Towards Stochastic Time-Varying Geological Modeling

The modeling of subsurface geometry and properties is a key element to understand Earth processes and manage natural hazards and resources. In this paper, we suggest this field should evolve beyond pure data fitting approaches by integrating geological concepts to constrain interpretations or test their consistency. This process necessarily calls for adding the time dimension to 3D modeling, both at the geological and human time scales. Also, instead of striving for one single best model, it is appropriate to generate several possible subsurface models in order to convey a quantitative sense of uncertainty. Depending on the modeling objective (e.g., quantification of natural resources, production forecast), this population of models can be ranked. Inverse theory then provides a framework to validate (or rather invalidate) models which are not compatible with certain types of observations. We review recent methods to better achieve both stochastic and time-varying geomodeling and advocate that the application of inversion should rely not only on random field models, but also on geological concepts and parameters.     

Accounting for uncertainties and time preference in economic analysis of tackling climate change through forestry and selected policy implications for Scotland and Ukraine

The paper discusses the development of economic techniques for dealing with uncertainties in economic analysis of planting trees to mitigate climatic change. In consideration of uncertainty, time preference and intergenerational equity, the traditional cost-benefit analysis framework is challenged with regard to the discounting/non-discounting of carbon uptake benefits, and because it usually uses a constant and positive discount rate. We investigate the influence of various discounting protocols on the outputs of economic analysis. The idea of using the declining discount rate is also considered. Several numerical examples dealing with the analysis of afforestation for carbon sequestration in Scotland and Ukraine are provided. We show that the choice of discounting protocols have a considerable influence on the results of economic analysis, and therefore, on the decision-making processes related to climate change mitigation strategies. The paper concludes with some innovative insights on accounting for uncertainties and time preference in tackling climate change through forestry, several climate policy implications of dealing with uncertainties, and a brief discussion of what the use of different discounting protocols might imply for decision making.     

The effect of drawdown on suspended solids and phosphorus export from Columbia Lake,Waterloo, Canada

This study examines the effect of drawdown on the timing and magnitude of suspended solids and associated phosphorus export from a 12 ha reservoir located in an urbanized watershed in southern Ontario, Canada. Water level in Columbia Lake was lowered by 1·15 m over a 2‐week period in November 2001. The total phosphorus (TP) concentrations ranged from 63 to 486 µg L^?1 in Columbia Lake and 71 to 373 µg L^?1 at its outflow. All samples exceeded the Provincial Water Quality Objective of 30 µg TP L^?1. Outflow concentrations of suspended solids and TP increased significantly with decreasing lake level and were attributed to the resuspension of cohesive bottom sediments that occurred at a critical threshold lake level (0·65 m below summer level). Suspended solids at the outflow consisted of flocculated cohesive materials with a median diameter (D₅₀) of c. 5 µm. Particulate organic carbon accounted for 8·5% of the suspended solids export by mass. A total mass of 18·5 t of suspended solids and 62·6 kg TP was exported from Columbia Lake, which represents a significant pulse of sediment‐associated P to downstream environments each autumn during drawdown. The downstream impacts of this release can be minimized if the water level in Columbia Lake is lowered no more than 0·5 m below summer levels. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Anisotropy of hydrogen diffusion in tourmaline

Hydrogen-deuterium exchange in tourmaline single crystals of elbaite composition from Nepal has been studied at 1 atm and at temperatures between 973 and 1073 K. H/D ratios were determined after each annealing experiment using micro FTIR-spectroscopy. Diffusion coefficients (10⁻¹⁶-10⁻¹⁵ m² s⁻¹) were determined by fitting the data using a 3D numerical simulation. The rate of diffusion is two to three times faster along the c direction than along directions parallel to the basal plane. The diffusion laws are, respectively:

     

Trend analysis of extreme thermal indices in south Brazil (1971 to 2014)

Southern Brazil has recently been the subject of many major natural hazards from weather and climatic origin, including violent floods in 2016 caused by very heavy rains. It has also experienced episodes of droughts and heat waves in recent years. The state of Paraná, located at the climatic transition zone, has densely populated urban areas, vast cultivation areas, and hydro-electric reservoirs (more than 20), so those extreme events are letting local populations vulnerable to the vagaries of the climate and their impacts on community, infrastructure, and ecosystem. This study analyzes climatic variability and trends of about ten climatic indices (with RClimDex), calculated by using daily thermal data of ten stations spread mainly in two geographic regions of Paraná. The Mann-Kendall and Pettitt tests were applied for trends analysis and determine the presence of breakpoints in the time series (1971–2014). Our results showed that for the various thermal indices, there is a reduction of the cold days on all the stations, indicating a more pronounced increase of the indices based on the maximum temperatures (TX), especially in the north. On the other hand, the indexes based on minimum temperatures (TN) show a more modest and partial increase, varying accordingly to the location of the stations. Regionally, the trends calculated were similar, that is, North region presents a more expressive increase of the indices of heat whereas in the east predominates a reduction.     

Arsenite sequestration at the surface of nano-Fe(OH)2, ferrous-carbonate hydroxide, and green-rust after bioreduction of arsenic-sorbed lepidocrocite by Shewanella putrefaciens

X-ray Absorption Fine Structure (XAFS) spectroscopy was used in combination with high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS), X-ray energy dispersive spectroscopy (XEDS), X-ray powder diffraction, and Mössbauer spectroscopy to obtain detailed information on arsenic and iron speciation in the products of anaerobic reduction of pure and As(V)- or As(III)-adsorbed lepidocrocite (γ-FeOOH) by Shewanella putrefaciens ATCC 12099. We found that this strain of S. putrefaciens is capable of using Fe(III) in lepidocrocite and As(V) in solution or adsorbed on lepidocrocite surfaces as electron acceptors. Bioreduction of lepidocrocite in the absence of arsenic resulted in the formation of hydroxycarbonate green rust 1 [Fe^II₄Fe^III₂(OH)₁₂CO₃: GR1(CO₃)], which completely converted into ferrous-carbonate hydroxide (Fe^II₂(OH)₂CO₃: FCH) over nine months. This study thus provides the first evidence of bacterial reduction of stoichiometric GR1(CO₃) into FCH. Bioreduction of As(III)-adsorbed lepidocrocite also led to the formation of GR1(CO₃) prior to formation of FCH, but the presence of As(III) slows down this transformation, leading to the co-occurrence of both phases after 22-month of aging. At the end of this experiment, As(III) was found to be adsorbed on the surfaces of GR1(CO₃) and FCH. After five months, bioreduction of As(V)-bearing lepidocrocite led directly to the formation of FCH in association with nanometer-sized particles of a minor As-rich Fe(OH)₂ phase, with no evidence for green rust formation. In this five-month experiment, As(V) was fully converted to As(III), which was dominantly sorbed at the surface of the Fe(OH)₂ nanoparticles as oligomers binding to the edges of Fe(OH)₆ octahedra at the edges of the octahedral layers of Fe(OH)₂. These multinuclear As(III) surface complexes are characterized by As-As pairs at a distance of 3.32 ± 0.02 Å and by As-Fe pairs at a distance of 3.50 ± 0.02 Å and represent a new type of As(III) surface complex. Chemical analyses show that the majority of As(III) produced in the experiments with As present is associated with iron-bearing hydroxycarbonate or hydroxide solids, reinforcing the idea that, at least under some circumstances, bacterial reduction can promote As(III) sequestration instead of mobilizing it into solution.     

Statistics of long-crested extreme waves in single and mixed sea states

Ocean Dynamics - Most of the studies on extreme waves are focused on the systems with single-peak wave spectra. However, according to the statistics of occurrence, the bimodal spectral system is...     

A critical zone observatory dedicated to suspended sediment transport: The meso-scale Galabre catchment (southern French Alps)

The 20 km² Galabre catchment belongs to the French network of critical zone observatories (OZCAR; Gaillardet et al., Vadose Zone Journal, 2018, 17(1), 1–24). It is representative of the sedimentary lithology and meteorological forcing found in Mediterranean and mountainous areas. Due to the presence of highly erodible and sloping badlands on various lithologies, the site was instrumented in 2007 to understand the dynamics of suspended sediments (SS) in such areas. Two meteorological stations including measurements of air temperature, wind speed and direction, air moisture, rainfall intensity, raindrop size and velocity distribution were installed both in the upper and lower part of the catchment. At the catchment outlet, a gauging station records the water level, temperature and turbidity (10 min time-step). Stream water samples are collected automatically to estimate SS concentration-turbidity relationships, allowing quantification of SS fluxes with known uncertainty. The sediment samples are further characterized by measuring their particle size distributions and by applying a low-cost sediment fingerprinting approach using spectrocolorimetric tracers. Thus, the contributions of badlands located on different lithologies to total SS flux are quantified at a high temporal resolution, providing the opportunity to better analyse the links between meteorological forcing variability and watershed hydrosedimentary response. The set of measurements was extended to the dissolved phase in 2017. Both stream water electrical conductivity and major ion concentrations are measured each week and every 3 h during storm events. This extension of measurements to the dissolved phase will allow progress in understanding both the origin of the water during the events and the partitioning between particulate and dissolved fluxes of solutes in the critical zone. All data sets are available at https://doi.osug.fr/public/DRAIXBLEONE_GAL/index.html .     

The information system of the French Peatland Observation Service: Service National d'Observation Tourbières – A valuable tool to assess the impact of global changes on the hydrology and biogeochemistry of temperate peatlands through long term monitoring

Mitigating and adapting to global changes requires a better understanding of the response of the Biosphere to these environmental variations. Human disturbances and their effects act in the long term (decades to centuries) and consequently, a similar time frame is needed to fully understand the hydrological and biogeochemical functioning of a natural system. To this end, the ‘Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique’ (CNRS) promotes and certifies long-term monitoring tools called national observation services or ‘Service National d'Observation’ (SNO) in a large range of hydrological and biogeochemical systems (e.g., cryosphere, catchments, aquifers). The SNO investigating peatlands, the SNO ‘Tourbières’, was certified in 2011 ( https://www.sno-tourbieres.cnrs.fr/ ). Peatlands are mostly found in the high latitudes of the northern hemisphere and French peatlands are located in the southern part of this area. Thus, they are located in environmental conditions that will occur in northern peatlands in coming decades or centuries and can be considered as sentinels. The SNO Tourbières is composed of four peatlands: La Guette (lowland central France), Landemarais (lowland oceanic western France), Frasne (upland continental eastern France) and Bernadouze (upland southern France). Thirty target variables are monitored to study the hydrological and biogeochemical functioning of the sites. They are grouped into four datasets: hydrology, fluvial export of organic matter, greenhouse gas fluxes and meteorology/soil physics. The data from all sites follow a common processing chain from the sensors to the public repository. The raw data are stored on an FTP server. After operator or automatic processing, data are stored in a database, from which a web application extracts the data to make them available ( https://data-snot.cnrs.fr/data-access/ ). Each year at least, an archive of each dataset is stored in Zenodo, with a digital object identifier (DOI) attribution ( https://zenodo.org/communities/sno_tourbieres_data/ ).