Reduction of surface subsidence risk by fly ash exploitation as filling material in deep mining areas

The possibility of filling empty underground spaces, which exist owing to the extraction of mineral raw materials, with fly ash and cement fly ash mixes has been studied for the purpose of reducing the impact of deep mining on the surface. The method of physical modelling was used to study the behaviour of fly ash mixes deposited in extracted mine spaces. The models were constructed for two different geometries of underground extracted mine spaces: into cavities of the type of large slits created in the course of mining in steeply lode deposits without subsequently filling the empty space and in vertical shafts of rectangular or circular cross-section with horizontal side headings that have partly caved in due to mine shocks or other seismic events.     

Microlaboratory study on magnetic,gravity and high-tension separation of hercynite and pleonaste from low-grade ilmenite concentrates

Some ilmenite concentrates obtained from oleate flotation of ilmenite ores from NE Poland contain less than the required 45% TiO₂ due to the presence of green spinels (hercynite and pleonaste). Such concentrates were further upgraded by different separation techniques. It was established at microlaboratory scale that magnetic, gravity and high-tension separations can provide qualified ilmenite concentrates with TiO₂ recovery in the order of 50 to 80%.     

河北秦皇岛斑鬣狗巢穴(灵仙洞)及斑鬣狗的集群死亡与埋藏

河北省秦皇岛灵仙洞发现了一批最后斑鬣狗化石,标本达上千件,至少代表了30个不同个体,包括3具骨架(其中骨架Ⅰ是世界上迄今所发现最完整的1具),还发现了一些其他哺乳动物化石,共计26属27种.根据动物群组成、地质地貌以及堆积物的综合分析判断,它的时代可能属于中更新世晚期至晚更新世早期.动物群的生态组合反映当时处于一个温热偏干、半封闭或开阔的山间草原而周边山上有树林的生态环境.标本(尤其是完整骨架)的保存为典型的原地埋藏,死后未受到包括斑鬣狗自身在内的动物干扰和破坏.斑鬣狗在动物群中占绝对优势以及幼年个体和粪化石的发现,表明灵仙洞是一处斑鬣狗族群的巢穴.与其他斑鬣狗巢穴不同的是:斑鬣狗的猎物稀少,鲜见斑鬣狗的活动痕迹,尤其是幼年斑鬣狗啃咬形成的特定产物“nibbling sticks”,这说明灵仙洞既非用于猎物遗骸的储藏,也非用于幼崽的抚养,而是一处共用巢穴,同时也表明灵仙洞的骨骼聚集与埋藏有着特定的成因和机理.     

Vulnerable or Resilient? A Multi-Scale Assessment of Climate Impacts and Vulnerability in Norway

This paper explores the issue of climate vulnerability in Norway, an affluent country that is generally considered to be resilient to the impacts of climate change. In presenting a multi-scale assessment of climate change impacts and vulnerability in Norway, we show that the concept of vulnerability depends on the scale of analysis. Both exposure and the distribution of climate sensitive sectors vary greatly across scale. So do the underlying social and economic conditions that influence adaptive capacity. These findings question the common notion that climate change may be beneficial for Norway, and that the country can readily adapt to climate change. As scale differences are brought into consideration, vulnerability emerges within some regions, localities, and social groups. To cope with actual and potential changes in climate and climate variability, it will be necessary to acknowledge climate vulnerabilities at the regional and local levels, and to address them accordingly. This multi-scale assessment of impacts and vulnerability in Norway reinforces the importance of scale in global change research.     

Biases in the diurnal temperature range in Central Europe in an ensemble of regional climate models and their possible causes

The study examines how regional climate models (RCMs) reproduce the diurnal temperature range (DTR) in their control simulations over Central Europe. We evaluate 30-year runs driven by perfect boundary conditions (the ERA40 reanalysis, 1961–1990) and a global climate model (ECHAM5) of an ensemble of RCMs with 25-km resolution from the ENSEMBLES project. The RCMs’ performance is compared against the dataset gridded from a high-density stations network. We find that all RCMs underestimate DTR in all seasons, notwithstanding whether driven by ERA40 or ECHAM5. Underestimation is largest in summer and smallest in winter in most RCMs. The relationship of the models’ errors to indices of atmospheric circulation and cloud cover is discussed to reveal possible causes of the biases. In all seasons and all simulations driven by ERA40 and ECHAM5, underestimation of DTR is larger under anticyclonic circulation and becomes smaller or negligible for cyclonic circulation. In summer and transition seasons, underestimation tends to be largest for the southeast to south flow associated with warm advection, while in winter it does not depend on flow direction. We show that the biases in DTR, which seem common to all examined RCMs, are also related to cloud cover simulation. However, there is no general tendency to overestimate total cloud amount under anticyclonic conditions in the RCMs, which suggests the large negative bias in DTR for anticyclonic circulation cannot be explained by a bias in cloudiness. Errors in simulating heat and moisture fluxes between land surface and atmosphere probably contribute to the biases in DTR as well.     

Evaluation of different downscaling techniques for hydrological climate-change impact studies at the catchment scale

Hydrological modeling for climate-change impact assessment implies using meteorological variables simulated by global climate models (GCMs). Due to mismatching scales, coarse-resolution GCM output cannot be used directly for hydrological impact studies but rather needs to be downscaled. In this study, we investigated the variability of seasonal streamflow and flood-peak projections caused by the use of three statistical approaches to downscale precipitation from two GCMs for a meso-scale catchment in southeastern Sweden: (1) an analog method (AM), (2) a multi-objective fuzzy-rule-based classification (MOFRBC) and (3) the Statistical DownScaling Model (SDSM). The obtained higher-resolution precipitation values were then used to simulate daily streamflow for a control period (1961–1990) and for two future emission scenarios (2071–2100) with the precipitation-streamflow model HBV. The choice of downscaled precipitation time series had a major impact on the streamflow simulations, which was directly related to the ability of the downscaling approaches to reproduce observed precipitation. Although SDSM was considered to be most suitable for downscaling precipitation in the studied river basin, we highlighted the importance of an ensemble approach. The climate and streamflow change signals indicated that the current flow regime with a snowmelt-driven spring flood in April will likely change to a flow regime that is rather dominated by large winter streamflows. Spring flood events are expected to decrease considerably and occur earlier, whereas autumn flood peaks are projected to increase slightly. The simulations demonstrated that projections of future streamflow regimes are highly variable and can even partly point towards different directions.     

Estimates of Roughness Parameters for Arrays of Obstacles

Some methods are evaluated and extended to estimate roughness length and zero plane displacement height for atmospheric flow over arrays of obstacles, typically buildings. It appears that the method proposed by Bottema, with an extension to account for low density obstacle arrays, performs best. Procedures are proposed to represent irregular obstacle arrangements by a representative regular array to which Bottema's method can be applied. It is shown that this can be done without loss of accuracy, in general, roughness length can be predicted within a factor of two in more than 74% of the cases (95% reliability estimate). The methods proposed by Lettau and Raupach have been included in the evaluation. Lettau's model, which only requires input on the frontal area density, predicts roughness length unbiassed for frontal area densities up to 0.3, but predictions will be within a factor of two in more than 59% of the cases only (95% reliability estimate).     

Atmospheric boundary-layer structure observed during a haze event due to forest-fire smoke

During a haze event in Baltimore, U.S.A. from July 6 to 8, 2002, smoke from forest fires in the Québec region (Canada), degraded air quality and impacted upon local climate, decreasing solar radiation and air temperature. The smoke particles in and above the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) served as a tracer and provided a unique opportunity to investigate the ABL structure, especially entrainment. Elastic backscatter lidar measurements taken during the haze event distinctly reveal the downward sweeps (or wisps) of smoke-laden air from the free atmosphere into the ABL. Visualisations of mechanisms such as dry convection, the entrainment process, detrainment, coherent entrainment structures, and mixing inside the ABL, are presented. Thermals overshooting at the ABL top are shown to create disturbances in the form of gravity waves in the free atmosphere aloft, as evidenced by a corresponding ripple structure at the bottom of the smoke layer. Lidar data, aerosol ground-based measurements and supporting meteorological data are used to link free atmosphere, mixed-layer and ground-level aerosols. During the peak period of the haze event (July 7, 2002), the correlation between time series of elastic backscatter lidar data within the mixed layer and the scattering coefficient from a nephelometer at ground level was found to be high (R=0.96 for z =324 m, and R=0.89 for z=504 m). Ground-level aerosol concentration was at a maximum about 2 h after the smoke layer intersected with the growing ABL, confirming that the wisps do not initially reach the ground.     

Biomass Burning in Southern Africa: Individual Particle Characterization of Atmospheric Aerosols and Savanna Fire Samples

Ambient atmospheric aerosols and savanna fireparticulate emission samples from southern Africa werecharacterised in terms of particle classes and theirnumber abundance by electron probe X-ray microanalysis(EPXMA). About ten particle classes were identifiedfor each sample. The major classes werealuminosilicates and sea salts for ambient coarse(2–10 m equivalent aerodynamic diameter (EAD))samples, and K-S and S-only particles for ambient fine(<2 m EAD) samples. The K-S particles are oneof the major products of biomass burning. The EPXMAresults were found to be consistent with the resultsfrom bulk analyses on a sample by sample basis. Forsavanna fire fine samples, quantitative EPXMA revealedthat many particles had a composition of simple saltssuch as KCl. Some particles had a deviatingcomposition in the sense that more ionic species wereinvolved in sustaining the balance between cations andanions, and they were composite or mixed salts.Because of extensive processing during the atmospherictransport, the composition of the K-S particles in theambient samples was different from K₂SO₄,and such particles were enriched with S. The finepyrogenic KCl particles and the fine sea-saltparticles were much depleted in chlorine.