Impacts of changing climate on the hydrology and hydropower production of the Tagus River basin

The Tagus River basin is an ultimately important water source for hydropower production, urban and agricultural water supply in Spain and Portugal. Growing electricity and water supply demands, over‐regulation of the river and construction of new dams, as well as large inter‐basin and intra‐basin water transfers aggravated by strong natural variability of climate in the catchment, have already imposed significant pressures on the river. The substantial reduction of discharge is observed already now, and projected climatic change is expected to alter the water budget of the catchment further.In this study, we address the effects of projected climate change on the water resources availability in the Tagus River basin and influence of potential changes on hydropower generation of the three important reservoirs in the basin. The catchment‐scale, process‐based eco‐hydrological model soil and water integrated model was set up, calibrated and validated for the entire Tagus River basin, taking into account 15 large reservoirs in the catchment. The future climate projections were selected from those generated within the Inter‐Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project. They include five bias‐corrected climatic datasets for the region, obtained from global circulation model runs under two emissions scenario – moderate and extreme ones – and covered the whole century. The results show a strong agreement among model runs in projecting substantial decrease of discharge of the Tagus River discharge and, consequently, a strong decrease in hydropower production under both future climate scenarios. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Levels and spatial distribution of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in sediments from Lenga Estuary, central Chile

The Lenga Estuary is a small brackish wetland located southwest of San Vicente Bay, Region VIII, Chile. Surface sediment from nine sites in the estuary were analysed for PAHs and compared to Sediment Quality Guidelines (SQG). Sediment samples were freeze dried and soxhlet extracted for 16 h using DCM. Identification and quantification was carried out by HPLC. Organic carbon was also determined. Results showed total PAH concentrations ranged from 290 to 6118 (2025 ± 1975) ng g⁻¹ d.w. (2025 ± 1975). Results for organic carbon percentages ranged from 1% to 7%. Statistical analysis showed a significant positive correlation (Pearson test) between organic carbon percentage PAHs. Comparison of contaminant levels and international Sediment Quality Guidelines (SQG) (ERL and ER) suggested that sediment of the Lenga estuary did not show any ecotoxicologial risk for benthic organisms where high levels of PAHs were detected. Monitoring of this and other contaminants is recommended in Chile.     

Confidence Limits of Evolutionary Synthesis Models

The probabilistic nature of the IMF in stellar systems implies that clusters of the same mass and age do not present the same unique values of their observed parameters. Instead they follow a distribution. We address the study of such distributions in terms of their confidence limits that can be obtained by evolutionary synthesis models. These confidence limits can be understood as the inherent uncertainties of synthesis models. We will compare such confidence limits arising from the discreteness of the number of stars obtained with Monte Carlo simulations with the dispersion resulting from an analytical formalism. We give some examples of the effects on the kinetic energy, V–K, EW(Hβ) and multiwavelength continuum. This revised version was published online in September 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Applying an Automatic Image-Processing Method to Synoptic Observations

We used an automatic image-processing method to detect solar-activity features observed in white light at the Kislovodsk Solar Station. This technique was applied to automatically or semi-automatically detect sunspots and active regions. The results of this automated recognition were verified with statistical data available from other observatories and revealed a high detection accuracy. We also provide parameters of sunspot areas, of the umbra, and of faculae as observed in Solar Cycle 23 as well as the magnetic flux of these active elements, calculated at the Kislovodsk Solar Station, together with white-light images and magnetograms from the Michaelson Doppler Imager onboard the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO/MDI). The ratio of umbral and total sunspot areas during Solar Cycle 23 is ≈?0.19. The area of sunspots of the leading polarity was approximately 2.5 times the area of sunspots of the trailing polarity.     

Tectonic features of the Lipari–Vulcano complex (Aeolian archipelago,Italy) from 10 years (1996–2006) of GPS data

The tectonic deformation of the Lipari–Vulcano complex, one of the most important active volcanic areas of the Mediterranean region, is studied here through the analysis of 10 years (1996–2006) of GPS data from both three permanent and 13 non‐permanent stations. This area can be considered crucial for the understanding of the interaction between the Eurasian and African plates in the Mediterranean area, and, in general, this work emphasizes a methodological approach, already applied in other areas worldwide ( J. Geophys. Res., 1996, 101 , 27 957 ; J. Geodyn., 1999, 27 , 213 ) where geodetic data and strain parameters maps of critical areas can help to improve our understanding of their geodynamical aspects. In this framework, this study is aimed at providing a kinematic deformation model on the basis of the dense geodetically estimated velocities of the Lipari–Vulcano complex. In particular, the observed deformation pattern can be described by a combination of (1) the main N–S regional compression and (2) a NNE–SSW compression with a small right‐lateral strike slip component acting along a tectonic structure trending N°40W between the two islands. This pattern was inspected through a simplified synthetic model.     

Environmental impacts of household appliances in Europe and scenarios for their impact reduction

Assessing the environmental impact due to consumption of goods and services is a pivotal step towards achieving the sustainable development goal related to responsible production and consumption (i.e. SDG 12). Household appliances plays a crucial role and should be assessed in a systemic manner, namely considering all life cycle stages, technological efficiency, and affluence aspects. The present study assess the impact of such household appliances used in Europe, and tests scenarios of potential impact reduction at various scales. Life cycle assessment is applied to 14 different household appliances (ranging from dishwashers to television devices) selected to build a set of representative products, based on their economic value and diffusion in households in Europe. Related impacts are calculated with the Environmental Footprint method for calculating a Consumer Footprint “appliances” for the baseline year 2010. A number of scenarios encompassing eco-solutions on a technical level, changes in consumption pattern, behavioral changes, as well as the combination of all these aspects are run to estimate the Consumer Footprint related to household appliances for the year 2030, compared against this baseline scenario. The baseline Consumer Footprint is confirming the importance of the use phase in leading the impacts in almost all impact categories. Testing different scenarios concludes that there is a reduction of the impact for most of the categories (with up to 67% for the ozone depletion potential, and still around 35% for the global warming potential), while two of the here examined impact categories (i.e. land-use and mineral resource depletion) show an overall potential that is even negative – i.e. the results of all scenarios are higher than the ones of the 2010 baseline scenario. The increase in purchase and use of such appliances may offset energy efficiency benefits in some of the examined categories. Hence, the assessment of sustainability of appliances consumption should always include several scales, from the efficiency of the products (micro scale), to the improvement of the energy mix (meso scale), up to accounting for socio-economic drivers and patterns of consumption affecting the overall appliances stock (macro scale).     

Some results of the investigation of geomagnetic field variation in the Urals and the Carpathians

Summary. A precision magnetic survey for the investigation of current activity in the Earth's lithosphere has been carried out in the Urals and in the Carpathians. As a result of this research three types of time variation of the total field were discovered. These are:
(1) The normal field variation reflecting the general pattern of secular variation. The difference of initial and repeat observation where only this type of variation operates, is rather small and usually does not exceed 0.2–0.3 nT. The field changes in such regions can be used only to evaluate the observation errors and to provide the regional pattern of secular variation.
(2) The slow but localized'anomalous field'change from year to year corresponding, presumably, to anomalies of a tectonomagnetic nature. The normal pattern of the secular variation field here is disturbed by sources located in the upper part of the lithosphere.
(3) Irregular time changes of the field with rather large amplitudes (up to 10–20 nT). Repeated observations of such anomalies show that the field changes significantly here even during one day. Both in the Urals and Carpathians these anomalies form extended elongated structures with widths up to 10–30 km. These anomalies usually coincide with those deep faults where the strongest recent crustal movements have been determined by means of geodetic observations. The analysis of the results of precision geomagnetic surveys in the Urals and in the Carpathians shows that geomagnetic investigations can be used for the exploration of tectonically active zones.