A transitioning Arctic surface energy budget: the impacts of solar zenith angle, surface albedo and cloud radiative forcing

Snow surface and sea-ice energy budgets were measured near 87.5°N during the Arctic Summer Cloud Ocean Study (ASCOS), from August to early September 2008. Surface temperature indicated four distinct temperature regimes, characterized by varying cloud, thermodynamic and solar properties. An initial warm, melt-season regime was interrupted by a 3-day cold regime where temperatures dropped from near zero to ?7°C. Subsequently mean energy budget residuals remained small and near zero for 1 week until once again temperatures dropped rapidly and the energy budget residuals became negative. Energy budget transitions were dominated by the net radiative fluxes, largely controlled by the cloudiness. Variable heat, moisture and cloud distributions were associated with changing air-masses. Surface cloud radiative forcing, the net radiative effect of clouds on the surface relative to clear skies, is estimated. Shortwave cloud forcing ranged between ?50 W m^?2 and zero and varied significantly with surface albedo, solar zenith angle and cloud liquid water. Longwave cloud forcing was larger and generally ranged between 65 and 85 W m^?2, except when the cloud fraction was tenuous or contained little liquid water; thus the net effect of the clouds was to warm the surface. Both cold periods occurred under tenuous, or altogether absent, low-level clouds containing little liquid water, effectively reducing the cloud greenhouse effect. Freeze-up progression was enhanced by a combination of increasing solar zenith angles and surface albedo, while inhibited by a large, positive surface cloud forcing until a new air-mass with considerably less cloudiness advected over the experiment area.     

Scenarios in Global Environmental Assessments: Key characteristics and lessons for future use

Over the last 10 years a large set of global environmental assessment studies has been published that include scenario projections. Comparison of these studies shows that there is actually a limited set of scenario families that form the basis of many scenarios used in different environmental assessments. Mapping these scenario families allow a simpler comparison across the different assessments. The fact that many assessments can be positioned within these families gives some confidence of their relevance. It is also noticeable that several recent assessments have been focusing on more focussed policy-scenarios as variant to a single baseline. This is partly a response to a different stage in the policy-making process. While there are clear advantages of both categories of scenarios (explorative scenarios and baseline/policy variants), it might be important to test the robustness of scenario outcomes of the policy-scenario approach against the different storyline scenario-families identified in this paper.     

Wave dissipation by vegetation with layer schematization in SWAN

The energy of waves propagating through vegetation is dissipated due to the work done by the waves on the vegetation. Dalrymple et al. (1984) estimated wave dissipation by integrating the force on a cylinder over its vertical extent. This was extended by Mendez and Losada (2004) to include varying depths and the effects of wave damping due to vegetation and wave breaking for narrow-banded random waves. This paper describes the wave dissipation over a vegetation field by the implementation of the Mendez and Losada formulation in a full spectrum model SWAN, with an extension to include a vertical layer schematization for the vegetation. The present model is validated with the original equation and results from Mendez and Losada (2004). The sensitivity of the model to the shape of the frequency spectrum, directional spreading and layer schematization are investigated. The model is then applied to field measurements by using a vegetation factor. This model has the ability to calculate two-dimensional wave dissipation over a vegetation field including some important aspects such as breaking and diffraction as used in SWAN model.     

An integrated suspended sediment transport monitoring and analysis concept

A new integrated suspended sediment monitoring strategy applying direct and indirect technologies is presented.Optical sensors continuously record the turbidity at one point in the channel cross section close to the river bank and are calibrated by water samples taken close to the sensor.Additionally measurements are performed to establish the distribution of suspended sediment in a cross section（bottle samples combined with acoustic devices）.Using correction factors（probe and cross-sectional factor） these monitoring methods are combined and it is,thus,possible to fully document the temporal and spatial variability of the suspended sediment transport and to estimate the suspended sediment load for certain time periods.This monitoring strategy was implemented at various measurement sites in Austria as well as at the Hainburg Road Bridge site on the Danube River.It has already been successfully applied for three years at this measurement site and suspended sediment loads during high discharges up to a 15 year flood event have been monitored.To evaluate the new monitoring methods the results were compared with load estimation methods found in the literature including averaging and ratio estimators as well as rating curves.The results prove that with the new methodology,the temporal variability of the suspended sediment transport can be detected more accurately compared with the other methods.They also demonstrate that the additional consideration of the spatial distribution of the suspended sediment concentration in the cross section is crucial as the mean concentration in the cross section can significantly exceed the concentration near the banks,especially at large rivers like the Danube River.     

Toward Bayesian uncertainty quantification for forestry models used in the United Kingdom Greenhouse Gas Inventory for land use, land use change, and forestry

The Greenhouse Gas Inventory for the United Kingdom currently uses a simple carbon-flow model, CFLOW, to calculate the emissions and removals associated with forest planting since 1920. Here, we aim to determine whether a more complex process-based model, the BASic FORest (BASFOR) simulator, could be used instead of CFLOW. The use of a more complex approach allows spatial heterogeneity in soils and weather to be accounted for, but places extra demands on uncertainty quantification. We show how Bayesian methods can be used to address this problem.     

Estimating coastal recession due to sea level rise: beyond the Bruun rule

Accelerated sea level rise (SLR) in the twenty-first century will result in unprecedented coastal recession, threatening billions of dollars worth of coastal developments and infrastructure. Therefore, we cannot continue to depend on the highly uncertain coastal recession estimates obtained via the simple, deterministic method (Bruun rule) that has been widely used over the last 50?years. Furthermore, the emergence of risk management style coastal planning frameworks is now requiring probabilistic (rather than deterministic, single value) estimates of coastal recession. This paper describes the development and application of a process based model (PCR model) which provides probabilistic estimates of SLR driven coastal recession. The PCR model is proposed as a more appropriate and defensible method for determining coastal recession due to SLR for planning purposes in the twenty-first century and beyond.     

Topical Collection: Groundwater-based agriculture in the Mediterranean

This essay introduces a collection of articles that explore the future of groundwater-based agriculture in the Mediterranean from an interdisciplinary perspective, in a context of declining water tables due to intensive groundwater use. The imminent crisis that many groundwater economies face due to very rapid and intense global change may have severe irreversible social, economic and environmental consequences, but could also be the opportunity to make a clear break with current agricultural development models and move towards more sustainable agricultural practices. The Mediterranean region is, therefore, an interesting case for the future of intensive groundwater use, as innovative ideas and practices may emerge and inspire similar groundwater-based agricultural systems around the world.     

Excitation of high-frequency Alfvén waves by plasma outflows from coronal reconnection events

We study a kinetic excitation mechanism for high-frequency dispersive Alfvén waves in the solar corona by magnetic reconnection events. The ion-cyclotron and Cerenkov kinetic effects are important for these waves which we call the ion-cyclotron kinetic Alfvén waves (IC KAWs). The plasma outflowing from the reconnection site sets up a neutralized proton beam in the surrounding plasma, providing free energy for the excitation of waves. The dependence of the phase velocity of the IC KAW on the parallel wavenumber is different from that on the perpendicular wavenumber. The phase velocity is an increasing function of the perpendicular wavenumber and overtakes the Alfvén velocity for sufficiently large values of k . However, the phase velocity is a decreasing function of k , and sufficiently large values of k result in a phase velocity below the Alfvén velocity. As a result, the IC KAWs can undergo the Cerenkov resonance with both super- and sub-Alfvénic particles, and for the waves to be excited the outflow velocity does not need to be super-Alfvénic, as for KAWs, but the beam/Alfvén velocity ratio can span a wide range of values. High growth rates of the order of 10⁴ s^–1 are found for the values of the plasma parameters typical for the low solar corona. The waves excited by (sub-)Alfvénic beams are damped mainly due to kinetic wave-particle interactions with ions at the cyclotron resonance (ion-cyclotron damping), and with ions and electrons at the Cerenkov resonance (Landau damping). Therefore, IC KAWs can heat the plasma species of the corona in both the parallel and perpendicular direction, giving rise to an anisotropic heating of the ions. The observational consequences of the processes under study are discussed.     

Numerical Homogenization of the Rigidity Tensor in Hooke''s Law Using the Node-Based Finite Element Method

Combining a geological model with a geomechanical model, it generally turns out that the geomechanical model is built from units that are at least a 100 times larger in volume than the units of the geological model. To counter this mismatch in scales, the geological data model's heterogeneous fine-scale Young's moduli and Poisson's ratios have to be upscaled to one equivalent homogeneous coarse-scale rigidity. This coarse-scale rigidity relates the volume-averaged displacement, strain, stress, and energy to each other, in such a way that the equilibrium equation, Hooke's law, and the energy equation preserve their fine-scale form on the coarse scale. Under the simplifying assumption of spatial periodicity of the heterogeneous fine-scale rigidity, homogenization theory can be applied. However, even then the spatial variability is generally so complex that exact solutions cannot be found. Therefore, numerical approximation methods have to be applied. Here the node-based finite element method for the displacement as primary variable has been used. Three numerical examples showing the upper bound character of this finite element method are presented.