腾格里沙漠周边地区1960-2012年气候变化特征

根据腾格里沙漠周边地区9个气象站点1960-2012年逐月平均气温、平均最高气温、平均最低气温、降水量、平均相对湿度、日照时数和平均风速的观测资料,利用线性回归、滑动平均和Mann-Kendall突变检验分析了该区1960-2012年气候变化特征。结果表明:1960-2012年,腾格里沙漠周边地区年平均气温以0.34 ℃/10a的速率呈显著上升的趋势,并于1989年发生显著突变;从季节变化来看,冬季升温幅度最大,达0.52 ℃/10a;年平均最高、最低气温均呈显著上升的趋势,但是年平均最低气温的升温速率0.44 ℃/10a明显大于最高气温升温速率0.25 ℃/10a,增暖的不对称性导致年平均气温日较差以0.18 ℃/10a的速率显著减小。年降水量以1.08 mm/10a的速率增加,但变化趋势不显著,四季降水量均有不同程度的增加;湿润指数的变化亦不显著,年、春季、夏季和秋季湿润指数均有减小趋势,冬季湿润指数有增加趋势;年、季平均风速皆呈显著减小的趋势,年平均风速减小的速率为0.15 m·s^-1·(10a)^-1,日照时数以5.6 h/10a的速率呈不显著的增加趋势,各季节日照时数有不同的变化趋势,春季和夏季日照时数呈增加趋势,而秋季和冬季的日照时数呈减小趋势。     

Twenty years of land use and livelihood changes in SE-Niger: Obsolete and short-sighted adaptation to climatic and demographic pressures?

This paper explores the evolution of land use and natural resource management strategies over the past twenty to fifty years in a remote Sahelian region. The empirical example is Karagou village in SE Niger. Building on an in-depth survey from 1992 and a targeted, follow-up analysis of contemporary land use strategies in 2011, the change process is scrutinized.The analysis uses the conceptual lenses of land systems science, human–environmental timelines, and the notion of multiple exposures. Enabling and constraining conditions for local livelihoods in terms of the resource base (landscape, water, and population) are described. Results characterize how land use strategies have developed and how local people opportunistically use different landscape elements such as dune landscapes, valley bottoms (bas-fonds) and oases (cuvettes). Major concerns are rainfall variability, saturation of cropland, and perceived dwindling groundwater resources. It is concluded that the land use and livelihood strategies have remained remarkably stable in the face of the changing socio-ecological fringe conditions, but that this situation may hamper a sustainable transformation.     

Living where others dare not: Microhabitat distribution in Chorizanthe rigida,a serotinous desert annual

We studied the small scale distribution pattern of Chorizanthe rigida, a serotinous desert annual, in a shrub-mound-to-desert-pavement gradient. Two sites were established in the Mojave Desert and two sites where established in the Sonoran Desert. We placed transects along a soil surface gradient from shrub mounds to desert pavements, and measured land surface properties, soil characteristics, and C. rigida's small scale distribution. A Principal Components Analysis was done on the resulting site × soil variables matrix. C. rigida established preferentially in desert pavements outside shrub canopies. Pavements showed finer soil textures and higher electrical conductivities, while shrub mounds had sandy textures, low surface rockiness, higher nitrogen, and higher cover of annuals. We discuss a probable relationship between seed retention and the establishment on desert pavements: timing seed release allows this species to avoid wind- or animal-induced seed dispersal into shrub mounds and establish outside the nurse mounds, where most annual plants concentrate. The seeds encased in the serotinous involucres, released after rains, are dispersed by run-off into the desert pavements and transition zones where, once developed, the dead seed-retaining structures of adult C. rigida plants persist for years releasing seeds to subsequent rain events.     

Environmental effects on distributions of culturable soil oligotrophic bacteria along an elevational gradient in the Chihuahuan Desert

Oligotrophic bacteria have been isolated from many habitats, yet environmental regulation of their distributions in soil has not been elucidated. To address the issue of environmental influence upon oligotrophic distributions, Chihuahuan Desert soils were sampled from five sites along an elevational and vegetational gradient within Big Bend National Park during January and August of 2002 and 2003. Soils were diluted and plated on oligotrophic media, and plates were incubated at 15, 25, 35, 45 and 60 °C. Additionally, measurements of soil organic matter, pH, moisture, extractable nitrate, extractable ammonium and microbial biomass carbon were collected for each sample to relate oligotrophic bacterial distributions to soil nutrient and edaphic characteristics. Analysis of variance indicated significant site, season, incubation-temperature and interaction effects on total oligotroph numbers. Canonical correspondence analysis and multiple regressions indicated that all soil-chemistry variables significantly influenced discrete morphologies of oligotrophs. Oligotroph distributions were most congruent with soil-chemistry variation in three sites, whereas oligotrophic diversity in two sites did not adhere closely to measured environmental variables. While vegetation type may structure oligotroph communities at the two mid-elevational sites, abiotic constraints are drivers in low-desert sites.     

Granule ripples in the Kumtagh Desert,China: Morphology,grain size and influencing factors

Granule ripples are found mainly in four regions of the Kumtagh Desert in China; they are characterized by an asymmetrical shape, with gentle lower slopes on both sides and abrupt crests. The ripples tend to be oriented perpendicular to the prevailing winds, except when they form near obstacles such as yardangs. The wavelengths (λ) range between 0·31 m and 26 m and heights (h) range from 0·015 m to 1 m. The relationship between wavelength and height can be described by a simple linear function, and the mean ripple index (λ/h) is about 20·4 for the study sites. The sediments are poorly sorted, with negative to very negative skewness at lee and stoss slopes and between‐ripple troughs, which confirms the ‘poured in’ and ‘shadow’ appearance described by previous researchers. The bimodal or trimodal distributions of grains (with modes of ?1·16φ, ?0·5φ and 3·16φ) and the enrichment of coarse particles at the ripple surface (with coarse granule contents ranging between 5·2% and 62·1%) indicate that the underlying layer is the original sediment source and that the granule ripples resist erosional processes. Although the impact of saltating particles and, consequently, the creep and reptation of coarse grains are responsible for granule ripple initiation at a micro‐scale, however, the characteristics of local sediments, wind regimes and topographical obstacles, as well as the feedbacks among bedform and airflow, more strongly affect the development and alignment of granule ripples at a macro‐scale.     

MAGNETOTELLURIC SOUNDING AND LATERAL INHOMOGENEITIES IN THE LITHOSPHERE

ABSTRACT

Libyan Desert Glass (LDG), rediscovered in modern times in 1932, is an ultrahigh-temperature glass composed of nearly pure SiO₂. LDG is found as surface float in Egypt’s Libyan (Western) Desert, its strewnfield defined by the intersection of major faults. Extra-terrestrial components are present in LDG but there is no associated impact crater. LDG is not an impactite, nor do pieces exhibit aerodynamic forms. Extremely viscous silica remained hot long enough to flow several centimetres. Additional constraints on the origin of LDG are imposed by exotic materials found nearby: a dark 30-gram granular micro-diamond mass, mullite-magnetite-silica glass rocks with micro-diamonds, lumps of fine-grained magnetite, titanium filaments, titanium nitride, titanium aluminide, aluminium oxycarbonitride, phosphides, silver, zirconium, zinc, carbonaceous grains, and metal grains coated with carbonaceous materials. The region is underlain by 500–3000 m of flat-lying sandstone composed of quartz grains and little else. To account for LDG and the other unusual materials and nearby outgassing vents, serpentinization is evoked. Products of this complex low-temperature crustal process include serpentine, magnetite, aqueous silica, and great quantities of hydrogen. The hydrogen, produced in Basement rocks beneath the sandstones, may have risen along faults, passing around grains of quartz (with which it does not react) until slowed by tight conditions, perhaps self-sealed by silica produced during serpentinization. Columns of quartz hundreds or thousands of metres high with intergranular spaces filled with H₂ (±CH₄) may have been established with some hydrogen leaking into the surface domain while still more was produced at depth. Disturbance by occasional impacts or airbursts, large or small, would violently release great columns of pressurized hydrogen, which, ignited, would burn until exhaustion. Such sustained heating events could be repeated. Exotic products might come from materials formed cold in the outer solar system, transformed in a great flickering flame with temperatures perhaps exceeding 1800°C.     

Vegetation history along the eastern, desert escarpment of the Sierra San Pedro Mártir, Baja California, Mexico

Plant macrofossils from 38 packrat middens spanning the last ~ 33,000 cal yr BP record vegetation between ~ 650 and 900 m elevation along the eastern escarpment of the Sierra San Pedro Mártir, northern Baja California. The middens span most of the Holocene, with a gap between ~ 4600 and 1800 cal yr BP, but coverage in the Pleistocene is uneven with a larger hiatus between 23,100 and 14,400 cal yr BP. The midden flora is relatively stable from the Pleistocene to Holocene. Exceptions include Pinus californiarum, Juniperus californica and other chaparral elements that were most abundant > 23,100 cal yr BP and declined after 14,400 cal yr BP. Despite being near the chaparral/woodland-desertscrub ecotone during glacial times, the midden assemblages reflect none of the climatic reversals evident in the glacial or marine record, and this is corroborated by a nearby semi-continuous pollen stratigraphy from lake sediments. Regular appearance of C₄ grasses and summer-flowering annuals since 13,600 cal yr BP indicates occurrence of summer rainfall equivalent to modern (JAS average of ~ 80–90 mm). This casts doubt on the claim, based on temperature proxies from marine sediments in the Guaymas Basin, that monsoonal development in the northern Gulf and Arizona was delayed until after 6200 cal yr BP.     

干旱荒漠区植被覆盖变化的遥感监测分析

多期的遥感数据可以用来分析干旱荒漠区植被的空间分布格局和变化特征。本文以1989、2000和2007年3个不同时相的Landsat TM/ETM+影像为数据源,利用线性光谱混合分析和RGB彩色合成法构建一个研究框架,对古尔班通古特沙漠西缘进行植被信息的提取和变化监测分析。在混合像元分解过程中,通过多种方法选择端元,比较...     

NRM engagement between remote dryland communities and government agencies: Success factors from Australia

The management of dryland environments involves the interaction of multiple government agencies and citizens, and is required to respond to a wide range of responsibilities and aspirations for a given region. This paper focuses on the characteristics of engagement between management agencies and citizens in a dryland region, presented here as a series of success factors. These factors are based on empirical research carried out in the Lake Eyre Basin in Australia, one of the world’s largest inwardly draining basins. The results reinforce generic and dryland-specific factors supporting successful community engagement. The former, such as building trust, working in partnership, supporting community champions, and maintaining transparency, are necessary but insufficient for achieving successful community engagement in the case study region. In addition, community engagement in the case study region also required respecting the extreme conditions and extraordinary variability of the Basin and committing to longer timeframes even if the outcomes of community engagement are slow to accrue, in order to take advantage of opportunities in more prosperous times.     

Surface energy and water vapor fluxes observed in a desert plantation in central Iran

Summertime observations of surface radiation budget, energy balance and atmospheric surface layer meteorology were made on an arid valley floor planted with Haloxylon aphyllum to combat desertification in central Iran. The surface microclimate is characterized and compared with other arid regions and the role of ‘desert greening’ on surface fluxes is considered. A high surface albedo (0.265) and large longwave radiation loss produced relatively low net radiation. Energy partitioning was dominated by sensible and ground heat fluxes with opposing diurnal asymmetry governed by strong diurnal variability in eddy diffusivity. The Bowen ratio was 2.53, which fell inside the range of other vegetated arid surfaces. Surface temperature gradients were strong both in the atmospheric surface layer and in the substrate, with consistent lapse conditions by day and inversions at night. The wind regime included a moderate daytime regional wind which displayed Coriolis turning and weaker nocturnal slope flows. Actual evapotranspiration (1 mm dy⁻¹) was only a small fraction of potential evapotranspiration. The diurnal pattern of AET indicates strong stomatal control. The desert greening effect of Haloxylon plantations provided atmospheric water and reduced sensible heat flux by up to 40%.