Enhancement of aquifer vulnerability indexing using the analytic-element method

Indexing methods are used for the evaluation of aquifer vulnerability and establishing guidelines for the protection of ground-water resources. The principle of the indexing method is to rank influences on groundwater to determine overall vulnerability of an aquifer to contamination. The analytic element method (AEM) of ground-water flow modeling is used to enhance indexing methods by rapidly calculating a potentiometric surface based primarily on surface-water features. This potentiometric map is combined with a digital-elevation model to produce a map of water-table depth. This is an improvement over simple water-table interpolation methods. It is physically based, properly representing surface-water features, hydraulic boundaries, and changes in hydraulic conductivity. The AEM software, SPLIT, is used to improve an aquifer vulnerability assessment for a valley-fill aquifer in western New York State. A GIS-based graphical user interface allows automated conversion of hydrography vector data into analytic elements.     

Solar and meteoritic abundance of silicon

Recent lifetime measurements on excited electronic states of neutral silicon (Beckeret al., Phys. Lett. In press, 1980) lead to a reassessment of widely used experimental transition probabilities Garz, Astron. Astrophys., 26, 471–477, 1973 of Si I lines. This translates into a 25% downward revision of the Si abundance determined from the solar spectrum.A solar atomic ratio, Si/Ca = 15.5 is inferred. This value coincides with that found in carbonaceous chondrites, but contrasts with ordinary and enstatite chondrites.     

Mass Fractions of S,Cu, Se,Mo, Ag,Cd, In,Te, Ba,Sm, W,Tl and Bi in Geological Reference Materials and Selected Carbonaceous Chondrites Determined by Isotope Dilution ICP‐MS

Mass fractions of S, Cu, Se, Mo, Ag, Cd, In, Te, Ba, Sm, W and Tl were determined by isotope dilution sector field ICP‐MS in the same sample aliquot of reference materials using HF‐HNO₃ digestion in PFA beakers in pressure bombs and glassy carbon vessels in a high‐pressure asher (HPA‐S) for comparison. Additionally, Bi was determined by internal standardisation relative to Tl. Because isobaric and oxide interferences pose problems for many of these elements, efficient chromatographic separation methods in combination with an Aridus desolvator were employed to minimise interference effects. Repeated digestion and measurement of geological reference materials (BHVO‐1, BHVO‐2, SCo‐1, MAG‐1, MRG‐1 and UB‐N) gave results with < 5% relative intermediate precision (1s) for most elements, except Bi. Replicates of NIST SRM 612 glass digested on a hot plate were analysed by the same methods, and the results agree with reference values mostly within 2% relative deviation. Data for the carbonaceous chondrites Allende, Murchison, Orgueil and Ivuna are also reported. Digestion in a HPA‐S was as efficient as in pressure bombs, but some elements displayed higher blank levels following HPA‐S treatment. Pressure bomb digestion yielded precise data for volatile S, Se and Te, but may result in high blanks for W.     

Full‐scale shaking table test of a base‐isolated medical facility subjected to vertical motions

Base isolation is a well known technology that has been proven to reduce structural response to horizontal ground accelerations. However, vertical response still remains a topic of concern for base‐isolated buildings, perhaps more so than in fixed‐base buildings as isolation is often used when high performance is required. To investigate the effects of vertical response on building contents and nonstructural components, a series of full‐scale shaking table tests were conducted at the E‐Defense facility in Japan. A four‐story base‐isolated reinforced concrete building was outfitted as a medical facility with a wide variety of contents, and the behavior of the contents was observed. The rubber base isolation system was found to significantly amplify vertical accelerations in some cases. However, the damage caused by the vertical ground motions was not detrimental when peak vertical floor accelerations remained below 2 g with three exceptions: (1) small items placed on shelves slid or toppled; (2) objects jumped when placed on nonrigid furniture, which tended to increase the response; and (3) equipment with vertical eccentricities rocked and jumped. In these tests, all equipment and nonstructural components remained functional after shaking. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Evaluating the sensitivity of wetlands to climate change with remote sensing techniques

Wetlands are valuable ecosystems that provide many valuable services, yet many of these important ecosystems are at risk because of current trends in climate change. The Prairie Pothole Region (PPR) in the upper‐midwest of the United States and south‐central Canada, characterized by glacially sculpted landscapes and abundant wetlands, is one such vulnerable region. According to regional/global climate model predictions, drought occurrence will increase in the PPR region through the 21st century and thus will probably cause the amount of water in wetlands to decline. Water surface area (WSA) of Kidder County, ND, from 1984–2011 was measured by classifying TM/ETM+(Landsat Thematic Mapper / Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus) images through the modified normalized difference water index. We then developed a linear model based on the WSA of these wetlands and historical climate data and used this to determine the wetland sensitivity to climate change and predict future wetlands WSA in the PPR. Our model based on Palmer drought severity index (PDSI) of the current year (PDSI_{t ? 0}) and of the previous two years (PDSI_{t ? 2}) can explain 79% of the annual wetland WSA variance, suggesting a high sensitivity of wetlands to drought/climate change. We also predicted the PPR wetlands WSA in the 21st century under A1B scenario (a mid‐carbon emission scenario) using simulated PDSI based on Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change AR4 22‐model ensemble climate. According to our prediction, the WSA of the PPR wetlands will decrease to less than half of the baseline WSA (defined as the mean wetlands WSA of the 2000s) by the mid of the 21st century, and to less than one‐third by the 2080s, and will then slightly increase in the 2090s. This considerable future wetland loss caused only by climate change provides important implication to future wetland management and climate adaptation policy. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Use of deuterated water as a conservative artificial groundwater tracer

Conservative tracers are necessary to obtain groundwater transport velocities at the field scale. Deuterated water is an effective tracer for this purpose due to its similarity to water, chemical stability, non-reactivity, ease of handling and sampling, relatively neutral buoyancy, and reasonable price. Reliable detection limits of 0.1 mg deuterium/L may be obtained in field tests. A field example is presented in which deuterated water, bromide, and pentafluorobenzoic acid are used as groundwater tracers. Deuterated water appeared to be transported conservatively, producing almost identical breakthrough curves as that of other soluble tracers. Electronic Publication     

Assessing the influence of climate model uncertainty on EU-wide climate change impact indicators

Despite an increasing understanding of potential climate change impacts in Europe, the associated uncertainties remain a key challenge. In many impact studies, the assessment of uncertainties is underemphasised, or is not performed quantitatively. A key source of uncertainty is the variability of climate change projections across different regional climate models (RCMs) forced by different global circulation models (GCMs). This study builds upon an indicator-based NUTS-2 level assessment that quantified potential changes for three climate-related hazards: heat stress, river flood risk, and forest fire risk, based on five GCM/RCM combinations, and non-climatic factors. First, a sensitivity analysis is performed to determine the fractional contribution of each single input factor to the spatial variance of the hazard indicators, followed by an evaluation of uncertainties in terms of spread in hazard indicator values due to inter-model climate variability, with respect to (changes in) impacts for the period 2041–70. The results show that different GCM/RCM combinations lead to substantially varying impact indicators across all three hazards. Furthermore, a strong influence of inter-model variability on the spatial patterns of uncertainties is revealed. For instance, for river flood risk, uncertainties appear to be particularly high in the Mediterranean, whereas model agreement is higher for central Europe. The findings allow for a hazard-specific identification of areas with low vs. high model agreement (and thus confidence of projected impacts) within Europe, which is of key importance for decision makers when prioritising adaptation options.     

New variable stars from the photographic archive: semi-automated discoveries,attempts at automatic classification and the new field 104 Her

Using 172 plates taken with the 40-cm astrograph of the Sternberg Astronomical Institute(Lomonosov Moscow University) in 1976–1994 and digitized with a resolution of 2400 dpi, we discovered and studied 275 new variable stars. We present the list of our new variables with all necessary information concerning their brightness variations. As in our earlier studies, the new discoveries show a rather large number of high-amplitude Delta Scuti variables, predicting that many stars of this type remain not detected in the whole sky. We also performed automated classification of the newly discovered variable stars based on the Random Forest algorithm. The results of the automated classification were compared to traditional classification and showed that automated classification was possible even with noisy photographic data. However, further improvement of automated techniques is needed, which is especially important when considering the very large numbers of new discoveries expected from all-sky surveys.     

GPCC's new land surface precipitation climatology based on quality-controlled in situ data and its role in quantifying the global water cycle

In 1989, the need for reliable gridded land surface precipitation data sets, in view of the large uncertainties in the assessment of the global energy and water cycle, has led to the establishment of the Global Precipitation Climatology Centre (GPCC) at Deutscher Wetterdienst on invitation of the WMO. The GPCC has calculated a precipitation climatology for the global land areas for the target period 1951–2000 by objective analysis of climatological normals of about 67,200 rain gauge stations from its data base. GPCC's new precipitation climatology is compared to several other station-based precipitation climatologies as well as to precipitation climatologies derived from the GPCP V2.2 data set and from ECMWF's model reanalyses ERA-40 and ERA-Interim. Finally, how GPCC's best estimate for terrestrial mean precipitation derived from the precipitation climatology of 786 mm per year (equivalent to a water transport of 117,000 km³) is fitting into the global water cycle context is discussed.