Messing with nature? Exploring public perceptions of geoengineering in the UK

Anthropogenic influence on the climate – and possible societal responses to it – offers a unique window through which to examine the way people think about and relate to the natural world. This paper reports data from four, one-day deliberative workshops conducted with members of the UK public during early 2012. The workshops focused on geoengineering – the deliberate, large-scale manipulation of the planetary environment – as one of three possible responses to climate change (alongside mitigation and adaptation). Here, we explore one of the most pervasive and wide-ranging themes to emerge from the workshops: whether geoengineering represented an unprecedented human intervention into ‘nature’, and what the moral consequences of this might be. Using the concept of ‘messing with nature’ as an analytical lens, we explore public perceptions of geoengineering. We also reflect on why ‘messing with nature’ was such a focal point for debate and disagreement, and whether the prospect of geoengineering may reveal new dimensions to the way that people think about the natural world, and their relationship to it.     

The Cascadia megathrust earthquake of 1700 may have rejuvenated an isolated basalt volcano in western Canada: Age and petrographic evidence

The basaltic Tseax flow is the product of one of only two eruptions in western Canada during the last thousand years. Reinterpretations of ¹⁴C and paleomagnetic data indicate that Tseax volcano last erupted between 1668 and 1714 CE. This date straddles that of the Cascadia megathrust earthquake of 26 January 1700, whose rupture lay 450 km to the south. Hence, the largest recent earthquake in northwest North America may have rejuvenated an existing magmatic system and produced this isolated flow. Although the flow is chemically uniform there are significant textural differences between the early and late parts of the flow. It is proposed that both magmatic components were contained within a steep conduit. Gas produced by degassing of magma in the lower part of the conduit ascended, heated magma in the upper part, coarsening plagioclase, and then continued to the surface along fissures. This stable configuration was disrupted by the Cascadia earthquake: dilatation widened the conduit and enabled both magmas to rise to the surface along existing fissures.     

Rapid X-Ray Variability of Seyfert 1 Galaxies

The rapid and seemingly random fluctuations in X-ray luminosity of Seyfert galaxies provided early support for the standard model in which Seyferts are powered by a supermassive black hole fed from an accretion disc. However, since EXOSAT there has been little opportunity to advance our understanding of the most rapid X-ray variability. Observations with XMM-Newton have changed this. We discuss some recent results obtained from XMM-Newton observations of Seyfert 1 galaxies. Particular attention will be given to the remarkable similarity found between the timing properties of Seyferts and black hole X-ray binaries, including the power spectrum and the cross spectrum (time delays and coherence), and their implications for the physical processes at work in Seyferts.     

On a fractional derivative form of the Green-Ampt infiltration model

The Green-Ampt model for infiltration into homogeneous soils predicts a monotonically decreasing infiltration rate and a wetting front that initially advances as the square root of time. Infiltration in heterogeneous soils, however, can exhibit non-monotonic infiltration rates and wetting front advances that differ from the square root of time (“anomalous diffusion”).Here it is postulated, that if the length scales of the heterogeneities can be assumed to be power law distributed, it may be appropriate to model infiltration in heterogeneous soils in terms of fractional derivatives. Then, by expressing the hydraulic flux as a Caputo fractional derivative (order 0 < α ? 1) of the head, a fractional Green-Ampt infiltration model is obtained. It is shown that solutions of this model predict non-monotonic and anomalous diffusion behaviors consistent with observations in field infiltration trials; a finding that indicates that a non-local moisture flux model, based on fractional derivatives, is a plausible model for describing infiltration into heterogeneous soils.     

A review of climate geoengineering proposals

Climate geoengineering proposals seek to rectify the current radiative imbalance via either (1) reducing incoming solar radiation (solar radiation management) or (2) removing CO₂ from the atmosphere and transferring it to long-lived reservoirs (carbon dioxide removal). For each option, we discuss its effectiveness and potential side effects, also considering lifetime of effect, development and deployment timescale, reversibility, and failure risks. We present a detailed review that builds on earlier work by including the most recent literature, and is more extensive than previous comparative frameworks. Solar radiation management propsals are most effective but short-lived, whilst carbon dioxide removal measures gain effectiveness the longer they are pursued. Solar radiation management could restore the global radiative balance, but must be maintained to avoid abrupt warming, meanwhile ocean acidification and residual regional climate changes would still occur. Carbon dioxide removal involves less risk, and offers a way to return to a pre-industrial CO₂ level and climate on a millennial timescale, but is potentially limited by the CO₂ storage capacity of geological reservoirs. Geoengineering could complement mitigation, but it is not an alternative to it. We expand on the possible combinations of mitigation, carbon dioxide removal and solar radiation management that might be used to avoid dangerous climate change.     

Seismicity of Victoria to 1980

Since 1976 a number of analogue and digital seismographs, which record high frequency seismic waves in the range 4 to 20 Hz, have been installed in Victoria. These enable the detection and location of microearthquakes with Richter magnitude Ml down to less than zero. Because there are many more smaller than larger earthquakes, about 250 events are now being located in Victoria each year, compared with about 25 per year between 1960 and 1975, and an average of two per year between 1840 and 1959. Despite an uneven statewide seismograph coverage, the new instruments and new lithospheric models have led to substantial improvements in earthquake location accuracy. All Victorian earthquakes with reliable depth determinations have been found to lie within the crust, most at a depth of less than 18 km. Some very small but shallow microearthquakes have been felt or heard. The isoseismal map for such an event (of magnitude Ml 1.3) which occurred at Preston during July 1976, is given.

The greater range of magnitudes now recorded permits more reliable estimates of seismicity. On average, the recurrence of earthquakes in Victoria is represented by: log₁₀ (P) = 0.92M_L —2.40, where P is the return period of an earthquake with magnitude greater than M_l in an area of 100 km square. It is suggested that attenuation of seismic wave amplitudes with distance is quite high in Victoria.