‘We promise you a warm welcome’: tourism to Malta since the 1960s

Tourism is an important element in the Malta economy. This paper traces its development since the 1960s with discussion focussing on the nature of the tourism product, marketing initiatives, arrivals patterns and changes in the accommodation sector. Problems such as an over-dependence on British visitors, the inadequacies of the infrastructure and the limited impact of planning are highlighted. Recent efforts to improve the quality of Maltese tourism are reviewed.     

Impulsive EUV bursts observed in Civ with OSO-8

Time sequences of profiles of the 1548 line of C iv containing 51 EUV bursts observed in or near active regions are analyzed to determine the brightness, Doppler shift and line broadening characteristics of the bursts. The bursts have mean lifetimes of approximately 150s, and mean increases in brightness at burst maximum of four-fold as observed with a field of view of 2 × 20. Mean burst diameters are estimated to be 3, or smaller. All but three of the bursts show Doppler shifts with velocities sometimes exceeding 75 km s^–1; 31 are dominated by red shifts and 17 are dominated by blue shifts. Approximately half of the latter group have red-shifted precursors. We interpret the bursts as prominence material, such as surges and coronal rain, moving through the field of view of the spectrometer.The National Center for Atmospheric Research is sponsored by the National Science Foundation.     

Size partitioning of microbial and meiobenthic biomass and respiration on Brown's Bank, south-west Nova Scotia

Biomass and respiration (oxygen consumption) of bacteria, microfauna, and meiofauna were measured in coarse sand sediment from Brown's Bank (172 m) off Nova Scotia, Canada. Community biomass, excluding macrofauna, had a median value of 35 mg C m⁻², dominated by bacteria (51%), microfauna (25%), and a minor meiofauna component (2·5%). Protozoan microfauna were mostly microflagellates (colourless cryptomonads). The experimental design allowed partitioning of benthic metabolism without using subtraction from whole community rates. Addition-removal experiments with fauna separated into size categories were used to construct a respiration-biomass regression for all taxa. Respiration rates for faunal groups were then calculated from their biomass in the natural sediment. Total microbial and meiofaunal community respiration had a median rate of 0·55 ml O₂ m⁻² h⁻¹ which was partitioned into median proportions of bacteria (50%) microflagellates (27%), and metazoan meiofauna (4%). Correlations among faunal biomass values from incubated vials of sediment suggested that bacteria were important prey for protozoans. With added biomass of meiofauna, protozoans also became a potentially important source of prey. The results demonstrated the significance of microflagellate protozoans in these sediments and their metabolic and trophic importance relative to meiofauna and even bacteria.     

Simulation of primary phase relations and mineral compositions in the Partridge River intrusion,Duluth Complex,Minnesota: implications for the parent magma composition

In order to describe the composition and crystallinity of the initial (parental) magma of the Partridge River intrusion of the Keweenawan Duluth Complex, and thereby understand the mode of emplacement and solidification of the intrusion, we have applied a numerical simulation technique called geochemical thermometry (Frenkel et al. 1988). The parental magma was a low-alumina, high-Ti-P olivine tholeiite similar to typical Keweenawan low-alumina, high-Ti-P basalts associated with the Duluth Complex and from the nearby Portage Lake area of the Lake Superior region. The parental magma was emplaced as a crystal-liquid suspension, followed by chilling of an evolved, leading edge ferrodioritic liquid in the basal zone of the intrusion. The conditions of emplacement at the present crustal location were 1,150°C, 2 kbar, and f _{O 2} slightly above the wustite-magnetite (WM) buffer. The main differentiation process after emplacement was the sorting and redistribution of plagioclase and olivine crystals on a local scale accompanied by less efficient convection and minor settling of olivine. Calculated crystallization sequence for the parental magma is olivine+plagioclase (1,240°C)olivine+plagioclase+magnetite (1,146°C, WM+0.5)olivine+plagioclase+magnetite+augite (1,140°C, WM+0.5). The calculated compositions of the cumulus olivine and plagioclase in equilibrium with the parent magma at 1,150°C are Fo_66.7±1.1 and An_64.5±2.5, respectively, and are similar to the estimated average composition of primary olivine (Fo_69.1±2.8) and the average composition of plagioclase core (An_66.3±2.8) measured in drill core samples through the intrusion (Chalokwu and Grant 1987).     

Spatial variability in UV radiation during the growing season across the continental USA

Summary ?A major limitation in predicting the ultraviolet-B irradiance on humans, plant leaves and flowers and aquatic organisms is the difficulty in estimating exposure. This study analyzes the spatial variability in the daily exposure of narrow band 300 nm and 368 nm and broadband 290–315 nm (UVB) solar radiation between twelve paired locations in the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) UVB Climate Network over two summer growing seasons (May through August of 2000 and 2001). The spatial correlation of the UVB, 300 nm and 368 nm daily exposures between locations was approximately 0.7 to 0.8 for spacing distances of 100 km. The 300 nm daily exposure was typically more highly correlated between locations than the 368 nm daily exposure. Both the diffuse and direct beam components to the 300 nm daily exposure were similarly correlated with distance between locations. The 368 nm diffuse component of the daily exposures was less correlated with distance than the direct beam component, limiting the ability to interpolate daily exposures from measurement locations. In general the variability in daily exposures of UVB in the USDA UVB Climate Network is too large to interpolate daily exposures of solar radiation, with estimated 300 nm, 368 nm and broadband UVB errors at one-half the mean station spacing of the USDA Network of 22%, 21% and 16% respectively. More accurate interpolations of UVB exposure from this network will require either the incorporation of cloud cover variability from satellite imagery for daily exposure or the use of longer periods of accumulated exposure. Received May 14, 2002; revised October 25, 2002; accepted November 16, 2002     

High resolution provenancing of long travelled dust deposited on the Southern Alps, New Zealand

On 7 February 2000 an atypical orange discolouration of snowfields in the central Southern Alps, New Zealand occurred following the passage of a cold front. Analysis of snow samples identified fine orangey-brown dust mixed with much coarser grey dust. Air parcel forward trajectories from dust sources in southern and central Australia, where dust storms were reported on 4 February 2000, were computed to identify the deposits source. Geochemical analyses of the dust deposit using 26 trace elements, unaffected by regional air pollution and gravitational sorting, indicate that 20% of the dust was sourced from western New South Wales, with 45% from the eastern Eyre Peninsula of South Australia and the remaining 35% was local New Zealand dust. This provenancing approach provides a spatial resolution of long travelled dust sourcing not previously achieved.     

Contaminants in sediments: Using robust regression for grain-size normalization

Sediment contaminant concentrations usually show an inverse correlation with grain size. This can cause difficulties in distinguishing real differences in contamination from artifacts caused by variations in sediment texture. To overcome this, regression analysis is frequently used to remove the dependency of concentrations on grain size. However, least squares regression lines can be affected markedly by the presence of a small number of unusual samples in the dataset. These outliers may represent samples which are more severely contaminated or which were derived from areas with different underlying geology. They can be removed semi-manually, but robust regression methods such as least absolute values provide a convenient and objective alternative. The methods are illustrated using an example dataset of metal contaminants in sediments from the Humber Estuary, United Kingdom. Least squares regression on the complete dataset yields a rather poor grain size normalization for several elements. By contrast, least absolute values regression produces results very similar to those obtained by least squares regression after careful manual removal of outliers, but it avoids the need for subjective judgments of which data points to omit from the analysis. The intercepts of several of the fitted regression lines were non-zero, indicating that regression-based normalization is preferable to methods based on ratios.     

Modelling Carbon Dynamics of Boreal Forest Ecosystems Using the Canadian Land Surface Scheme

The ecosystem carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) simulations recently implemented in the Canadian Land Surface Scheme (CLASS) are presented. The main calculations include plant photosynthesis, autotrophic respiration, root N uptake, litterfall, plant growth, and soil heterotrophic respiration. Model experiments are made on two boreal forest ecosystems, deciduous (aspen) and conifers (black spruce). Simulated plant, soil, and ecosystem CO₂ exchanges are analysed on half-hourly, daily, and annual time scales and compared with tower eddy correlation flux measurements and estimates from various authors. Modeled daily ecosystem CO₂ exchange explained86% and 54%, respectively, of the observed variance of eddy correlationflux at the aspen site and at the black spruce site. Annual results show that the aspen ecosystem was simulated as a C sink in both 1994 (+164 g Cm^–2) and 1996 (+142 g C m^–2), and the black spruce ecosystem wassimulated as a C sink in 1994 (+39 g C m^–2) and 1995 (+25 g Cm^–2), but as a C source in 1996 (–27 g C m^–2).