Does hillslope trenching enhance groundwater recharge and baseflow in the Peruvian Andes?

As Andean glaciers rapidly retreat due to climate change, the balance of groundwater and glacial meltwater contributions to stream discharge in tropical, proglacial watersheds will change, potentially increasing vulnerability of water resources. The Shullcas River Watershed, near Huancayo, Peru, is fed only partly by the rapidly receding Huaytapallana glaciers (<20% of dry season flow). To potentially increase recharge and therefore increase groundwater derived baseflow, the government and not‐for‐profit organizations have installed trenches along large swaths of hillslope in the Shullcas Watershed. Our study focuses on a nonglacierized subcatchment of the Shullcas River Watershed and has 2 objectives: (a) create a model of the Shullcas groundwater system and assess the controls on stream discharge and (b) investigate the impact of the infiltration trenches on recharge and baseflow. We first collected hydrologic data from the field including a year‐long hydrograph (2015–2016), meteorological data (2011–2016), and infiltration measurements. We use a recharge model to evaluate the impact of trenched hillslopes on infiltration and runoff processes. Finally, we use a 3‐dimensional groundwater model, calibrated to the measured dry season baseflow, to determine the impact of trenching on the catchment. Simulations show that trenched hillslopes receive approximately 3.5% more recharge, relative to precipitation, compared with unaltered hillslopes. The groundwater model indicates that because the groundwater flow system is fast and shallow, incorporating trenched hillslopes (~2% of study subcatchment area) only slightly increases baseflow in the dry season. Furthermore, the location of trenching is an important consideration: Trenching higher in the catchment (further from the river) and in flatter terrain provides more baseflow during the dry season. The results of this study may have important implications for Andean landscape management and water resources.     

Redistribution of sea level rise associated with enhanced greenhouse warming: a simple model study

Future sea level rise from thermal expansion of the World Ocean due to global warming has been explored in several recent studies using coupled ocean-atmosphere models. These coupled models show that the heat input by the model atmosphere to the ocean in such an event could be quite non-uniform in different areas of the ocean. One of the most significant effects predicted by some of the models is a weakening of the thermohaline circulation, which normally transports heat poleward. Since the greatest heat input from enhanced greenhouse warming is in the higher latitudes, a weakening of the poleward heat transport effectively redistributes the heat anomaly and the associated sea level rise to lower latitudes. In this study, the mechanism of ocean circulation spindown and heat redistribution was studied in the context of a much simpler, linearized shallow water model. Although the model is much simpler than the three-dimensional ocean circulation models used in the coupled model experiments, and neglects several important physical effects, it has a nearly 10-fold increase in horizontal resolution and clearer dynamical interpretations. The results indicated that advanced signals of sea level rise propagated rapidly through the action of Kelvin and Rossby waves, but the full adjustment toward a more uniform sea level rise took place much more slowly. Long time scales were required to redistribute mass through narrow currents trapped along coasts and the equatorial wave guide. For realistic greenhouse warming, the model showed why the sea level rise due to ocean heating could be far from uniform over the globe and hence difficult to estimate from coastal tide gauge stations.     

The steric component of sea level rise associated with enhanced greenhouse warming: a model study

Climate change due to enhanced greenhouse warming has been calculated using the coupled GFDL general circulation model of the atmosphere and ocean. The results of the model for a sustained increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide of 1% per year over a century indicate a marked warming of the upper ocean. Results of the model are used to study the rise in sea level caused by increase in ocean temperatures and associated changes in ocean circulation. Neglecting possible contributions due to changes in the volume of polar ice sheets and mountain glaciers, the model predicts an average rise in sea level of approximately 15 ± 5 cm by the time atmospheric carbon dioxide doubles. Heating anomalies are greatest in subpolar latitudes. This effect leads to a weakening of the ocean thermohaline circulation. Changes in thermohaline circulation redistribute heat within the ocean from high latitudes toward the equator, and cause a more uniform sea level rise than would occur otherwise.     

Circumspection, reciprocity, and optimal carbon prices

Assessments of the benefits of climate change mitigation—and thus of the appropriate stringency of greenhouse gas emissions abatement—depend upon ethical, legal, and political economic considerations. Global climate change mitigation is often represented as a repeated prisoners’ dilemma in which the net benefits of sustained global cooperation exceed the net benefits of uncooperative unilateral action for any given actor. Global cooperation can be motivated either by circumspection—a decision to account for the damages one’s own actions inflict upon others—or by the expectation of reciprocity from others. If the marginal global benefits of abatement are approximately constant in total abatement, the domestically optimal price approaches the global cooperative optimum linearly with increasing circumspection and reciprocity. Approximately constant marginal benefits are expected if climate damages are quadratic in temperature and if the airborne fraction of carbon emissions is constant. If, on the other hand, damages increase with temperature faster than quadratically or carbon sinks weaken significantly with increasing CO₂ concentrations, marginal benefits will decline with abatement. In this case, the approach to the global optimum is concave and less than full circumspection and/or reciprocity can lead to optimal domestic abatement close to the global optimum.     

Major element evolution of basaltic magmas: a comparison of the information in CMAS and ALFE projections

Basalt petrologists disagree as to whether the commonly used projection, forsterite-diopside-silica, in the system CMAS (CaO-MgO-Al₂O₃-SiO₂), can adequately resolve differences in basaltic glass compositions for purposes of petrogenetic modelling. Here, we suggest than an analogous plot, the aluminium-factor diagram (ALFE) of Nesbitt and Cramer (1981), has greater diagnostic value than Fo-Di-Sil. A plot of molar (Al₂O₂-CaO-Na₂O-K₂O)/(FeO + MgO) vs FeO/(FeO + MgO), it produces more coherent patterns both for experimental basalt glasses, and for natural lavas. It is, like Fo-Di-Sil, a projection through plagioclase, but has the advantage that it monitors changes in Fe/(Fe + Mg) in melts and associated crystalline phases, and is particularly useful in assessing the timing of clinopyroxene crystallization in a suite of lavas. The diagram owes its greater resolving power to the fact that the computation of its coordinates is less sensitive to analytical uncertainty than for Fo-Di-Sil. In the latter diagram, normative quartz is calculated as a residual and thus manifests the uncertainties in all the major elements.     

A multi-proxy paleolimnological reconstruction of Holocene climate conditions in the Great Basin, United States

A sediment core spanning  7000 cal yr BP recovered from Stella Lake, a small sub-alpine lake located in Great Basin National Park, Nevada, was analyzed for subfossil chironomids (non-biting midges), diatoms, and organic content (estimated by loss-on-ignition (LOI)). Subfossil chironomid analysis indicates that Stella Lake was characterized by a warm, middle Holocene, followed by a cool “Neoglacial” period, with the last two millennia characterized by a return to warmer conditions. Throughout the majority of the core the Stella Lake diatom-community composition is dominated by small, periphytic taxa which are suggestive of shallow, cool, alkaline, oligotrophic waters with extensive seasonal ice cover. A reconstruction of mean July air temperature (MJAT) was developed by applying a midge-based inference model for MJAT (two-component WA-PLS) consisting of 79 lakes and 54 midge taxa (r_jack² = 0.55, RMSEP = 0.9°C). Comparison of the chironomid-inferred temperature record to existing regional paleoclimate reconstructions suggests that the midge-inferred temperatures correspond well to regional patterns. This multi-proxy record provides valuable insight into regional Holocene climate and environmental conditions by providing a quantitative reconstruction of peak Holocene warmth and aquatic ecosystem response to these changes in the Great Basin, a region projected to experience increased aridity and higher temperatures.     

History and mechanism of eruption of soda-rhyolite and alkali basalt,Socorro Island,Mexico

Socorro Island is the summit of a large volcanic mountain located on the Clarion Fracture Zone in the east Pacific. Two major periods of volcanic activity can be recognized on the island. The first (pre-caldera) period was characterized by eruptions of olivine-poor alkali basalt, followed by quiet effusion of soda rhyolite including varieties transitional to pantellerite. This period of activity terminated with the formation of a caldera by collapse. A relatively prolonged period of quiescence ended with rifting and down-faulting of the western side of the island along a north-south fracture system, accompanied by violently explosive eruptions of soda rhyolite which built a large tephra cone over the position of the old caldera. The locus of eruptive activity moved outward and downward along tension fractures and old tectonic rifts as the central vents became blocked by domes of dense obsidian. Low level eruptions of viscous soda rhyolite including pantellerite commenced without preliminary explosive eruptions and built numerous endogenous and exogenous domes. Basaltic eruptions were rare and confined to low-level vents. During the growth of the volcano the direction of active rifting appears to have changed from east-west to northwest-southeast to north-south. Little is known of the submarine portion of the volcano, but the topography seems to reflect the three directions of rifting. The oldest submarine lavas are assumed to be basaltic and are probably of late Tertiary age. The eruptive history of Socorro suggests that the underlying magma column became stratified toward the end of the active period.     

Model Simulations of Carbon Sequestration in the Northwest Pacific by Direct Injection

The direct disposal of CO₂ into the ocean interior represents a possible means to help mitigate rising levels of atmospheric CO₂. Here, we use three different versions of an ocean general circulation model (OGCM) to simulate the direct injection of liquid CO₂ near Tokyo. Our results confirm that direct injection can sequester large amounts of CO₂ from the atmosphere when disposal is made at sufficient depth (80–100% of the carbon injected at 3000 m remains in the ocean after 500 years) but show that the calculated efficiency is rather sensitive to the choice of physical model. Moreover, we show, for the first time in an OGCM and under a reasonable set of economic assumptions, that sequestration effectiveness is quite high for even shallow injections. However, the severe acidification that accompanies injection and the impossibility of effectively monitoring injected plumes argue against the large-scale viability of this technology. Our coarse-grid models show that injection at the rate of 0.1 Pg-C/yr lowers pH near the site of injection by as much as 0.7–1.0 pH-unit. Such pH anomalies would be much larger in more finely gridded models (and in reality) and have potential to severely harm deep-sea organisms. We also show that, after several hundred years, one would effectively need to survey the entire ocean in order to accurately verify the inventory of injected carbon. These results suggest that while retention may be sufficient to justify disposal costs, other practical problems will limit or at best delay widespread deployment of this technology.     

Thermal marking of rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) otoliths

A small‐scale experiment was done to test the feasibility of thermally marking hatchery‐reared rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss Walbaum) fry that are released into rivers and impoundments in New South Wales (NSW), Australia. Fry of rainbow trout were exposed to two different 48‐h thermal cycles each of a cold and warm water period. One thermal regime consisted of a cold water period during which the temperature was reduced from 14 to 8°C for 18 h followed by a return to 14°C for 30 h. For the second thermal treatment, water temperature was reduced to 4°C for 10 h followed by a period of 38 h at 14°C. Thermal cycles were repeated 4 and 8 times for each thermal regime, respectively. Following a growth period after treatment, obvious marks were visible on all treated otoliths as distinct from control otoliths. The 10°C differential treatment created the most visible patterns and growth of these fish was not significantly different from control fish. This marking method could be applied to normal hatchery practices to evaluate the effectiveness of large‐scale rainbow trout stockings in NSW.