Initial hydrologic and geomorphic response following a wildfire in the Colorado Front Range

A wildfire in May 1996 burned 4690 hectares in two watersheds forested by ponderosa pine and Douglas fir in a steep, mountainous landscape with a summer, convective thunderstorm precipitation regime. The wildfire lowered the erosion threshold in the watersheds, and consequently amplified the subsequent erosional response to shorter time interval episodic rainfall and created both erosional and depositional features in a complex pattern throughout the watersheds. The initial response during the first four years was an increase in runoff and erosion rates followed by decreases toward pre‐fire rates. The maximum unit‐area peak discharge was 24 m³ s^?1 km^?2 for a rainstorm in 1996 with a rain intensity of 90 mm h^?1. Recovery to pre‐fire conditions seems to have occurred by 2000 because for a maximum 30‐min rainfall intensity of 50 mm h^?1, the unit‐area peak discharge in 1997 was 6.6 m³ s^?1 km^?2, while in 2000 a similar intensity produced only 0.11 m³ s^?1 km^?2. Rill erosion accounted for 6 per cent, interrill erosion for 14 per cent, and drainage erosion for 80 per cent of the initial erosion in 1996. This represents about a 200‐fold increase in erosion rates on hillslopes which had a recovery or relaxation time of about three years. About 67 per cent of the initially eroded sediment is still stored in the watersheds after four years with an estimated residence time greater than 300 years. This residence time is much greater than the fire recurrence interval so erosional and depositional features may become legacies from the wildfire and may affect landscape evolution by acting as a new set of initial conditions for subsequent wildfire and flood sequences. Published in 2001 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Geology of the Atlantis Massif (Mid-Atlantic Ridge, 30° N): Implications for the evolution of an ultramafic oceanic core complex

Marine Geophysical Research - The oceanic core complex comprising Atlantis Massif was formed within the past 1.5–2 Myr at the intersection of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, 30° N, and the...     

Fashioning furniture: restructuring the furniture commodity chain

The paper explores intersections between the fashion and furniture industries as manifest across magazine, retail and manufacturing spaces. We argue that the temporality and spatiality of furniture have begun to shift. As a result, furniture retailers and manufacturers in Canada and the UK have been required to restructure their methods of operating.     

Laboratory simulations of coastally trapped waves with rotation, topography and stratification

We describe observations of the generation and propagation of coastally trapped waves in the laboratory and their comparison with theory, over a range of values of several experimental parameters. The topography and stratification used consisted of a sloping continental shelf and vertical continental slope with three-layer stratification that could be approximated by an extended version of the Gill and Clarke model [Gill, A.E., Clarke, A., 1974. Wind-induced upwelling, coastal currents and sea level changes. Deep Sea Res. 21, 325–345]. The latter was modified to accommodate a central mixed layer, curved geometry, and friction on the shelf. This configuration represents coastal geometry with large Burger number. The experiments were successful in realizing coastally trapped waves that were consistent with the theoretical expectations. However, the waves propagated more slowly, and for narrow shelves were damped more rapidly than predicted by the theory. The first was attributed to: (i) the effect of stratification on fluid on the shelf, reducing the topographic Rossby wave effect; (ii) the parameterization of the viscosity. The second difference was attributed to the mechanism of generation: the paddle used did not always generate sinusoidal waves, and the subsequent dispersion resulted in a net loss of amplitude.     

A multi-perspective examination of heat waves affecting Metro Vancouver: now into the future

Using studies of places where heat waves are common, projected changes in heat waves in Metro Vancouver are assessed from a multi-disciplinary perspective with respect to the potential impacts of the physical change on the people and infrastructure with the intention of being better prepared for future events. Trends in maximum temperature parameters for Metro Vancouver for the past 75 years are generally not statistically significant; however, projections for 2041–2060 and 2081–2100 suggest that the region will experience such events more frequently in the future due to climate change. While Metro Vancouver, British Columbia (BC) generally does not typically experience heat waves it was strongly affected by a major heat event in July 2009, with temperature records being broken at Vancouver (≥31 °C) on the coast and at Abbotsford (≥36 °C) 65-km inland. A lack of sea breeze during this event meant that there was no cooling effect, and land surface temperatures over the downtown area approached 40 °C and excess deaths occurred. Many victims were either in the 65–74 age category, the vulnerable poor, or people with mental health issues. Because these events are rare, many buildings lack air-conditioning, and residents of Metro Vancouver under-anticipate their vulnerability. The costs of health-related impacts outweighed those related to higher electricity usage.     

Saturn's south polar vortex compared to other large vortices in the Solar System

Observations made by the Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS), Visible and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) and the long-wavelength Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS) aboard the Cassini spacecraft reveal that the large, long-lived cyclonic vortex at Saturn's south pole has a 4200-km-diameter cloud-free nearly circular region. This region has a 4 K warm core extending from the troposphere into the stratosphere, concentric cloud walls extending 20-70 km above the internal clouds, and numerous external clouds whose anticyclonic vorticity suggests a convective origin. The rotation speeds of the vortex reach . The Saturn polar vortex has features in common with terrestrial hurricanes and with the Venus polar vortex. Neptune and other giant planets may also have strong polar vortices.     

Local Fractional Frequency Shifts Used as Tracers of Magnetic Activity

Using data from SOI-MDI (Haber et al., 2000), we compute the local frequencies of high-degree p modes and f modes. The frequencies are obtained through ring-diagram mode fitting. The Dense-Pack data set consists of a mosaic of 189 overlapping tiles, each tracked separately at the surface rotation rate over 1664-min time intervals during the Dynamics Programs. Each tile is 16° square and the tile centers are separated by 7.5° in latitude and longitude. For each sampling day and for each tile, we have computed the frequency shift measured relative to the temporal and spatial average of the entire set of frequencies. The motion of active regions as they rotate across the solar disk is vividly traced by these measurements. Active regions appear as locations of large positive frequency shifts. If the shifts are averaged over the solar disk and are scaled down to the appropriate wave number regime, the magnitude and frequency dependence of the shifts are consistent with the measured changes in global oscillation frequencies that occur over the solar cycle. As with the frequency shifts of low-degree global oscillations, the frequency dependence of the shifts indicates that the physical phenomena inducing the shifts is confined to the surface layers of the Sun.     

High-resolution observations of the 6815-Å band of methane in the major planets

High-resolution (0.1-Å) spectra of the 6815-Å band of methane are presented for Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Spectra for Uranus, Neptune, and the equatorial region of Saturn were acquired with the SPIFI (W. H. Smith, T. R. Hicks, and J. P. Born (1978). Proceedings of the 4th International Colloquium on Astrophysics, Triest, July 3–7, 1978. pp. 593–599) at the 2.2-m telescope of the Mauna Kea Observatory during May and June 1980. Additional spectra were obtained for Jupiter and the northern temperate and polar regions of Saturn in December 1980 and January 1981 from Kitt Peak National Observatory's McMath Solar Telescope. The spectra show a dichotomy in strength of methane absorption between Jupiter-Saturn and Uranus-Neptune. A simple model analysis, based on homogeneous scattering models, is unable to resolve whether this dichotomy is due to an actual increase in the methane mixing ratio with solar distance or to the temperature dependence of line strengths and absorption pathlengths in these atmospheres. If the rotational quantum number for the prominent 6818.9-Å feature is J < 4, then significant aerosol extinction must exist within the visibly accessible portion of Uranus' atmosphere for the methane mixing ratio to be greater than the solar value.     

Quality and origin of mountain food products: the new European label as a strategy for sustainable development

Mountain farming provides high-quality food products due to the peculiar characteristics of the raw materials combined with traditional processing conditions. However, these products and their intrinsic characteristics are not clearly recognized by consumers on the market. Nowadays, Protected Designation of Origin(PDO), Protected Geographical Indication(PGI) and Traditional Specialities Guaranteed(TSG) certifications include products originating in mountain areas, even if a large part of mountain foodstuff is not protected by these certifications and foods not made in mountain areas are often labeled as ―mountain food products‖. For this reason, the European Union has set a specific Regulation in 2012 to recognize and protect mountain food and to make the consumers safer about the origin information. The objective of this paper is twofold: firstly, it presents the recent aspects related to European legislation of mountain food product; secondly, it aims at reviewing the main features of nutritional quality and technology of dairy and meat products, as the most widespread mountain food products, and the main protocols used to evaluate the authenticity of these food products. The promotion of mountain food product through a specific label and the use of tracing methods, which are able to verify the authenticity of the origin of these products, may play a pivotal role in increasing the consumer‘s loyalty towards these products and could be a way to boost a sustainable development of these economically marginal rural areas. However, the analytical protocols developed so far(stable isotopes, macro and microelements, radionuclides, spectroscopic, molecular techniques, volatile substances profile, terpenes) are in many cases still at the experimental level due to the extreme variability of the mountain origin of the products to be tested.     

Hydrocarbons on Saturn's satellites Iapetus and Phoebe

Material of low geometric albedo (pV?0.1) is found on many objects in the outer Solar System, but its distribution in the saturnian satellite system is of special interest because of its juxtaposition with high-albedo ice. In the absence of clear, diagnostic spectral features, the composition of this low-albedo (or “dark”) material is generally inferred to be carbon-rich, but the form(s) of the carbon is unknown. Near-infrared spectra of the low-albedo hemisphere of Saturn's satellite Iapetus were obtained with the Visible-Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) on the Cassini spacecraft at the fly-by of that satellite of 31 December 2004, yielding a maximum spatial resolution on the satellite's surface of ∼65 km. The spectral region 3-3.6 μm reveals a broad absorption band, centered at 3.29 μm, and concentrated in a region comprising about 15% of the low-albedo surface area. This is identified as the CH stretching mode vibration in polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) molecules. Two weaker bands attributed to CH₂ stretching modes in aliphatic hydrocarbons are found in association with the aromatic band. The bands most likely arise from aromatic and aliphatic units in complex macromolecular carbonaceous material with a kerogen- or coal-like structure, similar to that in carbonaceous meteorites. VIMS spectra of Phoebe, encountered by Cassini on 11 June 2004, also show the aromatic hydrocarbon band, although somewhat weaker than on Iapetus. The origin of the PAH molecular material on these two satellites is unknown, but PAHs are found in carbonaceous meteorites, cometary dust particles, circumstellar dust, and interstellar dust.