A 520 year record of summer sunshine for the eastern European Alps based on stable carbon isotopes in larch tree rings

A 520-year stable carbon isotope chronology from tree ring cellulose in high altitude larch trees (Larix decidua Mill.), from the eastern European Alps, correlates more strongly with summer temperature than with summer sunshine hours. However, when instrumental records of temperature and sunshine diverge after AD1980, the tree ring time series does not follow warming summer temperatures but more closely tracks summer sunshine trends. When the tree ring stable carbon isotope record is used to reconstruct summer temperature the reconstruction is not robust. Reconstructed temperatures prior to the twentieth century are higher than regional instrumental records, and the evolution of temperature conflicts with other regional temperature reconstructions. It is concluded that sunshine is the dominant control on carbon isotope fractionation in these trees, via the influence of photosynthetic rate on the internal partial pressure of CO₂, and that high summer (July–August) sunshine hours is a suitable target for climate reconstruction. We thus present the first reconstruction of summer sunshine for the eastern Alps and compare it with the regional temperature evolution.     

A Re - Assessment of the Criteria for Certifiability in CCRMP

The effect of the between- and within-laboratory standard deviation and of the number of laboratories on the magnitude of the certification factor, CF, introduced in 1975 by the Canadian Certified Reference Materials Project (CCRMP) has been discussed. The applicability of CF to reference materials has been assessed on the basis of the correlation between the between- and within-laboratory standard deviation. The validity of the critical value of 4 for CF for certifiability is examined.
An examination of all available data has led to the conclusion that the quality of an interlaboratory program is sufficient to warrant certifiability only if the ratio of the between-to the within-laboratory standard deviation is 3 or less for most elements and 2 or less for uranium. It has been shown that the number of laboratories rejected based on the upper limit of this ratio differs only slightly from that based on laboratory means differing by more than twice the standard deviation of the overall mean for the majority of elements that have been certified. A new measure for assessing the certifiability of an element has been introduced and is based on the requirement that the percentage of laboratories that are rejected to give a ratio of the between- to within-laboratory standard deviation less than or equal to the critical value of 3 or, for uranium, 2 should be no greater than 15% regardless of the number of laboratories in the certification program.     

Comparative advantage and distant water fishing fleets: The Australian east coast tuna longline fishery

A coastal state benefits from importing the services of a distant water fishing nation (DWFN) fleet if the DWFN has a comparative advantage in exploiting the fishery, based on factors such as market access, costs or technology. The paper compares the activities of the Australian and Japanese vessels in the east coast tuna longline fishery and finds the Australian vessels receive higher prices, have higher costs and use a different technology from the Japanese fleet. These differences suggest a pattern of comparative advantage which can lead to Australia benefitting from importing the services of the Japanese fleet.