More than a checkbox: engaging youth in disaster risk reduction and resilience in Canada

Fire has become one of the main disturbances in terrestrial ecosystems worldwide. It is known that elevation influences the occurrence of fire events; however, this variable has been poorly studied, although it is of particularly relevance to the Mexican topography. The objective of this research was to analyze the altitudinal distribution of forest fires in Mexico over a period of 11 years. Elevation gradients were defined based on a Digital Elevation Model and the main ecoregions of the country: (1) shrubland and tropical forests (0–1000 masl), (2) grasslands (1001–2000 masl) and (3) temperate forests (>?2000 masl). Each ecoregion was divided into Climate Research Units and the number of fires per unit was quantified. The G Getis–Ord statistic was applied in order to define the spatial patterns presented by the fire events. A relationship between the occurrence of fires and the El Niño Southern Oscillation phenomenon was also determined through a Pearson correlation. The results showed that the occurrence of fire events presented variability along elevation gradients, with elevation a determining factor in their occurrence. Gradient 3, with the highest elevation, had the greatest number of fires and also presented the largest area of fire event clustering. These results contribute to the knowledge of the spatial distribution of forest fires in Mexico and are of value to appropriate decision-making for effective fire management.

     

Interchange stability of a rapidly rotating magnetosphere

A rotation-dominated magnetosphere is unstable to magnetic flux-tube interchange motions if and only if the plasma content of a unit magnetic flux tube is a decreasing function of distance from the spin axis. For a spin-aligned dipole field the marginally stable distribution is approximately ρr^9/2 = constant, where ρ is the plasma mass density at the radial distance r in the equatorial plane. Plasma filling the Jovian magnetosphere from internal sources would initially violate this stability criterion so that interchange motions would act to establish the marginally stable distribution.     

Soil development and Anak Krakatau's ash-falls

Soil development and Anak Krakatau's ash-falls     

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Transient signals from a buried horizontal magnetic dipole

Summary The impulse response for a horizontal magnetic dipole buried in a conducting half-space is obtained in closed form by an inverse Fourier transform of the known time harmonic solution. Since displacement currents are neglected, the response is not valid for very short times. The waveforms of the magnetic field components at the surface have geometrical dependences which may have application to source location.     

Sea-floor-mounted rotating side-scan sonar for making time-lapse sonographs

A rotating side-scan sonar system was designed to make time-lapse sonographs of a circular area of the sea floor. To construct the system, the transducers of a commercial side-scan system (frequency 105 kHz; pulse length 0.1 ms; horizontal beam width 1°; vertical beam width 20°; beam depressed 10° with respect to horizontal) were mounted 2 m above the sea floor on a vertical shaft that had a rotation speed of 0.5 rpm.The radially collected sonar images are recorded linearly on a standard side-scan recorder. To convert the linear record to a radial record, the original moving record is photographed through a slit by a rotating camera, exposing a circular image on film.Records that are collected with this system offer several advantages over records that are collected with towed systems. Bottom features are presented in nearly true plan geometry, and transducer yaw, pitch, and roll are eliminated. Most importantly, repeated observations can be made from a single point, and bedform movements of <50 cm can be measured. In quiet seas the maximum useful range of the system varies from 30 m (for mapping ripples) to 200 m (for mapping 10-m wavelength sand waves) to 450 m or more (for mapping gravel patches).     

A mechanism for the growth phase of magnetospheric substorms

A mechanism is presented whereby the rate of energy dissipation in the magnetosphere is controlled by the particle density in the plasma sheet in the near geomagnetic tail. The mechanism is based on a model in which the plasma sheet is sustained by injection of solar-wind particles into the dayside magnetosphere. The efficiency of the injection is controlled by solarwind parameters, in particular, the north-south component of the interplanetary magnetic field; the maximum injection rate occurs when the interplanetary field is northward. During geomagnetically quiet times, this source balances the loss of particles from the edges of the tail current sheet. If the dayside source rate is reduced (e.g. by a southward-turning interplanetary magnetic field), then the plasma sheet is depleted and the rate of magnetic merging is enhanced in the earthward portion of the tail current sheet. This period of steadily-enhanced merging is associated with the growth phase, i.e. the period of enhanced magnetospheric convection for about one hour preceding the breakup of a polar magnetic or auroral substorm. The breakup can be understood as the result of the collapse of a portion of the tail current sheet following the local depletion of the plasma sheet.     

Isotopic evidence for the incorporation of methane-derived carbon into foraminifera from modern methane seeps, Hydrate Ridge, Northeast Pacific

The presence of modern methane seeps at Hydrate Ridge, offshore Oregon, provide an opportunity to study the influence of methane seeps on the ecology and geochemistry of living foraminifera. A series of cores were collected from the southern summit of Hydrate Ridge in 2002. Samples were preserved and stained to determine the δ¹³C composition of three species of live (stained) and dead benthic foraminifera: Uvigerina peregrina, Cibicidoides mckannai, and Globobulimina auriculata. Specimens were examined under light and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and exhibit no evidence of diagenesis or authigenic carbonate precipitation. Individual living foraminifera from seep sites recorded δ¹³C values from −0.4‰ to −21.2‰, indicating the isotopic influence of high methane concentrations. Average δ¹³C values (calculated from single specimens) range from −1.28 to −5.64‰ at seep sites, and −0.81 to −0.85‰ at a control (off seep) site.Two distinct seep environments, distinguished by the presence of microbial mats or clam fields, were studied to determine environmental influences on δ¹³C values. Individual foraminifera from microbial mat sites exhibited more depleted δ¹³C values than those from clam field sites. We interpret these differences as an effect of food source and/or symbiotic microbes on foraminiferal carbon isotopic values, acting to magnify the negative δ¹³C values recorded via the DIC pool. No statistical difference was found between δ¹³C values of live vs. dead specimens. This suggests that authigenic carbonate precipitation did not play a dominant role in the observed isotopic compositions. However, a few dead specimens with extremely negative δ¹³C composition (<-12‰) do indicate potential evidence for an authigenic influence on the recorded δ¹³C composition.     

The Evolution Of Turbulence Across A Forest Edge

An experiment was set-up to investigate the adjustment of turbulence over a roughness transition (moorland to forest). Results from this experiment support the development of an internal boundary layer (IBL) at the transition, which propagates upwards by turbulent diffusion as a function of distance downwind from the transition. Spectra and length-scale results uphold the hypothesis that, over a transition to a rough surface, the variance distribution shifts towards smaller wavelengths/length scales. However, results suggest that the adjustment of streamwise velocity variance may be faster than the adjustment of the vertical velocity variance. The concept of an equilibrium layer developing above the new surface is supported. Fetch requirements for equilibrium are, however, found to differ between first order and second order (flux) statistics, with second order statistics requiring a longer fetch. Results indicate that fetch should exceed 25 times the height of the measurement above the zero plane, which is a 2° (±0.5) growth angle, for flux equilibrium.