How U.S. ocean policy and market power can reform the coral reef wildlife trade

As the world’s largest importer of marine ornamental species for the aquaria, curio, home décor, and jewelry industries, the United States has an opportunity to leverage its considerable market power to promote more sustainable trade and reduce the effects of ornamental trade stress on coral reefs worldwide. Evidence indicates that collection of some coral reef animals for these trades has caused virtual elimination of local populations, major changes in age structure, and promotion of collection practices that destroy reef habitats. Management and enforcement of collection activities in major source countries such as Indonesia and the Philippines remain weak. Strengthening US trade laws and enforcement capabilities combined with increasing consumer and industry demand for responsible conservation can create strong incentives for improving management in source countries. This is particularly important in light of the March 2010 failure of the parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) to take action on key groups of corals.     

Guiding ecological principles for marine spatial planning

The declining health of marine ecosystems around the world is evidence that current piecemeal governance is inadequate to successfully support healthy coastal and ocean ecosystems and sustain human uses of the ocean. One proposed solution to this problem is ecosystem-based marine spatial planning (MSP), which is a process that informs the spatial distribution of activities in the ocean so that existing and emerging uses can be maintained, use conflicts reduced, and ecosystem health and services protected and sustained for future generations. Because a key goal of ecosystem-based MSP is to maintain the delivery of ecosystem services that humans want and need, it must be based on ecological principles that articulate the scientifically recognized attributes of healthy, functioning ecosystems. These principles should be incorporated into a decision-making framework with clearly defined targets for these ecological attributes. This paper identifies ecological principles for MSP based on a synthesis of previously suggested and/or operationalized principles, along with recommendations generated by a group of twenty ecologists and marine scientists with diverse backgrounds and perspectives on MSP. The proposed four main ecological principles to guide MSP—maintaining or restoring: native species diversity, habitat diversity and heterogeneity, key species, and connectivity—and two additional guidelines, the need to account for context and uncertainty, must be explicitly taken into account in the planning process. When applied in concert with social, economic, and governance principles, these ecological principles can inform the designation and siting of ocean uses and the management of activities in the ocean to maintain or restore healthy ecosystems, allow delivery of marine ecosystem services, and ensure sustainable economic and social benefits.     

Stakeholder consultation during the planning phase of scientific programs

Stakeholder consultation is being adopted as standard practice in the planning and management of natural resource management programs. While the utility of stakeholder participation has been investigated for the evaluation and implementation phases of natural resource management programs, few studies have examined the utility of stakeholder consultation during the initial phases of developing such programs. This paper presents a case study from a project developing a marine and coastal monitoring program for the Pilbara and Kimberley region of northern Western Australia. Via a series of workshops held in the region, stakeholders were asked to prioritise future research needs using several voting procedures. During the analyses of the results from the different voting procedures, it became apparent that there were high levels of inconsistency, poor correlation, and contradiction, between participants’ responses. Despite the rigour of the selection process used to identify ‘suitable’ stakeholders for the workshops, these results show that stakeholders did not have the technical or broader contextual knowledge about marine ecosystems to effectively and objectively contribute to the research prioritisation and planning process. Based on the outcomes of this study, we argue that project designers need to be clear about why they are involving stakeholders in a project, particularly in light of the costs involved (financial, time, resources, costs to the stakeholder) in stakeholder consultation. Stakeholder involvement may be appropriate in later stages of developing natural resource management programs (implementation and management), however, stakeholder involvement is not appropriate in the initial phases of such programs, where scientific expertise is essential in formulating scientific concepts and frameworks.     

Tafoni on coastal slopes,South Devon,U.K.

Cavernous weathering (tafoni development) occurs on coastal slopes in greenschist bedrock at elevations up to 40 m above sea level. The freshly weathered surfaces of the cavern interiors are irregular in morphology, discordant to major rock structure, formed by substantially weakened rock and associated with granular weathering debris. The weathering debris contains soluble elements in proportions similar to those present in seawater, and the penetration of elements associated with sea salts into the weathering surface to estimated depths of at least 0·1–0·2 m is indicated by the presence of chlorine. Scanning electron microscopy and microprobe analyses suggest that rock breakdown occurs principally through limited chemical weathering at grain boundaries. The mechanism for the emplacement of marine salts within sheltered rock surfaces in the tafoni is postulated to be a combination of dry deposition under turbulent atmospheric conditions and wetting by coastal fog.     

辽宁海洋综合经济区划分的初步探讨

我国是海洋大国，有相当陆域国土面积三分之一的海洋国土。随着海洋资源的开发利用，海洋经济不断发展，海洋经济区逐渐形成。在全国划分经济区时，不应忽视海洋经济区。沿海省区在划分经济区时，更应把海洋列入到省级经济区内。辽宁是我国沿海省区之一，通过对辽宁海洋经济区划分的研究，探讨海洋经济区及其划分的有关理论、实践与方法。     

Simulation of pebble abrasion on coastal benches by transgressive waves

Tumbler simulations of abrasion processes affecting rocks on basaltic marine benches have clarified the effects of mass and volume of rock fragments on their rate of wear. Several experiments indicate that rate of basalt wear increases with mass in the interval 1 g to 8 g, but is not related to volume of fragments abraded in seawater. Relatively small quantities of rock flour suspended in the immersant seawater substantially reduced the rate of basalt wear. Basalt and calcareous beachrock responded differently in systems with both rock types tumbling together. Examination of the cuttings from these low-energy encounters suggests that abrasion on elevated benches along exposed seacoasts reduces virtually all clastic material to particles of silt size or smaller, producing essentially no sand.     

Physical,radiative, and dynamical processes within a nighttime marine stratus cloud

Observations taken by aircraft and conventional platforms are used to investigate dynamical, physical, and radiative processes within a marine stratus cloud during the Canadian Atlantic Storms Program (CASP) II field project which took place over the east coast of Canada. Stratus which formed over the ocean on February 6, 1992 during the nighttime, is studied to analyze cloud top and base processes. The cloud was supercooled during the study period. Fluctuations and fluxes are calculated along constant flight altitude legs approximately 100 km long in space. The scales of structures larger than 5 km are removed from the analysis using a running average technique. Droplet spectra obtained by a forward scattering spectrometer probe (FSSP) were used in a 1-D radiative transfer model to calculate infrared (IR) fluxes and radiative heating rates. A heat conservation equation was used to estimate vertical air velocity (w _a ) within the cloud. The results showed that, because of a warmer ocean surface, significant moisture and heat were transferred from the ocean surface to the boundary layer. The cloud base was at about 400 m height and the top was at about 1.4 km.w _a at the cloud base was estimated about 5 cm s^–1. Strong IR cooling rate at the cloud top was calculated to be 75°C day^–1 for a 100 m thick layer. Negative skewness inw _a , suggesting narrow downdrafts, was likely due to radiative cooling at the cloud top. The entrainment velocity was found to be about 1.5 cm s^–1 at cloud top. Mean moisture and heat fluxes within the cloud were estimated to be comparable to those from the ocean surface. Vertical air velocity at the cloud top due to radiative cooling was found to be about –40 cm s^–1.     

Downscaling a twentieth century global climate simulation to the North Sea

The regional ocean model system (ROMS) is used to downscale a 26-year period of the twentieth century 20C3M experiment from the global coupled Bergen climate model (BCM) for the North Sea. Compared to an observational-based climatology, BCM have good results on the mean temperature, except for too low winter temperature. This is connected to a too weak inflow of Atlantic water. The downscaling gives added value to the BCM results by providing regional details, doubling the Atlantic inflow, and improving the mean winter temperature. For mean salinity, BCM has values very close to the climatology, whereas the downscaling becomes too fresh. The downscaling, however, improves the sea surface salinity, the vertical structure, and the Norwegian Coastal Current. It is concluded that the downscaling procedure as presented here is a suitable tool for assessing the future Atlantic inflow and sea temperature in the North Sea based on a global climate projection.     

中国古生界海相地层油气勘探

影响中国古生界海相油气勘探并且需要加强研究的主要问题是:保存条件的认识与有利区预测;有效烃源岩与资源潜力;储层的复杂性及其对非构造圈闭的影响。保存条件分为三个层次:含油气盆地的保存、含油气系统的保存、油气藏的保存。塔里木、四川、鄂尔多斯三大克拉通盆地是中国古生界保存较好的盆地,是海相油气勘探的战略目标区,另外还有准噶尔、楚雄等盆地。盆地斜坡相泥岩及泥状灰岩是海相油气勘探的主要烃源;海陆过渡相烃源岩发育区是重要战略方向;陆表海碳酸盐岩烃源岩区是中小油气田勘探领域。从储层条件来说,下古生界应以非砂岩岩溶储层为主要勘探对象,溶蚀不整合面广泛发育,已发现的下古生界大中型油气田仅见于碳酸盐岩溶储层;上古生界以孔隙性碎屑岩及碳酸盐岩储层为主要勘探对象,晚古生代的构造一古地理演化为这两类储层的广泛发育提供了条件。     

海洋风暴形成的一种动力学机制

文中从观测统计学、瞬变涡动能量学和 MM5中尺度数值模拟角度 ,研究了海洋风暴 (爆发性气旋 )形成的气候特征及其可能的动力学机制 ,揭示了一幅爆发性发展的物理图像。结果表明 ,在冷季大气特别是日本以东洋面上大气特有的热力气候背景下 ,通过同海洋风暴过程相联系的涡动热通量 vθ的向极地输送 (- vθ· θm>0 ) ,将季节尺度的时间平均有效位能向瞬变涡旋时间尺度的涡动有效位能转换 ,是海洋风暴形成的主要动力机制。在该过程中转换来的具有最大贡献的涡动有效位能 ,连同具有次大贡献的积云加热制造的涡动有效位能(q3 )一起 ,通过暖异常区 (α >0 )暖湿空气上升运动 (-ω >0 )的斜压转换 (-ωα) ,促使涡动动能增长。同时 ,补充的涡动有效位能又加强了暖异常区的暖湿空气上升运动 ,进而产生积云对流活动及其潜热释放的正反馈过程 ,最终导致涡动动能急剧增长和海洋风暴的形成。海-气潜热输送的作用是在风暴形成初期提供后来积云尺度对流活动及潜热释放的水汽潜力。研究还表明 ,海洋风暴主要发生在冷季月份 1 3 0°E以东的中高纬洋面上 ,这种对特定季节和特定海域的依赖性是大气和海洋气候背景的动力 /热力共同作用的结果