Towards High-Resolution Habitat Suitability Modeling of Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems in the Deep-Sea: Resolving Terrain Attribute Dependencies

Recent habitat suitability models used to predict the occurrence of vulnerable marine species, particularly framework building cold-water corals, have identified terrain attributes such as slope and bathymetric position index as important predictive parameters. Due to their scale-dependent nature, a realistic representation of terrain attributes is crucial for the development of reliable habitat suitability models. In this paper, three known coral areas and a noncoral control area off the west coast of Ireland were chosen to assess quantitative and distributional differences between terrain attributes derived from bathymetry grids of varying resolution and information content. Correlation analysis identified consistent changes of terrain attributes as grain size was altered. Response characteristics and dimensions depended on terrain attribute types and the dominant morphological length-scales within the study areas. The subsequent effect on habitat suitability maps was demonstrated by preliminary models generated at different grain sizes. This study demonstrates that high resolution habitat suitability models based on terrain parameters derived from multibeam generated bathymetry are required to detect many of the topographical features found in Irish waters that are associated with coral. This has implications for marine spatial planning in the deep sea. Supplemental materials are available for this article. Go to the publisher's online edition of Marine Geodesy to view the free supplemental file.     

1/f noise in the UV solar spectral irradiance

The investigation of the intrinsic properties of the solar spectral irradiance as a function of the ultraviolet (UV) wavelength is attempted by exploiting rare observations performed at the Villard St. Pancrace station of the Lille University of Sciences and Technology ranging from 278 to 400 nm with a step of 0.05 nm every half an hour from nearly sunrise to sunset. To achieve this goal, the modern method of the detrended fluctuation analysis was applied on the solar spectral irradiance values versus wavelength. This analysis revealed that the solar incident flux at the top of the atmosphere and the solar spectral irradiance at the ground during two overcast sky days fluctuate with the UV wavelength exhibiting persistent long-range power-law behavior. More interestingly, the exponent of the power-law relationship between the fluctuations of the solar spectral irradiance versus UV wavelength at both the top of the atmosphere and the ground is consistently close to unity (of 1/f-type) throughout the day. This 1/f behavior has been detected in many complex dynamical systems, but despite much effort to derive a theory for its widespread occurrence in nature, it remains unexplained so far. According to the above-mentioned findings we speculate that the 1/f property of the incident solar UV flux at the top of the atmosphere could probably drive both the 1/f behavior depicted in the atmospheric components and the solar UV irradiance at the Earth's surface. The latter could influence the UV-sensitive biological ecosystems, giving rise to a 1/f-type variability in the biosphere, which has already been proven by recent observational data. We finally propose that Wien approximation could be multiplied by a 1/f function of wavelength (e.g., of the type of the fractional Brownian motion) in order to reproduce the aforementioned 1/f feature of the solar UV flux.     

Marginal mixing theories

Abstract

Mixing near the sloping boundaries of oceans or lakes may be a significant mechanism of diapycnal transport. The basic physics of this is reviewed, with emphasis on the reduction of the effectiveness of the process due to both reduced stratification and the restratifying secondary circulation driven by buoyancy forces. This re stratification is shown to reduce the effectiveness of intermittent mixing events as well as steady mixing. It is argued that for boundary mixing to be effective in the abyssal ocean it must extend sufficiently far from the boundary that the stratification can be maintained; this may be true for breaking bottom‐reflected internal waves. The alongslope flow implied by steady‐state boundary mixing theories is downwelling‐favourable and has a magnitude related to the thickness and other properties of the boundary layer. Mixing near a boundary may thus tend to drive a downwelling‐favourable mean circulation in the interior. If the interior circulation is imposed by other forces, the bottom boundary layer may evolve to a steady state if the interior flow is downwelling‐favourable, but if it is upwelling‐favourable initially a steady state seems unlikely and the downwelling‐favourable alongslope flow induced by the boundary mixing will tend to diffuse slowly into the interior. The nature of the solution in all these cases is sensitive to the Burger number, N² sin² θ/f², where θ is the bottom slope, and to the eddy Prandtl number.     

Climate change policy responses for Canada's Inuit population: The importance of and opportunities for adaptation

We identify and examine how policy intervention can help Canada's Inuit population adapt to climate change. The policy responses are based on an understanding of the determinants of vulnerability identified in research conducted with 15 Inuit communities. A consistent approach was used in each case study where vulnerability is conceptualized as a function of exposure-sensitivity to climatic risks and adaptive capacity to deal with those risks. This conceptualization focuses on the biophysical and human determinants of vulnerability and how they are influenced by processes and conditions operating at multiple spatial-temporal scales. Case studies involved close collaboration with community members and policy makers to identify conditions to which each community is currently vulnerable, characterize the factors that shape vulnerability and how they have changed over time, identify opportunities for adaptation policy, and examine how adaptation can be mainstreamed. Fieldwork, conducted between 2006 and 2009, included 443 semi-structured interviews, 20 focus groups/community workshops, and 65 interviews with policy makers at local, regional, and national levels. Synthesizing findings consistent across the case studies we document significant vulnerabilities, a function of socio-economic stresses and change, continuing and pervasive inequality, and magnitude of climate change. Nevertheless, adaptations are available, feasible, and Inuit have considerable adaptive capacity. Realizing this adaptive capacity and overcoming adaptation barriers requires policy intervention to: (i) support the teaching and transmission of environmental knowledge and land skills, (ii) enhance and review emergency management capability, (iii) ensure the flexibility of resource management regimes, (iv) provide economic support to facilitate adaptation for groups with limited household income, (v) increase research effort to identify short and long term risk factors and adaptive response options, (vi) protect key infrastructure, and (vii) promote awareness of climate change impacts and adaptation among policy makers.     

Modelling the dominant climate signals around southern Africa

In this study, statistical techniques are employed to decompose climate signals around southern Africa into the dominant temporal frequencies, with the aim of modelling and predicting area-averaged rainfall. In the rainfall time series over the period 1900–1999, the annual cycle accounts for 83% of variance. Residual spectral energy cascades from biennial (42%) to interannual (20%) to decadal bands (3%). Regional climate signals are revealed through a multi-taper singular value decomposition analysis of sea surface temperature and sea level pressure fields over the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, in conjunction with southern Africa rainfall. Rossby wave action in the South Indian Ocean dominates the biennial scale variability. El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and related Indian Ocean dipole patterns are important for interannual variability. Significant sea temperature and pressure fluctuations occurring 6–12 months prior to rainfall contribute biennial and interannual indices to a multi-variate model that demonstrates useful predictive skill.     

Assessing the vulnerability of food crop systems in Africa to climate change

Africa is thought to be the region most vulnerable to the impacts of climate variability and change. Agriculture plays a dominant role in supporting rural livelihoods and economic growth over most of Africa. Three aspects of the vulnerability of food crop systems to climate change in Africa are discussed: the assessment of the sensitivity of crops to variability in climate, the adaptive capacity of farmers, and the role of institutions in adapting to climate change. The magnitude of projected impacts of climate change on food crops in Africa varies widely among different studies. These differences arise from the variety of climate and crop models used, and the different techniques used to match the scale of climate model output to that needed by crop models. Most studies show a negative impact of climate change on crop productivity in Africa. Farmers have proved highly adaptable in the past to short- and long-term variations in climate and in their environment. Key to the ability of farmers to adapt to climate variability and change will be access to relevant knowledge and information. It is important that governments put in place institutional and macro-economic conditions that support and facilitate adaptation and resilience to climate change at local, national and transnational level.     

The marginal impacts of CO2, CH4 and SF6 emissions

Abstract

A new version of the PAGE model, PAGE2002, has been used to calculate the marginal impacts of CO₂, CH₄ and SF₆ emissions based on Scenario A2 of the IPCC. The mean marginal impact of CO₂ is found to be US$19 per tonne of carbon (or about US$5 per tonne of CO₂), for methane it is US$105 per tonne, and for SF₆ it is US$200,000 per tonne. For each gas, the range between the 5% and 95% points is about an order of magnitude. The climate change impacts of methane are a significant proportion of its market price, and for SF₆ the climate change impacts are much larger than the market price. The economics of schemes to reduce the leakage of SF₆ are transformed once the climate change impacts are properly counted.