Assessing impacts of agricultural water interventions in the Kothapally watershed,Southern India

The paper describes a hydrological model for agricultural water intervention in a community watershed at Kothapally in India, developed through integrated management and a consortium approach. The impacts of various soil and water management interventions in the watershed are compared to no‐intervention during a 30‐year simulation period by application of the calibrated and validated ARCSWAT 2005 (Version 2.1.4a) modelling tool. Kothapally receives, on average, 800 mm rainfall in the monsoon period. 72% of total rainfall is converted as evaporation and transpiration (ET), 20% is stored by groundwater aquifer, and 8% exported as outflow from the watershed boundary in current water interventions. ET, groundwater recharge and outflow under no‐intervention conditions are found to be 64, 9, and 19%, respectively. Check dams helped in storing water for groundwater recharge, which can be used for irrigation, as well minimising soil loss. In situ water management practices improved the infiltration capacity and water holding capacity of the soil, which resulted in increased water availability by 10–30% and better crop yields compared to no‐intervention. Water outflows from the developed watershed were more than halved compared to no‐intervention, indicating potentially large negative downstream impacts if these systems were to be implemented on a larger scale. On the other hand, in the watershed development program, sediment loads to the streams were less than one‐tenth. It can be concluded that the hydrological impacts of large‐scale implementation of agricultural water interventions are significant. They result in improved rain‐fed agriculture and improved productivity and livelihood of farmers in upland areas while also addressing the issues of poverty, equity, and gender in watersheds. There is a need for case‐specific studies of such hydrological impacts along with other impacts in terms of equity, gender, sustainability, and development at the mesoscale. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

High-Resolution Climate Simulations of Oxygen Isotope Stage 3 in Europe

Oxygen isotope stage 3 (OIS 3) climate and its variations are the focus of the Stage 3 Project. The objective of the OIS 3 modeling effort is twofold: (1) to explore the importance of different boundary conditions on the climate of Europe and (2) to develop climate simulations that best reproduce the wealth of OIS 3 observations. Given the complexity of the topography and coastlines, the modeling effort is based on a “nested” General Circulation Model (GCM) and mesoscale model (RegCM2) with climate simulations for Europe on a 60-km grid spacing. The key conclusions are as follows: (1) The mesoscale model, driven by GCM output, does a reasonable job of reproducing the modern European climate. (2) OIS 3 variations in orbit, CO₂, and ice-sheet size are of little significance in explaining the observed climate variability. (3) The model results focus attention on North Atlantic sea-surface temperatures (SST) as a major factor in explaining OIS 3 climates. (4) Experiments for different SST values capture a number of systematic changes in sea-level pressure and precipitation. (5) Climate models simulate substantial European cooling and significant changes in precipitation, but they do not explain large differences between OIS 3 warm and cold episodes.     

The use of coexisting calcite-ankerite solid solutions as a geothermometer

Limited solid solution of Mg and Fe²⁺ occurs in calcite coexisting with dolomiteankerite. This substitution is strongly temperature-dependent. Experimentally determined calcite compositions co-existing with a dolomite phase are available in the binary system CaCO₃-MgCO₃ between 500° C and 900° C (Harker and Tuttle, 1955). This information is extrapolated to lower temperatures and is combined with three synthetic calcite-ankerite pairs determined at 400° C, 450° C and 500° C (Rosenberg, 1967).The compositions of six naturally occurring calcites coexisting with ankerites from Sofala, N.S.W. are not accurately known, but X-ray determined compositional limits assuming firstly Mg substitution then Fe substitution yield maximum and minimum values for both possibilities. These limits are plotted on the ternary CaCO₃-MgCO₃-FeCO₃ together with the experimentally derived solvus isotherms. Assuming equilibration at constant temperature, actual compositions of these natural calcites plot along the 415° C isotherm.     

Validation of interannual simulations from the 1/8° global Navy Coastal Ocean Model (NCOM)

A 1/8° global version of the Navy Coastal Ocean Model (NCOM) is used for simulation of upper-ocean quantities on interannual time scales. The model spans the global ocean from 80°S to a complete Arctic cap, and includes 19 terrain-following σ- and 21 fixed z-levels. The global NCOM assimilates three-dimensional (3D) temperature and salinity fields produced by the Modular Ocean Data Assimilation System (MODAS) which generates synthetic temperature and salinity profiles based on ocean surface observations. Model-data intercomparisons are performed to measure the effectiveness of NCOM in predicting upper-ocean quantities such as sea surface temperature (SST), sea surface salinity (SSS) and mixed layer depth (MLD). Subsurface temperature and salinity are evaluated as well. An extensive set of buoy observations is used for this validation. Where possible, the model validation is performed between year-long time series obtained from the model and time series from the buoys. The statistical analyses include the calculation of dimensionless skill scores (SS), which are positive if statistical skill is shown and equal to one for perfect SST simulations. Model SST comparisons with year-long SST time series from all 83 buoys give a median SS value of 0.82. Model subsurface temperature comparisons with the year-long subsurface temperature time series from 24 buoys showed that the model is able to predict temperatures down to 500 m reasonably well, with positive SS values ranging from 0.18 to 0.97. Intercomparisons of MLD reveal that the model MLD is usually shallower than the buoy MLD by an average of about 15 m. Annual mean SSS and subsurface salinity biases between the model and buoy values are small. A comparison of SST between NCOM and a satellite-based Pathfinder data set demonstrates that the model has a root-mean-square (RMS) SST difference of 0.61 °C over the global ocean. Spatial variations of kinetic energy fields from NCOM show agree with historical observations. Based on these results, it is concluded that the global NCOM presented in this paper is able to predict upper-ocean quantities with reasonable accuracy for both coastal and open ocean locations.     

Potential for photoenhanced toxicity of spilled oil in Prince William Sound and Gulf of Alaska waters

Photoenhanced toxicity is the increase in the toxicity of a chemical in the presence of ultraviolet light (UV) compared to a standard laboratory test conducted with fluorescent lighting (minimal UV). Oil products, weathered oil, and specific polycyclic aromatic compounds present in oil are 2 to greater than 1000 times more toxic in the presence of UV. The photoenhanced toxicity of oil to fish and aquatic invertebrates appears to occur through a process of photosensitization, rather than photomodification of the aqueous phase oil. In photosensitization, the bioaccumulated chemical transfers light energy to other molecules causing toxicity through tissue damage rather than a narcosis mechanism. The available evidence indicates that phototoxic components of oil are specific 3-5 ring polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and heterocycles. Determinants of photoenhanced toxicity include the extent of oil bioaccumulation in aquatic organisms and the spectra and intensity of UV exposure. No studies have specifically investigated the photoenhanced toxicity of spilled oil in Alaska waters. Although there are substantial uncertainties, the results of this evaluation indicate there is potential for photoenhanced toxicity of spilled oil in Prince William Sound and the Gulf of Alaska. The potential hazard of photoenhanced toxicity may be greatest for embryo and larval stages of aquatic organisms that are relatively translucent to UV and inhabit the photic zone of the water column and intertidal areas. Photoenhanced toxicity should be considered in oil spill response because the spatial and temporal extent of injury to aquatic organisms may be underestimated if based on standard laboratory bioassays and existing toxicity databases. Additionally, the choice of counter measures and oil removal operations may influence the degree of photoenhanced toxicity.     

Some thermodynamic properties of the Berman and Brown model for CaO-Al2O3-SiO2

The and (1984) excess free energy model (B&B) is extremely convenient to use in modelling multicomponent solutions. However, spinodal calculations reveal that their calibration of this model for CaO-Al₂O₃-SiO₂ produces liquation tielines that do not appear to be in agreement with experimental work. In addition, their calibration contains some strongly negative excess entropy parameters and these permit a most unusual inverted liquation field to start at approximately >2115°C, wt% (SiO₂, Al₂O₃, CaO) = (70, 16, 14). This inverted field expands rapidly to cover most of the ternary for T> 2300°C and continues to expand at all higher temperatures. The Berman and Brown calibration for this system carries these negative excess entropies of mixing because the solution model is very strongly asymmetric as a result of the use of normal oxide mole weights in modelling the configurational entropy of mixing. A suggestion is made for a fairly natural restriction on the relative sizes of empirical models for excess versus configurational entropy.

Expressions are presented for the general consolute condition (all solution models) and for the second and third partials of the B&B G^x model.