwin

17 × 25 cm, xviii + 318 pp., ISBN 0–7315–2171–4, A$29.95 (soft)

The landforms of England and Wales

A. Goudie, 1993 (first published in hardcover in 1990)

Blackwell, Oxford

23 × 15 cm, xi + 394 pp., ISBN 0–631–16367–0, A$45.00 (soft)

Technological change and the city

P.N. Troy (ed.), 1995

Federation Press, Sydney

14 × 21 cm, vi + 202 pp., ISBN 1–86287–184–1, A$35.00 (soft)

Oceanic islands

P.D. Nunn, 1994

Blackwell, Oxford

17 × 25 cm, xv + 413 pp., ISBN 0–631–17811–7, A$90.00 (soft)

Aotearoa and New Zealand: a historical geography

A. Grey, 1994

Canterbury University Press, Christchurch

14 × 21 cm, xix + 476 pp., ISBN 0–908812–34–5, NZ$29.95 (soft)