Potential impacts of human-induced land cover change on East Asia monsoon

As one major performance of anthropogenic activities, human-induced land use and land cover changes in East Asia have been one of the largest regions in the world. In the past 3000 years, more than 60% of the region has been affected by conversion of various categories of natural vegetation into farmland, conversion of grassland into semidesert and widespread land degradation. Such human-induced land cover changes result in significant changes of surface dynamic parameters, such as albedo, surface roughness, leaf area index and fractional vegetation coverage, etc.The results of a pair of numerical experiments in this paper have shown that by altering the complex exchanges of water and energy from surface to atmosphere, the changes in land cover have brought about significant changes to the East Asian monsoon. These include weakening of the summer monsoon and enhancement of winter monsoon over the region and a commensurate increase in anomalous northerly flow. These changes result in the reduction of all components of surface water balance such as precipitation, runoff, and soil water content. The consequent diminution of northward and inland moisture transfer may be a significant factor in explaining the decreasing of atmospheric and soil humidity and thus the trend in aridification observed in many parts of the region, particularly over Northern China during last 3000 years.The variation of East Asia monsoon presented here is the result of land cover changes only. It is very likely that the anthropogenic modification of monsoon system would have been occurred in the long history of civilization.     

Climatic changes in the Chalbi Desert,North Kenya

The Chalbi flat, located 60 km outside the rift to the east, forms a moist, salt-clay encrusted playa which also functions as an inland sink for alluvial fans. Residual lacustrine beds, including freshwater carbonates and travertines, crop out along its higher periphery. Mammalian bones of lacustrine and terrestrial elements, and K/Ar dating of the capping lava suggest a lake or a swamp environment 2–2.5 million years ago. Radiocarbon dating of Melanoides tuberculata and Planorbis and a sediment assemblage composed of clotted micrite, calcareous molds, root marks and stromatolites point to an additional early Holocene Chalbi lake or swamps 11000-9500 yr BP. The data suggest wet environmental conditions outside the rift, which is consistent with the occurrence of a wet period in the early to middle Holocene in intertropical Africa, but out of phase with the climatic conditions in Sinai and Israel and with the high-latitude maximum lake levels and glacier advance. These relations have probably been caused by migration of climatic belts.     

BOOK REVIEWS

Book Reviewed in this article: Marine Resources of Kuwait: Their Role in the Development of Non-oil Resources . Fatimah H. Y. al -Abdul -Razzak Recollections of a Revolution: Geography as Spatial Science . Mark Billinge , Derek Gregory and Ron Martin Entre l'Eden et l'Utopie . Luc Bureau Developments in Political Geography . M. A. Busteed The Elements of Graphing Data . William S. Cleveland Rural Resource Management . Paul J. Cloke and Chris C. Park Third World Atlas . Ben Crow and Alan Thomas Exploitation, Conservation, Preservation: A Geographic Perspective on Natural Resource Use . Susan L. Cutter , Hilary Lambert Renwick, and William H. Renwick . Wine Regions of the Southern Hemisphere . Harm Jan de Blij Regional Development: Problems and Policies in Eastern and Western Europe . George Demko The Geographer at Work . Peter R. Gould Change in the Amazon Basin . John Hemming Geography Since the Second World War . R. J. Johnston and P. Claval Urbanization in China: Town and Countryside in a Developing Economy 1949–2000 A.D. , R. J. R. Kirkby Transport and Communications for Pacific Microstates: Issues in Organisation and Management . Christopher C. Kissling Fluvial Forms and Processes . David Knighton The Urban Millennium . Josef W. Konvitz Technological Transition in Cartography . Mark Stephen Monmonier Field Guide to Soils and the Environment: Applications of Soil Surveys . Gerald W. Olson Northern Australia: The Arenas of Life and Ecosystems on Half a Continent . Don Parkes A Killing Rain: The Global Threat of Acid Rain . Thomas Pawlick From the Family Farm to Agribusiness: The Irrigation Crusade in California and the West, 1850–1931 . Donald J. Pisani Hybrid Maize Diffusion in Kenya . Franz -Michael Rundquist Warning and Response to the Mount St. Helens Eruption . Thomas F. Saarinen and James L. Sell Coastal Geomorphology in Australia . B. G. Thom Tropical Rain Forests of the Far East , 2nd ed . T. C. Whitmore The Dark Side of the Earth . Robert Muir Wood Categorical Data Analysis for Geographers and Environmental Scientists , Neil Wrigley     

Clay mineral records of East Asian monsoon evolution during late Quaternary in the southern South China Sea

High-resolution clay mineral records combined with oxygen isotopic stratigraphy over the past 190 ka during late Quaternary from core MD01-2393 off the Mekong River in the southern South China Sea are reported to reconstruct a history of East Asian monsoon evolution. The dominating clay mineral components indicate a strong glacial-interglacial cyclicity, with high glacial illite, chlorite, and kaolinite contents and high interglacial smectites content. The provenance analysis indicates the direct input of clay minerals via the Mekong River drainage basin. Illite and chlorite derived mainly from the upper reach of the Mekong River, where physical erosion of meta-sedimentary rocks is dominant. Kaolinite derived mainly from active erosion of inhered clays from reworked sediments in the middle reaches. Smectites originated mainly through bisiallitic soils in the middle to lower reaches of the Mekong River. The smectites/(illite+chlorite) and smectites/kaolinite ratios are determined as mineralogical indicato     

Heating status of the Tibetan Plateau from April to June and rainfall and atmospheric circulation anomaly over East Asia in midsummer

Based on the 1958-1999 monthly averaged reanalysis data of the National Center for Environmental Prediction (NCEP)/National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and the rainfall data of 160 Chinese surface stations, the relationship between rainfall and the atmospheric circulation anomaly over East Asia (EA) in July and the sensible heating (SH) over the Tibetan Plateau (TP) from April to June (AMJ) is investigated by using the rotational experimental orthogonal function (REOF) method. The results show that the TP is an isolated heating source in this period. The lagged correlation analysis between the first rotational principal component (RPC) of SH over the TP in May and rainfall of EA in July demonstrates that strong SH over the TP before July leads to a positive rainfall anomaly over the TP, the valley between the Yangtze River and Huaihe River, and the regions south and southeast of the TP, and the Sichuan Basin and Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, but less rainfall anomaly over the regions north, northeas     

Analysis on the decadal scale variation of the dust storm in North China

Dust storm is a disastrous weather that can cause serious environmental consequences and hazards. It causes excessive soil mass and nutrient loss in source areas, and air pollution in deposition area, which result in bad influence on agriculture, industry, traffic, and peoples’ daily life[1-4]. Dust storm can also affect the thermal balance of planetary radiation and then lead to meso- to macroscale climatic modification[5-7]. North- west China and North China are two high-frequency centers …     

The seismic activity in Syria and Palestine during the middle of the 8th century; an amalgamation of historical earthquakes

Some historical earthquakes are distinct owing to the geographical distance of the places affected. It is less clear, however, when more than one earthquake is amalgamated into a single event and their combined effects are attributed to a major event. In order to avoid gross overestimation of the size of historical earthquakes the separation and identification of the constituent earthquakes is an important consideration. As an example we show how the tendency of early and modern writers to amalgamate or duplicate earthquakes in Syria and Palestine can lead to the creation of major earthquakes, with serious consequences for the assessment of the seismic hazard in the region.     

Equations for the Estimation of Strong Ground Motions from Shallow Crustal Earthquakes Using Data from Europe and the Middle East: Horizontal Peak Ground Acceleration and Spectral Acceleration

This article presents equations for the estimation of horizontal strong ground motions caused by shallow crustal earthquakes with magnitudes M_w 5 and distance to the surface projection of the fault less than 100km. These equations were derived by weighted regression analysis, used to remove observed magnitude-dependent variance, on a set of 595 strong-motion records recorded in Europe and the Middle East. Coefficients are included to model the effect of local site effects and faulting mechanism on the observed ground motions. The equations include coefficients to model the observed magnitude-dependent decay rate. The main findings of this study are that: short-period ground motions from small and moderate magnitude earthquakes decay faster than the commonly assumed 1/r, the average effect of differing faulting mechanisms is not large and corresponds to factors between 0.8 (normal and odd) and 1.3 (thrust) with respect to strike-slip motions and that the average long-period amplification caused by soft soil deposits is about 2.6 over those on rock sites. Disappointingly the standard deviations associated with the derived equations are not significantly lower than those found in previous studies.     

Paleolimnological investigations of anthropogenic environmental change in Lake Tanganyika: V. Palynological evidence for deforestation and increased erosion

Pollen spectra from seven short cores taken from deltaic sites in the central and northern parts of Lake Tanganyika provide information about vegetation changes around the lake during the last 5000 years. Pollen analysis was undertaken to understand the history and timing of catchment deforestation and its causal linkage to excess sedimentation and ecosystem change in Lake Tanganyika. The spectra are dominated by grass pollen at all levels in every core. Grass pollen percentage values range between 40 and 80%. Low values of arboreal pollen taxa (1–20%) were documented from most cores except core LT-98-2M. Core LT-98-2M represents the longest duration vegetation record of this study (close to 5000 years BP), and records the onset of increasingly arid conditions in the Late Holocene, especially after 500 A.D., with the probable replacement of forest by open grassland in the Mahale Mountains region. The pollen/spore content for other cores showed a consistent trend of a decrease in grass pollen and an increase in pteridophyte and forest indicator pollen taxa during the last few centuries, contemporaneous with other indications of increased watershed disturbance from forest clearing (especially isotopes and lake faunal change). The timing or strength of this trend is not tied to specific levels of watershed disturbance. However, increasing fern spore abundance does occur progressively later towards the south, where modern human population densities are lower. Although increasing fern spore abundance is consistent with a land-clearing hypothesis, the rising arboreal pollen percentages are seemingly counterintuitive. One possible explanation is that increasing arboreal pollen proportions reflects the recycling of abundant pollen of this type from rapidly eroding soils. Another likely explanation for this finding is that land clearing involved the replacement of miombo woodland, with its mixture of trees producing little pollen and understory grasses producing large amounts of pollen, by the present day cassava, banana, and legume agricultural systems, all of which are poor pollen producers. This shift in catchment vegetation would increase the relative contribution of Afromontane pollen transported long distances from the surrounding highland regions. This hypothesis is consistent with both the lack of correlation of palynological history with specific watershed deforestation attributes, as well as the broader historical record of human habitation in the Lake Tanganyika region. This study also highlights the need for both modern pollen transect data from the region and comparative cores from low elevation swamps or ponds (wetlands) in the region with smaller catchment areas.     

辽东隆昌地区辽河群划分及其构造样式演变

从岩石组合、沉积序列、接触关系及变形变质方面分析辽东隆昌地区的辽河群是一套在沉积上连续的,并且经历了相同变形变质历史的中浅变质沉积岩系。详细的构造分析表明它经历了三期构造变形,第一期为北北西向平褶皱,第二期为北北四向斜歪褶皱,第三期为北东东向宽缓直立褶皱。