Strengthening bottom-up and top-down climate governance

Although the UN and EU focus their climate policies on the prevention of a 2 °C global mean temperature rise, it has been estimated that a rise of at least 4?°C is more likely. Given the political climate of inaction, there is a need to instigate a bottom-up approach so as to build domestic support for future climate treaties, empower citizens, and motivate leaders to take action. A review is provided of the predominant top-down cap-and-trade policies in place – the Kyoto Protocol and EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) – with a focus on the grandfathering of emissions entitlements and the possibility of offsetting emissions. These policies are evaluated according to two criteria of justice and it is concluded that they fail to satisfy them. Some suggestions as to how the EU ETS can be improved so as to enable robust climate action are also offered.

Policy relevance

The current supranational climate policy has not been successful and global leaders have postponed the adoption of a meaningful successor to the Kyoto Protocol. In view of this inaction, bottom-up approaches with regard to climate policy should be further developed. It is argued that two of the main top-down policies, grandfathering and offsetting, impede the avowed goals of EU climate policy and pose significant ethical dilemmas with regard to participatory and intergenerational justice. In order to provide a more robust EU climate policy, the EU should inter alia provide a long-term perspective for investors, reduce the volatility of the carbon price, and prepare for the possibility of carbon leakage.     

Comment on Sousa, M. L. and Costa, A. C., ��Ground motion scenarios consistent with probabilistic seismic hazard disaggregation analysis. Application to Mainland Portugal��

Disaggregation of the seismic hazard has become a popular technique to convey information on the main sources contributing to the hazard at a particular site. Recently published work adopts geographic disaggregation analysis of seismic hazard as a tool to identify dominant rupture scenarios for municipalities in Mainland Portugal. The authors conclude that the seismic hazard in South and Central Portugal is dominated by the seismicity that takes place offshore, around 70km WSW of Cape S. Vicente, both for the return periods of 475 years and 975 years. Whilst recognizing the merits of the approach taken and the utility of the tools developed, we take issue with this last conclusion. We consider that the proposed disaggregation returns a picture of the biases in the hazard analysis, more than any real feature of the distribution of relevant seismogenic sources.     

PaPRIKa: a method for estimating karst resource and source vulnerability��application to the Ouysse karst system (southwest France)

The intrinsic vulnerability mapping method, PaPRIKa, is proposed as a common basis for karst groundwater protection in France. PaPRIKa is a specialized method for studying karst aquifers, derived from updating the RISKE and EPIK methods. Both the structure and functioning of karst aquifers are considered in order to develop a resource and source-vulnerability mapping method. PaPRIKa means Protection of aquifers from the assessment of four criteria: P for protection (considering the most protective aspects among parameters related to soil cover, unsaturated zone and epikarst behavior), R for rock type, I for infiltration and Ka for karstification degree. The Ouysse karst system, located in the Causses area in southwest France, is one of the nine pilot sites where this method was tested and standardized. The specificities of the Ouysse system such as the size of the catchment area, the spatial variability of the karst network development, the thick infiltration zone and the system??s dual character (both karst and non-karst areas), have provided a valuable field of application. The vulnerability of the resource was assessed for the entire catchment area, while source-orientated cartography was attempted for the catchment areas of the three different capture works used for drinking water.     

Evidence of 1.7- to 1.8-Ga Collisional Arc in the Kaoko Belt, NW Namibia

Detailed structural and isotopic analyses in the Hoanib and Ugab River Valleys indicate the existence of an exotic 1.7- to 1.8-Ga terrane in the Pan-African Kaoko Belt. This crustal block, called as Mudorib Complex, is imbricated between autochthonous and para-autochthonous rocks of Congo Craton, Kaoko Basin, and Western Kaoko Batholith units during the main tectono-thermal phase of Kaoko Belt collision around 580?Ma, involving the Rio de La Plata, Congo and Kahalari paleoplates. This terrain is positioned between the 1.9-Ga Pruwes Complex units of SW edge of the Congo Craton and the 0.58- to 0.55-Ga Amspoort Suite granitoids of the Western Kaoko Batholith. It is coincident with a regional positive aeromagnetic anomaly trending from NNW in the Ugab region to the Namibia-Angola border. Internally, Mudorib Complex consists in 1.73- to 1.81-Ga tonalitic?Ctrondhjemitic?Cdioritic?Cgranodioritic sequence of gneisses associated with cogenetic gabbroic and anothositic-gneisses in the core zone of this Pan-African structure. Field relationship and U?CPb zircon and Sm?CNd whole-rock isotope data combined with geochemical information suggest the existence of two rock associations in the Mudorib Complex, namely late Paleoproterozoic tonalitic?Ctrondhjemitic?Cdioritic-gneisses with island-arc affinity and tholeiitic metabasites of juvenile origin, showing Nd model age of 1.73?C2.17?Ga and ??Nd(t) of ?2.05?C+4.3. This 1.8- to 1.7-Ga complex is also intruded by granitic dykes formed at 1.49?C1.50?Ga with Nd model age of 1.75?C2.34?Ga during stable tectonic conditions. In addition to widespread Pan-African tectono-metamorphic events, a secondary metamorphic event of ~1.3?Ga is also recognized in the Mudorib rocks, which may be associated with accretion process of the complex to the Paleoproterozoic to Archean nucleus of the Kaoko Belt in the Hoanib River Valley.     

Damage evaluation and conservation treatment of the tenth century Korean rock-carved Buddha statues

This study focuses on the lithological characterization, quantitative deterioration assessment and conservation treatment of the tenth century rock-carved Buddha statues in Korea. The Buddha statues were carved on light gray macrocrystalline biotite granite, and features microcline phenocrysts and pegmatite patches. The rock-forming minerals are quartz, plagioclase, microcline and biotite showing micrographic and porphyritic textures. Feldspars and biotite in the host rock have been partly altered into sericite and chlorite by weathering. The surface of the Buddha statues is remarkably irregular due to granular disintegration and the differential weathering of the quartz and microcline. In addition, horizontal and vertical cracks in the host rock have promoted mechanical weathering. Biological colonization of the statues was serious, and featured dark gray and yellowish green lichen, dark green bryophyte and some plants. The Buddha statues were evaluated as the highly weathered rock by ultrasonic survey. The lower parts under the influence of water and areas with severely broken surfaces showed a much more advanced weathering grade. Therefore, scientific conservation treatment was carried out for the long-term maintenance and conservation of the Buddha statues. After pretests, dry, wet and chemical cleanings were applied to the statues. Next, joining of cracked parts and surface consolidating were executed. Finally, the site environment was improved by installation of drain and trimming trees around the statues to ensure more stable long-term conservation.     

Wave height statistics for seakeeping assessment of ships in the Adriatic Sea

The paper presents methodology and results of the development of sea states statistics for the Adriatic Sea. Such statistics is still lacking despite a need of the shipping industry. The presented study is based on the Atlas of Climatology containing statistics of sea states observations in the Adriatic Sea made by merchant ships during the period of 15 years. The results, presented in the Atlas in the form of “wave roses”, are digitalized and empirical frequencies of sea state occurrences are obtained. The 3-parametric Weibull distribution is then fitted through empirical data points enabling the “smoothening” of the histogram. The resulting histogram is compared with other studies for the long-term prediction of the sea states in the Adriatic Sea. The paper concludes with the discussion on the accuracy and applicability of the results.     

Analysis of gravity source moment inversion. Part II: Usinga priori information about the source

The method of moment inversion, based on the approximation of the gravity anomaly by thetruncated series obtained from its multipole expansion, uses, implicitly,a priori information about the anomalous body. The series truncation imposes a regularizing condition on the equipotential surfaces (produced by the anomalous body), allowing the unique determination of some moments and linear combinations of moments that are the coefficients of the basis functions in the multipole expansion series. These moments define a class of equivalent distributions of mass. The equivalence criterion is based on the misfit between the observations and the field produced by the series truncated at a prefixed maximum order for the moments. The estimates of the moments of the equivalent distribution are shown to compose the stationary solution of a system of first-order linear differential equations for which uniqueness and asymptotic stability are guaranteed. Specifically for the series retaining moments up to second order, the implicita priori information introduced requires that the source have finite volume, be sufficiently distant from the measurement plane and that its spatial distribution of mass present three orthogonal planes of symmetry intersecting at the center of mass. Subject to these hypotheses, it is possible to estimate uniquely and simultaneously the total excess of mass, the position of the center of mass and the directions of the three principal axes of the anomalous body.     

Downscaling GCM information to regional scales: a non-parametric multivariate regression approach

The multivariate adaptive regression splines (MARS) model was used to capture the observed relationships between sea level pressure (SLP) anomalies over the Euro-Atlantic sector and the winter time (December–February) monthly rainfall at eight sites in Portugal; possible anthropogenic changes of the rainfall in a perturbed future climate were then estimated by using both the observed SLP-rainfall relationships, described by MARS models, and the GCM simulated SLP, taken from the output of the Hadley Centre Transient Climate Change Experiment (UKTR). Also, principal component analysis was carried out to reduce the dimensionality of the SLP data, and to assess the ability of the GCM in simulating the large-scale circulation; the first six principal components were retained as predictors in the MARS model. The MARS model were built up by using the data for 1946–1991 as the training set and that for 1901–1943 as the testing set, showing satisfactory prediction skills. It is concluded that the UKTR control simulation successfully reproduced main features of the large-scale circulation, but the observed relationship between SLP and the regional rainfall was not well preserved. With respect to the 54-year experiment of perturbed run, the MARS estimation of rainfall and the relevant direct GCM rainfall output possess similar multi-annual variations; however, there are substantial differences regarding details; the change in the area mean of winter time mean monthly rainfall in Portugal estimated by MARS (indirect GCM output) is about –12.7 mm per 54-year, and the relevant direct GCM output is –16.9 mm/54-year. This reduction tendency is consistent with previously reported findings respecting rainfall in the Iberian Peninsula, which were based on the MPI (Max-Planck Institute for Meteorology) transient simulations.     

Subduction erosion and accretion in the Solomon Sea region

The Solomon Sea region is an area of intense tectonic activity characterized by structural complexity, a high level of seismicity and volcanism, and rapid evolution of plate boundaries. There is little accretion in the eastern New Britain Trench. Accretion gradually increases westward with thick accretion in the western New Britain Trench and in the Trobriand Subduction System. The thick accretion in the western part of the New Britain Trench may be a result of collision from the north of Finisterre-Huon block with New Guinea mainland. The present boundary of the collision is along the Ram-Markham fault. Deformation structures and present day seismicity suggest that the northern block is under compression.

Accretion has occurred in the sediment filled trenches in the Solomon Sea. The scale of the accretionary wedge depends on the amount of trench-fill sediment available. It is unlikely that there is no sediment supply to the eastern part of the New Britain Trench where no accretion is observed and subduction erosion may be occurring. There are two possible mechanisms for subduction erosion of sediment; either a rapid rate of subduction relative to the supply of sediment inhibiting sediment accumulation in the trench; or horizontal tensional force superimposed on both the forearc and backarc regions of the arc. Seafloor spreading in both the Manus and Woodlark basins is fan-like with nearby poles in the western margins of the basins. This may be a reflection of a horizontally compressional field in the western part and a tensional field in the eastern part of the Solomon Sea. Therefore it is possible to conclude that the consumption of sediment in the eastern New Britain Trench is related to the horizontal tensional field superimposed on both the forearc and backarc regions of the subduction system.

Imbricated thrust and overthrust faults in the western New Britain Trench and Trobriand Trough are not linear over long distance, but form wavy patterns in blocks with unit distance of approximately 10 km.     

Climatic controls on Holocene lake-level changes in Europe

Sensitivity experiments with a simple water-balance model were used to constrain the possible climatic causes of distinct Holocene patterns of lake-level variation in different regions of Europe. Lakes in S Sweden were low at 9 ka, high around 6.5 ka, low again around 4 ka and are high now. Lakes in Estonia show similar but weaker trends. Lakes in S France were highest around 9 ka, lowest around 4 ka, intermediate now. Lakes in Greece were also high around 9 ka but continued rising until 7.5 ka, then fell gradually from 5 ka with a brief high phase around 3 ka, and are low now. The model was forced with insolation anomalies deduced from orbital variations, temperature anomalies inferred from the pollen record and cloudiness anomalies derived from changes in the position of the subtropical anticyclone (inferred from reconstructed changes in the equator-to-pole temperature gradient), in order to evaluate the effects of resultant evaporation changes on catchment water balance. The resulting simulated changes in runoff (precipitation minus actual evapotranspiration) were slight, and frequently opposite to the observed trends. Larger changes in precipitation are plausible and are required to explain the data. The required precipitation increase in N Europe from 9 ka (low) to 6 ka (high) is suggested by GCM experiments to have been a consequence of interacting insolation and residual ice-sheet effects on the atmospheric circulation over the North Atlantic. The explanation of other observed changes, including the drying trend during the Holocene in S Europe, has not been provided by GCM experiments to date. Explanations may lie in changes in mesoscale circulation, sea-surface temperature patterns and the coupling between these phenomena that may not follow orbital changes in any simple way. Correspondence to: SP Harrison