Recent progress of glaciological studies in China

1IntroductionIn the early 1960s, glaciers in western China were classified into maritime- and continental-types by different glacial environment and physical characteristics (Shi and Xie, 1964). With extensive glaciological investigations in the western regions (Lanzhou Institute of Glaciology and Geocryology of CAS, 1988), Lai and Huang (1990) suggested a new classification of temperate, subpolar and quasipolar glaciers, corresponding to the maritime-, subcontinental- and extremely contin…     

Problems of the solution: intervention into small-scale irrigation for drought proofing in the Mekele Plateau of northern Ethiopia

The Mekele Plateau, located in the semi-arid northern highland region of Ethiopia, is a drought-prone, highly degraded area. It has long been neglected by policymakers and thus recurring famine, widespread poverty, armed conflicts and mass outmigration have contributed to the near collapse of the farming systems and the livelihoods of the population. Traditional stream diversion irrigation has been practised in this area for several centuries. The systems of water management in particular may be considered inappropriate owing to the need for thriftiness in water use imposed by the local environment. The systems of headworks and canals are crude and wasteful on water. Recent interventions to improve the small-scale irrigation systems of the area have not been successful. Most interventions have preferred to introduce rainwater harvesting systems using micro-dams rather than trying to upgrade the traditional diversion schemes. Evaluation of irrigation structures in the field, interviews with key informants in government, analysis of documents and discussions with irrigators indicate that both the Ministry of Agriculture and SAERT-Commission's rainwater harvesting programmes have generally failed. The case of the most recent intervention by SAERT has failed because of myopic project planning, inadequate engineering studies, unsound designs, too short a time for implementation, and lack of full farmer involvement at different levels of project planning and implementation.     

用遗传算法反演地壳的变密度模型

用青藏高原布格重力异常资料 ,结合亚东 格尔木地学断面得到的Moho面结构 ,反演了青藏高原中部地壳内密度随深度变化的指数分布函数 ,试验得出地壳表层与地幔的密度差约为 - 0 .92 6 g·cm-3 ,地壳的平均密度值为 2 .75 0 g·cm-3 。     

A new interpretation of terraces in the Taranto Gulf: the role of extensional faulting

The Taranto Gulf of southern Italy provides an excellent case where it is possible to document the importance of normal faults in displacing terraced deposits. The study area is located at the front of the southern Apennines, that is a fold-and-thrust belt developed following the closure of the Mesozoic Tethys Ocean, and the deformation of the Adriatic passive margin during Tertiary and Quaternary times. The outer, eastern parts of the belt were structured in Quaternary, i.e. up to Middle Pleistocene times.The front of the chain is partially sealed by Pliocene–Pleistocene foredeep deposits, which represent the infill of the Bradanic Trough. The upper portion of the middle Pleistocene succession consists of marine sands and conglomerates that in the previous literature have been arranged in several orders of terraces. Analysis of aerial photographs and geomorphological mapping has shown the occurrence of prominent geomorphic lineaments, which appear to control the local drainage pattern. Some of these structures coincide with the map trace of normal faults that produce vertical offsets of the marine terrace surfaces in the order of ca. 10 m each. Many of the fault escarpments reduce their elevation and terminate laterally. In other cases fault escarpments are laterally continuous and can be traced for up to 3–4 km. Scarp height is between 2 and 10 m. Their mean trend ranges from NNE–SSW to ENE–WSW and defines an arcuate pattern that mimics the present coastline.An accurate geomorphological, sedimentological and stratigraphic analysis has been carried out in a selected area of the Bradanic Trough (Pisticci transect) to investigate in detail the relationships between normal faults and the development of the terraces. This analysis allowed us to recognise five facies associations related to the upper and lower beachface and to the neritic clays which represent the substratum of the terraces. More importantly, we observed that all the terraced deposits in the Pisticci transect could be referred to a single sedimentary body displaced by faults. The terraced deposits are related to an event of beach progradation, of Middle Pleistocene age, which has been documented in other areas of the Italian peninsula. These results outline an intimate relationship between the arcuate trend of the recognised fault set and the present coastline pattern. The development of the normal faults can be related to large-scale gravitational processes developed after the general tilting towards the SE of the Bradanic Trough.     

Recent progress of glaciological studies in China

Glacier inventory compilation during the past 20 years and modifications of that for the Eastern Pamir and Banggong Lake indicate that there are 46,342 modern glaciers with a total area and volume of 59415 km2 and 5601 km3 respectively in China. These glaciers can be classified into maritime and continental (including sub-continental and extremely continental) types. Researches show that glaciers in China have been retreating since the Little Ice Age and the mass wastage was accelerated during the past 30 to 40 years. Being an important part of glaciological studies in China, ice core climatic and environmental studies on Tibetan Plateau and in the Antarctica have provided abundant, high resolution information about past climatic and environmental evolution over the Tibetan Plateau and Antarctica. Except for different parameters recorded in ice cores relating to climate and environment changes on Tibetan Plateau, records from ice cores extracted from different glaciers show that the discrepancies in climatic and environmental changes on the north and south parts of the plateau may be the consequence of different influencing effects from terrestrial and solar sources. Glaciological and meteorological phenomena imply that Lambert Glacier valley is an important boundary of climate in the east Antarctica, which is thought to be connected with cyclonic activities and Circum-polar Waves over the Antarctica.     

Atmospheric hydrological budget with its effects over Tibetan Plateau

Based on 1961-2000 NCEP/NCAR monthly mean reanalysis datasets, vapor transfer and hydrological budget over the Tibetan Plateau are investigated. The Plateau is a vapor sink all the year round. In summer, vapor is convergent in lower levels (from surface to 500 hPa) and divergent in upper levels (from 400 to 300 hPa), with 450 hPa referred to as level of non-divergence. Two levels have different hydrologic budget signatures: the budget is negative at the upper levels from February to November, i.e., vapor transfers from the upper levels over the plateau; as to the lower, the negative (positive) budget occurs during the winter (summer) half year. Evidence also indicates that Tibetan Plateau is a "vapor transition belt", vapor from the south and the west is transferred from lower to upper levels there in summer, which will affect surrounding regions, including eastern China, especially, the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze. Vapor transfer exerts significant influence on precipitation in summertime months. Vapor transferred from the upper layers helps humidify eastern China, with coefficient -0.3 of the upper budget to the precipitation over the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze (MLRY); also, vapor transferred from east side (27.5o-32.5oN) of the upper level has remarkable relationship with precipitation, the coefficient being 0.41. The convergence of the lower level vapor has great effects on the local precipitation over the plateau, with coefficient reaching 0.44, and the vapor passage affects the advance and retreat of the rainbelt. In general, atmospheric hydrologic budget and vapor transfer over the plateau have noticeable effects on precipitation of the target region as well as the ambient areas.     

Origin of the salt valleys in the Canyonlands section of the Colorado Plateau: Evaporite-dissolution collapse versus tectonic subsidence

The salt valleys over the axis of the salt-cored anticlines in the Paradox fold and fault belt (Canyonlands, Utah and Colorado) are created by subsidence of the anticline crests. Traditionally, the collapse of the anticlinal crests was attributed to dissolution of the salt walls (diapirs) forming the anticline cores. Recent studies based on scaled physical models and field observations propose that the salt valleys are a result of regional extension and that salt dissolution had only a minor influence in the development of the axial depressions. This paper presents several arguments and lines of evidence that refute the tectonic model and support the salt dissolution subsidence interpretation.The development of contractional structures in salt dissolution experiments led the advocates of the tectonic interpretation to reject the dissolution-induced subsidence explanation. However, these salt dissolution models do not reproduce the karstification of salt walls in a realistic way, since their analog involves removal of salt from the base of the diapirs during the experiments. Additionally, numerous field examples and laboratory models conducted by other authors indicate that brittle subsidence in karst settings is commonly controlled by subvertical gravity faults.Field evidence against the regional extension model includes (1) a thick cap rock at the top of the salt walls, (2) the concentration of subsidence deformation structures along the crest of the anticlines (salt walls), (3) deformational structures not consistent with the proposed NNE extension, like crestal synforms and NE–SW grabens, (4) dissolution-induced subsidence structures controlled by ring faulting, revealing deep-seated dissolution, (5) large blocks foundered several hundred meters into the salt wall, (6) evidence of recent and active dissolution subsidence, and (7) the aseismic nature of the recently active collapse faults. Although underground salt dissolution seems to be the main cause for the generation of the salt valleys, this phenomenon may have been favored by regional extension tectonics that enhance the circulation of groundwater and salt dissolution.     

Establishment of apparent quantum yield and maximum ecosystem assimilation on Tibetan Plateau alpine meadow ecosystem

The alpine meadow is widely distributed on the Tibetan Plateau with an area of about 1.2×106kn2. Damxung County, located in the hinterland of the Tibetan Plateau, is the place covered with this typical vegetation. An open-path eddy covariance system was set up in Damxung rangeland station to measure the carbon flux of alpine meadow from July to October,2003. The continuous carbon flux data were used to analyze the relationship between net ecosystem carbon dioxide exchange (NEE) and photosynthetically active radiation (PAR), as well as the seasonal patterns of apparent quantum yield (α) and maximum ecosystem assimilation (Pmax).Results showed that the daytime NEE fitted fairly well with the PAR in a rectangular hyperbola function, with α declining in the order of peak growth period (0.0244 μmolCO2 · μmol-1pAR) ＞early growth period ＞ seed maturing period ＞ withering period (0.0098 μmolCO2 · μmol-1pAR).The Pmax did not change greatly during the first three periods, with an average of 0.433mgCO2· m-2· s-1, i.e. 9.829 μmolCO2· m-2· s-1. However, during the withering period, Pmax was only 0.35 mgCO2 · m-2 · s-1, i.e. 7.945 μmolCO2 · m-2 · s-1. Compared with other grassland ecosystems, the α of the Tibetan Plateau alpine meadow ecosystem was much lower.     

Experimental study on soil CO2 emission in the alpine grassland ecosystem on Tibetan Plateau

The Tibetan Plateau, the Roof of the World, is the highest plateau with a mean elevation of 4000 m. It is characterized by high levels of solar radiation, low air temperature and low air pressure compared to other regions around the world. The alpine grassland, a typical ecosystem in the Tibetan Plateau, is distributed across regions over the elevation of 4500 m. Few studies for carbon flux in alpine grassland on the Tibetan Plateau were conducted due to rigorous natural conditions. A study of soil respiration under alpine grassland ecosystem on the Tibetan Plateau from October 1999 to October 2001 was conducted at Pangkog County, Tibetan Plateau (31.23°N, 90.01°E, elevation 4800 m). The measurements were taken using a static closed chamber technique, usually every two weeks during the summer and at other times at monthly intervals. The obvious diurnal variation of CO2 emissions from soil with higher emission during daytime and lower emission during nighttime was discovered. Diurnal CO2 flux fluctuated from minimum at 05:00 to maximum at 14:00 in local time. Seasonal CO2 fluxes increased in summer and decreased in winter, representing a great variation of seasonal soil respiration. The mean soil CO2 fluxes in the alpine grassland ecosystem were 21.39 mgCO2 · m-2 · h-1, with an average annual amount of soil respiration of 187.46 gCO2 · m-2 · a-1. Net ecosystem productivity is also estimated, which indicated that the alpine grassland ecosystem is a carbon sink.