Leaching of coal-mine tips (Nord-Pas-de-Calais coal basin,France) and sulphate transfer to the chalk aquifer: example of acid mine drainage in a buffered environment

In northern France, the weathering and oxidation of pyrite-containing coal mine spoils can lead to sulphate enrichment of the underlying chalk aquifer. Two sites have been studied: in a free water-table zone and in a confined-aquifer zone. Solid-fraction analyses have shown a release of carbon and sulphur from the waste dump surfaces. The groundwater isotopic analysis (notably ³⁴S) showed the existence of two sulphate sources (mine spoils and gypsum contained in Cenozoic formations). This study also saw evidence of bacterial sulphate reduction in the confined zone as a result of the release of carbon from mine spoils. The effects of acid mine drainage were the presence of secondary minerals as small jarosite dots (cm) present at depth, gypsum or ferrihydrite present on the bottom of temporary ponds, and an increase in sulphate content of groundwaters sampled downstream of the waste dumps. This acid mine drainage is buffered during its infiltration into the chalk aquifer. This is evidenced by the increase in magnesium, calcium, bicarbonate or strontium, resulting of carbonate digestion downstream of the sites. No significant leaching of metals, even those associated with the sulphide fraction, was seen at the two studied sites.     

Modelling the global ocean tides: modern insights from FES2004

During the 1990s, a large number of new tidal atlases were developed, primarily to provide accurate tidal corrections for satellite altimetry applications. During this decade, the French tidal group (FTG), led by C. Le Provost, produced a series of finite element solutions (FES) tidal atlases, among which FES2004 is the latest release, computed from the tidal hydrodynamic equations and data assimilation. The aim of this paper is to review the state of the art of tidal modelling and the progress achieved during this past decade. The first sections summarise the general FTG approach to modelling the global tides. In the following sections, we introduce the FES2004 tidal atlas and validate the model against in situ and satellite data. We demonstrate the higher accuracy of the FES2004 release compared to earlier FES tidal atlases, and we recommend its use in tidal applications. The final section focuses on the new dissipation term added to the equations, which aims to account for the conversion of barotropic energy into internal tidal energy. There is a huge improvement in the hydrodynamic tidal solution and energy budget obtained when this term is taken into account.     

The AMANDES tidal model for the Amazon estuary and shelf

The AMANDES project aims to study transports from the Andean mountains to the Atlantic Ocean through the Amazon system. This requires realistic estuarine modelling in this area strongly forced by tides and river discharge. As none of the existing models for this region would fit the actual needs of the project, a specific new generation model has been implemented.The model is based on the hydrodynamic finite element model T-UGOm. In a first step, we limit our investigations to tidal dynamics. As the Amazon estuary is a very shallow macro-tidal area, it is necessary to improve the available bathymetries and to develop a precise bottom friction parametrisation.In this paper, we discuss the implementation of a high resolution regional model. This allows us to develop a precise and accurate tidal model: for instance, the overall root mean square error on complex differences is reduced from 54 cm in a standard model to 27 cm in our best model. Such precise and accurate tidal modelling is a prerequisite for modelling particle transport.     

An Analytical Solution of the Lagrange Equations Valid also for Very Low Eccentricities: Influence of a Central Potential

This paper presents an analytic solution of the equations of motion of an artificial satellite, obtained using non singular elements for eccentricity. The satellite is under the influence of the gravity field of a central body, expanded in spherical harmonics up to an arbitrary degree and order. We discuss in details the solution we give for the components of the eccentricity vector. For each element, we have divided the Lagrange equations into two parts: the first part is integrated exactly, and the second part is integrated with a perturbation method. The complete solution is the sum of the so-called “main” solution and of the so-called “complementary” solution. To test the accuracy of our method, we compare it to numerical integration and to the method developed in Kaula (Theory of Satellite Geodesy, Blaisdell publ. Co., New York. 1966), expressed in classical orbital elements. For eccentricities which are not very small, the two analytical methods are almost equivalent. For low eccentricities, our method is much more accurate.     

Tree Species Composition in European Pristine Forests: Comparison of Stand Data to Model Predictions

The degree of general applicability across Europe currently achieved with several forest succession models is assessed, data needs and steps for further model development are identified and the role physiology based models can play in this process is evaluated. To this end, six forest succession models (DISCFORM, ForClim, FORSKA-M, GUESS, PICUS v1.2, SIERRA) are applied to simulate stand structure and species composition at 5 European pristine forest sites in different climatic regions. The models are initialized with site-specific soil information and driven with climate data from nearby weather stations. Predicted species composition and stand structure are compared to inventory data. Similarity and dissimilarity in the model results under current climatic conditions as well as the predicted responses to six climate change scenarios are discussed. All models produce good results in the prediction of the right tree functional types. In about half the cases, the dominating species are predicted correctly under the current climate. Where deviations occur, they often represent a shift of the species spectrum towards more drought tolerant species. Results for climate change scenarios indicate temperature driven changes in the alpine elevational vegetation belts at humid sites and a high sensitivity of forest composition and biomass of boreal and temperate deciduous forests to changes in precipitation as mediated by summer drought. Restricted generality of the models is found insofar as models originally developed for alpine conditions clearly perform better at alpine sites than at boreal sites, and vice versa. We conclude that both the models and the input data need to be improved before the models can be used for a robust evaluation of forest dynamics under climate change scenarios across Europe. Recommendations for model improvements, further model testing and the use of physiology based succession models are made.     

Particle transport mechanics and induced seismic noise in steep flume experiments with accelerometer-embedded tracers

Recent advances in fluvial seismology have provided solid observational and theoretical evidence that near-river seismic ground motion may be used to monitor and quantify coarse sediment transport. However, inversions of sediment transport rates from seismic observations have not been fully tested against independent measurements, and thus have unknown but potentially large uncertainties. In the present study, we provide the first robust test of existing theory by conducting dedicated sediment transport experiments in a flume laboratory under fully turbulent and rough flow conditions. We monitor grain-scale physics with the use of ‘smart rocks’ that consist of accelerometers embedded into manufactured rocks, and we quantitatively link bedload mechanics and seismic observations under various prescribed flow and sediment transport conditions. From our grain-scale observations, we find that bedload grain hop times are widely distributed, with impacts being on average much more frequent than predicted by existing saltation models. Impact velocities are observed to be a linear function of average downstream cobble velocities, and both velocities show a bed-slope dependency that is not represented in existing saltation models. Incorporating these effects in an improved bedload-induced seismic noise model allows sediment flux to be inverted from seismic noise within a factor of two uncertainty. This result holds over nearly two orders of magnitude of prescribed sediment fluxes with different sediment sizes and channel-bed slopes, and particle–particle collisions observed at the highest investigated rates are found to have negligible effect on the generated seismic power. These results support the applicability of the seismic-inversion framework to mountain rivers, although further experiments remain to be conducted at sediment transport near transport capacity. © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Bioconcentration of the anionic surfactant linear alkylbenzene sulfonate (LAS) in the marine shrimp Palaemonetes varians: A radiotracer study

Uptake and depuration kinetics of dissolved [¹⁴C]C₁₂-6-linear alkylbenzene sulfonate (LAS) were determined in the shrimp Palaemonetes varians using environmentally relevant exposure concentration. The shrimp concentrated LAS from seawater with a mean BCF value of 120 L kg⁻¹ after a 7-day exposure. Uptake biokinetics were best described by a saturation model, with an estimated BCF_ss, of 159 ± 34 L kg⁻¹, reached after 11.5 days. Shrimp weight influenced significantly BCF value with smaller individuals presenting higher affinity to LAS. To the light of a whole body autoradiography, major accumulation of LAS occurred in the cephalothorax circulatory system (gills, heart, hepatopancreas) and ocular peduncle, but not in the flesh, limiting potential transfer to human consumers. LAS depuration rate constant value of the shrimp was 1.18 ± 0.08 d⁻¹ leading to less than 1% of remaining LAS in its tissues after 8 days of depuration.     

Projecting future drought in Mediterranean forests: bias correction of climate models matters!

Global and regional climate models (GCM and RCM) are generally biased and cannot be used as forcing variables in ecological impact models without some form of prior bias correction. In this study, we investigated the influence of the bias correction method on drought projections in Mediterranean forests in southern France for the end of the twenty-first century (2071–2100). We used a water balance model with two different atmospheric climate forcings built from the same RCM simulations but using two different correction methods (quantile mapping or anomaly method). Drought, defined here as periods when vegetation functioning is affected by water deficit, was described in terms of intensity, duration and timing. Our results showed that the choice of the bias correction method had little effects on temperature and global radiation projections. However, although both methods led to similar predictions of precipitation amount, they induced strong differences in their temporal distribution, especially during summer. These differences were amplified when the climatic data were used to force the water balance model. On average, the choice of bias correction leads to 45 % uncertainty in the predicted anomalies in drought intensity along with discrepancies in the spatial pattern of the predicted changes and changes in the year-to-year variability in drought characteristics. We conclude that the choice of a bias correction method might have a significant impact on the projections of forest response to climate change.     

Analysis of snow-vegetation interactions in the low Arctic-Subarctic transition zone (northeastern Canada)

Abstract

Recent studies have shown that northern vegetation has been growing in relation to a warming climate over the last four decades, especially across the transition zone between tundra and taiga. Shrub growth affects snow properties and the surface energy budget, which must be better studied to quantify shrub-snow-climate feedbacks. The objective of this research is to improve the characterization of the impact of shrubs on snow evolution, from its accumulation to its melt, using in-situ and satellite measurements. The research is presented for the Umiujaq site, Nunavik, representative of the low Arctic–Subarctic transition zone. Snow depth, measured along numerous transects spanning different land cover types is found to increase by a factor 2.5–3 between tundra and forest, while snow density decreases. This illustrates the trapping effect of vegetation well. Complementary, continuous snow depth measurements using weather stations from two sites (tundra with low shrubs and a small clearing with shrubs within the forest) show different site-dependent behaviors. Spatial analysis from high-resolution Pleiades images combined with Landsat (Normalized Difference Snow Index) and MODIS (Fractional Snow Cover) images suggest a slight delay in melt over open and dense forest areas compared to tundra and dense high shrubs.