Oceanic transport and storage of carbon emissions

Using a global carbon cycle model (GLOCO) that considers seven terrestrial biomes, surface and deep ocean layers based on the HILDA model and a single mixed atmosphere, we analyzed the response of atmospheric CO₂ concentration and oceanic DIC and DOC depth profiles to additions of carbon to the atmosphere and ocean. The rate of transport of carbon to the deepest oceanic layers is rather insensitive to the atmosphereic-ocean surface gas exchange coefficient over a wide range, hence discrepancies between researchers on the precise global average value of this coefficient do not significantly affect predictions of atmospheric response to anthropogenic inputs. Upwelling velocity, on the other hand, amplifies oceanic response by increasing primary production in the upper ocean layers, resulting in a larger flux into DOC and sediments and increased carbon storage; experiments to reduce the uncertainty in this parameter would be valuable.The location of the carbon addition, whether it is released in the atmosphere or in the middle of the oceanic thermocline, has a significant impact on the maximum atmospheric CO₂ concentration (pCO₂) subsequently reached, suggesting that oceanic burial of a significant fraction of carbon emissions (e.g. via clathrate hydrides) may be an important management option for limiting pCO₂ buildup. Our analysis indicates that the effectiveness of ocean burial decreases asymptotically below about 1000 m depth. With a constant emissions scenario (at 1990 levels), pCO₂ at year 2100 is reduced from 501 ppmv considering all emissions go to the atmosphere, to 422 ppmv with ocean burial at a depth of 1000 m of 50% of the fossil fuel emissions. An alternative scenario looks at stabilizing pCO₂ at 450 ppmv; with no ocean burial of fossil fuel emissions, the rate of emissions has to be cut drastically after the year 2010, whereas oceanic burial of 2 GtC/yr allows for a smoother transition to alternative energy sources.     

Iron,manganese and trace metal concentrations in seaweeds from the central west coast of the Gulf of California

Concentrations of Co, Cu, Fe, Mn, Ni, Pb and Zn in four macroalgae species (Ulva lactuca, Chondracanthus squarrulosus, Sargassum sinicola and Gracilariopsis lemaneiformis) were obtained for the first time from the central part of the west coast of the Gulf of California. Generally, no differences in metal concentrations were found among the different seaweed species, although spatial differences were apparent. Iron, Mn and Cu exhibited higher concentrations at the stations located in front of Angel de la Guarda Island, probably because of high vertical mixing processes present in the zone. The results were compared with dissolved metal concentrations reported for the Gulf of California (Cd, Mn and Fe) and the North Pacific Ocean. The resulting linear regression of the results vs. North Pacific Ocean concentrations indicated that the levels of Cu, Ni and Zn measured in this study were within its 95% confidence level. Furthermore, this comparison was capable of detecting dissolved Fe and Mn enrichments in Gulf of California waters relative to the North Pacific Ocean concentrations. Calculations of total masses of metals associated with algal biomass on the west coast of the Gulf of California indicated that the lowest masses were represented by Cu (108 ± 25 kg) and Ni (184 ± 52 kg), whereas Pb (1.1 ± 0.6 ton) and Fe (10.9 ± 8.5 ton) were the elements with the highest associated masses.     

Landslide disaster risk awareness in Mexico: community access to mapping at local scale

Recent investigations have sought to understand the spatial-temporal distribution of landslides in Teziutlán, Puebla, a municipality historically affected by landslides. The latest initiative, under the umbrella of the ICL-IPL Project “Landslide disaster risk communication in mountain areas,” was the publication of a book of Atlas type comprising a collection of 142 maps and their corresponding explanatory texts that included a context analysis of landslide disaster risk drivers at various scales, from regional to local. This paper aims to recognise and address the necessity to further enhance the guiding principle of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction to focus on the understanding of disaster risk drivers at local level, for the determination of measures to reduce disaster risk. We present an initial contribution to promote landslide disaster risk awareness in the urban area of Teziutlán by providing to the community direct access to maps of landslide disaster risk at local scale; this is a first step towards the establishment of a robust strategy to communicate landslide risk in the long term. Effective implementation calls for decreasing vulnerability and exposure. Beyond contexts of vulnerability reflected by social, economic, cultural, political, and institutional conditions, it may be difficult to picture the spatial interactions of exposure of communities, assets, and the environment because the means of analysing spatial relationships between society and nature are not commonly available in mountain areas. Therefore, for people to better understand risk, maps of landslide susceptibility and risk exposure present a good way for the inhabitants to familiarise themselves with the spatial context of the dynamics in which they are immersed.     

Multivariate analyses of water chemistry: surface and ground water interactions

Multivariate statistical methods (MSMs) applied to ground water chemistry provide valuable insight into the main hydrochemical species, hydrochemical processes, and water flowpaths important to ground water evolution. The MSMs of principal component factor analysis (FA) and k-means cluster analysis (CA) were sequentially applied to major ion chemistry from 211 different ground water-sampling locations in the Amargosa Desert. The FA reduces the number of variables describing the system and finds relationships between major ions. The CA of the reduced system produced objective hydrochemical facies, which are independent of, but in good agreement with, lithological data. The derived factors and hydrochemical facies are innovatively presented on biplots, revealing composition of hydrochemical processes and facies, and overlaid on a digital elevation model, displaying flowpaths and interactions with geologic and topographic features in the region. In particular, a distinct ground water chemical signature is observed beneath and surrounding the extended flowpath of Fortymile Wash, presenting some contradiction to contemporary water levels along with potential interaction with a fault line. The signature surrounding the ephemeral Fortymile Wash is believed to represent the relic of water that infiltrated during past pluvial periods when the amount of runoff in the wash was significantly larger than during the current drier period. This hypothesis and aforementioned analyses are supported by the examination of available chloride, oxygen-18, hydrogen-2, and carbon-14 data from the region.     

Behavior of ductile steel X-braced RC frames in seismic zones

A satisfactory ductile performance of moment-resisting reinforced concrete concentric braced frame structures (RC-MRCBFs) is not warranted by only following the provisions proposed in Mexico’s Federal District Code (MFDC-04). The nonlinear behavior of low to medium rise ductile RC-MRCBFs using steel X-bracing susceptible to buckling is evaluated in this study. The height of the studied structures ranges from 4 to 20 stories and they were located for design in the lake-bed zone of Mexico City. The design of RC-MRCBFs was carried out considering variable contribution of the two main lines of defense of the dual system (RC columns and steel braces). In order to observe the principal elements responsible for dissipating the earthquake input energy, yielding mappings for different load-steps were obtained using both nonlinear static and dynamic analyses. Some design parameters currently proposed in MFDC-04 as global ductility capacities, overstrength reduction factors and story drifts corresponding to different limit states were assessed as a function of both the considered shear strength and slenderness ratios for the studied RC-MRCBFs using pushover analyses. Additionally, envelopes of response maxima of dynamic parameters were obtained from the story and global hysteresis curves. Finally, a brief discussion regarding residual drifts, residual drift ratios, mappings of residual deformations in steel braces and residual rotations in RC beams and columns is presented. From the analysis of the obtained results, it is concluded that when a suitable design criterion is considered, good structural behavior of RC-MRCBFs with steel-X bracing can be obtained. It is also observed that the shear strength balance has an impact in the height-wise distribution of residual drifts, and an important “shake-down” effect is obtained for all cases. There is a need to improve design parameters currently proposed in MFDC to promote an adequate seismic performance of RC-MRCBFs.

     

Drought and Spatiotemporal Variability of Forest Fires Across Mexico

Understanding the spatiotemporal links between drought and forest fire occurrence is crucial for improving decision-making in fire management under current and future climatic conditions. We quantified forest fire activity in Mexico using georeferenced fire records for the period of 2005–2015 and examined its spatial and temporal relationships with a multiscalar drought index, the Standardized Precipitation-Evapotranspiration Index(SPEI). A total of 47975 fire counts were recorded in the 11-year long study period, with the peak in fire frequency occurring in 2011. We identified four fire clusters, i.e., regions where there is a high density of fire records in Mexico using the Getis-Ord G spatial statistic. Then, we examined fire frequency data in the clustered regions and assessed how fire activity related to the SPEI for the entire study period and also for the year 2011. Associations between the SPEI and fire frequency varied across Mexico and fire-SPEI relationships also varied across the months of major fire occurrence and related SPEI temporal scales. In particular, in the two fire clusters located in northern Mexico(Chihuahua, northern Baja California), drier conditions over the previous 5 months triggered fire occurrence. In contrast, we did not observe a significant relationship between drought severity and fire frequency in the central Mexico cluster, which exhibited the highest fire frequency. We also found moderate fire-drought associations in the cluster situated in the tropical southern Chiapas where agriculture activities are the main causes of forest fire occurrence. These results are useful for improving our understanding of the spatiotemporal patterns of fire occurrence as related to drought severity in megadiverse countries hosting many forest types as Mexico.     

Temporal evolution of surface humidity in Spain: recent trends and possible physical mechanisms

We analyzed the evolution of surface relative humidity (RH) and specific humidity (q) in Spain, based on complete records available from the State Meteorological Agency of Spain. The surface RH records used span the period 1920–2011, but because of spatial and temporal constraints in the dataset we used a subset of the data, covering the period 1961–2011. The subset contained 50 monthly series of RH, which were created through a process of quality control, reconstruction and homogenization. The data shows that there was a large decrease in RH over mainland Spain from 1961 to 2011, which was greatest in spring and summer. In contrast, there was no overall change in the specific humidity in this period, except in spring, when an increase was observed. The decrease in RH affected the entire country, but the changes in specific humidity were less homogeneous. For specific humidity there was a general increase in the northern and eastern parts of Spain, whereas negative trends dominated in the central and southern areas, mainly during the summer months. The results suggest that an increase in the water holding capacity of the atmosphere as a consequence of warming during recent decades has not been accompanied by an increase in the surface water vapor content, probably because the supply of water vapor from the main terrestrial and oceanic areas has been constrained. We discuss the implications of these findings for evapotranspiration processes, precipitation and water management in Spain.     

Comparative assessment of methane emissions from the manure of Mexican Creole Hairless Pigs and Commercial Pigs fed the same diet

Pig production contributes significantly to the high environmental footprint of the livestock sector. Therefore, in this framework, a transition toward more sustainable production is essential. Local natural livestock resources, such as Mexican Creole Hairless Pigs, provide a good opportunity to achieve sustainable pig production. In the present study, a first approximation to compare the carbon emissions of Mexican Creole Hairless Pig manure from Commercial Pig manure is presented. Under the same feeding and housing conditions, the specific methane emissions of both Mexican Creole Hairless Pigs and Commercial Pigs manure were determined experimentally at room temperature. In addition, specific methane production kinetics was modeled using the Gompertz equation to estimate the specific methane production rate. The methane emission factors for Mexican Creole Hairless Pig manure (0.33 ± 0.02 kg[CO₂-eq]/LU per day) were half those of Commercial Pig manure (0.7 ± 0.04 kg[CO₂-eq]/LU per day), and biochemical manure analysis suggested that Mexican Creole Hairless Pigs had better digestibility of the diet. In general, due to physiological factors such as food intake rate and gut microbiota development, which could influence the fat and fiber digestibility of Creole genotypes, pig genotype should be included as an additional factor to estimate greenhouse gas emissions from pig manure. The production of Mexican Creole Hairless Pigs in an extensive local system is therefore an attractive option for developing new sustainable markets.     

Pollution and eutrophication history AD 1800–2005 as recorded in sediments from five lakes in Central Chile

One of the fundamental problems to quantifying past impact of anthropogenic activities is that long series of observational data for pollutant deposition and changes in the nutrient cycling of ecosystems (eutrophication) are often not available. Lake sediments may provide suitable archives to decipher the history of local and regional pollution and eutrophication.Here we provide quantitative high-resolution data for the history of airborne pollutants and eutrophication from sediments of five lakes in Central Chile between ca. AD 1800–2005. We use spheroidal carbonaceous particles (SCPs) from fossil fuel combustion and excess atmospheric Cu deposition from mining activities as a proxy for atmospheric deposition. Organic carbon and nitrogen flux rates to the sediments and C/N ratios are used as a proxy for aquatic primary production and eutrophication.We show that the lake sediment SCP and Cu records are highly consistent and depict in great detail the local and regional history of urban, industrial and transportation history as reported in independent documentary sources and statistics. The pre-industrial and pre-1950 background concentrations (and flux rates) of the substances can be quantified. We can also show that technical measures taken in the early 1980s to trim down Cu emissions from the copper mines reduced the excess atmospheric Cu fallout to the lakes by about 50%.Eutrophication of the lakes did not start before ca. 1980. Prior to that time, warm season temperatures explain most of the variance in TOC and N flux to the sediments. The three dimictic lakes show only moderate eutrophication responses to enhanced N supply (as atmospheric fallout; enrichment factors for TOC and N 1.1–2.6), suggesting that mainly phosphorus controls aquatic primary production. The meromictic lake, where phosphorus recycling is likely, shows the largest response (enrichment factors for TOC and N between 9–20).While all five lakes show overall consistent and similar trends for the pollution history during the 19th and 20th century, there are significant differences in the details of the individual profiles. This suggests that local sources are highly important and the common regional (background) signal is relatively marginal. This is very different from Europe.