Keeping the forest for the climate's sake: avoiding deforestation in developing countries under the UNFCCC

Abstract

A process for reducing emissions from deforestation in developing countries has been initiated under the UNFCCC. Efforts to agree on a legally binding instrument to halt deforestation have previously failed in other international fora. The magnitude of the social, economic, technical and political complexities underlying deforestation have led to negotiations being challenging. What policy instruments could provide incentives to reduce deforestation, and how could these instruments be framed, under the UNFCCC? This article analyses the advantages and disadvantages of the available alternatives within and outside of the Kyoto Protocol. Staying within the Kyoto framework means low institutional development costs, established but limited incentives for action, and low flexibility. Alternatives outside the Protocol provide higher institutional development costs, uncertainties with regard to the incentives, but greater flexibility. We argue that a separate protocol may be the most viable option, as it could offer the necessary flexibility and avoid some technical and political pitfalls that would be likely to beset new efforts under the Kyoto Protocol. The article also presents the concept of ‘committed forests’ as a means of defining geographically where the reduction of emissions from deforestation can take place.     

Simulation of South American wintertime climate with a nesting system

A numerical nesting system is developed to simulate wintertime climate of the eastern South Pacific-South America-western South Atlantic region, and preliminary results are presented. The nesting system consists of a large-scale global atmospheric general circulation model (GCM) and a regional climate model (RCM). The latter is driven at its boundaries by the GCM. The particularity of this nesting system is that the GCM itself has a variable horizontal resolution (stretched grid). Our main purpose is to assess the plausibility of such a technique to improve climate representation over South America. In order to evaluate how this nesting system represents the main features of the regional circulation, several mean fields have been analyzed. The global model, despite its relatively low resolution, could simulate reasonably well the more significant large-scale circulation patterns. The use of the regional model often results in improvements, but not universally. Many of the systematic errors of the global model are also present in the regional model, although the biases tend to be rectified. Our preliminary results suggest that nesting technique is a computationally low-cost alternative for simulating regional climate features. However, additional simulations, parametrizations tuning and further diagnosis are clearly needed to represent local patterns more precisely. Received: 18 February 1999 / Accepted: 31 May 2000     

On the Effect of Thermally Induced Stresses in Failures of Some Rock Slopes in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Previous studies have indicated that many rock slope failures in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, occur during relatively dry periods when there is little, if any, rainfall. In the present paper, we describe these events and propose possible mechanisms for their occurrence. It is believed that daily fluctuations in temperature may create thermally induced stresses of enough magnitude to propagate fractures already existing in the rock mass. Laboratory experiments were conducted in order to measure temperature variations in a fractured rock system. Using the experimentally obtained data, we carried out numerical analyses in order to verify whether temperature-related stresses were indeed able to propagate fractures existing in the rock mass. The results obtained indicate that cycles of temperature change over time, especially during the colder months of the year can indeed create stress conditions in the rock mass able to propagate existing non-persistent joints, and ultimately lead to failure of the rock slope.     

Directional response of a reconstituted fine‐grained soil—Part II: performance of different constitutive models

In this paper, the performance of different advanced constitutive models for soils is evaluated with respect to the experimentally observed behaviour of a soft reconstituted clay subject to a wide range of loading directions, see (presented in the companion paper). The models considered include a three‐surface kinematic hardening elastoplastic model; the CLoE hypoplastic model; a recently proposed K‐hypoplastic model for clays, and an enhanced version of the same model incorporating the concept of intergranular strain. A clear qualitative picture of the relative performance of the different models as a function of the loading direction is obtained by means of the incremental strain response envelopes. The definition of suitable error measures allows to obtain further quantitative information in this respect. For the particular initial conditions and loading programme considered in this study, the kinematic hardening and the enhanced K‐hypoplastic models appear to provide the best performance overall. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Platform margin collapses and sequence stratigraphic organization of carbonate slopes: Cretaceous–Eocene,Gargano Promontory,southern Italy

We describe the sequence stratigraphic organization and the associated sedimentological characteristics of Cretaceous to Eocene slope and base-of-slope carbonate successions. The study area is located in the Gargano Promontory which belongs to the stable foreland of southern Italy. The succession consists of three superimposed depositional sequences separated by major unconformities. The upper two sequences are clear examples of sequence stratigraphic organization; in fact, they both start with huge megabreccia wedges (LST) followed upward by thin pelagic units (TST) and a thick package of calciturbidites and debrites that alternate with pelagic mudstone (HST). The Cretaceous highstand systems tract is clearly arranged in a number of coarsening-upward cycles while the Eocene one which also comprises a toplap shallow water unit, is not. The Gargano stratigraphic palimpsest and the entire margin of the Apulia Platform show remarkable similarities with present-day carbonate platform margins and slopes where irregular, convex-bankward embayments suggest large-scale failures. It is clear that classic sequence stratigraphic organization can result from simple platform dismantling, having no or little time relation with global sea-level fluctuations. In fact, as the margin failure (LST) interrupts the carbonate production, a period of starvation (TST) along the entire slope and base-of-slope follows necessarily. Finally, when the margin once again becomes active and productive, sediment exportation starts again and the system begins to prograde (HST).     

Plasticity with generalized hardening: constitutive modeling and computational aspects

In this work, an extended theory of plasticity with generalized hardening is proposed to describe the response of geomaterials under both mechanical and environmental processes, which include as special cases several elastoplastic constitutive equations proposed in the literature to model such processes as desaturation or suction hardening, thermal softening, chemo-mechanical coupling effects in fine-grained soils, as well as weathering of soft rocks. In the formulation of the theory, the coupling between mechanical and environmental processes takes place at two levels: first, as an additional direct contribution to the constitutive stress changes, taking place in both elastic and elastoplastic processes; and second, as a result of the evolution of the internal state variables induced by changes in the environmental process variables. This last effect is incorporated through a set of generalized hardening rules. As an example of application, the general formulation is specialized to the particular case of weak calcarenite rocks undergoing degradation processes due to plastic deformations, changes in degree of saturation (short-term debonding) and chemical dissolution of the bond material and the solid grains (long-term debonding). The resulting model is implemented in a FE code by means of an implicit generalized backward Euler algorithm, suitably modified to incorporate the full formalism of plasticity with generalized hardening. Results of numerical simulations carried out at the element level show the accuracy and efficiency properties of the proposed stress-point algorithm. The simulation of a representative initial-boundary value problem demonstrates the practical relevance of environmental degradation effects in practical applications, over periods of time comparable with the life cycle of most geotechnical structures.     

Geochemistry of Cretaceous Magmatism in Eastern Cuba: Recycling of North American Continental Sediments and Implications for Subduction Polarity in the Greater Antilles Paleo-arc

We present whole-rock major- and trace-element and Nd–Sr–Pbradiogenic isotope data for Cretaceous igneous suites from easternCuba. These rocks are related to the Greater Antilles paleo-islandarc magmatism and have three different igneous styles. Group1 consists of tholeiitic basalts and rare basaltic andesitesthat have normal mid-ocean ridge basalt (N-MORB)-like compositionssimilar to those found in back-arc basin basalts (TiO₂ = 1·2–2·9wt%; La/Yb_(N) = 0·7–0·9, Th/Nb = 0·06–0·08,and initial ²⁰⁸Pb/ ²⁰⁴Pb = 37·65–37·74).Group 2 comprises basaltic and rare basaltic andesitic subvolcanicdykes with major- and trace-element and isotopic compositionssimilar to those of island arc tholeiites (TiO₂ = 0·7–1·4wt%; La/Yb_(N) = 0·6–0·9, Th/Nb = 0·06–0·68,and initial ²⁰⁸Pb/ ²⁰⁴Pb = 37·74–38·25).Group 3 is composed of low-Ti (TiO₂ = 0·3–0·9wt%) calcalkaline igneous rocks that have an unambiguous subduction-relatedcharacter (La/Yb_(N) = 1·1–5·0, Th/Nb = 0·35–1·55,and initial ²⁰⁸Pb/ ²⁰⁴Pb = 37·94–38·39).The parental magmas of the three groups formed by variable meltingdegrees (< 5–25%) of spinel lherzolite, with more depletedmantle sources for Groups 2 and 3 than Group 1. The trace-elementand radiogenic isotope compositions of primitive Group 3 samplesare strongly bimodal. One subgroup of samples is characterizedby low Ta/Yb (0·02–0·03) and Th/La (0·10–0·13),slightly subchondritic Nb/Ta (13·3–17·3),and relatively high initial ²⁰⁶Pb/²⁰⁴Pb (18·57–18·62)and _Nd (7·6–9·4). The remaining primitiveGroup 3 samples have higher Ta/Yb (0·06–0·11)and Th/La (0·24–0·32), and highly subchondriticNb/Ta (7·6–9·1), coupled with lower initial²⁰⁶Pb/²⁰⁴Pb (18·24–18·29) and _Nd (3·4–5·5).These signatures were induced by two distinct slab componentsthat mainly reflect the contributions of Cretaceous Atlanticmarine and North American continental sediments, respectively.Nb/Ta in the first subgroup was influenced by melting of rutile-bearingsubducted crust, whereas in the second it was inherited fromrecycled continental sediments. The involvement of Atlanticand North American sediments in Cuban Cretaceous magmatism indicatesthat the Proto-Caribbean (North American-Proto Atlantic) lithospheresubducted beneath the Greater Antilles arc during the Late Cretaceous(pre-Campanian), consistent with geotectonic models involvingonset of SW-dipping subduction beneath the Greater Antillespaleo-arc during the Aptian. The variable mantle source depletionand magnitude of the subduction component probably reflect differentsettings across the arc, from the arc front to a back-arc spreadingridge. KEY WORDS: eastern Cuba; Greater Antilles paleo-island arc; mantle source depletion; Nb/Ta fractionation; slab component     

Analytical formulation of impulsive collision avoidance dynamics

The paper deals with the problem of impulsive collision avoidance between two colliding objects in three dimensions and assuming elliptical Keplerian orbits. Closed-form analytical expressions are provided that accurately predict the relative dynamics of the two bodies in the encounter b-plane following an impulsive delta-V manoeuvre performed by one object at a given orbit location prior to the impact and with a generic three-dimensional orientation. After verifying the accuracy of the analytical expressions for different orbital eccentricities and encounter geometries the manoeuvre direction that maximises the miss distance is obtained numerically as a function of the arc length separation between the manoeuvre point and the predicted collision point. The provided formulas can be used for high-accuracy instantaneous estimation of the outcome of a generic impulsive collision avoidance manoeuvre and its optimisation.