Inter‐annual variations and factors controlling evapotranspiration in a temperate Japanese cypress forest

This study was undertaken to evaluate the effects of climatic variability on inter‐annual variations in each component of evapotranspiration (ET) and the total ET in a temperate coniferous forest in Japan. We conducted eddy covariance flux and meteorological measurements for 7 years and parameterized a one‐dimensional multi‐layer biosphere‐atmosphere model (Kosugi et al., 2006 ) that partitions ET to transpiration (Tr), wet‐canopy evaporation (E_wet), and soil evaporation (E_soil). The model was validated with the observed flux data. Using the model, the components of ET were estimated for the 7 years. Annual precipitation, ET, Tr, E_wet, and E_soil over the 7 years were 1536 ± 334 mm, 752 ± 29 mm, 425 ± 37 mm, 219 ± 34 mm, and 108 ± 10 mm, respectively. The maximum inter‐annual fluctuation of observed ET was 64 mm with a coefficient of variance (CV) of 2.7%, in contrast to relatively large year‐to‐year variations in annual rainfall (CV = 20.1%). Tr was related to the vapour pressure deficit, incoming radiation, and air temperature with relatively small inter‐annual variations (CV = 8.2%). E_soil (CV = 8.6%) was related mainly to the vapour pressure deficit. E_wet was related to precipitation with large inter‐annual variations (CV = 14.3%) because of the variability in precipitation. The variations in E_wet were counterbalanced by the variations in Tr and E_soil, producing the small inter‐annual variations in total ET. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Diffusion and sorption of Cs, I and HTO in samples of the argillaceous Wakkanai Formation from the Horonobe URL, Japan: Clay-based modeling approach

Diffusion and sorption behaviors of cationic Cs⁺, anionic I⁻ and neutral HTO in samples of the Wakkanai Formation from the Horonobe underground research laboratory (URL), Japan, were investigated as a function of ionic strength (I) of synthetic groundwater by through-diffusion and batch sorption experiments and mechanistic modeling. The effective diffusivities (D_e) measured by through-diffusion experiments showed cation excess and anion exclusion effects, which were strongly dependent on I; D_e for Cs⁺ decreased as I increased, D_e for I⁻ showed the opposite dependency and D_e for HTO showed no dependence. The sorption of Cs⁺ measured by through-diffusion and batch sorption experiments were described by Freundlich isotherms with consistent parameters and decreased with I as a result of competitive ion exchange.Diffusion and sorption behaviors were interpreted by assuming the clay components of illite and smectite control diffusion and sorption mechanisms. The component additive (CA) sorption model, which includes illite and smectite contents and their ion exchange constants, provided a reasonable account of the Cs⁺ sorption trends measured as functions of I and Cs concentration. The diffusion model was developed by coupling the electrical double layer (EDL) model, describing the change of ionic concentrations (cation excess and anion deficit) and viscoelectric effects caused by electrostatic interaction at negatively charged clay surfaces, and a simplified pore model assuming one type of pore shape and includes their size distribution. When averaging the electrostatic effects by using the pore surface area distribution, the model could predict the cation excess and anion exclusion effects, and its dependence on I reasonably well. This result implies the nanoscale pores dominating the pore surface area can strongly impact on ionic diffusion in argillaceous rocks. The clay-based modeling approach described here provides a useful tool to predict ionic diffusion and sorption in argillaceous rocks.     

Agricultural risk management policies under climate uncertainty

Climate change is forecasted to increase the variability of weather conditions and the frequency of extreme events. Due to potential adverse impacts on crop yields it will have implications for demand of agricultural risk management instruments and farmers’ adaptation strategies. Evidence on climate change impacts on crop yield variability and estimates of production risk from farm surveys in Australia, Canada and Spain, are used to analyse the policy choice between three different types of insurance (individual, area-yield and weather index) and ex post payments. The results are found to be subject to strong uncertainties and depend on the risk profile of different farmers and locations; the paper provides several insights on how to analyse these complexities. In general, area yield performs best more often across our countries and scenarios, in particular for the baseline and marginal climate change (without increases in extreme events). However, area yield can be very expensive if farmers have limited information on how climate change affects yields (misalignment in expectations), and particularly so under extreme climate change scenarios. In these more challenging cases, ex post payments perform well to increase low incomes when the risk is systemic like in Australia; Weather index performs well to reduce the welfare costs of risks when the correlation between yields and index is increased by the extreme events. The paper also analyses the robustness of different instruments in the face of limited knowledge of the probabilities of different climate change scenarios; highlighting that this added layer of uncertainty could be overcome to provide sound policy advice under uncertainties introduced by climate change. The role of providing information to farmers on impacts of climate change emerges as a crucial result of this paper as indicated by the significantly higher budgetary expenditures occurring across all instruments when farmers’ expectations are misaligned relative to actual impacts of climate change.     

Mineralogy and petrography of C asteroid regolith: The Sutter's Mill CM meteorite

Based upon our characterization of three separate stones by electron and X‐ray beam analyses, computed X‐ray microtomography, Raman microspectrometry, and visible‐IR spectrometry, Sutter's Mill is a unique regolith breccia consisting mainly of various CM lithologies. Most samples resemble existing available CM2 chondrites, consisting of chondrules and calcium‐aluminum‐rich inclusion (CAI) set within phyllosilicate‐dominated matrix (mainly serpentine), pyrrhotite, pentlandite, tochilinite, and variable amounts of Ca‐Mg‐Fe carbonates. Some lithologies have witnessed sufficient thermal metamorphism to transform phyllosilicates into fine‐grained olivine, tochilinite into troilite, and destroy carbonates. One finely comminuted lithology contains xenolithic materials (enstatite, Fe‐Cr phosphides) suggesting impact of a reduced asteroid (E or M class) onto the main Sutter's Mill parent asteroid, which was probably a C class asteroid. One can use Sutter's Mill to help predict what will be found on the surfaces of C class asteroids such as Ceres and the target asteroids of the OSIRIS‐REx and Hayabusa 2 sample return missions (which will visit predominantly primitive asteroids). C class asteroid regolith may well contain a mixture of hydrated and thermally dehydrated indigenous materials as well as a significant admixture of exogenous material would be essential to the successful interpretation of mineralogical and bulk compositional data.     

Metamorphism and uplift of Alpine schist in the Franz Josef–Fox Glacier area of the Southern Alps, New Zealand

Geothermometry and geobarometry of 10 garnet–oligoclase zone schists in the Franz Josef–Fox Glacier area, Southern Alps, New Zealand, give temperatures ranging from 415 to 625°C and pressures from 5.2 to 9.2 kbar, indicating a T–P array of about 50°C/kbar and inferred peak temperature conditions over a c. 15-km-thick section at depths between c. 20 and 34 km. The present-day distribution of the schist samples implies that only about one-third of the original crustal section is now exposed.
The garnet–oligoclase zone schists represent the deeper part of a metamorphosed and deformed accretionary complex that was associated with late Palaeozoic–early Mesozoic subduction along the Gondwana continental margin. Partial uplift ( c. 0.2 m/Ma) and erosion of the complex during Jurassic–Cretaceous times (Rangitata uplift) was synchronous with D2 deformation and recrystallization, as recorded by the P–T array. Cenozoic (Kaikoura) uplift and exhumation of the schist since c. 30 Ma to form the Southern Alps was associated with oblique-slip movement on the Alpine Fault. The present-day position and steep eastward dip of isograds and D2 structures suggest considerable clockwise rotation during uplift associated with ductile attenuation and tectonic thinning by over two-thirds of the original schist sequence, largely due to simple shear along schistosity planes. As the schist generally shows only incipient greenschist facies retrograde recrystallization, an apparently complete (although contracted) prograde mineral sequence has been preserved by rapid uplift (>5 km/Ma) of hot rock and the effects of limited shear heating near the Alpine Fault.