Benefits, Costs, and Cooperation in Greenhouse Gas Abatement

Abatement cost and benefit projections through 2100are computed, assembled and interpreted with respectto various levels of emission reduction. Mathematicalexpressions describing regional costs and benefits asa function of abatement strategy are developed. Usingthese data and expressions, optimal abatementstrategies are defined for noncooperative andcooperative (Pareto optimal) policies. Thecooperative solution calls for an average emissionsreduction of 16.6 percent over the 1990–2100 period,as compared to 5.8 percent in the noncooperative case. Achieving the cooperative solution would require sidepayments to China and potentially to the U.S., as wellas stringent (though beneficial) restrictions onnon-OECD countries. It is argued that Paretooptimality is technically achievable but possiblyinfeasible in the real world.     

Further evidence for a Jurassic mineralizing event in central Europe: K–Ar dating of hydrothermal alteration and fluid inclusion systematics in wall rocks of the Käfersteige fluorite vein deposit in the northern Black Forest, Germany

The hydrothermal fluorite vein deposit of `Käfersteige' ranks among the biggest in central Europe. It is located along the suture zone that separates the Moldanubian and Saxothuringian units in the northern Black Forest, and is hosted in Bunter sandstone and underlying granitic basement. K–Ar ages of authigenic illite from the wall rocks give a Jurassic formation age of around 145?Ma for the deposit. Age data scatter down to 80?Ma in illite from the clay gouge and indicate a younger Cretaceous-Tertiary hydrothermal overprint. The pyrophyllite component in authigenic illite from wall rocks and the re-equilibration of illite suggest a formation temperature around 200?°C. Secondary fluid inclusions in quartz from the wall rocks define a syn-mineralization fluid episode involving Ca–Mg–K–Na–Cl-rich brines (about 27 wt% NaCl_eq) with a T _h of about 125?°C, and a post-mineralization Na–Cl-rich fluid overprint with a T _h of about 100?°C. Both generations of fluid inclusions relate to the final event of each cycle, while authigenic illite composition and re-equilibration of illite in the clay gouge may document initial temperatures of formation. The Upper Jurassic fluid system can be traced all over western Europe. It is probably an expression of continent-wide rifting and concomitant regional fluid circulation in connection with major tectonic disturbances, magmatism and abnormal heat flow during the opening of the North Atlantic ocean. The younger barren fluid overprint could be related to the onset of the Alpine orogeny.     

Faunal utilization of created intertidal eastern oyster (Crassostrea virginica) reefs in the southeastern United States

Oyster cultch was added to the lower intertidal marsh-sandflat fringe of three previously createdSpartina alterniflora salt marshes. Colonization of these created reefs by oysters and other select taxa was examined. Created reefs supported numerous oyster reef-associated faunas at equivalent or greater densities than adjacent natural reefs. Eastern oyster (Crassostrea virginica) settlement at one site of created reef exceeded that of the adjacent natural reefs within 9 mo of reef creation. After only 2 yr, harvestable-sizeC. virginica (>75 mm) were present in the created reefs along with substantial numbers ofC. virginica clusters. The created reefs also had a higher number of molluscan, fish, and decapod species than the adjacent natural reefs. After 2 yr the densities ofC. virginica, striped barnacle (Balanus amphitrite), scorched mussel (Brachidontes exustus), Atlantic ribbed mussel (Geukensia demissa), common mud crab (Panopeus herbstii), and flat mud crab (Eurypanopeus depressus) within the created reefs were equivalent to that of adjacent natural reefs. From these data it is evident that created oyster reefs can quickly acquire functional ecological attributes of their natural counterparts. Because the demand for oysters continues to increase in the face of dwindling natural resources, habitat creation techniques need to evolve and these approaches need to consider the ancillary ecological benefits reef creation may provide. Reef function as well as physical and ecological linkages of oyster reefs to other habitats (marsh, submerged aquatic vegetation, and bare bottom) should be considered when reefs are created in order to provide the best use of resources to maintain the integrity of estuarine systems.     

Residential Patterns in the Pre‐Automotive American City

The classic geographic distinction between situation and site factors suggests that the former will have declined and the latter increased since the late 19th century in their importance as determinants of American urban residential patterns. We test the prediction by examining the relation of socioeconomic status to horizontal and vertical distance from the city center in the largest American cities in 1880. A comparison of the results with the patterns prevalent in the twentieth century largely, though not entirely, supports the prediction, as do changes in the status of main streets and harbor islands.     

GPS-derived orbits for the GOCE satellite

The first ESA (European Space Agency) Earth explorer core mission GOCE (Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer) was launched on 17 March 2009 into a sun-synchronous dusk–dawn orbit with an exceptionally low initial altitude of about 280 km. The onboard 12-channel dual-frequency GPS (Global Positioning System) receiver delivers 1 Hz data, which provides the basis for precise orbit determination (POD) for such a very low orbiting satellite. As part of the European GOCE Gravity Consortium the Astronomical Institute of the University of Bern and the Department of Earth Observation and Space Systems are responsible for the orbit determination of the GOCE satellite within the GOCE High-level Processing Facility. Both quick-look (rapid) and very precise orbit solutions are produced with typical latencies of 1 day and 2 weeks, respectively. This article summarizes the special characteristics of the GOCE GPS data, presents POD results for about 2 months of data, and shows that both latency and accuracy requirements are met. Satellite Laser Ranging validation shows that an accuracy of 4 and 7 cm is achieved for the reduced-dynamic and kinematic Rapid Science Orbit solutions, respectively. The validation of the reduced-dynamic and kinematic Precise Science Orbit solutions is at a level of about 2 cm.     

Probabilistic collocation and lagrangian sampling for advective tracer transport in randomly heterogeneous porous media

The Karhunen-Loeve (KL) decomposition and the polynomial chaos (PC) expansion are elegant and efficient tools for uncertainty propagation in porous media. Over recent years, KL/PC-based frameworks have successfully been applied in several contributions for the flow problem in the subsurface context. It was also shown, however, that the accurate solution of the transport problem with KL/PC techniques is more challenging. We propose a framework that utilizes KL/PC in combination with sparse Smolyak quadrature for the flow problem only. In a subsequent step, a Lagrangian sampling technique is used for transport. The flow field samples are calculated based on a PC expansion derived from the solutions at relatively few quadrature points. To increase the computational efficiency of the PC-based flow field sampling, a new reduction method is applied. For advection dominated transport scenarios, where a Lagrangian approach is applicable, the proposed PC/Monte Carlo method (PCMCM) is very efficient and avoids accuracy problems that arise when applying KL/PC techniques to both flow and transport. The applicability of PCMCM is demonstrated for transport simulations in multivariate Gaussian log-conductivity fields that are unconditional and conditional on conductivity measurements.     

The underground application of Magnetic Resonance Soundings

The potential application of MRS technology in locating waterbearing fractures in underground mines is studied. The determination of the presence of water ahead of mining is important to prevent accidents and to ensure higher efficiency in mining operations. In the usual surface based measurements, with horizontal loop and water layer, the geometry of the problem can be summarized by the value of the inclination of the Earth magnetic field. For MRS measurements under the geometric conditions associated with underground mining, where the loop is non-horizontal, the geometry can be described in an effective inclination that can be expressed in terms of the Earth magnetic inclination and declination, together with two further parameters that characterize the orientation of the mine wall. We examine the consequences of the different geometries on the MRS signal. Since the loop size is severely restricted in underground conditions, the feasible target depth is also severely limited. The consequences of the fractured hard rock aquifer conditions, typical of deep mining or tunneling environments, are also examined. The overall conclusion is that in underground MRS applications the signal strength is too small to enable the practical identification of fractures containing large volumes of water ahead of the mining face.     

Wind set-up of water level in a river

The wind set-up of water level in a river is of great importance in many practical cases, notably in the river mouth section where the slope of the free water table is very small (sometimes 10⁻⁵) and the wind shear stress acting at the water surface generates significant changes in the vertical velocity profile. If the wind is blowing opposite to the main flow, an increase of water depth is observed. In the outlet area, the increase of water depth can reach up to 0.5 m (Lower Odra River). The paper presents an analysis of wind set-up of water level based on hydrodynamic principles.     

Inter-laboratory comparison of oxygen isotope compositions from biogenic silica

Several techniques have been introduced in the last decades for the dehydration and release of O₂ from biogenic silica (opal-A) for oxygen-isotope analysis. However, only one silica standard is universally available: a quartz standard (NBS28) distributed by the IAEA, Vienna. Hence, there is a need for biogenic silica working standards. This paper compares the existing methods of oxygen-isotope analyses of opal-A and aims to characterize additional possible working standards to calibrate the δ¹⁸O values of biogenic silica. For this purpose, an inter-laboratory comparison was organized. Six potential working standard materials were analysed repeatedly against NBS28 by eight participating laboratories using their specific analytical methods. The materials cover a wide range of δ¹⁸O values (+23 to +43‰) and include diatoms (marine, lacustrine), phytoliths and synthetically-produced hydrous silica. To characterize the proposed standards, chemical analyses and imaging by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) were also performed. Despite procedural differences at each laboratory, all methods are in reasonable agreement with a standard deviation (SD) for δ¹⁸O values between 0.3‰ and 0.9‰ (1σ). Based on the results, we propose four additional biogenic silica working standards (PS1772-8: 42.8‰; BFC: 29.0‰; MSG60: 37.0‰; G95-25-CL leaves: 36.6‰) for δ¹⁸O analyses, available on request through the relevant laboratories.