Croatia in the continental traffic network of Europe

Croatia is located on the southeastern edge of Central Europe (Ruppert 1995), between the navigable Danube River and the Adriatic Sea, so that participates not only in continental traffic, but in the maritime and river traffic of Europe as well.Although the transit position of Croatia is very favorable, transportation itself has unfortunately not been developed in accordance with these advantages. This is a result of the social-economic, especially political, development of the region in the course of its history. Unfortunately, politics also influences the selection of transit routes in this part of Europe today. With the break-up of socialist states, particularly the former Yugoslavia, new states have appeared which are seeking their place in the European traffic network. Because of the momentarily uncertain political circumstances, the construction of some transit routes in Croatia have not been foreseen in international developmental plans for continental transit, despite the fact that they would be logically expected given the advantages of their position.     

Surfactant production by marine phytoplankton

Electrochemical methods based on adsorption of organic molecules at the mercury electrode-solution interface were used to investigate surfactant production by marine phytoplankton. Six species of marine phytoplankton, representing the classes of Bacillariophyceae, Haeptophyceae, Chlorophyceae and Cryptophyceae, were studied in batch cultures.Our experimental results showed that surfactants were produced in culture media by healthy exponential growing cells. The measured response was found to depend on the particular species and the age of the culture.Total surfactant content in culture media generally increased with cell density, while surfactants per cell showed an inverse relation to cell density. However, we found that in Cryptomonas culture medium, during the exponential growth, excretion of the insoluble surfactant material per cell was independent of cell concentration.In addition to culture experiments, surfactant activity at several northern Adriatic stations was measured during various stages of phytoplankton bloom. It was concluded that a significant part of surfactant activity in a seawater column is due to phytoplankton production.     

Evaluating climate change at the Croatian Adriatic from observations and regional climate models’ simulations

The 2m temperature (T2m) and precipitation from five regional climate models (RCMs), which participated in the ENSEMBLES project and were integrated at a 25-km horizontal resolution, are compared with observed climatological data from 13 stations located in the Croatian coastal zone. The twentieth century climate was simulated by forcing RCMs with identical boundary conditions from the ERA-40 reanalysis and the ECHAM5/MPI-OM global climate model (GCM); climate change in the twenty-first century is based on the A1B scenario and assessed from the GCM-forced RCMs’ integrations. When forced by ERA-40, most RCMs exhibit cold bias in winter which contributes to an overestimation of the T2m annual cycle amplitude and the errors in interannual variability are in all RCMs smaller than those in the climatological mean. All models underestimate observed warming trends in the period 1951–2010. The largest precipitation biases coincide with locations/seasons with small observed amounts but large precipitation amounts near high orography are relatively well reproduced. When forced by the same GCM all RCMs exhibit a warming in the cold half-year and a cooling (or weak warming) in the warm period, implying a strong impact of GCM boundary forcing. The future eastern Adriatic climate is characterised by a warming, up to +5 °C towards the end of the twenty-first century; for precipitation, no clear signal is evident in the first half of the twenty-first century, but a reduction in precipitation during summer prevails in the second half. It is argued that land-sea contrast and complex coastal configuration of the Croatian coast, i.e. multitude of island and well indented coastline, have a major impact on small-scale variability. Orography plays important role only at small number of coastal locations. We hypothesise that the parameterisations related to land surface processes and soil hydrology have relatively stronger impact on variability than orography at those locations that include a relatively large fraction of land (most coastal stations), but affecting less strongly locations at the Adriatic islands.     

The 3-D model characteristics of a Cb cloud which moves along a valley

Summary The three-dimensional cloud-resolving mesoscale model is used to simulate an individual Cb cloud in condition of real orography. We have conducted our numerical experiments over an area known as hail bearing clouds source. Once formed such clouds regenerate and propagate along the valley if the shallow layer of strong wind shear exists. The orographic effects on model Cb cloud are recognized through comparison of simulated cloud characteristics with those calculated for the flat terrain. Sensitivity experiments with respect to the wind shear layer depth are also conducted.Our results demonstrate the model capability to simulate well some observational Cb cloud characteristics. It is shown that the river valley is of essential importance for Cb cloud development. The most prominent features of the model cloud in this case are as follows: fast propagation along the river valley; considerable depth of the cold air nose with pronounced pulsation mechanism and intense cell regeneration at the leading edge of cold air outflow. Model and observed radar reflectivities in the vertical cross-section are in agreement. Some characteristics of surface cumulative rain precipitation are also well reproduced by the model. In contrast with the real orography case, the model cloud is more intense and it propagates freely in lateral direction for the flat terrain. The cell regeneration associated with forced updraft above the cold air nose is not pronounced in contrast with earlier considerations. Reflectivity pattern near the ground, having mainly bat-like wings, encircles much larger area with altitude compared to the case of real orography. Finally, the model cloud characteristics depend strongly on shear layer.Received June 2002; revised August 22, 2002; accepted October 1, 2002 Published online: April 10, 2003     

The impact of boundary forcing on RegCM4.2 surface energy budget

The surface energy budget components from two simulations of the regional climate model RegCM4.2 over the European/North African domain during the period 1989–2005 are analysed. The simulations differ in specified boundary forcings which were obtained from ERA-Interim reanalysis and the HadGEM2-ES Earth system model. Surface radiative and turbulent fluxes are compared against ERA-Interim. Errors in surface radiative fluxes are derived with respect to the Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment/Surface Radiation Budget satellite-based products. In both space and time, we find a high degree of realism in the RegCM surface energy budget components, but some substantial errors and differences between the two simulations are also present. The most prominent error is an overestimation of the net surface shortwave radiation flux of more than 50 W/m² over central and southeastern Europe during summer months. This error strongly correlates with errors in the representation of total cloud cover, and less strongly with errors in surface albedo. During other seasons, the amplitude of the surface energy budget components is more in line with reference datasets. The errors may limit the usefulness of RegCM simulations in applications (e.g. high-quality simulation-driven impact studies). However, by using a simple diagnostic model for error interpretation, we suggest potential sensitivity studies aiming to reduce the underestimation of cloud cover and overestimation of shortwave radiation flux.     

Diagenesis of diatomite from the Kolubara Coal Basin,Baroševac,Serbia

Diatomite associated with the Kolubara Coal Basin was studied to better understand early stage silica diagenesis of shallow water deposits. The Kolubara Basin consists of Neogene siliciclastic rocks, diatomite, marlstone and rare carbonates. Palaeozoic metamorphic and Mesozoic sedimentary and igneous basement rocks are transgressively overlain by Upper Miocene sandstone, siltstone, shale and mudstone. This Upper Miocene section is transgressively overlain by the Pontian section, which contains diatomite and coal beds. White and grey diatomite forms beds 0.7-2.2 m thick that are continuous over an area of about 2 km². Siliceous rocks vary in composition from diatomite (81-89 per cent SiO₂) to diatom-bearing shale (58-60 per cent SiO₂). Siliceous deposits are laminated in places, with the laminae defined by variations in clay minerals, organic matter and diatoms. Diatomite shows only incipient diagenesis characterized by the fragmentation of diatom frustules, the minor to moderate corrosion of frustules and the formation of minor amounts of opal-A' (X-ray amorphous inorganic opal) cement. The low degree of diagenesis results from the young age of the deposits, low burial temperatures and possibly also from the presence of abundant organic matter and the dissolution of kaolinite. The presence of only weak diagenesis is also reflected by the characteristically poor consolidation of the rocks and low rank of the associated coal.