Mean, interannual variability and trends in a regional climate change experiment over Europe. II: climate change scenarios (2071–2100)

We present an analysis of climate change over Europe as simulated by a regional climate model (RCM) nested within time-slice atmospheric general circulation model (AGCM) experiments. Changes in mean and interannual variability are discussed for the 30-year period of 2071–2100 with respect to the present day period of 1961–1990 under forcing from the A2 and B2 IPCC emission scenarios. In both scenarios, the European region undergoes substantial warming in all seasons, in the range of 1–5.5°C, with the warming being 1–2°C lower in the B2 than in the A2 scenario. The spatial patterns of warming are similar in the two scenarios, with a maximum over eastern Europe in winter and over western and southern Europe in summer. The precipitation changes in the two scenarios also show similar spatial patterns. In winter, precipitation increases over most of Europe (except for the southern Mediterranean regions) due to increased storm activity and higher atmospheric water vapor loadings. In summer, a decrease in precipitation is found over most of western and southern Europe in response to a blocking-like anticyclonic circulation over the northeastern Atlantic which deflects summer storms northward. The precipitation changes in the intermediate seasons (spring and fall) are less pronounced than in winter and summer. Overall, the intensity of daily precipitation events predominantly increases, often also in regions where the mean precipitation decreases. Conversely the number of wet days decreases (leading to longer dry periods) except in the winter over western and central Europe. Cloudiness, snow cover and soil water content show predominant decreases, in many cases also in regions where precipitation increases. Interannual variability of both temperature and precipitation increases substantially in the summer and shows only small changes in the other seasons. A number of statistically significant regional trends are found throughout the scenario simulations, especially for temperature and for the A2 scenario. The results from the forcing AGCM simulations and the nested RCM simulations are generally consistent with each other at the broad scale. However, significant differences in the simulated surface climate changes are found between the two models in the summer, when local physics processes are more important. In addition, substantial fine scale detail in the RCM-produced change signal is found in response to local topographical and coastline features.     

The effect of aqueous metal-chlorophenolate complexation on contaminant transport in groundwater systems

Aqueous metals and chlorophenols are common co-contaminants of groundwater systems. However, the importance of aqueous metal-chlorophenolate complexation cannot be accurately assessed because the stability constants for environmentally important aqueous metal-phenolate and metal-chlorophenolate complexes have not been measured. In order to determine the role these complexes play in contaminant transport, this study applies a correlation technique to the limited data that do exist to estimate the stabilities of metal-chlorophenolate complexes of environmental interest. Speciation calculations that are based on these estimated stability constants indicate that aqueous metal-chlorophenolate complexation may significantly affect both aqueous metal and dissolved chlorophenolate species distributions. Therefore, aqueous metal-chlorophenolate complexation may affect the extent of adsorption of both metals and chlorophenolates onto mineral surfaces. In addition, aqueous complexation may significantly enhance dissolution of aquifer aluminosilicate minerals. This study suggests that aqueous complexation between metals and chlorophenolates can significantly affect the mobility of metal and phenolic contaminants.     

VGTrust: measuring trust for volunteered geographic information

Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) has emerged as a large, up-to-date, and easily accessible data source. VGI can allow authoritative mapping agencies to undertake continuous improvement of their own data, adding a currency dimension previously unattainable due to high associated costs. VGI also benefits scientific and social research by facilitating quick and low-cost research data capture by the public. VGI, however, through its diversity of authorship, presents a quality assurance risk to the use of this data. This research presents a formulaic model that addresses VGI quality issues, by quantifying trust in VGI. Our ‘VGTrust’ model assesses information about a data author, and the spatial and temporal trust associated with the data they create, to produce an overall VGTrust rating metric. This metric is both easy to understand and interpret. A facilitated case study, ‘Building Our Footprints’ is presented which tests the feasibility of VGTrust model in a real-world data capture exercise run by Land Information New Zealand, New Zealand’s mapping organisation. By overcoming the trust issues in VGI, this research will allow the integration of VGI and authoritative data and potentially expand the application of VGI, thereby leveraging the power of the crowd for productive and innovative re-use.     

Review of tufa deposition and palaeohydrological conditions in the White Peak,Derbyshire, UK: implications for Quaternary landscape evolution

This review considers the geological and geomorphological context of tufa barrages that occupy buried valley settings in the Wye catchment, Derbyshire. It describes the potential relationship of the tufa with locations of hypothesised river captures and inception horizon-guided groundwater flow paths. Tufa barrage development is associated with steps in the bedrock, which may be related to knick-point recession during river capture. Broad estimates of valley incision have been calculated from previously dated deposits. These support current interpretations of particularly significant effective base-level lowering during the Anglian and Devensian stages of the Quaternary and have the potential to add to the knowledge of regional uplift histories.     

Self-organised criticality and fluid-rock interactions in the brittle field

The concept of self-organised criticality (SOC) has recently been suggested as a paradigm for the long-term behaviour of earthquakes, even though many of the currently-proposed models require some tuning of the state variables or local conservation rules to produce the universally-observed Gutenberg-Richter frequency-magnitude distribution witha b value near 1. For example, a systematic negative correlation is predicted between modelb values and the degree of conservation of local force after the slip of a single element in an elastic spring/block/frictional slider model. A similar relation is described here for a cellular automaton model with constitutive laws based on fracture mechanics. Such systems, although critical phenomena in the sense of producing order on all scales, are clearly not universal, and may not in general even be true examples of SOC. Nevertheless they adequately reproduce both the observed power-law (fractal or multifractal) scaling and its reported short-term fluctuation.We also present experimental and field evidence for similar systematic variations inb value with the degree of force conservation (expressed in terms of a normalised crack extension force) during subcritical crack growth involving the physical and chemical influence of pore fluids during a single cycle of failure both in tension and compression. We find that the level of conservation is strongly influenced by fluid-rock interaction under stress, allowing energy partition into processes such as: physico-chemical stress corrosion reactions; the dissolution and precipitation of mineral species on crack surfaces; and the purely mechnical phenomenon of dilatant hardening. All of these are known to occur in the Earth on a local scale, but few have been explicitly included in automaton models of seismicity. The implication is that over long time periods pore fluids may exert a strong physical and chemical influence on the universal state of SOC which the system evolves in a complex interplay of local feedback mechanisms keeping the system near criticality, perhaps most strikingly due to the valve action of faults. In the short term, crustal fluids might nevertheless be responsible for systematic local fluctuations about this average state.