南海周边越赤道气流的多时间尺度变化特征及其与环流和降水的联系

利用NCAR/NCEP-1再分析资料、NOAA的OLR资料以及GPCP降水资料等,通过功率谱分析、超前滞后回归等方法,对夏季南海周边105 °E、125 °E以及150 °E三支越赤道气流进行了多尺度特征分析,重点探讨三支越赤道气流季节内振荡与热带大气环流异常及南海周边降水的联系。结果表明,在季节内时间尺度上,105 °E与125 °E越赤道气流均具有10~20 d以及30~60 d低频振荡显著周期,而150 °E越赤道气流则以10~20 d周期为主。在年际尺度上,105 °E、125 °E、150 °E越赤道气流分别具有2~4年、2~3年、2~6年振荡周期。无论是季内还是年际变化,皆以105 °E与125 °E这两支越赤道气流之间关系较密切。南亚-南海-西太平洋地区对流层低层10~20 d振荡的气旋(对流加强)和反气旋(对流减弱)的环流活动变化,决定着105 °E及125 °E越赤道气流的10~20 d振荡的演变。这两支越赤道气流之30~60 d振荡所伴随的异常变化与热带夏季季节内振荡(BSISO)的演变过程非常相似,而150 °E越赤道气流之30~60 d振荡所伴随的异常低频环流则与南半球热带辐合带关系密切。105 °E及125 °E越赤道气流的季节内振荡及年际异常均与南海周边降水异常密切相关。      

Social cohesion and passive adaptation in relation to climate change and disease

Climate change affects biophysical processes related to the transmission of many infectious diseases, with potentially adverse consequences for the health of communities. While our knowledge of biophysical associations between meteorological factors and disease is steadily improving, our understanding of the social processes that shape adaptation to environmental perturbations lags behind. Using computational modeling methods, we explore the ways in which social cohesion can affect adaptation of disease prevention strategies when communities are exposed to different environmental scenarios that influence transmission pathways for diseases such as diarrhea. We developed an agent-based model in which household agents can choose between two behavioral strategies that offer different levels of protection against environmentally mediated disease transmission. One behavioral strategy is initially set as more protective, leading households to adopt it widely, but its efficacy is sensitive to variable weather conditions and stressors such as floods or droughts that modify the disease transmission system. The efficacy of the second strategy is initially moderate relative to the first and is insensitive to environmental changes. We examined how social cohesion (defined as average number of household social network connections) influences health outcomes when households attempt to identify an optimal strategy by copying the behaviors of socially connected neighbors who seem to have adapted successfully in the past. Our simulation experiments suggest that high-cohesion communities are able to rapidly disseminate the initially optimal behavioral strategy compared to low-cohesion communities. This rapid and pervasive change, however, decreases behavioral diversity; i.e., once a high cohesion community settles on a strategy, most or all households adopt that behavior. Following environmental changes that reduce the efficacy of the initially optimal strategy, rendering it suboptimal relative to the alternative strategy, high-cohesion communities can fail to adapt. As a result, despite faring better early in the course of computational experiments, high-cohesion communities may ultimately experience worse outcomes. In the face of uncertainty in predicting future environmental stressors due to climate change, strategies to improve effective adaptation to optimal disease prevention strategies should balance between intervention efforts that promote protective behaviors based on current scientific understanding and the need to guard against the crystallization of inflexible norms. Developing generalizable models allows us to integrate a wide range of theories and multiple datasets pertaining to the relationship between social mechanisms and adaptation, which can provide further understanding of future climate change impacts. Models such as the one we present can generate hypotheses about the mechanisms that underlie the dynamics of adaptation events and suggest specific points of measurement to assess the impact of these mechanisms. They can be incorporated as modules within predictive simulations for specific socio-ecological contexts.     

Offshore installations,decommissioning and artificial reefs: Do current legal frameworks best serve the marine environment?

The offshore oil and gas industry is facing the prospect of de-commissioning thousands of installations in the coming decades. In some parts of the world the issue is already pressing. The financial cost of complete removal is significant, and therefore the prospect of leaving part of the installation in situ is attractive. The way forward, though, is not clear. Despite the success of rigs-to-reef projects in the US it is unclear whether such initiatives are transferable to other contexts given very different physical and jurisdictional contexts. This paper explores current legal frameworks including international law and the state of play in Australia compared with that in the US and UK. Tentative recommendations are made for future developments in this area.     

Marine governance in an industrialised ocean: A case study of the emerging marine renewable energy industry

The world׳s oceans are currently undergoing an unprecedented period of industrialisation, made possible by advances in technology and driven by our growing need for food, energy and resources. This is placing the oceans are under intense pressure, and the ability of existing marine governance frameworks to sustainably manage the marine environment is increasingly being called into question. Emerging industries are challenging all aspects of these frameworks, raising questions regarding ownership and rights of the sea and its resources, management of environmental impacts, and management of ocean space. This paper uses the emerging marine renewable energy (MRE) industry, particularly in the United Kingdom (UK), as a case study to introduce and explore some of the key challenges. The paper concludes that the challenges are likely to be extensive and argues for development of a comprehensive legal research agenda to advance both MRE technologies and marine governance frameworks.     

Losing ground: The marginalization of the St. Lawrence eel Fisheries in Québec,Canada

The world׳s eel fisheries are in a state of crisis. While an increasing number of studies have documented the biophysical dynamics of the decrease in eel populations in Canada and around the world, studies documenting fishing practices, fisheries management, and the impact of eel declines on the livelihoods of fishermen are still rare. This paper aims to contribute to this discussion by examining the American eel (Anguilla rostrata) fishery in the St. Lawrence River Estuary, positioning it within larger historical, economic, and socio-environmental contexts. More particularly, it explores the issues these fishermen face as a consequence of the declining eel population, changing management practices, global trends in eel commercialization, and initiatives taken to promote eel fishing and the landscape that surrounds it as an important component of natural and cultural heritage. It is argued that these changes, many of which have been amplified by neoliberal policy shifts, have contributed to the marginalization of eel fishers and are making their future increasingly uncertain.     

干旱区盐碱尘暴的形成、输送及其环境效应

盐碱尘暴是富含细粒硫酸盐和氯化物的化学尘暴,是大气颗粒物PM10的重要来源之一。盐碱尘暴的产生、输送和沉降对区域甚至全球生态环境和气候变化具有重大影响。本文分析了盐碱尘暴的化学组成及其危害,对盐碱尘暴的形成、输送及其环境效应作了研究综述。结果表明：干旱区干涸湖床是盐碱尘暴的发源地,风蚀作用下干涸湖床盐粒和粉尘的扩散过程主要受风场、区域气候特征和地下水埋深的影响。构建综合风动力和下垫面因子的盐粒风蚀物扩散模型,加强盐分风—水两相运移耦合作用及其与流域景观变化的关系研究是盐碱尘暴的突破方向。     

Interactions between climate change and contaminants

There is now general consensus that climate change is a global threat and a challenge for the 21st century. More and more information is available demonstrating how increased temperature may affect aquatic ecosystems and living resources or how increased water levels may impact coastal zones and their management. Many ecosystems are also affected by human releases of contaminants, for example from land based sources or the atmosphere, which also may cause severe effects. So far these two important stresses on ecosystems have mainly been discussed independently. The present paper is intended to increase awareness among scientists, coastal zone managers and decision makers that climate change will affect contaminant exposure and toxic effects and that both forms of stress will impact aquatic ecosystems and biota. Based on examples from different ecosystems, we discuss risks anticipated from contaminants in a rapidly changing environment and the research required to understand and predict how on-going and future climate change may alter risks from chemical pollution.     

Urban seagrass: status of Posidonia oceanica facing the Genoa city waterfront (Italy) and implications for management

A system of five adjacent Posidonia oceanica meadows facing the waterfront of Genoa city (Ligurian Sea, NW Mediterranean) was investigated over different spatial scales (meters-kilometers) using three environmental indices: conservation index (CI), substitution index (SI) and phase-shift index (PSI). CI revealed differences mostly at large spatial scale, distinguishing the poor condition of the meadows closest to Genoa centre and harbour from the comparatively healthy condition of the farthest meadows. SI showed differences mostly at small spatial scale (i.e., within meadows), suggesting the influence of local factors in the re-colonisation of regressed meadows by the seagrass Cymodocea nodosa and/or the invasive alga Caulerpa racemosa. Mapping of PSI showed that the meadows closest to Genoa centre and harbour have undergone a nearly total phase shift and have no real potential for recovery: attempts to re-establish P. oceanica there might be a waste of time and money. On the contrary, the meadows farthest from Genoa centre and harbour showed a comparatively low level of phase shift and could still fully recover given specific management actions.     

The Estuarine Quality Paradox, Environmental Homeostasis and the difficulty of detecting anthropogenic stress in naturally stressed areas

Estuaries have long been regarded as environmentally naturally stressed areas because of the high degree of variability in their physico-chemical characteristics, for example oxygen, temperature and salinity in the water column and bed sediment dynamics. However, their biota is well-adapted to cope with that stress and so the areas may be regarded as resilient because of that inherent variability; their ability to absorb stress without adverse effects is regarded here as Environmental Homeostasis. Hence these areas may only be regarded as stressful for marine or freshwater-adapted organisms and that for estuarine organisms this environmental stress is regarded as a subsidy whereby they successfully capitalise on the stressful conditions. In addition, using examples of the estuarine fauna and flora, this article indicates that the characteristics of natural stress in estuaries are similar to those for anthropogenic stress. An over-reliance on ecosystem structural features, such as diversity, in quality indicators therefore makes the detection of the anthropogenic stress more difficult. This difficulty is termed the Estuarine Quality Paradox. Because of these difficulties, the article argues that functional characteristics either as well as or rather than structural ones should be used in detecting environmental perturbations in estuaries.