Sila dialogues on climate change: Inuit wisdom for a cross-cultural interdisciplinarity

This research begins with the recognition that climate change researchers have become interested in Inuit ecological observations because of the importance of northern changes on the global climate system, but this research often marginalizes Inuit understandings of these climate-related changes. The direct translation of the Inuktitut term Sila in much of this research is a case study in this methodological problem. In contrast to climate research translations of Sila as weather, ethnographies of Inuit conceive of Sila as a spiritual power that is related to the weather. These diverging interpretations of Sila reflect the difficulty of conducting cross-cultural research. To mitigate this difficulty a dialogue was engaged with Inuit concerning their experience of climate change in relation to the different Inuit and Western understandings of Sila. The central goals of this paper are to clearly define Sila so as to identify implications it may have for Western approaches in conducting cross-cultural climate research, and, in the process, to begin a cross-cultural dialogue that aims at an agreed upon understanding of climate change that is respectful of different knowledges.     

Enhancing the relevance of Shared Socioeconomic Pathways for climate change impacts,adaptation and vulnerability research

This paper discusses the role and relevance of the shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs) and the new scenarios that combine SSPs with representative concentration pathways (RCPs) for climate change impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability (IAV) research. It first provides an overview of uses of social–environmental scenarios in IAV studies and identifies the main shortcomings of earlier such scenarios. Second, the paper elaborates on two aspects of the SSPs and new scenarios that would improve their usefulness for IAV studies compared to earlier scenario sets: (i) enhancing their applicability while retaining coherence across spatial scales, and (ii) adding indicators of importance for projecting vulnerability. The paper therefore presents an agenda for future research, recommending that SSPs incorporate not only the standard variables of population and gross domestic product, but also indicators such as income distribution, spatial population, human health and governance.     

Aircraft wind measurement considering lift-induced upwash

Flow distortion is a universal consideration in the measurement of wind. Usually the distortion results from deflection of the flow by the support. Instruments mounted on airplanes, however, experience an additional deflection associated with lift, which changes rapidly and continuously during flight. In front of the airplane, this deflection appears as upwash. Characteristic upwash contamination ranges from 0.5 to 2.5 m s^-1, depending on wing loading, flight speed, and forward distance from the wing to the measurement location. On pressure-radome installations the distance from the wing is usually small and the potential for upwash contamination large. Sensors mounted at the end of long probes attached to smaller airplanes with light wing loading are less susceptible to upwash contamination. Since wing loading also depends on the local vertical wind velocity the upwash velocity is directly correlated with vertical wind velocity. Generally, empirical corrections are derived from flight tests. We develop a simple method from principles of aerodynamics which explains these corrections in terms of upwash. The applicability of our approach to moderate upwash is demonstrated with data collected from the NOAA Long-EZ research airplane. More severe upwash conditions require a more sophisticated correction beyond the scope of this paper, but basically derived from the same principles.Oak Ridge Associated Universities, assigned to NOAA/ATDD     

An evaluation of conditioning data for solute transport prediction

The large and diverse body of subsurface characterization data generated at a field research site near Oyster, Virginia, provides a unique opportunity to test the impact of conditioning data of various types on predictions of flow and transport. Bromide breakthrough curves (BTCs) were measured during a forced-gradient local-scale injection experiment conducted in 1999. Observed BTCs are available at 140 sampling points in a three-dimensional array within the transport domain. A detailed three-dimensional numerical model is used to simulate breakthrough curves at the same locations as the observed BTCs under varying assumptions regarding the character of hydraulic conductivity spatial distributions, and variable amounts and types of conditioning data. We present comparative results of six cases ranging from simple (deterministic homogeneous models) to complex (stochastic indicator simulation conditioned to cross-borehole geophysical observations). Quantitative measures of model goodness-of-fit are presented. The results show that conditioning to a large number of small-scale measurements does not significantly improve model predictions, and may lead to biased or overly confident predictions. However, conditioning to geophysical interpretations with larger spatial support significantly improves the accuracy and precision of model predictions. In all cases, the effects of model error appear to be significant in relation to parameter uncertainty.     

Grenville age of basement rocks in Cape May NJ well: new evidence for Laurentian crust in u.s. Atlantic Coastal Plain basement Chesapeake terrane

The Chesapeake terrane of the U.S. mid-Atlantic Coastal Plain basement is bounded on the northwest by the Salisbury positive gravity and magnetic anomaly and extends to the southeast as far as the Atlantic coast. It underlies the Coastal Plain of Virginia, Maryland, Delaware and southern New Jersey. Rubidium/ Strontium dating of the Chesapeake terrane basement yields an age of 1.025±0.036 Ga. This age is typical of Grenville province rocks of the Middle to Late Proterozoic Laurentian continent. The basement lithologies are similar to some exposed Grenville-age rocks of the Appalachians. The TiO₂ and Zr/P₂O₅ composition of the metagabbro from the Chesapeake terrane basement is overlapped by those of the Proterozoic mafic dikes in the New Jersey Highlands. These new findings support the interpretation that Laurentian basement extends southeast as far as the continental shelf in the U.S. mid-Atlantic region. The subcrop of Laurentian crust under the mid-Atlantic Coastal Plain implies unroofing by erosion of the younger Carolina (Avalon) supracrustal terrane. Dextral-transpression fault duplexes may have caused excessive uplift in the Salisbury Embayment area during the Alleghanian orogeny. This extra uplift in the Salisbury area may have caused the subsequent greater subsidence of the Coastal Plain basement in the embayment. © 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.     

Beach-fill equilibration and dune growth at two large-scale nourishment sites

Natural dune growth after nourishment is often observed, and such growth plays an important role in beach management for coastal communities. Nourishment sand equilibration after construction is another important topic for project planning and design. Large-scale nourishment projects at Nags Head (NC, USA) (completed in 2011) and Bridgehampton–Sagaponack (NY, USA) (completed in 2014) are under comparatively high-wave energy conditions and offer new insight regarding these topics. After nourishment, a natural beach and inshore morphology were produced with high rates of dune growth by eolian transport. At Nags Head, volumetric dune growth averaged 8 m³/m/yr over the first 5 years following project completion, while Bridgehampton–Sagaponack averaged 9 m³/m/yr over the first 3 post-project years. Results are compared with the Bagnold (1941) analytical model predictions of dune growth and are shown to correlate and decay closely with dry-sand beach width as the nourished profile equilibrates. The extra volume and elevation in the dunes have provided a higher level of storm protection and have helped the sites avoid any major damage to oceanfront properties during hurricanes or numerous severe winter storms.     

Rock crevices determine woody and herbaceous plant cover in the karst critical zone

The study of the critical zones(CZs) of the Earth link the composition and function of aboveground vegetation with the characteristics of the rock layers, providing a new way to study how the unique rock and soil conditions in karst regions affect the aboveground vegetation. Based on survey results of the rocks, soils and vegetation in the dolomite and limestone distribution areas in the karst area of central Guizhou, it was found that woody plant cover increases linearly with the number of cracks with a width of more than 1 mm, while the cover of herbaceous plants shows the opposite trend(p0.01). The dolomite distribution area is characterized by undeveloped crevices, and the thickness of the soil layer is generally less than 20 cm, which is suitable for the distribution of herbaceous plants with shallow roots. Due to the development of crevices in the limestone distribution area, the soil is deeply distributed through the crevices for the deep roots of trees, which leads to a diversified species composition and a complicated structure in the aboveground vegetation. Based on moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer(MODIS) remote sensing data from 2001 to 2010, the normalized differentiated vegetation index(NDVI) and annual net primary productivity(NPP) results for each phase of a 16-day interval further indicate that the NDVI of the limestone distribution area is significantly higher than that in the dolomite distribution area, but the average annual NPP is the opposite. The results of this paper indicate that in karst CZs, the lithology determines the structure and distribution of the soil, which further determines the cover of woody and herbaceous plants in the aboveground vegetation. Although the amount of soil in the limestone area may be less than that in the dolomite area, the developed crevice structure is more suitable for the growth of trees with deep roots, and the vegetation activity is strong. At present, the treatment of rocky desertification in karst regions needs to fully consider the rock-soilvegetation-air interactions in karst CZs and propose vegetation restoration measures suitable for different lithologies.     

Field investigation of siltation at a tidal harbor: North Port of Incheon,Korea

Ocean Dynamics - To understand siltation processes within the North Port of Incheon, Korea, this study estimated the sedimentation rate and then determined the dominant mechanisms for the...