Rangeland production: use of models incorporating aggregated knowledge and fuzzy construction

This work reports on a method using fuzzy membership functions to construct an aggregated interaction matrix in which the summation of variables is scaled according to the way rainfall and soil variables affect water availability to plants and hence influence rangeland productivity. Aggregation of the variables gives a comprehensive value which can be used to predict production. The model increases the predicability of production to 81% compared to models using rainfall alone and a multiplicative parametric one which give predictibilities of 61 and 76% respectively. The results showed that (1) the importance of rainfall in determining production was most important at lower rainfalls i.e. <350 mm; (2) soil texture and particularly slope were important through out the rainfall range (149–700 mm) investigated; and (3) soil depth was only important at the higher >350 mm rainfalls. The aggregated interaction matrix gives a measure of land productive capability.     

黑河地区高分辨陆地分类的综合分析

本文综合了国内外诸种有关资料,借鉴了国际上较通用的下垫面特征分类标准,也结合黑河地区下垫面的实际情况,对HEIFE试验区及其邻近地区的下垫面特征(包括地表特征、土壤特征及地形高度)进行归纳分类,形成了两种高分辨率(分别约为6km×6km及3km×3km)的下垫面特征的格点化资料,可供该地区地气相互作用研究用。     

Intercomparison and Evaluation of MM5 and Meso-NH mesoscale models in the stable boundary layer

Atmospheric numerical models depend critically on realistic treatment of the lower boundary conditions. In strongly thermally-stratified conditions, turbulence may be very weak and the models may find it difficult to produce a good forecast near the surface. Under clear skies and for weak synoptic winds the determining factors are the turbulent kinetic energy and surface-layer parameterizations, which can be very different between models. Here, two state-of-the-art mesoscale models (MM5 and Meso-NH) are operated under exactly the same conditions for two different nights over the Duero basin in the Iberian Peninsula: one night with a well-defined synoptic wind and a second with practically no horizontal pressure gradient. The models are inter-compared and checked against available information, and their performances are evaluated.     

How to increase technology transfers to developing countries: a synthesis of the evidence

The existing United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has failed to deliver the rate of low-carbon technology transfer (TT) required to curb GHG emissions in developing countries. This failure has exposed the limitations of universalism and renewed interest in bilateral approaches to TT. Gaps are identified in the UNFCCC approach to climate change TT: missing links between international institutions and the national enabling environments that encourage private investment; a non-differentiated approach for (developing) country and technology characteristics; and a lack of clear measurements of the volume and effectiveness of TTs. Evidence from econometric literature and business experience on climate change TT is reviewed, so as to address the identified pitfalls of the UNFCCC process. Strengths and weaknesses of different methodological approaches are highlighted. International policy recommendations are offered aimed at improving the level of emission reductions achieved through TT.     

The economic impact of extreme sea-level rise: Ice sheet vulnerability and the social cost of carbon dioxide

The possibility of extreme sea-level rise is one of the commonly cited reasons for concern about climate change. Major increases in sea level would likely be driven by the melting or collapse of major ice sheets. This possibility has implications for the social cost of carbon dioxide, which is a key policy value as well as a useful summary measure of damage caused by greenhouse gas emissions.This paper extends earlier work on the importance of low-probability, high-impact events for the social cost of carbon dioxide to incorporate the possibility of extreme sea-level rise.To estimate its impact, an integrated assessment model is used, which allows a probabilistic assessment of climate change damages based on the linkages between the economic and climate systems. In the model, the generic discontinuity damage is replaced with the possibility of large-scale damage from factors that are taken to be correlated with temperature rise and, crucially for this paper, explicit consideration of extreme sea-level rise.Estimates of the amount of increase in the social cost of carbon dioxide that can be expected from incorporating extreme sea-level rise show that the increase is significant, though not especially large in percentage terms.The paper contributes to the literature of how to represent uncertain climate impacts in integrated assessment models and the associated estimation of the social cost of carbon dioxide.     

基于CMIP5模拟的中国区域陆气耦合强度评估及未来情景预估

基于第五次国际耦合模式比较计划(CMIP5)11个模式历史情景的模拟结果计算得到了中国区域夏季的陆气耦合强度并进行集合平均,结果表明,位于半干旱区的华北和内蒙古地区陆气耦合强度相对较强,西部干旱区的陆气耦合强度相对较弱,位于湿润区的中国东北地区东部、长江中下游和西南地区陆气耦合强度最弱。利用上述模式集合平均结果与由NCEP再分析资料和欧洲中心的中期气象预报40年再分析资料(ERA40)计算得到的陆气耦合强度相比较,结果显示这些模式的集合平均与再分析资料NCEP和ERA40的计算结果有较好的一致性。利用历史情景模拟和不同的典型排放路径(RCP),即低排放情景RCP2.6、中排放情景RCP4.5和高排放情景RCP8.5下的模拟结果预估陆气耦合强度未来变化。结果显示:与历史情景相比较,位于湿润区的中国南方地区蒸散发的主要控制因子是温度,在3种排放情景下随着温度上升引起蒸散发增加所导致陆气耦合强度升高;位于青藏高原以及半干旱区的内蒙古大部分地区蒸散发在未来的年际变化幅度减弱导致陆气耦合指数降低;位于西北干旱区陆气耦合强度在RCP2.6和RCP4.5情景上升,然而在RCP8.5情景下陆气耦合强度下降,其原因是在高排放情景下,水汽平流输送明显增强,局地蒸散发异常对空气湿度变化的贡献减弱,导致了陆气耦合强度降低。未来预估结果在中国南方可信度相对较高,从全国来看,在RCP4.5情景下可信度相对较高。     

National indicators for observing ecosystem service change

Earth’s life-support systems are in rapid decline, yet we have few metrics or indicators with which to track these changes. The world’s governments are calling for biodiversity and ecosystem-service monitoring to guide and evaluate international conservation policy as well as to incorporate natural capital into their national accounts. The Group on Earth Observations Biodiversity Observation Network (GEO BON) has been tasked with setting up this monitoring system. Here we explore the immediate feasibility of creating a global ecosystem-service monitoring platform under the GEO BON framework through combining data from national statistics, global vegetation models, and production function models. We found that nine ecosystem services could be annually reported at a national scale in the short term: carbon sequestration, water supply for hydropower, and non-fisheries marine products, crop, livestock, game meat, fisheries, mariculture, and timber production. Reported changes in service delivery over time reflected ecological shocks (e.g., droughts and disease outbreaks), highlighting the immediate utility of this monitoring system. Our work also identified three opportunities for creating a more comprehensive monitoring system. First, investing in input data for ecological process models (e.g., global land-use maps) would allow many more regulating services to be monitored. Currently, only 1 of 9 services that can be reported is a regulating service. Second, household surveys and censuses could help evaluate how nature affects people and provides non-monetary benefits. Finally, to forecast the sustainability of service delivery, research efforts could focus on calculating the total remaining biophysical stocks of provisioning services. Regardless, we demonstrated that a preliminary ecosystem-service monitoring platform is immediately feasible. With sufficient international investment, the platform could evolve further into a much-needed system to track changes in our planet's life-support systems.     

Rotation Of Trajectories In Lagrangian Stochastic Models Of Turbulent Dispersion

We present a new measure for the rotation of Lagrangian trajectories in turbulence that simplifies and generalises that suggested by Wilson and Flesch ( Boundary-Layer Meteorol. 84, 411–426). The new measure is the cross product of the velocity and acceleration and is directly related to the area, rather than the angle, swept out by the velocity vector. It makes it possible to derive a simple but exact kinematic expression for the mean rotation of the velocity vector and to partition this expression into terms that are closed in terms of Eulerian velocity moments up to second order and unclosed terms. The unclosed terms arise from the interaction of the fluctuating part of the velocity and the rate of change of the fluctuating velocity.We examine the mean rotation of a class of Lagrangian stochastic models that are quadratic in velocity for Gaussian inhomogeneous turbulence. For some of these models, including that of Thomson ( J. Fluid Mech. 180, 113–153), the unclosed part of the mean rotation vanishes identically, while for other models it is non-zero. Thus the mean rotation criterion clearly separates the class of models into two sets, but still does not provide a criterion for choosing a single model.We also show that models for which = 0 are independent of whether the model is derived on the assumption that total Lagrangian velocity is Markovian or whether the fluctuating part is Markovian.     

江西省暖季重大短时强降水敏感性参数分析及概念模型

利用江西省2010-2016 年5-9 月1 597 个观测站逐小时降水资料,ERA Interim,Daily逐日4 次0.125°×0.125°再分析资料以及南昌和赣州探空资料,筛选出84 例重大短时强降水过程,并建立了5 种重大短时强降水概念模型:冷锋型、西南急流型、副高边缘型、暖切型和台风型,各型分别占比29％...