Late Holocene phases of dome growth and Plinian activity at Guagua Pichincha volcano (Ecuador)

Since the eruption which affected Quito in AD 1660, Guagua Pichincha has been considered a hazardous volcano. Based on field studies and twenty ¹⁴C dates, this paper discusses the eruptive activity of this volcano, especially that of the last 2000 years. Three major Plinian eruptions with substantial pumice discharge occurred in the 1st century, the 10th century, and in AD 1660. The ages of organic paleosols and charcoal from block-and-ash flow and fallout deposits indicate that these eruptions occurred near the end of 100 to 200 year-long cycles of discontinuous activity which was comprised of dome growth episodes and minor pumice fallouts. The first cycle took place from ~ AD 1 to 140. The second one developed during the 9th and 10th centuries, lasted 150–180 yr, and included the largest Plinian event, with a VEI of 5. The third, historic cycle, about 200 yr in duration, includes pyroclastic episodes around AD 1450 and AD 1500, explosive activity between AD 1566 and AD 1582, possible precursors of the 1660 eruption in the early decades of the 17th century, and finally the 1660 eruption (VEI 4). A fourth event probably occurred around AD 500, but its authenticity requires confirmation. The Plinian events occurred at the end of these cycles which were separated by repose periods of at least 300 yr. Older volcanic activity of similar type occurred between ~ 4000 and ~ 3000 yr BP.     

Heat and Water Vapour Diffusivities Near the Base of a Disturbed Stable Internal Boundary Layer

We present results from an experiment that wasdesigned to investigate turbulent transportrelationships in a nearly homogeneous boundary layerdisturbed by unsteady wind swings, as found at thebase of an advective inversion with a convectiveboundary layer overhead. In such a situation wemeasured vertical gradients and eddy fluxes of temperature andhumidity at two heights. From these, the turbulentdiffusivities of heat and water vapour are obtained,and compared to the predictions of Monin–Obukhovsimilarity theory and those of a numericalsecond-order closure model. It is found that themeasured diffusivities exceed both predictions. Thisis interpreted as a consequence of the unsteadyconditions. It is also found that the diffusivity forheat is roughly 10% larger than that for watervapour. This is in agreement with a theoreticaltreatment of the unsteadiness effects that wedeveloped in an earlier publication. This result isnot reproduced by the numerical model because themodel has no provision for unsteady conditions. Ourresult disagrees with that from an earlier, verysimilar, field experiment, which may be due to asystematic underestimation of sensible heat flux inthe older experiment.     

Formation and dynamics of vegetated fluvial landforms follow the biogeomorphological succession model in a channelized river

Feedback between hydrogeomorphological processes and riparian plants drives landscape dynamics and vegetation succession in river corridors. We describe the consequences of biogeomorphological feedback on the formation and dynamics of vegetated fluvial landforms based on observations from the channelized Isère River in France. The channel was laterally confined with embankments and mostly straightened. From the beginning of the 1970s to the end of the 1990s, alternate bars were progressively but heavily colonized by vegetation. This context presented an exceptional opportunity to analyse temporal adjustments between fluvial landforms and vegetation succession from bare gravel bars to mature upland forest as the consequence of biogeomorphological interactions. Based on a GIS analysis of aerial photographs (between 1948 and 1996), we show that the spatiotemporal organization of vegetated bars within the river channel observed in 1996 resulted from a bioconstruction and biostabilization effect of vegetation and interactions between bars of varying age, size and mobility. Field measurements in 1996 reflected how a strong positive feedback between sedimentary dynamics and riparian vegetation succession resulted in the construction of the vegetated bars. A highly significant statistical association of geomorphological and vegetation variables (RV of co-inertia analysis = 0.41, p < 0.001) explained 95% of the variability in just one axis, supporting the existence of very strong feedback between geomorphological changes (i.e. the transformation of small bare alternate bars to fluvial landforms covered by mature upland forest, and vegetation succession). Such dynamics reflect the fluvial biogeomorphological successions model, as described by the authors earlier. © 2020 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Global S$$_$$ Tide in Earth’s Nutation

Diurnal S\(_1\) tidal oscillations in the coupled atmosphere–ocean system induce small perturbations of Earth’s prograde annual nutation, but matching geophysical model estimates of this Sun-synchronous rotation signal with the observed effect in geodetic Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) data has thus far been elusive. The present study assesses the problem from a geophysical model perspective, using four modern-day atmospheric assimilation systems and a consistently forced barotropic ocean model that dissipates its energy excess in the global abyssal ocean through a parameterized tidal conversion scheme. The use of contemporary meteorological data does, however, not guarantee accurate nutation estimates per se; two of the probed datasets produce atmosphere–ocean-driven S\(_1\) terms that deviate by more than 30 \(\upmu \)as (microarcseconds) from the VLBI-observed harmonic of \(-16.2+i113.4\) \(\upmu \)as. Partial deficiencies of these models in the diurnal band are also borne out by a validation of the air pressure tide against barometric in situ estimates as well as comparisons of simulated sea surface elevations with a global network of S\(_1\) tide gauge determinations. Credence is lent to the global S\(_1\) tide derived from the Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA) and the operational model of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). When averaged over a temporal range of 2004 to 2013, their nutation contributions are estimated to be \(-8.0+i106.0\) \(\upmu \)as (MERRA) and \(-9.4+i121.8\) \(\upmu \)as (ECMWF operational), thus being virtually equivalent with the VLBI estimate. This remarkably close agreement will likely aid forthcoming nutation theories in their unambiguous a priori account of Earth’s prograde annual celestial motion.     

Second-order wave maker theory using force-feedback control. Part II: An experimental verification of regular wave generation

This paper provides an experimental verification of the new wave maker theory outlined by Spinneken and Swan [2009. Second-order wave maker theory using forcefeedback control. Part I. A new theory for regular wave generation. Ocean Engineering, in press, doi:10.1016/j.oceaneng.2009.01.019]. This theory concerns the generation of regular waves by a flap-type wave maker using force-feedback control, providing the first quantitative evidence of the inherent advantages of this latter approach. When the wave maker is controlled by a first-order force command signal, comparisons between the theory and experimental observations confirm two key points: (i) The first-order behaviour is crucial for the absorption characteristics of the machine. (ii) The second-order behaviour leads to a spurious, or unwanted, freely propagating second harmonic that is substantially smaller in amplitude when compared to an identical wave paddle operating with first-order position control. Both aspects of this work, effective absorption and reduced second-order spurious wave generation, are investigated over a broad range of wave frequencies and shown to be widely applicable. Furthermore, the theory also provides a force command signal correct to second order. This is introduced in a separate set of experiments and shown to provide further improvement in the quality of the wave generation.     

Annual deformation signals from homogeneously reprocessed VLBI and GPS height time series

The first part of this paper compares homogeneously reprocessed Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) and Global Positioning System (GPS) long-term height series from 1994 to 2007. The data analysis used fully adapted state-of-the-art models (like VMF1 and a priori zenith delays from ECMWF) for the GPS and VLBI processing. The series are compared in terms of long-term non-linear behaviour, harmonic and mean annual signals (not necessarily of harmonic nature). The similarity between both techniques is very good (especially the mean annual signals), which is assumed to be due to the adapted models and consistent reprocessing of both series. As two almost independent observing techniques see the same annually recurring signals at almost all co-located sites, we expect a good geophysical interpretability as integral vertical deformation. For the second part of this paper, the height time series of 161 suitable GPS sites (of the same solution as before) are used to determine a harmonic and a mean annual signal for each of them. Comparing the annual signals for this big dataset visually to GRACE-determined load deformations described in other publications, we find good agreement. This puts emphasis to the assumption that our height data have a lot of potential to be interpreted as geophysical signals. Out of these 161, 131 are grouped to 55 clusters, if at least two nearby (some thousand kilometres) sites show similar mean annual signals, which are thus confirmed to be real regional deformation, not local or technical artefacts. These 55 signals are presented on a “world map” of regional average mean annual height signals, as easy-to-handle tool to validate geophysical models. The data of these measured regional mean annual signals can be downloaded from a web-page for numerical analysis.     

Oxygen minimum zones in the eastern tropical Atlantic and Pacific oceans

Within the eastern tropical oceans of the Atlantic and Pacific basin vast oxygen minimum zones (OMZ) exist in the depth range between 100 and 900 m. Minimum oxygen values are reached at 300–500 m depth which in the eastern Pacific become suboxic (dissolved oxygen content <4.5 μmol kg⁻¹) with dissolved oxygen concentration of less than 1 μmol kg⁻¹. The OMZ of the eastern Atlantic is not suboxic and has relatively high oxygen minimum values of about 17 μmol kg⁻¹ in the South Atlantic and more than 40 μmol kg⁻¹ in the North Atlantic. About 20 (40%) of the North Pacific volume is occupied by an OMZ when using 45 μmol kg⁻¹ (or 90 μmol kg⁻¹, respectively) as an upper bound for OMZ oxygen concentration for ocean densities lighter than σ_θ < 27.2 kg m⁻³. The relative volumes reduce to less than half for the South Pacific (7% and 13%, respectively). The abundance of OMZs are considerably smaller (1% and 7%) for the South Atlantic and only 0% and 5% for the North Atlantic. Thermal domes characterized by upward displacements of isotherms located in the northeastern Pacific and Atlantic and in the southeastern Atlantic are co-located with the centres of the OMZs. They seem not to be directly involved in the generation of the OMZs.OMZs are a consequence of a combination of weak ocean ventilation, which supplies oxygen, and respiration, which consumes oxygen. Oxygen consumption can be approximated by the apparent oxygen utilization (AOU). However, AOU scaled with an appropriate consumption rate (aOUR) gives a time, the oxygen age. Here we derive oxygen ages using climatological AOU data and an empirical estimate of aOUR. Averaging oxygen ages for main thermocline isopycnals of the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean exhibit an exponential increase with density without an obvious signature of the OMZs. Oxygen supply originates from a surface outcrop area and can also be approximated by the turn-over time, the ratio of ocean volume to ventilating flux. The turn-over time corresponds well to the average oxygen ages for the well ventilated waters. However, in the density ranges of the suboxic OMZs the turn-over time substantially increases. This indicates that reduced ventilation in the outcrop is directly related to the existence of suboxic OMZs, but they are not obviously related to enhanced consumption indicated by the oxygen ages. The turn-over time suggests that the lower thermocline of the North Atlantic would be suboxic but at present this is compensated by the import of water from the well ventilated South Atlantic. The turn-over time approach itself is independent of details of ocean transport pathways. Instead the geographical location of the OMZ is to first order determined by: (i) the patterns of upwelling, either through Ekman or equatorial divergence, (ii) the regions of general sluggish horizontal transport at the eastern boundaries, and (iii) to a lesser extent to regions with high productivity as indicated through ocean colour data.     

Future African Water Resources: Interactions between Soil Degradation and Global Warming

This study uses a well-established water balance methodology to evaluate the relative impact of global warming and soil degradation due to desertification on future African water resources. Using a baseline climatology, a GCM global warming scenario, a newly derived soil water-holding capacity data set, and a worldwide survey of soil degradation between 1950 and 1980, four climate and soil degradation scenarios are created to simulate the potential impact of global warming and soil degradation on African water resources for the 2010–2039 time period. Results indicate that, on a continental scale, the impact of global warming will be significantly greater than the impact of soil degradation. However, when only considering the locations where desertification is an issue (wet and dry climate regions), the potential effects of these two different human impacts on local water resources can be expected to be on the same order of magnitude. Drying associated with global warming is primarily the result of increased water demand (potential evapotranspiration) across the entire continent. While there are small increases in precipitation under global warming conditions, they are inadequate to meet the increased water demand. Soil degradation is most severe in highly populated, wet and dry climate regions and results in decreased water-holding capacities in these locations. This results in increased water surplus conditions during wet seasons when the soil's ability to absorb precipitation is reduced. At the same time, water deficits in these locations increase because of reduced soil water availability in the dry seasons. The net result of the combined scenarios is an intensification and extension of drought conditions during dry seasons.