Properties and depositional environment of the Neogene Elhovo Lignite, Bulgaria

Several Mio-Pliocene aged lignite seams occur as part of a non-marine transgressive sequence in the Elhovo graben in south-eastern Bulgaria. The present study is focused on 45 samples collected from three boreholes in the eastern part of the basin. Petrographic data along with ash and sulphur contents were used in order to determine the lateral and vertical variations of the coal facies and depositional environment of the Elhovo lignite.The lignite seams accumulated in a rheotrophic, low-lying mire with high pH value and are characterized by high ash yields and sulphur contents. Despite of the neutral to weakly alkaline environment the bacterial activity was limited and the tissue preservation and gelification were mainly controlled by the redox conditions.Vegetation rich in decay resistant conifers dominated in the Elhovo basin together with mesophytic angiosperm species. The absence of algal remains and sapropelic coal indicated that open water areas were not present during peat accumulation. The latter processed in an environment, characterized by low subsidence rate, in which prior to the burial the woods were subjected to severe mechanical destruction. According to our interpretation, the enhanced impregnation of the tissues bacteria and fungi played only a secondary role in the process of humification. The lignite from borehole 122 and partly from BH 145 deposited in an environment characterized by relatively low (ground)water table, whereas to the south an area dominated by a flooded forest swamp (BH 104) formed. This is suggested by the better tissue preservation and gelification of the organic matter in BH 104. The vertical variation of the maceral composition in the studied lignite is interpreted as a consequence of vegetational changes, rather than to changes in the depositional environment. The low contents of inertinite macerals indicate that despite of the low water level the environment was relatively wet and the thermal and oxidative destruction of the tissues was limited.Peat accumulation was terminated by a major flooding event and a short term establishment of a lake. In contrast to the West Maritsa basin, no seam formed in the Elhovo basin during the filling stage of the lake.     

Escaping the climate policy uncertainty trap: options contracts for REDD+

Climate policy uncertainty significantly hinders investments in low-carbon technologies, and the global community is behind schedule to curb carbon emissions. Strong actions will be necessary to limit the increase in global temperatures, and continued delays create risks of escalating climate change damages and future policy costs. These risks are system-wide, long-term and large-scale and thus hard to diversify across firms. Because of its unique scale, cost structure and near-term availability, Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation in developing countries (REDD+) has significant potential to help manage climate policy risks and facilitate the transition to lower greenhouse gas emissions. ‘Call’ options contracts in the form of the right but not the obligation to buy high-quality emissions reduction credits from jurisdictional REDD+ programmes at a predetermined price per ton of CO₂ could help unlock this potential despite the current lack of carbon markets that accept REDD+ for compliance. This approach could provide a globally important cost-containment mechanism and insurance for firms against higher future carbon prices, while channelling finance to avoid deforestation until policy uncertainties decline and carbon markets scale up.

Key policy insights

• Climate policy uncertainty discourages abatement investments, exposing firms to an escalating systemic risk of future rapid increases in emission control expenditures.

• This situation poses a risk of an abatement ‘short squeeze,’ paralleling the case in financial markets when prices jump sharply as investors rush to square accounts on an investment they have sold ‘short’, one they have bet against and promised to repay later in anticipation of falling prices.

• There is likely to be a willingness to pay for mechanisms that hedge the risks of abruptly rising carbon prices, in particular for ‘call’ options, the right but not the obligation to buy high-quality emissions reduction credits at a predetermined price, due to the significantly lower upfront capital expenditure compared to other hedging alternatives.

• Establishing rules as soon as possible for compliance market acceptance of high-quality emissions reductions credits from REDD+ would facilitate REDD+ transactions, including via options-based contracts, which could help fill the gap of uncertain climate policies in the short and medium term.

     

High-Resolution Vertical Profile Measurements for Carbon Dioxide and Water Vapour Concentrations Within and Above Crop Canopies

We present a portable elevator-based facility for measuring \(\hbox {CO}_{2}\), water vapour, temperature and wind-speed profiles between the soil surface and the atmospheric surface layer above crop canopies. The end of a tube connected to a closed-path gas analyzer is continuously moved up and down over the profile range (in our case, approximately 2 m) while concentrations are logged at a frequency of \(20 \hbox { s}^{-1}\). Using campaign measurements in winter wheat, winter barley and a catch crop mixture (spring 2015 to autumn 2016) during different stages of crop development and different times of the day, we demonstrate a simple approach to correct for time lags, and the resulting profiles of 30-min mean mole fractions of \(\hbox {CO}_{2}\) and \(\hbox {H}_{2}\hbox {O}\) over height increments of 0.025 m. The profiles clearly show the effects of soil respiration and photosynthetic carbon assimilation, varying both during the diurnal cycle and during the growing season. Profiles of temperature and wind speed are based on a ventilated finewire thermocouple and a hot-wire anemometer, respectively. Measurements over bare soil and a short plant canopy were analyzed in the framework of Monin–Obukhov similarity theory to check the validity of the measurements and raw-data-processing approach. Derived fluxes of \(\hbox {CO}_{2}\), latent and sensible heat and momentum show good agreement with eddy-covariance measurements.     

Climate stability and the development of agricultural societies

Although Modern Man had developed long before the migration from Africa began ～ 55,000 years ago no agricultural societies developed until about ～ 10,000 years ago. In the next 5,000 years agricultures developed independently in at least six regions of the world. It is virtually certain that it was not a chance occurrence that so many new agricultures appeared in the same 5,000 years. What inhibited agriculture world wide for 44,000 years and what changed ～ 10,000 years ago? Here we suggest that a major factor influencing the development of agricultural societies was climate stability. From the experience of four cultures we estimate that the development of agriculture needed ～ 2,000 years of climate free from significant climate variations on time scales of a few centuries. Using the Empirical Mode Decomposition technique specifically designed to exhibit the time history of the amplitude of variations in non-stationary time series such as climate proxy records, we find that between 50,000 years ago and the termination of the Younger Dryas ～ 11,600 years ago there was probably no time span as long as 2,000 years that was free of relatively large century scale variations. Furthermore variations on these time scales appear to have been relatively small since the Younger Dryas (YD) ended, supporting our proposition concerning the importance of climate stability in the history of human culture.     

The relative importance of tropical variability forced from the North Pacific through ocean pathways

To what extent is tropical variability forced from the North Pacific through ocean pathways relative to locally generated variability and variability forced through the atmosphere? To address this question, in this study we use an anomaly-coupled model, consisting of a global, atmospheric general circulation model and a 4½-layer, reduced-gravity, Pacific-Ocean model. Three solutions are obtained; with coupling over the entire basin (CNT), with coupling confined to the tropics and wind stress and heat fluxes in the North and South Pacific specified by climatology (TP), and with coupling confined to the Tropics and wind stress and heat fluxes in the North Pacific specified by output from CNT (NPF). It is found that there are two distinct signals forced in the North Pacific that can impact the tropics through ocean pathways. These two signals are forced by wind stress and surface heat flux anomalies in the subtropical North Pacific. The first signal is relatively fast, impacts tropical variability less than a year after forcing, is triggered from November to March, and propagates as a first-mode baroclinic Rossby wave. The second signal is only triggered during springtime when buoyancy forcing can effectively generate higher-order baroclinic modes through subduction anomalies into the permanent thermocline, and it reaches the equator 4–5 years after forcing. The slow signal is found to initiate tropical variability more efficiently than the fast signal with one standard deviation in subtropical zonal wind stress forcing tropical SST anomalies centered on the equator at 135°W of approximately 0.5°C. Allowing extratropically forced tropical variability is found to shift primarily 2-year ENSO variability in a tropics-alone simulation to a more realistic range of 2–6 years.     

Influence of the Surf Zone on the Marine Aerosol Concentration in a Coastal Area

Sea-salt aerosol concentrations in the coastal zone are assessed with the numerical aerosol-transport model MACMod that applies separate aerosol source functions for open ocean and the surf zone near the sea–land transition. Numerical simulations of the aerosol concentration as a function of offshore distance from the surf zone compare favourably with experimental data obtained during a surf-zone aerosol experiment in Duck, North Carolina in autumn 2007. Based on numerical simulations, the effect of variations in aerosol production (source strength) and transport conditions (wind speed, air–sea temperature difference), we show that the surf-zone aerosols are replaced by aerosols generated over the open ocean as the airmass advects out to sea. The contribution from the surf-generated aerosol is significant during high wind speeds and high wave events, and is significant up to 30 km away from the production zone. At low wind speeds, the oceanic component dominates, except within 1–5 km of the surf zone. Similar results are obtained for onshore flow, where no further sea-salt aerosol production occurs as the airmass advects out over land. The oceanic aerosols that are well-mixed throughout the boundary layer are then more efficiently transported inland than are the surf-generated aerosols, which are confined to the first few tens of metres above the surface, and are therefore also more susceptible to the type of surface (trees or grass) that determines the deposition velocity.     

Waterspouts of the Adriatic, Ionian and Aegean Sea and their meteorological environment

The synoptic and mesoscale conditions associated with waterspout occurrence in the Adriatic, Ionian and Aegean Sea are examined in an attempt to quantitatively assess the meteorological environment favourable to the development of waterspouts. For this study, synoptic circulation patterns have been examined for 28 waterspout events in the central-eastern Mediterranean. The waterspouts were reported within the summer and fall of 2002, from July to November, a period of unusually high whirlwind activity. The Adriatic was most active during July, August and September and the Ionian and Aegean during September, October and November. Of the examined waterspout cases, 13 out of the total of 28 were found to be fair-weather waterspouts, while 15 represent tornadic events. For waterspout days, the frequency and distribution of four basic synoptic types, namely, south-west flow (SW), long-wave trough (LW), closed low (CLOSED) and short-wave trough (SWT), were investigated. The particular synoptic features that contributed to the development of waterspout activity were examined, based on five selected waterspout case studies. The mesoscale environment was explored using thermodynamic indices, moisture and wind parameters as derived by operational soundings from the nearest sites (preferably upwind) and closest in time to the waterspout occurrences. The results present an analysis of waterspout types in conjunction to thermodynamic and wind parameters for the purpose of determining synoptic patterns and mesoscale conditions most relevant to waterspout occurrences in these sea areas of the Mediterranean.     

Melt Pockets in Garnet Megacrysts from Cenozoic Alkali Basalts of the Shavaryn Tsaram Vicinity, Mongolia

Garnet megacryst with a multiphase inclusion from intraplate alkali basalts of the Shavaryn Tsaram(Tariat,Mongolia)was the object of the study.This unusual aggregate consists of porous glass,Ti-rich biotite,orthopyroxene,spinel,clinopyroxene,olivine,and ilmenite.Win TWQ 2.32 thermodynamic simulation of this system revealed a few intervals of equilibrium.Pressure and temperature adjustment reflected in the paragenetic minerals of the melt pocket.The capture of already crystallised garnet megacryst was at P=0.8-1 GPa and T=1120-1160℃.Mineral crystallisation inside the melt pocket,accompanied by external inputs,occurred at P=0.75-0.95 GPa;T=790-1120℃.Symplectite assemblage formed in the garnet megacryst due to decomposition at(P=0.55-0.7 GPa;T=850-930℃).The study of the oxygen isotope content in primary garnet and biotite of the melt pocket showed that the δ¹⁸O_VSMOW values are the same and correspond to that of typical mantle xenoliths.However,the chemical and microcomponent composition of the melt pocket minerals reveals a material that differs from basalts and peridotites.Thus,it has been revealed that the multiphase inclusion in the garnet megacryst formed not only on account of the garnet’s substance,but also due to the entrapped material of the Earth’s interior.     

Quantification of karst aquifer discharge components during storm events through end-member mixing analysis using natural chemistry and stable isotopes as tracers

Karst aquifer components that contribute to the discharge of a water supply well in the Classical Karst (Kras) region (Italy/Slovenia) were quantitatively estimated during storm events. Results show that water released from storage within the epikarst may comprise as much as two-thirds of conduit flow in a karst aquifer following rainfall. Principal components analysis (PCA) and end-member mixing analysis (EMMA) were performed using major ion chemistry and the stable isotopes of water (δ¹⁸O, δ²H) and of dissolved inorganic carbon (δ¹³C_DIC) to estimate mixing proportions among three sources: (1) allogenic river recharge, (2) autogenic recharge, and (3) an anthropogenic component stored within the epikarst. The sinking river most influences the chemical composition of the water-supply well under low-flow conditions; however, this proportion changes rapidly during recharge events. Autogenic recharge water, released from shallow storage in the epikarst, displaces the river water and is observed at the well within hours after the onset of precipitation. The autogenic recharge end member is the second largest component of the well chemistry, and its contribution increases with higher flow. An anthropogenic component derived from epikarstic storage also impacts the well under conditions of elevated hydraulic head, accounting for the majority of the chemical response at the well during the wettest conditions.