Climate response to the physiological impact of carbon dioxide on plants in the Met Office Unified Model HadCM3

The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere acts to control the stomatal conductance of plants. There is observational and modelling evidence that an increase in the atmospheric concentration of CO₂ would suppress the evapotranspiration (ET) rate over land. This process is known as CO₂ physiological forcing and has been shown to induce changes in surface temperature and continental runoff. We analyse two transient climate simulations for the twenty-first century to isolate the climate response to the CO₂ physiological forcing. The land surface warming associated with the decreased ET rate is accompanied by an increase in the atmospheric lapse rate, an increase in specific humidity, but a decrease in relative humidity and stratiform cloud over land. We find that the water vapour feedback more than compensates for the decrease in latent heat flux over land as far as the budget of atmospheric water vapour is concerned. There is evidence that surface snow, water vapour and cloudiness respond to the CO₂ physiological forcing and all contribute to further warm the climate system. The climate response to the CO₂ physiological forcing has a quite different signature to that from the CO₂ radiative forcing, especially in terms of the changes in the temperature vertical profile and surface energy budget over land.     

Modeling outflow from the Ernest Henry Fe oxide Cu–Au deposit: implications for ore genesis and exploration

The Ernest Henry Fe oxide Cu–Au (IOCG) deposit (>ca. 1.51 Ga) is hosted by breccia produced during the waning stages of an evolving hydrothermal system that formed a number of tens of metres to a kilometre scale, pre- and syn-ore alteration halos, although no demonstrable patterns have been attributed to fluids expelled through the outflow zones. However, the recognition of a population of hypersaline fluid inclusions representing the ‘spent’ fluids after Cu–Au deposition at Ernest Henry provides the basis to model the geochemical characteristics of the deposit's outflow zones. Geochemical modeling at 300 °C was undertaken at both high and low fluid/rock ratios via FLUSH models involving three host rock types: (1) granite, (2) calc–silicate rock, and (3) graphitic schist. In models run at high fluid/rock ratios, all rock types are essentially fluid-buffered, and produce an albite–quartz–hematite–barite-rich assemblage, although in low fluid–rock environments, the pH, redox, and geochemical character of the host rock exerts a greater influence on the mineralogy of the alteration assemblages (e.g., andradite, Fe–chlorite, and magnetite). Significant sulphide mineralization was predicted in graphitic schist where sphalerite occurred in both low- and high-porosity models, which indicates the possibility of an association between high-temperature IOCG mineralization and lower temperature base metal mineralization.Cooling experiments (from 300 to 100 °C) using the ‘spent fluids’ predict early high-T (300–200 °C) Na-, Ca-, Fe-, and Mn-rich, magnetite-bearing hydrothermal associations, whereas with cooling to below 200 °C, and with progressive fluid–rock interaction, the system produces rhodochrosite-bearing, hematite–quartz–muscovite–barite-rich assemblages. These results show that the radical geochemical and mineralogical changes associated with cooling and progressive fluid influx are likely to be accompanied by major transformations in the geophysical expression (e.g., spectral and magnetic character) of the alteration in the outflow zone, and highlight the potential link between magnetite- and hematite-bearing IOCG hydrothermal systems.