An ostracod-conductivity transfer function for Tibetan lakes

About 145 freshwater to hypersaline lakes of the eastern Tibetan Plateau were investigated to develop a transfer function for quantitative palaeoenvironmental reconstructions using ostracods. A total of 100 lakes provided sufficient numbers of ostracod shells. Multivariate statistical techniques were used to analyse the influence of a number of environmental variables on the distributions of surface sediment ostracod assemblages. Of 23 variables determined for each site, 19 were included in the statistical analysis. Lake water electrical conductivity (8.2%), Ca% (7.6%) and Fe% (4.8%, ion concentrations as % of the cations) explained the greatest amounts of variation in the distribution of ostracod taxa among the 100 lakes. Electrical conductivity optima and tolerances were calculated for abundant taxa. A transfer function, based on weighted averaging partial least squares regression (WA-PLS), was developed for electrical conductivity (r ² = 0.71, root-mean-square-error of prediction [RMSEP] = 0.35 [12.4% of gradient length], maximum bias = 0.64 [22.4% of gradient length], as assessed by leave-one-out cross-validation) based on 96 lakes. Our results show that ostracods provide reliable estimates of electrical conductivity and can be used for quantitative palaeoenvironmental reconstructions similarly to more commonly used diatom, chironomid or pollen data.     

Role of sea surface temperature,Arctic sea ice and Siberian snow in forcing the atmospheric circulation in winter of 2012–2013

Climate Dynamics - During the 2012–2013 winter, the negative phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) predominated, resulting in a cold winter over Europe and northern Asia punctuated by...     

Distribution of tritium-helium groundwater ages in a large Cenozoic sedimentary basin (North German Plain)

The travel time of groundwater plays a major role in the understanding of hydrogeological systems; however, large data sets necessary for regional studies of groundwater age are rare. In this study, a unique large data set of groundwater samples analysed for tritium and helium isotopes collected over the last 20 years from Cenozoic aquifers of the North German Plain is explored. Hereby, the variety of natural and technical influences on the tritium-helium age, including screen depth and length, groundwater recharge rate and climatic effects, are investigated. To a sampling depth of ~40 m below ground level, the median tritium-helium age increases almost linearly with depth, reaching a maximum of 40 years. Below, the portion of older, tritium-free water rises. The tritium-helium ages of the tritium-bearing portion increase only slightly to a maximum of about 46 years. The depth distribution of the tritium-helium age shows a dependency on groundwater recharge rates. Considering the same depth level, younger ages are related to higher groundwater recharge rates as compared to groundwater that infiltrated in areas with lower recharge rates. This is especially observed for shallow depths. Tritium-helium ages younger than 40 years are reflected well in the atmospheric tritium input curves, while deviations from it can be related to anthropogenic influences such as input from nuclear power plants and irrigation with deep, tritium-poor groundwater. The regional distribution for shallow wells indicates increasing tritium-helium ages from west to east, corresponding to decreasing groundwater recharge rates due to the more continental climate in the east.

     

Direct evidence of the feedback between climate and weathering

Long-term climate moderation is commonly attributed to chemical weathering; the higher the temperature and precipitation the faster the weathering rate. Weathering releases divalent cations to the ocean via riverine transport where they promote the drawdown of CO₂ from the atmosphere by the precipitation and subsequent burial of carbonate minerals. To test this widely-held hypothesis, we performed a field study determining the weathering rates of 8 nearly pristine north-eastern Iceland river catchments with varying glacial cover over 44 years. The mean annual temperature and annual precipitation of these catchments varied by 3.2 to 4.5 °C and 80 to 530%, respectively during the study period. Statistically significant linear positive correlations were found between mean annual temperature and chemical weathering in all 8 catchments and between mean annual temperature and both mechanical weathering and runoff in 7 of the 8 catchments. For each degree of temperature increase, the runoff, mechanical weathering flux, and chemical weathering fluxes in these catchments are found to increase from 6 to 16%, 8 to 30%, and 4 to 14% respectively, depending on the catchment. In contrast, annual precipitation is less related to the measured fluxes; statistically significant correlations between annual precipitation and runoff, mechanical weathering, and chemical weathering were found for 3 of the least glaciated catchments. Mechanical and chemical weathering increased with time in all catchments over the 44 year period. These correlations were statistically significant for only 2 of the 8 catchments due to scatter in corresponding annual runoff and average annual temperature versus time plots. Taken together, these results 1) demonstrate a significant feedback between climate and Earth surface weathering, and 2) suggest that weathering rates are currently increasing with time due to global warming.     

《联合国荒漠与荒漠化年》简报

The UN should not confuse deserts with desertification. Deserts are good: they have biodiverse ecosystems and rich human cultures and histories. Deserts are not necessarily desertified. In contrast, desertification is bad: it is associated with degraded e…     

Influence of NOM on the Mobility of Metal(loid)s in Water-Saturated Porous Media

In this work, the interaction of natural organic matter (NOM) with metal(loid)s (Cu, Pb, Zn, Pt, As) and the role of NOM on the metal(loid) transport in a water-saturated quartz sand column were investigated. For detailed information, size exclusion chromatographic (SEC) measurements and “short pulse” laboratory transport experiments with online metal(loid) and NOM detection were used. The SEC measurements showed the formation of metal–NOM complexes. Cu, Pb, Zn and Pt were predominantly bound to the high molecular mass NOM molecules. The binding capacity of the NOM for metals increased with increasing pH value and in the following order: Zn < Pb < Cu < Pt. No evidence for the formation of As–NOM complexes was found. The transport experiments showed no significant influence of NOM on the mobility of Cu, Pb and Zn. The metal–NOM complexes detected in the SEC experiments were obviously sorbed completely onto the grain surfaces in case of the quartz sand system, or they were dissociated partially during passage through the column. No influence of NOM was observed on the transport of As as well. Inorganic Zn and As species were transported through the column with increasing retardation as the pH value increased. Pt showed a high mobility at a pH of 5, and it decreased at a pH of 7 especially in the presence of NOM. The results support the known fact that a decrease in the pH value results in enhanced transport of inorganic metal(loid) species in water-saturated porous media. On the other hand, the presence of NOM can immobilise the metals through metal–NOM complex formation and the deposition of the complexes onto the stationary phase.     

Sources of oxygen flux in groundwater during induced bank filtration at a site in Berlin, Germany

The microbial degradation of pharmaceuticals found in surface water used for artificial recharge is strongly dependent on redox conditions of the subsurface. Furthermore the durability of production wells may decrease considerably with the presence of oxygen and ferrous iron due to the precipitation of trivalent iron oxides and subsequent clogging. Field measurements are presented for oxygen at a bank filtration site in Berlin, Germany, along with simplified calculations of different oxygen pathways into the groundwater. For a two-dimensional vertical cross-section, oxygen input has been calculated for six scenarios related to different water management strategies. Calculations were carried out in order to assess the amount of oxygen input due to (1) the infiltration of oxic lake water, (2) air entrapment as a result of water table oscillations, (3) diffusive oxygen flux from soil air and (4) infiltrating rainwater. The results show that air entrapment and infiltrating lake water during winter constitute by far the most important mechanism of oxygen input. Oxygen input by percolating rainwater and by diffusive delivery of oxygen in the gas phase is negligible. The results exemplify the importance of well management as a determining factor for water oscillations and redox conditions during artificial recharge.     

Dependence of NAO variability on coupling with sea ice

The variance of the North Atlantic Oscillation index (denoted N) is shown to depend on its coupling with area-averaged sea ice concentration anomalies in and around the Barents Sea (index denoted B). The observed form of this coupling is a negative feedback whereby positive N tends to produce negative B, which in turn forces negative N. The effects of this feedback in the system are examined by modifying the feedback in two modeling frameworks: a statistical vector autoregressive model (F _VAR) and an atmospheric global climate model (F _CAM) customized so that sea ice anomalies on the lower boundary are stochastic with adjustable sensitivity to the model??s evolving N. Experiments show that the variance of N decreases nearly linearly with the sensitivity of B to N, where the sensitivity is a measure of the negative feedback strength. Given that the sea ice concentration field has anomalies, the variance of N goes down as these anomalies become more sensitive to N. If the sea ice concentration anomalies are entirely absent, the variance of N is even smaller than the experiment with the most sensitive anomalies. Quantifying how the variance of N depends on the presence and sensitivity of sea ice anomalies to N has implications for the simulation of N in global climate models. In the physical system, projected changes in sea ice thickness or extent could alter the sensitivity of B to N, impacting the within-season variability and hence predictability of N.     

Assessment of Workforce Demands to Shape GIS&T Education

The Body of Knowledge for Geographic Information Science and Technology (GIS&T BoK) has been the main reference document for curriculum design in the geospatial domain. Today, the BoK is supposed to have fallen short in adequately covering the domain due to significant conceptual and technological advances in the field. Thus, several initiatives around the globe work towards an update of the GIS&T BoK. This research assesses the demands of today's GIS&T workforce across Europe to contribute to the effort of a demand‐oriented update. We assessed the workforce demand by means of a Europe‐wide distributed online questionnaire and complementary expert interviews. The results show that the BoK still is a comprehensive reference base for the geospatial domain that is generally deemed relevant by the European workforce. However, workforce demands point to three main topics that need to be addressed by an update of the BoK: (1) the shift from primary data acquisition to the handling of highly abundant spatial data; (2) a lack of competences in programming and application development; and (3) a poor coverage of web‐related aspects. Future research should complement workforce demands with a review of the scientific literature to identify additional shortcomings related to conceptual advances.